Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at https://archiveofourown.org/works/12212058.

Rating: Explicit
Archive Warning: Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Category: M/M
Fandom: | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Relationship: Kim Taehyung | V/Park Jimin, Jeon Jungkook/Min Yoongi | Suga,
Jung Hoseok | J-Hope/Kim Seokjin | Jin, Kim Taehyung | V/Min
Yoongi | Suga, Kim Seokjin | Jin/Min Yoongi | Suga, (Minor), Jeon
Jungkook/Park Jimin, ( Minor), There is no polyamory
Character: Kim Taehyung | V, Jeon Jungkook, Park Jimin (BTS), Min Yoongi |
Suga, Jung Hoseok | J-Hope, Kim Seokjin | Jin, Kim Namjoon | Rap
Monster, Park Bogum, Original Characters
Additional Tags: Disturbing Themes, Alternate Universe- Gangsters, Alternate
Universe - Classical Music, Alternate Universe- High School, Explicit
Sexual Content, Threesome - M/M/M, BDSM, Violence, Prostitution,
Pianist Min Yoongi | Suga, Violinist Jeon Jungkook, Organized
Crime, Death, Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends,
Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Drug Use, Blood and Torture, Gang
Violence, Gunplay, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Switching,
Angst and Fluff and Smut, Original Character(s), Mental Health
Issues, Elements of Lonliness, Self Gratuitous Moon Metaphors, Self-
Harm, Suicide, Xenophobia, Psychological Disability, Eating
Disorders, Drug Addiction, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism
Collections: BangtanFicRecs User Submissions
Stats: Published: 2017-10-01 Updated: 2019-01-27 Chapters: 16/40 Words:
238594

Moonchildren
by chimscharli

Summary

Taehyung is the unwilling king of an empire of crime. Jimin is his Little Prince, an elite of
criminal espionage, his master, his servant, his right hand.
A legacy of an old crime war wants revenge for what Taehyung’s ancestors did.
Revenge means making Kim Taehyung’s world bleed.
And Taehyung’s world is Jimin.

"He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the
same."
Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
Notes

This story belongs to the Children Of The Moon.

To Jungkook who is eighteen and learning.
To Yoongi, a pianist with shaking hands.
To Taehyung who cannot say ‘I love you.’
To Jimin who is tired of lying.
To the villains who paint our Moonchildren in red.

__________________________

AUTHOR'S NOTE
Please, please, please read. Thank you.

Any and all actions between pairings with established relationships which seem
toxic/abusive/ non-consensual will seem glorified in the particular moment in which they
are read, but will not in the long term be romanticized; they will indefinitely be resolved
and the parties at fault will be reprimanded for their actions. I am not a supporter of
romanticising abusive relationships and if it ever seems like that in this story, then read on
and you'll see the abuse being underlined and dealt with out in the open. I am also not a
fan of subtext when it comes to mature topics, seeing as it gives people room to question
your morals and creative control as a writer, and that's never an enjoyable experience. I
also do not condone underage smoking or drinking and do not approve of drug usage, let
alone the degree to which it is used as a character device in this story.

However, keep in mind that this is very, very dark stuff. It deals regularly with death,
suicide, rape, drug use, torture, gang-mentality, child abuse, and substance abuse just to
name a few. The characters aren't supposed to be righteous. They're supposed to be flawed
because flawed characters are the best kind, the real kind, and the only kind people want to
read about. However, everyone's actions will be spoken for, and reprimand will come their
way in due time.

Since authenticity is always a grey area in fics, I'll mention that I do a lot, and I mean a lot
of research before writing any kind of scene that requires technical knowledge; whether
that's BDSM, translating dialogue into a different language, anything from the size of exit
wounds to the specifics of drug-usage, I've researched. But if there are ever any mistakes,
please feel free to tell me, I would appreciate it.

The classical pieces mentioned in the story are all linked into the text when and where their
names are mentioned; they are of imperative importance to the story as a whole, but more
so to the Yoonkook storyline, seeing as their arcs as classical musicians heavily define
them as two of the main characters ( so please listen to them when you can). There are also
'mood' songs linked here and there which I thought fit particular scenes well. Reading the
story while listening to them gives you a completely different reading experience, trust me,
I've tried.

This is the spotify playlist. I add songs with every chapter I write, and most of them are/
will be linked into the fic at some point anyway. Just like the fic itself, it has matured since
the very first chapter, so if you ever would like to listen, maybe try doing it in the reverse
order.
This is the moonchildren tumblr which I made to indulge myself, and you guys too; I'll
post stuff as I write so you can check there for a goldmine of visual references; don't look
through the tags too closely before being up to date though because of potential spoilers.

One last thing. Tagging ships is a tricky thing in this story because of the recurring themes
of adultery and casual sexual relationships between characters but there are no instances of
polyamory in this story and only the non-minor ships tagged are established relationships
and 'endgame' in a way, so rest assured.

Thank you for reading.

Love, Charli

________________________

☾☾☾

" My Light is Yours."

" My Crown is Yours."
" My Skin is Yours."
" My Sin is Yours."
" My Truth is Yours."
" My Youth is Yours."

☾☾☾
________________________

I DO NOT ALLOW ANY TRANSLATIONS OF THIS STORY INTO OTHER

LANGUAGES AT THIS CURRENT MOMENT IN TIME.

Thank you.

______________________

And lastly,

This story is for Sam, without whom it wouldn't exist

 Hello Boys
Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

They are Moonchildren entangled between silk sheets. Star-crossed souls having found meaning
in the taste of one another’s lips, forbidden kisses stolen again and again, hoping they wouldn’t be
caught. Begging the universe to let them be.

They are blasphemy-incarnate; a love that defies the constellations that know it will not end well.
A love like this never could. It would offend the cosmos that defy their very breaths, if a love like
theirs is allowed to be. The children of the moon, wanderers that happened to find each other in a
whirlpool of blood and neglect. And no matter how much we tell ourselves otherwise, our cosmos
aren’t romantics. They’re realists. They have been here before us and will remain when we bite
the dust. They know better than anyone that Moonchildren would not be allowed to remain as
they are, pressed against the wall with their hands intertwined and their bodies un-detachable as
they scream for ‘God’ while committing the most ungodly acts.

“God, please. Want- want” Jimin pants, drool matting his lips, eyes rolling to the back of his head
with each harsh tug at his hair. “Want it harder, want even my bones to know where you’ve b-
been…” He stutters, crying into the wall.

“ They do sweetheart.” Taehyung snaps while thrusting into him, biting down on his shoulder to
keep his moans at bay. His white dress shirt hangs off his shoulders, trousers pooling at his legs,
the metal of the belt hitting Jimin’s thigh every time Taehyung slams into him. He remembers how
soft he had been the first time; how hesitant they had been at fifteen. Little whimpers straying out
of their mouths, Jimin hurting beneath him as Taehyung worried and fussed over the slightest little
sound. Taehyung had nearly told him he loved him then, the words were just at the tip of his
tongue, aching to leave.

He wanted to tell Jimin how much he loved the little pearls of sweat gathering on his forehead.
The little kitten whimpers he let out every time Taehyung was inside him to the very hilt. I love
you. He thought instead. Because the words just wouldn’t leave, their power accumulating on the
roof of his mouth, foul tasting and wrong.

Taehyung was so scared, so fucking scared the same thing would happen to him that happened
to her. That the same thing that happened the last time he had said the words aloud would occur.

They had taken each other’s firsts, and Jimin had broken his innocence after, whispering sweet
nothings against his blue sheets in a mansion that seemed far too large for two teenage boys with
nothing but one another's bodies to make each other feel alive.

“Missed-missed you so much.” Jimin whimpers against the wall, cheek pressed against the cream
wallpaper, gold glitter imprinting flowers on his face. Utterly ethereal, Taehyung thinks, and he
says as much.

“ You’re divine Jimin.” He whispers, tongue darting out to leave a stripe across Jimin’s ear,
pulling his gold helix earring with his teeth. The hands pinned at Jimin’s back hurt, chest rubbing
painfully against the wall when he feels a wet hand on his abdomen, pressing the ripples of muscle
between callused, scarred fingers. “I missed you more, missed this. I-” Taehyung’s fingers trail
Jimin’s breastbone that protrudes too much for his liking. “Thought I told you to eat.” He
whispers as his hand wraps around a delicate throat, blunt nails dragging along a pink satin
choker, earning a shiver from the boy beneath him.

“Then don’t leave me alone for five months at a time.” Jimin says, whining as Taehyung’s nails
dig into his hip. It was afternoon when Taehyung had stumbled into the penthouse, his shirt
already half open, jacket slung over his shoulders as he took Jimin, dirtying and purifying him
after months apart. It was almost dawn now.

“Baby I need you alive. Need you safe.” He lets out through gritted teeth, the euphoria biting him
in sharp, sporadic strokes. And Kim Taehyung was as far from safe as one could ever get.
Involving Jimin in the empire's workings had been a stupid, stupid mistake.

“I’m-” They're so close again, so close to reaching those blasphemous highs that sent them over
the edge. “Safe with you.” Jimin whines.

“Baby you don’t understand.” Taehyung urges.

Of course, he doesn’t understand Taehyung.

How could he understand what had happened to Taehyung who received that hostage call in Las
Vegas last year, Jimin’s beautiful voice coming in strokes of breathless whimpers.

“ Tae-Tae they’re hurting me” Of course, then, Taehyung hadn’t know it had been a voice
phishing call. But even then, he hadn't been able to see suddenly, the scotch glass in his hands had
shattered, the glass resembling the state of his pounding heart as he began howling orders at the
people around him, the bright lights of the casino blinding, the clinking of flute glasses deafening
as he howled and open-fired.

So, there is no way Jimin can understand, except this. Except the pure, unadulterated marriage of
two bodies, two tethered moonchildren in the light of their guardian, the moon.

Not when Taehyung can’t even tell Jimin he loves him.

“Then make me. Make me-m…” Jimin spasms beneath Taehyung, the dance of his body
reminiscent of the time before this, and the one before that. A tale as old as time and yet
completely new at the same time. “G-g-gonna- gonn-”

“Shh-” Taehyung comforts with a soothing hand on a shoulder that unapologetically gleams with
drool, indented with bite marks and smothered in purple and pink. “It’s okay.” Taehyung breathes,
slamming into him faster. Jimin mumbles profanities, Taehyung’s hands rotate to the back of the
choker and he tugs, hard. Jimin’s head lolls onto his shoulder, resting to the side so he could look
at Taehyung like this. Count his moles, to just make sure that they were still there.

That this dream-world he would soon have to be done with hadn’t forgotten the most important
details of them all. The only details that truly mattered.

And everything about Taehyung matters. Every detail counts.

With one hand beneath his thigh, spreading him unashamedly, holding him inches from the wall,
Taehyung connects their lips. “Come for me Jimin, always so-” Taehyung bites his jaw, lays
fluttering kisses on Jimin’s closed lids, caresses the arch of his brow with a finger as the wet,
slapping sounds are forgotten and Taehyung can only marvel at why the universe was still letting
them be. “So pretty when you come. Such a good boy, fuck.” The curse against Jimin’s lips
rumbles as his thigh is yanked further out, Taehyung pulling away from the kiss, resting their
foreheads together.
“I’m a- a good boy?” Jimin asks, sobbing a little, spit dribbling into Taehyung’s mouth and the
fucker ravages it like ambrosia as choked breaths escape Jimin.

Kissing Taehyung was Jimin's doom because he had this beautifully terrifying tendency
to hold him when they kissed, embrace him fully. With hands that span the entire oval of Jimin’s
face, making sure Jimin is looking at him as Taehyung tries to convey what he cannot through
speech with his eyes. So, it should come to no surprise that every time they kiss, Jimin is done for.

“Always baby, always.” Taehyung assures, petting his hair. It's too domestic for who he
was. What he is. And yet it doesn't matter when he was with Jimin. Nothing matters when two
moonchildren collide, fate both cruel and kind when it puts them in one another’s path.

“ Tell me you love me.” Jimin commands softly, tears streaming down his face. Taehyung looks
into Jimin’s puffy, sex-crazed eyes with an equally fucked out gaze that shuts Jimin’s eyes closed,
the latter unable to hold his stare when Taehyung's looking at him like that.

“You know I do Jim-“ Taehyung rasps, neck veins protruding in frustrated exhaustion, stopping as
Jimin sighs.

“Look at me sweetheart.” Taehyung pleads, taking his chin in his hand, kissing his eyes again.
“Such beautiful eyes, open them for me Jimin.”

Jimin does. “I do okay? Don’t have to say it for you to believe it love. But I can tell you that you
look beautiful when the moon is blue and you sway around the room to find your clothes, come
still on your thighs because you always run from me so fast.” Jimin whimpers at the praise,
forgetting his denied requested once again. So easy to derail with Taehyung. So easy to just… let
go.

“My beautiful boy.” Jimin comes at that, Taehyung’s hand steadying his trembling hips as his
body collides with the golden walls.

The walls of the prince’s room in his high castle, where they mark and claim as they will,
breathing beneath each other’s skin. Trying as hard as their bodies allowed to make their bones
remember the other’s touch long enough not to starve until the next time comes.

Taehyung’s thrusts don’t lose their rhythm as the heat coils in the pits of his stomach, the single
flame licks at his muscles, urging him to uncoil, to let go.

“You’re going to be good for me and take it?” He asks, pulling out, picking Jimin up, laying him
on the bed on his back.

“ Y-y-yeh… I- I wanna be- be g-good…” Jimin’s stuttering urges Taehyung on as he’s filled
again. The flame thrashes, the whip lashing within him, the climax swallowing him whole. They
come together, Jimin trembling with the blissfully painful oversensitivity of a cataclysmic domino.

Maybe the universe is compensating for their fate by tailoring a frequency just for them, where
they make love and come together every single time. Where during these precious hours, there is
no one and nothing to disturb their currents. It lasts far longer than it ever has as Taehyung stays in
him, trembles in a slow transition into mildly euphoric tremors that vibrate against Jimin’s sweat-
laden skin.

“You stained the wall pet.” Taehyung chuckles as they go limp in each other’s embrace,
Taehyung smiling at the art Jimin had painted on the wall. He'd frame it if he could.

His tone is uneven with sex, voice cracked and hoarse, hands still trembling with prolonged
aftershocks. Taehyung shivers beneath the force of his orgasm, hand reminiscing the map of their
love on Jimin’s painted back.

Jimin jerks with oversensitivity beneath him, drooling onto the sheets as he turns his head to the
side, shuffling upwards towards the myriad of pillows after Taehyung pulls out slowly, Jimin
whining at the lack of something to fill him to his bones. He turns to his stomach, feeling the bed
shift with the removal of Taehyung’s weight. Jimin knows exactly what he’s doing when he hears
the characteristic plop of the container next to him. Taehyung lies a cold hand on his spine, trailing
down to the marks he had left on Jimin’s ass.

“ H-hurts.”

“ I know baby, I know.” Taehyung replies as he warms the cream between his hands, massaging
Jimin’s skin, trying to focus as little moans and complaints leave the body beneath him. He sits
cross-legged next to Jimin’s limp form, taking his hips in his hands as he turns him to his side,
facing away from Taehyung.

“Jimin?” Taehyung enquires, resting his jaw on the crook of the smaller’s shoulder.

“Taehyung…” Jimin replies, arms encompassing him like waves approaching the shore, fast and
strong, then soft and steady as they hold him close.

“ I…I...” Jimin wants to leave, knowing what the man lying naked behind him wants to say. The
man who will always be a boy to Jimin. Because he knows he won’t be able to say it. Jimin
ignores the pain as he shifts once again, turning to face Taehyung.

I love you.

Taehyung is pouting when Jimin moves away, lightheaded as he stands, holding the bedpost with
sweaty hands.

Taehyung had bought him the lace underwear he picks up from the floor with rosy hands when
Jimin had told him that he likes to feel pretty. The lace gentle on his skin, softer and more careful
with the expanse of cream. Far more careful than anyone had ever been with him. Except, of
course, Taehyung.

The leather jeans he pries of some unsuspecting corner, twinkling in the light of the rising sun are
also a gift from Taehyung.

He can feel the man watching his bare, lace-laden ass move with the contractions of his thighs, his
own come-stained legs bare and spread on the golden sheets. He hadn't even let Taehyung clean
him up. “Jimin…”

The owner of the name turns on his dancer’s toes, his movements always issuing shivers down
Taehyung’s spine.

Because how could someone resemble both a trigger and a petal? How could Jimin’s skin,
stretched out beneath Taehyung’s hands like marble softened by the touch of previous lovers, of
which Jimin had none, be like petals to touch? And yet he had the power of a bullet over Kim
Taehyung, the man who probably had more blood on his hands than water.

“Got to go.” Jimin says, nimble feet stepping into leather shoes, the semi-burnt insignia on his bare
ankle, scarred and ruined, catching Taehyung’s attention once again.

“Ever going to tell me what that is?” Taehyung enquires wistfully, fingers balancing a cigarette,
the smoke curling Jimin’s figure in front of him until his face distorts in the haze of grey.
Taehyung blinks away the nicotine fumes, the high temporary as his throat burns.
“You know I don’t like it when you smoke.” Jimin reminds him, engraved jacket slipping onto his
shoulders.

“ I’ve just been delivered the good shit…” Taehyung says as he takes a long inhale, eyes rolling to
the back of his head. “But you’re leaving.” Taehyung reveals, his natural pout accentuating. Jimin
is momentarily struck by how young he looks when he does that. Even with smoke exiting his lips
and his bare cock caressing the sheets, Jimin thinks he looks young.

Jimin sighs, small hands trying to calm tendrils of sex hair. “Do you only see me as a body to snort
from?” He asks with a cocked brow, voice reeking with hurt accusation though it sounds entirely
calm.

“ That’s how you’re acting, isn’t it?” Taehyung counters, his voice not as steady, not as calm. It
was ridiculous. A man with so much self-control that he had sat through the dismemberment of all
of his father’s betrayers, during the red rebellion, when he was only four. A man like that turns
into a child in Jimin’s hands, impatient and scowling because it has been fourteen
years...for fuck's sake.

What the fuck is Jimin so scared of?

“Going as soon as you come like that?” They both snicker. “Feel like you see me as just a body
Park Jimin.” The latter freezes at this, slowly rolling his eyes at Taehyung’s frowning ones.

“ You’re the one who loves licking coke from my crack, you hypocrite.” Jimin snaps, shaking his
head.

“ Don’t tease.” Taehyung warns with feigned nonchalance, tripping over his words even as his
eyes darken. He's hardening against the sheet again, member curving slowly, painfully to his
stomach.

Jimin’s figure leans against the gilded door, chuckling deeply at the sight of Taehyung’s leaking
erection.

“ Or what?" Jimin snaps with an audacity he should be too tired to muster. " Gonna tie me down
again?” Jimin asks, head shifting to the side to bare his choker- clad throat to a frustrated
Taehyung. “ Gag me?”

“ Jimin…don’t.” Taehyung orders through gritted teeth, leaking onto the ruined sheets, the
cigarette stub falling to the floor from his hand that wrapped around his erection.

“ I’d stay if you asked me to.” Jimin suddenly says, hand on the door handle.

“ This is your home just as much as it is mine Jimin. Don't need to.” Taehyung says quietly,
shifting on the bed with his legs landing to the floor until a distracted Jimin feels his breath on his
back.

“ Bullshit.” Jimin spits before turning to face the door, shivering as Taehyung’s bare cock presses
against his clothed ass. He whimpers, hands slamming on the wood, Taehyung’s hand
immediately pressing on his own, fingers dragging and entangling.

“ Gonna make me dirty again Tae?”

Taehyung doesn’t answer. Instead, one of his hands goes towards his neck, tipping his head back,
fingers sliding beneath the choker to shift it up. Nails begin to drag across Jimin’s throat and
Taehyung feels him going limp at the action. Jimin’s throat always was too fucking weak for
Taehyung's hands.

“ Focus.” Taehyung rasps.

So, Jimin does. The nails drag and drag, and Jimin shivers with every letter marked against his
throat. By the time he finishes and the choker is repositioned, Jimin doesn’t know whether he
wants to cry, be fucked again, or laugh.

LOVE

YOU

Jimin scoffs, unconvinced. He swats away Teahyung’s hands and his cock, turning the door knob
before he’s whirled, back pressed into the door with lips pressing down on his own.

“ Don’t kiss other men.” Taehyung says with a warning gaze.

Don’t kiss Jungkook.

Is what he wants to say.

Please.

Even though he knows Jimin wouldn't, Taehyung is still insecure. He’s insecure because Jimin’s
been so weird since Shanghai. Because he's not the owner of the largest criminal organization in
the east when Jimin's in front of him. He's fourteen-year-old Taehyung with his father's handiwork
painting his back a deep, angry red. He's Taehyung biting his tongue as Jimin cleaned his wounds,
bandaging him with feathery, small hands that played with Taehyung's hair until he fell asleep.
He's the Taehyung that didn't dare ask how Jimin even know how to do the first thing because-
because it would just hurt so much more than it already did.

“ Should I let them just fuck me instead?” If there were any boundaries left between them, Jimin
was certain he was edging them as fervently as Taehyung edged him when the sun gave way to
the moon that watched over them.

Should I fuck Jungkook instead? Because he sure as hell wants me to.

They don't know why they're doing this. This little cat and mouse show that's so fucking
unnecessary because they both know there will never be anyone like the other. But they're still
young. Young and scared because Taehyung's world is Jimin and Jimin's is Taehyung and
somewhere along the line, someone is going to take this away. Someone is gonna going to ruin it
all. So maybe if they try to ruin it themselves, it'll hurt less.

Who are they trying to fool though? Trying to ruin each other when they're the only things
keeping the other one's ruins intact.

“ Why are you doing this?” Taehyung rasps, hand wrapping around Jimin’s throat, thumb
caressing the protrusions of his veins. “You know no one will love you like me Jimin.” Taehyung
declares, kissing him. “What are you so afraid of recently?”

“I’m not scared of anything.” Jimin whispers, heart shaking beneath Taehyung’s stare.

“But you are. You’re different somehow.” Taehyung confesses.

“Maybe you’re just getting tired of me.”

“Don’t fucking twist my words,” Taehyung rasps, kissing Jimin’s brow. “Not after I haven’t seen
you in half a year.” Taehyung pleads, pressing Jimin closer.

“Then maybe you should have fucking taken me with you?” Jimin suggests sarcastically, tilting
his head away from Taehyung.

“What? And have you be taken hostage like last time?” Taehyung says, tone far too accusatory for
Jimin to ignore.

“ I can fucking take care of myself Taehyung.”

“What? Like you did so well last time?”

“You know what?” Jimin retorts, pushing him away. “Fuck you.”

“ Jimin just fucking stay here, why do I need to ask you to sleep in the same bed as me these
days? Fucking stay, stay because…”

“Because what?”

Taehyung sighs, grabbing Jimin’s wrist as he tries to move away. Jimin lets him pull him into a
hug.

“Because I missed you.” Taehyung whispers into Jimin’s shoulder. Jimin doesn’t say anything.
“What are you hiding from me Jimin?”

“Nothing.” Taehyung scoffs.

“Lies.”

“ If you think I’m lying then why am I still here?” Jimin asks.

“Because I don’t care.” It’s Jimin’s turn to scoff.

“Do you think that’s normal, Tae?”

“Nothing about us is normal.”

“ Well then…” Jimin concludes, pulling away from the embrace.

“ Stay.” Taehyung begs.

“ Not tonight.” Jimin says, shaking his head, eyes sad.

“ Why?” Taehyung whines, sounding so much like his younger self that Jimin chuckles Taehyung
pouting in reply.

“ I missed you so much that I couldn’t fucking sleep Tae. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t even breathe
sometimes.” Jimin explains, laughing at himself.

“ Jimin…”

“ I’m fucking terrified of it. Of us, of what we have.”

Taehyung grabs Jimin’s cheeks, making him look at him.

“ You don’t have to be Jimin, we’re…we’re-“

“We’re not normal, that’s what we are.”

“ We can be.”

Jimin’s heart pangs.

“I’ll see you tomorrow Taehyung.” Jimin says, hand on the door.

“ Are you going to Jungkook?”

“ Yes,” Jimin replies. “Yes, I am.”

“ Cause he’s more normal than me?” Taehyung asks, voice small.

Because I don’t love him as much as I love you.

Because it doesn’t hurt to breathe when I’m with him.

Because I’m so fucking disgusted with myself that I can’t look at you right now.

Because the only thing keeping you safe right now is all my lies.

“ I love you, Taehyung.”

And as always, because of a faceless nightmare, because of the gunshots in his sleepless dreams,
Taehyung who loves Jimin more than anyone can imagine…he can’t say it back.

___________________________

One Year Ago

Jimin’s current predicament of being very naked, bound to a pillar beneath the city of Shanghai,
hands chained to the overhead pipes of the sewage system, feet bleeding and stinking of rotting
skin, is maybe not the ideal kind of thing he’d like to be doing on a Friday afternoon.

His neck itches again, head banging against the pillar as he struggles against the chains wrapped
around his hands. He remembers precisely the moment this single drop of blood had rolled off his
bleeding lip, curved around the side of his throat, and then just fucking stayed there on his neck,
itching the hell out of him every few minutes to the point of absolute, fucking insanity.

And the smell. For fuck's sake, the damned smell.

“Is all this really necessary?” He asks sweetly, blinking against the blindfold around his eyes.
“Honestly, I'm not as bad as they say you know?” No reply.

He knows there's someone there. They're very good at staying hidden, quiet. But not invisible, not
silent. Not to someone as good as Jimin.

With his uninhibited senses heightened, Jimin focuses on the pungent, masculine perfume tickling
his nose alongside sewage rank and rat droppings. Dior? Hugo Boss? No, he doesn’t think he’s
ever smelt this particular cologne before.
Dammit.

“Listen buddy,” Jimin negotiates. “I know you're right there okay? Maybe fifteen feet, my one
o'clock?” He estimates. "Leaning against the wall? You're wearing an expensive suit, aren't you?
Shouldn't you be careful about that?”

A chuckle, followed by a high, clear, wolf whistle.

Score.

“You are as good they say, aren't you Jimin?” His captor finally replies.

He’s got a deep, practiced American accent but it’s obvious he’s actually European, early
twenties, wearing heeled shoes (probably Oxfords), one of them resting on the wall behind him,
dragging the sharp heel on the wet wall.

The sound’s very characteristic, brick crumbling beneath the sharpness of the footwear,
powdering onto the floor.

Yeah, Jimin’s definitely as good as they say,

And he's acquainted enough with the ruffle of a silk shirt, rich, expensive and utterly singular; he
doesn’t need to be good to hear that. Just filthy rich.

“ Cat got your tongue now that you're sure you have an audience?”

Jimin wants to think about his very naked state, bound in the form of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man,
hands chained outwards to the pipes above the pillar, on either side, cock limp and pink between
his legs. Instead, he just feigns a lazy smile.

“Sorry, I was too busy feeling sorry for you.” Jimin drawls, smirking, face directed at the position
he predicted his captor to be in.

“ And why’s that?” The man asks, voice intensely unsettling. It's very, very smooth. No
intonations or particular tone of phrase, no tell-tale emphasis on a particular vowel. It's completely
and absolutely flat. Like an out of tune piano.

It’s going to be a problem tracking him down later on.

“Cause Kim Taehyung’s gonna be here soon.” Jimin doesn't bother to say more than that. His
name alone should bring the man to his knees. To his surprise, his captor only chuckles.

“Is he now?” The man purrs. “And how are you so sure?”

Jimin guffaws, his hands straining as his head falls forward, laugh boisterous and amused.

“How am I so sure?” He asks. “Do you even know who I am? Who he is?” Jimin asks with a
tone of surprise he’d liked to have kept to a more sustained minimum.

“ Park Jimin,” The man drawls, stepping forward.

Oh, he’s definitely wearing oxfords.

“Infamous as The Little Prince, Prince of Espionage, one of the most successful infiltrators the
crime world has seen in the past five years. And you're only nineteen.” Jimin smirks, trying to
mimic an arrogant shrugging motion as best as he can in his current state.
“Kim Taehyung, also nineteen…” The captor sighs dramatically. “Almost like you're meant to
be, isn't it?” Jimin gifts him a sarcastic smile. “Grandson of the founder of La Pente, the gang that
basically ran the global crime world for a couple hundred years before the World Wars, owner
of La Pente’s legacy, a crime empire that operates on every level and any land on which the sun
sets. He's a genius, above superior IQ, painting virtuoso though he abandoned it when he was
young. Surprisingly, he doesn’t play any instruments.” He stops, as though turning a page
mentally. “I could go on and on about the infamous Kim Taehyung. But you?”

Footsteps. He's coming closer.

Jimin tries to bring his legs closer together, the chains stinging his raw ankles. His thighs tremble
under the pressure. The man’s footsteps cease.

“Think of the surprise I had to have to track down your history for three weeks Park Jimin, and I
thought I'd be rewarded after all that hard work.”

Jimin lets out a shaky breath.

“Booby traps? Really?” The man questions, huffing in disbelief. “And bitch ones too, nearly cut
an ankle on the last one.”

Jimin pulls against the chains around his wrists, growling.

“ Bet you were disappointed.” Jimin growls.

“ Oh that's an understatement my friend.” His captor purrs. “ I've never worked that hard to dig
up anyone’s soppy back story.” There’s a finger on Jimin’s naked chest, trailing from the arch of
his neck to valley of his hipbones.

“Don’t touch me.”

“And what do I get?” The man asks, ignoring him. “Zilch. A blank file. Central intelligence has
nothing on your childhood, the FBI has nothing on you either. You're a ghost Park Jimin.”

And suddenly there's a hand on his jaw, gripping Jimin’s skin tight as he retracts in disgust.

“How afraid does someone have to be of their past to go through all…” The hand around Jimin’s
throat tightens. “That... trouble, all that security, for a…” The hand around his throat slackens,
Jimin spluttering on his breath as the hand grips his jaw, firm. The finger presses against his
bottom lip. His skin is salty, disgusting. “Blank…file, hm? Like you're more afraid of
someone looking than finding anything.” Jimin suddenly realises how damp the air is down here,
his skin sticky with blood and sweat, open wounds rotting slowly without treatment.

He’s been chained here for nearly a day.

“You tell me Jimin, how much does someone have to be hiding to be that paranoid huh?” Jimin
snaps his teeth down onto the finger pressing into his mouth. “Fucking whore,” The man swears.

Jimin freezes.

That word.

That fucking word.

“Who the fuck are you?” He yells.

“I think the question is who are you…” Jimin clenches his bound fists above his head. “Don't you
think?”

“I’m nobody.” Jimin replies without hesitation.

“I don't think Kim Taehyung, the man who just killed two…” He rolls his finger down Jimin’s
breastbone, reaching his hips again. “-hundred people in cold blood not four hour ago, would do
that for a nobody, do you?”

“Tae did what?”

“Oh Jimin… lover boy’s been busy.” Jimin remains silent, worrying his lip between bloody teeth.
He’s sure one of his ribs is broken, his eye swollen and bleeding beneath the blind fold. The
champagne inside the limousine, the one Taehyung had sent for him, had been drugged. That’s
the only way they could have gotten to someone like Jimin in the first place.

“Lucky for you, isn't it? And your daddy? That your little plan worked out so well?”

Jimin snaps his wrist against the chest again.

“Did he fucking send you? To put me in my place? I said I’d get him the contract Tae’s working
on. I said I’d fucking get it.” Jimin yells. He should have known this all reeked of the old man. “I
need time.”

“Daddy didn’t send me Jimin.” The man purrs.

“Then who the fuck are you?” Jimin asks, trying not to curl into himself, trying not to hide away.
To not show just how much the fact that he’s bare is affecting him.

That’s why he’s tied Jimin naked. Because he knows.

“ Take these off,” Jimin purrs sweetly, jaw jutting upwards to the blindfold. “And then let’s talk
hm?” His captor remains quiet. Jimin can almost hear him think. “Are you that fucking afraid of
me?”

“Maybe before I was.” He replies. “Anyone would be stupid not to be…someone like you.”

Jimin scoffs, laughing with his lip between his teeth.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Why would I be afraid of you when you’re standing there, naked with your cock like a tail
between your legs, knowing no one’s coming after you?”

“What are you…” Jimin hesitates. “What are you playing at?”

“I’m not playing at anything Jimin.” The man confesses. “There’s just no one coming for you.”

Jimin cocks up a brow, shifting his eyes beneath the blind fold.

“ I think we’ve established that Taehyung’s on his way.”

“Have we?” Jimin really doesn’t like the man’s tone. He really doesn’t like it. “How are you so
sure?”

“I’m-I’m…” Control, Jimin. Get a grip. “Is it just me or didn’t we literally just go through this
already? I’m Park Jimin.” Jimin introduces, as if that’s answer enough. A full stop to the
conversation.

“ I thought you were a nobody?” Jimin chuckles. He’s good. At least this isn’t a complete waste
of time.

“ Well, until Taehyung exists…I’m your worst nightmare.”

“ Now, we’re getting somewhere.” The man replies, sighing in relief.

Jimin bites his tongue.

There’s something horribly wrong.

“ You should have seen the look on Taehyung’s face you know? When I told him everything…”
Something’s horribly, horribly wrong. “Damn, I should have filmed it.” He exclaims, regretful. “I
don’t think I’ve ever been as close to feeling something as I was this morning you know?
Because, hell, that was one heartbroken man.”

Jimin starts laughing, jaw shaking.

“ You think no one’s ever tried playing a game like this with us before? You think you’re clever?”
But his voice is shaking as he clutches to his crumbling bravado. Because Jimin can feel it
somehow…this time…this time it’s different.

“ He kneeled to me you know? Begged like a fucking coward for me to tell him it was a lie. That I
was lying.”

“Shut up.” Jimin snaps. “Shut up.”

“ You don't fall in love with your targets Jimin, what are you? A fucking amateur?”

The words hit home. Jimin stops laughing gradually, and a blood-stained tear slips out from
beneath the blindfold, streaking his cheek a washed out crimson.

“ I was.. I was a fucking kid.”

“ And now? Are you not a kid anymore? Are you planning on actually getting this job done or
not?”

“Who sent you?”

“ I think I must be one of the only people on this planet to see the great Kim Taehyung cry like a
little fucking bitch.”

“ You’re lying.”

“ I have to give it to you though. You fucking own him, don’t you? Got him wrapped around your
finger? He didn’t believe me at first, for hours and hours, he sat there and didn’t blink a
fucking eye at everything I showed him.” His captor suddennessnly stops, bringing a hand to
Jimin’s cheek. “Are you fucking crying?” He asks, laughing, feeling the wetness on his fingers.
“Fuck, how pathetic can you be?”

Jimin cries silently, he doesn’t make a sound. And he keeps his head held high.

“Thirteen years of betrayal…” The man purrs. “I can’t imagine what I would have done.”

“Shut up.” Jimin barks. “Shut the fuck up.”

“How could you allow yourself to stay in love with him after betraying him this long hm?”

“Shut the fuck up. I’m going to fucking find you…” Jimin threatens. “I’m going to rip you to
fucking shreds.” He yells, chains snapping against his limbs as he charges forwards again.

“Don’t you want to know how much of it I told him Jimin?” The man bends down, Jimin sensing
his shadow over his smaller form. “I told him every…last drop.”

Jimin laughs shakily, tasting his tears on his lips. His head falls back in defeat.

It’s over.

“How the fuck are you even going to get your mission done if he's got you this wrapped around
your finger huh?” Jimin snaps his head up in surprise.

“ I…”

“Unless…” His captor makes a noise of realization. Jimin clenches his fist tighter, painting his
knuckles white. “Unless you were never going to go through with it in the first
place…were you?”

“Shut up.” Jimin screams. “Shut up. Shut up.”

“Does daddy know this Jimin? That no matter what he does you're going to save Taehyung in the
end? Does he know his little protégée was never his to begin with?”

“ But I CAN’T-“ Jimin shouts, letting go. “I can't. I don't know how to save him. I don't know-
I can't. Fucking…” Jimin’s lost. He lost before he even knew how to win. “ Just fucking get it
over and done with. That's your revenge, isn’t it? It's done.” He screams, spitting at the man’s feet.
“ Just kill me.”

“ Sir?” The door to the sewage compartment opens, the newcomer speaking to Jimin’s captor in a
low voice. “Kim Taehyung has arrived.” Jimin stirs, hating the sensation of being blind.

“How many men has he killed already?” His captor asks.

“Thirty-four sir…and it’s only been four minutes.”

Jimin’s captor turns to him, and Jimin hears the punch coming his way before the man’s even
lifted his fist.

He knows it’s going to knock him out cold the moment it makes contact with his cheek.

The man laughs again, coming to kiss the bruise the punch paints on Jimin’s skin. He presses his
fingers into Jimin’s mouth, opening it.

“Have faith Little Prince.” He reassures, placing the roll of plastic beneath Jimin’s tongue. “Have
faith.”

“Jimin?”

There’s a pair of eyes that Jimin knows too well, hovering above him, glazed with anger and
worry, love and sadness. But that can’t be right, can it?

There’s something in his mouth, something small, a bit sharp, like a roll of plastic just underneath
his tongue. Jimin presses down on it with the muscle, tasting the synthetic barrel.

“Jimin love, Jimin are you okay?”

There it is again, Taehyung’s voice.

Even dead, he fucking haunts him.

“Jimin open your eyes for me.” Taehyung urges. Jimin blinks away the blood in his vision.
They’re in an ambulance.

“ Why are you…” A splatter of blood comes leaking from his mouth. Taehyung sobs at the sight,
taking a cloth to wipe his chin. The paramedic on Taehyung’s other side prepares some kind of
injection. Jimin’s vision falters, Taehyung’s face hazy, his dark golden hair red through the blood
in Jimin’s eyes. “Why are you here?”

“Why do you keep saying that Jimin?” Taehyung asks, voice cracking as he wipes away a trickle
of blood from Jimin’s cheek. “Of course I’m fucking here. I’m so fucking sorry I wasn’t there. I’m
so fucking sorry love, I-”

“ Why…why aren’t you…why did you come?”

“ Does he have a concussion or something as well?” Taehyung replies, and Jimin realises he’s
actually asking the paramedic a question.

“ We’re nearly there okay?” Taehyung reassures after a few unintelligible words whispered
between him and the paramedic, kissing Jimin’s hands gently, like they’re the wings of a dying
angel.“ Hang on Jimin, hang on love, hang on for me. Don’t you dare close your eyes do you
understand me? Don’t you dare close those eyes.”

Jimin still closes them.

Because it’s too painful a dream.

He falls unconscious at that point, because the next vision is of cars, a busy road, red and blue
lights. He’s being rolled along the stretcher into a hospital. Jimin looks for Taehyung, the man
running ahead into the building.

Jimin’s bloody fingers reach into his mouth, taking out the roll of plastic.

“ Sir,” The paramedic urges. “Sir, I advise you not to move.”

The roll keeps slipping as Jimin tries to open it.

Taehyung’s coming back.

Taehyung’s coming back, shit.

Just as he runs back to the stretcher, Jimin unrolls the plastic, looks at it with bloody eyes.

And then lets it fall from his hand.

“Jimin?” Taehyung rasps, caressing Jimin’s forehead, running beside his stretcher with tears in his
eyes and the blood from Jimin’s hand threading through golden hair. “Jimin why are you
 smiling?”

‘Have faith little prince.’ The man had said.

Jimin knows why now.

He knows why Taehyung is here.

He’s thinking of the three words on that note when they inject him with the anaesthetic, repeating
them over and over again, tasting them on his tongue, smiling dumbly as Taehyung paces outside
the surgery room.

Taehyung doesn’t know.

He was lying after all.

Chapter End Notes

It's gonna be a long road, hope you're along for the ride.

Tumblr
Moonchildren Tumblr (pls don't send anons to this)
Spotify Playlist
 Perfect Boys

Part I

Left. Right. Left. Right.

In the tattered leather of the punching bag, he sees Taehyung. The shuffling of his numb feet on
the cement, the pearls of sweat falling in refreshing trains down his neck…everything holds a
fragment of Kim Taehyung in it and Jimin is fucking losing it.

The gym is empty. Jimin feels empty, wants to be filled. Filled to the brim, to the breaking point…
with –with Taehyung. With his oil-stained hands. Wants his shaggy hair that looks gold in the
moonlight and silver under the sun to caress his neck as he holds him.

He wants to be enveloped with all of his blaring contradictions and paradoxes that to anyone else
would mean fuck all, but to Jimin… God, to Jimin they’re the reason for his very existence.

Jimin shivers as he punches, his covered knuckles sliding against the leather, shaking because this
was all so, so wrong. You would think after fourteen years that he wouldn’t be so afraid.

That what he had with Taehyung was etched into his bones, and it was. God, Jimin could feel
Taehyung in every breath he exhaled but that didn’t mean it didn’t scare the shit out of him.

His phone, one of three lying on the chair next to him, rings. Jimin nearly staggers through the tiny
space, hands gripping the block in anticipation of something to do.

“ Oh for fucks… sake.” It’s just a standard warning to be ready in case there’s a new
commission. But otherwise it’s nada, fucking zero names for almost three months. He trains,
fucks, makes love and cries over Taehyung. It’s suddenly a new fucking day.

It’s hell. It’s paradise. It’s them.

Taehyung doesn’t even let him help in the running of the empire anymore. Jimin has been by his
side so long that the underdogs nearly know them as one, and suddenly just because of one stupid
hostage situation Jimin is suddenly cut off, has been cut off for nearly a year. Because Taehyung
was afraid that if Jimin was taken by his enemies again, that he wouldn't be able to find him in
time.

"Can't fucking lose you Jimin. What would I even be...without you?"

He’s heard the stories of course. Of how Taehyung had derailed when he had got the false,
orchestrated call from Jimin.

" Taehyung, they're hurting me" The Jimin on the phone had whimpered while Taehyung was
half way across the world in Vegas, 'fucking around in a casino’. His words, not Jimin's. When in
fact he'd been making alliances with some new big names circling the drug world. Jimin was
planning on joining Taehyung later, after finishing up some business in Asia.

But then of course, Shanghai happened.

They told Jimin Taehyung had fucking lost it. In every literal and figurative sense of the world; he
had turned a gun on every single person in that red and gold room. Because the only way
someone would have dared lay a hand on Park Jimin was if they knew Kim Taehyung wasn’t by
his side. Meaning someone had betrayed him.

So there was a mole in that room, one of Taehyung's own men had given his schedule to the
people who had taken Jimin. The same person Taehyung hadn’t paid attention to when they had
pressed the burn phone to his ear in the first place because he was too busy making alliances. Just
because he didn’t want to run the empire didn’t mean he didn’t do the job exquisitely. And to do
that you need people.

To run the best puppet show in a world like this, you first need fabric; the blue collars, prostitutes,
global homeless network. You work your way up, not down. If you work your way down,
you’re picking puppet masters with their own little shows that they think they’re entitled to say are
theirs. They get cocky, think they can have a pathetic little puppet rebellion. And then there’s
going to be blood. Of course, Taehyung loves blood. But picking new underlings every time
someone decides to toe the line of the web in the hierarchy… it gets tiring.

So you build the foundation, make sure you own every single fucking life, from the shoes they
wear to the dirty secrets they whisper on motel sheets, and then you work your way up. That’s
how you build an empire.

And Taehyung has.

So when someone decided to lay a finger on Jimin, it was no less treason than betraying
Taehyung himself.

Jimin had heard there was a bloodbath. Taehyung killed everyone, and ordered the place to be
left, sitting in the gambling capital of the world, a warning to all the people who had been
involved in the hostage situation or were planning one themselves. That Kim Taehyung only deals
in bodies, not chips.

And his body count is far larger than any number of chips you have to offer.

The single most opulent casino in Vegas was now a ghost town of red and grey. Because of
Jimin. Taehyung had killed two hundred people in cold blood, didn't left a single soul standing.
For Jimin. For him.

Jimin has a right to be scared.

Because he would do the same.

That’s something to have daydreams and nightmares about, and Jimin did. Jimin does. Hence,
every waking moment is Taehyung...

Taehyung as he lays his head on Jimin’s shoulder, his jaw sharp and soft in the valley of Jimin’s
collarbone, angling his head in, slobbering kisses on Jimin’s neck and soft whispers of ‘ you
okay?’ leaving his mouth subconsciously. It’s that and asking ‘green or red’ even though he
knows, after fourteen painfully beautiful years, he knows Jimin likes the pain.

It’s Jimin sprawled on Taehyung’s throne as he chokes a man to death, the positioning of his
hands, the jerking of his palm slipping against bone, all of it unflinchingly practiced. And knowing
those same hands control the very breath that leaves his mouth when their bodies connect as one.
And yet Taehyung controls, withstands against his urges (because god Jimin knew he had them),
only with Jimin. Only with him.

It was easier when they were at The ArKe. From the latin word Arce, meaning castle. An
establishment owned by the Kim family that people would sell their souls to study at.
To run the puppet show you also need youth. They’re not necessarily a part of the pyramid now,
but in the future they might form- depending on their potential- an essential network of bubble
wrap around the empire.

When a child studies in the same place from kindergarten to graduation, that school has more
power over their mentalities and values than their own parents. Even more so when it’s a boarding
school. Taehyung’s father and forefathers before him had known this. Which is why The ArKe
was created in the first place, nearly three hundred years ago. A farm to breed the future brains of
the empire.

To get in? All you need is money. The school will do the rest.

Of course, there are those select few who can receive acceptance based on impeccable ability, but
it is rare, because once you're in a school like this? Everyone is impeccably able. And filthy, filthy
rich.

Jimin smiles in reminiscence, having graduated with Taehyung two years ago, after spending
twelve years of their shared youth there.

With people watching their every move, sycophants thirsting at their tails like they were royalty,
which isn’t actually far off from what they had been, Jimin could at least justify it. Whatever it,
was. He could justify being pinned against the K Wing’s balcony doors, his uniform ruined and
come-stained beneath Taehyung’s grasp. He could justify wanting to stay beside Taehyung
because it was all part of the plan.

He kept telling himself it was all for show. Taehyung’s arm around his waist, his uniform
unbuttoned to put his marred neck on show. This is how it’s always supposed to work. He was
supposed to be acting like Taehyung’s property, no more than the watches decorating his wrist.
Because he was being watched.

But instead of property, Taehyung made him- makes him feel-feel...

Like a god.

He felt divine with Taehyung, with his lips worshipping the expanse of Jimin’s skin like he was
the holy grail and chanting filthy mantras like gospel. Instead of binding him, Taehyung freed him
with every kiss.

At school, they had an audience. Jimin had a crowd to prove the ‘act’ to. An act that stopped
being an act far before Jimin would ever admit it to himself. Because sitting in the K Wing’s
bathrooms, the entire floor unoccupied save for them, just for their use, there was no one but him
and Taehyung.

And Jimin still held him in his arms as Taehyung sobbed onto his shoulder at sixteen, both of them
in tuxedo’s, mourning the death of his father. A father who had ruined the most beautiful boy
Jimin had ever known. They had stayed there, until dawn, Jimin kissing every inch of Taehyung’s
skin and crying along because he was finally gone. They could leave the empire to rot, get a house
in Seoul, maybe a dog, and- and…

They were finally free.

Taehyung could paint again. Paint until his hands begged him to stop because strong men could
paint too, it wasn’t just for girls.

They were crying because it was all coming to an end.

But that’s not it works, is it? The world always trying its hardest to work against the Moonchildren
who want nothing more than everyone to just let them be. They would have disappeared then,
build a modest house despite their lavish taste, with money they had earned. Because at sixteen,
they weren’t that ruined yet. Not completely lost. Our Moonchildren would have left The ArKe,
left New York, to go back home. They would have lived happily, with boyish smiles in a house
with two bedrooms because maybe, maybe they could find a use for the other one as soon as they
got proper, bloodless jobs and started paying mortgage like normal people do.

With clean money. With clean hands. With healing souls.

But then...

But then this story wouldn’t exist.

Seokjin had greeted them at home, the mansion, his own face devoid of tears though Jimin could
tell it was a show for his little brother. “ Father left you this.” He had said, giving the cream,
textured envelope to Taehyung, but not before leaning over in his towering height and bringing
the two boys into a long-lasting hug. Jimin, four years after, can still remember it, how quietly he
had whispered the word to them, just in case the mansion was still on his father’s side. In case
someone heard.

“ Run.”

They both stared at the wide expanse of Jin’s shoulders as he left, not looking back at them.
Maybe because he expected them to run and never come back, as he had pleaded. The red seal
seemed hot beneath Taehyung’s hands as they sat there in the gargantuan, cold foyer floor, the
marble unforgivingly icy beneath their legs.

“ Go ahead Taetae, we’re gonna leave anyway. Might as well…” Oh how silly Jimin had been,
already thinking of what to pack, a giddy feeling swirling in his chest as he looked at Taehyung’s
face under the sunlight from the dome glass ceiling.

It wasn’t even a proper letter. Just pictures, dated pictures. Taehyung and Jimin half-dressed in the
K-wing bedrooms, smiling at one another, the picture taken through the open balconies, zoomed
in from the roof of the opposing building. Seokjin flirting with a pretty girl in one of his lecture
halls, taken from behind. Namjoon on his bike, delivering, and then in his dingy room studying for
the upcoming exams. Hoseok teaching dance at the studios.

Yoongi…

Jimin sitting on a Grand Piano in the theatre at Julliard, Yoongi smiling as he played for him. And
then another one of Yoongi in a hospital bed, the picture taken from above while he was wired
and unconscious.

“ What…”

“ Shit.”

“ What the fuck does this even mean? Jim-Jimin what are those?”
Taehyung had staggered to standing, shuffling the pictures as he threw himself to the wall, the
chandelier lights blooming above them as his fingers slipped over the touch-screen pad. He heard
Jimin’s gasp before turning around.

“Taetae…” There were already tears in Taehyung’s eyes before turning, kneeling on the ground
next to Jimin as the latter’s hands shook, picking up the pictures. “ Ta-Tae…” There were little,
lazer red dots on every forehead in the pictures. Behind Jimin’s black hair, above Yoongi’s mint…
everywhere… every single picture was a warning.

And Yoongi…

“ He-he did that.” Jimin had whispered, holding Yoongi’s hospital photo in his hands, his tears
falling onto the gloss. He’d only been to see Yoongi that morning, in his tux, before going to the
funeral. He still hadn’t woken up. “ Tae.. Yoo-Yoong-Yoongi c-c-can’t p-pl-“ Jimin’s breath had
come out in little puppy whimpers, hiccupping as his tears ran free, Taehyung taking the photo
from him while his tears caught on his bottom lip, bitten red by his teeth.

“ They said Yoongi c-can’t play a-anymore. His hands-his hands are…. Your dad… He…”
Taehyung had let out an ear shattering scream, taking the photos in his hands and throwing them
in the air, clutching his hair and just… wailing. Over and over again. Muttering ‘please’ to the
roof, to anyone who could just come. To anyone who could come and save them.

“ Tae…” Taehyung had turned at Jimin’s voice, finding a small cream piece of paper in his hands,
his father’s seal evident through the sheet. He had walked over, sighing through tears, wiping
them away with scarred hands.

Checkmate son.

Is all it had said. With his father’s seal beneath.

Leave and I will destroy everyone you have ever loved.

And it wasn’t just his father's warning to Taehyung.

Yoongi…

Yoongi was an example of what his father could do even beyond the grave. The crash had
happened after his father had passed, the funeral that morning just a display for the executives.
The real one had been almost three weeks ago. Yoongi’s crash happened a week and a half
before. Because Taehyung’s father knew that if Jimin left, Taehyung was a goner too.

And then his empire would be without heir. Since Seokjin couldn't possibly take on the role.

So the Moonchildren had stayed.

And here Jimin was, in a secluded gym, punching at a bag that he’s envisioning into a face that
haunts his nightmares. It isn’t Taehyung, and it isn’t his father. Because now Jimin is twenty and
terrified of what him and Taehyung have become. Both to one another and to the world. And it's
all his fault, the man in his nightmares.

It gets worse every time Jimin sees Taehyung. Every time Taehyung carries him to the bath,
laying his limp body in the tub and staying inside him until Jimin says otherwise. Jimin had told
him, in a haze of delirium, that the smell of blood wouldn’t wash off him. That he could smell it
every time he was alone, which was more often now, since he ran away from Taehyung's
embrace so fast.
Taehyung hadn’t asked who’s blood.

The next day, Taehyung who hates flowery scents, who hates the mockingly ephemeral quality of
their vibrancy… How similar a petal is to Jimin’s spine and how easily it could break…

Yes, that Taehyung, the one who had beheaded an intern for mistakenly thinking his superior’s
‘Pay my respects to ‘Junior Kim’ when Taehyung’s father passed was white roses instead of the
engraved blade everyone knew to bring to the ceremony… That Taehyung… had stocked his
bathroom with jasmine, rose, honeysuckle and gardenia.

He had washed every inch of Jimin softly until the sweet scents enveloped him whole. Until Jimin
felt flowers blooming in the debris of his tattered soul. Every time one of the bath-salts was close
to finishing, there would be another one in its place the next day. Without Jimin pointing it out,
without any kind of indication to a man who had an empire to run.

Jimin would ask: “How many of these have you even bought?”

And Taehyung would answer: “As many as it takes.” From that night on, a year ago, Jimin didn’t
like staying after Taehyung fucked him silly anymore, not unless he was too tired to leave his
embrace. He left dirty and still a little high off Taehyung (a lot), with his thighs stained in white
because Taehyung always wanted to wipe him down himself but the slightest touch that occurs
outside of that sex-clouded bubble, where his mind knows very fucking well that even for them,
this isn’t normal…derails Jimin.

The gloves are heavy on his hands, his legs kicking and turning on auto pilot as Taehyung swarms
his mind.

“ Enough Jimin.”

He doesn’t even realize leaving. Doesn’t register where his feet are taking him until he’s there and
of course this is where he ends up whenever Taehyung becomes too much. When he has no one
on his list and it’s cold. When he remembers are all the nights it used to be much colder before
Taehyung and he wants to run all the way to the penthouse and ask Taehyung to bathe him in the
lily of the valley, to paint on his ankle, over that damned mark of ownership, and take him away.

But he can’t do that.

So he comes here instead, in front of this door with peeling baby blue paint and a bell that doesn’t
work. Where he knows, he’ll forget about Taehyung for a bit. Where he does exactly what
Taehyung does to him to another. And can’t even find it in his twisted heart to feel sorry.

Part II.

Jungkook is duelling with Monti when he hears him outside his apartment, abandoning his mid
term piece for the composer’s Hungarian rhapsody yet again, trying to make it sound as perfect as
it had the first time. As the time he had woken up in The Music Room of his old high school
where he had taken refuge after running away from care.

He wants the piece to sound as perfect as it had three years ago, waking up with aching
bones beside Jimin whom he had only known for two weeks, the boy tucked into his lumbering
figure on the tattered red couch. The sun had inched his eyes open, setting the flowers he had
painted on the peeling cream walls ablaze with gold. His memory was hazy at the time, only
letting little excerpts through. Like the surgery, hospital visits, the crash. The murder. Like him
lying in an alleyway, on the brink of death, with another man’s blood on his hands. And the
moment Jimin had appeared before his eyes for the first time.

Three Years Prior

Autumn

Jungkook

Jimin’s nose was tucked into his neck, his frame small, hands clutching at Jungkook’s bare
shoulders. He'd only been dismissed from the hospital hours before, thinking Jimin wouldn't come
when he'd been more than a few hours late. However much pain his bandaged body was still in,
his legs seemed to take on their own consciousness, leaving Jimin’s body, walking over to the out
of tune grand piano in the corner of the room.

There was a violin sitting on the window behind the scallop of wires and keys, Jungkook’s fingers
suddenly itching to touch the strings. Jimin's black hair fanning against the tattered, red leather, his
shoulder exposed, shirt scrunched around his stomach to reveal silvers of skin caressed by the
sunlight... Jungkook was transfixed by the urge to serenade the angel.

He's tried to play the piano before but it just couldn't speak for him, the notes didn't flow like paint
could. He gripped the keys too hard, his touch vicious as it tried to make the notes sing. It was just
too inconsistent, the keys too hard to press while too soft at the same time.

His fingers brushed against the wooden body of the violin, his eyes flit to Jimin who is softly
stirring against the sofa, curling into himself.

There was a bow on the table that hadn't been there last week, placed upon the dusty papers
scattered on the surface.

The little particles of dust fluttering in the single belt of sunlight showering the room, and most of
Jimin’s face, urged Jungkook on, scattering as he lifted the bow, the rustling of papers stirring
Jimin in his slumber.

Jungkook remembers distinctly how he had puckered his lips, blowing the cover of dust from the
instrument, twirling it experimentally in his hands. As the dust abandoned its wooden refuge,
Jungkook felt a peculiar sort of intrusion. Like an inhalation of an aroma in a busy market, one
that you normally wouldn't associate with a place like that, but you're happy you sensed anyway.
A serendipitous invasion. Just like Jimin had been in that alleyway.

It was bittersweet, like leaving one home to build yourself another. He tried to revive memories of
violinists he had seen in the movies, how they tucked the instrument lovingly in the crook of their
neck. Mimicking a gentle grip on the how, caressing the wood beneath his fingertips, Jungkook
raised his arm, pressed his chin against the hollow, light body, and set the horse hair to the strings.

Truth be told, he had no fucking clue what he was doing at the time. He had relocated to block the
sunlight from Jimin’s squinting eyes, standing infront of the path of gold, the light warm at his
back. The bow was touching the strings, little unpleasant screeches making Jungkook wince in
near- defeat. What the fuck was he doing, truly? He was pretty sure he didn't even know the
difference between a violin and a viola. Hell, he didn't even know the names of the four notes.

His eyes fell on the pair of crumpled socks at the base of the sofa. At the deformed, pinkish
His eyes fell on the pair of crumpled socks at the base of the sofa. At the deformed, pinkish
insignia sitting on Jimin’s ankle. He remembers how shocked the sleeping boy had been, seeing
Jungkook’s own ruined body.

It's worse, Jimin had said. Worse than what? Than he thought? Than his own?

He remembers playing each of the strings once, near the curve of the wooden body, the notes
sweet and solemn, maybe slightly unsure.

Jungkook closed his eyes, picturing the Jimin who had found him a fortnight before, drenched in
blood and sin, with a halo of black smoke and invisible wings, and began to play.

Three Years Prior

Autumn

Jimin

Jimin woke up to the sound of Taehyung’s vinyl, cringing when he realised he had ultimately
returned to the mansion even after their fight at the hospital, Taehyung screaming outside
Jungkook’s room. It was hazy, Jimin didn't even remember what they had been fighting about.
Until he did. He started to recognise the piece as the memories came picking at him, regret and
rage colliding as his heart starts pounding in reminiscence.

The Gypsy Song. Czardas. It was Taehyung's favourite, having woken Jimin up with it playing
while he pressed open-mouthed kisses on Jimin's skin, too many times to count. Maybe that's why
Jimin didn't realise he wasn't in bed with Taehyung at the time.

“ I had another fucking attack at school Jimin.” Jimin’s heart squeezed as he remembered the
fight, remembered not telling Taehyung that he wouldn't be at school that day because Jungkook
was going to be dismissed from the hospital. “ Everyone was fucking looking at me, like I was
some freak. As if they don't remember that I own the fucking ground they stand on.”

Jimin winced, the crack of the security guard’s arm pounded in his ears as the man grabbed
Taehyung’s shoulder, only for the boy to unflinchingly slam him into wall before turning to Jimin.
His eyes were bloodshot, twenty thousand dollars worth of clothes mismatched and bruises
splattered on his hands.

“ I couldn't breathe Jimin, I was screaming for you- whimpering your name like a fucking child
and suddenly the entire school forgot that I could ruin them and their eight figure bank accounts
with a fucking breath” The guards had doubled in number, each one of them meeting the same
bloody fate under the hands of a Taehyung high on pain, adrenaline and probably cocaine.

“ And you weren't there. You were- you were here- with-with him,” Taehyung had spat in disgust,
slamming his fist on the door of Jungkook’s room. “ with this fucking stray you found on the
street-“ Taehyung had crumbled to the floor then, the guards taking the opportunity to attack him
with forceful hands. Jimin had fought through the barricade of guards, shoving them away while
snarling as he took Taehyung's face in his hands and kissed his lips. " I got you baby, I got you."
One of the guards dismissed Jimin's efforts while reaching for Taehyung, and Jimin elbowed him
in the jaw.

“ Get your filthy fucking hands off of him if you don't want him to create a bloodbath, and I'll take
him outside.” From then on his memory was a bit clearer, remembering peeking inside
Jungkook’s room to find him still wired and sleeping; hauling a struggling Taehyung upwards and
telling people to get the fuck out of his damned way. Stumbling outside the revolving hospital
doors, a tortured Taehyung in tow, searching for Taehyung’s ride.

The orange sports car beckoned them in the black of the car park, Jimin with a hand encircled
around Taehyung’s waist. In the search for the keys, Jimin’s hand brushed Taehyung’s crotch,
issuing a filthy moan from him. He was suddenly pressed against the car, Taehyung’s lips biting
on his, pressing himself against Jimin.

“ Would you let me fuck you right here?” Taehyung had asked, stopping his exhibitionist
administrations to rest his forehead against Jimin’s.

“ I would baby, I swear it.” He had replied, and even then, Jimin lying on what he supposed was
their bed, too tired to actually open his eyes, the violin singing beside him, he knows he would
have let Taehyung, that it wasn't just a spur of the moment thing. And things like that chill him to
the bone. How much control a person can surrender to another.

Taehyung pressed their lower bodies closer, taking his teeth to Jimin’s neck, biting the flesh,
insistent of marking him silly and high off his mouth.

“ Mine.” He rasped over the skin, Jimin absolutely fucked the moment he had bared his neck to
Taehyung. “ Mine. Mine. Only mine.”

“ Yours Tae Tae, o-ah,” Jimin’s moan when Taehyung had started pinching his chest in earnest
had been loud. “ H-home Taehyung, gotta get home- now.” With the help of filthy promises in
Taehyung’s ears, voiced through a string of sloppy kisses and ‘I’m sorry’s’ against his lips, Jimin
got Taehyung into the back seats. His legs barely fit into the car before Jimin shut the door much
softer than he would have liked, allowing himself a few whines. He leaned against the car, sighing
before he gathered enough sense to dispel his headspace.

Behind the wheel, arousal pressing against his trousers, Jimin’s eyes were half closed as muttering
arose from the back.

“ So fucking scared without you…” If he had any energy and wasn't half asleep still, Jimin would
have laughed at last night's predicament, sitting in that car, Taehyung’s complaints making his
eyes brim with tears of shared pain while he was half- hard, driving at least forty above the speed
limit.

The violin was solemn as he thought of everything Taehyung had voiced, crying in the backseat,
his little sobs calming Jimin’s headspace as he started to cry too.

“ Thought they'd stopped already- that-that- that I would be okay if you weren't there.”

Jimin thought his sobs might have been louder than Taehyung’s then, biting into his fingers as his
other hand, slippery with tears and saliva, gripped the wheel. “I’m so sorry baby, Taehyung I’m
so fucking sorry. I-“

“ D-dad was there too.” A chill had run through Jimin last night at Taehyung's words,
remembering how his sown obbing had ceased the moment Taehyung had said. “ W-w-with the
belt, I- I thought it was real. It felt s-s-“ His voice had cracked. Jimin pulled over, swerving in the
middle of the fucking highway.

He was in the backseat, taking Taehyung into his arms before Taehyung had even finished his
sentence. “ so real- Jimin he was hitting me- I-“

“ Shhhh…” Jimin was sitting with his back to the left-hand door, his legs spread, Taehyung
whimpering between his knees. “ He’s dead Taehyung. He's not gonna come back baby, he’s
gone.”

“ Yeh?” Taehyung whispered against Jimin’s chest, school uniform smothered in little patches of
tears.

“ Yeh Taetae.” Jimin reassured with a hand petting his hair, the tiny mewls reminding him how
much Taehyung liked having his hair played with.

“-please?” Taehyung had left his embrace, kneeling in front of him, having to crouch down, his
hair pressed against the roof. Jimin hadn't quite heard his request. But by the blush on his tear
stained cheeks, he didn't have to think far to guess what it is. “ Hm?” Taehyung scooted closer,
taking one of Jimin’s hands and prying his fingers open one by one, before putting it around his
throat. “P-p-please.”

“ I need to hear you say it Taehyung.” Jimin had replied, his heart pounding, hands sweaty and
the cars flying past he glass behind Taehyung, unknowing of the milliseconds of cosmic treason
the ones behind them would bear witness to.

“ Need you inside.” Taehyung had begged, stripping in a series of uncoordinated movements,
spreading his legs as Jimin pressed his lips against his, and they stayed there, unmoving. Because
they were about to commit that cosmic treason right then.

That's what it was, every time one was inside the other. The alliance of two boys who were
wrecking the balance of the world that was trying to ruin them so dearly. Only to realise that in
each other's eyes, they were always going to be completely, seamlessly, imperfectly perfect.

It hurts Taehyung, he always talks about the pain afterwards. How long it takes to dissipate into
pleasure and how pathetic it is that he cries every time. But he was already crying and already in
so much fucking pain that once Jimin gave him what he needed, euphoria encompassed him
whole.

“ I'm sorry.” Jimin whispered into his neck while he thrusted. It was slow, sweet. They're making
love, the entire philosophical purpose of why this act exists. To express what one cannot through
speech, through submission of body, mind and trust. “ I love you Taehyung.” Jimin reassures, his
voice barely hear over Taehyung’s whines. “ Only you. No one compares. No one comes fucking
close I- I-”

The body beneath his spasmed, Taehyung’s quiet screams high-pitched and ragged. He was
screaming Jimin’s name, over and over again, along with ‘fuck’ and ‘ god’ so haphazardly that
they might as well have been his middle and last names.

“ Inside- come inside- I-“ After that it truly was a blur, Jimin letting go, marking Taehyung’s
insides, moaning his name, thighs trembling and weak. They had fallen asleep like that, sewed
together with blood, sweat, tears and come.

Jimin remembered driving Taehyung home a little after six, popping aspirin into his mouth,
stripping him of his come- stained clothes and tucking him into bed before getting ready to leave
again.

He wanted to stay next to Taehyung, hold him close and stain the sheets for the thousandth time,
make sure he knew that Jimin was his.

But Jungkook was probably sitting on the bed in his private V.VIP room at the hospital, without a
change of clothes, with not a cent to his name to pay the bill. So, Jimin had peeled himself
from Taehyung’s naked form, clambering into the shower to wash away the sex and the pain.
He had taken the Porsche, which was honestly the most inconspicuous thing he could find in the
mansion garages.

Jungkook was asleep when Jimin arrived. And- fuck, it was obvious from his face, red against the
pillow, still in his gown, that he had cried. Jimin carried his limp body out, flashing his gold
membership card to the nurses who scanned it as Jimin said some shit about hurrying up that he
doesn't really remember.

He must have returned to Taehyung after that, if the sound of the violin is anything to go by. Jimin
finally decided to open his eyes. He was struck by the sheer clarity of the piece once he did, and
the invasion of flowers that blurred his vision. There were rips beneath his hands where he could
delve into the bed.

Jimin sighed, stretching. The fabric beneath him was actually leather. Pungent, tattered leather
sticking to his skin as he scrambled up, wiping his eyes with the back of his hands.

“ Tae-“ Of course his name was the first thing that came out of his mouth, though the ripped sofa
had told him very clearly that he was, in fact, not home.

“ Where the fuck-"

Oh. Oh.

He was definitely not home.

Jungkook stood beside the sofa, a violin swaying in his hands. He was blocking a stream of
sunlight, the bow dancing in his hands, calm but proactive like the waves. The light was creating a
halo above his head, gold outlining his body. The wavering dust made the light seem as though it
was moving, moulding around Jungkook’s shape, his torso shirtless, scars rippling with every
stroke of the bow.

He looked like a god. He played like a god.

Jimin would know.

Being denied to touch Taehyung during theatre visits, the boy mesmerised by ballets and
orchestras, had taught Jimin much about the beauty of such things. Taehyung claimed his moans
were prettier than any of the sounds the orchestra could boast, the trembling of his thighs more
beautiful than the last movement of swan lake. A touch to Taehyung’s thigh one time had
unraveled into Jimin being fucked against the cloak room's doors, his screams heard over the
sound of the live orchestra, them both stumbling into the theatre after having missed the entire first
three movements. Since then, touching during the show was off limits. Jimin who's rarely denied
by Taehyung, if ever, has henceforth learnt to pay attention to why exactly this was beautiful.

And Jungkook… Jungkook played more beautifully than anyone Taehyung had ever taken him to
see. His eyes were still closed, not having realised that Jimin was watching him yet.

The notes sprang from the violin, but seemed like they were actually just hyper extensions of
Jungkook’s soul, bound to his fingers. He was completely in control, reeling the sound out of the
instrument slowly, letting the crescendos accumulate inside the body before letting them sing. It
was one of the most notable moments of Jimin’s life, watching Jungkook play for the first time.
Because he'd heard this piece many times before, in all of its different forms. But this time- this
time the piece penetrated him. Because it was the story of Kim Taehyung.

He understood why this piece meant so much to Taehyung then. Because it said what he wanted
to but couldn't. And Jungkook was playing the piece how Taehyung heard it. An auditory
biography of a boy who's back told the story of his father’s abuse. A father who had turned a boy
who loved to paint with oil into one who bathed in blood. A father who had bred Taehyung for an
empire of crime he had not wanted.

The piece told the story of Taehyung all alone in the family’s mansion, sitting on the steps of the
grand, spiralling staircase, surrounded by maids and guards who did not know what to do with a
boy sobbing for a mother he did not have. A maid for a mother whom his father had exiled from
the house as soon as she birthed Taehyung. Because no one was to know that the heir to the
empire was a maid’s son.

Jimin was crying when Jungkook finally opened his eyes, the piece coming to an end. He was
breathless, doe-eyed and the violin nearly slipping out of his hand when he saw Jimin crying.

“ W-what did I do?” He was kneeling in front of him, the violin settled on the ground, bow still in
hand as Jimin smiled.

“ H-how long have you been playing for? W-who the hell taught you how to play like that? That
was-“ Jimin was rambling, the piece having set his soul ablaze.

“ Jimin, Jimin, Jimin,” Jungkook said hurriedly, shyly taking the black- haired boys hands into
his own. “ That- that was the first time I've ever touched a violin.”

So it turned out... Jeon Jungkook, thief, orphan, killer, amongst a hundred other disgraceful
names… was a damned prodigy.

Present

Jungkook laughs, slipping out of memory lane, his apartment cold around him as the trill flutters
beneath his hand.

Jungkook hears Jimin’s feet straining the squeaky and admittedly unsafe metal stair case below his
window, the memories dissipating with the sound. His heart jumps and falls. It’s been weeks,
maybe even a month and Jungkook’s blood literally thrums as he rises. Jimin doesn’t even knock,
knowing the staircase isn’t his stealthiest friend or ally in conspicuity. Jungkook’s bow halts mid-
flight, fingers curling when he hears the footsteps cease, the unfinished note hanging abandoned
and solemn in the dingy, moonlit hole of his apartment.

“ I know you’re there Guk, I need you.” His voice trembles behind the door and Jungkook’s
already pathetic resolve shatters, fumbling with the instrument as he places it less than gently on
the window-sill. The door flies open and he finds Jimin staggering pitifully into his arms, looking
up at him with glassy eyes.

“ Kiss me.” Jimin pleads into his chest.

“ I-I thought I wasn’t allowed.” Jungkook says as Jimin clings to him and he feels delirious with
Jimin’s scent enveloping him whole.

“ You’re not.” Jimin confirms, leaving he warmth of Jungkook’s chest as he looks up. “I’m not.”
Even as he says it he’s moving closer and Jungkook’s heart hurts, hurts so badly because he wants
to. God knows he wants to. But he can’t. They can’t.

“ Jimin I-I can't. You- you know we can't. Taehyung…” At his name Jimin stiffens as if to
remember, as if he could fool Jungkook that he ever forgot about him when he was the reason he
ever even came to Jungkook in the first place.
“ Something… do something-anything.” Jimin asks with golden hair curtaining his face, head
hanging low and he still reeks of sex, marks of nothing but consensual ownership blooming on his
neck. But Jungkook still doesn’t really have to be told twice. Thumbs fluttering against the too-
sharp pane of his cheekbones, he envelopes Jimin with haste, taking all of him in at once. The
whispering of his hair against Jungkook’s forehead, the gentle motion of his fingers mimicking
pizzicato at Jimin’s nape.

“ I love him Jungkook.” Jimin murmurs against his chest and the violinist is trying so damn hard to
keep his heart at bay. It’s squeezing and struggling against a cage guarded by a man who had
more blood on his hands than water, a man who killed for joy and yet could make the one in front
of him putty in his hands. It hurts. His heart hurts in that telling way that hearts do, when they're
beating for someone who's very breath is encompassed by another.

“ I know angel. I know.” He says, because he does.

“ So much. S-s-so much and I thought it wouldn't get worse. That it couldn't get worse, you
know?” He asks even though he doesn’t really want an answer. “But it does.” Jimin cries into his
chest. “Every time I look at him when I walk out the door, every time he touches me” Jungkook
can’t help the wince that reverberates through Jimin’s body too. “ It just- I just fall even more.
How is that… I love him so much- so much I can't fucking breathe sometimes. H-how is it even
possible?” He asks, head creeping up from Jungkook’s chest. His expression is confused,
eyebrows furrowed and little knots wavering in the pane of his forehead. Jungkook sighs when
their eyes meet, and the smaller’s expression softens. Because Jungkook knew first hand how that
was possible, didn't he?

Because when Jimin walked through his door tonight tonight, Jungkook looked at him and the
only thing he could think was-

“I love you.” It's too late to take it back. He's said it before, of course he has. How could he not…
when it was Jimin?

Jungkook starts shaking every time he says it out loud, and Jimin’s crying just intensifies, like it is
doing now.

“ Don't just… say it like that.” Jimin pleads, unpeeling himself from Jungkook’s towering form
that seems far too large now for the fifteen-year-old, lanky boy in that rotten alley.

Jungkook doesn't let him go, presses him into himself again, burying his mop of dirty brown hair
into Jimin’s neck.

“ Just because Taehyung doesn't say it-“ Jimin flinches. “Can’t say it.” Jungkook corrects
reluctantly, “For whatever self- indulgent reason he can't tell you, doesn't mean I won't.” He
finishes with a hot breath on Jimin’s neck, wet lips dragging across the bruises Taehyung had left.
“ I love you.” He says again and he knows he's overstepping their boundaries when he parts his
lips, dragging his tongue against Jimin’s neck, licking at the salt while leaving open mouthed
kisses on his flesh. The shivers that tremble beneath his lips aren't as satisfying as he thought they
would be, they only remind him of every part of Jimin that he can't have.

“ Let’s sleep Jimin.” A deep chuckle reverberates through Jungkook as he literally feels the scowl
frame Jimin’s lips, his chin pressed against Jungkook’s mop of hair. “Jimin hyung…” This reels a
sigh from him, Jungkook rising from his position, untucking his head from the juncture of Jimin’s
neck. “ Let’s go to bed.”

Jimin always looks so small at night, Jungkook thinks as he drags him away to bed. He feels like a
teenager like this, unpeeling the engraved jacket from Jimin’s shoulders, leaving his arms bare in
thin, revealing silk that drew attention to the choker circling his neck.

“ The things you wear…” Jungkook murmurs as they scramble into the bed, Jungkook’s violin
long forgotten on the window sill. He's careful not to touch his neck as his fingers waver over the
pink satin.

“Taehyung likes it.” Jimin replies nonchalantly as he reaches over Jungkook, his body arching as
his fingers grasp onto the white shirt thrown over the headboard.

“ And you think I don't?” Jungkook asks, an edge to his tone that Jimin is too tired to notice.He
looks away as a silver of skin invades his vision, Jimin’s bare flesh caressing the sheets as
Jungkook's white shirt envelopes him whole, dragging him into the confinement of their little bed.

“ Always sleep so well with you.” Jimin voices, already half way to a delirium that would be filled
with Taehyung, as it always was, as he always was. Both figuratively and literally in the way that
made Jungkook’s skin crawl.

He looks younger than Jungkook like this. Golden hair coloured nearly white beneath the
moonlight that streamed through the broken windows. His body so much smaller than
Jungkook’s, tucked into his chest, lips pressed against his neck, eyes fluttering open and closed as
sleep over takes him.

Jungkook presses light kisses against his closed lids and lets the bedding swallow him. Senses
enveloped with Jimin, fully at his control even while he slept, unaware that he was
lighting lanterns in Jungkook’s soul so bright that they burnt. Unaware that every time Jungkook
slept, he dreamt of him. Of all the firsts that Jungkook experienced with Jimin. Like the first kiss
that Jimin had asked Taehyung’s permission for, because he had said he wanted the first person
who kissed Jungkook to truly love him, whole and sincere. That was the first and last time he had
said, because Jungkook deserved at least that much.

So, he'd kissed Jungkook, on his eighteenth birthday, and Jungkook had finally found home. After
eighteen years of foster homes and families who had left a map of abuse across his skin, he had
found home in a boy who used to have black hair and cheeks that he kissed shyly once in a blue
moon. The black hair was gone now and the cheeks were replaced with sharp, sullen bones but
god didn’t he love Jimin still.

He falls asleep like that, Jungkook does. Dreaming of all of their firsts, of Jimin who was light in
an alley of blood and black.

Of Jimin, who found him when Jungkook killed a man.

 Ruined Boys

Three Years Prior

There's blood on his hands, that's the first thing he realises when he opens his eyes. The second is
the the absence of light from the man’s beady, dark eyes when his fingers had buried deep into
bone. The third is that maybe that very light plucked from the eyes of his victim was stolen by the
sky, given to the stars to compensate for making the moon shine brighter than all of them.

He thinks this as the lights overhead burn his glassy eyes, far brighter than the flickering lights of
The Music Room, where he should ideally be before dawn. But if the slippery asphalt beneath his
tattered trainers was anything to go by, he wasn't where he should be. The relentless honking of
vehicles drearily gives way to the static hum of broken street lamps and Jungkook is walking
further and further away from the corpse of the man he had left behind.

Red neon starburst licks into his vision as he stumbles, knees scraping the ground with a sound not
much different to the one the man had made as Jungkook’s hands had sent him crippled into the
asphalt. The incessant clicking of stilettos doesn't warn him as he lays there, lip split and mouth
hanging open, dry and exhaling the stale stench of tar.

Giggling and the slapping of skin does issue a quiet groan from him, head craning painfully
upwards in reluctant, curious defeat.

And that's when he finally realises.

Jungkook is in a bad part of town. The bad part of town. The strip of alleyways shadowed by
bright lights that a fifteen year old really shouldn't be lying down on, unprotected save for the
bruised knuckles irritated by the hissing of asphalt against his torn flesh.

The red-light district. Where crime is liberated, whispering through the too short skirts of women
and the shuffling of bills burnt on the euphoria of sex, needles and self- indulgence. It's a bit
worrying, how little he cares about his current position. How little his current predicament of lying
ruined and bloodied in the bad part of town mattered.

He fits right in, Jungkook ponders, lifting his scarlet hands from the ground into his line of vision.
The characteristic red hue of the district seems pale in comparison to the fresh liquid marking his
hands. It's so bright and copious even in the darkness, as if he has washed his hands in it. Bathed
in it if his wet clothes are anything to go by. And in that moment, surrounded by crime and ruined
bodies, people conditioned to a life of destruction through the most probable root of childhood
neglect, Jungkook has never felt more at home.

Ah, this is where I belong.

In a bubble of misplaced, unclaimed destitutes and whores, Jungkook feels finally at peace. In a
few days, his rotting carcass will be preyed on by scavengers and there'll be no more of him left
for the world to twist and bend at its will.

A good thought.

The chuckle that is forced through his lungs nearly makes him whine. Jeon Jungkook doesn't
remember ever whining. If you whined, it was usually for your mother, because you're denied, or
in bed.
in bed.

Jungkook doesn't remember his mother, he doesn't remember ever having one. He'd never wanted
anything in the first place to ever to be denied, he didn't have that kind of luxury. Maybe death, at
the darkest of times. But it should have to come naturally, because for all the thing that Jungkook
was: killer, liar, orphan, thief, one thing he wasn't was a coward.

Jungkook hadn't even kissed anyone.So, he lies through the pain, through the red lights and blood
on his hands, unflinchingly, with dry eyes and steady hands that had remained un-shaking even as
he beat a man to death.

In what he thinks are his last hours, Jungkook thinks of the stories behind his scars. The one on his
left cheek he had received deservingly after he had dared to touch the mysterious box that Tommy
used to take out every night before shut-eye time. Jungkook didn't have one of those boxes.

It was only natural for orphans to be conscious of all the things they don't have, even more so
when Tommy looked at his box like That. The way Jungkook’s eyes light up on Sundays, ice
cream day. And how a wistful look would come upon his face as he surveyed the contents of the
box, a look of longing that Jungkook only associated with a malnourished child's lust for second
servings.

And in his book, nothing beat ice cream.

It was inevitable, the prying for the magical box.But when he had finally opened it, it was just...
photos? Of a woman and a man and a child in between who he could tell was Tommy from his
unruly blonde hair. A little brown teddy bear that looked new if not for the little patch behind its
ear that Jungkook remembers Tommy having asked one of the care staff to sow for him.

Jungkook was... underwhelmed, to say the least. Though his curiosity hadn't exactly been
satisfied, Tommy had still come into the room and pushed him into the small clothing pegs in the
corner of the room with peeling yellow paint.

That was his first ever scar, when he was five.

A year later, Jungkook finally learnt the word family when the kids at school mocked him for not
having it.In the midst of something that resembled a pity party but wasn't, seeing as Jungkook
didn't know any better to pity himself in the first place, the red hue flickers. Maybe this is it, he
thinks.

Because he was sure he was in far more pain that he allowed himself to feel and he was in a part
of town where one just does not saunter into as he did, and expect to make it out alive.

He’s awaiting death when the red light completely disappears, and maybe rightfully so, because
there's an angel standing in front if it. The looming shadow creeping over his form is suddenly
bright, and maybe Jungkook wasn’t as much of a sinner as he had been forced to believe by every
passing soul that laid eyes on him. Maybe hell wasn’t his final destination and the angels had
taken their time finding him, just to bring him to this one moment. This one blissful frame of an
angel standing above him, banishing the passive-aggressive red light with a halo of obsidian hair
and white cheeks.

“ Where are your wings?” Jungkook asks, because what else do you ask a wingless angel when
you’re dead?

Right?

But the angel’s face morphs into one of disbelief and Jungkook realises he’s fucked up and is
definitely not dead when a barrel is shoved into his vision and a heel is dug into his shoulder.
“Get up before I shove a fucking bullet in your mouth."

Not angel.

Jungkook doesn’t register standing, being thrown into the alley wall, experiencing the very same
fate he had issued his victim hours ago. A distant crack brings him to consciousness and only
when he tries to move his shoulder does he realise it had been him.

Not dead.

“ What are you-“ The not angel’s voice spits into his face but then stops, his eyes travel
downwards and he steps back calculatedly, his gun still in Jungkook’s line of vision with a lazy
but practiced aim. He’s looking at Jungkook’s hands with a gaze indecipherable and cold.

“ Take your shirt off.” The angel suddenly orders, stepping back. Jungkook’s fingers clasp onto
the hem of his shirt almost unconsciously at the imperious tone, and then stops. The angel cocks
up an eyebrow, his lazy grip on the gun remoulding.

“ Listen, you're honestly the most beautiful guy I've ever laid my eyes upon.” Jungkook starts in a
jumble of put-together words that are far too coherent for the warmth that's suddenly spreading
through his tongue. “ I wouldn't mind- you really don't have to force it- I've never even- you don't
have-“ There was a barrel at his neck, the nuzzle burrowing into the skin above one of those major
artery’s Jungkook doesn't know the name of.

Anyone else would be scared. Jungkook should ideally start the acceptable mantra of: “ Please ”,
“ Don't kill me.”, and whatever else was the normative response to having a fucking bullet
launcher piercing into your flesh. But instead, the only thing he could think about at that moment-

“ You have beautiful eyes.” The angel is taken aback, the pressure on Jungkook’s neck dissipating
and he has this sudden dirty urge for it to return.

“ Are you off your fucking meds kid?”

Damn, he's hot when he's angry.

“ W-what? N-“

“ I'm not gonna fucking rape you!” He says, clearly offended that Jungkook would even register
the idea. After fifteen orphaned years, it's the only thing his mind had suggested. “ What the
fuck?”

“ I’m sorry I didn't-“

“ For fuck’s…” There are small, compact hands clasping into his shoulders, clawing at the fabric
until rings of skin around his stomach feel the hot, sticky summer air. “Sake.” His bloody shirt is
ripped from his head, catching on his ears as his bare spine collides with the wall, splinters of rock
cutting into the expanse of his scarred flesh.

He almost forgets the angel is even there. For after the distant echo of the fabric rippling onto the
asphalt, it's silent. Jungkook opens his eyes, the angel’s quiet breathing washing into his ears as he
blinks the starburst away.

The angel is looking at him in a way Jungkook is undecided about. His eyes are shifting down the
expanse of his abdomen, pausing on every scar, his expression indecipherable except for the little
knots ghosting over his forehead.
 “ It's worse...Who-” The angel doesn't finish his sentence, and Jungkook feels exposed, the wind
hissing against old scars, prying through the scar tissue, opening old wounds.

“ Gang shit?” The angel asks, replied to with a shake of Jungkook’s hair. “ Parents?”

“ Don't have them.”

The angel raises his eyebrows at this, then his gaze shifts back to Jungkook’s bloody hands,
scrutinising the blood matted in his hair.

“Was it your first time?” He asks, and maybe Jungkook was crazy to think that his voice was
softer, that his gaze was warmer, that he was slowly starting to look like the angel he had first
assumed he was.

“Choking a man to death?” Jungkook asks.

“Yeh kid.” The angel says, his hand brightening as his fingers waver over his phone screen.

“Yes.”

“Got rid of the body?” The angel inquires, his eyes shifting between the phone and Jungkook,
cocking his head to the side as he leans on one leg. A frustrated sigh leaves his lips as he takes the
gun to the nape of his neck, scratching it with the barrel.

“Shit-” He looks up at once. Jungkook bites on his tongue, sheepishly looking down at his tattered
shoes that don't really fit him anymore. The angel's smirk turns to a blank expression as the boy’s
gaze follows Jungkook’s. Jungkook doesn’t see the flash of pain that crosses his eyes.

“The body kid, did you get rid of it?”

“No, no I just- I think I just…I…” Jungkook hadn't even thought about getting caught. He would
be lying if he said he'd just happened to stumble upon this district. It was a subconscious decision,
knowing he'd be given an easy death. A way out, without being denounced as a coward.

“Where?” The angel questions.

“Next to the old hospital down the road, where they're building the new theatre.” Jungkook says
just before catching the angel’s eyes tied to his exposed arms. The darkness surrounding them,
corrupted with neon lights like a mirage of effervescence, is the angel’s good friend. But even as it
tries to hide his rosy cheeks, Jungkook feels himself smiling through broken bones and potential
death at gunpoint.

“That’s gang territory kid, everyone knows that. You aren't supposed to spill blood somewhere
that isn't yours.” Jungkook watches as the angel deliberates, his fingers ghosting over the screen,
flitting over what Jungkook can make out to be his contact list.

A disgruntled sigh leaves his lips before his finger finally hits the screen. The phone is pressed
against his ear, his piercings clinking against the screen as he waits, counting his fingers in what
seems to be a ritualistic practicality.

“Need a favor.” He rasps against the phone in dialect that issues the spiders of nostalgia to start a
crawling spree across Jungkook’s bare core. They begin to decimate, dissolving into his skin,
turning his blood into a whirlpool of discomfort and… longing.

“ Not me no… what?” The angel looks at Jungkook, his eyes doing a once over that leaves
blooms of scalding heat everywhere their gaze touches. “I don't think so man.” He says, unsure. “
Is that the same price you give to everyone else Jay?” He exhales a frustrated sigh. “Taehyung?”
He questions, his eyes flitting between his own shoes-spurring debris from the ground like a
restless bull-and Jungkook. “No Hoseok, I'll tell him myself.” A few more words are exchanged,
perhaps slightly angrier than before, but Jungkook is far too transfixed to listen.

With the horizontals slits exposing the angel’s thighs, rippling with every movement of his foot
against the asphalt. The shadows playful as they dance across his face, the murky light of the
phone colouring the pane of his cheek.

Wait a second.

Had he been that close the entire time?

“Am I really that pretty?” Their lips are only breaths away, the phone replaced in the angel’s
denim pockets. Jungkook is staring at his lips openly, can't stop for the life of him even as the
amused expression on the boy’s face intensifies.

“W-w-what?” Jungkook whispers, knowing that he's sporting the dumbest expression and he can't
even find the damned will to be less obvious.

“I said,” The angel emphasises, small fingers suddenly whispering along Jungkook’s breastbone,
climbing up towards the back of his head. “Burgers or pizza?” Close. He's so fucking close.

The angel doesn't retreat as Jungkook listens to his breathing; the steady intonations seem heavily
practised, unnaturally calm. Maybe Jungkook knows because that's how he used to breathe at
night. Pressed against the corner of the room, nose touching the peeling paint, hoping that would
be the night it finally ended. That's how you breathe when you don't really have any breath left to
exhale. When your heart is beating so fast that it starts numbing your chest, your rib cages too tight
and it hurts.

In Jungkook’s case it had been because it hurt more to breathe than to suffocate. Because it took
so much fucking effort. To breathe revenge and hope one day you let it all out for good.

But in the angel's…

He finally retreats from his position, uncurling his neck from Jungkook’s ear. Once their eyes
meet, Jungkook has to stop himself from choking.

The angelic smile is an oxymoronic curse, flanking eyes that pour into Jungkook’s own with
nothing less than insatiable desire, his tongue sliding over his lips as he gives Jungkook a
suggestive smile.

“ W-hat?”

“ Gonna get that for you on a shirt.” The angel offers, chuckling. His eyes disappear into crescents
of beautiful, folded cream skin. “ So you don't have to keep on saying it.” The angel clarifies
before looking away from Jungkook, towards the mouth of the alley.

“Steak it is then… And here is ou-” He resolutes, just as the roar of an engine deafens his last few
words. It's a blur, the motorbike parking next to the angel, a duffle bag thrown in his arms. The
rider’s helmet is removed, revealing a blonde, lanky boy that looks older than them both. Him and
the angel share a few words, Jungkook raising an eyebrow at the most love struck, goofiest smile
on the biker’s face as the angel thanks him for the delivery.
“Thanks, Joonie.” Jungkook tries not to laugh as the recipient of the angel’s dashing smile blushes
a deep pink, his hair falling over his face as he averts his eyes.

“ I'm older than you Jimin.” He says shyly, scratching the back of his neck. Jimin, Jungkook
thinks, rolling the name from the roof of his mouth, grazing it over his teeth, tasting it for the first
time. “D-don't call me that.” The newcomer says with no real conviction behind his voice.

“You know you love it Namjoon.” Jimin replies smugly and the latter, that fucker doesn't even try
to hide how true Jimin’s words are. He gives Jungkook a once over, Jimin a sheepish smile with
twinkling eyes and deep, honestly endearing dimples, and leaves the helmet on the bike seat
before retreating.

“Please wear it yeh?” He asks in a tone that tells Jungkook Jimin most definitely would do no such
thing.

“Yeh Joon, I will.” Jimin promises, biting his lip as he salutes Namjoon off, who staggers
backwards, lips glued somewhere that definitely wasn't Jimin’s eyes. Jungkook waits for the steps
to cease, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. He knows exactly how big that makes
them look, that his veins are almost too visible like this, muscles he hasn't willingly packing
bulging across his chest. His pants are hanging low on his hips, the bruises splattered across his
stomach like washed-out paint over his abs.

From his rattling kneeled on the ground, its Jimin’s turn to choke as he stands up, a bundle of
black and brown in his hands as his eyes shift from Jungkook’s arms to his face.

“Here.” Jimin rasps, his voice thick and restrained, coughing as he balances the clothes in one
arm, hauling a bottle of water out with the other hand, throwing it to Jungkook. “Wash up.” He
says.

“W-“

“ If you say what again I swear to fuck-“ The skittering of the bottle cap on the asphalt is followed
by a stream of water hitting Jungkook’s head almost immediately as they both try to hide shy
boyish smiles from the other. His bloody hands are washed away when he cleans his blood-matted
hair, pearls of red water dribbling down his torso. The guffaw that leaves his mouth leaves Jimin
slightly fuming.

“ What?” Jimin asks, offended to be left out of the joke. Jungkook carries on laughing as the water
washes away his sins, circling his neck with clean hands as he drags the increments off.

“ It’s just…” He looks up, catching Jimin’s demanding gaze before speaking again. “ What the
hell are you even doing?”

“Excuse me?” Jungkook stops himself from laughing yet again. Jimin’s blowing a stray piece of
black hair from his face, his lips fluttering with the motion. Little knots are burrowed into his
forehead and he looked positively mad, and utterly delectable.

“ You don't even know me.” Jungkook finally says, a towel slapped onto his torso as he discards
the empty bottle on the ground. He's wiping himself down, the white towel staining a murky red
with each dab. “I just- I just killed someone.” Jimin scoffs, holding his hand out for the towel
which he bags before piling the change of clothes in Jungkook’s arms, the touch of his fingers on
Jungkook’s bicep tingles even as the clothes begin to ripple down his skin.

He's never worn something so soft in his life.

The brown cashmere whispers softly against his scars, lulling the irritated wounds spanning his
now covered arms. The material of his old pants suddenly feel far stickier, the rips far larger than
they were before. The feeling dissipates along with the sliding of the material along his thighs as
he removes them, leaving him standing pant-less in front of a slightly red-faced Jimin who
abashedly throws the remaining footwear and jeans to him. He has a look in his eyes which
Jungkook decides he likes, as Jimin tries not to stare when his thighs find difficulty with fitting
safely into the material, whereas the waist is too large for him.

“Holy fuck…” Jimin whispers unconsciously as Jungkook takes his old belt from the ground,
make-shift buttons pressed into the fake leather, chuckling.

“ Yeh…can't find a pair that ever fit everywhere you know.” Jungkook replies, deciding to
discard his old belt instead, throw everything he owned on the ground, taking the hem of the
trousers in his hands and rolling the waist outwards

“Jesus fuck, just get on.” Jimin scowls while taking the helmet in his hands, muttering a few more
words which are too muffled for Jungkook to hear. He’s expectantly looking at Jungkook while
he holds the helmet in the latter’s direction.

“Why are you doing this?” Jungkook asks even as he takes the helmet, clean of red now, twirling
it lethargically in bony hands. Jimin motions for him to get on tiredly, running a small, ringed hand
through his hair as he sighs.

“You think I know?” Jimin asks, doubt palpably sending the last word astray, shivering and
cracking on the last syllable. Jungkook feels the leather seats beneath him, his arms hesitant,
wavering next to him. The angel’s arms snake around his and positions them around his waist. He
clenches his hands to stop himself from prying into the ripples of muscle at a fingertips distance.
Jungkook scoots closer, tendrils of black hair tickling his nose.

He smells like flowers.

And something that momentarily stuns Jungkook, his head heavy, falling forward onto Jimin’s
shoulder. The bones beneath his head stiffen, Jungkook delirious as the smell yanks him, hard.

It-i-it smells like the ocean.

Like the shore unbridled by the smell of smoky seafood, untouched by people in the infant hours
of dawn, the water an ephemeral reflection of the pink sky. Jimin smells soft and utterly forceful
until Jungkook feels himself choking because-

Because Jimin smells of home.

“ You remind me of someone.” The soft words rip Jungkook out of his sensory oblivion, his
hands tightening around Jimin’s waist. He coughs a few times to rid himself of thoughts that were
far too poetic for a boy who'd never been read bed time stories, and flips the shutter of the helmet
he doesn't remember putting on upwards.

“Where are we going?” Jungkook asks just before the roar of an engine cuts through the wind,
Jimin’s body going tangibly relaxed beneath his touch. “You race, don't you?”

“To eat,” Jimin answers, his fingers restless on the handles. “And yeh, I do.” His voice is wistful
when he speaks, maybe surprised. The bike beneath him moves then, it’s a stark black, blending
into the sheet of red filtered darkness with its self- indulgent scarlet highlights.

Jimin’s woollen jacket is warm beneath him, reminding him of how long it had been since he had
last slept on a proper bed.
The city sprints beside them, the myriad of lights trying to keep up with the motor in a hurry of
flashes and twinkling jogs. There's shouting in front of him, Jimin’s voice muffled by the rushing
wind painting Jungkook’s pinks cheek and numbing his hands, however warm the rider’s jacket
may be.

“ Name kid, do you have one?” Jungkook’s adrenaline is running rampant, setting ablaze to the
very skin that the wind nips and pries at, trying to find an opening to swallow him whole with ice.
He's burning cold and freezing hot, the city that has always lethargically creeped by, everyday
more dreary than the last, is now at his command. Well, at Jimin’s at least. And for now, bodies
flush to one another on a monster of a bike, they are one. They can make the city go as fast or
slow as they will, and Jungkook is overcome with a surge of power. Of wanting an orphan often
forgets after the age of eight, when they realise no one is there to quench it.

“ Jungkook-” He screams over the thrashing of the unsteady wind, whirling around them as if in
argument. Because it was happening all over again. The balance was breaking, the equilibrium of
pain and happiness was quivering, trembling, shaking between their two bodies, where a lost
universe is expanding, forcing its way beneath two ruined boys that are going to ruin the balance,
the static quality of a world governed by nature, just as much as it has ruined them. “ Jeon
Jungkook.” The orphan says, arms tightening around the other;s body, inhaling a rush of air that
burns his insides. It feels exhilarating. Jungkook feels alive.

“ Park Jimin.” Jungkook smiles at his cracking voice, defying the howling wind as their voices
compete in what's honestly a hopeless battle, but Jungkook hears him anyway. And once again he
bites down on his tongue, to stop himself from telling him what a beautiful name he has.

And yet the chuckle that rumbles beneath him, making Jimin’s muscles rippled beneath his touch,
tells him he might have let the comment slip anyway.

Jimin turns his head towards him and their faces are inches away; it's dangerous and he's not
looking at the road. It isn't busy anyway, the sheet of asphalt stretching out before them, the road
burning beneath the tires. Looking at him with puffy eyes, smiling at him with lips that Jungkook
wouldn't mind taking away every shred of innocence he has left.

Their lips are nearly touching, Jimin still isn't looking at the road and Jungkook nudges him with
his head, their noses brushing as Jimin laughs, returning his gaze to the road, heat blooming in his
cheeks.

Jungkook feels the bike slowing down suddenly, there's no progression or deceleration, like he's
being pulled under water. Jimin is shouting, there's suddenly grass beneath him, wet pearls
seeping into his skin, a lot like the sensation of blood wetting his clothes again. Something is
hurting, there's grabby hands reaching for his clothes, sirens screeching in his ears.

" Blood pressure... Internal bleeding... Possible damage to the head... "

But he's happy.

For the first time Jungkook is happy, and maybe a little bit infatuated, falling in love with an angel
with a halo of black smoke. Soft brown eyes and a dialect rasping above him are his lullaby into a
darkness that isn't as cold, and looks a lot like the strands of black hair he'd like to bury his face in
sometime.

“Jungkook, stay with me.”

Jungkook smiles before closing his eyes.

As if he's ever had a choice. As if he would ever leave.
 New Boys
Chapter Summary

Poetic porn, blood and plot.

In that order.

The meeting is dragging. Associates and henchmen alike can see how restless Taehyung is
getting. His fingers thrum on the wooden surface of the table, a shiver catching the attention of the
man sat beside him.

“ Sir?” Taehyung dismisses him with a flitting motion of the hand, turning to the table as a sign to
continue.

His little escapade might have been forgotten by his associates but Taehyung sits there, blunt
fingernails digging into the material of his pants as he remembers the last time he'd been in this
room.

It's the conference room at the mansion where all business meetings are held. Jimin and Taehyung
had moved out of the mansion a year ago, relocating to the penthouse. Too many memories, Jimin
had said. Good and bad. The best and the worst.

“ Gets a bit too much sometimes.”

They still come back regularly though, how could they not? When the dining room is the first
place Taehyung had ever seen Jimin, sitting all dolled up next to his father, the chair enveloping
his little form. How could they not when upstairs laid Taehyung’s childhood bedroom, which had
inevitably become Jimin’s too by association, more than his room back at the Park family’s own
mansion ever was.

A bedroom where Taehyung and Jimin had touched and felt, kissed until their lips turned purple
and their breaths forsook them. Until finally one day, Taehyung had asked to touch Jimin
properly, like they’d seen in those movies Taehyung’s father hadn’t warned him about like other,
normal parents did. Jimin had said yes. And when Taehyung had finally, truly seen all of Jimin, he
knew there would never be anyone he could ever love, want and need all of as much as he did
him.

It’s been one day since that dawn, Jimin having texted him to tell him he was with Jungkook,
sending a video of the boy practicing in one of the many auditoriums at Julliard. Taehyung had
played the video far more than ten times, smiling each time Jimin’s face appeared on the screen,
even chuckling when Jungkook kept getting distracted by Jimin’s voice, making the violin screech
and complain as the bow teased it incorrectly.

Jungkook makes Jimin happy, there’s no doubt about it. The latter does not have that look of fear
in his eyes with Jungkook, the one Taehyung is noticing more and more often when they’re
together.

Before he kisses him, Taehyung sees it. As Jimin screw his eyes shut, as he fists his hands and his
lips tremble, lashes fluttering as Taehyung approaches. But when he’s with Jungkook, Jimin is
carefree, like he used to be when they were still in school. Smug and effortlessly beautiful,
uncaring for the natural order of the world. Rebellious and utterly, utterly singular.

Taehyung trusts Jimin more than he’s ever trusted anyone, it isn’t a matter of truly suspecting
betrayal. He’s angry with himself. What has he done for Jimin to slowly start shutting him out?
Spending more time with the violinist than him?

The fault lies with him, surely. Because Jimin is faultless and Jungkook is a prodigy. Taehyung
…. Taehyung is just… He’s just broken. But Jimin has told him he doesn’t care. That it’s okay.
That they’re all broken, healing. So what’s the fucking problem?

Taehyung’s eyes refocus on the room, the men yapping about heroine around him, the sunlight
painting his hands in gold as he puts them on the table, caressing the soft, polished skin. God, the
things he’s done to Jimin on this table.

The walls are laden with mahogany, a large rectangular table sitting in the middle of the room. It's
almost afternoon, the meeting having lasted almost four hours. Smoke dances in the light
showering the room, cigars snoozing on the crystal platters reflecting the rays.

A selection of decanters are poured and consumed, the men nitpicking over an array of papers and
blueprints. It's a scene worlds away from the one he had the pleasure of witnessing the last time he
was in this room.

It had been afternoon that day too, Taehyung sprawled across one of the cream sofas in the sitting
room downstairs, Jimin’s head in his lap.

The conversation comes back to Taehyung in little excerpts just when a crystal lid clatters on the
table. The room is silent, breathes held. It's almost as if the smoke stops moving too, afraid of how
Taehyung would respond to the disturbance.

With good reason too, because the last time something like this had happened, someone had left
the room with one less finger than they had entered it with.

But this time, Taehyung is so preoccupied with the images of that day that the slip is unnoticed.
Restrained, collective sighs are heard as the men cock their eye brows up at one another. Probably
think I’m high, Taehyung thinks. Which he is, but on something that you don’t get in packets,
blunts or needles. He’s high and in withdrawal from something far, far worse.

Jimin.

Taehyung ignores them, the image of Jimin lying on his lap in only a robe coming back.

“ Hate that fucking conference room.” Taehyung had spat, his fingers massaging Jimin’s
shoulders, trying to ignore the little sounds Jimin let out every time he undid a particular knot.

“ I know darling." Jimin had replied, remembering that's the room Taehyung's father used to beat
him in most often. "I don't understand why you can't just use a different one.”

“ Fucking tradition. Grandfather built this fucking empire in that room, my father carried it on.
Have to keep up appearances.” Jimin lifted his head, lying on his stomach instead as he looked up
at Taehyung.

“ I used to always be in there with you, but now you don't even let me sit in meetings. Tae I can
look after myself, it was just one time.” Taehyung smiled sadly at Jimin’s whining, running a
finger along his pouting lips only for Jimin to take it into his mouth.
“ Fuck babe- you know I can't let something happen to you Jimin.“ He began to suck, letting his
teeth drag along Taehyung’s skin, having the audacity to moan, letting his eyes roll to the back of
his head as he bared his neck to Taehyung. “ S-s- shit kitten, stop.” Jimin let the finger out with a
pop, dragging his tongue alone the length before sitting back.

“ You drive me crazy sweetheart.” The culprit giggled sweetly, coming up to press a chaste kiss
on Taehyung’s lips before he felt himself falling backwards, being pressed against the sofa with
Taehyung hovering over him.

“I have a meeting in thirty minutes Jimin, don’t start something we can't finish.”

Taehyung had warned even while lowering his head, pressing kisses to Jimin’s face.

" You've made me come undone in far less." Jimin replied.

“ So fucking beautiful.” Taehyung had praised, his hand splayed on Jimin’s stomach before
travelling lower. “ You're fucking gorgeous, you know that?”

“Y-yeh Tae, you've mentioned it a few ti… ah” Taehyung kissed him then, holding his face in his
hands as his hips rolled into Jimin’s lower body.

“ Michelangelo is weeping my darling,” Taehyung says against his skin, his tongue peeking at
Jimin’s skin, hanging between his lips. His skin is always bruised, purple and baby blue scattered
across the expanse of his shoulder and neck, trains of red following the valley of his breastbone.

Taehyung can’t remember the last time he had seen Jimin’s cream skin in it’s pure, unmarked
glory. But this… this is good too.

“ His soul begs the angels, to let him descend and create one more piece. A sculpture of the most
beautiful creature this world has ever laid it’s unworthy eyes upon.” Jimin’s expression is
wavering between one of exasperation and endearment, lust and annoyance ghosting over his
features as Taehyung’s soliloquy murmurs against his skin.

“He wouldn’t even be able to do you justice Jimin, no-one, no-one-”Taehyung’s long fingers
wrap around the silk knot, loosening it before Jimin’s hand grabs his.

“ W-wait… stop. ” Jimin’s voice was pained, forceful.

Taehyung sprung from the position, his words caught in his mouth, worry and fear freezing his
expression and there were fucking tears in his eyes already. At the thought of having hurt Jimin, a
tear slipped out and Jimin sat up in a hurry, taking his face in his hands, his thumb brushing over
the lone tear.

“ I’m so sorry,” Taehyung said quickly as his own hands enveloped Jimin’s face, kissing his
forehead as a few more tears slipped out. He’d fucked up, he’d fucked up. Jimin had never ever
asked him to stop before. “Are you okay? What did I do? Was I too fast? Baby, I-“ Taehyung
stops, confused as Jimin’s lips shyly stretched into a full blown smile, his thumbs wiping away
Taehyung’s tears as he brought his face closer, pressing his forehead against Taehyung’s. There
were tears in his eyes too, his lips trembling against Taehyung’s as he stayed there, lips and
foreheads in a chaste embrace.

“ What baby?” Taehyung whispered.

“ You’re a damned idiot.” Jimin had murmured back, taking advantage of Taehyung’s shock to
lick one of his tears away, then pressing his lips to Taehyung, the taste salty as the other hesitantly
opened his mouth, confused and staring at Jimin dumbly through the kiss. “ You love me so much
you’ve turned stupid. You’re stupidly, madly in love in with me.” Jimin had said for him and
Taehyung’s tears ran even faster, because god how he wished he could just tell him. Without the
metaphors and similes, just tell him.

“ So much.” Taehyung agreed, kissing him again, open-eyed. He tried not to close his eyes
whenever he kissed Jimin, trying to float in as much of him as he could before pulling away.

They always did that, kiss lazily and then rest their foreheads together, just drinking in each other's
gaze. “ I would do anything for you, anything.” Taehyung confessed, and Jimin’s bottom lip
trembled as he felt the former’s hand on his chin.

“ I don't say it- can't say it but I'd be- I’d be nothing, no one without you. The lowliest of men, the
most disgraced of souls, ruined beyond repair. I am nothing, I was nothing...if not for you.”
Taehyung said, Jimin giggling as he rambled on, trying to get as many words out before Jimin
kissed him again.

“You must understand that my love, you must if it's the last thing you do. That you are my
mornings and afternoons and naked midnights, you are everything I could ever want. My
salvation, my-“ Jimin was crying as he kissed him, tapping Taehyung’s hands as a sign to pick
him up.

“ Making me cry again Tae…” He whispered as Taehyung lifted him, both of them chuckling as
he stumbled with Jimin in his grasp. “I love you Kim Taehyung.” Taehyung smiled, their teeth
bumping as he carried him towards the staircase.

I love you Park Jimin.

“ Wanted you to stop because I wanted to go upstairs.” Jimin reassured as Taehyung’s hand
gripped the banister, the latter letting out a sigh and a shameful shake of the head at his over-
reaction. “Conference room…” Jimin said breathlessly. “ Give you something to think about
every time you're there…” Taehyung’s breath hitched, cursing himself for having never taken
Jimin in that room. What is it even good for if not to dirty the name of god while sinning and
painting Jimin’s thighs in white and his neck in red?

“Ruin me on the table that your father and his father held so dear. Make me spill on their empty
traditions. Can you do that for me?” Taehyung put Jimin down, kissing his forehead before they
ran upstairs, eager feet slipping and spending a few more precious minutes touching one another
on the landing.

With Jimin’s giggling carrying through the hollow space between the staircases, Taehyung
remembered how they used to slide down the banisters as children, Jimin always winning smugly
with his impeccable balance.

They stumbled into the conference room, Taehyung not even registering the loss of Jimin’s robe
until he was lying there, spreading himself for him in his naked glory, marked, cream skin
contrasting the dark table as he arched his back. “ Master…” He whined as he pressed his hands
on either side of his head, waiting for permission, his legs hanging off from the shorter edge of the
table. “ Need you, need it-“

“ Fuck Jimin…”

“Master, please…” Taehyung’s restraint shattered, striding forwards, grabbing his thighs, opening
him wider and shifting his body further down until his legs were hanging off the edge of the
table,held only by Taehyung’s arms, circling around his thighs to keep him stable.
“ Jimin I don’t own you baby, it’s Taehyung- I’m just Ta-“

‘ I want you to own me. You do own me. Please, Tae, I need you.” Taehyung shivered as Jimin
removed one of his hands from the table, shyly taking it to his leaking cock, pressing down on the
skin around it, his thighs already trembling, so sensitive without even being touched. “ Need you
to feel full Master.” Taehyung was weak in the knees, watching the love of his life spread himself
for him so unashamedly, offering himself, all of it. Just for Taehyung.

“ Put your hand next to your head darling, let me see you.” Taehyung had purred, his finger
coming to rest on Jimin’s tip, pressing down as Jimin wailed, Taehyung’s touches too fleeting and
intense at the same time for his painful over-sensitivity.

His finger trailed lower, down the curving arch of Jimin’s cock on his stomach, abandoning the
pool of pre-come on his navel, tickling the skin of his ass. The handprints from the night before
bringing a smile to Taehyung’s face.

“ Gonna ruin you baby,” He said, bringing his fingers to his mouth, laving them in spit as Jimin
craned his had upwards, supporting his weight on his elbows as Taehyung brought his index and
middle fingers to his rim, pressing in slowly, Jimin stretched from last night, and the following
morning.

“ Make you scream for me. Paint the table for me Jimin, my beautiful darling. What do you want
me to do? Anything, anything if it’s for you. ” Taehyung asked, lowering his head to give his tip
few shy kitten kicks, grabbing his hips as Jimin trembled beneath him. The little bites he left on the
skin around his cock bloomed pink, the perpetrator looking up as Jimin tremored with spasms,
whining and crying crocodile tears. Taehyung moved his mouth to the leaking erection, flattening
his tongue against the shaft, tasting Jimin with a hum.

The latter shivered, his elbows shaking while holding up his weight, watching the white liquid
dribble from Taehyung’s lips. He reached down, running his thumb across Taehyung’s lower lip,
bringing it to his own mouth, tasting himself, Taehyung’s saliva seasoning his come, moaning
around his wet fingers.

“ You taste good, don’t you kitten?” Taehyung asks, stopping his administrations with a hooded
gaze directed at Jimin’s direction.

“ I-I…” Taehyung’s fingers were still pressing inside him, unmoving, just pressing against his
walls, tickling against his gland. Jimin was uncontrollably shaking, cheeks tear stained and the
filthiest of requests leaving his mouth as he held himself open, arms wrapped around his thighs to
spread them even further. He couldn’t have ben more of a slut for Taehyung if he tried, and he
hadn't even properly touched yet.

“ Use your words Jimin, Master wants an answer.” Taehyung ordered as he moved from his
place between Jimin’s legs, taking his right leg in his hands as he pressed a kiss to the mark on his
ankle, leaving his tongue on the deformed skin as he trailed it up, biting the skin once he reached
his calve, digging his nails into the meaty flesh beneath his thigh.

“ Jimin tastes good, so good. B-but-“ He was still shaking as he answered, his elbows giving out
as his head hit the table, his hands going to touch his own chest, whimpering as they fluttered over
his nipples. Taehyung’s cock twitched at the sight.

“ But what pet?”

“ M-master tastes so much better.” Jimin answered softly, blush deepening, hands hiding his face.
“ Is that so?” Taehyung’s voice was so much deeper, raspier as he said this, more of a growl, his
grip tightening and his kisses on Jimin’s legs turning into open mouthed nipping at the skin.

“ Master please-“

“ Master Kim? Is the meeting adjourned?” Taehyung blinks, and then blinks again. He can almost
still see Jimin lying in front of him, still taste him as the men stare at him expectantly, Taehyung
fully hard beneath the table, cock probably red and leaking.

The decanters are nearly empty, the afternoon light having dissolved into a dim, evening glow.
Taehyung runs a frustrated hand through his hair. He needs to see Jimin.

" Adjourned. Get out, all of you." The men scramble to standing, the doors inch open, a line of
maids standing with their coats on their arms." Taehyung is straining against his pants, his clothes
hot and sticky on his skin, the taste of Jimin drying his tongue. Pressing his thighs together, his
head lulls onto the table softly while the men whisper in in front of the door, tutting as their coats
shroud their shoulders. Taehyung sighs as the door closes, running a hand through his hair in the
empty room. He stands, silently walking towards the doors, on the other side of which the men are
talking, the thinness of the walls unbeknownst to the poor bastards who speak freely behind the
door.

" Lost the bloody plot, he has, since throwing his peachy fuck toy away." One of them says, fat
fingers balancing a cigar, portentous form straining against his suit-jacket. " Shame, would've
liked to have a taste of that ass, have you seen it? Fucking beautiful."

" Weren't you the one who called him daddy's little faggot the other day, Jones?"

" I think you're all forgetting that he's inside that room and he could still ruin you and everything
you hold dear gentlemen with one, single word." The man who speaks is called Min, his hands
long and bony, drumming on his pants as he speaks.

" I'd like to see him try to be honest." The string of chuckles is loud. Taehyung smirks from
behind the door.

" Don't you think you should be worrying about your cripple of a son instead of licking the
faggot's ass, Min?"

A gun is clocked from behind the door. The men all turn suddenly, except Min who buttons the
silver, engraved buttons of his coat nonchalantly, unsuprised.

" Is that so gentlemen?" The door opens, revealing Taehyung standing leaning against the shorter
edge of the table, opposite to the one he had fucked Jimin to tears on.

" M-master Kim." Taehyung smiles as the men crumble in front of him so quickly, bowing and
lowering their sycophantic, fat heads without hesitation, theatrically wide eyed as if they hadn't
registered even the slightest possibility that Taehyung could hear them.

" You dare to disrespect my father's honor?" Taehyung asks, not even angry. He's smiling, the
Beretta lazily twirling in his hands, he's beyond amused.

" No-no Sir, I-"

" Faggot?" Taehyung guffaws, containing his laughter with the hand he's holding the gun with,
seemingly careless as he laughs into his fist, the barrel pointing towards the men. " You think
Jimin would even let you anywhere near his ass Jones?" Taehyung asks, his laughing ceased,
raising the gun, dragging the tip along the man's neck.
" You think he'd let that fucking beautiful ass anywhere near your rotting cock? Bet you wouldn't
be able to fucking get it on even in front of someone as beautiful as that." Taehyung says, rolling
his eyes as he remembers Jimin beneath him again. Jimin on top of him, binding him to the bed
posts.

Jones tries to retreat, squirming as Taehyung puts the barrel of the Beretta inside his mouth,
forcing it past his lips. He grabs him by the back of the neck and shoves his throat around the
barrel. Gurgling noises echo through the corridor, the other associates silent, heads bowed as
Taehyung's snigger rings through the room. It's a lot like sucking cock, Taehyung thinks.

" I've fucked Jimin with this very gun, does that bother you?" He asks as the man chokes, his gag
reflex resisting as Taehyung inches the gun further in. " Should've been there, seen the way his ass
took it in, fuck- he's so good, so good for me in bed. Behaves so-” Taehyung slams Jones’s head
into the pillar behind him, the sharp carvings issuing a train of blood down the man’s forehead,
dripping into his collar.

“Fucking well..." Taehyung takes the gun out, the man's hands immediately going to his throat,
his cheeks stained with red tears. “ Jimin looks beautiful with his cheeks tear stained, thighs
trembling, begging to come. Comes when I tell him to as well, always listens so fucking well, my
sweet peach." There’s a purpose to this explicit affair of course, Taehyung’s eyes shifting from the
man’s wrinkled, Botox-abused face, the receding blonde hair line, downwards, as he speaks. The
ultimate humiliation for a xenophobe. To be aroused and dirtied by the very thing he denounces as
wrong.

“ Calls me master, and daddy,” There’s choking sounds somewhere from the room. Taehyung
looks down again. Aha. “So many filthy, dirty names that they even bring a blush to my cheeks.”

Taehyung chuckles, his eyes returning to the man’s tenting pants. Checkmate. "What's this Jones?
A self-proclaimed homophobe getting off on a faggot's gay expeditions? Want me to tell you how
good he fucks me too? Bet you liked being fucked good and hard by men bigger than you when
you were my age .” Taehyung brings shit out of his ass a lot of times, but the words leaving his
mouth right now aren’t his assumptions. They’re facts Taehyung has been aching to expose for
nearly two years now.

“ God fucking sent Jimin is, takes and gives just as well. My ass hurts for days after." Taehyung
wrinkles his nose at the gun stained with Jones's saliva, revolted as the old man massages his
throat, the saliva so much uglier than Jimin’s come had been on the black metal.

Jones makes a move to cup his hand around his shameful erection. “Ashamed Jones?” Taehyung
mocks as he motions a hand to the man’s erection, turning to the rest of the men. “ Don’t be my
man. It’s Jimin we’re talking about here. He can turn even make your heteronormative, bleached,
virgin asshole leak.”

Taehyung puts his palm inside his suit- jacket, seemingly searching for something as he keeps the
gun pointing towards Jones. A blood- red handkerchief appears from his pocket, Taehyung using
it to dry the barrel of the gun.

“ Kneel.” Taehyung orders, his foot tapping a bored rhythm on the marble floors. The other
associates remain still, unbreathing. Some of them still have coats half off, cigars stubs burning
their hands but knees are either shaking, some cocks leaking and hearts hammering, eyes
following the Beretta in Taehyung’s hands with fear.. “ I’m going to count to three Jones…One-“

“Okay, okay. Okay I'm going, I'll going down.” Jones worms to the floor, kneeling in front of
Taehyung. The man’s arousal is in full view, staining his pants as the material around his thighs
stretching.

Taehyung scoffs as the man tries to restrain his pathetic whines. “ If Jimin was here he would have
put you in panties, exhibit you like the ugliest Shibari model the art has ever seen, invite your
family and everyone who even has the slightest ounce of respect for you.” Taehyung purrs, resting
the nuzzle of the gun on Jones’s temple. “And shoot you in the fucking cock in front of your
infant twins.” At the mention of his children Jones’s head snaps up, his eyes wide. “Lucky for you
I don't bring fucking children or wives into business Jones. And even luckier is that I'm not
Jimin."

" You should see how much he loves to tie me to the bed naked, stand there watching me and
making me come undone without even moving a single fucking finger. Jimin loves to humiliate, to
make people feel small, just as much as he likes to experience it.”

“Jimin would have so much fun taking you apart piece by piece.” Taehyung drones, punctuating
the last three words with little taps of the nuzzle on the man’s sweating temples. “Turning you into
one of the very faggots that you denounce so flippantly, by the end you would be thirsting for his
fucking cock you understand that? Jimin could make you into his little bitch with a fucking
glance. And you dare to call him what? You have the mother-“ Taehyung lowers his head,
digging the gun into the man’s head, stopping inches away from his face. “-fucking audacity to…
to call him a what?” Taehyung scoffs, laughing in disbelief.

“ You are so fucking lucky that I've been thinking about him the whole meeting, so much so that
I'm gonna let you off easy, I don’t have time for what I’ve planned for you.” Jones lets out a shaky
breath, the men around him either uncomfortable or aroused, hard beneath their pants. “Min?”

“ Yes Master Kim.”

“ Cripple his hands.” There are collective gasps, Jones suddenly making a move to scramble up
when Taehyung presses a foot to his cock. The man makes a sound between a moan and a scream
as Min removes his weapon from his coat.

Jones's hands shake, the silence amplifying the noises that leave his mouth. Taehyung presses
down harder with the heel of his dress shoes as Jones attempts to move his hands to his back. "
Whining like a little bitch Jones?"

Min aims the gun at the man's hands. " Hold them up for him, Jones." Taehyung orders, the man
is going into shock, unable to speak as his hands move in front of him, palms downwards as he
places them shakily on the cold, marble floor.

" P-p-please Sir- P-ple..." Jones whimpers as Taehyung nods at Min, who adjusts the aim to the
floor.

" NO!"

Bang.

An ear shattering scream howls through the corridor.

Bang.

Blood splatters onto Taehyung's shoes, crimson dripping down the glossy, black skin. Gasps are
restrained and quiet, but still audible. Taehyung clocks his own weapon backwards, giving a loud
snigger before aiming.

He smirks at the sight of Jones's mutilated hands on the floor, two fingers detached from each
hand, the stubs of muscle like rotten worms at Taehyung's feet.

"That was for the cripple." Taehyung comments, the word foul in his mouth, giving a stern,
understanding look in Min's direction, who is stoic-faced. Taehyung pauses for a second,
remembering all the times him and Jimin had sought refuge at Yoongi’s home.

Every time his father came home with a new woman giggling behind, Taehyung and Jimin would
sit upstairs, holding each other as they waited to see if it would happen this time too. And it did.
First there would be laughing, skin-crawling sounds of adulterous sex in their ears as Jimin wiped
away Taehyung’s tears. And then there would be screaming.

Not the good kind either.

That would be their queue to leave, the sounds echoing through the house as they ran outside,
Yoongi’s house only a few roads down.

Min would always be the one to open the door, taking one look at their tear-stained cheeks and
Taehyung who it was always harder on, and opened the door wide. The sound of the piano was
omnipresent at the Min house, Yoongi playing Taehyung’s favourite pieces as Jimin kissed the
crying boy, both of them trying to deafen the slapping of skin and screaming of women that rattled
in Taehyung’s mind.

They hadn’t known what the screaming was at first. And then they did. When they turned ten.
One day, a woman had scrambled into their room, when Taehyung been playing games with
Jimin on his bed. Her undergarments were stained in red, her hair dishevelled and her eyes
bloodshot as she had whispered two words to Taehyung that haunted him to this very day.

“ Help me.”

Taehyung's father had followed promptly behind, clutching the women's hair in his hands with a
grunt. Jimin had been holding onto Taehyung for dear life as the latter's father entered the room,
naked with his cock still hard and lipstick on his jaw. And the sickest thing was…

The most disgusting thing was that Taehyung expected him to be mad, to hit him just because, like
he always did, but no… He had laughed, laughed as he dragged the bloodied woman away, the
rumble of his laughter carrying through the house. Jimin and Taehyung had stayed at the Min’s
house for three weeks after that. Taehyung’s father hadn’t even called.

So crippling Jones’s hands right now, giving the task to Min, it’s a way of saying thank you.
Because Teahyung’s father had crippled Yoongi’s hands. Yoongi, the boy three years older than
them both, with long, slender hands and a gummy smile who put Jimin and Taehyung to sleep as
children.

Yoongi who can’t play the piano anymore. Because of Taehyung’s father. Because of Taehyung,
who’d threatened his father that he would leave the empire so many times that he’d driven even
his corpse to ruining Yoongi’s live hood as a warning. Taehyung likes to pretend only Jimin
matters, Jimin and Seokjin. But Yoongi… Yoongi, among a small selection of other indivisuals,
all had their own special places in the tatters of Taehyung’s twisted heart. Less than Jimin, always,
but more than anyone else.

Min doesn’t know why his son can’t even touch the piano anymore, no one knows except
Taehyung and Jimin. So this is both a shitty thank you and an ever shittier apology.

"That was for calling his son a cripple.” Taehyung spits. “This on the other hand..." He adds, the
men surrounding them who'd foolishly thought it was over stirring quietly in anticipation, red-face
from fear, arousal and submission. " This is for Jimin."

Bang.

Jones doesn’t have time to react. No one does. One second Taehyung is talking and the other
Jones's head has fallen forward, his neck straining, his pants smothered in blood. He dies kneeling,
his last breath taken as he's stained in his own pre-come and blood. The men start shuffling,
hesitantly moving, shifting from one foot to another, gripping their brief cases. Min takes a step
forward.

" Master Ki-"

Bang.

This time, some of the men yelp. Even Min retreats in shock, some of the blood spurting onto his
over-coat, a few droplets straying to his jaw. He's expressionless but cautious as he steps back
again. Taehyung produces another handkerchief, this one cream, and outstretches his hand in front
of Min, who takes it and wipes his jaw.

He's surprised when Taehyung leaves his hand out, making an imperious motion for the
handkerchief’s return. Min folds the bloody material, bowing slightly as he places it in Taehyung’s
hand with both hands.

" That was just because your face bothered me." Taehyung says to the corpse kneeling at his feet.
The fourth gunshot wound was aimed somewhere between the nose and the mouth, the face
mutilated, smothered in revolting clumps of blood.

Taehyung unfolds the stained fabric, his finger's prying the corpse's deformed mouth open,
shoving the fabric inside. The sound of retching issues an eye roll from Taehyung who looks up to
see two of the men spilling vomit into their briefcases, because god forbid they vandalized
Taehyung's home.

He cringes outwardly, snarling as the men look up with vomit staining their mouths, tutting his
mouth. " An improvement, don't you think gentleman?" He asks, and raises his eye brows when
he's given no response. " I said-"

The gun changes direction, Taehyung takes three strides to the crowd of suited men and decides
on one of them that's always pissed him off. Something about the way he always looked at Jimin,
even as a child.

Taehyung presses the gun to the side of his head as the man trembles, his carrier bag falling to his
feet, opening, the contents spilling as the metal clasp hits Taehyung's shoe. " I said don't you
fucking think he looks better now? Huh?"

" Y-yes Sir. Y-yes, he-"

" Shut the fuck up. Fucking dogs, shut-" Taehyung shoves the barrel into the man's temple, hitting
him several times as he leans down, his eyes breaths away from the shorter man. "-up. Get
the fuck out of my house." He shouts, motioning to the door with the gun, waving it around as
several men duck.

" Fucking cowards as well as dogs." Taehyung spits, turning around, facing Min before another
bullet sent into the direction of the group of men sends one of them crumpling to the floor, the
others scrambling for refuge as Taehyung experimentally shoots into the crowd.

" Didn't you hear me?" He asks, turning, letting out a grunt at the sight of one of the men lying
motionless on the ground. He'd shot him in the fucking head without even looking. Oh well, never
liked him anyway. "Get out of my fucking sight." Taehyung closes his eyes, running a blood hand
through his hair. Once he opens them, there are only three people left in the room. And one of
them is a corpse.

" Don't lecture me Min." Taehyung warns, turning on his heel, passing Min as he returns to the
conference room, throwing his suit-jacket on the floor by the threshold. Upon hearing footsteps
behind him, Min picks it up, handing it to one of the male servants who takes it. The inferiors are
unflinching as the head servant enters the corridor, gathering inside the alcove that recesses both
sides of the wide corridor, curved floor to ceiling windows in each one.

The head servant, a woman in her forties, bows to Min before the latter leaves the influx of
workers, who, upon hearing the gunshots and loud commotion, which wasn’t a rare occurrence in
the mansion, had already begun to prepare, standing outside the door on the opposite extremity of
the corridor.

The doors to the conference room are open, Taehyung shirtless as he walks back into the corridor,
stripping of his pants and giving the bundle of clothes to the head-servant. " I want the body
bound in the position that it's in, kneeling like a little bitch. Photograph it, three hundred and sixty
degrees, and then leave him outside the English Embassy, tie him to the gates. Thank you Em. "
Taehyung orders, but his tone is softer with her, more requesting rather than imperious.

" His family Sir?" Min is the one who poses the question.

" They'll be glad to be rid of him." Taehyung answers just as Min gives him a disapproving look
he would have castrated any other inferior for. Instead, Taehyung turns, motioning for both of
them to follow him as he uses the conference room extension, padding to his quarters on the other
end of the floor.

"He was a closeted gay," He begins as the man and woman follow him, Min shaking his head.
He'd suspected it all along. "Used to fuck escorts in his married bed." They enter Taehyung's
room, hit with the smell of acrylic and parchment, and tar. "A drunk as well, hit his older son."

Em flinches, Taehyung smiling as he notices it. This was her weak spot as much as it was his, the
abusive father trope. Seeing as she had been his nanny since she was twenty, Taehyung's own age
right now.

When Jimin hadn’t been there, or when he himself was too bloody and bruised to care for
Taehyung, she had nursed both of them. Nursed the wounds his father had given them both.

Taehyung wonders why Jimin stayed over so much when they were young, and why they
couldn’t go to Jimin’s house instead when he spoke so highly of his own father.

They could have both avoided Taehyung’s father’s drunken hands, but Taehyung finds it strange
now that he’d only ever stepped foot in Jimin’s house once. When Taehyung and his father had
been invited to a business dinner in exchange for the one they had hosted a week before, the first-
time Taehyung and Jimin had met.

" The son committed suicide last year. Mostly because of the abuse." Em turns her head away.
"His wife will be glad the newborns don't have to go through the same fate." She looks at
Taehyung with a conflicted kind of stoic solemnity. Until she sighs.

" Lecture me, go ahead. I'm waiting." Taehyung says childishly as he strolls into his walk-in
closet, a circular extension to his bedroom, the opening a door-less frame in the wall.
" I wasn't going to Master Kim." Min replies. Em remains quiet.

" Oh?" Taehyung muses cheekily from the closet as he appears in unusually mundane clothing.
Blue washed jeans and a white shirt.

" I was actually going to suggest a reinforcement of power sir." Min replies, to which Em cocks
an eyebrow, folding her arms as she scoffs at him in disbelief.

" You're full of surprises today Min. You encourage his behaviour?" She questions in
disappointment, holding out an accusatory hand in Taehyung's direction. Min's face contorts in
surprise at how easily she always confronts Taehyung with the truth.

"Careful Em," Taehyung purrs as he types something on his phone. " You're not Jimin." He says,
and even as the words leave his mouth, Em can see the flash of regret crossing his eyes. She gives
him one last disappointed glance before leaving the room. " Yes Em," Taehyung drawls again. "
You do have my permission to leave." Taehyung scoffs as she leaves the room, ignoring his
theatricals with a dismissive hand.

" You cut her a lot of slack Master Kim." Min says, an amused smile ghosting over his lips.

" I cut you a lot of slack Min." Taehyung corrects with a playful expression, and rolls his eyes
once Min's trademark stiff upper lip returns. "What did you mean by a reinforcement? Anything I
need to know?” Taehyung asks, his eyes flitting between Min and his phone, biting on his lips, his
foot tapping a restless beat as he sits down on the bed, facing him.

" There has been. Talk." Min starts, sliding his spectacles higher on the bridge of his nose.

" Talk...." Taehyung drones, throwing the phone on the bed, the block gently bounding as
Taehyung sighs.

" There's a new game piece." Min reveals.

“About time,” Taehyung muses just as Min gives him an unsure shake of his head. “Opposition?”

“Not exactly Sir.” Min replies. “For now, it’s mostly just…talk.” The way Min enunciates the
word is more than enough indication that it is anything but.

“Going to need a bit more than talk if someone is trying to overthrow me Min.”

“That’s really all there is to it Sir,” Taehyung detects his unfinished tone, and remains attentive.
“There are just… certain… patterns,” Min begins contemplatively. “ That I knew you would find
alarming even though others would dismiss them as mere coincidence.”

Taehyungs ears perk up at this, his spine remolding into a sword, straightening his back. An
attentive look comes upon his eyes, his brows furrowed. “You’ve got your usual disturbances,
expected but not entirely acceptable.” Min comments just as Taehyung’s phone rings from beside
him.

“Sir-“ Min interrupts as way of complaint but stops when Taehyung holds out a finger.

“It’s Jimin.” Taehyung assures, and Min’s resistance at the intrusion completely dissipates, and he
just smiles knowingly, Taehyung rolling his eyes at the man’s behavior before pressing the phone
to his ear.

“ Darling,” Taehyung purrs over the phone, and though it's been fourteen years, Min still has to
retrain his jaw from falling. “ I miss you Jimin.”
Here sat a man who had mutilated an associate and let him die in his own come and blood. “Not
since yesterday Jimin, that's too long.” Min smiles softly, endeared by the giggle that’s heard on
the other end of the line. Taehyung closes his eyes at the sound, taking a deep, almost restrained
breath before biting his lip.

Min is at the brink of insanity then, watching as Taehyung transforms into the nine-year-old who'd
come to him asking if it was okay for boys to like boys. Because if it was, then Taehyung would
very much like it if Min would like to be invited to Taehyung’s wedding, to walk him down the
aisle like girls and their dads did. Min had been beyond endeared, and his heart had shattered.
That when transcending the dynamics and hierarchy, Taehyung considered him more of a father
than his own.

“Who’s the lucky boy?” Min had asked jokingly even though it was as clear as day to him already
, only for Jimin to come running down the stairs, feet pattering prettily on the marble staircase,
giggling as he dragged Taehyung away, screaming about their two-week long sleep over at
Yoongi’s house.

And Taehyung had looked back at Min; and he had the exact same shy, knowing look in his eyes.
That was answer enough for Min. They would look beautiful walking down the aisle together.

The spectacled man is surprised when he has to blink away tears, watching Taehyung and not
being able to differentiate between this one and the one in his memories. His father had turned this
Taehyung, who always had paint stains on his hands and slept on a pile of sketchbooks, who
treated Jimin like a petal... to the one they all witnessed only minutes before.

They're worlds away. So much so that Min almost feels a true, tangible ache in his chest.

“ I want to go somewhere before that, is that okay with you? Taehyung asks, an excited silent
giggle stifled by his teeth biting down on his lower lip. “ Yeh baby, okay.” Taehyung says quietly,
the phone call coming to an end slowly. “Jimin?” Taehyung inquires, his expression pained. “I…”

I love you.

Min’s head bows, Taehyung looking away in embarrassment. “Yeh baby. I'm sorry.” Jimin is the
one who ends the call, as always. Taehyung’s grip on the phone weakens, the object slipping
down his ear as it falls to his lap, his hand still curled around it.

“ He knows, Master Kim. I don't think there remains a soul even blind or deaf who does not.”
Taehyung sighs at this, giving the man a tired smile. With a final hand through his hair,
Taehyung’s business posture returns, and Min can tell the intrusion is over. The young man’s
words are heavy when he speaks, struggling through the uneasy air the phone call had coated the
room in.

“Disturbances…" Taehyung continues, the conversation returning to him. "So, missing prostitutes,
extortion of drug money, overselling, labor exploitation…” Taehyung begins to list, Min nodding
along.

“The usual, of course. But the timing is almost perfectly irregular.” Min adds.

“Let me guess, made to look naturally spaced in time in the most unnatural way possible?” Min
nods, pleased that the conversation with Jimin hadn't derailed him. It had happened before. It
happened in the meeting shortly before, without Jimin even being there in the first place.

Min, always sitting on Taehyung’s right hand side, could decipher every little fleeting movement
the young man had made a few hours before, completely inattentive to the year’s quarterly
meeting.

Park Jimin was so much worse than any of the drugs Min condemns Taehyung for using. Around
white powders and needles and strangely coloured pills, Taehyung had impeccable control as to
prevent himself from dependency. But he had been lost the very moment he had set his eyes on
Park Jimin.

“The time lapse between each event is seemingly engineered to stray all suspicion away from the
possibility that they’re not, in fact the usual kind at all..”

“Seemingly?” Taehyung asks dubiously.

“ The algorithm that I suspect the implementation of is too accessible, maybe a normal person
wouldn’t detect it, but in this line of work, it’s almost child play.” Min shakes his head as
Taehyung’s amused smirk intensifies. Instead of being alarmed, he’s smiling like he’s already
won. “So if this does all root from the same source, and they are attacking your empire personally,
either they’re daft… “Min trails, and he knows Taehyung knows exactly what’s coming next as
he continues. “Or someone wants us to know they’re behind these petty occurrences. “

" Someone wants to play." Taehyung comments, picturesque as he wavers in his deliberation.

“And play they are. Though no one else suspects anything as of now, if you are truly being
targeted, then this isn't just an ordinary threat.”

“Calling this nobody a threat is a bit excessive don't you think Min?” Taehyung questions.

“Whichever they are, they're not even fighting yet. They're playing, and very leisurely too, as if
they have all the time in the world. Like they know they're going to win. These disturbances
started a year ago,” Min says, a nervous twitch appearing in his hands as he does. Taehyung raises
an eyebrow, waits for Min to come clean.

“ A year ago from what I suspect was the very first plan of action they put into effect. They've
spent a year only slightly riling up the shrub layer of your empire Taehyung. It's meticulous. It's
the flutter of a butterfly that's going to ravage you in a hurricane.” Taehyung dismisses the slip of
formalities as he rolls his eyes.

“Don’t lecture me on Chaos Theory Min, please.”

“This is personal to you Taehyung. The disturbances have all occurred in your territory. It’s
targeted. If you lose, you lose everything, so gradually that you don't realise it's gone until you're
grabbing at dust and stepping on its debris.”

“I don't care about losing the empire. ” Taehyung explains, rolling his eyes. “My father's dogs
who follow me around can do fuck all if someone else ruins the empire, I did my fucking part .
My job is just to fucking stay here, look pretty, and kill people. But I'd rather at least put up a fair
fight.” He adds.

“And Jimin?" Min questions, taking his glasses in his hands, wiping the glass with a handkerchief.
" Would you care about losing him?”

“What kind of question...." Taehyung frowns. "Where are you going with this?” Min just gives
him a narrowed look, urging Taehyung on as the younger grits his teeth, his grip around the phone
tightening. “A year ago?” Min nods. Taehyung scoffs, laughter slowly turning hysterical. " These
disturbances started a year ago..." Taehyung observes, his face reddening. His nails paint blood
crescents on his palms as he fists them.
Taehyung bites his lip until he draws blood, hot-blooded and angry at the sudden realisation of
what the time-line implies. So raging mad that he can’t even speak, speechless and truly only now
realising the threat, the magnitude of this invitation into a game that resembles war far more than
the child's play he thought he was dealing with. Because it's not the empire that's at stake at all.

It's Jimin.

With Taehyung's temper washing over the room in a flurry of boiling,silent rage, Min feels the
urge to break the silence. Taehyung suddenly shifts, feet shuffling as he screams, his voice raw
and cracking, pained as glass tears his knuckles .

Something shatters just as Min blinks, only to open his eyes and see Taehyung's fists dripping in
red, the bed side mirror broken, shards of glass gathered on the floor. There's another howl as
Taehyung kicks at the glass shards, sending them beneath the bed, some landing just in front of
Min's shoes.

“Taehyung, Taehyung listen to me." Min urges, raising his voice. Taehyung turns to him, blinded
with angry tears. "If this new player is truly the one who targeted Jimin last year in Shang Hai..."
Taehyung growls, Min shaking his head. "A personal attack like that straight from the get go, and
then next to nothing for a year except petty little disturbances…. " Taehyung’s heavy breathing
fills Min’s ears as the former clutches his phone again. “The algorithmic predicts the next
disturbance to be soon Taehyung. Very soon.” The young man stands, his eyes cold and
calculating as he clicks his tongue.

" Then we’ve got a big fucking problem on our hands Min."
 Old Boys
Chapter Notes

A few things.
First, in chapter two, I said that The ArKe was built fourty years ago, I've changed
that to approximately three hundred years instead.

Also, some history terms:

- Conscientious Objector
noun
a person who for reasons of conscience objects to serving in the armed forces.

- The Blitz
The title given to the German bombing campaign on British cities during World War
Two. However, the term 'Blitz' is more commonly used for the bombing campaign
against London.

So they ( government and public ) basically used to turn all the city's (London among
other important cities like Liverpool, ports where the industry was located and such)
lights off so the Germans couldn't see where they were bombing, in order to reduce
casualties and what not but it was kind of a stupid strategy.

Twelve Years Prior

There's a little, black-haired boy sitting on a canopy bed far too large for him, hidden by the white
fabric that gently blows around the him in the hot summer wind. He sits with his little back to the
head board that's ornamented in baby blue velvet. A video camera sits on top of a pile of books on
the opposite side of the bed, the pile only slightly less tall than the boy. He scrambles forward,
small hands pressing a button on the camera that makes a little, red light start glowing.

The boy smiles, but it's sad. On his jaw, right before it curves into his neck, is a purple bruise,
darkening as it curls around his neck like phantom but omnipresent hands.

“Jimin’s log number four eight seven, 25th October 2005.” His voice is sweet, quiet, and his eyes
flit to and fro from the camera to the door as he speaks.

“It’s a lot earlier than I usually record,” He starts hesitantly, rubbing his puffy eyes, letting out a
small, silent yawn. “But this is the only time that he's not awake.” He explains.

At the mention of the mystery man his hand snaps to his jaw, wincing when his finger presses
down too hard accidentally. “Taetae still doesn't know…” He trails off, and finally he lets the tears
pool in his eyes like he knows they want to. The video catches his eyes glisten under the white
light from the windows. Bottom lip trembling, his eyes snap to the door again, as if he heard
something quite sudden.
 “It’s just the wind.” He says, as if assuring the camera. But it’s more to tell himself he wasn’t
going to cry this time. He was strong, he needed to be strong. Boys weren’t allowed to cry.
“Taetae doesn't know that my daddy hits me too.”

Jimin folds his knees in front of himself, resting his bruised chin in between the tiny gap. The tears
fall into his silky, small pyjamas.

“He’s asked me …if my daddy is…the same as his. But…” He hesitates, pressing his eyes closed
as he takes a deep breath, like he's preparing himself, ashamed even of the camera.

“ Can’t ever tell Taetae what my daddy does.” Jimin suddenly mutters, twirling his thumbs around
each other, shaking his little head, black hair flopping around.

“ Cause it’s not always the same as Taetae’s dad you see. Sometimes… " Jimin is shaking now,
his little hands clutching his pyjama bottoms. “Sometimes my daddy does…other things too.” He
presses his legs closer, burying his head further into the almost non-existent gap between his
knees, shyly looking at the camera through his mop of fluffy hair.

“Taetae’s dad hits him a lot in front of me, I s-see everything he does.” He stutters, shuffling
against the bed. He folds his ankles across one another again, sitting crossed leg with his back far
too straight. Far, far too straight for a child that young.

His back is straight in that disturbing way, the one where people who come out of asylums stack
their books too neatly, even decades later. Like they can’t rid themselves of the habit. Like they’ve
never left the white-padded rooms.

“His dad throws Taetae around like how we throw around our toys.” A pearl falls down his
cheek, he wipes it away quickly with the back of his hand, another bruise peeking from the long
sleeve of his top as it riles up. “With the belt, sometimes too…” A contemplative look comes upon
him, one that doesn’t look right at all on the face of an eight-year-old. His little forehead
scrunches, wrinkling as he thinks. “Maybe that’s why his dad hits us a lot, because we don’t treat
our toys right.” He finally says, scratching on a burn insignia on his ankle, frowning at it like it
would ever go away.

“I really like Taetae.” He suddenly says giddily, expression completely changed.

“ He likes to draw me a lot. Tells me to sit still and I get all itchy but it makes him so happy.” A
smile stretches across his face at the thought of Taehyung all serious when he draws, his long hair
getting blue paint in it when they have paint fights.

Another tear rolls down his cheek again, and falls onto his lips, turning them upside down. “His
dad doesn’t like it though, the painting. Says it’s for girls.” He mimics in disgust, sticking his
tongue out. The little boy lets out a big sigh, the hurt and exasperation far too tangible.

You could touch it in the air, the sadness on the little boy’s shoulders, the pain swimming in each
tear as it caressed his face, painting it in a little lake of salt. “ I wanna tell Taetae all about my
dad.” Jimin whispers, a serious look in his eyes. “And the things he’s making me do…” And there
is far, far too much hurt in his eyes. So much fear as each word reaches the camera.

The wind is silently weeping as Jimin looks around, his eyes shifting from the paintings on the
wall, to the bookshelves around him. The only thing he likes about this room is how blue it is. It’s
all grown up and the books are all grown up books and there aren’t any pictures.

Taehyung likes books with pictures in them, Jimin thinks. Likes drawing them again by himself,
trying to see whether he can make them even prettier all by himself. Taehyung likes soft things,
like flowers and Jimin’s cheeks. He’s started kissing them a lot, since they turned eight.

Jimin doesn’t really know how to feel about that, the kissing thing. There’s little monsters in his
tummy every time Taehyung’s lips touch his cheek. It happens a lot before they sleep. Taehyung
can never get warm no matter how many blankets and throws they gather from the storage
cupboards, so Jimin’s started hugging him to sleep, even though he’s a lot smaller and Taehyung’s
legs are super long.

“ Jiminie how are you always so warm?” He’d ask, to which Jimin would always reply:

“ How are you always so cold?”

Sleeping with Taetae is the best thing in the world, even if his legs are always cold against Jimin’s
when they tangle together and he takes up far too much space, it’s like he’s warmer than the sun
and he’s not taking up too much space at all.

Taehyung confuses Jimin a lot.

He tells the best stories, with his voice that’s a lot deeper than Jimin’s and his hands always
caressing Jimin’s hair.

They’re always about two princes and their adventures. There’s never any princesses, which Jimin
finds really odd, since princesses are pretty and the prince always needs to save a princess. That’s
just how it works. In the shows, the films, the books. That’s how it always works. No one’s ever
told Jimin or Taehyung otherwise. So one day, Jimin had asked Taehyung if he hated princesses.

“ Do you like princesses Jimin?” Jimin didn’t really know how to answer that. At school, he was
always with Taetae. There’s never been any princesses in Jimin’s life.

There’s just Yoongz and Taetae. They all had the same lessons, sat next to each other in class, ate
with one another and slept over in The ArKe’s K Wing during term-time. It’s the Christmas
holidays now, so everyone had to go home. But during term, they have a whole floor to
themselves whereas the other kids stayed in the normal dorms.

It’s really, really big, and everyone leaves Taetae and Jimin alone there. Yoongi is there with them
sometimes, but most of the time it’s just them. And he’s three years older, so he’s going to leave
sooner than them both. He’s already in seventh grade.

There are guards at the entrances of the wing, maids to keep an eye on them, of course, but there
aren’t any dads around… That’s the best thing about it.

Taetae and Jimin don’t really invite the other kids around, just play by themselves, run around
until they can’t breathe and they’re falling on the floor laughing until they cry. Jimin loves term
time. He loves school.

But maybe…maybe that’s just because school means being around Taehyung. Not that they’re not
around each other at the mansion all the time anyway. But in the K-wing, after classes end, Taetae
can paint as much as he wants. Jimin likes that a lot, because it makes him really happy.

And Taehyung being happy is probably the best thing in the world.

Term starts in a few days, and Jimin and Taehyung’s bruises are going to disappear for a few
months since their dads only want them home for the summer and for Christmas. Jimin smiles at
the camera, a giddy feeling spreading across his stomach at the thought of the big gates, the
massive staircases. And all the quiet places Taehyung and him can be in their own little world.
“ I think I’ll go now.” Jimin suddenly says, remembering that his step-father might wake up
anytime soon, shifting to turn the camera off when he stops, retreating back into the myriad of
cushions scattered against the headboard.

“ I’ve kind of lied to Taetae about what I’m doing for the holidays.” He reveals, an embarrassed
blush covering his cheeks as he pouts sadly. “He thinks I’ve gone back to Seoul for one of dad’s
trips, but… but I can’t let him see me since my face is bruised,” He continues, twirling one of the
cushion’s stringy ornaments in his plump fingers.

“ His dad hasn’t hit us a lot recently. Really busy and stuff, so he’d ask about it,” He lets the
string go, sighing as he cups his jaw in his hands. “-and I don’t wanna tell cause Taetae would be
upset, I think. Only a few more days, and then I can tell him I’ve come back.” Jimin says louder,
and then shushes himself for getting too excited when his father is jut a few doors down.

This is the only room that doesn’t have cameras in, Jimin’s checked. He’s seen his father bring
pretty ladies into this room a lot… He can’t see the connection though. Since he never sees them
leave. “ I miss Taetae loads.” Jimin confesses with a sad, shy smile.

“ This has been Jimin’s log number four hundred and eighty seven. Bye!”

Present

The boy is much taller now. His cheeks aren’t as puffy, his hair is gold instead of black and the
bruises are all gone…but his eyes are just as sad.

“ Hey.” Jimin breathes out, his voice tired and uneven. “Jungkook is sleeping now, I’m filming in
his toilet. He sleeps like a boar.” He reveals with an empty chuckle, running unmarked hands
through his golden hair.

“I don’t even know why I still do this. But this is Jimin’s log. October twenty fifth 2017.” His
body is cold against the floor, back resting against the white tiles behind him, the recorder sitting
on the closed bath room seat.

“ I…” The sudden break in his voice, that single letter holding so much weakness in it that he
feels the urge to throw up suddenly, at how pathetic it all was. How pitiful he was.

“ I’m tired of lying to him.”

“ I’m tired of how much I love him.” Jimin whispers, voice laced with exhaustion. “Loving
Taehyung is… it’s Adderall and insomnia.” Resting his head against the wall behind him, he
closes his eyes.

“It’s lying in bed at night with him, naked and high, with his massive hands holding me so close
and yet…still missing him, like a fucking addict.” Jimin spits, running plump fingers through his
hair. The bright white lighting paints his hair in silver, the tendrils nearly white falling around his
face.

“It’s feeling empty as soon as I come,” The boy shakes, little bursts of manic laughter leaving his
lips, hands clutching at his mouth to keep quiet in case Jungkook awakes. “Empty because he’s
not inside me anymore. It’s fucking… it’s fucking heaven and hell…and everything in between.
He’s- he’s so much to handle. So fucking beautiful that it’s ugly.” He says with a hot breath.

“ You know what the most terrifying thing is….It’s that I think if I told him the truth, that he
wouldn’t care. He… he even said it to me once. I don’t care if you betray me Jimin, just- just
never leave me. “Jimin mimics, his imitative voice copying Taehyung’s, cracking as he finishes
the sentence, stifling a sob by biting on his fist.

“Who the fuck says that?” He asks, and waits expectantly, like someone should turn up and give
him an answer. Because he damn well needs one. “Fucking Kim Taehyung that’s who.” The boy
replies to himself.

“ Taehyung looks at me, like I’m-like… like I…” The sobs rattle him, hands clutching at his
mouth to stop himself from being so fucking loud and whiny, he doesn’t need Jungkook to see
this. Not after his pathetic display last night.

Sometimes Jimin could be filled to the brim with Taehyung, being thrusted into, his legs spread
and hands tied to the headboard, and Taehyung’s pace would suddenly falter.

Jimin would open his eyes, looking at him through a cloud of head-space and orgasms, and see
Taehyung watching him with the most awestruck expression, unblinking. Afraid that Jimin might
disappear even as they’re so thoroughly connected. Even when they’re so deeply entangled with
one another that if one of them was to disappear, the other one would surely follow.

Jimin would urge him to move, to continue his administrations, but Taehyung would look so lost,
wavering inconveniently in an epiphany while Jimin claws at his disintegrating high.

“ Master-Tae… Tae please.” Jimin would whine, stretching his thighs even further apart,
struggling against the silk binds as Taehyung dumbly stared, unmoving.

“You are fucking real aren’t you?” It had happened far more than once. Taehyung suddenly
bursting into tears as he was inside him, crumbling on top of Jimin as reality washed over him like
the most blissfully agonizing revelation.

That yes, Jimin was real. And his. And he was Jimin’s. And maybe one day it was going to be
okay. As long as Taehyung could touch Jimin, as long as Jimin smiled back. It was going to be
alright.

“ I wasn’t even supposed to love him in the first place. Especially not…not like this.” Jimin
confesses, turning away from the lens as if in shame. “ And I’m so scared.” You can hear it in his
voice, in the frightened currents in his eyes.

“ Because this is so perfect. Even with all the blood on our hands, it’s so fucking perfect. I’m- I’m
so happy with him.” There’s a crack in his voice .” He’s perfect.” He whispers in awe, face
shaking in his hands. “ He was perfect when he was fourteen and asked to kiss me with the cutest
blush on his cheeks, when there was a full moon and we were lying on the ground in the balcony.
When his kisses were hesitant and his hands unsure because he didn’t know where to touch.”

It’s dramatic when one says someone has stars in their eyes. Because stars aren’t beautiful.
They’re hot and bright, dramatic and whores for the theatricals. They begin to burn out as soon as
they are born, washing everything in contact with them in their cosmic debris. You can’t miss it
when a star dies, for it dies solely for the purpose of having stayed beautiful for so long.

But there are stars in Jimin’s eyes. And they’re not beautiful or glistening or any other self-
indulgent similes we use to describe a person in love. They’re burning him alive. The tears in his
eyes fall as he talks of Taehyung, and each little pearl tumbles with so much pain, Jimin tortured
by his love for Taehyung just like the stars are with their keepsake of hydrogen.

But the difference between the stars in the sky and the ones in Jimin’s eyes is that Jimin doesn’t
think he will- doesn’t think he could ever stop loving Taehyung.
So he sits there, in the bathroom of a boy who’s love he must reject, hurting as he loves a boy with
more love than he has to give. Park Jimin loves Taehyung on borrowed time, because he knows
they’re already done for.

Someone is going to get mad. At the fact that moonchildren could be ever so happy.

Because they are supposed to be odd. They are supposed to waver, lost and afraid because they
don’t fit in. For they only have the moon watching over them and the moon watches over too
many wandering souls in the dark to always keep an eye on them.

And yet here are two of these outcasts, born in crime and blood, and they seem to be…okay? Yes,
for now they seem to be as okay as they could be.

So madly in love and hurting, but they’re okay. Jimin is sad because he’s happy. Taehyung makes
him feel like he deserves to happy. That, no matter how ruined Jimin becomes, it’s okay to accept
and give love, if only for Taehyung.

The ring blares through the bathroom, echoing as Jimin shuffles through his pockets for the phone.
And of course, just as he’s drained and inwardly whining, his body and mind aching for
Taehyung’s presence and touch, he comes through.

Fingers quiver as they clutch the phone, Jimin admiring the way the image of a sleeping Taehyung
looks behind his name, and accepts.

“ Darling.” Tae purrs as soon as the phone is pressed against Jimin’s ear and damn him because
his eyes roll to the back of his head, the latter stifling a choked sob at his voice. Like he’s getting a
fix.“ I miss you.”

I miss you more, Jimin wants to say. I’m lying to you.

“ We saw each other already baby.” Jimin evades instead. The rest of the conversation only
reaches Jimin in little excerpts, squirming on the floor with Taehyung’s voice clouding his
inhibition.

It’s a bit silly really. It’s not normal, to be so affected by a voice. But then Jimin remembers the
time Taehyung had bound him naked and standing, blindfolded him and stood in front of him.
And just…talked.

He made Jimin come solely from his voice, untouched, unstimulated save for the deep, hoarse
intonations of the filth that left Taehyung’s mouth as Jimin whined and whimpered in the
darkness, completely helpless at his will.

Jimin musters the cognition to actually start listening to the conversation, barely catching
Taehyung’s question.

“ –with you?” Jimin doesn’t even know what he asked for, but he says yes anyway. Because
there’s nothing else to say when it’s Taehyung.

“ Yeh Tae, whatever you want babe.”

“ Jimin?” The gold-haired boy lets out a disgruntled, silent sigh. Taehyung is just torturing
himself by doing this. Jimin hates how hard he tries for him. He doesn’t deserve this. Jimin doesn’t
deserve anything from Taehyung.

“ Yeh?”
 “ I-“ Taehyung’s voice breaks and Jimin’s heart squeezes. He can hear it in that single syllable,
so it’s okay. It’s okay because Jimin knows.

“ I love you too Taehyung. It’s okay baby, I know.” A few more words of apology leave the
other’s lips before Jimin presses his lips against the speaker, kissing the phone. “ See you tonight
love, okay? I love you.” Jimin leaves his lips on the phone as he hangs up, both of them silent for
at least a minute before it, just listening to the sound of one another’s breathing.

He’s fucked up, he damn well knows. And there’s nothing they can do about it.

His hand is colder than the brass handle of the door as he steps outside, welcomed by the sound of
the violin that had somehow been completely overlooked by him before. How could it not though,
when Taehyung had been speaking to him?

Jungkook turns to him, still playing the sonata sweetly as he takes a look at Jimin’s puffy eyes,
the phone in his hands. He seems like he’s going to say something, his head tilting unsurely before
he remembers the violin in his hands, as if his hands are bowing the strings and holding the neck
on a musician’s intrinsic autopilot.

Jimin shimmies out of Jungkook’s white shirt, throwing the phone onto the bed. That’s when the
violinist stops playing, and this time he doesn’t turn away, watching Jimin’s skin stretch as he
bends down to retrieve his clothing from the floor.

Jungkook would laugh (if he wasn’t so mesmerized), at the mess Jimin had made stripping last
night. Anyone else would think they’d done anything but sleep.

“ Don’t watch me like that. “ Jimin asks of him, slipping into his jeans.

“ Why do you feel so comfortable being so bare around me then?” Jungkook asks, bitter as
Jimin’s marked skin ripples in front of him. He’s fucking covered in bruises. They follow the ‘v’
of his hipbones, scattered across his neck as well, like little purple and red flowers blooming on his
skin, petals shifting in the wind every time he moves.

“ Do you want to fuck me or something Jungkook?” Jimin asks with a cocked brow. It’s mean
and it’s cruel because there’s no point in asking but he does it anyway.

“ I thought I’ve made that very clear already Jimin.” Jungkook replies with a renewed audacity,
mirroring Jimin’s infuriated expression as the latter is engulfed by his own clothes once again.
“And no,” He snaps coldly. “I want you,” Jimin looks up from doing his belt.

“ -to fuck me.”

There are a few seconds of dangerous silence as they stare at each other, Jungkook at Jimin’s
exposed shoulder right before the jacket covers it, and Jimin at Jungkook’s thighs, the hem of his
white shirt (one of many) fluttering against the flesh of his uncovered legs.

‘Didn’t peg you as the type Jungkookie.” Jimin purrs, maybe to break the tension, maybe because
it’s the truth.

“I’m anything you want me to be.” The younger replies.

“That’s not a very healthy mind-set to have Kook.” Jungkook scoffs as Jimin reprimands him,
head tilting, crossing his arms in front of his chest after laying the violin on the bed, bow clicking
on the table as he turns back to Jimin with a snigger.

“You’re such…” Jimin cocks up an eyebrow, the violinist taking a deep breath because he knows
all the things that are going to starts spurting from his mouth aren’t going to be pleasant at all. But
fuck it. Fuck this. “- a fucking hypocrite you know that Jimin?”

“Excuse me?”

“Healthy? How fucking dare you?” Jungkook snarls. “If my derailing school-boy crush on you is
unhealthy then what the fuck is what you and Taehyung have?” His voice is far louder than he’d
like, Jungkook doesn’t ever realise that he’s shouting until Jimin visibly flinches. The younger’s
jaw begins to hurt as he clenches it, teeth dragging against one another as he tries to keep the
anger at bay.

“You go to sleep crying in another’s man’s arms about Taehyung, strip in front of me so
comfortably, pretending like you don’t know I want to ravish the fucking daylights out of you.”
The younger is shaking, angry tears prickling in his eyes as he takes a step back, leaning against
the table to prevent himself from launching forwards. His anger issues have never returned since
that night in the alley, not since Jimin. But he would never risk it.

“Have you ever even looked in the mirror Jimin? How could I fucking not? When you look like
that? And when I love you this much? When you’re the only living thing I’ve ever felt this way
towards in my miserable fucking existence? The existence that you gave a purpose to.” Jimin
looks away, blinking his own tears away.

They cry a lot, our Moonchildren do. Because what else can they do when it’s dark and the moon
isn’t there to give them guidance, when the moon is the reason the tides are so close to shore in the
first place and everyone is slowly drowning without even realising it.

Jungkook can’t breathe as he speaks, choking the words out as he’s shaking and angry- so
fucking angry and upset that he’s seeing red. “You- you beg me to kiss you, even though you
very well fucking know I can’t, even when your holes can all still remember the sensation of his
cock inside them.” Jimin quivers, Jungkook not having the time to blush at his own words as he
rambles. “Even as you can probably still taste his come on your lips.”

“Jung-“

“Shut the fuck up and let me talk.” Maybe his voice was too loud, too harsh and detached and the
flash of pain in Jimin’s eyes doesn’t pass but stays, hardening his face as Jungkook’s derailing
outburst reveals more and more bitter resentment.

“ You go to sleep crying over him, you wake up crying over him, Your love for each other is so
mind-blowingly toxic. Why do you even come to me Jimin?” He asks, and it’s genuine. Because
he wants to fucking know. He needs to know why Jimin keeps coming back. Jungkook needs to
know what he’s afraid of.

Because he knows, he knows Jimin has been hiding something, since the very moment he had
first laid eyes upon him. It’s his eyes, Jungkook thinks. The way they’re always sad even when
they’re happy, how he always looks like he wants to look behind him.

Like someone who’s been running for a really long time.

From what?

Jungkook doesn't have a fucking clue.

“When you can’t even be away from him for a single fucking second, why do you fucking parade
yourself like this around me Jimin. And wake up looking like-like this? You know what you look
like right now?” The next words are out of his mouth before Jungkook can even blink. “A fucking
addict Jimin, that’s what. Your messed-up love for each other is draining you. You’re going to
fucking kill each other like this.”

His head is hot, vison blind with tears of rage. He probably regrets everything he’s just said but
every word had been true, every single syllable he had voiced he had done with conviction.

Because he’s tired and wants to hold Jimin and kiss over the marks Taehyung has left. Because
the world put Park Jimin in his orphaned path and expected him not to get greedy, to be content
with laying clothed and deceptively platonic with him at night, letting him cry into his shoulder
about another man.

But Jungkook wants more. Because Jimin always give more than he has to give and yet never
enough and Jungkook is fucking tired and so, so in love.

“ You will never…be Taehyung.” Is the only thing Jimin says in reply as he picks up his sagging
shoulders and walks towards the door, not even looking at Jungkook as the morning wind enters
the room, hand on the handle before he stops after crossing the threshold. “ And by the way?” He
turns back. Jungkook Is crying. “Taehyung has never raised his voice at me like that.”

Pt. II

“ What are we doing here Taehyung?” Jimin asks, fingers intertwined with the lanky boy’s. He
looks young dressed like this, in jeans and a white shirt that momentarily reminds Jimin of
Jungkook. The older had crumpled into the leather seats of his car, crying as Jungkook’s words hit
home. Maybe they had hurt so much because parts of Jimin had seen the truth in them.

But all that matters now, is that Taehyung looks young, deceptively innocent with long, dirty
blonde hair, curled naturally into tendrils that fan over his forehead as he runs ahead. And Jimin,
strolling through The ArKe, school that holds so much of their shared childhood in its walls, is
beginning to let go.

He forgets about Jungkook, because it’s easy to forget when you’re with Taehyung. His presence
demands undivided attention in that intensely subtle way. And Jimin caves.

“We haven't visited in so long,” Taehyung answers giddily, turning back as he runs ahead,
stretching Jimin’s arm, a dashing smile waltzing across his lips. Jimin stumbles suddenly at the
image. Taehyung staggers with him, throwing out an arm to keep him balanced. “ You good pet?”

Taehyung brings him closer, engulfing Jimin’s body with his own. There’s a cocky smile on his
lips as he does so and Jimin knows the fucker realised what his smile had done to him.

It reminds Jimin of when they were seventeen. Of Taehyung kissing him in the library at
midnight, pressing him against the tall bookshelves, too impatient to get back to their quarters.
Reminds him of Taehyung taking him right there, quoting the Romantics in his ears as Jimin’s
spine pressed against the soft skin of the books behind him, taking two of Taehyung’s fingers into
his mouth as the sounds of his climax disturbed the quiet of the albeit deserted library.

Sex wasn’t pleasure for them, or at least not solely. Because sometimes Taehyung would wake
next to him, whimpers of fear nipping at Jimin’s ears as the former shook, paralysed with fear over
the nightmares that wouldn’t forsake him.

“They took you away from me again.” Taehyung would whisper, curling his body as much as
possible so that he fit into Jimin instead of the other way around. There was always so much fear
in his eyes whenever the nightmares came back. Eyes so dubious as he looked at Jimin,

As if he really didn’t believe Jimin could be real

“They took you away baby. Took my Jimin away from me, s-s-aid he wasn’t mine anymore.”
Taehyung rarely sobbed like that, so loud and lacking any inhibition. But when he did, Jimin
could safely say there wasn’t a sight or sound more heart-breaking in the world. “They say we’re
not real Jimin, say we don’t deserve to be happy. We’re real, right? You’re mine, right? You’re
real? You love me?"

“ We’re as real as real can be Taehyung.” Jimin would answer. “ I’m yours and- and I love you.
S-so much. So much that I can’t breathe.” But Taehyung wouldn’t believe him, sobbing as he
held onto Jimin like dear life, whispering words of fear into his skin.

So Jimin would climb on top of him, spreading his legs apart, kissing up and down, trailing the
line of his legs with kisses, lining himself up when Taehyung was ready, and entering slowly,
sweetly, kissing his tears away as he did.

Making love to Taehyung as he’s swimming in a delirium of vulnerability and trauma, frightened
and helpless, is the only way to get him out of it. It’s at his lowest points that Taehyung always
bares himself to Jimin.

Opening himself wide both literally and figuratively, letting Jimin paint his insides in their truth
and his skin in their story that feels the most real when they’re bound at the hip, where pain and
pleasure are one and their love runs rampant in the sounds of the desire of the flesh .

“ This is real Taehyung.” Jimin would say into his ear, over and over again, stretching Taehyung
wide and filling him until he believed it. And in the morning, Jimin would know he wouldn’t want
to talk about it. But he would wake up in Taehyung’s arms instead as he pressed kisses on his
hair, whispering ‘Thank you’ over and over again. And that would be enough.

So sex is far more than pleasure for Moonchildren. It is their truths, a conformation of reality, a
mind-set and physical state where they unashamed and bare, letting the other lead them to the
blasphemous highs that defy everyone who does not want Moonchildren to be happy.

“What are you thinking about?” They’re on a staircase now, Taehyung’s question reeling Jimin
from his memories, his arm a constant comfort around him.

“ Us.” Jimin replies, smiling, to which the younger gives a smile of his own in return, slowly
taking Jimin’s hands in his as he walks backwards, pivoting Jimin until he’s pressed against the
wall.

“Yeah?” Taehyung inquires, leaning slightly forward in his towering height as their noses flutter,
playing a game of who would cave first.

“Yeah…” Jimin murmurs, his heart hurting as it gallops in his chest. Even after all this time, his
heart still beats for Taehyung’s kisses as it did when they were fourteen. Even now.

Taehyung’s fingers flicker across his cheek, softly moving tendrils of gold hair out of his face.

Puckered lips press on the tip of his nose, laying a kiss there before moving downwards.

Taehyung used to ask permission to kiss him until they were eighteen.

Every time, without fail.

He would ask whether they were alone or not, in the school gardens, in the bedroom, in the
corridors. That’s how afraid he was of becoming his father in that respect, of reading the signs
wrong, of pushing too far.

Of losing Jimin when he was all that he had.

Jimin asked him to stop shortly after they left school, told him he would never have to be afraid.
That Taehyung could never be his father even if he tried.

There are lips on his, a tongue prying them open as Taehyung’s arm curls around his waist, his
hand curving around his stomach, holding onto Jimin’s shirt, fingers pressing into his skin. His lips
dance, swimming in the taste of Jimin’s mouth, teeth hold Jimin’s flesh captive as he moans into
the smaller’s mouth.

“ You look especially beautiful today.” He compliments, pulling away, the comment uncovering
a soft blush on Jimin’s cheeks.

“ You say that every day Taehyung.” Jimin replies, whimpering as Taehyung presses him closer,
burying his unruly hair in the valley of Jimin’s collarbone, his nose fluttering against his skin.

“ I do?” He asks, pressing fleeting kisses to the marks he had left yesterday on Jimin’s jaw.

“ That's a damned relief.” He says chuckling, and Jimin lightly slaps him, whining as soft touches
unravel into something a little bit more primal, and complains when Taehyung’s hands start
crawling beneath his shirt, cold fingertips massaging his abdomen as he shivers.

The bell starts howling then, Taehyung pulling away sheepishly as students swarm into the foyer
below, each one making their path through the corridors to the final lesson of the day.

How can Jimin believe Jungkook when he knows this is Taehyung. How is this unhealthy? Or
toxic in anyway? Taehyung who tells Jimin that he’s beautiful so many times a day that his words
are etched into bone. Jungkook is wrong.

But then why is Jimin so scared?

Awed whispers of their names and exclamations of confusion follow them as Taehyung pulls
away, taking Jimin’s hand in his own as they run upstairs, away from prying eyes and gossip.

By the time they reach the top floor, the sounds dissipating with each level they pass, Jimin has
completely let go, of Jungkook, of being afraid.

Because this is their safe haven.

They’re on top of the world while being completely detached from it, in the best possible way.
There aren’t guards here anymore, or maids, since the wing has been electronically closed off
since they left school.

“ God it’s been so long.” Jimin exclaims quietly, his voice echoing as Taehyung presses his finger
into the recognition pads by the main double doors. There are a few moments of silence,
Taehyung intertwining their fingers painstakingly slowly, as if he’s sewing them together. Slowly
and carefully, plastering their hands together with the nostalgic air of the wing, until their fingers
are tight and sure, safe as they hold on.

“ Here we go.” Taehyung says, pushing in. It smells old, but still clean. A long corridor leads into
the ground floor, opening into a rectangular sitting room flanked on the furthest wall by windows
overlooking the city. On the left a tightly spiralled staircase leads up, to their bedroom.
Jimin screams as he’s suddenly picked up, Taehyung twirling him in the air, giggling echoing the
large space, the younger burying his face into Jimin’s shoulder as he holds him.

“ What are you doing stupid?” Taehyung is laughing as he carries Jimin to the circle of pale blue
sofa’s in the middle of the room, both of them falling into the cushions, laughing and carefree.

“ Let’s just be us in here.” He replies. Jimin tilts his head, confused.

“ What?”

“ You don’t have to be scared in here Jimin.” Taehyung reassures, kissing his forehead. “I don’t
know what you’re afraid of when we’re…” He pauses, looking towards the city in front of them,
stretched below the windows. “ Out there, but-but in here, let’s just…let’s just be Taehyung and
Jimin.”

“ We are… we are Taehyung and Jimin out there too.”

“ No baby, you… you’re always so scared.” Jimin’s breath hitches. “You don’t stay with me as
often anymore, I don’t even know where you go.”

“ I..”

“ I know you don’t have any commissions right now Jimin, you forget sometimes that you work
for me. I miss you so much these days, it’s-it’s driving me fucking insane.” The older is quiet,
shying away from Taehyung’s intense gaze.

He’s right. No one is hiring the Prince of Espionage these days. The Little Prince, they call him.
Whatever you want to know, about whomever, whenever, The Little Prince is who you go to. It’s
kind of funny, in a way, that people label Jimin the master of finding information, of knowing
everything about anyone, when he doesn’t even remember anything of his past before Taehyung.

But maybe he’s not looking hard enough on purpose. Afraid of what he might find. Maybe it's not
that he can't, but that he doesn't want to.

Nowadays that he’s not as showered in commissions and Taehyung doesn’t facilitate his skill sets
in the running of the empire, Jimin doesn’t know what he does when he’s away from him. Any
moment spent away from him is a blur of tears and confusion. And now that Jungkook has finally
gotten sick of him, like Jimin knew he would…

He’s considered reconciling with Yoongi, of course he has, but after what happened the last time
they had seen each other…

Jimin had visited him at the hospital when he was recovering from the motor accident Taehyung’s
father had orchestrated. He can’t believe it’s been four years already.

He had taken Yoongi’s vinyl player to the hospital, set it by the window and played Chopin’s
Nocturnes for him, for hours on end, hoping he would wake up. He even purposely put some
Chopin played by anyone other than Rubenstein on to see if Yoongi would be outraged enough to
wake up.

He did, eventually, after several painful months.

Jimin had left to go get himself some coffee, and call Taehyung to update him. The younger had
refused to visit, though Jimin knew his frequent calls weren’t out of jealousy but out of worry for
the pianist.

Jimin and Yoongi are…complicated. Similar to what Jimin and Jungkook are but worse in ways
since he had grown up with them.

Jimin’s problem is that people fall in love with him so easily. Because it is easy to love Park Jimin,
however much he denies it. Because Jimin is spring, isn't he? That beautiful interlude between a
frightful winter and an overwhelming summer. The equilibrium between all of the bad and good
that's just right.

That’s why Yoongi fell for Jimin too.

Taehyung actually saw it before Jimin, the lingering glances as they grew up, the contrast between
the older’s demeanour with them both as Jimin slowly became something more to Yoongi. He
became his muse for the piano, just as he became Jungkook’s for the violin.

So he finally woke up, Jimin watching the nurses and doctors pour into the V.VIP room
Taehyung was secretly paying for, and he turned away, coffee still in his hands.

Because Yoongi had confessed a few weeks before the accident, when he had turned nineteen
and Jimin sixteen. It was messy and loud and Yoongi had cried as he told him. Taehyung walked
in, seeing Yoongi in Jimin’s embrace.

It was bloody as well as messy, the fight that ensued. Taehyung stood with tears of rage and
betrayal in his eyes, not at Jimin, but at Yoongi, whom he thought would never betray him like
that. But he had still given Jimin a choice. Not out of consideration. Not for his own peace of
mind.

Taehyung, however insecure he was, he wasn’t stupid. He knew Jimin would never love anyone
like he loved him. Even Yoongi.

The question he posed as Yoongi stood there with a bleeding lip, Jimin trying to make himself
look as large as possible while standing in front of both of them was simply to hurt. To torture
Yoongi. To make Jimin say it in front of him.

“ I’m not going to keep you back if you want to go to him Jimin.” Taehyung had said, Yoongi
scoffing beneath his breath while side-eying the younger.“ You got something to say you cheating
bastard?”

“ Oh we both know who’s the real bastard here Taehyung.” Taehyung charged for Yoongi again,
just as Jimin came in between them, grabbing Taehyung’s shoulders while the latter barked at
Yoongi, struggling against Jimin’s hold.

" Fucking-“ Taehyung thrashed against Jimin while Yoongi stood unflinching except for his
hands “Stop it, both of you. Fucking children.” He didn’t let go of Taehyung until minutes later
when at last he let out a frustrated sigh.

“ Taehyung I’ve already told him, I… You don’t need to do this.”

“ You have a fucking choice Jimin.”

“ Taehyung, don’t make me say it.” Jimin had begged, pleading with his eyes. “He knows baby,
Yoongi already knows-”
“Me or him?” Taehyung was being dramatic. He’s always dramatic. Loves too hard and hates so
easily, wants to make a show because he’s so insecure and afraid of losing the few things that
matter. And Jimin matters most.

“Taehyung ple-”

“ Jimin.” His voice was strained, the fear evident, as if he didn’t know with every cell already
what Jimin’s answer would be. Jimin remembers feeling a sharp betrayal at the uncertainty in
Taehyung’s voice. He had completely derailed then.

“ YOU, you fucking bastard.” Jimin howled at him, punching Taehyung in the chest. “ Of course
it’s you.” Taehyung was too angry to reprimand himself as Jimin crumpled to the floor, Yoongi
making a move to go to him before Taehyung threw out an imperious hand, giving a sharp,
warning glance to Yoongi before kneeling in front of Jimin.

“ It’s always been you. It will never be anyone else. I will always choose you Taehyung, you
asshole. You fucking asshole, you already know. You already know… Why…” Jimin looked up at
Yoongi with tear –stained cheeks, his face hard and pained while reaching for him.

“Don’t..” The pianist whispered, Jimin flinching, hand retreating. “ I should have known.”
Yoongi turned away just as a tear fell to the floor, his heart clenching as he walked away from his
first love. The only person he thought he could ever love like he did.

“Yoongi!” Jimin cried after him, making a move to stand up before Taehyung pulled him down
with a sob.

“ Please, please don’t go after him.” Taehyung pleaded, because he was sixteen and afraid.

Because his father had only died a few months before and Yoongi couldn’t fucking wait to just
step even further on his broken bones.

Because Yoongi probably fell in love with Jimin as they sat together at night all those years ago,
putting Taehyung to sleep with the sound of the piano and Jimin’s soft singing. Yoongi probably
fell in love with Jimin as they bonded over Taehyung’s pain.

As they both tended to Taehyung’s wounds, talking to each other about how Taehyung didn’t
paint as much anymore.

How he was starting so smell less and less like parchment and paint, and more and more like
blood. They could smell the pain on Taehyung more and more every day, the burden of an empire
of crime on the tips of his eyelashes, his hands stained in the phantom blood of women and
children he had not killed.

A teenage boy made heir to a world of trafficking, prostitution, human degradation, drugs and
death. How could he not change? After all of that?

Jimin let Taehyung kiss him then, closing his eyes, the image of a retreating Yoongi disappearing
as their lips connected. “ You would really choose me Jimin?” Taehyung asked, kissing him
again.

“ Always.”

“ Jimin?” Jimin blinks, blinks again as Taehyung’s smile appears before his eyes. “You keep
spacing out today love, what’s wrong?” Memories of Yoongi and an insecure Taehyung fade as
Jimin makes a conscious effort to suppress them, caressing Taehyung’s cheek as he gives him a
questioning smile.

“ I should be asking you that babe.” Jimin says, cocking an eyebrow.

“ Hm?” Taehyung fakes nonchalance as the elder rolls his eyes, shying away from Jimin’s
questioning gaze as he plays with his plump fingers, caressing the metal of the rings adorning his
hands, riling up the sweater sleeve as he does so. “ Your hands are so beautiful Jimin, why do you
always hide them baby?”

“Taehyung…” Jimin warns while trying to suppress a blush. It’s exasperating and exhilarating,
loving Taehyung is. His words will always affect you. No matter how many times he’s said them,
or how long it has been… Every time is as new as the first. He says it just as lovingly, with
glistening eyes and an omnipresent smile that’s going to sew wrinkles into his cheeks from how
wide it stretches when he’s with Jimin. “What’s wrong baby?”

Because Taehyung is always happiest when he’s with him.

“ How can you tell?” Taehyung asks, shifting his body so he’s facing Jimin completely. Folding
his knees on the sofa while Jimin lays his head on the headrest.

“ I can always tell.” Jimin replies, to which Taehyung brings his head closer, pressing a chaste kiss
to each of Jimin’s eyes. The look in his eyes is slightly sad, maybe a little pained. But Jimin’s eyes
are closed, and open far too late to see it. Taehyung retreats, letting out a tired sighed.

“ Yeh, yeh you always can.” He confirms, letting the sofa swallow him as he slackens against it.
Jimin plays with his hair as he waits, giving Taehyung time as he contemplates how to even start.
“ What do you know about The Black Rebellion Jimin?” He finally asks, his face, however tired,
hardening, and Jimin realizes this is far more serious than he initially thought.

“You’re scaring me Tae.”

“Just, tell me what you know.” Taehyung urges, and then with a disgruntled expression adds,
“And I’ll tell you how much of it is a lie.”

“ Jesus fuck Tae,” Jimin exclaims, shaking his head. “ Okay.” He rubs his eyes with the back of
his hands, his chest slightly uneasy as he takes a deep breath.

“ It happened around the time of the Second World War right?” Jimin starts. “Your grandfather as
well as Yoongi’s grandfather were members of a group called La Pente, as in ‘The Five’.”
Taehyung is nodding along, Jimin frowning at how tired he is.

He’s been sleeping less well. Jimin thinks.

Because I’m not there with him.

“ They were basically some of the most notable members of the global criminal underworld for a
few centuries before the wars. Their dealings took place mostly in the east though everything was
controlled from the west, their headquarters being based in England. The two consecutive wars
kind of riled up the gang world.” Jimin continues, pivoting so he can rest against Taehyung, his
back to the latter’s chest. Taehyung’s fingers immediately swim to his hair, caressing the tendrils
on his forehead, trailing the curve of his brow as they stare at each other.

Jimin’s kind of lost his thought process, Taehyung’s face so fucking distracting and beautiful, his
smile making his mind all hazy and unsure of what happens next in the story. A little tap to his
nose makes Jimin sigh in defeat as he continues. “People were starving everywhere. No one was
really worried about selling skin or drugs anymore. The Tabacco business boomed but that was
pretty much it, it was mostly about weapons or oil. Commodities of war… Should I go on?”
Jimin’s cheeks are flushed, little knots of concentration ghosting his forehead.

“Keep going.”

“Small-scale scale gangs became a lot more violent, a lot less afraid to carry out dealings out in the
open because the law enforcement and the public were too focused on the war. A lot of petty gang
wars broke out, over weapons mostly, trying to steal army firepower for themselves. Contrary to
what they thought, specific bands of the public started to realise what was happening I guess, and
it was all too much for them, with the war already taking their homes and men away from them.
They didn’t need gangs running rampant in the streets too.”

“ A group of consciousness objectors, pacifists antagonised for their cowardice in London who
hadn’t joined the war to object the mentality of violence, found out about La Pente. It is true that
your grandfather and his associates could have probably shut down the petty gang wars but what
the objectors didn’t realise was that La Pente wasn’t involved in any western gang business at the
time, they were too focused on exploiting the war to their benefit to be bothered with the shrub
layer of the crime world.”

“ La Pente did most of their dealings there, in the London business capital, and the objectors who
weren’t all that bothered about the war and had all the time in the world on their hands started to
stage a revolt against your grandfather and his associates, in hopes that the gang wars would stop.
It didn’t end well for both sides. Everyone was too busy with the war to realise what was
happening. But in the black outs of London, during the blitz, the objectors attacked La Pente’s
head-quarters in Central London.”

“ The objector’s revolt was far more vicious and bloody than anyone expected. La Pente was
focused on the weapons dealings with both the allied powers as well as the Rome-Berlin axis,
selling both sides of the war weapons while trying to make sure each side didn’t realise what they
were doing. They hadn’t realized the rebellion happening right beneath their nose. The objectors
had planned diligently for months, and massacred the families and extended relations of La Pente.

“ Out of the five, only your grandfather and Yoongi’s escaped free. There was so much blood in
the streets of London, and since it happened during the black-outs, the blood wasn’t red anymore
but black. So they called it The Black Rebellion. Your grandfather rebuilt the empire from scratch
after the war and the Min family carried on handling your legal matters.”

“ You said they massacred La Pente’s relations.” Taehyung says, Jimin letting out a long breathe.

“ Yeh…”

“Have you never wondered why they didn’t kill Yoongi’s dad? Or mine? How convenient it was
that mine and Yoongi’s grandfather’s only two sons were the only supposed legacies of La Pente
left?” Taehyung asks a perplexed Jimin.

“You can’t be serious…” Jimin whispers as the implication of Taehyung’s words hit home.

“You were right up until the bit about the objectors planning the revolt.” Taehyung reveals and
then takes Jimin’s hands in his own as he hauls them both up. “C’mon.” He urges as they both
rise, Jimin’s annoyed sigh making Taehyung chuckle.

“What are you doing? Aren’t-”

‘You’re too tense Jimin, c’mon baby dance with me.” Taehyung asks as he pads to the
gramophone sitting beside the Grand piano in the corner of the room. A scratch later, a soft
melody fills the room.

“Taehyung babe, now’s not the…” Taehyung grabs his waist, pulling him closer as Jimin sighs,
always the defeated. “ -time.”

“There’s always time to slow dance. Especially with you. ” Taehyung replies softly, swaying
with Jimin as the sunset descends outside. The colours of the sky paint the room in hues of orange
and pink, Jimin’s face soft and utterly beautiful under the pastel vibrancy of the sunset. “You-”

“ You’re beautiful.” Jimin beats him to it, smiling as Taehyung pouts.

“You knew I was going to say it, that’s not fair.” Taehyung whines, pouting. Jimin’s responding
chuckle is warm, sweet and filling. The taller rests his head-on top of his, his chin over Jimin’s
hair as he holds onto his waist tighter. He inhales the smell of Jimin’s hair, jasmine calming hi
jittery nerves.

“You know I’m telling you all this for reason, I don’t want you to get stressed okay? I mean it
kind of is something to-” The kiss on his lips is gone as soon as he felt it and he’s left wanting
more as he reaches in again, only for Jimin to press two fingers against his lips and push him
away.

“ Later Tae,” Jimin dismisses him as Taehyung whines. “Tell me, please. You’re worrying me.”
The song picks up suddenly, a glissando making Taehyung let go of the arm around Jimin to twirl
him around himself, both of them laughing. Jimin rests his head-on Taehyung’s chest, listening to
his heart beat.

“Your heart is beating so slowly.” Jimin exclaims quietly, resting his palm against Taehyung’s
chest besides his own head.

“It’s because I feel safe with you.” Taehyung murmurs, and then, as an after-thought; “ No
homo.” They both burst out laughing, Jimin hitting Taehyung on the chest as they’re both left
breathless and high off each other’s laughter.

“ Taehyung I swear to god-”

“The rebels never got to actually plan the rebellion.” Taehyung finally continues quickly as
Jimin’s temper flares, his cheeks hurting from laughing so much, little giggles still escaping as he
tries to compose himself.

“Look what you’ve done now.” Jimin reprimands a giggling Taehyung, shaking his head as he
melds himself into him, their bodies fitting into one another as they dance absent-mindedly,
floating in one another’s company and scents.

“ There were no rebels in the first place.” Taehyung says.

“ What?”

“You see, even though La Pente was supposed to have an equal distribution of the power. Both
them and the rest of the crime world knew that my grandfather held most of the power, influence
and money. The other members, excluding Yoongi’s grandfather who dealt with the legal issues,
were becoming increasingly weary of this. Especially since, La Pente was dealing more and more
with the western powers, dabbling in government, they didn’t want this unequal distribution of
power to become the ‘norm’ for future relations.”

“Grandfather knew his associates had started to plan a silent rebellion against him. One in which
his heir and family as well as himself would be quietly assassinated. True, Grandfather was more
powerful than them individually, that’s why this whole mess was started in the first place. But
three of La Pente against grandfather at the same time? That was going to be a bit trickier.”

“ And Yoongi’s grandad?”

“Him and my grandfather were best friends.” Jimin heard the underlying tone as Taehyung said
that, but dismissed it as the latter continued with a serious look. “Grandfather, with his help,
planned the whole Black Rebellion.” Jimin lets out a little gasp, Taehyung nodding his head in
equal shock even though he’s heard this story thousands of times before. “The conscientious
objectors, the C. O’s, did in fact rebel, but it was all staged. It wasn’t because they were upset, no
one gave a shit about the gang stuff; there was a world war going on.”

“Wait but… if your grandfather is the one who planned the whole thing… then… his family? And
Yoongi’s?” The look on Jimin’s face tells Taehyung that he already knows the answer to his
question, the way his bottom lip is trembling in anticipation.

“He killed everyone except my dad.” Taehyung breathes out quietly, and Jimin stills. “And
Yoongi’s grandfather did the same. To stray suspicion and make sure they could still keep
alliances with the connections from the other three and rebuild the empire how they wanted, from
scratch.”

“ Were…” Jimin’s voice is barely a murmur when he speaks, Taehyung lifting his chin so he can
look at him. “ W-were they in love? L-like-”

“No Jimin...No one is in love like you and me.” Taehyung interrupts, and he feels Jimin’s smile
lift on his chest. “But yes, yes I suspect they were. Yoongi’s dad told me his dad wasn’t anything
like that, that he couldn’t just kill his own blood like that, not unless…”

“ Not unless he was blinded by love.”

“ They were all quite young, La Pente, they were the new generation of leaders. All in their late
twenties. Min’s dad killed his wife, a fourth-generation chaebol’s daughter he had been made to
marry at nineteen, and kept Min, Yoongi’s dad. As heir, to continue the legacy.”

“ That’s so fucked.” Jimin exclaims, lifting his head from Taehyung’s chest to peer into his eyes.

“ Yeh…”

“ They must have loved each other a lot to do that.” Jimin comments.

“ Yeh, yeh I guess they must have.”

“ So?” Jimin inquires, resting his head to the side so he can look up at Taehyung.

“ So what?”

“ What’s the catch Taehyung?” He questions uneasily.

“You’re too smart for your own good you know that?”

“ You give me far too much credit, you’re not delaying clubbing and having me dance around you
half naked in front of two hundred people for just a history lesson Tae. C’mon love, why are you
telling me this now?” Jimin whines, impatient and maybe slightly afraid. Because there’s a weight
on Taehyung’s shoulders, another invisible wrinkle of pain prematurely aging his forehead, that
had not been there yesterday.
“ You know how my dad and Yoongi’s are apparently the only supposed legacies that were left
after the rebellion?” Taehyung

“ Oh god, yeh…”

“ That… that might not be entirely true.” Taehyung says hesitantly, just as Jimin’s head snaps up.

“ What?”

“ We think my grandfather missed someone out.” The taller reveals, laying a comforting hand on
Jimin’s hair, spreading his fingers out, weaving them through his hair.

“ How did you come across this piece of information?” Jimin asks, the song having ended, just
swaying to the sound of their conversation as Taehyung sighs. The smaller’s head rises on
Taehyung’s chest with the inflation, his heart beat a calm wave in his ears.

“ Min tells me there’s been some disturbances.”

“And you think this person is behind them? This forgotten legacy?”

“They’re personally targeting me, there are too many signs to label it as coincidence.” He always
says that word with a lot of disgust, Taehyung does. As if it’s mere enunciation pains him.
Because coincidence is for those who do not see, who do not understand or care enough to look
for reason. And that is a pitiful thing indeed, to be without reason.

Jimin is Taehyung’s reason.

He has never known any different. He just pretends the six years of his life before Jimin did not
exist, he’s not sure how many memories of his days before that faithful dinner meeting where he
lay his gaze upon a halo of jade and cherub’s cheeks he has supressed. But he’s sure he doesn’t
want to remember his life before Jimin, not now, not ever.

“And you don’t believe in coincidences.” Jimin muses.

“ I thought it was nothing to worry about, but…”

“But what?”

“We’ve linked what happened at Shanghai to you back to all these disturbances.” Taehyung
finally says.

“What?” Jimin’s eyes are wide-blown, horrified as he detaches himself from Taehyung and the
latter ogles at his reaction. “ That can’t be…” Jimin whispers in fear, jaw shaking.

“ Jimin?” Taehyung makes a move to touch his trembling face, only for him to step back.

“ I mean- I meant, as in, you couldn’t have been wrong, you’re so.. thorough. You linked
Shanghai back to some nobody dealers that were mad at you…” Taehyung raises an eyebrow at
Jimin. “Didn’t you baby?” And just like that, with Jimin returning to Taehyung’s embrace,
holding the taller’s face in his hands, the former’s reaction is forgotten, and Taehyung’s perplexed
expression softens.

“Yeh love.” He replies unsurely. " Turns out I might have been wrong."

“You don’t make mistakes Taehyung.” Jimin says with so much conviction, and a shudder runs
through Teahyung’s body, Jimin peering up at him upon feeling it.
There’s an expression on Taehyung’s face that Jimin has never seen before. His jaw is trembling
slightly, one of those half-laughs ghosting over his face. There might be tears in his eyes, there
might not. Jimin can’t really tell. It’s a strange expression, it doesn’t really fit his face. Jimin finds
himself slightly discomforted by it.

“ No Jimin.” He replies, kissing the tip of Jimin’s nose, resting their foreheads together before
laying Jimin’s head on top of his chest, the latter listening to his heart beat, steady and comforting,
like home. “ I make mistakes.”

I’m looking at my biggest one right now.

 Gifted Boys
Chapter Summary

Some (lots of) Sugakookie for your deprived souls.

Chapter Notes

In the Yoonkook scenes, there will be a *lot* of technical musical terms. They can
range from general knowledge to instrumentally specific score directions as an
extreme example.

If anyone is confused, you're free to ask but I won't define the terms in the notes
because one, the definition might be even more confusing and two, a direct
contradiction I'm aware, but a lot of you could probably already know them.

I name every piece that Sugakookie ( or sometimes other characters) will play or
interact with in the body of text itself, along with specifics and the names of the
composers, and a personal opinion is that you will understand the essence of my
interpretations of the pieces a lot better if you listen to them yourself. Since Jungkook
and Yoongi are both musicians and obviously integral to the story, you will be better
acquainted with them as characters if you familiarise yourself with the type of music
they play too.

Love, Charli

It’s an ordinary scene for Min Yoongi, the one he’s engaging in right now. The body lain on the
frame of a grand Steinway & Sons piano is lithe, her spine arching to create a beautiful curve on
the glossy surface of the instrument.

“Who?” He asks, laying his palm on her stomach, spreading his fingers on the flesh. He looks
across the piano, to her face cast in shadows by the light of the morning inching in through the
windows spanning the wall beside them.

“D-Debussy.” Her voice shakes, lips red and jaw shaking, palms pressed to the surface of the
piano frame, as if she’s bound to the instrument by the sweat and come on her hands.

“Hm,” Yoongi agrees in a content tone, smiling strangely at the suggestion before taking his hand
away.

She whines, hands making a move to reach for him. “If you move your hands even an inch from
where I told you to put them, I will edge you to fucking tears.” Yoongi reprimands with a low
tone, his hand resting on the inside of her thigh, flicking it once. ‘Do you understand me kitten?”
Twice.

Her thighs are trembling, eyes glassy, leaking onto the piano frame, come dripping onto the skin
of the instrument.

“Y-yes Sir.” She finally whispers.

“Good.” Yoongi purrs, circling the piano to the side, clutching her thighs in his hands and
bringing her to the edge of the frame. “I want you on the bed princess.” He suddenly says after
some deliberation.

“Y-y-yes sir.” Yoongi steps back as she slips off the piano, crumbling to the floor on unsteady
legs, knees colliding with the hardwood. She thinks he’s going to make a move to help her, but
no.

The pianist stands there, naked and towering over her kneeling form, watching as she struggles to
stand on weak, come-stained legs.

He scoffs, and she drips onto the floor. It’s so fucking hot that she finds herself stumbling to bed,
come dripping onto the floor because she’s absolutely soaked, knowing he’s appreciating her
back-side as she does so.

Falling onto the bed in a disarray, she manages to position herself in the middle, the four poster
devoid of any bedding except the white sheet. She lies face down, just as he likes it, her arms
stretching in front of her, wrists crossing as they rest on top of the headboard.

Yoongi’s figure approaches from the shadows, looking directly down her body.

“Ass up.” He orders imperiously, leaning against the foot of the bed.

His cock is red and leaking, pressing against the wood as he looks at her body, like she’s a
specimen to be judged. It’s so humiliating, filthy and arousing, even though she can’t see him.

She spreads her legs further, kneeling on the bed as she presents herself, ass up, hands pressed
against the headboard.

Little does she know why Yoongi fucks everyone face down, or against the piano where he can’t
see their faces.

Because it’s not them he imagines fucking at all.

His tongue trails his upper lip, teeth biting on the lower at the way she spreads her legs. “Look at
you spreading yourself for me like a little slut.” He hums, smirking as the come inches its way out
of her, staining the sheets between her legs.

He hasn’t even touched her yet.

Yoongi approaches the bed-side drawers, tattooed arm rippling as he reaches inside. His entire
left arm is tattooed with a two-part score, perhaps for piano, which would make sense. The bars
curl around his bicep, notes and musical notations quivering on the muscle above her as the black
silk is tied around her hands.

Finally, he sits between her legs, two slaps against each of her cheeks and she screams.

Yoongi’s eyes roll to the back of his head at the sound, not in arousal but annoyance.
“ I don’t want to fucking hear you, shut the fuck up.”

Because hearing her voice, too high and girly and just plain wrong, reminds him that the expanse
of skin at his fingertips, begging and arching to be used, is not, in fact, Jimin at all.

He spanks her again, taking his anger out on her ass cheeks and she’s stifling her moans by biting
her arm.

Good, he doesn’t really want to hear her right now.

Yoongi trails his hand from the middle of her spine to her ass, down to her hole and he bites his
lip, closing his eyes.

"Mon Dieu, ce que j'aurais aimé que tu sois quelqu'un d'autre." She moans at his voice, the
language foreign and indecipherable to her.

My god, how I wish you were someone else.

Yoongi continues to whisper in her ears, his body curling over hers as she’s struck by how softly
he says the words, with so much pain.

She’s been waiting for this since talk of it had started spreading around the campus at Julliard.
Since she’s a vocalist, news had spread to their department far later than the others.

Min Yoongi hasn’t attended many lessons during the past four years.

Not recitals nor concert performances, and he doesn’t sit the term practical exams though he still
achieves the highest grades in Theory unfailingly, every time.

But the past year, he’s started to frequent the campus much more often. The teachers were
hopeful, thinking that he was starting to think about properly recovering again.

The doctors had said that he wasn’t a lost cause, when the accident happened four years ago.

But Yoongi was already a world-renowned prodigy at nineteen, a self-acclaimed concert pianist
and virtuoso in violin. However much everyone liked to, and still does like to, think otherwise, it
could have only been downhill from here. No one really believed he could get better.

And so maybe Yoongi started to believe it too. And started to let go of the piano.

The doctors haven’t been able to pinpoint what exactly the cause of his shaking hands are, and
why the tremors are specifically linked to the piano. Yoongi had woken up from a coma several
months after, completely okay, save for the fact that his hands would spasm sporadically, without
any specific reason.

You can’t have a concert pianist who doesn’t know when his hands would forsake him.

Since the spring term this year, he started showing up to lessons. Albeit high and sometimes
hangover, at least he came. But how wrong everyone was, thinking after three and a half years
that he was finally going to give it another try.

Just when the teachers started to believe that Yoongi was trying, the rumours began to spread.

Yoongi’s consecutive sexual conquests spread the news of his activities like wildfire. Of how he’d
turned to sex to take his mind off the piano. Of how he would bind girls, as well as boys, to his
bed and treat the canvas of their body like piano keys. Of how he plays pieces on the sharp of
their collarbones, glissandos across their thighs and makes them come just by fluttering his
fingertips on their skin.

Those very fingertips on her skin bring her back to the present reality.

“ Claire De Lune" He whispers, laying a soft kiss to the inside of her thigh.

The bed shifts upwards as Yoongi reaches over to his phone on the bed side table, the sound of
the piano filling the room as he returns, hands roaming her body.

“ That’s me playing.” He whispers, closing his eyes, both of his hands resting on her back, and
begins to play the piece on her body, imagining it’s Jimin’s skin he touches instead.

The girl’s responding sigh to his touch is shaky. She thanks the heavens that she’s a vocalist now,
however late the news of Yoongi being a sex-god reached her.

Because there is talk of how he would make other pianists guess the piece as he played it on their
skin, and if they couldn’t guess or guessed incorrectly, he would either spank their asses raw or
edge them, depriving them of a climax again and again until they begged for mercy.

His fingers move downwards and oh god, she struggles against the silk ties when they reach her
hipbones, each hand accompanying the other, playing on the extremities of her hips. And then…

Yoongi’s hands are at her heat. Her eyes roll to the back of her head, thighs trembling like vibrato.

And then he touches her. His fingertips are fleeting, soft at her folds. Just like how he would play
Debussy on the piano.

"Sa peau serait beaucoup plus douce." Yoongi rasps, fingers massaging her skin.

He would be so much softer.

“ P-p-please.” It’s too much. So fucking intense as he plays the broken chords on her skin,
fingers teasingly entering her slightly each time.

“ Please what?” Yoongi snaps.

“ I…” She’s never been so close to coming so fast, the words caught in her mouth as his fingers
suddenly enter her, soft and dominant all at the same time, curling, fluttering against her walls as if
he is still playing Debussy inside her.

"Plus serré autour de mes doigts."

So much tighter around my fingers.

“ If you haven’t anything coherent to say,” Yoongi starts, and then begins to pump his fingers in
and out. “Then how about you shut your pretty mouth, d'accord? There’s only one hole I’d like
open right now princess.” His words are beyond her because she just starts whining even more
loudly, shaking and unravelling beneath his hands and once his lips join his fingers, sucking and
tonguing at her, ruining and dirtying her innocent as the filthiest words leave his lips, she’s a
goner.

The vibrations of his speech against her heat bloom the fire licking at her walls as he kneels
backwards, fingers still relentlessly curling in and circling her insides as his body stretches over
her, teeth nipping and grazing over her shoulders, dragging along her spine as his fingers leave her
heat. Instead, his thumb presses down, sketching tight circles on her opening as his tattooed hand
kneads the flesh of her hips between his fingers.

“So pliant.” He praises when he slaps her again, her thighs convulsing. “Il ne serait pas aussi
obéissant que toi. Il serait insubordonné et se comporterait comme un gamin et, putain je l'aurais.”
Yoongi says, biting her ass sharply.

He wouldn't be so pliant as you are. He'd be bratty and insubordinate and fuck- how I would
ravage him.

Through hazy vision and a mind clouded with the need to orgasm while knowing she hasn’t been
given permission, she’s suddenly scared. Scared of what he might be saying to her, of his hands
and tongue mapping her body with the promise of euphoria. Scared of falling for a boy who fucks
and doesn’t make love, who uses bodies to his pleasure to forget the pain of loss. The loss of his
first love.

“ T-t-thank you sir.” She utters.

“ Such a good girl for me, aren’t you?” Her core spams as his fingers curl inside her, her body
arching as the high approaches, his mouth hot on her skin, fingers not nearly big enough inside
her.

“Oh no…princess,” He purrs, teeth grazing her ear lobe just as his fingers are removed from
inside her. "Were you going to come without my permission?” He asks, feigning disappointment
that sounds so fucking real that she drips with humiliation right on his fingertips that are just
resting nonchalantly on her folds, unmoving.

“ N-n-“ She screams. Because just then, the head of his cock presses against her, his teeth
digging into her neck at the same time and she comes with no warning.

The orgasm whirls through her as Yoongi enters her slowly, fucking her into over-stimulation
while she clenches around him and screams just as his hand slams on her jaw.

“ Little whores don’t get to scream.” He rasps into her ear and she doesn’t even hear him because
of the aftershocks piling through her.

“Je voulais le faire hurler plus que je n'avais besoin d'air.” He says, tears in his eyes as fucks into
her one more time.

I wanted to make him scream more than I needed air.

She doesn’t register the ties being undone and her body being lifted and carried to the piano until
she gags, her panties stuffed into her mouth as Yoongi slams her against the instrument, pressing
her forwards with a forceful hand on her spine, her breasts hurting as they’re caught at the edge of
the piano.

“Je le veux toujours.” Yoongi whispers.

I still do.

Her legs are weak, shaking as she tries to stand.

“You okay?” Yoongi asks just because, the comforting hand on her bruised shoulder faux and
meaningless.

“ Y-y-yeh. A-are you g-going-” She’s struggling to speak ,choking on her own panties that he’s
decided to gag her with.
“ Gonna fuck you raw now princess.” Her knees give out at his words, his hand coming to clutch
beneath her thigh, lifting her up as she’s pressed against the piano again. “Take what’s mine. That
okay with you?” He reaffirms, consideration evident through all the dominance. He's cold, not
heartless.

“ Ye-yes please, f-f-fuck.” Bony hands grab her arms, pinning them behind her back. Yoongi rests
one last open mouthed kiss on her shoulder, one of his hands coming to caress her side before
thrusting in. His pace is relentless, brutal, just as everyone had said.

That he would spend the most part of their time together taking care of them, asking them their
needs and preferences before-hand, making them come just how they liked.

But as soon as he’d done everything they’d ask, he’d fuck them against the piano, brutally and
uncaring. His hands would leave dark bruises on their skin, biting into their shoulders as he fucked
their holes dry.

Yoongi was known to make no distinction between boys or girls. He’d feign making love at first,
considerate of needs and individual desires and then fuck them all silly and stain the piano in their
come.

And so he fucks into her, right hand coming down harshly on her ass-cheeks as the other keeps
her arms pinned to her back. She’s hurting all over, being used silly like a toy as Yoongi thrusts,
fucking into her with neither words of praise nor any consideration for her body as he bruises her.

She’d heard it was bad but not…this bad.

He fucks with no emotion, just chasing another orgasm, another momentary high that would make
him forget the only person he’d ever even thought of making love to. But can’t.

The vocalist is fucked through three further orgasms before she finally feels him spill inside her.

She’s left feeling dirty and used as his cock leaves, spitting her ruined underwear out of her
mouth, freezing without the body heat and the sun fully risen to reveal a cold morning outside.

“We stained the piano.” She says, chuckling emptily because of how wrong it all feels, leaning
against the instrument to retrieve her strength.

“Not like it matters.” Yoongi mutters as he walks over to the closet. She picks this as her cue to
start picking up her clothes, scattered on the piano, the hardwood floors.

“You can use the shower if you want.” He offers as he drags some bedding out of the storage
closets, padding to the bed.

“Will you be in it?” She asks.

“I don’t fuck twice.” Yoongi mutters tiredly as he starts replacing the sheets. And it’s silly and
maybe a bit childish because she feels like he’s throwing her away too, as the dirty sheets are
thrown into a disposable bag, Yoongi still naked as he put the bags behind the curtains.

“Even in the same sitting?” She asks, peeling her jeans from the floor as her eyes catch sight of his
cock leaking to the ground.

“Yes sweetheart, even in the same sitting.” He drawls like he’s speaking to a child and she rolls
her eyes.

“ Then no.” She replies sharply.

“ I’ll call you a taxi.” He says, phone in his hand.

“ Stop pretending like you care.”

“Don’t be a fucking bitch Jesus, it’s just sex. You came here for the sex, just like everyone else,
don’t get all sentimental on me.” Yoongi snaps as he presses the phone to his ear, the conversation
consisting of his address and an inquiry about when the car would be here. She’s fully clothed by
the time he stops talking, lounging against the clean side of the piano, watching as he wipes
himself down with a wet cloth, throwing it into the toilet before coming to stand in front of her,
still shamelessly bare. She fixes him with a strange look to which he sighs.

Everyone’s noticed how he’s been a lot broader lately, maybe it’s the sex. But the lines of muscle
are evident as he crosses his arms in front of him.

“Why the fuck are you looking at me like that?” Yoongi snaps, exasperated. She smirks, scoffing.
She’s heard the rumours, even seen the cause of them a few times around campus, of why Min
Yoongi is like this.

And a lot of people say it isn’t just because of his hands.

“This Jimin guy must have bomb ass dick game for you to become such a sociopath.” She says
smirking, throwing around the name she's heard whispered behind Yoongi around the campus.
But it's a bad fucking move because there are fingers around her neck, pressing down on her
wind-pipe and she’s struggling to breathe. Yoongi’s eyes are obsidian quarters in front of her,
trembling with rage.

“You don’t have any fucking right to say his name.” Yoongi whispers, anger reeking through his
voice, hand pressing on her throat as she chokes. “Get the fuck out of my house.” He rasps, letting
go of her neck before her hands come to massage the skin, kneading at the bruised flesh as
Yoongi goes towards the balcony, picking up a stray towel, wrapping it around his waist before
opening the balcony doors and stepping outside.

The girl takes one last look at his figure, and realises that instead of being mad she just pities him.

“The taxi’s here, get the fuck out.” He says from the balcony, the smell of smoke entering the
house as she glances at the cigarette dangling between his fingers.

“Asshole.” She snarls at him, the balcony being right next to the piano

“Yeh, would have preferred some tonight, known I should have went for the Timpanist instead.
You’re a whiney bitch.” Yoongi raps before taking a long inhale of the smoke.

She throws him the middle finger before slipping into her shoes, thrown beneath the piano, and
heading towards the door. The sex was mind-blowing, as everyone had reminisced and promised.
She wasn’t bothered for the aftermath of it though.

So, she leaves, through a door many others have walked in and out of in states worse than hers,
with rippled clothes and lips and even broken hearts sometimes, the ones who fall in love with the
pain in Yoongi’s eyes and the magic dripping from his hands.

And Yoongi is left all alone, once again.

Like always.
 Pt II.

The sounds of art trickle slowly into Jungkook’s ears as he strolls along The Lincoln Centre Plaza,
looking up as he passes below the sharp, protruding block of glass where the Glorya Kaufman
dance studio is located, sticking out over the Broadway.

People have already started to stare as he enters through the glass doors, most of them being
people he doesn’t really know since the lower floors are mostly for dance and acting. The suit is
heavy and too tight around his shoulders, the bowtie stuffy and constricting.

The violin case should feel like dead weight behind him, but instead it’s a comfort in the midst of
all the whispering and side-eyes Jungkook really doesn’t have the time for right now.

He hasn’t told Jimin about what’s happening today, afraid that if either him or Taehyung came
along that he would completely lose his cool and fuck it all up. The whispering around him
doesn’t help, everyone curious and wondering over the announcement made earlier this morning
which Jungkook knew about almost an entire month ago.

“Everyone who’s in today been called to Peter Jay Sharp.” The named theatre is the largest
performing stage in the whole school. Jungkook’s hands sweat at the thought of how many people
would watch him today.

“Everyone? Even non-musicians?”

“Listen to what? I have lessons.”

“Everyone has lessons. Which is why they’ve cancelled them for the better part of the morning.
Even the professors are all coming to watch. I saw at least three world class conductors at the
amphitheatre this morning. No one has a fucking clue what’s going on.”

Jungkook wishes now that Jimin hadn’t pulled so many strings to get him in here. He's never been
so nervous in his fucking life.

With no high school transcript, essays or prior artistic training, Jungkook knows Jimin must have
went through hell to get Jungkook that physical audition last spring. The rest had been up to
Jungkook, and he guesses he did well. Since he’s here now.

He enters the back of the theater hurriedly, ignoring the strange looks from the groups of dancers,
musicians and actors clustered outside the theatre, some of them with their breakfast still in hand,
or already in performance clothes.

“There goes Mr. I’m special because I was born like this.” Someone mimics childsihly just as
Jungkook opens the back door. “ I can go in earlier than everyone else because-“ The violinist
sighs, blocking at the noise as he sees the Julliard415 orchestra setting up inside the theatre that’s
still thankfully devoid of any audience, closing the door behind him.

He waves at some of the people he’s been practicing with for the past month, shyly smiling, a lot
of them having warmed up to him.

He’s glad the professor decided to use the graduate orchestra for this, instead of the school’s main
one. The Julliard Orchestra is composed of people across the years, some of Jungkook’s
classmates being in it too. But the graduate orchestra, though they don’t usually preform these
kind of pieces, are much kinder to Jungkook, more musically mature, and less concerned about
who he is and where he comes from. They only care whether he’s good enough to play with
them. And he is, by god they realised why the professor was doing this in the first place with only
a few notes played by Jungkook.

This is it.

Everything he’s been working for the past month.

There’s a slight tap on his shoulder as he’s bending over to un-haul his case.

“Jungkook?” The man behind him is the person who had proposed this whole plan in the first
place. “Are you ready?” He asks, spectacles catching the light as he peers at Jungkook through
them. The violinist takes a deep breath, taking his violin out of its case, caressing the body as he
gives the professor a firm nod.

“Yes sir.” Jungkook replies as he hears the people swarm into the theatre. The stage has been
closed off with a red curtain, the sight of the orchestra as well as Jungkook, thankfully, hidden
from the incoming crowds.

The violist peaks out from the extremity of the stage, poking his nose out.

God, there’s so many people.

Professors, students, visitors, people even piling up outside the doors to see what all the fuss is
about. Jungkook clears away everything but his violin and bow, putting a small towel in his
pocket, going behind the orchestra just as he’d been instructed.

“You’re here to support him guys.” The professor begins, addressing the orchestra quietly.
“You’re not children here, you’re not blinded by frivolous gossip or the lack of musical maturity.
You are Julliard415, and have worked with some if not most of the most eminent musicians on the
planet. Jeon Jungkook here, with your support and mine, has more than enough potential to
become one of those very musicians. If only those people who slander him out there,” The
professor says, pointing towards the curtains, his voice quiet but strong. “– watch this performance
today, they will too. I expect full cooperation; do you understand me?”

“Yes sir.” The orchestra’s response is loud enough for the audience beyond the curtains to hush
down, quietening. The musicians all look at Jungkook, some with smiles on their faces and others
with solemn understanding.

The group of fifty or so students have practiced with Jungkook for the past month, watching him
practice for more than thirteen hours a day, sometimes falling asleep in Paul Hall where they
carried out most of their recitals.

Jungkook has earned their respect.

The Peter Jay Sharp Theatre seats nine hundred and seven people. That’s enough for the entire
student body as well as a significant proportion of the faculty.

Jungkook’s heart is galloping against his chest, his chest plate hurting as he takes deep breaths.

He’s worried about the trills. There’s a lot of fucking trills okay?

“Open the curtains.” The professor’s voice calms his heart. Jungkook adores him. He was the one
present at Jungkook’s audition in the first place, had given him a standing ovation and took on the
role of Jungkook’s personal mentor from the very beginning.
The sound of hushed whispers fill Jungkook’s ear. The theatre is filled to the brim with near to a
thousand people, and except those who were especially invited by the professor, no one has a
fucking clue what’s going on.

The professor pads to the pedestal, tapping the microphone in his hands, the sound gathering the
attention of the audience.

“Ladies and gentleman, may I have your attention please.” Jungkook can’t see much from his
position inside a recession in the wall on the right of the stage, tucked into the space to prevent
anyone from seeing him.

“A lot of you will be wondering why you have been called from your lessons here today, without
prior warning.” The professor starts. “Some of you, notably our alumni as well as a few other
prominent persons, some of whom a lot of you have been very surprised to see around the school
this morning,”

There’s chuckling, especially from the front row where several world class soloists and conductors
look behind them to the array of students staring at them with awe. “ -have been especially invited
to this event by myself.” He takes a deep breath before continuing, the sigh almost exhausted.

“ In this school we value musical integrity above all.” His voice is serious, reprimanding but not
harsh. “We aim to provide musical direction and teaching to students all over the world. In the
performing arts, we make distinctions between our students not by who they are in the outside
world, but what they become when they touch their instrument or put on performance attire.”

“For who they become when they play, sing, act or compose is who they truly are, no matter the
time or place.” There are nods of agreement all around, teachers and student alike with firm jaws
as everyone wonders the relevance of this to their spontaneous congregation.

“At Julliard, we enrol students not based on history, appearance or race but purely and only based
on artistic calibre.” There are hushed whispers at the professor’s words. The smarter of the
audience, especially students and professors alike, begin to see where this is going.

“ I am unfortunately forced to say that this autumn term has been disappointing, to say the least.
High school diplomas and transcriptions, essays and all the other requirements to enrol are mere
pedantics my friends.” Some of the professors and alumni sitting on the front row scoff and shake
their heads at the professor’s antics. He’s known to be eccentric, strong-willed and sometimes
reckless in his beliefs. But he is one of the best members of faculty this school has ever known and
he, himself is a cello prodigy, retiring to teach some few years ago.

“What matters is only the art, the instrument. What you as the audience feel when someone
embraces their art on the stage is the only thing that matters. Some of you in the audience are
technically impeccable in your arts, whatever they are.” The professor continues. “But when I
watch you play, since I myself teach in the music department, I feel nothing. You play only to
play perfectly, for the sole purpose of creating an impression of artistic superiority, whether it’s on
the teachers that grade your performances or the classmates you strive to be better than.” The
professor is toeing a very, very dangerous line. Noises of discontent and offense travel through the
theatre as the professor smiles.

“ This spring, I watched a performance worlds apart from what I usually encounter at this school.”
Since the auditions for Juilliard take place around that time, nearly everyone at this point has
understood the purpose of this gathering.

“ I pulled some strings, yes, to get this specific student enrolled at this school and I am neither
ashamed nor trying to hide it.” The professor explains quite proudly. “ I want you to listen to him
play today for there has been very disappointing talk, and not just among the students,” He says
eying the first row of professors with a reprimanding stare. “-questioning just how deserving this
student is to have been enrolled even though he was missing quite a lot of the previously
mentioned pedantic requirements. Jungkook?”

The gasps that circulate through the theatre are simply for the theatrics as Jungkook steps out, his
violin hanging in his hands as he steps in front of the orchestra, bowing to the crowd.

“Mr Jeon here does not have to justify to anyone except his teachers why he is here. And yet I
continue to hear his acceptance be labelled as nepotism, and he himself called other names which I
do not care to mention in front of our beloved president at this particular moment.” The president,
sitting in the front row as well, rolls his eyes at the professors morbid ass licking with an
exasperated shake of the head.

“After watching this performance, I hope this kind of talk ceases. Especially between the students,
who have no right to question the place of another student in this school. If some of you would
like to stay behind after this performance, Jungkook would be happy to play the piece he
presented for his audition as well. But for now, this is Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Minor,
opus. 64. ” The applause is hesitant, scattered.

The professor stands on the conductor’s spot as Jungkook moves further forward, standing front
right of the orchestra.

Breaths are held, shame and surprise flitting in the air as the orchestra caress the skin of their
instruments. Jungkook takes the small black towel from his pocket, fitting it on the chinrest,
settling his jaw on the fabric.

The professor gives him a small, determined smile before raising his baton. Jungkook takes a deep
breath.

Show time.

The violin is solemn, the orchestra quiet in the background, softly accompanying the chilling shrill
of the instrument. Mendelssohn’s masterpiece fills the room, the piece in Jungkook’s hands to
interpret as he wills, to deliver the story to the audience as he wishes.

And so he tells his own story.

He imitates the orchestra with a higher pitch as they play, his fingers ghosting over the violin so
fast that he doesn’t even know if he’s actually touching the instrument.

The piece is softer then, graduating slowly towards the climax. Jungkook feels the shifts in the
room with each excerpt, the different themes in perfect, paradoxical harmony.

With Mendelssohn putty and mouldable in his hands, he tells the story of the eleven care homes
that abused him. With the violin he voices the story of his scars, he tells the crowds about the only
boy he’s ever loved.

He tells them about Jimin.

Jungkook feels a pair of eyes on his neck.

Of course, he has close to a thousand-people watching him but this pair of eyes… they’re…
different. They’re hot and heavy on his neck while being cool and liberating.

Jungkook feels stupid for noticing it, and how lightheaded it’s making him feel. But he wants to
impress the owner of this specific pair of eyes, make the gaze less intense and more praising than
it is.

It’s already allegro molto vivace by the time Jungkook feels the pair of eyes leave his neck. This is
his time.

Jungkook fucking loves this part. The little fleeting bow movements on the violin, like he’s flirting
with the orchestra, playfully smiling as the bow slides sharply off the strings. He’s burning with
excitement, he knows he’s doing well.

And it’s confirmed when the crowd, cultured listeners of music who know that you just don’t
make noise in the middle of a performance, can’t help but gasp and exclaim in shock as
Jungkook’s fingers fly across the neck of the violin.

This movement is impressive, more than impressive. The bowing so intricate and the sound so
fleeting that the integrity of the auditory quality of the violin could be lost so easily, in the midst of
a cacophony of trying to maintain technique and actually playing the right notes.

Jungkook has memorised this piece and etched it into his bones.

He’s woken and slept with this piece for the past month until he can begin on any note, in the
middle of a minim and a string of demi semi quavers.

He’s pretty sure he can play it backwards.

And god, it fucking shows.

He’s smiling as much as the violin on his neck allows as the last few minutes approach. The
ending is an absolute ride. Soft and then immediately loud, the prolonged trill making Jungkook’s
fingers hurt but he’s absolutely exhilarated and he can just about see in the corner of his vision the
crowd’s hands clasped together, so fucking ready to clap and cheer that Jungkook’s smile
stretches even further.

There’s maybe a minute left now, half an hour gone just like that.

His upper body dances along with the violin, it has to if he’s going to get the notes out as he
wishes. He bends with a particularly high note and there are ‘woahs’ of praise from the front row
where his professors, alumni, and world class conductors are sitting.

Jungkook is breathless, eyes closed as he plays the last note, it’s a forte, signalling the end of the
concerto. He’s afraid because the theatre is so quiet. When he opens his eyes, the shocked faces of
the audience greet him as he takes the piece of cloth and wipes his forehead with it, violin hanging
in his hands.

He turns to the audience.

The president stands, hands coming in front of him and claps three times before the deafening
sound of cheers fill Jungkook’s ears. People stand hurriedly, others in shock as the melody of
appraisal fills Jungkook’s ears.

There are hoots from some boys in his composition class, people shouting screams of appreciation
and Jungkook’s shy bunny smile appears as he bows to the crowds.

Professors in the front row are nodding their heads, impressed and shocked at the display of
prodigiously musical calibre that they’ve just witnessed. Because it was unexpected.
Of course everyone knew he was a prodigy but… what Jungkook just showed them was
something, something beyond natural born talent.

Even if the crowds weren’t seasoned musicians, they could have told that what Jungkook just
played was in no way ordinary.

He did to Mendelssohn as Van Gogh did to his art. Transformed pain and suffering into
something so utterly, utterly beautiful.

And everyone is in awe.

His mentor steps off the pedestal, coming towards Jungkook, outstretching his hand as Jungkook
does the same, the professor’s grip strong when they shake hands, Jungkook’s smile stretches
even further.

“ I am honoured to be your mentor Mr Jeon.”

“No sir,” Jungkook quickly says, bowing to his mentor. “ I am honoured to be taught by you.

They almost can’t hear each other from how perseveringly loud the cheers still are and Jungkook
thinks that maybe this is his new beginning.

Maybe he’ll be okay here, as long as the school begins to accept him fully even with all that he
lacks. Maybe he’s going to be okay without Jimin. Because he doesn't know if after all that he
said this morning that he will ever be able to see him again. If Jimin will even want to see him.

Or at least, that’s what he’s telling himself as he looks at the crowds.

It’s strange, how in the midst of a thousand people, their eyes lock almost immediately.

Jungkook’s head is still hot, his hands sweaty and the adrenaline rampaging his mind. He can’t see
very clearly, the excitement and bright lights washing over him but the image of the pianist sitting
there is as clear as day in his mind.

Min Yoongi is sitting at the very back of the theatre, hidden by a large hoodie, but Jungkook
recognizes him at once, and their eyes meet.

Jungkook feels small under his gaze as Yoongi’s eyes rake down his body.

He’s suddenly ushered aside by professors who walk up to the stage, each one of them throwing
questions at him and suddenly Jungkook feels a bit sick.

He remembers the way some of these professors looked at him when he had walked into their
lectures a few weeks ago, ignoring his raised hand because they denounced his admission as a
power-play even though they hadn’t even heard him play yet

The theatre remains loud and bubbling with excitement as Jungkook shrinks under the attention of
so many people.

The bile rises up his throat and he looks back to where the pianist was sitting and sighs when he
sees the empty seat.

Yoongi is gone.
 Pt III.

Jungkook lets out a deep sigh when he sits, placing his violin case on the floor next to him,
beneath the bar-top. It's quite a distance out from the school, that's one of the reasons he travels all
this way, to be left unrecognized and to listen to the live music that doesn't have to be perfect
because this isn't Julliard and some people actually play music freely, unrestricted by technique or
the ‘subtlety of touch’.

That performance had both drained and exhilarated him. After he had attended his remaining
classes and practiced for his upcoming mid-terms, it was already nightfall, and he decided to the
walk to the bar an hour from the school. To clear his mind, walk off the excitement

Think about Jimin.

The professors had grilled and stretched his mind to full capacity with their questions of how he
was’ discovered’, his practice routine and what other piece he can play so incredibly. Following
that, he had left the theatre only to be swarmed by students, girls and boys alike. Flirting, handing
out their numbers which he scribbled on scrap manuscript paper with an inky pen that means
they’re all probably smudged.

The bars around campus are filled to the brim with performing arts students and in his three
months here if everyone didn’t already know Jeon Jungkook as the orphaned, belatedly
discovered violin prodigy, after that performance his name wouldn’t leave the faculty and
student’s body’s mouth for at least a couple of weeks

He isn’t famous per say, no, not like say Min Yoongi, but for the first time in his life isn't a
nobody either.

Jungkook thinks he should be more pleased than he is, or pleased at all in fact. He's studying in
perhaps the most prestigious music school on the planet, is elevated and praised for having the
potential to be the prodigy of a generation and yet… And yet all he can think about is Taehyung’s
hands on Jimin. Jimin unravelling beneath Taehyungs hands in the infant hours of dawn, when
Jungkook stands solemnly in his apartment, the violin his only steady companion.

The only time he manages to forget about them is when the violin completely controls him, as if
the instrument is the musician and he is hollow wood dancing and singing at its will, as it had
during that performance.

But the violinist still imagines he is touching Jimin when the bow caresses string.

Drawls out vibratos like the soft fluttering of his lips. When he plucks the string at the notation of
pizz. on the manuscript, he imagines it's the hairs on Jimin’s nape instead, sweaty and soft.

Jimin is the reason why the violin even exists for Jungkook, because the sleeping angel with a
halo of jade needed to be serenaded in that music room three years ago.

Playing that one piece, unknowingly naive in the afternoon light, watching Jimin’s chest inflate
with each breath, Jungkook hadn't known, couldn't have ever guessed that it would lead to this.

To pretending like the violin is his live-hood when every time he plays it, all he can see is Jimin.
To having Jimin by his side, a constant light in his hole of an apartment, but not really… there.

Not how Jungkook wants him to be.

To a future of pieces written by composers who's names he still has difficulty pronouncing
sometimes.

But no one will mock him anymore, because he's Jungkook. The Jungkook who's only been here
three months but has won the hearts of professors and students alike with one performance and
will probably further do so with his shy, mysterious mannerisms and lack of a social circle
(excluding Jimin) which he understands is an unwritten invitation for people to barge in and give
him their numbers. Like they had so freely done this morning,

Jungkook hasn’t even called one. Probably never will.

“Hey handsome.” Jungkook’s head snaps up, the thrumming of his fingers on the stack of
manuscripts beneath his hands ceasing. “Who’s the lucky boy?” The violinist does a double take
as the man places a glass in front of him.

“I-“

“ It’s water gorgeous, don’t worry. On the house.” Jungkook shyly smiles at the bartender. He’s
European perhaps, but certain features point to eastern descent, like his eyes that are a lot like
Jungkook’s own.

“What did you mean?” Jungkook asks, unsure as he tilts his head and takes an inconspicuous sniff
of the glass before drinking.

“Oh,” The bartender chuckles, smiling. “Three girls hit on you before you even sat down. They
were pretty hot man, I thought...”

“You’re not wrong aha.” Jungkook reassures, chuckling emptily, and then as an afterthought.
“He’s taken.”

The bartender winces in understanding, sitting down in front of Jungkook. He’s broad, maybe
slightly less broad than Jungkook himself, wearing a black shirt.

Jungkook is still in his performance attire, with the tux and everything, though he’s discarded the
bow tie and unbuttoned the first few buttons of his dress shirt.

“Sucks.” The bartender empathises.

“Yeh, yeh it does. “Jungkook replies, not really wanting to take the conversation further.

“I’m James by the way. Do you go to Julliard?” He asks, pointing at the manuscripts beneath
Jungkook’s hands.

“Yeh, I-m Jung…” Jungkook’s words catch in his throat, frowning as he focuses on the sound of
the piano coming from the other side of the bar. This is one of those café-bars with live music
where anyone can come and play. Jungkook expected some talent, there are always a few players
that catch his attention but this time…

The touch is breath-taking, the progression of notes seamless.

It’s an intro to Schubert's serenade for piano , though it’s usually played on the violin.

It’s soft, quiet, perfect for this kind of setting but soulful nonetheless. Jungkook is sure he’s heard
this improvisation somewhere before; the touch is familiar. Hearing it spurs waves of nostalgia
within Jungkook.
But something’s suddenly wrong. To anyone else the piece would have remained perfect, the
touch still impeccably soft while being sure-willed at the same time.

To Jungkook though…

He turns around, looking for the source of the sound, the bartender giving him a strange look,
and…

What the fuck?

Min Yoongi?

Jungkook stands at once, momentarily light-headed from the sight of Yoongi next to a piano,
knowing he hasn’t been seen playing one for four years.

God, his hands are so beautiful.

He’s a lot paler in this lighting, his hands nearly one with the piano keys.

Jungkook’s breath stops as he realises Yoongi is shaking, but he’s playing so fucking beautifully
and he’s unaccompanied by the usual jazz band that’s present that no one realises.

No one but Jungkook.

That’s what was wrong. He’s shaking and his fingers are slightly slipping off the piano, it’s
getting worse with each note he plays and soon someone other than Jungkook is going to notice.

Pearls of sweat gather on Yoongi’s forehead, his hands trembling on the piano and Jungkook
suddenly dives for his case. The sound of his knees hitting the floor gather the attention of some of
the people sitting close to the bar but Jungkook pays no mind to them.

Slipping on the zips and clasps, his fingers finally reach the violin and he stands hurriedly, the
bow in his hands before he can even blink and he takes a deep breath.

It’s an extended version of the piece, Yoongi’s little improvisations confusing Jungkook as he
waits for an opening.

Yoongi plays a wrong note, it’s too wrong and off-key and people start looking at him.

Jungkook sees his shoulders shaking, his jaw trembling as he draws blood from his lips with his
teeth, hands red and struggling dearly on the piano, so much so that Jungkook’s heart palpably
clenches. He doesn’t even know what he’s doing as he clenches the neck of the violin in his
hands.

Fuck it.

The bow slides along the string, the sound of the shrilling violin catching the attention of the
audience, especially because Jungkook is nowhere near the stage.

He’s entered at a very awkward bar of the piece, not where he would have liked at all, but it will
have to do. Yoongi falters at the sound of the violin, Jungkook giving him a quick reassuring
glance.

The violinist plays fortissimo when it’s supposed to be piano, it’s a cluster of wrong sounds but he
plays it off by smiling at the crowds the way Jimin smiles at everyone, with charm and an eternal,
empty promise of a night in paradise between silk sheets.
The crowd, the women at least, and maybe a few men, are momentarily struck by him but it's no
avail because the sound of the piano suddenly ceases.

Yoongi is staring dumbly at him, his hands wavering over the piano, tears in his eyes.

Jungkook stops playing as well, seeing the confused looks all around.

“Sorry ladies and gentleman, my friend here seems to have forgotten the plan.” Jungkook
announces quickly while feigning amusement, his voice a lot deeper, raspier, more sultry than
usual.

With a hammering heart, he urges his hands to stop shaking as he eyes a pretty girl next to him
with a wine glass.

“ Gorgeous?” He inquires, removing the violin from his neck before giving a quick glance to
Yoongi who is sitting, hiding his shaking hands between his legs.

“ M-me?” The girl stammers as Jungkook holds his violin out to her.

“ Is there anyone else on this table as beautiful as you?” Thank god, the rest of the occupants are
men or else this would have gotten a lot more awkward very fast. “Would you mind holding this
for me?” He asks as her fingers unsurely grab onto the neck of the violin.

He’s just buying time, eyes flitting to and fro from the audience to Yoongi as he bullshits his way
through this mess that he thinks he made a lot worse unthinkingly.

“ Bit hot in here, don’t you think?” Jungkook asks the crowd. The bar is fairly large, and tonight
it’s stacked with people. The violinist gives the crowd a dashing smile before taking his jacket off,
placing the bow on the table.

Now, Jungkook is far larger than your normal eighteen-year-old. The white dress shirt he wears
tonight is two sizes too small and his muscles protrude more than visibly underneath it.

There are appreciative hums from around the bar and Jungkook thinks he’s going too far but
Yoongi still needs more time. Rolling his sleeves up, Jungkook folds them around his elbows,
stretching dramatically and he can swear the girl beside him, the one with the violin, moans when
he pops another one of his buttons open. Maybe three is a bit too much.

“ I-I’m quite cold actually.” The girl whispers. Jungkook smirks.

“ Oh no,” He exclaims, wrapping the suit-jacket around her shoulders. “We can’t have that love.”
He holds out a hand, asking for the violin, giving her another flirtatious smile as he sees her eyes
glaze over with the smell of his cologne filling her nostrils.

Man, if only the women in this bar knew he was into cock, this wouldn’t have worked so well at
all.

The violin is in his hands again, his biceps rippling beneath the shirt that is in all honesty maybe
just a little see through.

“ Now, Yoongi?” He inquires, placing the bow on the strings. “Would you like to…begin
again?”

The words leave Jungkook’s mouth almost involuntarily, and when the question is asked,
Yoongi’s face turns to him and they lock eyes again, just as intensely as they had the first time.
It’s silly, how Jungkook feels like there is more to the words than this present situation. He hadn’t
meant for them to hold so much weight, enough so that Yoongi seems struck with an underlying
connotation that they both don’t even know the meaning of.

But then the pianist is nodding, and when Jungkook looks down, he’s not shaking as much. His
hands still tremor but it’s not anywhere near as much as moments ago, though it feels like hours.

“This is Beethoven’s Violin sonata Number five in F Major, Opus 24 .” He announces, more to
Yoongi than to the crowds. Jungkook smiles at the pianist, more to ease his own worry and nods.

Together.

And they start.

Yoongi is still shaking, but the sound of the violin sweetly filling the room gives shelter to all of
his mistakes. Jungkook manipulates the score dynamics as he wills, reeling them back to let
Yoongi’s soft sound shine through and forwards when he hears the tell-tale signs of Yoongi
struggling.

The piece is popularly renamed as Spring. And that’s what it is, that is how they play it, together.
The violin is the spring breeze and the piano is the flowers waltzing between the wind’s dress, the
skittering of leaves beneath new shoes.

Jungkook walks forwards, the violin swaying in his hands, a lot more like a jazz performer than a
contemporary one, trying to garner most of the attention to himself as he stands behind the piano,
placed center stage, a grand just like the ones at Julliard.

The first movement continues the climatic bloom of spring flowers, and Jungkook swears that
Yoongi is smiling. A shy, half-arsed smile but he’s smiling nonetheless and the violinist suddenly
feels warm with joy.

Their sounds are perfect for each other, as if they have accompanied each other’s instruments for
years. Yoongi slips slightly as Allegro comes to an end, but Jungkook urges him on as the pianist
looks up.

Jungkook doesn’t even care about performing anymore, he’s only looking at Yoongi.

He’s not even paying attention to his instrument, only to the sound of the piano, checking to see if
Yoongi wavers. Although Jungkook manipulates the balance almost every minute, drawing the
sound towards the piano or violin as he sees best, their coordination is seamless.

Even shaking, with old tears in his eyes, sweat gathered on his forehead, Yoongi plays like the
god everyone had thought the accident had destroyed.

But here he is, and he is perfect.

Jungkook puts his hands into autopilot, the piece nowhere near as technical as most of the ones he
plays. And just watches Yoongi.

He doesn’t even realise Yoongi has stopped shaking until the piece is coming to an end and
Jungkook doesn’t want to stop.

His emotions are so similar to the ones he had experienced in the concert that morning but so
much better.

There’s a purity to the way his heart leaps at Yoongi’s touch that hadn’t been there when he
played before. It’s so similar to…

It’s so similar to the very first time he had touched the violin.

( To the time he fell in love with a sleeping Jimin.)

The next time Yoongi looks up, Jungkook takes the opportunity to mouth a single word to him.

“ Czardas"

The sonata reaches its end and Yoongi counts three beats beneath his breath before moving
straight onto the Hungarian dance, the chords solemn and loud. He doesn’t want to stop either,
Jungkook can see it in his eyes, the way the light is playing inside them.

The crowd applauses, cheering as their sounds intermix.

The piano is loud, and Jungkook joins Yoongi not before long.

Jungkook feels like he’s in The Music Room again, with Jimin, playing this piece as he had done
so for the very first time. Czardas, The Gypsy Song.

But no, he’s with Yoongi and it feels so similar but worlds apart.

The pianist’s hands have stopped shaking completely, and Jungkook doesn’t need to disturb the
balance anymore.

Yoongi is shining through more sharply than even Jungkook, which one would think is
impossible with a piece like this. A piece made for violin. But Yoongi is making it his own.

They both look at each other before the climax and Yoongi bites his lower lip while staring at
Jungkook with hooded eyes.

Here we go.

Jungkook flies, Yoongi beside him as they soar. The notes are singing, Jungkook’s body dancing
to their shared song as Yoongi’s playful accompaniment waltzes along as well.

The violinist feels his chest burning as Yoongi stares at him, as they both look at each other, fire
playing in their eyes, flames shifting with every note.

It’s perfect synchronization.

The harmony is absolutely seamless, like they’re not two musicians and their instruments. But one
musician who has become the instrument itself.

Three minutes in and the soft, high, fluttering notes of the piece give Jungkook time to smile at
Yoongi who he realises has tears in his eyes.

It’s just a game from then on, fast and then slow, high and low, the end approaching fast and
Jungkook really doesn’t want it to end but Yoongi is smiling, his hands un-shaking and that’s all
that matters.

The three final notes belong to the violin just as much as the beginning ones were the piano’s.
They’re sharp, strong and concluding the duet with crystal clear definition that somehow still
seems incomplete as they waver in the air.

The piece finishes and everyone is breathless. Jungkook laughs, carefree and unafraid and Yoongi
suddenly joins him.

“T-thank you.” Yoongi says and it’s the first time Jungkook has heard him speak in his life.
Yoongi's pastel blue hair is nearly coloured platinum in the light of the bar.

Jungkook is suddenly struck by how beautiful he looks.

While the violinist contemplates whether Yoongi is thanking him, or the crowds, he decides he
wants to hear more of that voice in the future. And more of that face too.

They’re still staring at each other, shy and dumb, small, nearly invisible stars in their eyes that
hadn’t been there before.

“Ladies and gentlemen, that was Min Yoongi and Jeon Jungkook of The Julliard Conservatory.”
The voice shatters the two Moonchildren’s awe-struck moment as Jungkook turns to its owner,
seeing Yoongi’s horrified face just before he does.

The crowds cheer them further, and Jungkook is left gob smacked as he sees the people having
spilled in through the entrances, some of them peering inside through the frosted windows to see
what the fuss was about. Everyone is looking at them and Jungkook suddenly has this urge to take
Yoongi away from all of their prying eyes.

“Professor?” They both say at the same time, shocked and speechless, Yoongi’s shaking
returning almost instantaneously as the man smiles.

Jungkook looks back at Yoongi and remembers that before the professor was his mentor, he was
Yoongi’s. The professor rises from his seat across the bar, his trench coat long and round
spectacles perched on the edge of his nose as he claps along with the crowds.

People seem to recognize him as he approaches since this is still the one of the more cultured part
of New York and the professor used to be a world class cellist before retiring. There are bound to
be some fans.

“Come see me tomorrow lunchtime gentlemen,” The professor asks, a smile ghosting over his lips.
And then, more firmly, “Both of you." Yoongi looks up in terror, Jungkook giving his mentor an
uneasy smile before the man navigates between the tables, giving Jungkook one last knowing look
before leaving through the door, struggling to get out through the crowds of people.

Jungkook is left not knowing what to do as the crowd shout “More” And “again.” A stray note
catches his attention as his eyes flit to the piano and…

No…

Yoongi is shaking again.

“ I-I think that will be all for tonight.” Jungkook stammers, feigning politeness as he hurries
towards Yoongi with unnatural speed, he doesn’t care about the audience anymore.

He doesn’t think ever did care; it was all about making sure that Yoongi wouldn’t be afraid to
touch the piano again just because what Jungkook assumes was his first public performance went
awry. “Thank you for listening.” His hand grips Yoongi’s shoulder, turning the pianists teary face
to him.

Let’s go, he mimes as he recognises some Julliard students, eyes wide blown and brows furrowed,
standing outside the bar.
It’s a whirl from then on, Jungkook hurrying to the bar top, grabbing his jacket from the girl’s
shoulders with a smile though he couldn’t give less of a fuck, placing his violin inside the case,
hurrying back to Yoongi.

It’s a struggle to support the pianist’s weight while making it seem completely natural, Jungkook
molding the most dashing smile on his face as he maneuvers both of them down from the stage,
giving everyone a bright wave before they disappear into the back door reserved for the
performers.

Yoongi makes a grabby motion at his stuff, placed on a chair beside the door. Jungkook piles
them all on his left arm, Yoongi a delirious weight on his right one as they stumble into the
alleyway outside.

The pianist shrinks against the wall as soon as they’re out, falling to the ground, hands shaking
uncontrollably as Jungkook kneels in front of him, taking his hands in his own.

“Fuck you’re freezing.” He exclaims, taking his jacket from his arm and wrapping it around
Yoongi. It envelopes him, his frame so much smaller than Jungkook’s.

“Hey, hey look at me.” The violist urges, taking Yoongi’s freezing face in his hands, his cheeks
sullen and eyes glassy.

It had been so perfect, just until the professor had announced his presence.

Yoongi was smiling and he looked so beautiful, they had played like they were born specifically
for that moment. And then Yoongi has seen the professor and it had gone all haywire.

He’s panicking, Jungkook realises this from his own panic attacks.

“Please breathe for me, properly, Yoongi please.” Jungkook whispers, voice shaking and scared,
lifting Yoongi’s fallen face, thumbs against his cheekbones as his voice shakes. “Hey, Yoongi.
Hey! C’mon, breathe properly dammit.”

The pianist looks at him with empty eyes, breath coming out in short strokes and hands shaking
erratically, Jungkook holding onto him as tight as he possibly can, knuckles red as he tries to
contain the pianist’s

“Fuck, fuck, fuck I’m gonna call someone where…” The words disappear as Yoongi’s eyes seem
to refocus, Jungkook’s hand red and hurting from how tightly they’re gripping the pianist’s
shaking ones. “Where… is….” He’s coming closer, eyes flitting downwards and Jungkook can’t
breathe anymore.

“ I…” Their mouths are so close, Yoongi’s breath uneven and hands still shaking but their lips are
drawing together and Jungkook feels hot and cold, terrified and completely at peace at the same
time.

Their lips touch.

Yoongi’s breath enters Jungkook’s mouth and it smells of smoke and soap, manly and filling,
making the younger light-headed and afraid and he wants to taste him. Jungkook is shaking as he
opens his mouth, hand caressing Yoongi’s cheek and he’s only ever kissed Jimin before and-

Yoongi’s phone rings.

It’s like a barrier, a force splitting them apart as Jungkook staggers back, falling on his ass and
Yoongi reaches for him before he sees the phone screen and his heart stops.
Jungkook looks at the phone on the floor and then at Yoongi.

The name on the screen seems like poison in the air, the mood gone, the near-kiss forgotten as
Jungkook shivers in the cold wind.

Taehyung.

The pianist seems unable to move. Jungkook shuffles across the floor instead, the taste of Yoongi
still on his lips, cheeks blushing and mind still a little hazy as he puts the phone in Yoongi’s hands.
The touch of their hands together, both long and slender, musician’s tools, seems like a promise.
That this isn’t the end.

But at that moment, Jungkook’s phone rings too.

Yoongi is still staring dumbly at his own device when Jungkook struggles to fish his own out of
his pants.

They’re both left staring at their phones when he finally does.

Because Taehyung is calling Jungkook too.

With a different phone, maybe, but the boy is calling both of them at once. Calling Jungkook and
Yoongi at three twenty-three A.M at the same time.

Taehyung who hasn’t spoken to Yoongi in four years and who has never called Jungkook in the
entire three years they have been acquainted through Jimin, is calling them both at once.

Jungkook starts shaking....because that can only mean one thing.

Something’s happened to Jimin.

 Broken Boys
Chapter Notes

It's been a while. Here it is, finally.

With love,

Charli

“ So how long have you two been fucking?” Is the first thing that comes out of Taehyung’s mouth
when he opens the mansion door.

Jungkook chokes as Taehyung greets them at the door. Yoongi shakes his head, tutting as they
cross the threshold. He recognizes Rubenstein’s touch in the nocturne fluttering through the house.

Taehyung closes the door behind them, leaning against the gargantuan frame with an amused, lazy
expression.

“ Excuse me?” Jungkook exclaims, his manuscripts and scores nearly falling out of his hands.

“ It’s been ten seconds Taehyung, stop being such a fucking brat.” Yoongi spits, running his hand
through his hair, walking straight ahead, the fountain in the middle of the foyer twinkling in the
sunlight coming in from the glass ceiling. Worry is etched across the pianist’s face.

It had taken several moments for either of the musicians to actually take the initiative to answer
Taehyung’s call. It was a hurried conversation, it sounded like he was sobbing.

“Locked himself in the bath…I didn’t know what to do…So scared…Need help.”

And it’s kind of pathetic how he’s trying to hold himself together right now, even though both
musicians know just how not put together he is. The sound of quiet club music had come through
the phone call, and smelling the Dior on Taehyung now, the gold dust shining across his neck, it’s
clear whatever happened, happened when they were out clubbing.

Taehyung rakes his eyes down Jungkook’s body, the boy standing awkwardly straight just next to
the door. Jungkook feels small beneath his gaze. Not in the way he had felt when he felt Yoongi’s
burning stare in the concert, but as though Taehyung already knows all there is to know about
Jungkook without ever having spoken before.

“ Hello to you too Yoongi.” Taehyung purrs, and Jungkook very nearly believes him.

He very nearly caves into the Cartier watch on his left hand, the tailored pants and silk, white shirt
that ripples with a life of it’s own. As if Kim Taehyung can control even the way his apparel acts,
knows the dimensions of the shadows that fall across each and every crease. That’s what
Jungkook would believe. That’s how Taehyung stands.

As if his mere presence demands undivided attention, like he’s god.

That’s what Jungkook would believe.

If not for the fact that Taehyung’s eyes are bloodshot, his first few buttons undone to reveal a neck
scattered with hickeys and lined with sweat. If not for the stern mould of his jaw, the clenching of
his teeth every few seconds and how often he looks towards the two balconies on either side of
the foyer above them that lead on both sides to corridors lined with a handful of rooms.

If not for the fact he looks like he could spiral with a single touch.

“Where’s Jimin?” Jungkook barely manages to squeal as the settling of the silence becomes
uncomfortable, choking.

It seems as though Taehyung plans on ignoring him because instead of a response, he is fixed with
a cold, almost annoyed stare, but just as the man turns, Jungkook sees it.

The glimpse of tears in his eyes that caught the reflection of the sunlight shining down from the
glass dome.

Jungkook has been here a lot, Taehyung usually in his study or out, or maybe just avoiding
Jungkook’s presence as much as he possibly could. Which is probably why they’ve never met in
all the three years Jungkook has known this house.

Taehyung makes a motion with his hands, signalling both of them to follow him.

Yoongi rises from his sprawled position on the first few steps of the staircase as Taehyung ascends
beside him. Jungkook sheepishly follows, his violin heavy on his back.

“You’re listening to Chopin.” Yoongi muses as they climb the staircases, Taehyung’s back stiff
and hands fisted, red and strained.

He’s very…broad. Jungkook thinks. Taehyung has one of those overtly intimidating silhouettes,
grown into manhood the way so many boys wish to, filling out nicely, perfectly even, in all the
right places.

And then there’s his hair. Jungkook is confused about his hair, how seemingly unkempt and long
it is, shaggy with black roots showing through the dirty blonde. It takes a bit of the edge away
whiles intensifying it by ten-fold.

Taehyung is trying to hide the boy inside him with Cartier and Dior, with pants that cling to his
thighs the same way he clings to the facade.

Jungkook feels himself transfixed just like he was with Jimin, just like he is with Jimin, with
Yoongi.

“Thank you, I wouldn’t have ever guessed.” He retorts sarcastically to which Yoongi sighs softly
.

He knows Taehyung doesn’t listen to Chopin unless he’s at utter dead ends, unless he wants to get
high without actually losing sense of reality. Just to lose sense of himself.

The pianist composes himself as they come to the landing, heading towards what he knows is
Jimin and Taehyung’s shared room.

Jungkook has remained silent since being ignored, watching both Yoongi and Taehyung, trying to
decipher their dynamics, the unafraid and yet not entirely un-detached way he pianist seems to
speak to him.

Like a friendship that’s somehow that’s rotten from the inside. Like a crack inside an infrastructure
of concrete, or a rotten apple that remains deceptively beautiful on the outside.

Jungkook can see the question in Yoongi’s eyes as they walk beside one another, Taehyung
ahead, the pianist shying away from the younger’s prying gaze as they finally come to stop in
front of a door.

God, he’d just fucking kissed him, just like that.

It wasn’t really a kiss.

Was it?

He’d felt Yoongi’s breath inside his mouth, the caress of his cold lips against his, smoke and
whiskey tantalising against his tongue.

Jungkook keeps telling himself that it was the adrenaline, a musician’s characteristic high from
performing and the cold, misty air. But Yoongi’s hair looked white beneath the moonlight and his
lips were purple, skin cream and fragile and Jungkook hadn’t…he hadn’t been able to stop
himself.

Stop himself from wanting to taste someone so badly in his life for only the second time yet.

The violinist takes a shaky breath as Taehyung’s fingers press down on the handle of the door,
looking down across the house stretching below the balusters of immaculately polished wood,
intricately woven threads of gold and leaf-like ornaments running through them, carving into the
cylinders of mahogany.

The foyer below leads to the sitting room of which Jungkook can see only the corridor leading to.
The ground is marble, veined with light blue tendrils, stretching below the fountain in the middle
of the foyer like a flattened mountain of limestone, tributaries running through it.

The circular fountain is maybe two and a half meters across, carved in polished limestone as well,
sitting directly below the dome, glass ceiling. The sculpture in the middle of the twinkling body of
water is of two androgynous figures, tangled with one another like petals of a blossoming flower,
their bodies reaching for one another even as they bend away, like fluid pendulums.

It’s very renaissance-like, the workings of the stone, the pained, longing expressions on the
subject’s faces and the traditional, clean-cut carvings.

Jungkook wonders if it’s an original.

From what he can see, blue is a recurring theme across the mansion. Pale, pastel blues curving
along the architectural ornaments, the carpeted corridors. Even the door Taehyung enters through
is a cerulean blue.

When you enter through the main entrance framed with stained glass windows, murky and vibrant
against the doors, the fountain lies just a few meters in front of you, a staircase spilling into wide,
marble steps behind it, curving outwards so that upon descension, each step is longer than the last.

It evolves into two straight staircases on each side, each one leading to a balcony atop either side
of the foyer, one level up. They stand on the left one right now, in front of the blue door.

Jungkook suddenly remembers that Jimin’s favourite colour is blue.

He takes a hasty breath just before the door is open, thinking that Jimin is just behind the door.

Yoongi seems collected, his hands unshaking as they enter into a sitting room. The violinist is
equal parts relieved and anxious, eying the circle of teal sofas Taehyung approaches, Yoongi at
his heel.

There’s a lot of light in this house, Jungkook realises. The windows are all very tall, letting
generous bursts of gold through every corner. A set of three windows leading to a large balcony
frame the opposite wall, curtains sheer while velvet, azure drapes are pinned to the sides with
golden, roman style rope to let the light in.

The room they enter is set alit with the colours of dawn, a strip of light painting Taehyung’s face
pink as he sits down.

“Is he in there?” The pianist asks cautiously, pointing at a door to the left of the room, at least
twenty feet behind the sofa Taehyung sits on, head in his hands.

“Y-yeah…” Taehyung replies, squeaking the word out, bottom lip trembling, the pearls of sweat
on his forehead curling around his temple, running down the belt of skin just in front of his ear.
Jungkook sees Yoongi eying the upright piano in the top-left corner of the room, on Taehyung’s
right. It’s not one of those glossy, classic, black ones. The instrument is more vintage looking,
with a wooden, rosemary case, looking loved and worn, with a transparent sheet over it to prevent
dusting, music scores still open beneath the plastic.

Jungkook shifts his attention back to the men just as Taehyung looks up at Yoongi.

There's a very blatant and tangible moment of forced hesitation before he decides to let go, and the
pianist nods, the knots in his forehead drowning in empathy.

“It’s okay.” The pianist whispers.

And then the facade crumbles.

Taehyung let;s go.

He starts shaking at first, reluctantly, as though he's still struggling against the control that's
forsaking him.

“Oh Tae…” Yoongi murmurs, rising as he approaches the shaking man, sitting beside him, a hand
wrapping around Taehyung’s shoulders. “Shh Taetae, shh Taehyung, it's okay.”

The man shakes, sobbing quietly into Yoongi’s chest as Jungkook watches on, confused and
terrified.

“H-hyung.” He sobs into Yoongi’s white dress shirt, clutching the fabric in his slender hands. “I-
I've never… he… I couldn't-”

“Hey, look at me.” Yoongi says softly, petting Taehyung’s hair, and it’s with so much affection,
with such pained, beautiful eyes that Jungkook wonders if they… if they ever had something
more.

And what’s worse is that…

He doesn’t know if it’s Yoongi or Taehyung he would be jealous of if that were true.
“H-Hyung.” Taehyung sobs again, refusing to lift his head from his Yoongi’s chest but the older
clutches his cheeks, tilting his head upwards to look at him.

“Taehyung you've got to listen to me, look at me.” Jungkook’s eyes shift between the two,
Taehyung’s face in Yoongi’s hands as he finally looks at the pianist, salty currents in his eyes.

“He was so scared Hyung. S-s-o…. He l-looked so b-broken.”

“Do you want to-”

“What the… what the fuck even fuck happened?” Jungkook finds himself spitting the words out,
interrupting Yoongi before he can even stop himself, and it seems as though Taehyung has only
just decided to acknowledge his presence because his head snaps up, curling towards Jungkook
with a detached stare.

And it's terrifying how suddenly the tears are gone, his shaking ceasing as he fixes Jungkook with
a serpentine glare.

The shift is almost immediate, Jungkook biting down on his outburst as the quiet settles and
Yoongi shakes his head, reprimanding Jungkook with a glare.

The youngest presses his thighs together, clutching his stack of scores and manuscript paper with
red hands, Taehyung’s stare intense and piercing, tears still staining his face and Yoongi scoffs.

It seems as though he's well acquainted with Taehyung’s bipolar antics because he distances
himself from the latter, shifting to the hand-rest of the sofa.

“ You're far prettier up close Jeon.” Taehyung suddenly purrs and Yoongi scoffs again. Jungkook
shies away from his stare just after catching a glimpse of a feline smile. Taehyung turns to the
pianist with wistful look, leaning back, crossing his legs, hands outstretched on either side of him
on the headrest.

“ Bon pour une partie à trois, n'est-ce pas?” Taehyung purrs, smirking at Yoongi, his question
obviously directed at him since Jungkook doesn't have a fucking clue what he just said, but he
remains staring at Jungkook as he says it.

Threesome material is he not?

“ Shut the fuck up Taehyung.” Yoongi snaps.

“ "Quoi? Donc après tout, vous êtes en train de baiser vous deux?"

What? So you two are fucking after all?

“ Taehyung stop changing the fucking subject, you were whining like a little bitch not five
seconds ago. What the fuck happened Taehyung? What the hell is going on? What...” Yoongi’s
voice breaks, an imperfect cadence in the middle of a piece, and Jungkook realises maybe it’s not
Taehyung the pianist is in love with at all. “What happened to Jimin?”

Kim Taehyung is...a lot to handle, Jungkook realises very quickly for himself as Yoongi tries to
pry even the tiniest bit of information from the stubborn man.

He's... paradoxical. Perhaps the people who love him, like Jimin, think that his contradictions
complete him in the best possible way. But Jungkook....

There is that forced way to the way he sits so straight, with a spine conditioned to be so enduring
with the weight of pain on his broad shoulders that it's actually turned brittle.

His eyes are alert and wide even as he cries, the ghosts of his past clawing at his lids and threading
their souls to his lashes to keep them open.

There have been several times where Jungkook could be in bed with Jimin, in the most
platonically painful way, the later having sought refuge at his apartment after another insecure
fight, and he would go hurtling back to Taehyung with a phone call of tears and shaky words.

His nightmares are bad, or at least that's what Jungkook assumes.Sporadic bursts of emotion, like
the way he had crumbled at Yoongi’s slightest touch, and then completely hardened his tears at
Jungkook’s outburst...

That kind of oxymoronic behaviour, the sudden changes, its... honestly, it's kind of terrifying.The
reluctance to show emotion and yet seemingly so easily willing to cave when given the
opportunity to...

He's... he's so... broken.

And Jungkook seems to realise, with not much more than these few minutes of interaction that
Park Jimin seems to be...to be the only thing holding this broken boy together. Even though he's
just as broken himself.

“He’s locked himself in there, I- I don't, he won't...” Taehyung sputters, looking back at the door
behind him, head in his hands, shaking as he starts to sob again. Jungkook finds himself reaching
out without thinking, hands aching to wipe his tears away before retreating, curling into himself.

A tendril of fading golden hair flutters next to his eye, a tear fitting itself between his cheek and
the strands as it flows down, curving over his skin.

“Why don't you just go in?” Jungkook finds himself asking the same question as the pianist poses
it, eyes shifting to Taehyung, to the skin beneath the open buttons of his shirt.

To the scar peeking out, not dissimilar to one that Jungkook himself has on his neck.

“I... he asked me not to.” The man whispers, as if that’s enough. Just one word from Jimin and
Taehyung won’t enter. Just like that.

“Fuck.” Yoongi breathes, looking at Taehyung with a softened expression, stiff upper lip curling
outwards into a wavering, sad smile.

Jungkook reciprocates inwardly. Fuck indeed.”Do you...” Taehyung starts, unsure. “ Has he…
Has he told you anything about that mark on his ankle?”

Jungkook’s head snaps up.

“What?” The musicians both retort in unison, Taehyung clenching his teeth.

“I... he... at the club...”

And then there's a sound from behind the door and Taehyung charges.

Yoongi staggers upright, Taehyung circling the sofa to stumble to the door.

“Jimin, Jimin baby.” He inquires, voice cracking, syllables caught in his restrained sobs as he goes
limp against the door. “Jimin love, are you ready to come out?” The sounds from inside the door
cease suddenly.

The three men watch in anticipation as they listen to the quiet whimpers of Taehyung’s crying,
uselessly clawing at the door.

“Baby? Baby boy, please, please answer me.” There's an aching in his voice, young and raw, the
way all the terms of endearment leave his mouth just as easily as Jimin’s name does, the way that
some of them sound more natural… it’s a bit otherworldly to watch it play out. All the novels, the
films and epic songs. All playing out in the love that Taehyung seems to have for Jimin.

And Jungkook barely even knows anything yet.

He's cold, watching as Taehyung begs, observing the man who is keeping his live-hood and muse
to himself, beneath his fingertips, Jimin’s soul and consciousness tied to every breath that he takes.

There is a whine from inside the door, Taehyung’s sobbing intensifies. “Please, please baby.
Please...”

The lock turns.

The mechanism is loud, spurring Taehyung who stumbles back, away from the door, weak in the
knees and weary of what he would see.

There is a gap in the door now, wooden frame opening to reveal-“ T-T-Taetae...” And there
stands Jimin.

Jungkook takes in a sharp inhale of breath, heart battering his chest as his eyes run down Jimin’s
figure. And it's not just the fact that his eyes are glassy, unfocused beyond the definition of the
word, looking completely lost and displaced.

It's not his disbelieved hair, or the fact that some smudged cosmetics still shadow the panes of his
face. Or his red face, flushed cheeks and tear- stained, glazing skin or his plump, small fingers
grasping the hem of his shirt as Taehyung stands, fingers curling and uncurling between them, as
if aching to touch him.

It's... it's what he's wearing.

And the violinist can tell that though Taehyung stands seemingly unaffected and still crying as
Jimin remains hazy and unsure in the threshold of the door, Yoongi is just as affected as Jungkook
himself is.

Jimin bites his lip, chewing on the skin, the flesh red and sheened in drool. He's wearing four
items of clothing exactly.

A large, far too large white shirt frames his body, one that Jungkook suspects is Taehyung’s. In
areas, the material sticks to his body with sweat, the neckline low and wide, slipping off one
shoulder, bruised collarbones and neck on full display.

And... thigh-highs.

Simple white thigh-highs clutch his legs in death grips, the muscle rippling beneath them as Jimin
shuffles forwards sheepishly, feebly trying to reach a Taehyung who seems to fly such a short
distance to reach him.

His legs seem longer than they are in them, the stockings ending just a breath below the hem of
the shirt. But every time he moves, and the shirt rides up, Jungkook looks away.
Because the fourth item of clothing is red, lacy and see through beneath the see-through shirt and
the violinist thinks he hears Yoongi growl as Jimin crosses his arms.

The line of the panties is more than tangible to the eye, the vivid red lace disappearing into his ass
below the shirt, bulge constricted but not at all out of sight.

Taehyung just starts crying even more at the sight of Jimin like that while both musicians look
away in coordination, ashamed and confused.

“C-can I touch y-“ before Taehyung can get the words out, Jimin is flying into his arms, body
fitting into the taller seamlessly and Jungkook frowns.

He frowns because Jimin’s eyes begin to focus and his seemingly lifeless form seems to find its
standing tucked into Taehyung’s body but at the same time his orbs become even more glassy and
his bones more fluid than blood.

Jimin either doesn't register Yoongi’s presence next to the door or ignores it because he starts
whispering in Taehyung’s embrace, not even having seen Jungkook at all.

“Touch me, touch me, touch me please, please-” the mantra leaving Jimin’s lips is accompanied
by prying hands and his lips on Taehyung’s skin as he takes the taller’s hands into his own and
places them at the hem of his shirt, urging them beneath and beyond.

“ I am baby, I am-” Taehyung urges, stiff as Jimin unravels in front of the musicians, not even
acknowledging their presence as he whines and whimpers.

“N-n-no, fuck me. Fuck me, need it, need you to-”

“Baby we have guests, Jiminie baby, listen we-” Taehyung tries to push him lightly back into the
door but suddenly it's shut and Taehyung is pressed against it, Jimin kneeling in front of him as his
mouth presses against Taehyung’s slacks, licking his clothed cock as Taehyung looks over to the
musicians in a look of distress and arousal.

“D-daddy...” And then there's a shift in the room, like Taehyung suddenly snaps out of his trance
and kneels before Jimin, descending as he takes the boy’s face in his hands.

“You want me to be daddy tonight Jiminie?” Taehyung asks, voice softly serious, worry and
apprehension etched into the knots on his forehead. As if it’s not a word Jimin uses often, as if it’s
a code word for something more, something more than fucking. More than just sex or making
love.

“ Y-yes please. Yes, I... hurts, hurts.” Jungkook almost hears Yoongi wince, hands clenched into
red fists as his eyes flit between the two kneeling forms.

“I know Jiminie baby, I know.” Taehyung whispers, even more worried than before because
Jimin really doesn't like saying that in bed. Calling Taehyung daddy.

Not unless he wants to completely submit, be entirely under Taehyung’s control with no sense of
time and place.

And he only wants to do that if he's so high on pain that it doesn't even matter anyway, might as
well be in pain while Taehyung touches him to an orgasmic oblivion.

“You don't want to say hi to your friends baby?” Taehyung urges encouragingly, trying to get
Jimin to look at the musicians but Jimin only shakes his head, whining as he fingers he buttons of
Taehyung’s shirt.
"N-no, want- want you to f-“

“Okay, okay.” Taehyung accepts hurriedly, kissing him chastely to keep the words spilling out of
the older’s mouth only to himself. “That's fine baby.” He reassures, petting Jimin’s hair as he
looks up at the musicians worriedly. “Go into the room okay, go lie on the bed for me baby, can
you do that?” He asks, kissing Jimin’s hair, only to be responded to with another whine and Jimin
rutting against him.” Jiminie…” Taehyung urges, breath shaky as Jimin’s mouth latches hungrily
onto his neck, trying to suppress moans because yes, he's shameless, but he's not unaware of what
the musicians feel for Jimin and the boy is giving them something no less than a private show that
he would much rather just keep to

himself. “Listen to me, can you go lie on the bed for daddy?” Taehyung asks, Jimin’s head curling
upwards, tears running down his cheeks.

“For daddy?” He whimpers, voice nearly silent, choking on the word as Taehyung kisses his
brow.

“Yeah Jiminie, for me baby. Just for me.” Jungkook is too caught up in the scene to realise that
Yoongi starts to shed tears, the pearls falling to the floor beneath them as his jaw sets and frown
deepens, like he knows something no one else does.

“Y-you'll take care of me?” Jimin asks sweetly, desperately.

“Of-course I will Jimin my darling.” Taehyung replies, pressing a kiss to his cheek, to each of
Jimin’s fingers clutching the neck of his shirt. “ Yeah baby boy, I'll make it all go away okay?
Would you like that Jiminie?”

“Y-yes daddy.”

“Do you want to go in now Jiminie?” Taehyung asks, opening the door behind Jimin.

“O-okay.”

And it's soft.

It's so fucking soft how Taehyung handles him as Jimin rises, how his hands make sure to support
Jimin with a firm grip that is softer than the encouraging praise leaving his mouth.“ “ Doing so
well for me Jimin...it's gonna be okay... you're gonna be just fine my beautiful darling... daddy
doesn't care... just want you to stop crying love... nothing's changed...” Jungkook doesn't realise
he's holding his breath until Taehyung shuts the door behind Jimin, form crumpling against the
frame, a deep sigh leaving his mouth.

“ I-” He starts, only for Yoongi to throw out a slender, bony hand.

“ I don't want to know.” Yoongi says shakily just as Taehyung starts. “Well, fuck me of course I
fucking do.” He suddenly corrects, then starts pacing. “What... what the fuck was that? He...”
Yoongi stutters in disbelief, probably replaying the scene in his head. “ He…”

“That’s... what's what happens... when he's so high on the pain that he...”

“ What the fuck happened for him to be like…like t-that? Like that?” Maybe it’s because he's
crying, because he's so shaken up and red, trembling all over, standing in his seat in the sofa, but
this time Taehyung doesn't ignore Jungkook’s question

“ I... I can't be the one to tell you.” Taehyung replies shakily, massaging his forehead, arousal
pressing against his slacks. Jungkook finds himself in a flurry of wanting to go inside that door
and take care of Jimin while wondering how exactly it feels to be taken care of like that. Like how
Taehyung has done with him, like he's going to do as soon as the musicians leave.

“Jungkook it's not time for fucking backstory right now.” Yoongi snaps suddenly and Jungkook
feels like he's being told off, wincing as Yoongi’s harsh tone bites at him.” Tae just fucking go, go
and... fuck.” Yoongi paces the length of the room, sighing and tutting as he whirls to Taehyung
again.

“ What the fuck even... fuck.” Yoongi takes hurried steps towards the sofa where his stuff sits,
taking his coat, shrouding himself in it, taking a quick glance at Jungkook who doesn't even seem
like he's conscious anymore, with wide, teary eyes and a red face.

“ I know, fuck I... I didn't want...”

“ You will fucking…you’ll fucking talk to him after... after whatever the fuck it is that he wants
you to do okay?” Yoongi asks and it's not even a question but an order. “I don't care if you fuck
for three days straight, you will sit down and talk so you understand me? And you will keep us
informed.” Taehyung is nodding fervently as Yoongi motions at Jungkook, the violinist hurriedly
gathering his manuscripts.

“ I- I do appreciate that you called Taehyung.” Jungkook squeaks out, to which Taehyung gives a
firm nod, the musicians padding to the door awkwardly, Yoongi muttering beneath his breath as
Taehyung retreats.

The last thing Jungkook sees is Taehyung’s broadness disappearing into the bedroom door, a hint
of Jimin whimpering as he enters.

“Don’t Jungkook, you’re just torturing yourself.” Yoongi urges as they pad down the staircase.
It’s…strange, how they seem to immediately understand each other. If only with a few hours of
acquaintanceship, they both now know that their hearts are tied to the fingers of a boy who’s
moans begin to echo through the house just before the musicians leave, and they both look away
in shared empathy and blush with restrained arousal.

Yoongi’s eyes are tired, red-rimmed, face sullen as they leave the house.

“Taehyung will take care of him Jungkook, better than we ever could.” Yoongi says with a
deafening amount of conviction just before they part ways.

And Jungkook believes him, however much he doesn’t want to.

Taehyung enters the door to find Jimin lying down for him, rutting on a pillow, sobbing as he
chases an orgasm.

“Can’t…can’t, not- not e-nough.”

“Fuck.” Taehyung swears, undoing his belt, popping the button of his trousers, the material
pooling at his legs. Dexterous fingers undo his shirt buttons and he’s left in his briefs as he
stumbles to the bed, sitting in front of Jimin.

He takes Jimin’s shoulders in his hands, lifting him slightly, pressing his own back to the board,
spreading his legs so Jimin can sit on them. “C’mere baby boy, let me see you.” He urges,
embracing Jimin as he puts him on his thighs, the latter’s legs on either side of him.

“Let me see your eyes baby,” He whispers, wiping away his tears. “Let me see your beautiful
face, lift it up for me pet.”

“Daddy…” Jimin whispers, hands wandering over Taehyung’s chest, teeth latching into his skin
like it’s a pacifier to calm him.

“I know you can still call me Tae, Jimin.” Taehyung murmurs, caressing his hair. "You’re just
buying time baby, please, just… we have to…” Jimin starts rutting against Taehyung, rolling his
hips as he breathlessly complains, shaking his head. “We gotta talk about what happened Jiminie,
we… ah….”

“Need you to make me forget it Tae, not… not talk about it.” Jimin pleads, grabbing Taehyung’s
face, shutting him up with a kiss that’s messy, dirty and all tongue.

They flick their tongues around each other’s, Taehyung growling in frustration, fingers indenting
into Jimin’s hips, creasing his own shirt. Jimin lets his tongue fall out completely, Taehyung
sucking the tip with both his lips. They open their mouths completely, letting their tongues hang
flat as they press them against each other, sucking and tasting, open mouthed and absolutely
sinful.

“Baby, you… me doing this… us doing this it’s… it’s not gonna make it go away Jimin.”
Taehyung explains as Jimin stops circling his hips.

“ It will, it will.” Jimin pleads. “Please, want to forget for a bit. Until I’m ready Tae and- and I’m
not.” He chokes out, clutching Taehyung’s hair in his hands as he presses their bodies together.
Taehyung shivers. He’s so cold. “I’m really not ready to talk about it right now. I’m just really not.
Please, please.”

Taehyung sighs, shivering beneath the intensity of Jimin’s light kisses on his neck.

“What do you want me to do love?”

“Master….” Jimin whines, Taehyung fully hard as he begins to ride him again. The lace panties
drag on his underwear, the flimsy material barely keeping Jimin’s cock hidden.

“ Fuck Jimin, you’re not okay baby.” Taehyung complains. “ I know you’re not… fuck, you were
so scared at the club baby. I”-

“Master…, ah…” The younger of the two sighs as Jimin ignores him. Spear-headed, stubborn
Jimin.

And Taehyung can do fuck all if Jimin’s decided he’s not going to talk about it. And if this is
going to make him happy then Taehyung is willing to start and never stop. Never talk about it and
fuck Jimin senseless if it means they can both truly forget the images haunting them.

“You came out there looking like this Jimin?” Taehyung asks, voice still soft but laced with anger
that isn’t as feigned as he’d thought. Jimin had come out half-bare, red lace hugging his ass,
wearing only Taehyung’s shirt, marred neck on display for the two musicians whom Taehyung
knows probably touch themselves to the image of Jimin at night. “Are you a slut for the attention
baby is that it? Wanted them to tell you how pretty you are?”

” N-no….”

“Wanted to be a slut for Jungkook and Yoongi Jimin is that it?”

“D-d-daddy I-m I’m sorry.””

“Want me to ruin you tonight, don’t you pet?”

“ Y-yes please.”

“So, you can’t even remember your own name?” Taehyung pries.

“Fuck, yes, yes, yes please. Yes.”

“ I’ll make it all go away kitten okay? Make you forget everything pet, take care of you. Going to
let daddy take care of you Jimin?”

“Please, please, hurts, hurts so m-m-much.” Jimin whines, bouncing on Taehyung as he grabs his
larger hands, snaking them beneath his shirt so Taehyung can touch his chest, flick his nipples
between his hands as Jimin sighs in content.

“Fuck Jiminie, gonna make it better baby. Gonna make it better, make you come until you forget it
all yeah?”

“Yes, yes, just-please, please.”

“ Lie down for me, c’mon. We’re not going to start until you stop crying love, let me take care for
you okay?” Taehyung reassures, kissing the top of Jimin’s nose. “ You’re going to listen like a
good boy?”

Jimin nods, scrambling off, lying on his back, flopping onto the bed so unlike his usual graceful
demeanor.

“Turn around Jimin,” Taehyung orders, still soft, but command leaking from the sharp-edges of
his tone. “Hands on the headboard.”

Taehyung moves off the bed, standing beside it as Jimin shuffles, struggling to turn his limp body
around. “Fuck baby, so needy. C’mere.” Taehyung rasps, holding Jimin’s abdomen as he swivels
on the sheets, finally laying down with his head a meter away from the headboard.

“Hands above your head pet.” Taehyung says softly, pacing the room towards the wardrobe. At
the sight of him getting stuff out of the cupboard Jimin lets out a sweet, shaky giggle.

“Yeh?” Taehyung inquires, rattling the box of toys as he hauls it out. “You like it when I used
these on you don’t you Jiminie?”

“Yes, yes. Fuck yes.” Jimin breathes, hands uneasy as they cross just beneath the wood,

“Well too bad.” Taehyung retorts.

“ Huh?”

“Gonna get you nice and warmed up first.” Taehyung corrects, placing the box beside the bed on
the floor, two strips of peach colored ribbon in his hands.

“Daddy…” Jimin whimpers as Taehyung sets another object just next to Jimin’s thighs.

“Kiss me please.”

“ Needy baby.” Taehyung reprimands even as he smiles, hovering over him. Laying the Ribbons
beside Jimin’s head, he moves the tendrils of golden hair out of Jimin’s hair, kissing his forehead
softly. “Want kisses kitten?”

“Please…need them.” Jimin whimpers, making grabby hands at Taehyung before his arms are
slammed down by the latter’s large hands.

“Did I give you permission to move your hands Jimin?” Taehyung asks, moving away from his
lips.

“No, no, please, Kiss me, kis-” Taehyung swoops down, taking his lips captive with his mouth.
They capture each other’s moans, the ribbons falling out of Taehyung’s hands as he gets carried
away in the warmth of Jimin's body. “Tae…”

“Yeah baby…” Taehyung whispers, rolling his hips into Jimin’s as they both let out broken
moans. Long fingers pry beneath his own shirt, riding it up Jimin’s torso as he lets his hands
wander over the sculpted skin.

“Let’s get you out of this pet. Nice and bare for daddy.” Taehyung whispers, lips latching onto a
nipple as he lies over Jimin, edging the shirt higher and higher, hands travelling further up his
abdomen, dragging open-palmed on his skin as his fingers grab onto the opening of the shirt
where Jimin’s head is from beneath the material, hauling it over his head, and then stops right
there.

“Fuck.” Taehyung whispers. “Don’t move.” He urges, uncurling from Jimin’s body as he watches
him, gaze intense and almost wet. “You look so fucked out already baby.”

“Agh-”” Jimin whines.

Taehyung reaches for the shirt, removing it from Jimin’s head, pressing a kiss to his forehead as
the shirt is thrown across the room, and then sits back on his heels between Jimin’s thighs,
stripping him of the socks as well. However much he would like to keep them on, he wants to
feel all of Jimin beneath him.

“This is so fucking hot,” Taehyung whispers, nosing at Jimin’s arousal peeking through the wet
lace. “I’ve never seen you wear this.” He exclaims slowly, fingers hovering above the lingerie.

“New…” Jimin whispers, suddenly arching as Taehyung presses a finger down.

“Yeah?” The younger pries, massaging Jimin’s balls with the heel of his hand. “ You wore this to
the club kitten?”

“Mm…”

“Wanted me to make you come undone in front of everyone? My little attention slut?” Taehyung
asks, not really expecting an answer but Jimin is so quick to comply.

“Yes, yes. Yours.”

“All mine to play with and ruin as I like, aren’t you?” Taehyung asks, letting his fingers wander
along Jimin’s ribs, grabbing his hands, placing each one diagonal on each side of his head, curling
his fingers around two of the wooden bars of the headboard.

The wood is padded with soft fabric, so it doesn’t char his wrists to which Taehyung presses light
kisses as he fetches the ribbons from next to Jimin’s legs.

“Gonna tie you up yeah? Get you nice and warmed up for me Jimin?”
“ Y-“ Jimin stutters away, Taehyung’s touch on his hands a promise of all that is to come.

“ Y-ye... yeah.”

“Grab the bars.” The ribbons slide around his wrists, tightening, tying each one to the posts of
wood.

“Ah…” Jimin whimpers, Taehyung immediately ceasing his administrations and leaning back,
hand going to Jimin’s cheek.

“What baby?” He questions, caressing his cheek. “Does it hurt?”

“N-no!” Jimin quickly counters. “It’s… I… ah…” His hands wriggle against the ribbons,
Taehyung smiling at the sight of the elder’s member twitching as he tightens the knots,
purposefully pushing more on Jimin’s pressure points.

“You like it that much Jiminie?” He questions, teasing.

“D-daddy.” Jimin whines again, struggling against the binds because it arouses him that much
more, to completely submit, be fully at Taehyung’s control and know that he could do anything,
anything to him in this position, but won’t.

It’s not the bondage, the punishments, or the dynamics that is so orgasmic about this.

It’s the trust.

It’s that element of categorical trust one needs to put in their partner, to just let go of yourself like
that. It’s more dangerous than drugs in a way, isn’t it?

Because the drug controls you, but it has no idea what it’s actually doing. It’s a chemical kind of
control, non-living and mortal no matter how much of it exists in the world.

But when you cave into a person, into a mind that will learn more of you every time you submit,
every time you ask them to put you on a leash to ruin you…

When that person is Kim Taehyung…

Well, Jimin is just done for, isn’t he?

“This soon baby?” Taehyung questions with a loving gaze, another ribbon, an obsidian black, just
like Jimin’s used to be, in his hands. “You just wanna let go?”

“Please.” Jimin begs.

“Going to close your eyes, okay?” Taehyung asks, Jimin nodding shyly, biting his lip.

“ Makes me miss your black hair. ” Taehyung comments wistfully, stretching the ribbon between
his thumb and four fingers all pressed together like sardines, laying it on Jimin’s eyes.

“I…” Taehyung chokes on the words for the millionth time.

I love you so much.

“Love you.” Jimin whispers, kissing Taehyung’s scarred hand hovering above his face.

“Thank you.” Taehyung whispers, kissing Jimin’s lips, catching his bottom lip in his teeth before
his fingers lift Jimin’s head, curling around his neck, tying the silk. Two more kisses are pressed
on Jimin’s eyes, over the ribbon. “Thank you for existing.”

And from there he moves his head lower, attaching his lips to Jimin’s, but it’s not a soft kiss. It’s
dirty and open-mouthed yet again, their tongues delving deep into the other’s mouth, Taehyung
growling as his entire hand fits around Jimin’s waist, pressing down.

They angle their heads, getting as much of each other in as they can, devouring each other’s lips in
every definition of the word.

Taehyung bites Jimin’s jaw, pressing love-bites into every inch of his face.

“Beautiful, so beautiful, so fucking gorgeous, fuck.”

“ T-T-Tae.” Jimin whines, uselessly struggling against the silk to reach for Taehyung.

“ So fucking beautiful Jimin.” Taehyung rasps, tucking his head into Jimin’s shoulder, grazing his
neck with his teeth, biting into the flesh, Jimin lets out a scream as Taehyung bites just next to his
vein.

“Ah, ah, ah…”

“Yeah baby? You could come just like this, couldn’t you?” Taehyung asks, sitting on his heels
again, hands circling Jimin’s thighs, opening them wide as he sits between them, their clothed
arousals nearly breaths away.

“W-what are you doing?” Jimin asks as the sound of Taehyung hands rubbing against one another
fills his ears.

“You don’t trust daddy pet?”

“No, no of course I”-

A slap to Jimin’s thigh sends his legs trembling, little whines leaving his lips at Taehyung’s words.
“Such a slut for degradation Jiminie.” Taehyung reprimands, tutting as he shuffles lower down the
bed, straightening Jimin’s legs with his hands beneath his knees, placing them on either side of
him.

Taehyung takes the glass of cream in his hands, warming it between them after removing
generous amounts with his fingers.

He circles Jimin’s right ankle with his fingers, the elder hissing at the sensation of the cream on his
hand, bringing it to his mouth, kissing the burnt insignia.

From there he places one of Jimin’s legs on his thigh, sitting crossed legged, and begins massaging
Jimin’s calves.

“What…. What are you…ah, T-Tae…” Taehyung covers all the pressure points expertly as Jimin
wriggles and struggles beneath him, like a petal caught in a spring breeze that seems much more
like an autumn wind. “Fuck, fuck. Ah,” Taehyung administers kisses to every inch of skin that he
touches, his fingers moulding the flesh beneath large hands, the cream warming Jimin’s cold skin.

“Let me worship you.” Taehyung pleads, taking the skin inside his thigh between his teeth,
massaging his other one as he marks him high and silly off his tongue.

“Let me paint you Jimin,” Taehyung pleads softly, creating a ‘v’ with his hands, massaging the
valley above Jimin’s cock, kneading the skin beneath his fingers. “Fuck, you’re such an expensive
canvas baby boy, so pretty.” He praises, moving his tongue to the wet lace inches below. “So, wet
for me already, so good baby. You’re doing so well.”

Chanting praises as he licks at the fabric coated in pre-come, Taehyung finds himself completely
lost in Jimin’s taste, once again. Once more. A helpless madman to Jimin’s body that shelter’s
Jimin’s beautiful heart. “My gorgeous boy.” He purrs, massaging the valley of his hipbones again
and Jimin lets out a drawn -out whine followed by a series of breathless gasps. “Sensitive kitten?”

“ Y-y…. I-m I’m gon-gonna-“

“ Going to come just with me touching you like this Jimin? Gonna come for me pet?”

“ Please… ah,” Jimin wails as Taehyung bites on the inside of his thigh while his palm presses
down on the lace, hands wet with Jimin’s arousal and cream. “Ah, ah, m-master, p-please…”

“We’ve got such a long way to go pet,” Taehyung reprimands even as he licks a stripe from the
bottom of the red underwear, up Jimin’s member, to the tip of his leaking cock peeking out.

Lips latch onto Jimin’s nipple, tongue tasting his sweet, salty skin, pleasuring him just as
Taehyung knows best.

“Your body likes my mouth so much pet, daddy’s so pleased.” Taehyung praises, smiling as his
mouth devours Jimin’s chest, nipples sucked red and raw.

“ D-daddy, d-daddy….” Jimin’s hands struggle against the ties again clenching and unclenching,
as if searching for something.

“ Yeah Jiminie, talk to me baby.” Taehyung assures, fingers on one hand caressing the skin of
Jimin’s neck while the other undoes the knots in his shoulder.

“ L-love you…” Jimin breathes as Taehyung presses a trail of kisses from the end of his right
collarbone near his shoulder to the left.

“ Yeah baby?” Taehyung whispers, smiling. “ Me too Jimin, so much baby boy. So much.”

“ W-wanna c-come.” Jimin pleads, hands struggling again. “K-kiss me, h-hold my hand.”
Taehyung is so quick to react, head snapping up to make their lips meet, right hand going to meet
Jimin’s, entangling their fingers, clasping them shut like a blossom to be opened again.

Their hips slowly roll together, both breathless without even doing much, Jimin tightening his grip
on Taehyung’s hands, searching blindly for his lips every time he moves away.

“D-d-daddy, I-m’ m’go-n-gonna, gonna….”

“Come for me baby, it’s okay.” Taehyung reassures, kissing Jimin’s jaw while his fingers undo
the knot. “Going to take it off okay? So, I can see your eyes when you come for me pet, wanna
see how they cry when you let go.” Taehyung murmurs, voice low and soothing. “I’ll take care of
you baby, it’s all going to be okay.”

Taehyung lays a hand over Jimin’s eyes, the boy’s eyelashes fluttering on his palm, replacing the
ribbon slipping off his face.” Can I take them off baby?” Taehyung asks even though it’s quite
dark in the room, the curtains closed off, only a few slits of lights coming through the gaps, setting
strips of Jimin’s body alight with gold. But he's still ever so careful not to shock Jimin's beautiful
eyes.
“Y-ye-yes… w-want, w-want to see…you.” Taehyung pries his fingers off Jimin’s eyes one by
one, speeding up the pace of his hips, deepening the clothed contact, pinching Jimin’s nipples with
his one free hand, flicking them back and fro.

“ Fuck, fuck-fuck, m-master… master… master…”

“ There you go, c’mon, we’ve got a long way to go baby, come for me.”

And so Jimin does, and unsurprisingly, so does Taehyung.

Even their hands shake as they climax, Taehyung trying to keep his eyes open through the tremors
to watch Jimin come undone beneath his body. “Beautiful, beautiful, so beautiful.”

“You good baby?” Jimin only gives him a quiet whine, reaching in for another kiss. Taehyung
gives in, of course. He kisses Jimin through the aftershocks of an orgasm they would not be able
to achieve with anyone else than each other, kisses him through the tremors of his bottom lip and
finally pulls away. He thrusts into him a few more times, short, sporadic and broken.

“ One more thing okay?”Taehyung whispers, kissing down Jimin’s body as he sits on his heels,
looking at Jimin’s ruined body beneath him.

“Please, please, fuck me, fuck me raw, fuck me silly I-“

“ One more thing love, just one.” Taehyung whispers, moving from the bed, feet landing on the
hardwood floors.

“ Hurts-hurts, more ple-please n-need more.”

“ Need you calm Jiminie,” Taehyung chants, the object in his hand obscure in the darkness as
Jimin cranes his head.

“Faster please, remembering…’membering stuff, don't... don't want to- don't like it.”

Taehyung stops at his words, wavering.The images they had seen at the club, projected onto the
walls, come crawling back, bile tickling his throat, nausea enveloping him as he momentarily loses
his footing.

This is for Jimin. He tells himself.This is so he doesn't feel the pain. Taehyung chants even as the
claws of nausea choke him, those pictures, those damned fucking pictures clutching his mind
relentless. "Daddy, please.”

This snaps Taehyung out of it, reaching for one of the roses in the bouquet glistening on the
window sill to the left of the bed, the single light peach rose in his hand laid on the bed as he
approaches Jimin’s wriggling figure.

And once he sees the tears falling out of Jimin’s eyes, pearls trickling down his cheek, a trail of
salt behind them, his heart clenches. His eyes are wide, lust trying to suppress fear as the binds
hold his hands captive, cock laying against his stomach, hardened again already, leaking and red.
Taehyung sits between his thighs again, three items next to him.

At the sound of the lubricant squirting out of the bottle Jimin gives a loud, shaky sigh.”Yeah baby,
gonna take care of you. Make it all go.”

“ Keep... remembering. It's... h-h-hurts Tae, s-so much.” Taehyung grounds his teeth together,
warming the lubricant between two fingers, his other hand massaging the skin of Jimin’s thighs,
pressing over new bruises as well as old ones that have submerged into skin, just like he knows
Jimin likes it. He brings his head down, hands dragging the red underwear off, then fingers
hovering over Jimin’s entrance, pressing a kiss to the rim, tasting the the skin around it.

”Make you feel full Jiminie?” Taehyung asks, rising again, pressing his wet fingers to the ring of
muscle, massaging it gently. “Want to go into subspace baby?” Jimin nods haphazardly, shaking
with each inch of Taehyung’s long, long finger entering more of him. “Forget it all for me okay
baby boy? I'll try my best love,” He promises, growling as his finger bottoms out. “The very best
for you.”

“ M-more...” Taehyung complies, finger slowly caressing the flesh inside Jimin before another
joins it, slowly, carefully.

Hardening his administrations, he glances quickly at Jimin’s hands, the silk circling them, the red
marks making themselves visible on his wrists.

“ Want me to untie you love?”

“ N-no, l-like it. I love it.”Taehyung gives a hum of understanding, head lowering to Jimin’s ass to
suck at his rim, tasting his own fingers in the mean while.

“Baby, gonna speed up okay?” Taehyung knows he's dragging it out, but he's not even okay with
doing this in the place.

He really isn't okay with fingering Jimin open, tying him up, edging him even as the images they
had seen at the club hover in the air between them, meld into their retinas.

He's not okay with how Jimin wants to deal with the pain even though this is what he does too.
And yes, that makes Kim Taehyung a fucking hypocrite but he's been called so much worse that it
doesn't really matter anymore.

But it's effective, this connection of bodies.

The submission of power and being taken care of with as much care and emotional investment
that another human just like you can muster.

Taehyung hopes it's effective. That Jimin can let go as he wants beneath his hands. His finger
speed up, thrusts hardening, the passive fluttering of his digits against the gland transition into an
active abuse, pressing and learning the shape of it with his fingers.

“ Master...”Jimin whines, thighs trembling, cock twitching with every press of Taehyung's fingers
to his prostrate just when another is added. Taehyung doesn't really want to start, doesn't really
want to begin their little game.

The dynamics that arouse him so profusely now seem to matter not, and he's holding back tears.
And maybe Jimin is selfish, for needing to be taken care of so badly that he forgets that Taehyung
saw the photos along with him.

That Taehyung saw the pictures, and videos of Jimin... of... of...

Jimin is the stronger of the two. Taehyung is the one who begs to be filled with Jimin whenever
things get too hard, he's the one who pretends like nothing happened in the morning because it’s
so much more painful that way. Even though he can always still feel Jimin’s nails digging into his
ass-cheeks, his cock so fucking filling that during the interim of it being up his ass Taehyung
forgets who he is... he still adamantly pretends like he's okay again the next day.

Because he needs to be okay. For Jimin. Because the only time Moonchildren believe they're
strong is when they're being strong for another. For another child of a moon that seems to have
abandoned them, just like everyone else.

His fingers are removed, the sound accompanying their exit from Jimin’s rim dissipating some of
the oblivion eating away at Taehyung because it's so fucking hot.

“I’m going to use the prostate massager on you okay?” Jimin lets out a shiver. “Every time you
come before thirty minutes is over is fifteen spanks.” Taehyung explains, holding the silicon,
phallic shaped toy in his hands. It's long, large and filling, just how Jimin likes it.

“Ruin me please.” Jimin whines as Taehyung slathers the lubricant on the head of the black toy.
“Use me,” Taehyung presses the head of the toy to his rim, slowly pushing in. “Break me,”
Deeper and deeper. “Edge me to fucking tears.” The toy bottoms out. “Please, please ah-ah-ah.”
Jimin mewls loudly, the sound of the vibrations humming through the room. “Ah, ah- hngh...
daddy, daddy...” Pressing his hands to the stall of the rose, a black ribbon around the thorn-less
stem, Taehyung twirls the flower in his hands.

”I’m here baby, I got you Jimin, you're gonna be fine.”

“ Master, master... ah, ah-“ Taehyung shakes his head, Jimin’s legs struggling to stay open.

“ So sensitive Jiminie, it's only the lowest setting pet.”

“ M’sorry... so good, I-“Taehyung smiles as the headspace crawls along Jimin’s incoherence, his
cloudy eyes, legs going limp at the stimulation.He pads over to the cupboard again, an immaculate
black box and a Polaroid in his hands.” Got you a present Jimin.” He purrs, sitting between his
trembling legs just as a spasm forces the older to shut them suddenly. Taehyung slaps him on the
thigh, immediately massaging over the reddening area. “I don't like you closing your legs, so you
understand me pet?”

“ Hngh? Daddy?” Taehyung caresses the curve of his foot as Jimin mumbles with incoherence.

“Jimin?” Taehyung murmurs questioningly, kissing one of his knees as he opens the black box,
trying to get Jimin clear-headed enough to see the gift. The object inside glimmers in the morning
light, round and crystalline, with straps on each end.

“ Had this made for you, pet.” He explains, holding it by its straps, flicking the pressure on the
massager before he shuffles beside Jimin who can barely keep his eyes open anymore. “Custom
made so I can get your mouth nice and slack for my cock baby. You like that Jiminie?” The gag in
his hands is a round crystal, the metal workings on either side gold, the straps made with much
softer material so it doesn't irritate Jimin’s skin. “Swarovski, it's got your name indented on it too
baby.”

“Yes. Yes. Please.” Taehyung chuckles, opening Jimin’s mouth with two fingers which the latter
takes it upon himself to start sucking. The slurping sounds cease as Taehyung presses his fingers
to Jimin’s row of bottom teeth, a condemning look on his face. “Did I give you permission to taste
my fingers pet?”

“N-no?” Jimin whimpers, words muffled by Taehyung’s fingers keeping his mouth open wide,
fingers dragging his lips downwards, pressing against three inner flesh.

“Going to gag you so I can put your mouth to use how I want instead,” Taehyung reprimands, the
gag pressed against Jimin’s open lips as he whines. “-since you obviously can't seem to be able to
follow orders.”

Taehyung sits back.

God, he looks breathtaking.The white crystal ball sets his golden skin alight, drool reflecting the
sunlight, trickling down his marred neck.His arms strain with the struggle against the binds,
muscles rippling, shaking all over and he just...

”You’re…so…beautiful.” Taehyung whispers, just watching him for a few minutes, because he
wants to, because he can, because right now, at this moment, it seems like they have all the time in
the world. He keeps his eyes fixed on all the little things as he takes the last few items out of the
box, flicking the intensity of the toy once more as Jimin screams around the gag.

“Ah!Ah, dadd-please-t-ah.” Jimin’s noises follow him as he goes to the mini-fridge in the corner
of the room.

“ Shh, I got you baby. It's only been three minutes’ love, you can do better than that for me,
right?” The frail nod Jimin gives him makes him smile, the items he fetched from the cupboard are
laid out on the bed one by one, Taehyung sitting between his open, bent legs again.

“You know when I told you not to close your legs kitten?” Jimin cranes his leg slightly upwards.
“Now you have to keep them open baby okay?” Taehyung explains, placing a glass covered
candle between his legs. A flame flickers as his thumb plays around with the golden case of a
lighter, the candle lighting as Jimin breathlessly sighs.

A block of ice stings against his hand as Taehyung holds it between his thumb and forefinger.

He would blindfold him again, but his eyes always look so blindingly beautiful when he climaxes,
liquid pleasure falling out of them in crystal pearls.

They're so cloudy already, glazed over with submission and trust, with the promise of euphoria
and sweet, sweet pain.

Jimin starts crying when the ice-cube is pressed against his stomach, the contradictory
temperatures between his legs, just a few inches from his member, as well as the toy inside him,
paired with the ice on his stomach, sexually confusing, reeling him further into absolute
submission.

Taehyung takes the opportunity to pick up the Polaroid, clicking just as a pearl of drool falls from
the corner of Jimin’s lips and he starts whining loudly, spasms of shock running through his body.

He lets go, just like that, Taehyung increasing the intensity of the toy to the third level out of five.

“That’s once you came Jiminie, fifteen spanks okay?” But Jimin doesn’t even seem to hear him,
and Taehyung suspects he’s already flying like he wanted to so bad. He’s completely lost all sense
of inhibition and shame, baring himself mentally and emotionally, not to mention physically, to
Taehyung.

He picks up the rose again, laying the flower on the tip of Jimin’s toes, resting the curve of the
petal over his feet, Jimin shivering beneath him.

Aftershocks run through Jimin even as Taehyung caresses the curves of his feet with the rose,
running up and down his legs, tickling the inside of his thighs with the soft petals.

Jimin seems delirious beyond words, shaking with every touch of the rose marking the curve of
his cock, Taehyung pressing down the flower on his leaking head.

“ Euhng… ah…”
The rose moves to his nipples, the petals caressing his chest, shying away from the beautiful peach
of his skin in inferiority, Jimin’s back arching as Taehyung’s fingers joins the petals.

The ice melts far quicker than Taehyung would have liked on Jimin’s navel, cold water trickling
onto the sheets, his hot skin prying apart the crystals as the warmth of the candle between his
quivering thighs fights with the cold.

Taehyung’s fingers massage Jimin’s chest, his nipples, as he trails the rose along his collarbones,
and Jimin comes once again.

He screams of oversensitivity, Taehyung deciding on the toy’s highest level with one hand just as
the other lays the rose on Jimin’s collarbones and wraps his fingers around his throat, biting his
chest at the same time and Jimin… Jimin can’t…stop…coming.

He comes and comes, until the dry orgasm makes him scream around the gag and the tears just fall
one after one another and his eyes are completely fucked out, glassy and half blind, lips red and
sheened with sweat around the crystal sphere.

And then Taehyung sees Jimin going limp. The toy is removed instantly, the candle blown out,
the ice already melted on his skin.

“Fuck Jimin, fuck.” Taehyung whispers, the cum rubbing off on him as he stretches over Jimin’s
body to undo the gag, then blow out the candle. Jimin’s eyes are closed, body shaking with
spasms. And Taehyung is maybe slightly worried. He can’t even count how many times Jimin
came.

“ D-d-daddy…dad-ddy…daddy.” Taehyung kisses him, lips slack and jaw red and mated in drool
and saliva.

“Jiminie baby,” He murmurs, massaging his jaw. “Jimin love, was that okay? Can you hear me?”
Taehyung massages the skin around Jimin’s eyes, his jaw that must be hurting so much, but the
only thing Jimin says in reply is:

“ M-more…”

“ Fuck.” Taehyung growls. “Fuck baby, you still want more?”

Jimin leaves his mouth hanging open as Taehyung moves to untie the binds, licking his lips,
drooling for something to taste.

“What’s wrong baby?”

“ C-cock. W-want it. ‘ant to s-suck it daddy…please?” Taehyung growls fucking again, his voice
deep and guttural as he clears the bed, kissing the marks on Jimin’s wrists as he brings them down,
the latter whining as the strain on his arms is relived.

“Wanna suck me off Jiminie, is that it?” Taehyung inquires with a cracked voice, so impossibly
hard in his wet underwear, Jimin’s eyes fixed on his bulge as he nods unsteadily. “Let’s get you
up baby, so you can get on your knees for me yeh?” Taehyung asks, lifting Jimin up gently, his
own back replaced on the headboard as he sets him in his lap.

“Look at you, so beautiful Jimin, so gorgeous like this.” Taehyung praises, Jimin’s head lolling to
and fro, tears still staining his cheek in curving trails down his cheekbones. Taehyung moves
forward, pressing Jimin’s naked body closer to his as his tongue darts out, licking the tears away,
cleaning the drool with his own.
Jimin’s voice is muffled as he speaks, so Taehyung pulls back.

“Bite me.”

“What?”

“ Neck, please.”

Taehyung knows this is Jimin speak for wanting to feel owned, for wanting to feel like he’s
Taehyung’s one and only, for him to mark him like this. Taehyung latches his lips onto Jimin’s
neck, caressing his bones between long, soft fingertips.

Teeth graze along his skin, Taehyung biting down on all the places he knows Jimin likes. Next to
his Adam’s apple, Taehyung blooms a red lily, an amaryllis just next to his jugular vein, forget me
nots on his jaw until Jimin’s sighs of content and absolute happiness harmonize in Taehyung’s
ears with the sound of his cock rutting against Taehyung stomach.

“ So soon buttercup? Wanna suck me off Jimin?” Jimin’s eagerness shines through while
scrambling off the bed, falling to the floor in messy pile, crawling over to the bottom of the bed,
beside the posts.

His mouth is already open, eyes closed, hands behind his back, kneeling in total submission just
like he knows Taehyung likes it.

Even in the state he’s in, he still knows Taehyung best.

With anticipation crawling along his veins, Taehyung moves from the bed, feet hitting the cold
floor. And then he suddenly remembers.

With a chuckle, he stands in front of Jimin who is drooling from his mouth.

“You think I forgot about your punishment pet?” His eyes snap open. “Forty-five spanks baby
boy.” Jimin’s eyes widen in feigned fear. Taehyung knows he loves the stinging on his ass.

“After you suck me off okay? I’ll put you on my lap, give you spanks for being a bad boy okay?”
Jimin nods in shame, blushing as Taehyung palms himself, growling, seething as he feels his hand
wet with his pre-come. He’s so sore from all the teasing.

“Daddy’s so fucking sore pet, fuck, fuck. So hard ah-” He growls as Jimin tongues at his clothed
erection. “You always make me so hard Jimin. You have me tied around your eyelashes baby,
have me bound to you even while you submit yourself to me love.” Taehyung complains with no
real intent behind his words. “I’m so fucking weak for you. So, weak…” He says, stepping back,
Jimin crawling forward to reach him again.

It’s so arousing, seeing him like this.

Jimin is known in this business for how ruthless he is when he’s commissioned for an act of
espionage. Whether it’s just a single question on the hiring documents needing to be answered, or
an entire sheet of information begging to be found by his hands, everyone knows The Little
Prince is the very best, that Jimin is the very best.

Because espionage entails everything. Blood, blackmail, gambling, torture.

Because information-knowledge is the most valuable currency that the crime world deals in.

The most valuable of them all.

So to watch Jimin, who is payed millions for work that he could do in his sleep, because he’s just
that good…who has the aim of a sniper and flies along the building roofs of New York like a
falcon… He sits in front of Taehyung naked, ass on his heels, mouth open and begging for his
cock without needing any words, wanting to be stuffed and degraded.

It’s so blasphemously holy, so godly sinful that it's a religion in itself.

“C’mon, come here, crawl on the floor for me,” Taehyung encourages, walking backwards as
Jimin follows like a puppy, crawling on the floor, knees hurting as they bounce along the
hardwood. “Let me see how much you like to belittle yourself for me baby. Just like that Jimin,
c’mon, right here.” Taehyung continues as the back of his knees hits the sofa, falling ass first into
the cushions as Jimin sits pliant between his legs on the floor.

“Fuck baby, c’mon pet, make daddy feel good.” Taehyung says, Jimin slightly wavering because
of his headspace as Taehyung pulls his underwear down, opening his legs further, Jimin nosing at
his thighs.

He’s soaked.

And hard.

“ C’mere.” Taehyung purrs, taking Jimin’s chin, opening his mouth slightly wider, slapping his
cock on Jimin's cheeks while the man giggles, then presses the tip between his lips. He has to keep
holding it forward because it would snap back to his stomach otherwise, so hard that Taehyung
actually strains to push it forward into Jimin’s mouth.

The older takes in Taehyung’s cock, slipping his mouth lower and lower. He lays his tongue flat
on Taehyung’s member, looking up with wide, dark, deceptively innocent eyes. Taehyung’s cock
has never looked so good in his eyes as it does right now, with Jimin’s fat lips swollen and red
around it, Taehyung fucking his mouth, broken moans making Jimin whimper in happiness.

“Fuck, fuck, look at you.” Taehyung says raggedly as Jimin’s head bops up and down, the hands
behind his back coming to massage Taehyung’s balls, pressing just below his navel as well,
putting pressure on his bladder. “Holy shit, you’re so fucking perfect.” He praises.

“S’good Jimin, fuck, fuck.”

Jimin closes his eyes, humming and smiling around Taehyung’s member, purring at the praise as
he works Taehyung to his orgasm.

“Mine.” Taehyung suddenly rasps, grabbing Jimin’s hair strongly, fucking into his throat as Jimin
gags. “Fuck what I said, call me master.” Taehyung whines as Jimin continues to deep throat him,
crying around his cock.

“I own you, Jimin. Please, fuck, stay mine. Only mine. Be mine, forever.” Taehyung rambles as
his orgasm approaches.

And Jimin looks pretty. So fucking pretty.

So damned beautiful that the words just leave Taehyung in a string of incoherence. He can’t stop
himself. It’s like he’s confessing all over again, just as when he was fourteen. It’s like he’s still a
teenager and head over heels, and he fucking is. So madly, toxically enveloped by a boy with the
softest hair and most beautiful, pained eyes that are hiding so much from Taehyung. They lie to
him all the time, Taehyung sees it.

And you know what?

He can’t bring himself to care.

He doesn’t fucking care.

“Because you own me. You… you, fuck, Please, fuck, just-just don’t leave.” Taehyung begs as
the orgasm licks at his insides. “I don’t care, I don’t care about anything, what you were, what you
are, just stay, be mine. Ah, ah, ah, Jimin, fuck. M’gonna come in your mouth baby, gonna, fuck-
paint your mouth with cum Jimin. Ah- fuck.”

The orgasm comes to him as he sobs above Jimin, both of their cheeks tear stained as Jimin
whines around his cock, vibrations pricking Taehyung’s sensitive skin. The warmth encompasses
him as Jimin remains around his cock, only slowly pulling out as Taehyung lets out whines of
pain.

Jimin looks like he wants to ask something, but the words don’t leave his mouth like he wants
them to.

“ Yeah Jiminie did so well baby, fuck.” Taehyung praises, kissing his forehead as his thighs
quiver around Jimin’s head. “Did so well for me, so good. Took my cock so well, don’t want to
give you spanks because of how well you did.” There’s a glimmer of recognition in Jimin’s eyes
but it goes as soon as it comes, so far in the headspace that he’s lost his cognitive function. One
time he hadn’t been able to talk at all. He’d joked that Taehyung was almost too good at it. At
making Jimin into jelly.

He wasn’t wrong.

“But rules are rules baby.” Taehyung whispers, kissing his lips dirtily. Their tongues wrapping
around each other as they pass drool and saliva into the other’s mouths, biting messily and with no
real intent to actually kiss, but still wanting to taste each other.

Taehyung suddenly lewdly thinks that his cum tastes sweet, if only it’s inside Jimin’s mouth. And
maybe it’s dirty, but it doesn’t matter.

“On my lap baby.” Taehyung orders, pulling away, tapping his thighs. Jimin is slightly
unresponsive so Taehyung softly hauls him up, some maneuvering leading to Jimin lying face
down across the sofa, his abdomen on Taehyung’s thighs, ass next to his legs.

“ Forty five spanks Jiminie, is that okay?”

“Y-yeh.” Thank god he replied this time, Taehyung deliberates as he kneads Jimin’s ass cheeks
with one hand, holding the older’s hand with the other, interlocking his fingers on top of Jimin’s.

“ Wanna count for me?”

“ Yes daddy.”

“ Good baby, good boy.” Once again Jimin hums at the praise, giddy and happy even as
Taehyung’s hand comes down sharply on his ass, far too soft but stinging at the same time.

“ O-one.”

Fuck.

“ T-t-t…two.”
“ You okay?”

“ M-more.”

Once they reach ten, Taehyung alternates to the other cheek, maintaining the same pressure and
intensity as before.

“Eleven.”

His ass is spanked red and raw, Taehyung doesn’t even know how he’s going to be able to fuck
him like this.

He revels in the dark flowers blooming on Jimin’s skin, but by the twentieth slap, Jimin has gone
limp in his arms again.

“Hurts.”

“Want me to stop?” Taehyung asks even though he stopped as soon as Jimin had spoken

“ No…been a bad boy…” Jimin whines in shame. “Hit me more, please master.” He begs in a
small, broken voice and Taehyung hates himself for hardening at how shameless Jimin is like this.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“T-thirty…”

Taehyung thinks his ass is going to start bleeding, but when he starts softening his slaps, Jimin
whines for him to go harder and he’s just completely fucked isn’t he?

“ F-f-f…ah, master, forty…”

Slap. Slap. Slap. Slap. Slap

Taehyung makes the last five quick, hard and absolutely brutal and Jimin screams again and again,
laughing with joy as the last one hits his skin. Taehyung immediate goes to kiss his skin, Jimin’s
sobbing filling his ears as his thighs tremble and that’s when he sees the cum on the sofa.

“Fuck Jimin, you came from being spanked pet? You’re so dirty baby, fuck.” Taehyung smiles as
he kisses Jimin’s bruised ass, laughing at the irony of orgasming from a punishment reprimanding
you for coming in the first place. “ Such a mess Jiminie. How am I going to fuck you like this
baby, huh?”

“ Hngh, p-please.”

“How are you going to ride daddy when you’re in such a state baby boy huh? What am I going to
do with you?”

“F-fuck me now, please. Been good, did good, good boy, I’m a good boy.”

“You’re a good boy?” Taehyung asks, feigning uncertainty as he lays Jimin on his back who
starts whining as soon as his ass hits the sofa. He smiles when he sees the tears pool in Jimin’s
eyes. “Fuck okay, you were a good boy, I’m sorry. So, so good for me love.” Taehyung whispers
as he lifts him up bridal style, hands beneath his knees and around his shoulders.

“You did so good Jimin, such a good boy baby.”

“ Want you… now… please…”

“Okay baby, okay Jiminie. Taehyung purrs, laying him on his side on the bed. “Can’t be rough
after that yeah? Can I make love to you now?” Taehyung asks laying down beside him, hand
going between his thighs to remove the plug he’d put in after taking the toy out of him.

“Fill me up. Please, need it.” Taehyung blindly searches for another bottle of lubricant in the bed
side drawer, slathering it on his cock.

“Tae…”

“You okay? Are you still cloudy baby?”

“Just love me now, please. Love me like you know best.”

Taehyung kisses his forehead, one hand holding Jimin’s, the other wrapping around him as they
lay on their sides to take the pressure off Jimin’s ass.

Taehyung grabs hold of Jimin’s thigh, hooking it around his own, guiding the head of his cock to
Jimin’s rim.

“You love me, right?” Jimin asks as Taehyung pushes in and the latter wants to cry. He knows it’s
because Jimin just likes to hear the conformation, he gets off on the praise and affection but
Taehyung wishes he’d have to stop asking.

“So much. So much Jimin that it’s scary.”

“Are you scared of me?” Jimin asks, and Taehyung doesn’t know how he’s dispelling the
headspace. Or maybe he’s always in headspace when he’s with Taehyung. Maybe they’re both
fucking crazy, just like everyone thinks Moonchildren are.

“No Jimin, I’m scared of us.” Taehyung whispers, tightening his arms around Jimin, pessing their
foreheads together, mouths open against the other's lips, and he thrusts with his gaze pouring the
love he cannot express into Jimin’s beautiful, brown eyes.

And so…they make love.

Taehyung reels Jimin back to reality with his voice and his kisses.

Reels him back with childhood stories that he rasps against Jimin’s ear, lips grazing his skin. And
Jimin is hurting when he comes again, completely limp this time but he tells Taehyung not to leave
still. So, Taehyung continues shallowly thrusting into Jimin and maybe falls asleep at one point.
When he does, he dreams of a modest house with a white picket fence.

He dreams of a little kid running around a house carpeted with warm rugs.

He dreams of dancing with Jimin at midnight, the little child sleeping soundly upstairs, Jimin
wearing only Taehyung’s red, silk shirt as they twirl to old songs.

He dreams of a future he knows the world will never allow them to have.

He wakes up still inside Jimin, tethered together in their bodily fluids that seem to sew the fabric of
their universes together like a cosmic glue.

The afternoon sun pours in through the windows, painting Jimin in a lesser gold.
Jimin, beautiful Jimin. Perfect Jimin.

Taehyung’s Jimin.

The younger leaves his embrace, smothering him in blankets before going to the bathroom. He
runs a bath, the water just how Jimin prefers it, scents it with jasmine and honeysuckle plucking
the petals of a peach rose to spread across the water.

He walks into the room to see Jimin smiling in his sleep, cheeks puffy and golden hair shining in
the light. Taehyung stands still for a moment, caught in an ambedo of the ruffling of the bed sheets
hissing against Jimin’s skin.

He strolls quietly to the bed, taking Jimin in his arms as he carries him to the bathroom, kissing
him in his sleep.

They’re sewn by water and the smell of Jasmine in no time, tangled together in the giant bath-tub,
Taehyung kissing Jimin’s eyes awake, caressing his bruises.

The bathroom is laden with cream and gold, the size absolutely gargantuan, the circular tub
enough to fit at least ten people.

There is no emotional drop when they have a ‘session’, there never has been. How could Jimin
feel alone or detached? When Taehyung treats him like this?

He feeds Jimin the cup of some sweet hot beverage he’s learnt to make just because he knows it’s
his favourite, massaging him as the latter drinks the delicacy while half asleep.

Taehyung washes the come stains from Jimin’s body with a soft cloth, kneading the floral scents
into his skin, massaging his skull as Jimin stays silent, just watching Taehyung as a tear slips out.

“What’s wrong baby? Does it hurt? Is it-” Jimin presses a weak finger to his lips, silencing him,
and continues to gaze intensely at him while crying softly.

And Taehyung… after five minutes of staring at each other, Taehyung kisses him.

Through the kiss, Jimin says many things.

Thank you.

I love you.

I’m sorry.

I'm sorry.

And once they’re clean of what most would call sin, and they both smell of flowers that Taehyung
has grown to love because of Jimin, sitting tangled and warm in the sitting room downstairs,
Taehyung feeding Jimin the breakfast he made, it’s finally time.

Jimin turns to him with a sad look in his eyes.

“We need to talk.”

 Small Boys
Chapter Notes

And so it truly begins.

Hoseok wakes to the sensation of open-mouthed kisses on his skin, trailing the ripples of muscle
on his abdomen, blooming new marks on each protrusion. “Didn’t peg you as the type for
morning sex, isn't that too domestic for you?” The man in question rolls off him with a sigh,
resting on his side, head on his hand, supporting his weight on his elbow as he looks at the
younger man beside him.

The man is very broad, figure long and massive, shoulders disproportionate to the rest of the body
and yet seemingly sculpted to geometric perfection to give him an otherworldly kind of image.

“Seok-ah…” He says sweetly, bringing out a hand to twirl a jade ringlet of Hoseok’s hair straying
from the rest, little threads of browning burgundy threading through the mop of shining black.
“Are you mad at me?”

“Even if I am-”

“Which you are-”

“Even,” Hoseok emphasises, with a stern look. “If I am,” He continues, rolling his eyes as Jin’s
hand comes to shortly caress his jaw. It's a lost cause not to shiver, to try and restrain the purr that
forsakes the safe confinement of his mouth. Jin smiles proudly. “Shut up.” Hoseok snaps, even as
he curls into Jin’s body, resting his head on the younger's chest after pushing him back to lie flat
on the bed. “Even if I am,” He continues, drawing circles on Jin’s chest. “You’ve got a flight to
catch at noon.”

“And?”

“You’re asking if I'm mad because you wanna make it up, either with sex or money.” Jin’s next
breath doesn’t come, because instead it catches in his throat, coming out as an empty laugh.

“You’re not my fucking whore Hoseok.” Jin barks, clenching his fist resting on Hoseok’s
shoulder. The latter snaps his head up, Jin’s enraged eyes avoiding his gaze.

“Hey,” Hoseok quickly says, trying to retract his statement, rolling onto Jin’s body, both of them
still naked. Jin growls as their cocks brush together, Hoseok shifting upwards to connect their lips.
Jin takes him in, like always, arms going around Hoseok’s waist, grazing the discs of his spine
with blunt nails. “I’m sorry,” Hoseok breathes against his lips. “I didn't”-

“I didn't mean to snap.” Jin whispers against his lips. “I just- you just...” He thinks of what he
even wants to say as Hoseok’s tongue drags against his lip, flitting in and out of his mouth, tasting
dawn. “You’re... You...”
You mean so much more than that.

But the words don't leave Jin’s mouth. Because he remembers his little brother. Jin is left with the
words rotting against his mouth from how long he's left them hidden and just kept away. From
anyone who could hear. From the sky, the world, the moon that he used to think was on his side
when he was young. When he would drive past it only to see it following him still, not letting go.

But now he has to hide. Because he remembers Taehyung at sixteen, sobbing next to that ugly
fountain in the middle of the foyer, Jimin beside him.Jin remembers watching them as they fell in
love, and watched as his father used Taehyung’s love to his advantage and held both of them
captive even beyond the grave.

So Jin remains silent, but he knows that Hoseok knows. Because the black-haired dancer swoops
down once again to kiss him. “I know Jin, I know.” And then he takes Jin’s hand, the latter’s arm
unwrapping from its circle around Hoseok’s body, and presses their palms together. “Whenever
you're ready? Yeah?”

Jin’s answer is another kiss, their intensifying arousals slide against each other sloppily as they bite
and ruin flesh as they will it, sunlight pouring in through the windows.

The view beyond the windows is of a skyline dominated by a giant wheel, the long belt of the
dull, gold infrastructure of the Houses of Parliament, and the river sparkling yellow in the light of
an English dawn.

A colourful dawn which transitions into a positively grey, British morning as the rain begins to
patter against the windows.

Even in the dull, hazy light of the hotel, the shifting clouds beyond the city painting Jin in fleeting
shadows of blue and grey, Hoseok is struck by him every time he opens his eyes to watch him
through the kiss.

“You didn't, ah-” Jin moans sharply, biting Hoseok’s bottom lip, arm tightening around him as
they fit around each other’s bodies. “-didn't answer my question.” He lets out another growl
before his hand wraps around Hoseok’s throat, pushing him onto the bed, straddling him instead.

“What?” Hoseok pries. “If I'm- fuck, mad at you?”

“Mm,” Jin confirms, shifting lower down the bed, Hoseok whimpering as his lips attach to the
valley of his hip bones.

“ If you don't remember what you did, then, ah- fuck.” Jin’s breath flutters against his opening,
kissing the skin of his thighs.

“You can't mark me.” Hoseok reminds, thinking of the performance he’s going to be too sore for
even by next week.

“ I know, Seok.”

“Yeah if you don't... remember, shit,” Jin’s fingers invade his walls slowly. “ -deeper, I don't
think you deserve me to tell you.”

“Seok ah, c’mon sweetheart.” Jin pleads, thrusting his inserted fingers deeper as requested. “How
am I going to…” Jin presses a kiss to the inside of his thigh. “…make it up to you?” Hoseok
arches beneath his hand as Jin’s hand wraps around his cock, pumping it to full harness, pre-come
slippery beneath his fingers. “If I don't know what I did huh doll?”
“ Fuck me.” Hoseok says without thinking, and tries to hide his blushing cheeks with his hands as
he grimaced in embarrassment.

“ Jesus fuck.” Jin retorts, lips attaching to his rim, and he can swear he can taste his own cum on
the pink, puckered flesh. “You’re so stretched from last night, fuck.” Jin exclaims, tongue
suctioning the flesh how he knows the body beneath his likes it. “ I was so drunk, I don't
remember it at all.”

“You say I'm not your whore but I sure act like one, don't I?” Hoseok drones, spreading his legs
wide, holding his calves with shaky hands, thighs pressed against his chest. “Kim Seokjin’s little
slut.” Hoseok snaps, laughing dryly, sighing as Jin’s mouth is suddenly removed. “Begging to be
used even when he's drunk.” And then his hands are clawed off his thighs, slammed against the
mattress on either side of his head, Jin pushing in forcefully but ever-so soft and slowly at the
same time.

“ You fucking bastard Jung Hoseok.” Jin swears, their foreheads sweaty against each other as he
rams into him again and again. “You want me to fucking say it at any cost, don't you?” Jin
questionings, hips slamming against Hoseok’s, flesh colliding with skin and bone, the shape of his
fingers indenting the flesh of Hoseok’s thighs for the hundredth time.

“Ah, Jin,” He seems to have lost his train of complaint when Seokjin had pushed in, because all
Hoseok can do is chant the profanities and Jin’s name, whimpering and unravelling beneath his
touch. “ Ah, fuck- ah, please, harder.”

“ If I tell you I care...” Jin says, pressing kisses against Hoseok’s face. “ If I were to tell you I love
you,” Hoseok’s breath hitches, his whining ceasing as he looks up at Jin with wide eyes.
“Someone’s gonna hear...” Jin whispers, kissing Hoseok’s neck lightly. “Someone’s gonna hear
and they're gonna take you away.” His words are so quiet, the slapping of skin filling the room as
they both remain silent, floating in each other’s gaze.

“I’m right here Jin...” Hoseok murmurs, wrapping his arms around him when they’re freed, hands
locking around Jin’s neck, pulling their bodies closer. “I’m right here…”

“How could you ask me to tell you when you used to kill people for a fucking, ah, living Hoseok?
Huh?” Jin asks, and it might be harsh, but he's tired. He's tired and he's leaving in a few hours.
“When you know how this works. If I don't fuck other people,” Jin rasps, breath forsaking him as
he speeds up. “ If I don't pretend like I'm just another billionaire fuck boy, they're gonna find you.
They're gonna tie you up, and they're gonna fucking take you away.” Jin whispers in his ear,
holding onto his thighs tighter, thrusting slower and deeper to sew their bodies shut. So that if
Hoseok were to be taken away, he would be too.

“And I will- I will never be able to run my hands through your hair. I will never be able to see
your eyes when you come, or kiss your dimples, the ones at the bottom of your spine, the ones
flanking your beautiful smile Seok-ah, I-I…” He chokes on the words as Hoseok looks at him
with glassy eyes, unable to answer or form anything coherent beyond please, and harder, and so
good.

“You mean so much to me. So much, Seok ah, so much baby. Please, just- just wait for me.” Jin
rasps against his ear, spasms rippling through the body beneath him.

” Gonna come, ah. Hngh, please.” Hoseok whimpers beneath Jin’s large hands, trailing the
crevices of his flesh like feathers, like wings.

“ C’mon, come for me,” Jin urges, lifting him up, sitting back on his heels, thighs spread as he
places Hoseok in his lap, thrusting upwards as he holds his shaking body upright. “Let me see you
come undone,” He raps, biting lightly on Hoseok’s shoulder. “Gorgeous Seok-ah, so beautiful.”

“ Ah, ah, ah- oh, Jin, Jin.”

Hoseok can never pinpoint the exact moment he comes with Jin. Because even being with Jin
feels like he's coming, coming physically, mentally, in all the possible ways one can climax. Even
being touched by him is so intense because he's so specific in all the things he does.

Beneath all the jokes and flippant billionaire fuck boy persona he hides to protect the integrity of
his detachment policy, Jin is singular.

In the lines of his face, ridiculous proportions that shouldn't beautify him that much more, he's
singular.

His upbringing makes him dismiss people’s astonishment at how beautifully he manoeuvres
around a kitchen, how the knife dances across his hands like it belongs there.

The ghost of his father’s belt on his skin for not being enough of a ‘man’ makes him blush when
he's praised for things he was hit for as a child.

And when people tell him he would look even more handsome with a chef’s hat, he remembers
the phrase: ‘Men don't belong in the kitchen’, and he blushes and dismisses the words with a
fluttering hand.

And so Hoseok comes, and he doesn't know if it's only once but for an eternity but he trembles in
Jin’s careful, safe hands.

Hands that he's never raised on a single soul. Hands that treat everything with the upmost amount
of care, no matter what they are.

Because he is not his father’s son. And he will never be.

“Sound so pretty Seok ah, sound so good.”

Jin empties into Hoseok, shaking as the warmth enters Hoseok in spurts of liquid lust, love
whispering along his cheeks as Jin kisses him.

“Take a shower with me.” Jin whispers, kissing his forehead.

“You’re being needy today.” Hoseok says, the cloud of euphoria nowhere near to dissipating but
Jin’s voice is both the disease and the drug.

“ I'm leaving Hoseok.” Jin whines, and he's trying to hide the crack in his voice with his childish
mannerisms but Hoseok can always tell.

“ You could always stay.” He replies, caressing Jin’s dark hair.

”I need someone to give me a reason to.”

“ You can't expect when you don't give Seokjin.” Hoseok says softly, trailing Jin’s lips with a
forefinger just as the latter presses a kiss to his hand, sighing as he rolls off the bed.

“ Just, come shower with me, let me take care of you love, please.”Hoseok observes Jin’s sunken
shoulders, droopy, tired eyes that only seem to shine when they're looking at him. His eyes trail
the marks he's left on Jin’s body to make up for all the ones he can't make on him.

“Okay.”
“Okay.”

And he's weak, Hoseok is. For Jin’s kind eyes, how the expanse of his scarred shoulders seems to
epitomise safety for Hoseok who still has nightmares about the innocent blood etched into his
fingers.

So he gets up, Jin’s hand reaching for his. And he lets him take care of him... one more time.

_________________________________________

Practice is... draining. Jin must be on his flight now, to god knows where, warming god knows
who’s bed tonight.

He said he’ll call.

Hoseok isn’t sure if he really will.

His body twirls and bends to the command of the music, he doesn’t really realise what he’s doing,
body already missing Jin, missing soft, slender hands and the smell of vanilla and rose water. It
seems to matter not that the class is being observed by some scouts today, because Hoseok doesn’t
even realise finishing, isn’t even sure if he even completed his routine as he should have.

Jin. Jin. Jin.

But he’s standing at the finishing point at the centre of the room, his ass hurts, legs ache,
burgundy-black strands of hair matted to his forehead when he takes his final breath, the
terminating note of the piece hanging in the air.

The first few slaps of clapping are scattered, quiet. Hoseok opens his eyes, and he’s met with
open, gaping mouths and the delirious face of his ballet professor. The following applause is loud,
the cheers intensifying with each passing second and Hoseok is confused, clueless as he turns to
see the impressed expressions of some scouts sitting in the balconies above the practice room.

His performance was the last one of the day, all the lead dancer’s performing their solos in front of
the class before the showcase next week. Hoseok is left shifting from one toe to the next, the
singing praises of his classmates in his ears as some slap his shoulders while other’s circle around
him with awe written across raised eyebrows as they leave through the door, the day long over.
Hoseok turns to his teacher, confusion etched across his wet face.

“ Profess-”

“What…” The teacher interrupts him with a shaky breath. “What the hell happened to you
between yesterday morning and today?”

“I’m sorry I don’t underst-”

“What the hell was that?” The professor asks again, Hoseok shaking his head in frustration.

“Professor I really am sorry but-“

“Who..." Hoseok holds his breath for her next words. " Broke your heart like that?”

Hoseok’s breath hitches, feet losing their stepping as he staggers back slightly.

“What?” His whisper of shock, however restrained, still echoes in the confinement of the empty
room. The teacher’s expression of shock softens, wavering uncertainly.

“ I’ve… I haven’t seen anyone dance like that in decades Jay.” The teacher exclaims softly,
reaching out for Hoseok’s hand, only for the man to step back again, shaking his head.

“ I… I don’t…”

“ We were all just….” She hunches her shoulders up, hands held on either side of her in
speechless shock “-standing there, watching you fly,” Hoseok becomes more uncomfortable the
more she talks, foot tapping the ground, heart battering the confinement of his chest.

“ It was… that was one of the most breath-taking performances I’ve seen in my life and it was
only a practice run.” Jin. He was thinking about Jin. Breathing in their memories together,
exhaling his kisses with every breath, marking the lines of his body on the dance-floor with every
step. “ I… we all knew you were good Jay…” Jin’s dark locks slipping in his hands as they fell
asleep bare and unafraid. “…more than good, star potential even but that… that is just… what do
they say?”

I love you.

“Above and beyond? Is that what they say? Yes, you… you were beyond anything we could
grasp.” She exclaims, eyes glistening with wonder. “You’ve never danced like that before, not…
not like that.”

That’s what Jin had said to him, drunkenly, mouth smelling of sweet cocktails and clothes reeking
of feminine perfume.

I love you.

“ You must be mistaken…” Hoseok breathes. “I never intended to….” Under the yellow lighting
of the hotel corridors, buttons falling off in the floor of the elevator, chandeliers painting Jin in
their gold…

I love you.

“I didn’t even know what I was doing…” The sound of blood in his ears attacks him in waves, the
hum-drum of the city outside suddenly becomes so much louder, his ears hypersensitive to the
ruffling of the teacher’s skirt, to the chewing of flesh as he bites his lip. “I’m pretty sure I didn’t
even finish my routine properly…There was one part I’m sure I… I…I-”

He’s going to start crying. He didn’t cry sitting in the black cab, waiting for Jin’s jet to take off at
the private runway, and now he’s going to start crying. The anchor in his throat weighs down, the
teacher’s pitying look making everything so much worse.

“ I am right, aren’t I?”

The teacher waits for Hoseok to stop shaking, observing his little microexpressions as she replays
the performance in her mind.

The emotion had been too raw. In a way, that’s why the performing arts are one of the most
difficult occupations to prosper in. Because if the artist does not feel, if they do not believe that art
is leaking from their fingertips when they play, or dance or act, then the audience will not either.

The violin sounds flat, the piano sounds dull, the dance looks robotic, the acting looks too ‘fake’
though that is the entire point of it in the first place.
He had tears in his eyes as he danced, though she suspects he couldn’t have realised it. A trance-
like gaze overcame him near the climax as he soared, the debris of an injured heart painting the air
with every step.

Because he'd been thinking about Jin.

“ No…” Hoseok replies quietly. “ No you’re not… I don’t… I don’t love him…not like that. I
don’t love him that much.”

And it’s clear he’s not even answering the teacher’s question anymore.

“I don’t love him like that.” Hoseok whispers again, but it’s a lost cause because he lets out a
choked sob as the teacher brings him into her embrace

“Oh my darling boy…” She soothes, hand patting his back gently. “This is that Adonis-like
creature that visits you after class, right?” She asks as Hoseok sobs quietly on her shoulder.

“ He’s…he’s gone.” He whispers, as if only realising it himself just now.

“ Not for long, I’m sure.”

“But I’m not.” He might have let out a whine, he isn’t sure, but she holds him until his sobs
quieten and the aching in his throat retreats.

“ I want to tell you to keep him, if you’re given the chance, but someone who holds the ropes of
your hearts like that…” She shakes her head slowly, unsure. “Be careful of a boy like that.” She
advises, smiling when Hoseok scoffs. “Though I suspect it’s too late to warn you.”

“ You…” he Hoseok starts, lips opening and closing with uncertainty. “ You think I have star
potential?”

“ Oh I think you have more than just potential Jay.” She replies as Hoseok pads to the corner of
the room, retrieving his stuff from the floor. “ But you need to decide what heart you’re going to
flower with. A broken one? Or one that isn’t your heart anymore at all…but his.”

Hoseok isn’t all too sure he understands, but he nods anyway. Does he want to dance while his
heart is tied to the steps of a man too afraid to care? Or does he want to dance with his heart in
ruins, bleeding with every step that he takes?

Jin is too unstable. He’s unscarred, touching Hoseok with the softest hands and doesn’t like guns
even though he knows his firearms just as well as he knows his wine and spices. He sleeps in silk
and likes caviar but hates the upper class, which also means that he should hate himself.

And a lot of times Hoseok can see he really does.

But then he oozes confidence, from the impressive gate of his walk, to the way he presents
himself, to how he manages to be humble in that attractively narcissistic way when anyone in his
presence comments on the fact that he has the face of a god.

“He left you this, before he went.” Hoseok turns. A large, black box, deeper than it is wide,
paired with a light pink ribbon, is presented to him, the teacher smiling as she hands the gift over.
“He has immaculate taste as well.”

“ Oh that he does Professor.”

“ I’m sure he loves you just as much Jay, if not more.” Is the last thing she utters before leaving
him alone in the practice room.

Hoseok sighs, caressing the rich skin of the box.

That’s what I’m afraid of after all.

In his apartment, he sits for hours on the sofa, rain pattering on the slightly open windows on his
right. The fire place sparkles away in front of him, two arm chairs on either side of the long,
blood-red sofa sitting in front of the chimney. The heated, dark, wooden floors lead to the entrance
on the left of the fireplace, flanked by a set of stairs that lead to the bedrooms upstairs on the other
side, one of which he’s emptied out to practice.

It’s been three years, living in this place.

Four years since Taehyung’s father died and Hoseok decided he was done with that life, done
with washing blood off his hands, done with drowning neck deep in blood-money he didn’t really
need.

This place has only just started to feel like home during the past six months, Jin’s stuff strewn all
around the place, the smell of home-made meals wafting through the apartment, omnipresent and
domestic in the most blissfully unsettling way.

Jin’s ring that he was so adamant about not losing twinkles on the square, low coffee table in front
of Hoseok as he remembers all the places Jin made him come undone in this place, forsaking
control in his own house.

He reminisces Jin falling asleep on his thigh on this very sofa, watching a French film that Jin
snoozed off in the middle of translating to.

It’s lonely, all of a sudden.

Hoseok has a bad history with loneliness.

Maybe’ bad’ is an understatement.

Maybe Jin had made him forget for a bit.

Maybe he’s remembering again.

Maybe he never worked up the courage to tell Jin about it, about how bad it gets sometimes.

Maybe he needs to find a new dealer.

He reaches for the unopened box finally, ready and curious to see Jin’s parting gift to him.

His hand is pinching the bow when he suddenly stops.

How could he be so fucking stupid?

There’s no note, Jin didn’t even tell him about it, and the box doesn’t smell like the signature
vanilla everything in his vicinity somehow becomes drowned in.

Fuck.

The phone is in his hands before he can tell himself he’s overreacting. But then again, he used to
kill people for a living.

For a living?

Maybe for fun too.

“Hoseok?” The phone doesn’t even ring once before Jin picks up. “I was gonna call you love,
I’ve just land-”

“Did you leave a box at the school for me?” Hoseok missed his voice. Though it’s been less than
a day and he’s not supposed to, his misses him. But that’s not the point and it is not the time.

“What are you-”

“A box Jin. Did you leave me a gift before you left? At the university’s studio?”

“No? What are you talking about? Hose-”

“I need to go, I-I love you.”

“ Seok-ah, wait, wh-“

Hoseok realises days later that that was the first time he ever told Jin he loves him.

The phone call is ended, the box in his hands before he can hear Jin’s reply. The conversation is
long gone by the time the ribbon ripples ominously slowly to the floor.

To: Joon

Code Orange. London. Fifteen minutes.

The phone is unshaking in his hands as he makes the text, then signals his coordinates to the
number as well.

Hoseok stands, padding over to the fire place, the phone balanced against the ornately-covered
wall as he presses ‘record’.

Namjoon should be at his computer right now. Or at least, Hoseok hopes. He’s upstairs and back
in less than a minute, emptying a box of phones onto the table, turning them on in a calm,
calculated routine, putting them face up before straightening his spine, observing the black box.
Namjoon could call on any of them, since he doesn’t have his current number.

“What the fuck are you hm?” He stands behind the table, glancing at the phone, eying the box.

He fingers the underside of the lid.

And then lifts it.

One of the phones on the table starts ringing, and then another.

There’s a timer right on top of a pile of what seems to be a pack of dark, murky, photos, sitting on
top of a cream-coloured envelope.

Hoseok’s heart jumps for half a second before seeing the limit on the timer, the massive number of
hours before the end beckons.

“ It’s months away...” He says to his phone sitting on the fireplace, lifting the black object to show
the shifting, red numbers to Namjoon who he suspects is watching him now, if the ringing phones
are anything to go by.

“ Stop ringing me for a second,” Hoseok snaps to the camera on his phone. “-let me think.”

The ringing stops.

Hoseok circles the table to angle the phone on the fireplace, or rather it's camera, to his left, facing
the kitchen on the far left of the staircase, taking the box and the timer, laying them on the wooden
floor in front of the entrance, glancing at the phone periodically.

He takes the plastic packages of photos out, slapping maybe eighteen blocks of photographs,
plastic wrapped, onto the floor. Opening one of them, he spreads out a couple hundred photos on
the floor, rising to turn the lights on before returning.

“ What in the ever-living fuck…”

The photos are basically just shadows, blacks and browns and some bursts of lights coming
through in areas. Hoseok runs fingers through his hair in frustration before going to the table,
punching in a number he knows off by heart. Again, the first ring doesn’t finish before a
masculine voice comes through in panic.

“ Namjoon.”

“ Dude what the fuck is that pile of shit on your floor?” Hoseok smiles even as his heart pounds
against his chest, padding to the fire place to take his phone, strolling to the box and mess of
photos on the ground. He was right, Namjoon was watching already, in case it was a bomb, or
worse.

“ Can you make sense of this?” He asks, pointing the camera to the photos.

“ Not from a live stream I won’t’ be able to. Open the damned envelope maybe?” Hoseok swears,
going to the abandoned envelope on the table he’d forgotten about.

“ You’re getting rusty.” Namjoon teases.

“Fuck you, I don’t kill people anymore.”

He opens the envelope with a letter-knife sitting on the crystal plate he’d put on the table for Jin’s
cigarettes, cutting through the thick cream with a held breath.

“ What does it say?” Hoseok clutches his jaw as his eyes shift over the black words, Namjoon’s
breathing held on the other end of the silent line. Hoseok swears quietly, eyes panicked and
confused as they run over the paper.

“Fuck.’

“Hoseok fucking talk to me man.”

“ His daddy’s daddy got too big for his boots.” Hoseok starts, voice and hands finally starting to
shake. He thinks Namjoon might start laughing but the man only lets out a quiet swear word as
Hoseok continues. “So he painted my daddy's world in black and red.”

His daddy’s daddy got too big for his boots.

And painted my daddy’s world in black and red.

And when I came out, my daddy’s daddy and mommy were dead.

So I’ll give his friends a puzzle to solve,

And when the puzzle is picture perfect,

All the king’s horses, and all the king’s men…

Won't be able to put Taehyung back together again.

“ Hoseok, Hoseok, can you hear me? Hoseok can you fucking hear me man? Call Taehyung, you
need to fucking call Taehyung.”

____________________________

It's been hours, sitting here on the sofa, basking in each other’s warmth, waiting for the right
moment to speak. The anticipation is suffocating, Taehyung so tense, Jimin biting his lip as he
presses his body closer to the younger’s.

“ What...” The air freezes as Taehyung chokes on the word. Jimin is trying to hold back his tears,
his past bitter on the tip of his tongue, and he's doing it for Taehyung.

Taehyung who is shaking before Jimin’s even started yet, who is holding one of Jimin’s hands in
his while his other caresses the insignia on Jimin’s ankle, the latter’s legs folded on the sofa, with
fluttering, apprehensive fingers.

They're both trying to hold onto the last bit of okay-ness wavering in their trembling lips and
shaking hands.

“What did they do to you Jimin?” Taehyung asks, their foreheads resting on each other’s, their
cheeks allying with the taste of their shared tears in fleeting touches. The hand on Jimin’s ankle
comes to his face in a flurry of quivering and uncertainty, holding his cheek loosely in that telling
way.

In that way where you know you're touching something so preciously breakable that a touch too
forceful could make it crumble. But you can't help yourself, just as a moth can't help but to forfeit
its mesmerised wings to the flame, Taehyung can't help himself but want to touch Jimin, but need
to touch he who is far more broken than Taehyung knows.

He who heals even as he sickens from a love he knows cannot be part of this world for much
longer.

“What did they...” A quiet sob rattles through Taehyung, throat hurting, an anchor of secrets he
shouldn't know and pretends he does not weighing down on his neck.

“ Shh baby,” Jimin soothes. “-all in the past Taetae, ‘m okay, m’ fine love. ‘m fine baby, I’m
good.” Jimin reassures even as his own eyes twinkle with tears.

“ What did they do to my beautiful Jimin?” Taehyung asks again, sobbing, kissing Jimin, trying to
taste his story on his tongue. “Mm?” Taehyung hums against his lips, trying to smile through the
tears. “I’ll make it okay. I'll make it all go away Jimin baby...” Be he can’t make it okay. He can’t
change what happened. He can guess what happened from the photos. Anyone with a brain
would be able to. But he wants it to be a lie, Taehyung needs it to be a lie.

It has to be a lie.

“ You did make it go away Taetae, treated me so well. Look at my skin hm?” Jimin is buying
time, he knows he is. And maybe so does Taehyung. He takes Taehyung’s fingers, running them
across the expanse of his collarbones.

“ Look at how much you love me.” Jimin urges. “So good to me love, love me so much, I know
you do.” He whispers, pressing Teahyung’s fingers lightly against the love bites he left on his sin.
“ So good Taetae, so good to me that I forgot all about it baby,” He reassures, and it is the truth.
“Please stop crying. M’ okay now. Good with you, the best Taehyung. Made me good again.”

“ Tell me Jimin, tell me love, please. What have they done to you? What happened to…what
happened to little Jimin? What did they do to such a beautiful,” A sob rattles though him as he gets
the two words out. “-small boy?” Taehyung isn't going to be able to handle it. He just isn't. He
can guess, of course. The pictures projected onto the walls of the club hadn't been anything less
than graphic.

But Jimin knows saying it himself is going to break Taehyung. It's going to ruin him because he's
going to try and inflict as much pain upon himself as he thinks Jimin had to endure.

But they both know, even before Jimin tells him anything, that it's never going to be enough.

However much pain Taehyung injects into himself, punishing his mind for something he could not
have stopped, it's never going to match up to an infant Jimin alone in neon-lit rooms, dressed up
like a little doll for the pleasure of the sick desires of men who could have been his grandfather.

“ You already know Tae... you saw the pictures love, you can guess... surely you must know
what they mean my love.”

“ But... so small... you were so... small.” Taehyung keeps repeating in disbelief, Jimin’s bottom
lip stretching in a smile of old acceptance.

“ I know darling, I know Taetae. There's nothing you could have done baby, you were small too.
You were small too Taetae.”

Taehyung keeps sobbing, eyes painted with liquid glass, like he can't even see Jimin in front of
him. He keeps mumbling gibberish, choking out Jimin’s name like it physically hurts him to say it
as the elder begins to shed tears too.”My parents were poor Taehyung.” Jimin starts, a deep
exhalation marking what's going to be a revelation of secrets he shouldn't even be telling. This
isn’t part of the plan.

“So poor, they had nothing to their name.” Jimin hasn’t told this story to anyone. Only one other
person knows this story.

Or so he thinks.

And that person knows because he’s the one that told Jimin in the first place.

“And my mother got pregnant and she didn't realise it was with twins until she gave birth to us in
a rotten alleyway. I swear I can hear the rats even today, skittering by as I came out.” He’s being
more descriptive than he hoped, wanting to keep it as vague as possible, to lessen the load on
Taehyung. But now he’s started and he’s vomiting the memories and he’s…he’s hurting.
“ And it's like I knew there'd be no point,” Jimin whispers, laughing coldly. “Because when I saw
the woman who gave birth to me years later, she said I didn't even cry. Didn't even try to scream,
they didn't even know if I was breathing.” Taehyung listens as he cries, kissing Jimin whenever he
stops to take a breath.

“ I’m so sorry…I’m so sorry…I’m so sorry…”

Jimin wonders how Teahyung’s would react if he knew the blood Jimin had told him he can’t
wash off his hands was his mother and father’s blood.

“They didn't even try to raise me,” Jimin cries. “Just picked one of the twins and said they'll take
that one, like picking out fucking groceries.” Taehyung’s thumbs press against his cheeks, wiping
away the tears, kissing him, kissing him and holding him to calmness as Jimin’s dormant anger
resurfaces.

“ And I drew the shorter stick.” Taehyung stifles a cry as Jimin laughs, tasting his tears with
bruised lip and a tired tongue.

Coming to think of it, the only time Jimin didn’t draw the short stick in this fucking shithole was…

Was Taehyung.

Is Taehyung

“They went around the red -light district that night, because maybe murder by neglect was where
they drew the line, seeing whether anyone would take me in.” Taehyung is listening intently. He
knows where this is going, and maybe that’s why he shakes even more, head going side to side in
disbelief as he whispers ‘please, no’, over and over again.

“And this guy comes up to them, offering dirt money that to them seemed like a gold mine at the
time, to take me away. And he was surprised that they gave me up so easily. And once he
explained what was going to happen to me...” Taehyung’s sobbing is so loud now, face red and
lips bruised from hard he's trying to restrain“ Baby, c’mon Taetae. Shh, love, I'm okay. You made
me okay.”

“ Fuck, fuck... fuck Jimin, you were...” He chokes on his cries, sobs so loud and cracked that
Jimin lets go too.

“Even once he explained... that I would be sold into the skin market, that I'd have unspeakable
things done to me, my parents just... they just didn't…care. They turned around and they... they
just never looked back.”

Taehyung’s vision is blurry as Jimin presses their lips together, pressing his arms around Jimin as
they sob into each other’s mouths, bodies shaking with shared pain.

Another sob rattles through Taehyung and Jimin quietens him with another kiss.

“ How long…how long…fuck…my beautiful Jimin…sweet Jimin…innocent Jimin…”

“ Six years.”

Now this is a lie.

A white lie, if Jimin is going to be optimistic about it. That’s the first lie he tells to Taehyung...
during this conversation. It’s a lie because it’s actually only five years, but then he’d also have to
explain what happened in the one year that he got away from it all. It’s a lie because the abuse
never actually stopped. Because his body is still used and ruined. But now it’s just by one person,
someone familiar, instead of unknown faces and bodies.

“My…step dad was the one who got me out of it.” That’s a truth. But it’s also a lie.

Taehyung’s eyes light up, Jimin smiling at his naïve reaction as they kiss again and again.

“ He treats you well? He made it better?”

No he doesn't.

“ Yeh Taetae, my dad’s nice remember?”

That’s the second lie.

Jimin chokes on the words even as he lies his way through them, holding onto Taehyung tighter to
shield his lies by muffling his voice against his shirt.

“ He's a good dad.”

Another lie.

“ What did they do to you Jimin?”

“ I don't... I don't know Taetae.”

“ You're lying to me...” Taehyung replies, bottom lip trembling, eyes glassy and red, going in and
out of focus every few seconds, “ You're lying cause-cause, cause-“ Taehyung hiccups
uncontrollably. “-c-cause you know I can't take it...”

“ No baby, I swear. Ever since...” Jimin smiles.

“ W-w-what?”

“ Ever since we started having sex, I started forgetting.” That’s five years ago.

“And b-b-before that?” That’s fifteen years Jimin didn’t have the novelty to forget, and he knows
Taehyung realises this as he clutches his face in his hands, rocking back and forth.

“ No, no, no, no, please no.’

That’s why Jimin had been so scared.

That’s why Taehyung thought Jimin was disgusted by the thought of being touched by him when
they were fourteen and he’d start having a panic attacks whenever a kiss turned to something
more. That’s why Taehyung started distancing himself, afraid of ruining everything by wanting to
feel Jimin in his entirety when the older clearly didn’t want the same.

And then Taehyung had stopped kissing him, touching him, saying it was okay if Jimin had
changed his mind. Saying that he could go to other guys if he wanted, that Taehyung would still
be waiting for him.

And then after months of not being touched by Taehyung, the emptiness spreading within Jimin
slowly ruining him, he realised he wasn’t scared of Taehyung at all. He had been scared of
himself.
Scared that Taehyung would realise he wasn’t a virgin. That his body was ruined. That his body is
ruined…and used… used and ruined beyond anyone’s wildest imagination.

Because…

Because…

Because Jimin’s child hood was rape. And prostitution. A body that wasn’t his.

Jimin would have become an empty body and an even emptier mind very quickly if not for the
fact that he was technically, in ever essence and definition of the word...a genius.

He realised he was a genius when he could speak entire languages at three with only a few weeks
of eavesdropping on client’s conversations. He realised he was a genius when he understood what
was happening to him when all the other kids could do was scream.

He realised he was a genius when he stopped crying at four years old, and realised it would hurt
less if he played along and made himself prettier, and stretched himself out before-hand like the
older male prostitutes did.

Park Jimin realised he was a genius when he taught himself to code at four years old, started
hacking into customer’s private accounts, and extorted money into a billion-dollar account that he
has access to even till today.

He realised he was a genius when he decided he had enough money after a year. When he
decided that the female prostitute who used to secretly clean his wounds from the rings of that one
particular client would be a good companion for his plan to escape.

He got to call her ‘mom’ for a year.

They ran away, took a flight with passports five-year-old Jimin had forged, and lived happily.
Lived luxuriously with money enough for a few lifetimes.

They lived like normal people for a year, with the billions Jimin had amassed from the money of
clients ranging from tycoons to politicians.

And then she was shot in the fucking head in front of him.

And then Jimin was thrown back into prostitution again at six.

“ Don't make me say it...”

Taehyung’s bottom lip shrivels again, trembling as more sobs rattle trough him. He cries and
cries.“ I only started remembering when we saw the pictures at the club baby, you treat me so
well, so good to me. As soon as you started making love to me, it all just got washed over Taetae.
It doesn't hurt anymore.”

“ Fuck, fuck I- I hit you, and I call you names and you- you wear pretty things just to please me-
fuck, Jimin I- oh my god, oh god, love -I”

“ Tae, Tae, Tae, Taehyung listen to me.” Taehyung looks up at Jimin with panicked, glassy eyes.

“ I love it Taetae, I like it so much. Makes me feel so good, all the bad memories just go away
because of you Taetae. You make everything okay by just breathing baby, please stop crying.”

“ I'm so sorry. Fuck, I'm so sorry I...oh god, oh god, Jimin, my beautiful Jimin, sweet Jimin,
darling Jimin.”

God, Jimin never thought it would feel so good, to be called these things.

“ I....I’m sorry for being a bitch back at the penthouse, for slamming you against the door like
that,” Taehyung says, holding Jimin’s face in large, quivering hands. “-for accusing you of shit
with Jungkook I... I know you wouldn't Jimin.” Taehyung rambles, searching for Jimin’s exposed
shoulders through blurry eyes. “Your beautiful body, your little body... it must have hurt so
much.” He's wailing now, eyes so bloodshot that they keep going out of focus as Jimin kisses
away the tears on his cheeks.

“ It did Taetae, even seeing the pictures hurt so much..” Jimin confesses because he needs
Taehyung to realise that he made it all okay. “But it's okay now. You're here. Everything's okay
because you're here, keeping me safe Taetae. I'm so happy Taehyung. I'm so happy that it's
scary.” Jimin takes Taehyung’s hand in his own while his other circles his waist, pulling him
down onto the sofa with him as they lie facing each other, limbs deeply entangled and lips
breathing love into the others mouth.

“ You're always so scared when I kiss you Jimin... you're shaking and a lot of the time you just
start crying and I thought... I thought it was...”

I thought you didn't love me anymore.

“I shake because- because no one’s ever treated me like that before... because I'm ruined and-”
Taehyung winces as that word, bringing his face closer to press their lips together.

“ You're not... You're not Jimin... you could never be ruined in my eyes...”

“ Because I am ruined Tae and- and it would have been so easy for you to find out about this
insignia on my ankle, it wouldn't have even taken a minute....”

That’s another lie.

Jimin has deleted his past before Taehyung off the face of the earth, placed markers in every place
that anyone could look for it to notify him if anyone tried to ever access the information that didn’t
and doesn’t even exist.

So Jimin knows Taehyung has never tried to find out about his past without his permission.

And it fucking hurts.

It fucking hurts.

“But you respected the fact that I'd chosen not to tell you. You... You respect me, and love me,
and care- you care so much it's scary. I love you so much it's scary, it's so scary Taetae, I'm so
scared because I'm- I'm not supposed to love you like this. No one is every supposed to love
anyone like this.”

“But I do.” Taehyung whispers.

“ And so do I.” Jimin replies.

“It doesn't hurt anymore?” Taehyung asks again. “You're okay? I'm good to you?”

“So good Taehyung, so good to me.” Jimin pleads, trying to make him understand.
”I am? I'm good to you?”

“ The best, Taetae. I'm okay, I'm really okay.”

“ I... you're my everything Jimin... You know that right? The fucking oxygen I breathe, that's you.
That's why... that's why I don't feel the need to ask you to stay because... because I don't need to
remind myself that I need air to keep going. So why…why would I with you?”

“ Oh Tae...” Jimin sobs, shaking with Taehyung's words tearing him apart even as they stitch his
tatters back together.

“ Let's stop this.” Taehyung cries, and then suddenly stops. Because he remembers.

Do you only see me as a body to snort from?

Do you only see me as a body to snort from?

Do you only see me as a body to snort from?

“ Jimin you...” The thought of it is so disgusting that Taehyung gags, Jimin holding his face as he
asks what’s wrong, Taehyung shaking his head, letting out a shaky, bewildered laugh. “Do you
think that I…t-that…me? Me?” Jimin suddenly understands, eyes widening as he presses his lips
to Taehyung’s, chanting ’ no’, the younger boy feeling the bile rising up his throat.

“ No, no Tae. Never. No baby, fuck no, no Taehyung love.” Jimin can guess the exact words
running through Taehyung’s head, because he’s only ever said one thing that could ever disgust
him this much now, now that he knows. “I don’t think you’re like them. I was mad.” Jimin
rambles, making Taehyung look at him, stretching the skin next to his eyes with his fingers as he
wipes his tears. “I missed you. You…you were gone for so long… five months is so fucking long
Tae… I missed you like fucking hell…I was so scared. I’m so scared of us Tae, so scared of
this." Jimin whispers, entangling his fingers with Taehyung.

“ I know- I know you're scared, we- we’re scary together. We're scary in love, we're stupid in love
and that's scary but you love me, and I... and I feel the same. There will... there's only ever going
to be us two. There never has been anyone else. I don't care Park Jimin, about anything in this
world, anything at all, if it's not you.”

“ Don’t leave me again.”

“I won’t.”

“Please, just take me with you next time. I fucking hate it when you’re away, I hate it so much.”

“I’m sorry.” Taehyung apologises, inhaling Jimin’s scent as he presses his body closer. “ Fuck I’m
sorry, but if- if something happens to you…I, I don’t…”

“Kiss me.” Is the only thing Jimin can say when Taehyung stutters, silence overtaking, tucking
himself into the younger’s body, filling in his crevices and empty spaces.

“ I’m so sorry.” Taehyung keeps whispering, and Jimin doesn’t really know what for.

But maybe he’s saying sorry instead of all the bodies that forced themselves on an infant.

For what though?

Jimin slaughtered every last one.

They kiss for a really long time, and its nightfall by the time they both fall asleep, lips red and
bitten, bodies warm.

Their forms are painted by the palette of a cloudy sunset, the colours dull and washed down by the
approaching storm. Pink shadows dance across their faces, inferior to the embrace of their open
lips against one another even as slumber overtakes the tired Moonchildren.

By the time the sun gives way to their absentee guardian, Taehyung is fast asleep while Jimin
watches him, going in and out of delirium every few hours, knowing he'll be forced to wake soon
anyway.

He presses kisses to the panes of the younger’s face while crying, and this time it has nothing to
do with the revelations of the past day.

Jimin watches him like he's going to forget, like he needs to remember this moment to keep going.
And when his phone lights up from the glass table in the circle of sofas, he doesn't even need to
look at the screen to know it's time again.

“ I'll be back.” He whispers, kissing Taehyung’s forehead softly, one of his tears falling onto his
eyelash as he rises, clutching his phone with red hands as he pads the stairs, ascending to the
fourth and highest floor after fetching something from his room.

Jimin lets out an empty laugh before entering the spare guest room, not knowing whether the
phone or the basket of objects he holds is heavier in his hands. The room is simple by this house’s
standards, a large, double bed, an armoire, a balcony and an en-suite bathroom all that it has to
offer.

Jimin lays the stuff on the bed, the phone face up as he undoes the knot on his robe, the silk falling
to the ground in a rippling pool around his legs.

He makes quick work of it, slathering lubricant onto his fingers while he positions himself sitting
down with thighs spread open, legs bent on either side, fingers inserting one by one.

He's crying as he stretches himself. It's the silent kind of crying where his tears fall one after
another but he makes no noise, bouncing on his fingers lightly as to make sure not a soul heard
him.

It's been a long time this time, so maybe the toy will be handy as well, since it's bigger. Better
preparation. He touches himself without thinking of anything in particular, making sure to block
thoughts of Taehyung out completely, because a single frame of him would bring him to an
orgasm that he doesn't want right now.

He doesn't want to come thinking of Taehyung right now.

Not when he's stretching himself out for someone else.

The insertion of the toy doesn't hurt much, not considering how Taehyung had taken care of him
that same morning.

Jimin prepares much more thoroughly than usually, showering and ridding himself of the tears,
concealing the love-bites Taehyung had mapped his body in with cosmetics.

And then he's ready to go.There's a limousine waiting outside once he leaves the gates. The
panties beneath his trousers feel too tight, the make up on his face heavy, suffocating.He takes one
more look at the house, as if he can see the sleeping formOf Taehyung beyond the curtained
windows, and tries as hard as he can not to cry.

He needs to stay pretty for what's to come.

Jimin knows what he is to do, it's been ten years after all. Once he enters his childhood house, he
goes upstairs, to the office.

His fingers still shake as he undoes the button of his trousers, even after all this time. It’s not
something you get used to. It’s just fucking not.

Riding up his shirt, making it catch on the edge of the table so his ass and his thighs can be
exposed, he pulls down the baby blue panties, bends over the edge of the conference table that's
half the size of the one Taehyung has-

Don't think about Taehyung. Don't think about Taehyung. Don't think about Taehyung.

Jimin presses the side of his face against the table, hands behind his back, the wind entering
though the window nipping at the flesh of his thighs, at his exposed entrance.

And he waits.

Did I prep myself enough? What if it hurts again? What if he hits me? And I have to make up an
excuse to avoid seeing Taehyung until the bruises go?

What if-

And then there are hands on his hips and a familiar cock pushing in, thrusting into him at a cruel
and merciless pace, just like always.

Jimin tries, he really does try not to cry this time. But then he remembers Taehyung.And of
course, it's a lost cause not to cry, because Taehyung still doesn't know. Taehyung can never
know.

“ You still cry like a little bitch don't you? Do you cry like this when that bastard uses you as well
princess?”

Jimin blocks it out with the sound of Taehyung singing him to sleep, replaces the slapping of the
man’s cock with the sound of running water as Taehyung massages the scent of flowers into his
skin, body warm and safe behind him.He notices the slippery sensation of blood trickling from his
entrance, down his thighs, mixed with the man’s semen when he starts hitting his ass for ‘bleeding
like a fucking virgin’, fisting Jimin’s hair in his hand as his pulling arm makes Jimin’s back arch
painfully as he’s lifted.

Jimin doesn't remember much of what happens.The man hits him some more, slapping his face,
choking him until Jimin feels like he truly can't breathe anymore, comes inside him, and then
finally leaves.

“ Sluts like you aren't even supposed to cry, let alone bleed.” Jimin doesn’t even realise the
repeated stinging on his ass, too lost in the thoughts of Taehyung until he’s hauled back by the
shoulders, thrown across the room, shoulder cracking painfully against the door as the man's voice
billows in his ringing ears. “ Go clean yourself up and then you can come report to me.”
Jimin’s feet function on auto pilot as he navigates the house of his childhood, a house Taehyung
has only ever visited once.

At his reflection in the mirror he laughs again. His eyes are bloodshot, cheek red with the force of
the man’s body pressing him into the table. But he's not bruised anywhere, at least anywhere
except his ass.

And that's all that matters. He can see Taehyung as soon as he leaves. So it's okay.

He wipes himself down with a wet cloth, fastening his clothes, straightening them uselessly, just
buying time, before leaving again, to the office.

“You still want Taehyung to stay alive, don’t you?” The man asks.

Jimin clenches his jaw, biting the inside of his mouth, tasting blood.

He nods firmly, even as he shakes.

“Then report.”

Jimin takes a deep breath.

“Taehyung knows you’re not my real father.”

And then a scotch glass comes whirling in his direction.

_________________________________

He’s home just after sunrise, steps faltering after he faces the tall, spiked, gates of the Kim
mansion.

Home.

A word irreversibly tied to Taehyung’s feet, to the tips of his hands and his smile.

Jimin’s face is unbruised, though he can still feel the wounds around his rim throbbing as he
walks. It’s okay. He just needs to get back to Taehyung, keep him safe, keep him alive. It’s okay
to lie. It’s okay as long as Taehyung is alive. As long as Taehyung can still hold Jimin in his arms,
everything is going to be okay.

He’s waiting by the door when Jimin enters, of course he is. For all the crying and revelations, he
looks well slept, changed into a shirt and some sweatpants, sitting on the fountain when Jimin
walks in.

“Hey, I-“ Jimin doesn’t give him time to speak as Taehyung rises. Instead he propels himself into
his arms, Taehyung twirling him around as Jimin presses his cold nose against Taehyung’s
shoulder. “You okay love?”

“Missed you.” Jimin replies softly, kissing Taehyung’s neck as he’s carried to the living room.

“Why did you leave then?” He asks, settling Jimin down on his lap, straddling Taehyung as he
sinks into the sofa.
“For a walk,” Jimin leans in for a kiss, locking his arms around Taehyung’s neck. He hurts. His
ass hurts.

The bruise on his hip that he didn’t think would form-but undoubtedly has- hurts. “Had to think.”
God, he feels disgusting. Jimin feels ruined and used and not pretty at all. He feels ugly.

He hates feeling ugly.

“Touch me.” Jimin pleads, taking one of Taehyung’s hands, putting it on his face.

“Where?” Taehyung plays with the lobe of his ear, pressing a kiss to Jimin’s temple.

“Everywhere.” So, Taehyung does. And it’s scary how his hands don’t go lower than Jimin’s
waist. It’s fucking terrifying how he knows nothing at all and everything he should know to make
Jimin okay again at the same time. Like he somehow knows Jimin is hurting, that his hands
shouldn't wander lower without Jimin even telling him. It's scary how he only focuses on Jimin’s
face, his neck, tracing the exact words Jimin needs to hear on his skin

Pretty.

Beautiful.

Mine.

I Love You.

“What did you think about?” Taehyung asks as his fingers knead Jimin’s shoulders, pressing
kisses to his neck, never taking it further.

“How much I love you.” Jimin replies. And that’s not a lie. Because Jimin never stops thinking
about it.

Because everything right and everything wrong, everything in between the madness, it’s all
because of how much Jimin loves Taehyung.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Taehyung stops his administrations, head cocking up, caressing Jimin’s cheek.

“Do you wanna go to Disneyland together?” Jimin giggles at his question, slapping him on the
shoulder.

“What?”

“Yeh, wanna go. Never been.”

“When?” Jimin asks. And it’s a bit silly. They’re being silly.

“Tomorrow?” Taehyung asks, though he knows it's an empty promise. Because they've got
someone on their asses and time's running out, and soon they're gonna have to stop ignoring the
fact that someone has decided to play a game with them. And whether they like it or not, the
Moonchildren have to start playing along... and soon.

“ Mm.” Jimin moves onto kissing Taehyung’s fingers, sucking lightly on them, tasting the salt. “I
love your hands, s’much.” Jimin comments as Taehyung watches him. “Your…” Taehyung
tenses when Jimin’s lips suddenly stop. And he looks up.
“What?” Taehyung asks.

“ Do you fucking hear that?” Jimin asks slowly, looking around incredulously, Taehyung feeling
the elders heart beat pound against his fingertips.

And then Taehyung’s eyes shift, tightening his hold on Jimin as he straightens.

“Jimin, what-”

It’s quick. It’s fast and it’s fucking terrifying. The phone is ringing and Taehyung can see
Hoseok’s name on the screen but it’s too late now.

One moment Jimin is kissing Taehyung’s fingertips.

The next he hears the beeping. The beeping that speeds up even as his eyes lock to Taehyung’s.

The last moment is Taehyung’s fingers digging into his hip, rotating their positions, slamming him
down into sofa, engulfing his body with his own.

“ Stop it, no- no no no, Tae…”

“ I love you.” Taehyung mouths, pressing their lips together, pressing Jimin’s body as far as he
can into the sofa. He’s going to take all the damage.

Taehyung is going to fucking die.

Jimin is screaming when the bomb goes off. He's screaming Taehyung's name when the explosion
booms around them.

He’s wailing, hitting Taehyung with all his might as he only holds him tighter, shielding his body.

Taehyung is whispering sweet nothings into his ear as Jimin thrashes, telling him to run, telling
him to get off.

There’s a flash of light, and then the deafening sound that washes over Taehyung’s voice fills
Jimin’s ears.

And like it always does, like it has to, everything goes black.
 Lonely Boys
Chapter Summary

New Character: Jameson Thomas

The walkway of the Kim mansion is long. Actually, scrap that. Long is an understatement because
Jungkook feels like he's been walking side by side to Yoongi for days, edging further and further
away from the entrance the more they walk towards it.

Yoongi smells of smoke and pine. Of soap that smells clean, non-scented and yet still manages to
fill Jungkook’s nostrils with the aroma of clean sheets and musky fabric softener.

The smell of coffee beans sticks to Yoongi, as if as well as music, coffee also leaks from his
fingers onto the keyboard of the piano. Jungkook is lost in his scent as they pass by the guards
flanking the gates, finally leaving the mansion behind.

They stand still for a few moments, and the tension is tangible. The taste of their near kiss still
freshly ephemeral on their tongues, the warmth of each other’s body in a cold alleyway caressing
the tips of their fingertips as they let the moment pass.

Jungkook lingers by the gates, watching Yoongi, seeing if he's going to say anything only for him
to turn to leave. Just as he, himself turns to part ways, the pianist’s deep voice invades his ears
again.

“ Why...” Jungkook turns. “ Why did you do it?”

“ Huh?” Yoongi shivers.

So soft. His voice is so sweet, soft and boyish, coming out in whispers of melodious intonations
and Yoongi is a goner for anything that makes music. That's why he fell for Jimin as well.
Because Jimin makes music as he walks, as he breathes, when he sings Taehyung to sleep and
when his sighs sound not unlike the gospel of the fairies. Like they're a whole cosmic overture by
themselves.

“ Why did you help me?” Yoongi asks. Jungkook didn't think Yoongi could ever sound small.

“ Was that the first time you've played?” He asks, seeing for himself if his suspicions were correct.

“ What?” But he does now.

“ Since the accident?” Yoongi’s breath hitches, feline, tired eyes wide and droopy, face pale
beneath the dawn stretching above them. Jungkook smiles.

“ How did...”

“ By impulse right?” The violinist cuts in, stepping closer to Yoongi until they're both only a few
yards away from each other, two shadows in front of the Kim mansion, the guards lining the
walkway beyond the gates stoic and seemingly inattentive to their conversation.
“You saw the piano, beneath all that warm lighting and you just... your fingers suddenly ached to
touch it? Like your hands would just fall off if you didn't. And then you're there and you're
playing…” Jungkook realises he’s describing the very first time he touched a violin. “ But you
realise you don't really know what the fuck you're doing. Well in your case, you were just...”

Scared.

“That’s why...” Jungkook trails off, fixing his gaze sheepishly on his dress shoes. “I made an
educated guess... that that was your new beginning and it wasn't going awfully great...” Yoongi
doesn't react to this but Jungkook still feels the need to reiterate. “No offence.” His lip quivers,
smile ghosting over his mouth.

It's a very different kind of gaze to the one Taehyung has. With Taehyung, the
gaze stripped Jungkook in every definition of the word.

Laid him bare, open and unprotected for his eyes to pry his innermost inhibitions apart. It's not
uncomfortable, per say, but Jungkook doesn't like what he feels beneath that awful stare, how his
skin burns and head hurts from trying to find out exactly what kind of thoughts the image of
Jungkook conjures in Kim Taehyung’s mind.

But with Yoongi...

“Didn't want you to think you weren't allowed another beginning....” His voice is far smaller than
he intends it to be, clouded beneath the pianist’s intense stare. Because Yoongi has those kinds of
eyes that every one of us has seen at least once.

The kind of eyes that you see on someone sitting a few seats down in the train, in front of you.
You lean your head against the hand rail, and watch them because the train is so crowded- you're
sure they wouldn't notice, and they're so deep in thought that it seems to matter not that you're so
blatantly staring in the first place. So you watch.

You watch and you wonder what the hell the world has put this passenger through for their eyes
to look like that.

For their eyes to be fixed on that one advertisement above the seats in front of them and yet still
seem like they're looking everywhere at once.

Omnipotent to their surroundings, eyes both empty in that they're indecipherable, so you assume
there was nothing there in the first place, but also full of unknown that chills and captivates.

That's Yoongi.

Someone who looks at you as if they already know everything there is to know without even
knowing your name, but has that blanket of security crinkling his eyes, appearing when he
forsakes the occasional smile, and that's enough to rest you assured that he doesn't ever plan on
using his knowledge for the worst if you don't give him reason to.

Whereas Taehyung...

Taehyung looks at Jungkook like he's already stripped him bare and branded him with his teeth,
claiming ownership over his body and soul. Like Jungkook would submit to him without a second
of hesitation if he was ordered to.

And Jungkook is terrified because he honestly doesn't know what he would do if the Kim
Taehyung directed an order at him. That's what's scary about the way Taehyung looks at you.
Because he seems like the kind of man who'd be able to make anyone do anything if only he wills
it.

“ I tried doing what I could in that moment.” Jungkook finally continues, shying away from
Yoongi’s stare, playing with his hands while he fingers the hem of his long, black coat. “To make
sure you didn't think all was lost.”

“ And what told you that was my first time playing since...” A flicker of pain passes across
Yoongi’s eyes. “ Since the accident?” He asks, and Jungkook sees his eyes fall down to his lips,
resting there as Jungkook grinds on the flesh with his teeth, before raising to his eyes again.
Jungkook holds his breath.

“ Was it?” Jungkook asks again. Yoongi squints, running his tongue along his lower lip, biting it
before letting the flesh go in a slow, deliberate motion. He's playing with him, Jungkook realises
as his lower lip retracts from his teeth, bouncing outwards, glazed and wet.

“You didn't answer my question.” Yoongi says slowly, voice low, a cocked brow flanking his
squinting right eye.

“You don't seem like the kind of person who'd play publicly like that, knowing your hands
wouldn't be able to keep up. So, it must have been an impulse decision.” Jungkook’s heart is
beating so fast, hands clammy and ears ringing, stomach so hot and mind cloudy as he spits a
jumble of words out that he hopes are coherent enough to stop Yoongi from looking at him
like that again.

“And why do you think I never play when I'm alone?”

Fuck.

“Because you're too scared.” Jungkook answers softly.

“Oh?” The pianist purrs, taking a step close to Jungkook. “Please do continue.” Jungkook wants
to take a step back.

“You're either scared that you'll be able to play just fine and you've been lying to yourself to
indulge your self-preservation...” Jungkook takes a peek at Yoongi who seems to be much closer
than the violinist remembers him to be, wearing the strangest form of a half-smile, leaning his
body mass on one foot, crossed arms accentuating his white shirt around his arms, tattoos
becoming more visible with every contraction of his arm muscles. Yoongi’s not mad as Jungkook
thought he would be... he’s...Yoongi is amused.

“Go on.” He purrs again and that fucking sound is going to drive Jungkook insane.

“Or you're afraid you're going to shatter and no one will be there to pick up your pieces...” He's
rambling. He's rambling real bad. “Yoongi I-“

“ And why is that?” The pianist asks. Jungkook ogles.

“ Pardon?”

“Why isn't there anyone there? To pick them up? My pieces?” Jungkook bites his tongue so hard
that he tastes blood.

“ Yoongi I'm sor-“

Yoongi charges forward. “Fucking say it.” He snaps, holding Jungkook by the collar.
The violinist shivers. Yoongi’s lips are inches away, his hands near Jungkook’s throat making him
light headed and weak. “ You're lonely.” Jungkook whispers

“ You're lonely Yoongi.” He says again, stronger this time. Yoongi’s hold on his collar tightens
for a second before slackening, until he lets go completely.

“ Not any less than you Jeon.” He retorts, jaw trembling. “ No less than you.” Their noses are
touching, Yoongi’s cold while Jungkook’s burns with heat.

“ I'm not lonely.” Jungkook objects, and it comes out as half whine, half whisper, his voice
straining as he tries to look away.

“ At least I fill it all up with sex Jeon.” Yoongi whispers, and they're both so close.

Yoongi’s body would be pressing against Jungkook’s if not for the few breaths of space between
them. Jungkook lets out a shaky breath. “ What do you fill the emptiness with Jungkook?”

And it's like Yoongi almost senses Jungkook’s foot start to tap on the pavement before the
violinist even bounces his heel up. His eyes shift to the left, biting his lip. Yoongi’s hand is
suddenly on his jaw, gripping it, turning his head abruptly to the right to look at him.

“ What are you fucking taking huh?” Yoongi suddenly snaps, hand cold on Jungkook’s jaw, the
latter tasting the salt on Yoongi’s fingers as his lips are unintentionally dragged beneath the
pianist's hand.

“ I don't know what the fuck you're taking about.” Jungkook retorts with equal spite.

“ Does Jimin know about this?” The violinist scoffs. Jimin probably wouldn't even care.

“What the fuck do you mean he wouldn't care?”

Oh, he’d said that out loud.

“Yoongi fucking let go of me.” Jungkook growls, gripping Yoongi’s hand, only for him to hold
on tighter.

“What are you fucking taking? How bad is it?” Yoongi’s looking at Jungkook and he can't really
see straight. And it's not Jungkook’s face he's saying all of a sudden. It's not Jimin’s either, no.

Because Taehyung is wrong.

Yoongi didn't fall in love with Jimin during all those early nights where they tended to
Taehyung’s hurting body together, lulling the heir to an empire of black and red to sleep with
hands so different from one another, but gentle nonetheless.

No, Yoongi fell in love with Jimin because of the nights Jimin tended to his hurting mind. To his
heart that bled for a boy who took away his innocence. The boy who marked Yoongi first, made
him kneel and submit. The boy whom Yoongi laid himself bare for, for the first time, and reveled
as he realised how wonderful it was to be called pretty things.

The boy who took care of Yoongi so well, who smiled so bright, blue eyes like a lagoon of
aquamarine birthed from stardust... that Yoongi didn't realise how sad the boy was inside until all
he was left with was a note, an empty vial and a wet grave.

The boy who made Yoongi smile even as he was dying inside until eventually... until one day, he
lost the fight. So, in this moment, Yoongi doesn't see Jungkook. Yoongi can’t see Jungkook.
Because the moment the violinist’s foot started tapping, Yoongi was suddenly sixteen again.

Sixteen and watching the incessant tapping of the boy’s foot on the floor, like an itch begging to
be scratched.

So Yoongi knows what it means when Jungkook’s immediate response to his question is that
precise movement, is his eyes shifting to the left like liars do.

“ Fucking get off of me.”

Even his voice isn't Jungkook anymore. It's him again. And it's been so long. And he looks so
beautiful. A head and a half taller than Yoongi, unruly blonde hair falling over his eyes, lips
stretching into a smile as he comes closer. But Yoongi isn't sixteen. And Jungkook isn't him.

But then their lips are a breath away and Yoongi could still pull back, he could still end this with
just a step away. But Jungkook isn't moving away, closing his eyes as Yoongi nears, fingers still
entangled with his while his other hand fists the material of Yoongi’s shirt. Yoongi stumbles back.

Jungkook is wide eyed, hands hovering in the space between them, lips still parted. And the
pianist wants to say something, anything, but his feet keep taking him backwards until he hits the
door of his Impala. Jungkook reaches out, words he doesn't recognize leaving his mouth just as
the car door shuts.

The engine roars, tires screeching as Jungkook turns to look at the shifting glass of the vehicle.
And once again, Yoongi is gone.

___________________________

Jungkook hasn’t slept. He doesn’t know how many days it’s been but he hasn’t slept and he’s
nearly ran out of pills.

What are you fucking taking?

Jungkook doesn’t even know what he’s taking anymore. Anything that stops him from sleeping,
anything that lets him stand on his feet and play without needing to sleep. What irks him is how
Yoongi knew. How he reacted. And…

And Jungkook doesn’t think he realised it but there was a slight moment where he could tell a
name forming on Yoongi’s lips, the pianist’s voice breaking as he called Jungkook another name.

Sam.

Jungkook is conjuring up images of someone who could make Yoongi lose it like that, sitting in
the university cafeteria, Americano scalding hot in his hands. He would have gone home but it
was already seven by the time Yoongi had left him in a frenzied state. There would be no point to
make the trek home since the professor wanted to see him today.

He kind of wishes he hadn’t been so impulsive at the bar. Fuck, he’s thinking about the kiss again.
Or the nearly kiss.

The nearly kiss-es now. He barely knows the guy and he’s already nearly kissed him twice.
Jesus fuck, get a grip Guk.

He wishes he wasn’t impulsive because now the professor wants to talk, Yoongi probably hates
him without ever having knowing him in the first place, and knows about the fact that Jungkook
uses drugs; without Jungkook ever telling him, yes, but that’s besides the point.

And Jimin…

For fuck’s sake, Jimin.

It had been confusing to see him like that. To see Jimin whom Jungkook dreams about taking
every shred of innocence he has with his lips and ringed hands…like that. Small and engulfed in
another man’s clothes, kneeling and whimpering for cock, calling Taehyung ‘daddy’ and...

It just kind of messes you up, you know? Seeing the love of your life in that state, knowing
they’re hurting and in so much pain and then being told by some guy you barely know that you’re
not gonna be able to take good care of him. At least not as much as the other guy.

It hurts.

It’s weird too. That someone Jungkook knows tortures people for information and could probably
kill a man in his sleep…forfeits power to someone so easily.

Taehyung…owns Jimin in a way Jungkook has never understood until he saw their dynamics
with his own eyes. Until he saw Taehyung be reduced to a little, broken boy in Yoongi’s hands,
all because of Jimin.

It’s terrifying because Jungkook kind of wants that. He wants someone to take care of him like
that.

He needs someone to take care of him like that because yeah…yeah he’s lonely as fuck. He
thought he’d be okay with just being with Jimin, with the tension and platonic friends thing. But
every time he sees him he just falls a little more and it’s…it’s killing him inside. It kills him to
pretend to sleep beside Jimin as he chases away the nightmares, as he lies when asked how he
slept when he’d actually just watched Jimin the entire night.

And now he’s fucked it all up because he ran his mouth and he’s never Jimin seen look so taken
back.

You will never be Taehyung.

Yeah, yeah that’s the fucking problem, isn’t it?

“Jungkook?” He doesn’t hear his name the first time, piercing holes into the coffee cup with his
stare as Jimin washes over his mind again. “ Jeon Jungkook?” When he finally looks up, there’s a
girl standing in front of his table, smiling brightly. She’s quite beautiful, hair in a light brown afro
around her head, green eyes observing him with interest, standing in black dance attire, toned arms
glistening brown as she holds onto her duffle bag.

“May I sit?” She asks, large lips hesitant as she bites them. Jungkook sighs.

“I’m gay.”

She bursts out laughing and Jungkook just wants the floor to swallow him up whole.

The violinist chuckles, embarrassed, a shy blush painting his cheeks. “ I’m so sorry, it’s- it’s been
a pretty rough day.”

”Oh that I know.” She replies. “Again, may I sit?”

“Please.” Jungkook motions, standing up, pulling a chair out for her.

“ Cute.” She says in reply, putting her bag on the floor as Jungkook returns to his seat, fiddling
with his hands as he hears his name behind him. “Sorry that everyone’s looking at us.” She
whispers, apologetic.

“ They are?” Jungkook’s head snaps up from his fingers, looking around and yeah, she’s right.
The girl laughs.

“ You really don’t care much about what goes on around you, do you?” She asks as Jungkook’s
hands sweat at all the attention, shaking his head. “ I’m Alex.” She introduces, holding out a hand
as Jungkook takes it, shaking firmly.

“ I kinda have a meeting in a bit.” Jungkook says as the moment drags on and she exclaims a quiet
‘oh’. He immediately feels bad. “I’m sorry, I-“

“No, no.” Alex assures. “ I… I can see you’re not the most comfortable around people” Jungkook
chuckles, Alex joining him as they float in the comfortable silence.

“You can say that again.” He comments, Alex sighing as she bounces her foot beneath the table.
She’s nervous.

“ I was there last night…” Jungkook’s heart skips. “At the bar.” Fuck.

“Oh…” Jungkook whispers.

“ I- I saw what you did for Yoongi.”

“You…” He’s fully attentive now, fingers wrapping around his coffee again to take a sip. He’s
gonna need it. “You know Yoongi?”

”Of course I know Yoongi.” She runs a hand across her forehead. “We went to The
ArKe together, since pre-preparatory.” She laughs at Jungkook’s shocked expression, the violinist
staying silent as he absorbs the information. “ I got in on an art scholarship when I was little.”
She’s barely said anything but Jungkook, however bad is with people, is good at reading them.
And this is going to be far more serious than he initially thought.

“ Is he… like an ex? Or something?”

“ Not…exactly.” Jungkook cocks up an eyebrow.

“ You used to fuck.” She chuckles, wincing at the word.

“ Yeah…” Alex trails. “But- it was more than that.” Jungkook cocks his head to the side. “
For me, not him.” Jungkook empathies.

“ I get it.” Even though he doesn’t really. He doesn’t think he could ever deal with casual fucking
with Jimin. That would probably ruin him. That would destroy him.

“Yoongi got me through a really bad patch.” Alex starts again, eyes going a bit glazed. “He got
me out of a really bad relationship. Held my hair back when I threw up from partying so hard to
forget about my ex…” She smiles, reminiscing. “Anything you could do for a broken girl, he did.”
And at this moment, Jungkook remembers Jimin. “So… so it was only a matter of time before I
fell. Fell real bad.”

Jimin, Jimin. Jimin.

“We used to go that bar when we were younger, open mic nights. He can’t sing for shit-“ She
explains, chuckling. “But he used to scream his lungs out with me anyway, to make me feel
better.” Jungkook furrows his brows, confused.

“ That…”

“ Yeah,” Alex agrees, noting his expression. “It doesn’t sound like Yoongi…not anymore.”

“ I don’t really know him, I wouldn’t know.”

“ Oh…really?” She’s wearing the strangest expression when she says this and Jungkook scratches
behind his neck.

“ Last night was the first time I’ve ever even talked to him.”

“ Oh... oh wow.” She exclaims, Jungkook biting his lip in confusion. “I was just sitting there,
watching him struggle and I… I was helpless.” She explains, tearing up. “We haven’t really talked
in... in years…” Jungkook wants to ask why. “And then you went up and you just won over the
crowd and put the attention on yourself instead of Yoongi…” She hesitates for a second. “Talking
to you now I realise how hard that must have been for someone who's not all that comfortable
with attention. ”

Jungkook hadn’t even thought about that. The decision was so impulsive, the violin was in his
hands before he could even take his next breath.

“ That’s why I was so surprised that… that was your first interaction?” She voices questioningly
as Jungkook nods. “Cause what you did was just,” Alex stops to find the right words. “I could tell
from his expression… it meant a lot to him.” Jungkook wouldn’t believe if her if she hadn’t
known Yoongi her whole life. “And if he was the old Yoongi he would have shown it …”

Jungkook thinks about the kiss. About Yoongi shaking, panicking beneath the white light, hair the
lightest blue and lips a reddish-purple. He thinks of Yoongi thanking the crowds while looking
directly at Jungkook.

“ And his hands… He was still shaking but at the end… He was smiling,” She beams even as a
tear escapes. “Yoongi…” And the way she says his name hurts. Jungkook feels his heart
clenching as her voice breaks.

Because that’s how he says Jimin’s name.

“Yoongi hasn’t really smiled like that since his mom died,” Jungkook’s heart stops. “Not when
playing the piano, never. Not until Sam. And definetley not after him.”

Sam.

“Yoongi’s…” With every word, Jungkook is feeling smaller and smaller, heart growing bigger
and bigger, pounding against his chest. “Sam was his first love.” She whispers. And then even
quieter…

“He overdosed.”
Jungkook stops breathing.

Fuck.

That’s why…that’s why Yoongi had reacted like that. That’s why… he’d been so scared.

Jungkook feels like shit all of a sudden, heart hurting, mouth dry and hands sweaty as he slides
them on the table, putting them on his legs.

“ I wouldn’t be telling you any of this under normal circumstances but… the way he smiled when
playing…” She shakes her head, incredulous. “Even though I could tell he was still shaking and
still so fucking nervous, and you two left so abruptly when you realised the professor was
there…” She’s fully shaking now, tear after tear staining her face. “As someone who k-knows…
who knows a lot about him, I want to ask you to…” Jungkook looks up. “I’m going to ask you to
please save him.”

“What?”

“ There’s something there Jungkook.” He laughs, shaking his head. “I know, I know how scary it
is for me to say this. I don’t know you, you don’t know me-”

“ I don’t even know Yoongi, Alex.”

“ I know, I know Jungkook and I might seem like a total lunatic but- I’m telling you about his
mom and- and Sam because-because I need you to understand how grave it is that he managed to
play three fucking pieces with you by his side.” She exclaims, Jungkook looking away.

“Yoongi is.. he’s the most beautiful person I’ve ever known. And so, so kind.”

Jungkook remembers his eyes. “The kindest boy with the warmest brown eyes… and he’s turned
himself into this sex machine and he-”

At least I fill it all up with sex Jeon.

“When we used to have sex… it really messed with my head you know?” Jungkook doesn’t
know. He really doesn’t.

He wants to.

Jungkook really fucking wants to. He wants Jimin. He wants him so bad that every time he
touches himself to the thought of the older boy he just starts crying. The aching is a phsycial thing,
a tangible pain so intense that he thinks he should just give in to another body.

But he can’t imagine it being anyone other than Jimin.

“Cause he was really soft and made sure to always look at you…” Jungkook imagines that
suddenly. Thoughts of Jimin evaporate for a second and are filled with Yoongi and it makes
Jungkook feel all kinds of weird. “And now I’m hearing that he fucks people like
they’re objects and-“ She scoffs, laughing coldly. “Takes drugs now apparently as well and I’m
just?” Her shoulders hunch up, shaking her head, eyes red.

“Just in… denial, I guess?” She says, more to herself than Jungkook, shrugging. “Yoongi
fucking hates drugs. He swore he would never… he could never…not after what Sam did.”

Jungkook wonders how much Yoongi loved Sam.

“But the people who’ve slept with him the past year say he uses the most class A shit.” She
chokes quietly, voice leaking with disbelief and a sadness Jungkook kind of relates to. Because he
knows what Jimin does for a living. And he knows he likes to skip meals sometimes. And
Jungkook can’t stop the first one but he feels like if Jimin let him, he’d be able to love his body
until Jimin does fully too. But then he remembers Taehyung.

Does Jungkook love Jimin as much as Taehyung?

“ He’s… he’s breaking and he's shut me out… I don’t know what to do.” Jungkook also relates to
this helplessness. When he hears Jimin throwing up sometimes when he’s pretending to be
sleeping, he relates.

And he tries to be subtle in the most intense way when Jimin returns to bed. He holds him tight
and kisses his forehead, and tells him what a beautiful body he has. And he hopes it’s enough. He
knows it’s not.

He knows Taehyung can probably do better.

Jimin’s sent selfies of the two in bed to Taehyung before, and Jungkook wonders what the fuck is
up with that. With the amount of trust they have between the two of them.

“ Can you kiss me?” He’d asked just two months ago, when Jimin and him were celebrating his
eighteenth birthday, just walking through New York, chocolate cake in their hands as they walked
and talked. Because that’s what Jungkook wanted to do. Just spend the entire day with Jimin.

“ What?” Jungkook blushes, biting his lip.

“ I’m sorry I shouldn’t have-“ Jimin stops him by taking his hands in his, smiling sadly.

“ You know I can’t Guk-ah. Cause Tae…”

“ I know. I know, it was stupid…”

“ I… I know, obviously… what you feel.” Jimin says slowly. “But-but why now?” Jungkook lets
his head hang low,

“This…this guy at Julliard…kinda forced himself on me-“ Jimin stops in his tracks.

“ Oh my fucking god Jungkook, oh my-“

“No, no, nothing happened.” Jimin brings him into a hug, chocolate cake staining Jungkook’s
clothes as he holds him, already tearing up. Jimin lets go, but they’re still standing close. “I just
kinda pushed him away,” Jungkook says, wincing. “But he was reaching in for a kiss and I… I
didn’t know what I’d do if my first time was… was… that, you know? I’m…it’s not a big deal
actually, just-just…“

Jungkook kind of wants to cry. Because it is a big deal. Because he was absolutely terrified and
had a panic attack afterwards, shaking in the bathroom cubicle, washing his lips over and over
again even though nothing happened.

“Kookie, you…” Jimin looks at him with wide eyes. “You’ve never been kissed before?”

Jungkook shakes his head, a tear slipping out.

“ Oh Guk, were you scared baby?”

Baby.

Jungkook starts sobbing. Jimin’s never called him that before.

“ Baby?” Jimin questions, caressing the skin behind his ear. “ You like that Gguk?”

Jungkook doesn’t really know what to say. Jimin takes his hand, relocating to an alleyway as he
pushes him into the tiny space softly. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Please stop crying.”

I’m so sorry I love Taehyung more than you.

I’m so sorry I’ll always love him more.

“Were you…was it scary?” Jimin asks as they walk side by side without touching.

“ I was so fucking scared.” Jungkook whispers. Jimin looks at him, expression pained and teary.
He probably thinks Jungkook is pathetic.

“Can we go home? Forget I asked, I’m…wasn’t thinking. Jus’ wanna go home.” Jungkook
urges, walking faster.

“Okay baby okay.” Jimin assures, catching up with him, linking their arms.

“Don’t call me that.” He snaps, because it feels too good. Feels too good to be called that. And
he’s not allowed to feel that good.

‘ Why?” Jimin sounds sad.

“Because you probably call Taehyung that too.” The elder sighs.

“Let’s just go home Guk.”

“Okay Jimin.”

So they walk to Jungkook’s apartment, Jimin telling him he needs to make a call just as they
reach the creaky staircase, that he’d be up in a bit.

Jungkook is leaning against the blue door when Jimin’s golden hair peeks out from the staircase,
phone in his hands. Jungkook's apartment is three floors up, the first of a long line of blue-doored
apartments marking a narrow corridor, metal handrails on the opposite side.

“ Why didn’t you go in?” Jimin asks, blushing slightly.

“ Wanted to wait.” It’s a full moon tonight, the light painting Jimin’s golden hair white, his skin
ivory. God, Jungkook is so in love.

“Your birthday will be over in a few minutes.” Jimin comments, Jungkook looking at his watch.
Four minutes to midnight.

“ Mm,” Jungkook hums.

“ Jungkook?”

“ Yeah?”

“ Can I kiss you?”

Jungkook’s entire world stops. His heart leaps, his hands shake, lips hanging parted and he hates
his body for reacting like this.

“ Did…” The phone call. “ Were you- were you on the phone with him?”

“ Yeah Guk,” Jimin replies, stepping closer. “I was.”

“ I…”

“ Just until your birthday ends.” Jimin whispers, putting his phone in his pocket. “ This… this is
the only time.” He says, as if Jungkook couldn’t have guessed that already.

“ I’m… I’m so fucking sorry.” Jimin whispers, bringing both hands to caress Jungkook’s cheeks.
The younger bends down slightly, head bowing, pressing their foreheads together. They’re both
crying.

“I love you so much Jungkook, you have to understand that and I would- I’d never do this
otherwise.” Hurts. It hurts so much.

“I don’t want your first time to be like that, I’m… I didn’t know… I didn’t know…” Jungkook is
shaking beneath his hands, tears slipping onto Jimin’s fingers. “I didn’t even know you weren’t a
virgin… I didn’t even think…” Jimin bites his lip, quivering. “ Has the occasion just not turned up
or… or…”

Or is it because of me?

“Don’t make me say it Jimin.” Jungkook pleads, pressing his body closer, backing into the door.

“I…I want your first time to be someone who loves you. With all their heart. And I do… so much
Jungkook, so much.”

Just not enough.

“ Please…” Jungkook pleads as Jimin comes closer. “ Please kiss me.”

“ I love you so much, okay?”

Not enough.

“ I love you more.” Jungkook says, and… and it’s true. Jimin knows it’s true. Jungkook knows
it’s true, and so does the moon. So, do the stars above them as the clock nears midnight and one
more day passes with Jungkook loving Jimin more.

And that’s why a sob rattles Jimin as he presses their lips together. And Jungkook knows it’s just
going to make it worse but he circles his hands around Jimin’s waist and he picks him up just a
bit, pressing his body close. He pivots them, and he kisses Jimin, pressing him against the door.

He has so little time.

So little time.

With one hand he holds Jimin up so their heights can be the same, and with the other he holds his
face. And they kiss and kiss.

They’re both crying so much that Jungkook can’t see Jimin’s face when he opens his eyes to
check if he’s okay. Jungkook can feel everything. He can feel Jimin’s cheek hot beneath his hand,
he can feel how tiny his waist is beneath his arm. How soft his lips are, how good he is at kissing
he can feel how tiny his waist is beneath his arm. How soft his lips are, how good he is at kissing
Jungkook like they’re not on a time-limit and he has all the time in the world.

But then Jungkook pushes him too hard against the door and his other hand comes to Jimin’s
cheek, holding his face in his hands and Jimin moans.

Jimin pulls away first.

Like always.

“We have to stop.” He cries and Jungkook stumbles back, choking on his sob as Jimin reaches
for him.

“Go,” He begs, stumbling back against the railings. “Please go. Go Jimin, leave.”

“Jungkook, please.”

“Please,” Jungkook whines. “I’m begging you to go. Go Jimin, or I’m gonna kiss you again.”

“I’d stop you.” Jimin says weakly.

“ No you wouldn’t.”

“I-“

“Go.”

So Jimin finally does, on shaky legs, with lips bruised from Jungkook’s teeth and cold hands
quivering as he keeps looking back at Jungkook, stumbling down the stairs.

And just before he disappears, he turns back.

“ Happy birthday Jungkookie.”

Jungkook still doesn’t know that Jimin stayed beneath the staircase, listening to Jungkook’s sobs.
He doesn’t know that Jimin didn’t go home to Taehyung that night.

Alex’s face comes into view when Jungkook finally refocuses.

“Last year he drunk dialed me after years of not talking, telling me he’s lonely, and it took every
bit of self-preservation I had left to put down the phone call. And a few days after that the rumors
spread, of the kind of person he was becoming, and I just...I just think about what would happen if
I’d went over that night instead and stepped over my pride.”

“But I asked him if he thought he could ever love me like I loved him…and he just didn’t say
anything. I don’t think I could self-destruct like that again.”

Jungkook wishes he had her pride.

“So I hung up. And now… now he’s just…” Jungkook looks at her with tired eyes.

“ Why are you telling me this Alex?” He asks, and her expression falters

“ I need you to help him.” She pleads. Jungkook shakes his head.

“Alex, I’m sorry I-I’m so flattered but I honestly barely even know the guy.”

“Jungkook Im telling you that Yoongi hasn’t been able to play the piano in four years..” Alex
says, raising her voice.

“I…”

“Just…I’m not asking for anything dramatic but just, just please… When you stood up from your
seat and started playing I thought he’d lash out… that’s just the kind of thing the new Yoongi
would do... out of pride, out of whatever the fuck he’s filling his head with these days.” Jungkook
starts to understand.

“But he didn’t.” He adds.

“ Yes,” Alex beams. “ And it’s… that’s such a big step Jungkook. It’s fucking massive and all I’m
asking you to do is try for him.”

“Alex I… I don’t know how to help him.” Jungkook doesn’t even know how to help himself

“Be his friend.”

“ I- I don’t think he wants me to be.”

“ He needs someone Jungkook.” Alex says. “And you could be that person, you were that person
last night. So much so that I immediately thought there was something more between you too…so
much so that I thought he finally fucking moved on from Jimin.”

Jungkook stops breathing.

“You…you know about Jimin?” Alex swallows, looking at Jungkook weirdly for a second.

Oh.

Oh.

Jungkook doesn’t like the look of recognition that passes across her face. And then it turns into
pity, no, empathy, and Jungkook wants to throw up.

“ Oh…” She whispers. “ Of course I do… me and Yoongi…fucked for a while. So, it was only
natural for me to know his friends and…Yoongi was-is head over fucking heels.”

Jungkook’s heart clenches.

“What…What about Sam?”

“ Sam…” Alex says the name like one you haven’t said in very long. Like you’re tasting it all
over again. “Sam died when Yoongi was eighteen.” Jungkook's age. “Jimin massively helped
him get through that and I think… I think that’s how… and when…”

That’s when Yoongi fell in love.

“It’s also why me and Yoongi started fucking. Me because I liked how much it hurt, and him…
him to fill the empty spaces of Sam and Jimin.”

“That’s…that’s real fucked Alex.” Jungkook replies. “ I can’t…can’t… wouldn’t be able to do

that with-“ Jungkook bites his tongue. Alex raises an eyebrow.

“Park Jimin.” She says, rolling the name on her tongue. “Even at ArKe, he had so many boys and
girls wrapped around his fingers.” Jungkook doesn’t really think he wants to hear this. “People fell
in love with him so easy, he didn’t even have to lift a finger. And he was so social, knew
everyone and threw the best parties at the Kim Mansion when Taehyung’s dad was away.” Alex
smiles, probably reminiscing. “Jimin broke a lot of hearts by just existing.”

“ Breaks.” Jungkook cuts in. “He still does.” He adds, and regrets it as soon as her expression
shifts.

“Are you…are you in love with Jimin, Jungkook?” The question is like a stab to the heart.
Jungkook stays quiet.

“ Like you said, it’s easy to fall in love with him.” It’s not an answer but it’s all that Alex needs.
And it’s clear she gets it. Because she’s known all of them far longer than Jungkook. And she
knows being in love with Jimin is a dead end disguised like a whole field of cosmos in the most
beautifully deceptive way.

Loving Jimin is the most beautiful lie the universe has ever told.

“Are you… are you going to think about it? About Yoongi?” Alex asks hesitantly.

Jungkook thinks about the kiss. He thinks of Yoongi’s shaking hands and the fact that his hair
turns into moonlight beneath the moonlight. He thinks about the fact that the thought of even
touching another person besides Jimin used to disgust him but now… now he’s…

Jungkook is curious.

“ Yeah… yeah I will.” He says strongly. And he’s not lying.

“Thank you. Thank you so much.” She loves him so much.

“I’m… I’m sorry he doesn’t love you like that.”

Alex smiles sadly.

“I’m…I’m sorry too.”

And when she leaves, giving Jungkook a firm smile as she picks up her bag, Jungkook lays his
head on his arm, and closes his eyes for a second.

But then he can feel someone sit down on the chair again and he thinks it’s Alex so he looks up.

But it’s not.

The hand on his is cold and pale, large and bony and Jungkook shivers when he lifts his head
slightly.

“Hey.” He greets softly.

It’s Yoongi.

________________________

He shouldn’t. Yoongi knows he shouldn’t. But he walks into the school entrance, passing by the
cafeteria and Jungkook is sitting there, head on his arm, frowning in his sleep.

Yoongi doesn’t even know why he’s here. Sure, the professor said he wants to meet them but
even the sheer mention of it had sent him into over drive that night. He could just skip, ignore it
like he always does, but the truth is...he wanted to see Jungkook again.

He’d been spotted not just by the violinist, but by the entire student body and a fucking professor
all because the piano had just mesmerised him, sitting beneath that warm light, untouched and
neglected.

All because Yoongi was lonely. Because he was lonely and before even Sam came along, the
piano filled all of Yoongi’s empty spaces. After Sam died, the piano was there when even Jimin
wasn’t. When Alex wouldn’t come over as often because she said it hurt so much to be touched
by him when she knew he’d never love her in the way she wanted… the piano was there.

So he’d walked over and started playing Schubert because it was surprisingly the first thing that
came to mind and it was okay…after three years it was okay. Okay until he started shaking, until
his fingers started slipping and he couldn’t see anymore.

The exact moment that Yoongi’s hands started to uncurl from the piano surface, the moment
Yoongi thought it wasn’t worth it anymore, that he’d never be able to play again…

That was when the violin sang.

That was when Jungkook danced his way into Yoongi’s mind with his rough fingertips, playing
the violin unlike how Yoongi has ever heard it been played. And he hasn’t left his mind since.

So here, standing at the entrance of the café, looking at Jungkook who is already five years’
younger look even more so with his puffy eyes and cheek squished against his arm, in clothes he
still hasn’t changed from yesterday’s performance… he can’t stop himself.

His feet take him to Jungkook’s table almost unconsciously, hands pulling out a chair as quietly as
he can as he sits down, fingers aching to touch Jungkook's hair and it’s fast.

This is too fucking fast.

But that’s Yoongi’s problem.

He falls so fast for this kind of boy. Boys with soft eyes and messy hair who make music even
while they sleep.

Yoongi is reckless when he loves.

Jungkook’s eyes remind him of Sam’s. They’re broken and look like they’ve watched the life
leave a man’s eyes. They’re lonely and now Yoongi knows that Jungkook is filling the emptiness
with white pills. Just like him.

Just like Sam.

Shit.

Yoongi's cold fingers had inched towards Jungkook's without him even realising.

Jungkook stirs in his sleep, and seconds later they lock eyes.

Yoongi is wide eyed, watching as the younger blinks away the slumber.

“ Hey.”

Hey? Really Yoongi? Hey?

“H-hi.” Jungkook squeaks, straightening, massaging the sleep out of his eyes.

“The professor wants to see us.” Yoongi voices just to get rid of the heavy silence, wondering
why everything with Jungkook is just so fucking intense.

“Yeah, I…” Jungkook’s eyes suddenly widen. “H-How long have you been sitting there?”

Fuck. Yoongi doesn’t even know.

“Long enough to know you don’t snore in your sleep.” Yoongi replies coolly and he thinks
Jungkook might laugh but instead he just looks at Yoongi like he’s grown another head.

“What?” He exclaims. “I was sleeping?”

Yoongi raises an eyebrow, shifting his eyes.

“I…what? Yes? For like a good hour?”

“What? You’ve been sitting there for an hour?” Jungkook exclaims, suddenly standing up.

Yoongi joins him, stumbling up as Jungkook holds his head in his hands.

“Do you not sleep Jungkook?” Jungkook keeps shaking his head, Yoongi's eyes wide.

“Yoongi that’s fucking creepy man.”

“I fucking know kid shit,” Jesus fuck, he’s been staring at Jungkook for an hour. “ But what the
fuck is wrong with you? You can’t sleep?” He should have known from the drugs, from the eye
bags Jungkook is hiding beneath that concealer.

“I haven’t tried.” Jungkook says.

“In how fucking long?”

“ A week? Maybe longer I don’t kno-”

“ A fucking week.” Yoongi breathes. “A fucking week? Jungkook you haven’t slept in-“

“Boys.” They both snap their heads to the right of the cafeteria.

The professor stands a few feet away from them. He smiles.

“Ready for our talk?”

_____________________________

Everyone’s looking at him.

Of course they’re looking at him. Yoongi hasn’t come to this class since the accident, so it’s only
given that he feels literal holes being pierced into his back from how hard everyone’s staring.
They’re all lingering in one of the auditoriums, waiting for the teacher who coincidentally happens
to be the professor.
“Min you’re…back.” Yoongi knows that voice.

“Jameson.” Yoongi says through gritted teeth, not even turning around from his seat on the front
row.

“I heard you made quite the spectacle last night.” He comments, whistling. Yoongi laughs, finally
turning to look at him as the boy comes to stand in front of him.

“I’ve heard daddy cut off your allowance so you’re bartending to have enough money to buy your
own drinks.” Scattered laughs ripple through the room, Jameson sniggering as Yoongi sighs,
unbothered. “So, you saw the spectacle, cause you work at the bar. Still a pathological liar I see.”

Jameson looks down from Yoongi’s gaze, he smirks.

“Still shaking I see.” Yoongi’s forehead ticks, the impulse to clench his hands far too controlling.
“Why are you even back?”

“Why? Does it bother you I’m better than you even like this?” Yoongi questions, replied to with a
scoff as silence overtakes the empty space, everyone stopping their conversations to listen to the
rivals who no one even used to considered so. Because everyone knew Yoongi was better.

Maybe things are different now.

“You sound delusional Min.”

“You sound insecure James.”

They stare at each other for a stretched moment, Yoongi thinking of his conversation with
Jungkook and the professor.

I want you two to play a duet in the winter concert.

“I saw you last night Min. Maybe you were better. Not anymore.”

The air is tense. Yoongi smiles coldly, lips stretching into a feline smirk, letting his tongue drag
over his lips.

“Are you really challenging me Jameson?” Yoongi asks, incredulous, tone reeking with disbelief.
Me?” Jameson squints.

“Arrogance isn’t good like on you Yoongi.”

“Everything is a good look on me James.” Yoongi retorts.

“ A narcissist as well as a delusional cripple.” The air stills. Someone in the auditorium chokes and
Jameson’s eyes widen for a second before realizing what he said. “ Yoongi I-“

“Get on the fucking piano.” Yoongi snaps.

“What?”

“You think you’re fucking better than me? What?” Yoongi guffaws loudly. “Just because I shake
a bit when I play? Then fucking prove it.”

Jameson shakes his head, laughing.

“Yoongi don’t-“ Jungkook’s voice fills Yoongi’s ears for a second and he thinks he’s dreaming
but then heads are turning towards the tail of the auditorium and Yoongi doesn’t have time to turn
back because he hears Jameson’s feet booming on the stairs as he ascends onto the stage.

Yoongi can hear Jungkook walking down the auditorium towards them, another pair of feet
besides him, probably the professor seeing as he asked Jungkook to stay behind after their talk.

Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu in C sharp Minor fills their ears and Yoongi becomes absorbed.
Jameson is a good player. He’s fantastic, there’s no denying it. But it’s empty. It’s so empty that
it’s laughable. He plays like a robot, fingers so stiff even as they glide that Yoongi almost feels
bad for him. For a pianist to play that emptily yet perfectly...

That’s a hard aesthetic to achieve.

Jameson finishes with a cold look at Yoongi. There is quiet applause as he fixes Yoongi with a
lazy smile.

Yoongi knows why he chose this piece. One, because Yoongi is deemed as the Chopin ‘prodigy’
of the school, it’s no secret. Two because it’s fast and a lot of it needs to be played by muscle
memory because of the polyrhythmic structure. There’s not really any time for the brain to read
two lines of music simultaneously. No time for the player to have to really feel either, though it's
impossible not to feel with Chopin. And yet Jameson seems to be incapable. The piece isn’t
necessarily anything grand, but not anyone would be able to play it. The right hand has to do a lot
of work, but it’s only moderately intricate. Jameson is really underestimating him.

To be honest, Yoongi can’t really blame him.

“ Fantasie impromptu? Really? I learnt than when I was three.” James scoffs. “You could have at
least tried a sonata.”

“What?" James retorts. "And have you sit through an hour of public humiliation?”

“You’re funny.” Yoongi says, expressionless as he walks over to the piano, stepping onto the
stage. He sees Jungkook shifting from one foot to the other, standing beside the professor who
seems to be holding him back from coming over to put an end to the whole thing. Yoongi doesn’t
know why he expects Jungkook to trust him more than that. They don’t even know each other.

Yoongi sits at the piano.

He hasn’t touched a Steinway & Sons properly for years. Sure, he’s fucked close to a thousand
people probably on one. But like this? Sitting in front of it? In front of so many people?

“ Paganini, Liszt, La Campanella” There’s a few sharp intakes of breath and Yoongi smirks
because yet again, he he doesn’t blame them.

La Campanella? With those hands?

Yoongi puts his fingers on the piano. He’s already shaking. He looks at Jungkook and he can’t
see his face properly from here but the violinist is nodding at him, and that seems to be all that
matters for Yoongi to grip the keys in a gentle kiss.

Okay. It’s gonna be okay.

Yoongi starts.

It’s amazing at first. His fingers fly just like they’re meant to. Until it isn’t. And they’re not.
He closes his eyes, and tries to play like he did last night, as he looked up to see Jungkook staring
at him with the most awed expression. Yeah, he tries to play like that, and keeps his eyes closed,
pretending he’s in the bar again.

La Campanella is very physically exerting, the intervals of notes are large and Yoongi is shifting
from one octave to another, the sensation of sweat rolling down his back uncomfortable.

There comes a bit maybe half way through the piece where his two hands stab on two notes
repeatedly like a broken, hurting trill, shared between the two hands, and Yoongi starts trembling.
His hands hurt so much and he knows it’s all in his head. God, he’d forgotten what a bitch this
piece was. He doesn’t even see his hands move, his eyes still closed. He’s trusting his fingers to
remember by themselves, to know which keys to touch, to know what to do because honestly,
Yoongi is already lost.

The last note comes quick and he’s shaking so hard, it hurts and he's so, so scared. There isnt even
any time for anyone to gasp in shock because Jameson is clapping sarcastically, laughing
boisterously, shaking his head.

“ You…” Jameson’s voice is in his ears again. “ Are you fucking playing everyone or
something?” Yoongi sighs loudly.

“ What the fuck is it now?”

“ Are you lying about your hands?” Yoongi laughs, a few intakes of breath rippling around the
auditorium.

“What?” Yoongi retorts, smirking. “You realised I’m still better?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. You still play well, that’s all.”

“That’s the fucking POINT, isn't it James?” Yoongi shouts suddenly, rising from the chair. “I
play well. That’s it. That’s all. I used to be a fucking god.” Yoongi howls. “Now I just ‘play well’
you get that? You get what it fucking means?” Yoongi asks, and it’s not just to him, but to
everyone. “ No, no you fucking don’t.”

Yoongi is stumbling down the stairs, his stuff piling in his hands, blinking away angry tears,
passing by a wide-eyed Jungkook as he booms up the auditorium, slamming the door behind him.

He can hear footsteps behind him, slapping loudly onto the floors as the person catches up. At first
Yoongi thinks it might be Jungkook but then he whirls around and Jameson is pressing him up
against a wall. Yoongi laughs.

“You’re still so fucking in love with me it’s sickening.” He spits, and Jameson’s persona crumbles.

“Yeah?” He moves closer. “Why don’t you do something about it?”

“You want me to fuck you to tears James?” Yoongi pries, daring out his tongue to lick a stripe
across his ear. “Is that what this is always going to be about? I just make you frustrated Jamie?
You want me in your ass again?”

“You’re a fucking bastard.” Jameson spits, taking Yoongi’s lower lip captive with his teeth.

“No less than you, Thomas, no less than you.” Yoongi whispers, opening his mouth for him.

“Fuck me.” James whispers, tonging inside Yoongi’s mouth. It’s been maybe a year since the last
time he’s asked that.
“Okay.”

And so, they’re stumbling into the nearest practice room, Yoongi slamming him into the door,
closing it with his body.

“ Fucking whore.” Yoongi snaps, biting his neck, palming his clothed cock.

“ Yeah, yeah… for you I am.” James agrees, hand clutching Yoongi’s hair.

“ I’m fucking better than you.” Yoongi growls, opening James’s first button with his teeth, the
gold disk falling to the ground with a scatter of clinking sounds.

“ Yeah okay, you’re better, please.”

“ At least put up a fight, bitch.” Yoongi swears, unbuttoning his shirt.

“ Fuck me, please. Fuck, ah. Yoongi, please.”

“ I want your mouth around my cock.” Yoongi orders, whirling their positions around, back
against the door, pushing Jameson down the ground, unzipping his pants.

“ Okay, okay anything.” Yoongi takes his cock out of pants, hard and leaking. James takes it in all
in one go, choking when Yoongi bottoms out.

“ Fuck you still take it so well, look at you. Who would have thought a closeted bitch would be so
good at giving head huh?” Yoongi asks, clutching James’s black hair, bobbing his head up and
down. “ Fuck.” He relaxes against the door, letting the desires of his flesh take over.

“Wanna fuck you.” Yoongi says, taking him off his cock, bringing him to standing with his hands
on his shoulders.

“ Fuck I want you on your hands and knees.”

“ I’ll do it, I’ll do it.” James assures just as Yoongi pushes him forwards.

“ The fuck you will on this carpet,” Yoongi objects. “Bend over, ass up.” Yoongi orders smacking
his bare ass, pushing him onto the table. His fingers curl into the hem of his trousers, pulling them
down along with his underwear. Teeth latch onto one ass cheek, biting into his skin as Jameson
lets out a cry.

“ Ah, please. Fuck, Yoongi, Yoongi, please.”

Yoongi gives his opening a lick, raising a brow. “You’re stretched out as fuck.” Yoongi exclaims,
inserting two fingers with ease, laughing when he feels the lube on his fingers. “You’re still wet.”

“ This morning…prepped…please…fuck me…”

“Yeah?” Jameson shivers at the tone of Yoongi’s voice, how deeper it suddenly became. “ Did
you think of me?” James nods weakly, fingers curling around the edge of the table, white from
how hard he’s holding on. Yoongi rides up his shirt with one hand, hand clawing into his hip with
the other. "Hold this up.” He orders, bunching up the shirt just above where Jameson’s nipples
are. “It’s gonna hurt a bit.”

“Fuck me raw, please. I missed this so much.” Yoongi scoffs, leaning down to leave kisses all
across his back, trailing his vertebrae. He’s being soft, far softer than he usually is when they
fuck.
“ Ah, ah, ah- hngh… so good…”

“ Why?" Yoongi asks. "You fucking hate me.” Yoongi spits with a slap to his ass that sends
James trembling across the table, head slamming down.

“ I fucking love you.” He confesses, cheek pressed against the wood, staring at Yoongi with
cloudy eyes.

“ But you also hate my fucking guts.” Yoongi corrects, kneading the flesh of his ass in his hands.

“ Yoongi, fuck, please.” James sounds small like this, pleading and whimpering, wiggling his ass
to get Yoongi to hurry the fuck up.

“ I don’t love you.” Yoongi suddenly says just as he’s pushing in.

“ I fucking-“ His voice breaks. Yoongi is cruel. “ I…know Yoongi, I know.”

“ It’s just sex James.” Yoongi says once more.

“ I…fucking…KNOW.” He howls, voice cracking as he reaches backwards for Yoongi’s hand,

arching his back as he comes to near standing, still holding his shirt up. He guides Yoongi’s hand
to his throat, circling it around the flesh. “Fuck me.”

It was two years ago, the first time this happened. Jameson is arguably second best to Yoongi, or
was, in the piano department. So, it was only natural that a piano duet in the winter showcase was
to be played by them.

It was dawn, both of them well into their fifth hour of practice as Jameson failed to perfect the
rhythm of a single bar and Yoongi was fucking livid.

“ Are you even a fucking pianist?” He shouted, slamming the score onto his head.

“ Get off your fucking high horse and help me.” James screams, getting up from the stool so
violently that it tumbles backwards.

“ We’ve been here for fucking hours.” Yoongi points out, running a hand through his fading blue
hair.

“ Well FUCK me for not being a child prodigy and having to work my fucking ass off to be half
as good as you.” Yoongi smirks.

“ So you do fucking admit it then.” Yoongi says slyly, walking closer to him until they’re only a
few yards apart.

“ Fuck you Min.”

“ I’d much rather fuck you.”

And that’s how they ended up fucking the hate into orgasms, sometimes twice a day, sometimes
once a month. But Yoongi knew Jameson was in love long before they ever started having sex,
and he didn’t stop. Just like he didn’t with Alex. Just like he didn’t with everyone else.

He’s a fucking hypocrite, isn’t he? He’s worse than even Jimin.

Because at least Jimin doesn’t give anyone except Taehyung a taste of what could be. He’s the
epitome of a beautiful lie. But Yoongi? He’s just stuck in purgatory. He doesn’t even know who
he’s lying to. The sex feels so good. It feels so fucking good and he’s good at it too. But then it’s
done and he comes and it’s just…

It’s empty.

“Yoongi please, I need this.” Yoongi trails his hand across Jameson’s scars. He has far too many.
New bruises line the expanse of his shoulders, Yoongi leaving fleeting touches on the purple
blotches. He knows he shouldn’t, but he leans down to kiss them anyway, and Jameson just melts.

“ Are you fucking crying?” Yoongi asks, moving away.

“ No, no, come back. Please, fuck, please.” Yoongi lays a soothing hand on his hip as he rotates
him. Kneeling down, he kisses the skin inside his thigh as a tear falls onto his eyelash from above.

“Fuck,” Yoongi swears. “I’m not going anywhere,” His fingers latch onto the pools of fabric at
each foot, getting Jameson out of his shoes and trousers. He trails kisses from his ankles to his
thighs as he rises again, setting him on the table. “C’mere.” He whispers, hand taking up nearly
half of the other’s face as he caresses his cheek.

“You’re gonna kiss me?” Jameson asks, eyes wide.

“ Yeah,” Yoongi murmurs, moving closer, kissing his jaw. “Yeah I am.”

“ O-okay.” Yoongi kisses him, spreading his thighs as he does so, pushing in. He doesn’t know
why the change of mind. This is the first time in a very long time he’s fucked someone facing
them. “ Stop crying, Jesus. “He rasps, hand kneading the flesh of his chest. “C’mon, tell me how
good I fuck you instead.”

“ So good, fuck me so good. Fuck, fuck, fuck, ah-“

“ Yeah?” Yoongi’s hand wraps around his throat while his other keeps his balance steady on the
edge of the table.

“ So good Yoongi, so fucking good, harder.” And Yoongi isn’t one to disappoint. So, he thrusts
harder, and chokes him tighter until he’s sobbing and breathless. It’s not exactly an improvement
from usual, but he makes sure to kiss him after every ten or so thrusts while keeping eye contact.
And it doesn’t bother him that he’s not Jimin, not this time. So, he keeps looking.

There’s something strange.

Yoongi can’t tell what it is but there’s something ominously strange about the panes of his face,
about his scars. But then his orgasm is approaching and the thoughts evaporate as he bites his lip,
choking him harder, thrusting faster, kissing dirtier.

“ M’gonna come.” James rasps, clutching Yoongi’s bicep, bringing their two bodies closer as
Yoongi rests his head on his shoulder, biting down.

“ Yeah, fuck, me too.”

“ Come inside.” James requests, Yoongi smiling as his thrusts become sloppy.

“ How do you know I’m clean?” Yoongi asks.

“ You’re Yoongi.” James whines, shaking beneath him. “How do you know I’m clean?”

“ You’re James.” He retorts, and silence overtakes.

“ Okay.”

“ Okay.”

Their shared sounds when they come are loud. The slapping of skin and Jameson’s whines,
Yoongi’s growls, it’s all too loud for them to register the clicking of the door open.

“ Fuck, Yoongi, fuck- ah, ah.”

“ James, holy shit, fuck, shit.”

They’re swearing into each other’s mouths as their orgasms slowly ripple away, Yoongi licking
and biting his lips to make him quieten, however shameless he is. But then Jameson’s eyes are
widening, and not just in terror but in something that looks a lot like unwelcome recognition,
Yoongi exiting him to turn around.

And come face to face with Jungkook.

“ Y…”

He’s half into the room, half out. Hand still grasping the handle as if he’s just opened it.

“Jungkook, I…” Yoongi doesn’t have to justify himself and Jungkook shouldn’t be upset. But the
younger boy’s jaw trembles and his hand is white and red on the steel of the handle. Yoongi
realises he’s half bare with his cock hanging out too late and Jungkook is already staggering out,
the pianist not bothering to call after him.

“Fuck.” Yoongi swears. Jameson pulls up his pants

“You know him?” James asks with the weirdest tone, Yoongi sinking into a chair as he sighs.

“Not really fuck, no.”

“ Then?”

“ It’s fucking complicated.” James sniggers, coming over to sit on his lap, pulling him into a kiss.

“ When are things not with you hm?” Yoongi bites his lip sharply.

“ Shut the fuck up.”

“ Make me.” James taunts.

“ Come over to mine tonight.” James knows what that’s code for because he’s lonely too.

Keep me company.

Make me feel less alone.

“ Hm… okay.” He whispers, and they’re kissing far too slowly, far too soft and Yoongi can taste
him in his entirety. He can feel how happy James is like this, their body heat radiating to the other,
lips warm and hands wandering.

He thought he’d be okay again after a good fuck, kissing James to see if it would feel how it had
with Jungkook. If it would feel electrifying.

But they’re kissing and Yoongi’s post-orgasm high diminishes into oblivion, and still…
And still, Yoongi feels nothing.

Nothing at all.`
 Sleeping Boys
Chapter Notes

Introducing Park Bogum as Jameson Thomas.

Part I

The air is thick with sex around them, heavy and warm as James trembles above Yoongi one last
time, falling into his embrace from where he sits on the latter’s abdomen, thighs around the other
pianist’s waist.

The slap of their chests together is followed by Yoongi’s arm wrapping around his waist, pulling
him closer as he bends his legs into little bows, angling himself to thrust just a few more times.

“ Ah, Jamie, fuck -“ Yoongi growls, digging his fingertips into bruised flesh. “Fuck, fuck. A-
ah…”

“ O-o-h-h…” A breathy sigh leaves the other’s swollen lips when Yoongi empties inside him,
smiling dumbly at the sensation of being filled so good, so warm, Yoongi absentmindedly playing
scales on his back once James milks the last of Yoongi’s orgasm.

“B major.” He whispers, kissing Yoongi’s ear, lifting himself up to roll his lower body off of him.

“How the fuck would you even know that?” Yoongi exclaims quietly, the other pianist smiling,
resting his head on Yoongi’s chest as he goes on to play the exact same scale on Yoongi’s
collarbones.

“Fingering my friend, your hands.” He explains, eyes fluttering, voice wistful while caressing
Yoongi’s chest with his hands, drawing the shape of the treble clef down his breast bone slowly.

Yoongi turns his face towards him, observing him with indecipherable eyes, as always.

He's fucking terrifying, Yoongi is. So much so that James sometimes wonders if he knows
anything, whether…whether he knows…everything?

Like when he scrutinizes Jameson’s scars, new bruises, and it's like he can somehow tell…he can
tell James is lying about them being from his father’s hands.

It's like… it's like Yoongi knows James has never even had a dad in the first place.

Or when Yoongi watches the gate of his walk, the way he stands in that calculatedly lazy way,
precise and practiced to give off the very essence of elitist nonchalance… and Yoongi somehow
knows…

He knows everything James does is an act.

James thinks maybe that's why Yoongi fucks him. Because it's the only time when he knows
Jameson isn't acting; being filled with the crevices and extremities of a man who sometimes makes
him question whether the doctors are right after all.

“I’d hardly call you a friend Jameson.” He whispers, eyes falling to his lips. James closes his eyes
as Yoongi’s hand trails the panes of his face, dragging his finger on his bottom lip before closing
in with a chaste kiss.

“Why?” James whispers, not letting Yoongi retreat as his hand curls around his neck, pushing him
closer again. He looks… tired.

“Why…” Yoongi’s looking at his eyes again; he's been doing that a lot since this afternoon. And
now it's midnight, and they've been going at it for nearly an entire day and yet… Yoongi can't
seem to get enough. James would like to believe it’s not enough of him, that Yoongi’s like this
because of him but... But it’s just the sex.

‘It’s just sex.’

“Why what?” Yoongi asks.

“Why do you… do that?” Yoongi gives a half smile. Why does he look at him like that?

“Does it hurt when I do?” Yoongi whispers.

James bites his tongue, looking away.

Everything about his face is sharp, compact, small. From his high cheekbones to the line of his
jaw, to the sharp arch of his nose. The thing about Jameson Thomas is that he looks so deceptively
innocent when he’s anything but. If it wasn’t for the body he’s amassed into a block of pure
muscle, he’d still be a boy.

They’re all just boys.

“It burns.”

Yoongi opens his mouth to say something, tongue wetting his lips. From his steely silence as the
other pianist turns around, it’s obvious he decides against it.

James rolls his body off the bed, landing on the floors with near-silent feet, naked form large and
heavily muscled.

“Are you staying?” Yoongi asks, also rising, fingers curling into the collar of a white, cotton shirt,
boxers slipping onto his legs as he follows James into the kitchen.

“I heard you fuck-” The younger musician scoffs, padding to the open kitchen, hands reaching for
the coffee beans on the top shelf as he hears Yoongi follow him into the cold, stone interior. “And
then tell people get the fuck out.”

“You’re not people James.” Yoongi corrects, only a few yards behind him now. “I've fucked you
hundreds of times.”

“What am I then?”

Yoongi winces.

“Fuck…buddy?” He asks, raising a hopeful brow, arms wrapping around the younger, lips
latching onto his shoulder.

“You’re such an asshole.” James snaps, swatting his hands away. Yoongi sighs, defeated, taking
the coffee from his hands to operate the machine.

It’s oddly domestic, coffee brewing before dawn, both of them still reeking of cum as they
maneuver around the kitchen in a familiar rhythm.

Yoongi watches him as he retreats, long fingers curling into the collar of a shirt on the floor. Blood
red silk ripples down his torso as he fastens the buttons, underwear snapping onto his stomach as
James dresses beneath Yoongi’s stare, cheeks coloring. Dark tendrils of naturally blonde hair fall
around his face, brown eyes shy as he dresses. Yoongi remembers that he’s mixed, a European
mother and a Korean father, though he claims he’s never actually stepped foot in Korea.

“ Stop watching me.” He snaps, worrying his lip between his teeth, jeans stretching around his
thighs, Yoongi tilting his head.

“ No.”

“ Fuck you.”

“ Never gonna happen.”

James would ask why Yoongi is utterly unwilling to the idea of something up his pretty little rim
but… there’s something about the way he always reacts to the notion that irks him. Eyes dark and
emptier than the default, glassed over, stuck somewhere in the past.

“Don’t get sentimental babe hm?” Yoongi pleads, pouting. “You rode me so good, don't ruin the
mood, Jamie, c’mon love.” James chuckles, the sound of the coffee machine beckoning him to the
kitchen again.

“Yeah, they say you say that a lot too. ‘Don't get sentimental’. Shut the fuck up Yoongi, you've
been trailing after the same guy hopelessly unrequited for five years.” Too far. That was too far.
But it’s too late to take his words back because there are fingers around his throat, spine pressed
against the kitchen island. “You can't talk shit about sentimentality.”

“I suggest you to shut the fuck up.” Yoongi drawls deeply.

“Why don't you make me?”

“Cause you're a pain slut and you'd probably enjoy it.” Yoongi growls, biting the younger’s lip so
sharply he draws blood. The moan that leaves the bleeding lips makes Yoongi snigger.

“ Pain’s redundant for people like you.”

“Look at you talking about pain sluts w-when…” Yoongi’s wandering hands chase away his trail
of thought, words forsaking him. “You’re…the biggest emotional masochist I've seen in my life
and I grew up in a fucking-” James takes a sharp inhale of breath, eyes wide and scared suddenly,
hand clutching Yoongi’s clothed shoulder, lower bodies brushing the other’s, so easy to get
worked up when they know each other’s cages of skin so well.

There.

Yoongi smiles.

Got ya.
“What?” Yoongi whispers, licking the shell of the younger’s ear. “ In a what, Jameson?” The
older pries again, hand flattening against the other’s abdomen, travelling lower. “ Or is that even
your real name?” And then they’re kissing, Yoongi picking him up, hands aggressive and
uncaring- but then he’s losing his balance and he’s the one being pressed into the wall, James
looming over him.

“What do you know?” He asks, trying to sound threatening while sporting a boner, breathless and
red. It’s kind of endearing. Yoongi clicks his tongue, head coking to the side again.

“Way more than I should.”

Jameson grits his teeth, hand shifting next to Yoongi’s waist. “Am I going to have to shut you
up?” This is progress. So much more than Yoongi could have ever hoped for. His defenses, his
walls, everything he always tries so hard to keep hidden…Yoongi found an opening.

James gave him one.

“ How are you gonna do that Jamie?” Yoongi purrs.

The reply is instant.

A cold nuzzle is pressed against the material of Yoongi’s white shirt, just above his hip –bone, and
when he looks up at James again, they’re gone. His eyes are gone.

It’s like there’s nothing there at all.

Empty. Just empty…hollow…craters.

“Careful there love,” Yoongi warns. “I have somewhat of a gun kink.”

“Curiosity killed the cat Yoongi.” James retorts, too ominous for ass o’clock in the morning, sky
still dark outside.

“Good thing I’m a dog person.” This seems to be it for James, Yoongi’s relentless wall of sarcasm
blocking him, the gun suddenly gone, body heat leaving Yoongi as the former’s keys jingle in his
hands.

“You’re lucky you give a good dicking.” Yoongi chokes while James steps into his pants.

“You’re in love with me because of my dick?” He confirms amusedly.

“ I’m busy this week.” James says, jacket slipping onto his shoulders. “Just in case you’re
planning on taking me instead of your antidepressants again.”

“You’d still come running when I call.” Yoongi replies and yeah…yeah, he’s definitely worse
than Jimin.

“I hate you so much.” James says, hands wrapping around the door handle. Yoongi sighs, coffee
in hand.

“I know.”

The door clicks closed, security system beeping once.

“ I hate me too.”
________________________

Yoongi leaves to his usual spot, like always, though he’s later than usual today, because of James.
It’s nearly December now, a New York winter slowly settling in, washing Central Park in a
blanket of pure white, unashamed as it crystalizes grass and breathes ice into the bones of the city.

The park is halfway between his penthouse on Park Avenue and the school, the whole walk less
than half an hour in total. Dawn lingers in its infant stages, shy tendrils of light leaking through a
slumbering sky, doing what it can to warm the naked branches of white trees.

The Four Seasons Hotel lies just to his left as he exits the sky-scraper, yellow taxis and sleek black
cars stuck in the lethargic, slow train of the morning commute of the city’s most elite.

He lets out a chuckle suddenly, upon seeing a chauffeur be snapped at for something that probably
doesn’t warrant such treatment anyway.

He knows what Alex would say if she was here, watching him scoff at these people when he,
himself is one of them. Something about the Rolex he’s wearing, the fact that his flat is worth
more than eighty million bucks etcetera, etcetera…

“ Fuck, I’m such a hypocrite.” He whispers, passing by two intersections, the ascending sunrise
reflecting off the golden statue of Columbus Circle, Yoongi heading right, onto the Broadway.
The walk from there is short, the block of glass of the Gloria Kaufman studio above his head
shortly after as he walks into Julliard, barely anyone around this early in the morning.

Walking into Julliard is still surreal, even after all this while. It’s a cacophony of sounds that fit
perfectly, an overture of the performing arts lulling Yoongi into a familiar auditory trance. A fair
headed girl struggles with Bach just ahead, Yoongi watching her through the glass windows as he
heads to Paul Hall. She tries the tricky bar again, and this time doesn’t stop. The violinist breaks
into a smile. Yoongi’s lips follow.

It’s a place of belonging.

Maybe he’s selfish to think of it like that. For many, a school like this can slowly leach their love
for their art until there is nothing left but the need to meet expectations. But for someone like
Yoongi, who is…who was the best, who had always been the best, Julliard is…it’s home.

Was home.

He’s at Paul Hall before he knows it, hand on the door, pushing in and-

There’s someone inside.

Fuck.

Yoongi has come here nearly every morning since his accident, just sitting on the front row,
imagining he’s playing properly again, like the old him. Crowds cheering, fingers aching and the
rush of adrenaline that remains long after the performance is over.

It’s amidst these thoughts that he realises the violin sounds familiar. And of course, when he steps
in, ready to be proved wrong-

“I’ve reserved this place for at least another hour so if you-“ The violinist halts his playing,
pivoting on his foot to turn to the intruder. “Oh…”
Oh indeed.

Yoongi smiles sheepishly, scratching his head with an uneasy expression.

“You’re late today.” Jungkook says from his place on the stage.

“Huh?” Yoongi says dumbly, making the trek down to the stage.

“You usually come around five,” Jungkook replies, taking the score from the music stand and
replacing it with another one from his bag. “I thought you weren’t coming in today.”

“Oh…” Yoongi whispers, at the bottom of the stage now. “I didn’t know you practice this time of
day.”

“That’s because you usually leave just before I come in.”

“Ah…” Yoongi trails off, taking off his long black trench coat, laying it on a front row seat before
sitting on the one next to it, head in his hands.

“Jungkook, I-”

“I just wante-”

They both stop talking, tension rippling, stretching to its limits.

“You go first.” Jungkook allows, instrument hanging in his hands. Yoongi sighs, not prepared for
a confrontation this early at all.

“I’m sorry about earlier.” Yoongi says.

“ What’s earlier?”

“ You know…” The pianist looks away from Jungkook’s unsure eyes. “What you saw.”

“ It isn’t really any of my business.”

“ Well, I know dammit… I just-”

You just what Yoongi?

Why is he even apologizing?

“ You really don’t have to say anything.” Jungkook reassures but the pianist can see it. Yoongi
sees the question in Jungkook’s eyes.

“ Me and James are complicated.” Yoongi explains. Jungkook shakes his head.

“ I didn’t say anything.”

“ Jesus fuck,” Yoongi swears, standing up. “You saw me with my cock buried in someone’s ass, I
felt like there was some kind of pardon due you know?” Jungkook’s cheek redden, lip caught in
his teeth.

Shit.

Yoongi wants to ruin him so bad.

He hasn’t lusted like this after anyone in so long. Just pure fucking lust. Wanting to make him cry,
stain his sheets with his tears, with his cum, whine for him like the good boy Yoongi knows he is.

Fuck.

This is so bad.

“ I-I…” Jungkook stutters, blush deepening further, reeling Yoongi out of his headspace.

“I’m just sorry,” Yoongi apologizes firmly. “Let’s leave it at that.” He ends with a final tone,
ascending the stage to head over to the piano. His hands caress the black skin below the keys
before laying on the right-hand side. His pinky hovers over the last C natural on the right side of
the piano before pressing down, one after another, a seven-octave right hand C Major scale
ensuing before Yoongi sits down, shutting the lid, turning to face Jungkook who’s wide eyed, lips
hanging open.

“What?” The pianist questions.

“Always really weird.” Jungkook comments, eyes straying from Yoongi’s gaze.

“Hm?” Yoongi hums, crossing his legs, over the stool, one arm resting on the shut piano lid.

“Seeing you next to a piano.” Jungkook continues.

“Why?”

“It’s like you belong there.”

“You…” Yoongi breaths sharply, trying to find Jungkook’s line of sight, make him look at him.
“You see that?”

“I think anyone would Yoongi.” He finally finds Jungkook’s dark eyes again, shy and fleeting.
“Maybe even just by looking at your…” He looks away, Yoongi raising a brow.

“My…?” He leads on.

“Your…” Jungkook seems conflicted over his next words. “Hands,” He whispers, looking away.
“ Your hands.”

“Yeah?” Yoongi smirks. “What about them?”

“They’re…” He blushes again. Yoongi leans further back. “Sorry.” He quickly brushes it off,
bringing his violin to his neck, turning the pages of the score book with his other hand.

“What for?” Yoongi questions, watching Jungkook’s black hair flutter against his eyes.

“‘m making it weird.” Jungkook explains quietly, a smile ghosting over Yoongi’s lips.

Oh, he’d surely be a good boy.

“Weird is okay.”

Jungkook looks up, worrying his lip, and when it’s clear he has nothing to say in reply, Yoongi
stands.

“What are you working on right now?” He questions, coming beside Jungkook to take a look at
his score. “You don’t mind me being here?”
“ O-oh,” Jungkook breathes, Yoongi only a couple of steps to his left. “N-no, not at all. It’s…it’s
okay.”

“Who is it?” Yoongi asks, reading the score.

“Tchaikovsky…. it’s a Valse Sentimentale, Opus 51?”

“Ah, the man himself.” Yoongi says, giving Jungkook some space. “It’s not for a while, though
right?” He asks. “ I remember this being on the set list for the summer performances.”

“Yeah…”

“Why are you starting on it so early?” Yoongi asks, stepping back. “It’s not a hard piece for
someone like you.” Yoongi remarks casually, but it’s obvious it means a lot more than that to
Jungkook because he’s at a loss for words again.

“ I…”

“You know…” Yoongi quickly adds. “Cause you’re…” Get a fucking grip. “You’re good. Better
than good.”

“ T-thanks.” Jungkook squeaks. Yoongi wonders how high his voice can get when he spills come
onto his thighs.

“Yeah…” The pianist trails. “So…can I…watch you?” Jungkook’s head snaps up, Yoongi
wincing at his choice of words.

“ W-what?”

“ Play Jungkook…” Yoongi corrects. “Can I watch you play?”

“I’ve only just started really and- there’s this bar, the sound isn’t really…I don’t know?” Yoongi
watches Jungkook stutter, utterly, completely transfixed. “ The sound isn’t coming out right, not
like I want it to…you know?”

Yoongi bites down on his tongue. Jungkook is so fucking flustered, stuttering and blushing as he
tries to delay playing in front of Yoongi.

“Am I that intimidating to play in front of?” Yoongi asks, slightly hurt.

“ I just don’t want to get it wrong.” Jungkook reassures quietly, jaw trembling. Yoongi goes to
stand beside him again.

“Which bar is it?” He asks, Jungkook replying with a finger on a string of notes, the vibrato what
Yoongi suspects is bothering Jungkook. “Do you wanna play it through? And then we can work
through the bar?” Yoongi asks hopefully, Jungkook turning to him in surprise.

“W-why?”

“We’re playing the winter showcase in January, together aren’t we?” Yoongi remarks, tilting his
head.

“We…we are?”

“That’s what the professor wants.”

“But I thought you…” Jungkook trails off, eyes shifting. The professor had called them in
yesterday afternoon, demanding Yoongi’s return to classes now that he knows Yoongi can still
play. What’s worse was that he also announced his desire to pair Jungkook and Yoongi for the
January winter showcase, for a duet. Or two.

“We’ll figure it out yeah?” Yoongi replies, attempting the warmest smile he can. “But for now, do
you wanna play it for me?

“ Okay…” Jungkook says, still unsure. Yoongi doesn’t really blame him. He’d been so against it
just yesterday, both the classes and the duet, storming out of the office, leaving Jungkook behind.
And now, here they are. “Sure hyung.”

Oh.

Oh.

Yoongi chokes at the word, coughing on nothing as he dismisses Jungkook’s questioning look
with a waving hand. “Just- just play, go on.”

‘Hyung.’

Fuck.

Fuck.

Yoongi is so fucking fucked.

“There.” The pianist stops Jungkook. Even in the middle of his kinky epiphany, he hears the
oddity of the note. “That’s the bit right?”

“ Uhum.” Jungkook hums, burning holes into the sheet music.

“You’re drawing the sound from the wrong part of the violin…It doesn’t sound wrong but-“

“It also doesn’t sound right.”

“Yeah…” Yoongi agrees, clicking his tongue. “ Hm… maybe try angling your wrist differently,
more sharp, you’re not pressing down right.” Jungkook tries to follow his instructions, making the
angle the bow makes with the vertical more acute, pressing more firmly, sighing when all that
comes out is a screech.

“Jungkook… hey,” Yoongi says, touching his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

It’s strange for Jungkook to be struggling with such an easy technique. Yoongi observes his pale
skin, slightly blue lips, the pearls of sweat trickling down the sides of his face.

“ Fine.” Jungkook snaps. “I’m…I’m fine.” He replies more softly. “It’s-“ He tries again. Fails
again. “Just annoying me.” He whines, hands shaking slightly. Yoongi’s eyes focus on
Jungkook’s trembling hands, unconsciously bringing his own to them. Jungkook’s shaking
lessens, turning to look at Yoongi with tears in his eyes.

“ You’re not okay.” Yoongi whispers, tightening his hold around Jungkook’s hands.

“ Just help me get this bit okay? I’ll be fine.” The circles beneath his eyes are so dark, eyes so red.

“ Okay Jungkook, okay. How about…” Yoongi hesitates, going behind Jungkook. “ Fuck you’re
tall,” Yoongi exclaims, pushing Jungkook’s shoulders down. “Bend your knees a bit.”
tall,” Yoongi exclaims, pushing Jungkook’s shoulders down. “Bend your knees a bit.”
Jungkook’s skin is hot beneath the white dress shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. “How
about…” Their breathing quickens, Yoongi pressing his front to Jungkook’s back as Jungkook
lowers himself to slightly below the pianist’s height. “How about this?”

Yoongi brings his left hand around Jungkook, circling his body, grabbing Jungkook’s left hand on
the neck of the violin, positioning the instrument on Jungkook’s neck, ready to be bowed. Then he
moves his own hand further up, away from Jungkook’s, holding the scroll. “Grab the bow
properly.” Yoongi’s tone is far more authoritative than he intended it to be, Jungkook shivering
beneath him as Yoongi’s right hand curls around Jungkook’s shoulder, settling on Jungkook’s
right hand, clutched around the bow.

“Your shoulders are real fucking broad,” Yoongi remarks, straining his arms around Jungkook’s
wide form to reach the violin. “This is awkward but it should work.”

“Sorry I-” Jungkook’s breath comes out in short strokes, hot, while his hands are colder than
Yoongi’s, still shaking a bit. “I work out a lot.” Yoongi scoffs.

“Of course, you do.” He retorts, focusing on controlling himself, distancing his lower body from
Jungkook’s. His fucking ass is driving Yoongi insane.

“What does that mean?” Jungkook asks defensively.

“Focus Jungkook. Close your eyes and just focus on how I bow.”

“Okay. Okay fine.”

“I’m going to play from here okay?” Yoongi confirms, pointing at the notes with his left hand.
“Until the bar just ends…” Yoongi presses himself closer to Jungkook, putting his head on
Jungkook’s left shoulder. “You can do the fingering yourself, I can’t finger it for you.”

The connotations of his words make both of them tremble, Jungkook’s face heating up beside his.
The younger doesn’t move away. Yoongi rests his head on Jungkook’s left shoulder, their cheeks
touching. Thank god they’re both right handed. “I’ll bow on top of your hands okay? I’ll play it
again and again, until you’re okay with it.”

“Okay.” Jungkook breathes shakily. “That’s okay.”

“Good. Here we go.”

Yoongi begins to play.

He hasn’t played the violin in a long time. With Jungkook’s body so large and nervous beneath
him, back to front, Yoongi’s hands on top of Jungkook’s, guiding him, Yoongi forgets about who
he is for a while, playing the section twice, then three times, then ten.

“Harder,” Yoongi rasps. “Press the board harder Jungkook.”

“ Like-like this?”

“ Yeah…” Yoongi whispers, tilting his head right to look at Jungkook’s red cheeks. “Just like
that.”

Yoongi feels himself hardening, pressed so close, and he moves away slightly, and he can swear
he almost hears Jungkook whimper as Yoongi’s body warmth distanced itself.

On the tenth try, the pianist modulates into the very beginning of the piece, hands reluctant to
leave Jungkook’s but he curls them away just before they enter the section Jungkook’s finding
difficult.

This time Jungkook plays just as Yoongi showed him, worlds away from how he’d just been
struggling a few minutes ago. He finishes with a shaky breath, trembling as he turns his head
slightly to the right.

It’s a big mistake.

It’s a mistake because Yoongi’s face is only breaths away, smiling proudly, eyes dark and hair
impossibly light beneath the bright lights.

“ See?”

Yoongi doesn’t think he’ll stop himself this time. There are still tears in Jungkook’s eyes and
Yoongi knows…he knows they’re the angry tears of an insomniac. The frustration of not being
able to sleep when you’re so, so tired. So physically tired, mentally strained that the simplest notes
don’t come out like you want them to, because your bones are begging you to sleep. And you
just-you just can’t.

Yoongi knows because he used to be the same.

“Are you okay?” Yoongi asks again.

“I…I don’t think so.” The younger replies. They’re even closer now. Jungkook lets his hold on
his violin slip, turning towards Yoongi even more, wetting his lips. “I…” Yoongi brings his hand
to Jungkook’s cheek, thumb caressing the tired skin beneath his eyes. “I want to…”

“Yeah…” Yoongi agrees as Jungkook closes his eyes. “Me too.”

“Please.” It’s that one word.

It’s the amount of tired desperation, how Jungkook whines it, like he needs Yoongi’s touch to
keep going in this moment, that breaks Yoongi’s control. It’s how his shoulders are so slack, skin
so cold, eyes so red and deprived of something that should come so naturally, something like
sleep.

So it finally happens.

In the empty room, lights above them painting them pale and tired, needy for someone they both
crave but cannot have, Jungkook’s skin freezing beneath Yoongi’s touch and his eyes fluttering
shut, Yoongi closes the distance between them.

And kisses him.

Jungkook cries into the kiss, and if Yoongi thinks all he feels for the boy is lust then he’s lying to
himself, because his hands hold the boy’s cold cheeks, wiping his tears with his thumbs, kissing
Jungkook’s mouth with silent words of comfort.

And when he leaves, their foreheads pressed together, Jungkook stumbles backwards, Yoongi
going with him, his violin bouncing onto the piano stool as he pulls Yoongi to the wall beside the
instrument and whispers ‘Again.’

So, it happens again.

This time Yoongi circles his arm around Jungkook’s waist, and fuck-it’s so tiny that Yoongi can
nearly reach all the way around it- pressing him into the wall as he tastes him in his entirety.
Jungkook kisses him uncertain and messy, and so, so hungry. So needy, wanting to be taken care
of so bad, and it shines through in how he holds onto Yoongi for dear life, how he licks and bites
into Yoongi’s mouth, how he moans like he was made for it.

“ Hyung.” Jungkook whines, and Yoongi’s done for. Yoongi is as fucking done for as he could
ever be.

“ Let me take care of you.” Yoongi whispers, unbuttoning Jungkook’s top button, lips latching
onto the now exposed skin of his neck. “Let hyung make it better hm?”

“ Ah…ah…Hyung I-”

“ Why are you crying love?” Yoongi whispers, tongue dragging along the shell of Jungkook’s
ear.

“ I don’t know,” Jungkook chants, hands curled around Yoongi’s neck as he makes himself
smaller, wanting to be completely enveloped with the older musician. “I don’t know.”

Yoongi detaches their lips to catch his breath and is met with Jungkook’s wavering eyes.

“ Jungkook?”

And then it’s all suddenly wrong.

Jungkook shivers one last time beneath Yoongi and then he falls. Yoongi catches him just before
he hits the floor, hand around his waist, lifting him up.

“Hey!” Yoongi shouts, dragging Jungkook along the stage, stumbling down the stairs to lie him
on the front row seats.” Jungkook hey-” Yoongi cries, holding his cheeks. “Hey can you hear
me?”

“Yoongi…”

“Fuck.” The pianist swears, fishing his phone out of his back pocket. He should have dealt with
this sooner. Instead of running away like a fucking coward. “How long has it been since you last
slept?” Jungkook shifts in his delirious state, eyes fluttering open and closed.

“ I…I? Dunno?”

“Hey, hey Jungkook, what pills are you taking?”

“Coat…”

“Huh? What are you taking? Have you not been taking them anymore?” No reply. Jungkook’s
head just circles round and round absentmindedly, barely conscious. “Fuck, you’re freezing kid.”

“ Coat…” Jungkook whispers, glassy eyes opening to look at Yoongi in a pain drunken state. “
Pocket…empty…”

“ Coat pocket?” Yoongi asks, eyes finding Jungkook’s jacket a few seats down, running to it. It
rattles in Yoongi’s hand as he searches the pockets, hand coming into contact with a bottle, pulling
it out. “Oh fuck.” Yoongi doesn’t even need to read the label to know anything about the drugs.

These pills are lethal.

They’re lethal because they can keep you awake for weeks on end, even going as far to improve
They’re lethal because they can keep you awake for weeks on end, even going as far to improve
normal functioning ability as well. But you have to keep on taking them. If you stop taking them,
you also have to go through the withdrawal. If you miss even a single day, that’s where the lethal
part comes in. Your body starts freezing up on itself, metabolism going into overdrive, digesting
food nearly five times quicker than usual until your body finally goes into starvation mode.

It could be classed as a hallucinogen amongst other things, it could be a steroid, a recreational

drug, even a sleeping pill depending on what you take it with and how much of it.

But this prescription, and the fact that the bottle is completely empty…

Jungkook probably hasn’t bothered eating in days.

“Jungkook, Jungkook you need to look at me. Hey! Hey, Kook look at me c’mon.”

Limp. He’s completely limp.

Lifeless.

He looks fucking dead.

If he sleeps now, he might never wake up.

Yoongi’s phone is pressed against his ear seconds later, and it doesn’t even ring once before the
familiar recording fills his ears.

Jimin never, ever turns off his work phone.

Fuck.

Yoongi calls another number, his chauffer, telling him to get his car out of the garage and get here
as fast as fucking possible.

“Hey,” Yoongi urges after the call ends, grabbing Jungkook’s shoulders. “Let’s get you out of
here okay? Kook do you hear me?” Yoongi’s heart batters the confinement of his chest plates,
aching and burning as he carries Jungkook’s weight, his body like a sack in Yoongi’s arms, only
just breathing.

“Tired…”

“ I know Jungkook, I know.”

“Sleepy.”

“ I have some of these pills at home, you’ll take them and you’ll be back on your feet love.” The
word just leaves his mouth on instinct, and Jungkook is far too gone to notice.

Yoongi is far too gone to care. “And then we’ll figure it out together okay?”

The violinist makes some more indecipherable noises, mumbling tiredly, holding onto Yoongi’s
chest as the latter carries them both to the car park, only a few people around; those that do see
them scurrying away with only a warning look from Yoongi. “Do you think you can stay awake
for me? Jungkook?” Yoongi’s hands latch onto the handle of his cherry red ’66 Impala while
resting Jungkook’s weight on one arm as he opens the door. “Kook?”

Jungkook’s asleep.

_________________________
From the moment Jungkook fell asleep, Yoongi went into calm overdrive. Blocked everything
out, forgot who he was, who anyone was. And just drove. He sped the entire way, passed all the
traffic lights, nearly had three collisions, but he just kept on driving thinking of nothing but the
sleeping boy in the backseat.

They’re stumbling into his penthouse ten minutes later, the longest and shortest time it’s ever taken
Yoongi to drive home from the school.

“Jungkook?” He asks when they’re inside, dragging him to his bed.

The doors are rectangular, soft edges curving into a half circle at the top, white. The marble floors
are cold beneath Yoongi’s feet while he steps hurriedly out of his shoes. The kitchen lies just to
his left, the corridor ahead sporting a staircase on the left and a Grand Piano at the foot of it. Just
next to the piano is an elevator. Yoongi staggers inside, Jungkook in hand. “Fuck kid, fuck. What
have you done to yourself Jungkook? What the fuck have you done?”

He hasn’t done this for a while, the whole nurse thing. But his body remembers well. The elevator
opens directly into Yoongi’s bedroom. He lays Jungkook on the bed, taking off his shoes,
throwing them across the floor. “You’re so cold. You’re so fucking cold.” Yoongi tucks the boy
beneath his blanket, his feet then taking him to his closet. Knees hit the floor automatically,
reaching into his storage cupboards for the saline bottles he keeps there.

Yoongi doesn’t know why he’s kept these pills from his insomnia days but now he only has
himself to thank. The bottles rattle in his hands as he staggers out, feet sliding on marble floors,
hurtling into his bedroom again. He has another piano in here.

The left wall on arrival from the elevator is all glass, the floors wood, opening into a spacious
balcony. A king size bed sits in front of the elevator, on the other end of the room, flanked by bed
side drawers and an arm chair on the left. On the far right, the room leads onto Yoongi’s office, a
second open kitchen on the left once you walk in, the setting industrial.

There’s an upright piano in here too, the chestnut one he brought from his childhood home. It sits
just on the right of a fire place at the center of the office’s right wall. Windows line the back wall
of the room, Yoongi’s desk in front, a circle of burgundy sofas scattered tastefully around the fire
place, sitting on a circular, cream, ornately patterned Persian rug, a low, dark wooden coffee table
at their centre, in the compartment of which Yoongi keeps all of his manuscripts “Okay, okay
fuck.” He swears, padding into the kitchen, glancing at Jungkook’s sleeping form behind him.

If you asked Yoongi why he owns ten bottles of sterile saline, a pestle and mortar, IV drips, and
industrial level high resolution scales in the upstairs kitchen he’d probably tell you it’s because his
mum was a nurse. That it’s normal when it’s anything but.

He spills the round pills into the stone bowl, crushing them profusely.

“ Cmon, cmon, cmon.”

Finely grounded. If there’s even a single bit of ungrounded powder, he could risk Jungkook a
blood clot. And that Yoongi can’t fix in his penthouse.

“Fuck’s sake, c’mon.” He growls, crushing the pills, banging the bowl with angry hands. He’s
surprised to find himself shedding frustrated tears, time running out. The longer Jungkook
sleeps…
“There…fuck.” He pours the powder in small amounts onto a watch glass, placing it on the
scales, measuring out the number of grams he still remembers, even after all these years.

Mixing it with the saline comes next. Yoongi pours the powder into the liquid, transferring the
mixture into the custom IV bag he’s had made.

From there he just works completely on autopilot, body remembering the nights he’d had to do
this to Jimin, to Taehyung…to Sam. Like they were all manuals for this moment in particular.

And now he’s watching the drip drop of the IV above Jungkook’s head, has been for nearly ten
minutes and the boy just isn’t waking up. Yoongi fiddles with the adrenaline injection in one
hand, sweating head in the other.

Fuck.

He presses the needle to Jungkook’s arm, finding the vein with little difficulty.

“Please wake up.”

He pushes it in, other hand on Jungkook’s wrist, feeling his pulse.

The skin protrudes beneath Yoongi’s fingers, pulse quickening. “Wake up, c’mon.”

Jungkook starts shaking at first, Yoongi holding him down.

And then his eyes spring open.

“Hey,” Yoongi whispers, holding Jungkook’s face, the injection falling from his hands. “Hey it’s
okay. It’s me. It’s Yoongi.”

“What’s…what’s happening to me- what’s-what’s happening?” His eyes are heavily unfocused,
hands shaking, itching the skin around the connection of the IV drip. “What’s happening to me?”

“Jungkook listen to me-“

“Stop shouting at me- stop-stop shouting-” Jungkook begs, tears streaming down his face, curling
into himself as he rides further up the bed, back against the headboard.

“Jungkook, ‘m not shouting at you- no one’s shouting at you Guk. You’re okay.”

“I didn’t do it-” Yoongi moves to sit on the bed, holding Jungkook’s cheeks, wiping his tears
away. He knew this was bound to happen after injecting adrenaline, but seeing Jungkook in this
state, delirious and invaded by the anxiety of confusion… “It wasn’t me- wasn’t me…I didn’t do
it- I didn’t- I didn’t-” Injecting adrenaline into someone while they’re sleeping means that most of
the time they’re likely to have an anxiety attack when they wake up, body mimicking the flight or
fight response. It’s like waking up by being hit in the stomach, your first breath a splutter of blood
from your mouth. And you have no idea what the fuck is going on. So, the panic sets in, the
anxiety, the confusion.

And they all take over.

“ I know Jungkook, I know you didn’t. Listen to me, listen-”

“Hurts- Hurts, hurts. Burns.” And then he isn’t scratching his arm anymore but his feet. “Get
them off. Get them off of me.” He screams, legs thrashing on the bed, tears painting his eyes red as
he sobs, scratching at his legs.
“Your socks?” Yoongi can barely hear himself over the howling of Jungkook’s cries. “Your
socks? Okay, okay Guk-” Yoongi reassures, confused. “Here.” Yoongi throws the blanket off
him, fingers curling into Jungkook’s black socks, taking them off his feet. Yoongi settles on the
bottom of the bed, holding Jungkook’s cold feet in his hands, lifting them to show Jungkook that
the socks are gone. “Here you go, here you…” And then his eyes shift to the soles of Jungkook’s
feet. “What…”

“Burns.” Jungkook whimpers. Yoongi blinks away the tears that start to prick at his eyes.

“ Burns. It hurts.”

“ I’m so…I’m so sorry.” Yoongi chokes on his words. “I’m so sorry Jungkook.” Yoongi repeats
again, eyes fixed on the soles of Jungkook’s feet, tears falling onto the ruined skin as the boy
shakes and shakes.

“ I-I-I- can’t breathe- I can’t-”

“ Hey!” Yoongi shouts, shifting off the bed, his entire body over Jungkook’s as he kneels on
either side of his thighs. “Hey, breathe for me.” The younger’s face is in Yoongi’s hands again,
lips blue and trembling, breath irregular as the panic after the shock leaks into Jungkook’s body,
and then envelopes him in an avalanche. “Jungkook, hey, kid, c’mon. Listen to me. You’re okay.
You’re gonna be okay.”

“Can-can’t-can’t-”

“ I don’t know what to do- I don’t know what to do-“ Yoongi repeats, Jungkook crumbling
beneath him. He doesn’t know what to do.

He doesn’t know what to do until he does.

He kisses him again.

Yoongi kisses him soft and hungry and sad. He kisses him to make Jungkook okay, to make him
hold his breath, to dissipate the panic. He kisses him to make Jungkook warm, to breathe all the
warmth that Yoongi has left into him.

“Jungkook…” Yoongi breathes after leaving his mouth, sitting on Jungkook’s thighs, hands on his
shoulders, foreheads pressed together.

“Yoongi…”

“Breathe for me,” Yoongi whispers, caressing Jungkook’s wet hair. “C’mon.”

“Kiss me.”

“What?”

“Again. Again. Again.” Jungkook chants, pulling Yoongi into him again.

“Careful, IV-“

“Kiss me.” Jungkook whines.

“Fuck.” Yoongi pushes him into the bed, pressing Jungkook’s thighs closer together with his own
legs on either side of him, hands getting lost in Jungkook’s hair. “ You’re not okay kid, you're
really really not okay.” And neither am I, he doesnt have to add. Not okay and not okay is never
the best combination but Jungkook begs so politely, eyes searching for Yoongi's and lips opening
and closing like a hesistant flower in a too-cold spring and Yoongi-

And Yoongi.

The younger’s right hand wraps around Yoongi’s waist, pulling him closer, closer.

“Hyung.” His eyes fall shut, he just needs Yoongi close.

“Don’t sleep yet.” Yoongi urges, kissing his lips again. “Look at me.”

“Hyung.” Jungkook whimpers, pulling Yoongi in again. “Jimin hyung.”

Oh.

“Wait…” Jungkook whispers, pulling away. “ No I- I didn’t mean that I-” Yoongi shuts him up
with another kiss. He doesn’t care.

He can’t care.

“You could killed yourself...” Yoongi whispers, Jungkook hiding his face in the pianist's neck.

“Don’t tell him.” Jungkook suddenly says. Yoongi doesn't need to ask who he's talking about.

“ About?”

“ Anything.” Jungkook urges. “ Don’t tell him about any of it.”

It’s selfish.

Because that means Jungkook doesn’t want Jimin to know about them either. About Yoongi and
Jungkook. About this, all of it. Not that there even is anything yet, not that they are anything, not
that there is a them or us, but Moonchildren always have a tendency to move too fast because time
is so, so cruel and never on their side so if- so if Jungkook needs skin? Yoongi will give him skin.

" I won't." The pianist murmurs after silence falls. " I won't."

Because he doesn’t want Jimin to know either.

Because they’re both using one another right now to get over a boy they can’t have. And yet…
and yet they’re still not ready to let go of Jimin yet either.

It’s already turning into something far more dangerous. Yoongi knows this is already something
more than an escapist’s escapade.

He knew it the moment he saw the soles of Jungkook’s feet covered in cigarette stub burns, and
his heart clenched like it had when he saw Jimin’s father rape him for the first time.

Because Yoongi knows more than anyone else. He always has. About everyone, about
everything, about himself.

Yoongi always knows too much at the right time, at the worst time possible, and just like James
threatened, he wonders if that’s going to be his end one day,

And he knows he’s falling for another broken boy before he’s even gotten over the last one. For
another broken, ruined boy that he wants so dearly to protect, just like Sam had done for him.
And he can’t stop himself.

He doesn’t want to.

__________________________

Jungkook eats, half asleep and still shaking a bit, but he eats. Yoongi feeds him until the younger
swears he’s going to throw it all back up. The pianist finds the baggiest set of clothes he has,
making Jungkook change into them while he stands with his back to him.

“Do you think you can sleep?” Yoongi asks when Jungkook returns to bed, fully changed into
soft, warm cloth that smells of mild fabric softener and…and Yoongi.

“Not sure.”

“Try? You need to catch up on it Jungkook, only then can we…”

“You’re gonna make me go off them, aren’t you?”

“We’ll talk about it when you’ve rested okay?”

“I can’t.” Jungkook says. “I can’t sleep.”

“Why?”

“I…” Jungkook bites his lip, looking away.

“I know Jungkook. I’m…” Yoongi sighs, standing up from his seat, circling the bed to the right
side. “We’re the same.” He says as he lies next to Jungkook, both of them facing the other, nearly
half a bed’s space between them.

“Is that why you have a lot of sex?”

It’s Yoongi’s turn to shy away.

“I…” Yoongi shifts closer. “I guess.”

“Do you sleep better when there’s someone there?” Jungkook asks, coming closer too, until their
feet are touching and Yoongi thinks about the scars again.

“I’ve been too scared to try.”

“Cause you’re scared you’ll become dependent on them.” Jungkook says, hand touching
Yoongi’s lips, parting them open.

“I’m done with the dependence game.”

“What about me?” Jungkook asks.

“What about you?”

“Do you want to sleep with me?” Yoongi laughs, bringing Jungkook closer with a hand behind
his waist.

“In more ways than one love, yes.” He blushes again, Yoongi kissing his eyes closed, playing
with his hair. The pianist thinks Jungkook is sleeping only to hear his soft voice again.
“We’re using each other, aren’t we?” Jungkook whispers, kissing his lips, tucking himself into all
of Yoongi’s empty spaces. And well, there’s a lot of those, isn’t there? “Cause we’re lonely.”

Yoongi pretends he’s sleeping, pretends like he doesn’t hear, pretends like he can’t feel the scars
on Jungkook’s feet every time their limbs brush.

He pretends and he opens his eyes when Jungkook’s breathing evens out, watching Jungkook’s
skin be set alight with gold as the afternoon sun burns outside.

Maybe it’s wrong to do this while he sleeps, but Yoongi leaves the younger’s embrace, kneeling
at the foot of the bed, exposing Jungkook’s feet. He lays a few kisses on the scars, even goes
through the agony of counting them, a silent sob leaving him as he counts fifty-three in total.

He falls asleep with his head next to Jungkook’s feet, sitting on the floor, not sure how long he
sleeps before the vibrations of his phone wake him up. He jogs to the elevator, mild panic settling
in when he sees the caller ID, answering the phone when the doors close.

“ Hobi?” Yoongi answers, incredulous after four years of not speaking to the man.

“Yoongi, man where the fuck are you?” Hoseok asks, the noise in the background indecipherable.

“I changed my phone number…” Yoongi steps out of the lift, leaning against the piano at the
bottom of the stairs. “ What the fuck? Is that…is that Jin’s voice? Wait, my-my dad too? Hoseok?
What the fuck is going on?”

“ Do you know where Jeon Jungkook is?”

“ Guk? He’s with me…” Yoongi starts worrying his lip as Hoseok has a hurried conversation
with someone in the background. “Why? Hobi man, what the fuck is happening? Where are
you?”

“ You need to get to the Presbyterian right now.”

“ The hospital?” Yoongi asks, panicking. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, it’s not me you should be worried about.” And then he hears Jin tell Hoseok something
down the line.

‘Tell him to get Jungkook as well.’

His voice is hoarse, like he’s been crying. Yoongi’s hands start sweating.

“Is…” The words don’t leave his mouth properly. Yoongi stops in his tracks, knees giving out
beneath him. “Is it Tae?” The next name leaves his mouth in a choked sob. “J-Jimin?”

“Yoongi you need to get Jungkook and get the fuck here right now.”

“ No, Hobi you don’t unders-“

“ Yoongi do whatever the fuck you want but you need to get here man.” Hoseok begs, the noises
on the other line becoming distinguishable to Yoongi.

“ The Kim Mansion was bombed this morning…” Yoongi’s world slowly starts dismantling. “It
was bombed with Taehyung and Jimin in it.”

And then Yoongi’s world breaks apart.

______________________

His dad is there when he arrives, holding him back from raising hell.

“ Jimin…Jimin dad, where’s Jimin? Is he okay? And Tae? Where’s Taehyung? Dad, dad talk to
me c’mon. Dad, please. ”

“Yoongi Jimin is fine.” His dad reassures, one hand occupried by a phone call, the other filling
out forms at the welcome desk.

“You’re lying to me.”

“Yoongi, Jimin isn’t even in the ICU, he got away with a few scratches. Son, get a damned grip
and go upstairs with the rest of them, I have to speak to the feds.”

“ The feds?” Yoongi repeats, eyes wide as he takes in the state of his father, glasses perched on
his nose, eyes sleep deprived and skin grey.

“Yoongi, they’re on the second floor, you’ll find them easily. Now go.” The pianist stumbles
away, head still turning to look at his dad, the mess of federal agents and homeland security
officers around him, more of the law firm working underneath his dad pouring in through the
hospital floor.

As soon as the elevator doors open, his name is called out.

“Yoongi?” The pianist stumbles at the sound of his name called out with that voice.

“ Jin?”

And there stands Kim Seokjin. Still impossibly beautifully, tall and broad shouldered, dark brown
hair parted over his forehead. Yoongi runs to the crying man, grabbing his face. “What happened?
What the fuck happened?”

“Yoongi.” The pianist turns to find Hoseok, dismissing the strange look the former assassin gives
to the sight of Yoongi’s hands on Jin’s face. “Jimin really is okay. Your dad called saying you
woudnt believe him.”

“He is? Then why…” Yoongi’s eyes shift between Hoseok’s exhausted face and Jin’s crying one,
the latter’s red eyes and shaking jaw. Oh no. “T-t…It’s Taehyung isn’t it…what…”

“He shielded Jimin when the bomb went off. He took the full impact…they-” Hoseok restrains his
shaking voice. “They…They don’t think he’s gonna make it Yoongi.”

“ No…” Yoongi shakes his head. “No,” He says again. “Don’t you say that to me.”

“Yoongi they-”

“Shut up.” Yoongi screams. “Shut the fuck up. Shut up.”

Some of the nurses around him stop walking, turning to look at him. Through blurry eyes, Yoongi
notices Hoseok dismissing some of the hospital security in-fluxing their way.

“Stop it.” Yoongi howls again. Jin’s hand reaches for him. “Don’t touch me. Don’t fucking lay a
hand on me and don’t you fucking dare tell me he’s not going to make it.”
“Yoongi,” Hoseok says softly, coming to kneel beside him. “There’s a very high chance he might
not survive the surgery.”

“Not Tae…”

“ They said we can go watch... through the viewing rooms…Yoongi we need to go. ” And when
Hoseok picks him up, Jin on his either side, Yoongi’s hands finally forsake him. And it hurts.

“ Not…” Jin notices his hands first, shooting a worried look at Hoseok.

“Yoongi,” Jin comforts even as his own voice shakes. “Yoongi, he’s gonna be okay.”

It’s pathetic, that Taehyung’s actual brother is more composed than Yoongi is.

“Not him…not Tae…can’t…not again…please.”

“ Yoongi.”

“Jin hyung, hyung- hyung Taehyung’s gonna…” Yoongi can’t feel his hands.

“Yoongi you’re shaking so much.” Hoseok says, holding his hands for him.

“No, no he’s not.” Jin replies at the same time. “He can’t. Tae won’t. He’s-he’s gonna be okay.”

“ I keep telling Hobi,” Yoongi sounds small. Yoongi sounds small and impossibly frightened.
And Jin realises this isn’t twenty-three-year-old Yoongi anymore. This is ten-year-old Yoongi
wandering in the hospital corridors with a shitty lukewarm coffee in a Styrofoam cup, wanting to
stay awake for just that much longer. Just a bit longer. So he can talk to a mother that doesn’t have
more time left. “He’s not listening hyung.” Yoongi cries. “He doesn’t believe me.”

“ Jin, we’re here.” Seokjin rests Yoongi’s weight on his arm while Hoseok opens the door, petting
Yoongi’s hair, kissing the mop of pale blue, whispering empty words that he, himself needs to
hear. “The surgery is going to take a few more hours. Yoongi, go sit down inside okay?” Half
way stumbling into the viewing room, Yoongi turns back in terror.

“ J-Jimin…” He whispers. “Jimin’s dad…”

“ What about him?” Hoseok asks, one phone in each hand. “We’ve called him to come.”

“ N-n-no,” Yoongi chants, clutching Jin’s shoulder to stop himself from shriveling onto the
ground. “You- someone needs to stay- to s-stay in his r-room with him. H-he…h-he…”

Jimin.

Blood running down his thighs, face streaked with tears, cheek swollen from being pressed so
hard against walls and tables.

Jimin biting down on his tongue so hard to stop himself from screaming because he knew Yoongi
might come over any second that he stained his teeth in blood once. Not knowing Yoongi was
already there, looking at the scene through the curtain-less gap in the Park Mansion’s office
window.

Jimin who doesn’t know that Yoongi knows.

“Yoongi?” Jin asks, kneeling on the floor next to him. “Yoongi, what’s wrong?”

“ P-please…d-don’t leave him alone. Don’t leave Jimin alone.” His voice this time is strong,
because he needs them to understand. He needs Jimin safe.

“ I’ll…” Hoseok looks at Jin who looks back just as confused. “I’ll call Namjoon, Yoongi, okay?
I’ll call him right now.”

“ Thank you.” Yoongi chokes out. “Thank you so much. Thank you.”

Yoongi doesn’t see the exchange of looks between Jin and Hoseok, the questioning glances they
throw at Yoongi.

No one knows. No one else knows about Jimin.

Yoongi knows. He knows so much it’s pulling him apart limb by limb. Like a drop of acid is
added to his bloodstream every day since witnessing it for the first time, and Yoongi’s very bones
are corroding from the inside out. Because he can’t do shit. He can’t do anything.

He can’t tell Taehyung. He can’t tell his dad.

He can’t tell anyone.

Why?

Because Taehyung would fucking die if he does.

Hoseok stays outside to make the promised phone call while Jin carries Yoongi inside, placing
him on the seats inside the viewing room.

In front of them is a large glass window, looking into the surgery room. A few feet below lays
Taehyung, wired and cut open, face barely recognizable. Yoongi looks away, throat hurting.

“ Jin…”

“ I know.” Jin whispers, Yoongi’s body curling into his. “My little brother’s strong. He’s gonna
be okay. Taetae’s gonna be just fine. He’s gonna make it Yoongi.” And then they turn to look at
each other in horror, thinking the same tragic thought.

They both realise the implication of Taehyung dying in surgery at the same time.

Jimin.

If Taehyung dies now, if…if…

The doctors didn’t let Hoseok and Jin wake Jimin up. They don’t even let them into Jimin’s room,
saying he needs to wake up naturally to make the fastest recovery.

Which means…

Which means Park Jimin is going to wake up to a world that doesn’t have Kim Taehyung in it.

“I know Yoongi but it’s-it’s not gonna happen.” Jin says, like they’re thinking with the same
mind. “We don’t need to worry about that because Tae is gonna make it right?” Jin asks this with
too much uncertainty, voice too shaky and tears still falling from his face but this is all Yoongi has
right now. “Right Yoongi?”

“Right.”

Whoever said time was absolute has never had to watch someone they love on the other side of a
viewing room, surgeons mutilating their beloved in the hopes of putting them back together again.

When people say: ‘time is relative’, where every minute feels like an hour feels like a year, this is
what they mean.

They mean Yoongi and Jin sitting here, in this viewing room, reminiscing every moment they’ve
ever experienced with the sleeping boy downstairs. They mean Jin thinking of Taehyung’s first
steps, his first word….

Jin.

The paintings the little boy had made for so many of Jin’s birthdays…

When people say time slows down it means Yoongi reliving every cut and bruise he had tended to
on Taehyung’s back, almost sensing his blood beneath his fingertips.

And like that, second becomes minute becomes hour and the surgery is coming to an end.

“I can’t do this.” Jin chants. “Yoongi I can’t do this.”

The dangerous thing about this surgery is that without it, Taehyung’s would die. But to carry it
out, they needed to stop Taehyung’s heart. And now that it’s time to revive him, he…his heart
might not start beating again.

Hoseok and Yoongi’s father sit beside Jin, Yoongi on his either side. As the clock counts down,
Yoongi glances at his dad, the man’s jaw stern, so obvious that he’s blinking away tears.

“Dad…” Yoongi breathes.

“Yes son.”

“Is he gonna make it?”

“I…” Min contemplates his answer. “ I hope so Yoongi.”

It’s quiet for a while after that.

“ We’re going to restart his heart.”

Yoongi shifts in his seat, Jin stands up, Hoseok sinking further into the leather.

“ Jin…Jin I can’t. I can’t.” Yoongi whispers, clutching the glass, watching Taehyung’s bloody
form on the operating table. He already looks dead.

The head surgeon looks up through the viewing glass, looking at their desperate faces, at Yoongi
crumbling against the glass.

He gives them a firm nod.

They start the revival process, turning on the machine again.

And they wait.

Yoongi can’t stand the silence.

The ECG line remains flat.

“Jin…hyung what’s happening?”

“ I don’t know Yoongi. I…” Jin chokes on a sob. “I don’t know.”

Yoongi starts banging on the glass. “What’s happening? What’s happening? Why won’t he wake
up?”

The doctors remain with their heads bowed around Taehyung, The ECG silent, the green line still
flat. The head surgeon looks up at the clock, at the men inside the viewing room.

“Time of death”-

“ NO!” Yoongi screams. “NO,” He slams his head against the glass. “DON’T YOU FUCKING
DARE SAY IT.”

“Yoongi,” Jin’s shouting beside him, Hoseok holding him back, his dad retreating into a corner.
“Yoongi, please-”

“ I won’t let you.” Yoongi howls, hands locking as he tries to leave Jin’s strong hold. “I won’t
LET you.” He wails again and again, just so he can cut out the surgeon’s voice. Just so he doesn’t
have to hear it. He wails until he loses his voice, until his knees hit the floor and all that’s left are
choked, silent, sobs. “ I…I won’t let you…”

“ Time of death is-”

The doors to the operating room open.

A lithe figure limps into the room, dressed in the aqua slacks of the doctors, mask around his face.

“Excuse me who-” One of the doctors makes a move to touch the newcomer but the strange man
kneels on the floor right next to Taehyung’s bed, grabbing his hand.

Yoongi recognizes those hands.

Small, shaking fingers take Taehyung’s bloody hand, a quivering pink mouth laying kisses on the
scars flickering cold, golden skin.

“Come…come back to me.” Jimin whispers, shaking beneath the table. “ I n-need you.” He cries,
clutching the mask, taking it off his face. “Taehyung…” Yoongi crumbles even further as he
watches Jimin struggle to breathe, as the latter grabs his throat and tried to undoe the knots in his
chest. “Taetae wake-” Yoongi stands, but his father puts a hand on his shoulder, stopping him.

“ Wake up.” Jimin sobs, clutching his chest. “Wake up.” He cries again. “You haven’t told me
you love me yet.” Jimin sobs, standing on his knees putting his head-on Taehyung’s chest. “You
haven’t- you haven’t said it you bastard.”

It’s too silent.

Everyone’s too silent.

The doctors don’t stop Jimin. Yoongi stays shriveled on the floor. Taehyung stays dead.

“ Taetae, wake up.” Jimin begs, kissing Taehyung’s hands again. “Please wake up mm? Taetae?”
Jimin slips as he’s about to stand, hands reaching for Taehyung’s face. “Open your eyes for me,
hm? Those beautiful eyes, your b-beautiful eyes Tae,” Jimin can never see Taehyung’s eyes
again.
“ Let me see them once more hm? Open them for me Tae.” Jimin trails his fingers to Taehyung’s
blue lips.

He’s never going to hear Taehyung’s laugh.

“ I love you too much for this,” Jimin whispers, kissing him. “ Tae?” He whispers, lifting his head,
fingers so unsure of where to touch.

They’re going to take Taehyung away.

Where to touch…Which parts of his face to memorize first…

Which parts of Taehyung to memorize before he kills himself?

“ Taetae?” It’s useless. It's been too long. “P-please…please, I’m begging you. I’m begging you.”
One of the nurses starts crying at this point, removing her mask with bloody hands.

“I love him.” Jimin screams, looking at the ceiling. “ I need him.” He sobs again. “Bring him back.
You’ve given me NOTHING,” Jimin bawls, voice ripped raw with pain. “I have nothing except
him. Bring him back. Bring him BACK.”

The silence that ensues is why the word was ever created in the first place, to describe this one
moment.

To describe the death of a boy who leaks paint and blood from his fingerprints, who smells of
crime and death, who has killed and tortured and hurt, but is still loved.

He is so…so…loved.

Silence was written to describe Jimin’s held breath as he waits, and prays.

For the first time in his life, Jimin prays.

He doesn’t know who to, whether they even exist, but he prays to the moon that watched them the
first-time Taehyung kissed Jimin, the first time Jimin laid himself bare, to the stars that painted
Jimin’s body as Taehyung loved and loved, with his softly rough hands and lips that divinity
sculpted for the sole purpose of fitting into the crevices of Jimin’s flesh.

Jimin prays.

“ Please…”

And he prays.

“ Please.” It’s too late. Too late. Jimin’s hand around Taehyung slackens.

“Please.” Yoongi’s muffled screams fill the hospital corridors. Jin falls, knees hitting stone cold
ground. Jimin’s handshakes as he uncurls it from Taehyung’s. It’s… it’s too late. Jimin has
nothing left. Jimin is nothing now.
Park Jimin doesn’t exist.

The head surgeon takes off his mask, head bowed, watching the golden-haired intruder sob,
kneeling next to the corpse of a boy with the hands of a man and an un-beating heart.

“Time of death…” The sob Jimin lets out at the words is perhaps the single most heartbreaking cry
of a patient’s beloved the surgeon has ever heard. Jimin wails, just like Yoongi had. He wails and
wails, and he mourns. “Time of death is one fifty thr-”

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Taehyung’s hand twitches, and wraps around Jimin’s.

__________________________

Interlude of A Sleeping Moonchild

" Tae? Earth to Taehyung…? Hello?”

Taehyung blinks his eyes open, confused.

“ What the hell are you thinking about so weirdly? Is it a girl?” There’s not much light when he
opens his eyes but it still hurts. Maybe it’s because Jimin is kind of shining right now. And
Taehyung feels like he’s been sleeping for so long.

“Jimin?” He says, incredulous.

“Um…” Jimin moves closer down, cocking up a brow. “Yes Taehyung?”

“Why are you on top of me?” The younger asks, shifting uneasily. “Why…Why is your hair
pink?”

Doesn’t Jimin have gold hair right now?

“Dude…” Jimin whistles, rolling off of him. “Hit me the fuck up with whatever it is you’re
taking.”

“ I don’t do drugs dipshit.” Taehyung swears, pushing Jimin off even as he distinctly remembers a
shady image of a line of cocaine spread on a sharp, pale collarbone. “I don’t do drugs…”
Taehyung drawls, worriedly. “Right?”

“Tae…” Jimin whispers worriedly, moving closer to Taehyung. They’re lying on the floor of a
balcony of the K Wing, looking up at the stars that are much clearer this high up, just on the
outskirts of New York. “Are you pretending to sleep just to make me feel better again?”

“No!” Taehyung half shouts, sitting up defensively. “No fuck’s sake Jimin, I swear I’m sleeping
well. Fucking weird, I just feel weird.”

“How so?” Jimin asks, outlining the shapes of the sparse clouds with chubby fingers.

“ Dunno” Taehyung drawls. “Jus’ weird? Like light? I feel light right now.”

“You are on drugs, aren’t you?” Jimin asks, chuckling.

“No,” Taehyung sighs. “You’re the one on drugs.” He says, and his bitter tone surprises him.
Jimin flinches next to him.

“I’m not on any right now though…” He whispers a bit less animatedly.

“Oh…” Taehyung whispers, the mood a bit thick. Bit awkward. “Okay.”

Jimin seems to be contemplating next to him, he’s got that cute knot ghosting on his forehead, lip
caught between his teeth, fidgeting with his fingers. He finally lets out a long sigh.

“I…” He starts quietly, voice small. “I didn’t kiss him you know.”

Taehyung tuts, turning away.

“You’re the one who brought it up this time.”

“Well I don’t know what you think about the whole thing, you’ve been so fucking pissy about it
but…” Jimin corrects his aggressive tone, sighing. “But I did not kiss that dude at the party last
week.”

“It’s…it’s not any of my business who you kiss Jimin.” Taehyung replies, curling into himself,
looking at the school grounds through the white stone balusters. The balcony is a large semi-circle,
nearly big enough to be considered a small room, sheer white curtains blowing outside through the
open glass doors. “If it were…” Taehyung rasps, voice breaking. Fuck puberty, Jesus Christ. “I’m
sure I’d be beyond exhausted right now.”

Jimin’s silent for a few seconds

“What?” He whispers, shock leaking through the quiet words. Taehyung ignores him. “Fucking
look at me asshole.” Taehyung turns almost immediately at the hurt in Jimin’s words, sitting up as
he pivots.

Jimin’s crying.

“ Is that what you fucking think of me?” Jimin yells, pearls streaking down his face.
“ No?” Taehyung replies, panicked as Jimin crosses his legs, sliding backwards until his back hits
the balusters on the opposite sides, the sheer curtains blowing in front of his face. “I…It’s…”
Taehyung stutters on his words. He’s never good with Jimin crying.

Jimin crying is fucking horrible.

He’s the silent crier, always holding his head down so his tears don’t touch his face, so his cheeks
don’t get all red and blotchy. He’s the kind of crier who had cried so much that he’s perfected the
art of crying whenever and wherever. And no one would realise there’s even anything wrong.

Except Taehyung.

Except him.

“It’s…It’s none of my business Jimin, I thought I…what the fuck, please stop crying? What did I
do? Jimin, Jimin c’mon, I’m sorry, whatever it is.”

“Asswipe. Fucking asshole.” Jimin swears, burying his head in his bent knees, pink hair soft,
shining purple beneath the blue moon. “I hate you so much.”

“Jimin I’m sorry, fuck’s sake. I’m fucking sorry. Stop- Stop…why are you crying? What did I
say?”

“Everything.” Jimin whines. “Everything’s your fault.”

“Okay. Okay sure, it’s my fault. Just stop crying yeah? Jimin?” Taehyung says, walking towards
him on his knees, reaching out to hold Jimin’s hand when he hesitates. “ Can I- Can touch you?”

“No, fuck no.” Jimin shouts, swatting his hands away, pushing Taehyung so hard he falls on his
ass.

“For fuck’s sake, what did I even do? I can’t even touch you?”

“Why the fuck do you ask every time you want to?” Jimin asks, looking up, angry tears inking his
eyes pink and crimson.

“What?”

“Why do you fucking ask like I’ll say no?” Jimin screams.

“What the fuck?” Taehyung snaps. “Where is this even coming from?”

“ I don’t fucking know Tae?” Jimin retorts, expression unreadable. He’s wearing Taehyung’s
white t-shirt, sleeve hanging off his shoulder. Taehyung finds himself staring. He quickly looks
away. “Like that!” Jimin suddenly exclaims, laughing coldly. “What the fuck was that? Why do
you look at me like that?” Jimin asks. “It’s like everyone else fucking throws themselves at me, no
matter who they are, how old they are. They all want me so bad it’s embarrassing, and then
there’s fucking you, you fucking asshole.”

“ I…” Taehyung chokes, massaging his head. “I…what? What?”

“Touch me then, go ahead.” Jimin seems annoyed with the way things are going, laughing
hysterically. “What the fuck are you gonna do? Pet my hair? Give me a nice, brotherly hug?”

“Jimin I…I don’t understand.”

“ I didn’t fucking kiss him you bastard. I haven’t…I didn’t…” Taehyung cranes his leg closer as
“ I didn’t fucking kiss him you bastard. I haven’t…I didn’t…” Taehyung cranes his leg closer as
Jimin muffles his words in his knees again.

“What?” Taehyung replies, puzzled. “I-I can’t hear you, Jesus fucking Christ Jimin,” He swears,
finally coming to grab Jimin’s arms, taking them away gently, then grabbing his cheeks, making
him look at him.

“ Stop…” Taehyung forgets his trail of thought as Jimin stares at him angrily, lips and eyes
swollen, face red. “ Stop muffling your words.” He whispers.

“ I didn’t kiss him.” Jimin says again.

“ Oka-”

“I haven’t kissed anyone.”

“ Oka-” Taehyung goes to reply again when he stops.

Wait…

Taehyung stares as Jimin dumbly, his hands on the latter’s face slackening, falling to his sides.

What?

“You actually fucking believe the rumors, don’t you?” Jimin accuses, hurt etched into every inch
of his crying face. “Motherfucking dumbass.”

“ You…” Taehyung shakes his head a bit, blinking away his puzzled vision . “You haven’t?”

“Are you actually fucking kidding me Tae? Firstly, I’d fucking tell you, you fucking moron, we
tell each other fucking…” Jimin hesitates, head hanging low. “Everything.” The word comes out
small, shaky, and a second later he’s back to his angry self. “Secondly, are you out of your actual
fucking mind?” Jimin is so loud this time that his voice ricochets through the whole sky, through
the school gardens below, but Taehyung still looks completely numb.

“I’m…I’m really fucking confused right now.” Tae confesses, Jimin laughing at his expression.

“Oh my fucking god.” Jimin scoffs, utterly exasperated.

“You…” Taehyung chokes, still puzzled. “I thought you…”

“ What? Sleep around? You probably think I have fucking orgies every week, don’t you?” Jimin
accuses.

“ I… you just…never…tell me about that part of your life…I thought…” Jimin laughs at
Taehyung’s justification, running his fingers through his hair.

“Did you ever maybe stretch that pretty little genius head of yours enough to realise that maybe
it’s because ‘that part’ of my life-” Jimin puts the words in quotation marks, squinting amusedly at
Taehyung. “And anyway, how fucking old are you dude, you’re fourteen, get a grip.” He asks,
laughing coldly again, scoffing at Taehyung’s dumb face. “‘That part’” Jimin mocks, quoting
Taehyung’s choice of words. “Jesus, it’s s just fucking sex…” Jimin emphasizes, Taehyung
caught in a choking spree all of a sudden.

“ Yeah,” Jimin continues his previous trail of thought. “ Maybe you could have put yourself
through a little fucking trouble and maybe? Just maybe? Accommodated the possibility…” Jimin
rambles, breathless and absolutely furious.
“ That I don’t tell you because that part of my life doesn’t fucking exist?” He asks with a hot
breath, fixing Taehyung with a furious glare.

“ I…”

“ The things everyone says about me…they bring it out of their fucking asses. They come on to
me and I push them away and they go away butt hurt and rejected,” Jimin explains a bit more
calmly. “ So they lie and make me look like some kind of fucking school slut. And they
succeeded,” He continues, laughing through the hurt. “Obviously, since my own fucking best
friend fucking believed them.” Taehyung finally snaps out of his daze.

“Don’t say it like that.”

“Wow,” Jimin exclaims, huffing. “I didn’t think you’d actually believe all that without asking me
even once.”

“ I…”

“ Me?” Jimin mutters sarcastically. “Me! A fucking slut,” He chuckles in disbelief. “I fucking
loathe my body, I can’t even imagine taking my shirt off in front of anyone.” Jimin laughs, tears
quietly slipping again. “ A slut? Orgies? Are you fucking kidding me?”

Taehyung doesn’t say anything for a whole minute, just looking at Jimin, trying to understand,
because for the life of him he’s not getting a single word that’s leaving Jimin’s mouth right now.

“What?” Taehyung breathes, half laughing. “What-what do you mean?” Jimin looks like he wants
to punch him.

“What do you mean what do I mean?”

“You…” Taehyung realises Jimin’s actually being serious a full five minutes later.

“ You…you hate…your body?” Jimin squints, looking at Taehyung like a child who’s being
explained something to for the sixth time.

“What?” Jimin snaps. “That’s…that’s not what this is about Tae. I’m-”

“ But…” Taehyung interrupts him without even realizing it, eyes pensive, vision glassy with
confused denial. “But it’s so fucking beautiful?”

Jimin stops breathing.

“ W…W-what?” Did he hear wrong? Surely, surely, he must have. His lungs start hurting, but he
doesn’t let himself breathe. Taehyung stays quiet and Jimin realises that he heard wrong after all.
He lets himself breathe just as Taehyung parts his lips again.

“Your…” And he has to hold his breath all over again. “Your body is…but it’s so beautiful?”

Oh.

“You…” Jimin shakes his head, angry tears turning into something softer. “You don’t mean that.”

“Jimin you…” Taehyung looks like a kicked puppy, eyes looking at Jimin with so much
accusation, jaw quivering with each breath, hands shaking.

He’s so nervous.
“You’re fucking gorgeous, why-why do you think there’s so many people after you all the time?”

“I…I don’t know?” Jimin replies, voice small, retreating into himself again. “I don’t know what
they see I-I’d hide my face if I could…I…I don’t like anything about myself... I hate it…I hate it
all.”

“What the fuck are you even saying…” Taehyung’s crying. Jimin hates it when he cries. “Jimin
your body is so fucking beautiful, I- I always wanted to paint it so bad. If-if I ever start painting
again, it would be to paint your body. It would be to paint you…” Taehyung breathes, cheeks red.
“ It would be to paint you.” He says again.

“Why…why haven’t you?” Jimin squeaks, looking at Taehyung through the gap between his
arms folded through his knees, the curtain of his pink hair.

Taehyung looks a soft shade of blue in the window of Jimin’s hair, shining beneath the pale
moonlight.

“I don’t think I could ever do it justice.” Taehyung replies, nose red from the cold.

“You…you like my body?” Jimin asks quietly, not looking at Taehyung.

“Jimin I…” Taehyung sobs the next words, choking on his words so painfully that Jimin’s head
creeps out of his knees in shock. “I fucking love your body. I love it so much.”

“ D-don’t…don’t say it like that.” Jimin says, voice shaky and small.

“ Jimin you’re…you’re beautiful, do you actually not fucking realise that?”

“ I’m not,” Jimin cries, jaw stern. “I’m really not. I’m not, you’re…you’re just saying that.”

“Jimin…how…how could you say that? You’re…” Taehyung shuffles closer, trailing tears in
front of him as he removes Jimin’s arms from his knees once and for all, spreads them gently,
placing himself between Jimin’s bent legs. “You’re the single, most beautiful thing I’ve…” He’s
trembling between Jimin’s legs, words leaving his mouth softly, whispered like ancient secrets.
“That I’ve ever seen in my l-life, are you fucking stupid?” Taehyung asks, his hand hovering to
Jimin’s face without realizing it. He doesn’t touch him. “How could you…how could you hate a
body this beautiful?” He retreats a bit as he says the words, eyes roaming the expanse of Jimin’s
small form, hands trembling as they flutter just above clothed skin, not knowing if he can touch.
Not knowing where to touch…the entire world at his hands. “How could you hate the thing that
I…”

Taehyung stops himself.

He didn’t want it to be like this. He doesn’t…he can’t, he-he isn’t brave enough but… But Jimin’s
hand is wrapping around his, slowly, carefully locking their fingers together until Jimin’s shaking
becomes Taehyung’s and they don’t know who’s more afraid.

Just that they are.

“ Tae…” Jimin whispers, his free hand going to caress the panes of Taehyung’s face. It’s scary,
it’s really fucking scary. “That you…what?”

“ How… How could you hate the thing that I love most?”

Jimin’s breath falters.

“ My… my body?” Taehyung chokes on a crying laugh.

“ You.” He whispers, forehead connecting with Jimin’s. “You, you stupid fucking brat. You
whiney…” Jimin’s lips look lilac in the light, his skin a pale blue, just like Taehyung’s. He’s
beautiful. He’s so beautiful in this moment that Taehyung wonders for a second, just a second, if
this is real after all.

Even with all of the bullshit…

Taehyung chuckles suddenly, his laugh carrying in the silent wind.

Even with a dad who beats him red and blue…a mum who was never there…an empire of crime
with his name written on it with the blood of innocents…

Taehyung…Taehyung can’t find it within himself to complain.

He can’t complain to whoever it is, whatever it is that made it like this.

Because he has Jimin.

Because they gave him Jimin.

Because he’s allowed this-this one thing.

“ Insufferable…”

This boy that doesn’t look real half the time.

“ Beautiful brat.”

This boy with sad eyes.

“You.” Taehyung murmurs again.

This boy who has been running away for so long that he forgets that Taehyung has been running
right beside him. This boy who is lying just to keep Taehyung alive.

“Asshole,” Taehyung curses, wetting his lips. “You’re the fucking asshole. I can’t- I can’t believe
you feel that way about yourse-”

“Stop crying-” They’re so close right now. So…so…close. Hot breath blowing into each other’s
mouth, Taehyung’s stomach pressed against Jimin’s, his long, shaggy hair blowing in a morning
breeze. The sheer curtains paint a canvas of light blue behind Taehyung, like they’re drifting in the
clouds, as moonchildren should. “Stop crying Taetae.” Jimin whispers, pressing Taehyung closer.

“No, you stop fucking crying, I’m allowed to cry.”

“What?” Jimin squeaks, throat hurting when he chuckles. “And I’m not? That’s not fair.”

“The world isn’t fucking fair Jimin, get over it.”

“ I think it’s fair.” Jimin whispers, Taehyung shivering as he molds his body into Jimin’s, pressed
so tight against the balusters that they become one. The scene resembles the beginning stages of
the golden statue in the foyer back home, the two bodies not drawn apart yet, but one. Holding as
tightly as they can before they’re ripped apart.

“Well you’re stupid.” Taehyung reprimands just as Jimin says:

“Because it gave me you.”

The world is fair to Jimin because it gave him Taehyung.

Taehyung’s chest has never hurt so much. Heart beating so fast he can’t breathe, so furiously in
love inside his chest as his hand clutches Jimin’s shirt to see if it would make it better.

It doesn’t.

“Have…Have you ever kissed anyone before Tae?”

Taehyung looks at him through glassy eyes and he realises quite suddenly he’ll never be able to
see Jimin with clarity when he’s so close. Because when the world births you into an existence of
blood, of crime, of an escapade of human corruption, but gives you Park Jimin beside it, there is
nothing to say but ‘Thank You’.

So Taehyung always looks at Jimin with a shaky vision, tears in his eyes, like he’s in the presence
of God.

Because that’s what Jimin is.

Jimin is Taehyung’s God.

“You know I haven’t.”

It’s a tale as old as time then, as the moon slowly fades, pretending she doesn’t see as her
children’s lips quiver and ache, pretending this isn’t fated, pretending they’re the ones in control.
She retreats into the safety of the sky where she doesn’t warn them that they shouldn’t. That they
mustn’t begin what has to come to an end.

The moon sleeps while her children lie awake, cold and unbearably hot, running their thumbs
across each other’s shaking lips while they draw closer yet.

“Jimin…”

“Yeah…”

“I…” She hears her younger’s voice break as he confesses, she delays her departure. She needs to
tell them to stop, she needs to tell them, to tell them…

“Can I…” Jimin smiles. “Can I kiss you?””

“Are you always going to ask before you do it?”

That word, always.

“Yeah, I think so.” Taehyung replies.

‘Why?”

“I don’t want to be my dad.”

“You’re not your father’s son, Tae. You…” Jimin doesn’t know what to say. Taehyung could
never…he could never be his dad.

“You’re too much Jimin.” Taehyung whispers, like someone’s going to hear them.
Yes, the moon thinks.

Whisper quietly, tell him softly, so nobody hears. So, they don’t find you. So they leave you alone.

“So…you’re so much that I- that I feel like I need permission.”

“You’ve-” Jimin’s voice breaks. “You’ve always had my permission.”

“You might change your mind.” Jimin laughs at Taehyung like he’s a madman.

And he is. That’s what Jimin has made him become.

“ I’m never going to change my mind.”

“ I’m still gonna ask.” Taehyung repeats.

“ You love me a lot don’t you?” Jimin asks, leaving his lips parted.

“Yeah, yeah I fucking do.”

“ I love you.” Jimin replies softly. “I love you too.”

“I-” They’ve talked about this, about Taehyung not being able to say it. “I don’t think I can say it
back.”

“I know, I don’t care, it’s-it’s okay.”

“Okay.” Taehyung breathes, and they can’t hold back much longer.

“ You can kiss me, Tae.” Jimin permits slowly, biting his lip when Taehyung hesitates.

“ I’m scared.” He confesses.

“ Me too.”

Taehyung grabs his chest again.

“ It hurts.”

“Where?”

He points at his heart.

“ Here.”

Jimin chuckles, his chest hurting too. It’s cheesy and so raw, but it hurts so much that they can’t
breathe. It’s like someone told their hearts but forgot to tell them, so they don’t know. They don’t
know why it hurts so much.

They can’t know.

“Mine too.” Jimin agrees.

“This is scary.” Taehyung voices as Jimin wraps his arms around his waist, the younger’s knees
hurting from how long he’s been sat in between Jimin’s legs, but nothing else matters.

“I know.”
“I’ve…” Taehyung grabs Jimin’s neck, curling his hand around it, pink hair soft beneath his
fingertips. “I’ve never felt like this before.”

“For the record…” Jimin suddenly says. “You’re really fucking beautiful too Taehyung.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

They start giggling, so unsure and young, their laugh tasting of careless youth to the slumbering
wind.

“I’m gonna make sure you learn to love your body as much as I love it.” Taehyung promises, and
it scares Jimin, the way he says it.

Because he knows Taehyung never makes an empty vow.

“Yeah?” He purrs, pressing Taehyung closer. “How are you going to do that?” Jimin asks, and he
tries to be smooth, he really does, but instead his voice shakes and Taehyung lets out a shy laugh,
burying his face in Jimin’s shoulder. “Did you not think that far yet?” Jimin teases, hand drawing
circles on Taehyung’s spine.

“ I don’t know Jimin,” He whines, the motion of his lips against Jimin’s exposed neck returning
them both to the current situation. “Stuff they show in films.”

Oh.

“Would-would you let me?” Taehyung asks, and Jimin just knows his eyes must be shining. right
now, but he’s glad the younger’s head is buried into his chest. He’s glad because Taehyung
doesn’t see him swallowing down the pain.

“ It scares me a bit.” Jimin whispers, and even when he’s telling the truth he’s lying.

It scares him more than a bit.

It scares him because he can still feel his father’s hands on his hips from last week, digging into
him because he failed to do what he’d been asked yet again. Because he feels so lost.

It scares him because he’s never been kissed but by god, he’s been ruined so hard, so thoroughly,
so many times, by so many.

Ruined and dirtied against his will, again and again.

Again, and again and again.

It scares him because he knows Taehyung can change that. Even without knowing, Taehyung
will probably make it all go away, like it never even happened in the first place. He’d wait when
Jimin tells him to stop, he’d fuss and he’d listen, he’d listen to Jimin.

No one’s ever listened like Taehyung.

No one has ever heard Jimin before him.

“ But I think you’re the only person that could make the fear go away.” Jimin confesses.

This one is a lie too.

Because Jimin is sure.

“I’m gonna try real hard.”

“You…” Jimin chuckles. “You should kiss me first before doing the stuff in the films though
right? Baby steps?”

“Oh uh…” They both burst out laughing again, heads buried in each other’s shoulders, lips
hesitant and closed against each other’s necks. “Yeah,” Taehyung agrees, finally resting his
forehead on Jimin’s again. “Yeah I probably should.” He moves closer.

“I love you.”

Taehyung presses his palms against Jimin’s cheeks, bringing his face closer.

Their lips touch.

Taehyung knows what home tastes like now.

“ Come back to me.”

It’s cold when Taehyung licks into Jimin’s mouth. It’s far too cold…and dark, it’s suddenly really,
really dark.

“What’s happening?” Taehyung whispers, the taste of Jimin’s lips fading.

“ I need you.”

Jimin starts slipping through his hands.

“ What? What are you talking about?”

“Taehyung, wake up.”

He can’t. Taehyung can’t…fucking…move.

“ Jimin I can’t… I can’t- they won’t let me, they’re- I-I can’t-”

“Wake up.”

Taehyung learns the definition of fear in this one moment, wrapped in complete darkness, the
shadow of the shackles chained to his ankles painting his legs black, Jimin’s voice haunting him.
It’s cold. It’s so cold.

“You haven’t told me you love me yet.”

Out of everything Jimin screams, this one hurts the most, and Taehyung wails when Jimin says it;
he screams until he loses his voice, until he turns himself deaf and he can’t even hear himself
anymore.

Taehyung cries for Jimin until he turns himself blind, scratching at the shackles that bind him. He
bleeds and bleeds, struggles against the chains until he cripples his legs.

“You haven’t said it you bastard.”

Because for Jimin, Taehyung died for only less than a minute.
“I need him.”

But here, in this darkness, Taehyung learnt what it was to spend an eternity without Jimin.

“I love him.”

He sits there crippled, blind and deaf, relieving their memories like a broken record. He sits there
broken and limp, until he can’t remember anything but the name ‘Jimin.’ Until he forgets who he
is.

“Please.”

Taehyung hears the thousandth echo of the word, then the millionth, then the last and he ignores
it.

He doesn’t even know what it means.

“Please.”

It happens again.

The word never stops echoing and that voice…that voice...he-he’s sure he knows it. The shackles
falter around his ankles. Taehyung stands. There’s a brightness…a gold, white light.

He reaches for it, and touches skin.

“ Please.”

The darkness lets Taehyung go.

__________________________

The darkness lets Taehyung forget.

___________________________

Part II

One week later

“It’s snowing again.” Jimin whispers, sliding his lips up and down Taehyung’s knuckles.

“Mm, here.” Taehyung murmurs, pointing at his lips, Jimin chuckling at the gesture.

“Silly.” Jimin reprimands, stretching over the bed, dodging the wires attached to Taehyung,
planting a chaste kiss on his lips.

“I miss your body.” Taehyung says, fingers threading through Jimin’s hair as the latter lays his
head on his chest, pushing him closer. “So much.”

“Me too.”

“I need to feel you.” Taehyung whines, pulling Jimin’s hair slightly.

“You…asshole,” Jimin spits, lifting his head. “Fucking asshole.”

“Don’t talk to me like that.” Taehyung urges, famous pout playing on his lips.

“You fucking died.” Jimin whimpers, Taehyung’s playful expression crumbling. “You…you died
right in front of my eyes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Fuck you.” Jimin curses.

“ God,” Taehyung moans, grabbing Jimin’s neck to bring him closer, biting his lip. “ Don’t tempt
me.”

“Your leg is literally broken.” Jimin complains, leaving wet kisses all across Taehyung’s face.
Taehyung suddenly winces, a flash of red in his vision, laughing it off when Jimin looks at him
worriedly.

“My dick still works.” Jimin snorts.

“Fucking insufferable.” He scoffs, shaking his head. Taehyung smiles.

“But you love me.” He whispers.

Jimin sighs.

“ I love you.”

Taehyung doesn’t say it back.

Jimin burrows his head further into Taehyung’s chest, molding his ear to his heartbeat,
Taehyung’s arm around his waist tightening.

‘You haven’t told me you love me yet.’

Taehyung’s eyes widen.

When had Jimin said that to him?

“Are you staying tonight as well?” Taehyung whispers, trying to collect his hazy thoughts.

“Obviously.” Jimin says, very matter of fact.

“Fucking insufferable.” Taehyung swears, voice deep, soothing and familiar when he chuckles.

“But you love me.”

Taehyung looks like he’s going to cry.

“ I do.”

“ Sleep Tae.” Jimin says, kissing his forehead.

And Taehyung does. With Jimin breathing on top of him, he sleeps. The moment he feels Jimin’s
body uncurl itself from him, he stirs, but keeps his eyes closed.

“ I’ll be back okay?” Jimin whispers, moving a stray tendril of hair from Taehyung’s face so he
can drink as much of him in as he can. “I need to find him.” He says, the sounds Taehyung hears
clearly telling of Jimin’s departure.
He should have known the moment Jimin walked in with his black duffle bag, should have
known that he was going to leave tonight.

Taehyung grits his teeth, keeping his breathing slow, maintained.

“I can’t let this happen to you again.” Jimin explains, siting on the chair, bag in hand, taking
Taehyung’s hand in his. “Come find me okay?” It’s like Jimin knows Taehyung is pretending to
be sleeping. “I’m just getting us a head start.” Jimin says, kissing his hands once more.

“ And then we’ll catch the legacy together.”

Taehyung almost opens his eyes then, as Jimin stands to leave. It’s silly, because they’re not even
saying goodbye. Taehyung knows he would have done the same if their positions were reversed.

Especially after the meeting they all had together this morning (excluding Jungkook), Namjoon
updating them on the logistics of the whole fiasco through the video call, it's clear to them all that
they don’t have a lot of time.

Taehyung thinks back to the threat, the photos Hoseok had come to New York to deliver because
giving them to anyone else to bring was too risky.

His daddy’s daddy got too big for his boots.

And painted my daddy’s world in black and red.

And when I came out, my daddy’s daddy and mommy were dead.

So, I’ll give his friends a puzzle to solve,

And when the puzzle is picture perfect,

All the king’s horses, and all the king’s men…

Won't be able to put Taehyung back together again.

The legacy. That’s who this is about, their revenge. A puzzle, a threat, a vendetta. And
Taehyung’s the grand prize. Taehyung’s grandfather missed someone out during the crime war,
he was careless and blinded by the promise of a new empire that was to be his and his only.

And now the Moonchildren are paying its price, being made to play a game that resembles war
with a forgotten legacy of The Black Rebellion. Someone who lost everything at the hands of
Taehyung’s grandfather.

Hoseok has replicated the photos, which they counted four thousand of in total, one set going to
Namjoon, an obvious choice what with him now being a PhD Mathematics student at Harvard,
and the other going to Taehyung, since the entire thing is a threat directed at him in the first place,
who can work on it while recovering in the hospital.

The timer that had accompanied the photos is still going strong, counting down a limit that’s
months away, and none of them have figured out what it’s counting down to.

“Meet me under the moon Kim Taehyung.”

Jimin leaves quietly, just before dawn. He leaves to find the man he knows is behind this, the man
from Shanghai. That’s who the legacy must be.

For the sake of all of them, Jimin hopes he’s right.

Taehyung smiles at their childhood code. He’ll actually go to his physiotherapy sessions from now
on, he promises himself, instead of skipping them to work on the puzzle.

The sooner he can actually hold a gun again, the sooner he can join Jimin.

When the sun rises, the rest of the boys stumble into Taehyung’s room, breathless, sleepless and
over-caffeinated, with clothes they’ve been wearing for three days at the least.

“Jimin’s gone.” Yoongi exclaims. Taehyung turns away, looking at the window.

“I know.”
 Sick Boys

Part I

New York

The afternoon before Jimin left

Anticipation has a smell. It smells of bad coffee, pungent polystyrene and clothes laden with
sweat. Fear smells of adrenaline, tired feet, sounds like the drip-drop of blood, feels like paper
edges turned so many times, thinned by coarse, hurried fingertips. Premature defeat looks like this.

Like Jimin sitting at the corner of the room, in the arm chair by Taehyung’s bed, opening and
closing his fist in front of him. With the third crack of his knuckles, Yoongi seethes, tutting
sharply.

“What?” Jimin retorts, tone equally cutting, pressing down on his fisted hand with his fingers.

Crack.

“ Cut it out.” Yoongi says.

“ No, you two cut it out,” Taehyung snaps at Yoongi, then to Jimin, more softly: “ Please Jimin
darling, I can feel the fucking tension with my eyes closed.”

The video call with Namjoon was too long, necessary and draining all at the same time- the men
bombarded with information about the bomb, shown the CCTV footage from the Kim Mansion
that’s proved to be practically useless.

“ The bomb was homemade.” Namjoon had explained. “Though I wouldn’t have noticed if not
for the signature in the wiring. Whoever made this wanted to show off. If I made something like
this, it would be to send a message. I’m smart, look at me.” The sound of Taehyung’s silent
brooding washes the room in an uncomfortable silence. Taehyung’s thoughts are a silent typhoon,
penetrating his proximity with forceful currents of intelligence that you can feel when you’re near
him. You might not understand it- people like Kim Taehyung were not carved to be understood,
but you’re obliged to watch, just because you can’t look away.

People like him are made to be admired when they think- watch their mind toil in ancient bones-
wipe their tears, flowing down golden cheeks like pearls picked from the seven seas by Poseidon
himself, and do not try to understand them. Because you won’t. And that is why he is a
Moonchild, for his skin leaked from the light of the full moon and his eyes from an eclipse.

That is why no one can love him but Jimin.

“Jesus fucking Christ, this is a mess.” Hoseok whispers, lying back on the sofa, undoing the knot
in his shoulder with a sigh. Jin reaches over. Yoongi looks at them with a raised brow, bringing
the coffee to his lips again.
Jin recoils.

Taehyung shifts, sitting up. Without a word to Jimin, he opens his palm on the bed- it takes half a
second for Jimin’s hand to be in his, and for his lips to leave a trail of kisses on Jimin’s knuckles.

Yoongi looks away. The low table is situated a few feet from the bottom of the hospital bed,
photos scattered across its surface, Hoseok and Jin on the long sofa by the wall while Yoongi
stands off to the side, watching the afternoon torpor outside the hospital through the windows,
face coloured gold by the light.

“Anything Hoseok?” Taehyung inquires, though he’s still looking at Jimin, lips hovering over the
skin of his hands.

“Nothing at all. CCTV is clear, we don’t know who put the box at the studio.”

“Fucking fantastic,” Taehyung growls, “ah-“

“ Fucking lie down Taehyung.” Jimin reprimands, pushing his shoulder down slightly

“ You got fucking hurt,” Teahyung’s bring his hand to the scratches on Jimin’s jaw. “How am I
supposed to lie down?

“Taehyung, you fucking died.”

“ That is besides the-

“ Shut the fuck up. Fucking children.” The silence that comes with Jin’s voice being raised stays
for a long time. The smell of Yoongi’s smoke wafts through the hospital room, crawling along the
table, tendrils caressing Jin’s neck. Hoseok looks away.

“ Don’t fucking smoke in a hospital Yoongi,” Jimin complains. “You dumbass.”

“ You all literally smoke in here.”

“ I don’t.” Jin object.

“ Yes you fucking do,” Yoongi snaps, whirling. “ Remember-.”

“ Don’t fu-

“ That is enough.” Min enters the room with an exasperated sigh, shutting down the squabbling
once and for all.

“ Dad.” Yoongi greets, Min tutting at the cigarette in his hand with a scrutinising eye. “Put that
away.” He says, fatherly contempt making Yoongi roll his eyes. Seokjin brings a piece of tissue
out of his pocket, standing to pad towards Yoongi, holding it out for the pianist to put out his
smoke.

“ Thanks.” Yoongi rasps. Jin retreats to the sofa just as quickly as he came.

Hoseok watches on, schooling his expression when all he wants to do, really, is throttle Yoongi.

“ Min,” Jimin is the one to reach his hand out for the files Min comes bearing into the room. “
Have you got them?” Min hands the files to Jimin, the younger opening them straight away.

“ Are the authorities handled?” Taehyung inquires, playing with Jimin’s hair while the latter flicks
methodically through the files.
“ Handled and paid off Sir.”

“ Oh don’t call me Sir with Yoongi here,” Taehyung chuckles. “He looks like he wants to rip my
head off.”

“That’s very observant of you Taehyung.” The pianist muses flatly, reaching into his shirt pocket
before he glances at Min, dropping his hand. “Yeah, I’m done with this shit atmosphere.”
Taehyung sighs at the pianist’s dramatics. Yoongi leaves the room with a breathy chuckle,
shaking his head, Taehyung rolling his eyes as he goes.

“ I don’t know why he’s like that,” Seokjin explains, coming to stand at the foot of Taehyung’s
bed, then slowly making his way beside Taehyung. “He could barely breathe when they were
operating on you.”

“ That’s Yoongi for you.” Taehyung retorts, resting his head on Jimin’s, entangling their fingers.
He turns to Hoseok. “You staying?

“ Did I give off the illusion that I wasn’t?

“ Making sure.” Taehyung whispers quietly. Jimin’s hand beneath his tenses- at his tone, the
quietness of his voice, that tell-tale manner of answering like someone who knows what being
abandoned feels like.

“What’s the plan?” Hoseok inquires, also joining Jin next to Taehyung while Min goes to the
table, looking at the photographs splattered across the glass with pensive eyes.

Taehyung smiles at Jimin instead of answering.

“ Jimin,” He says, kissing his hand again. “ What’s the plan?”

“ How do you know I have a plan?” Jimin asks with the shut of the files, kissing the palm of
Taehyung’s hand, lazily smiling in that mystic way of his, eyes winking at Taehyung.

Taehyung raises a brow. Duffel bag, love.

Ah, am I that obvious?

You’re not good at lying to me.

The both know that’s not true.

You’re leaving, aren’t you?

I have to.

A cough interrupts them. Taehyung stirs, breaking his stare with Jimin, shifting to the see the
questioning gaze of the other three men in the room. Jimin giggles breathily, and god, how
Taehyung misses the caress of his naked laugh on his chin.

“We’re going to find this bastard.” Jimin voices with conviction.

“ You have a plan.” Hoseok observes, standing far closer to Seokjin than Taehyung finds normal
behaviour for them. He raises a questioning brow at his brother.

“ I have an inkling.” Jimin corrects wistfully, Taehyung giving him a teasing shake of the head,
Min letting out a quiet chuckle while sitting down at the table.
“ Care to share?” Jimin pretends to think, humming.

“ Not particularly.”

“ We can’t do this half informed Jimin.” Hoseok objects, Jin bringing a hand to his shoulder.

“ You’re not half informed about anything because there’s nothing known,” Jimin starts. “ -as of
yet, in the first place.”

“ Let him get something solid Hoseok,” Taehyung adds. “ He’ll tell you.”

“ And you?” The former assassin questions expectantly. “ Don’t you want to know what he’s
planning?”

“ I trust Jimin.” Taehyung says, tone final and absolute.

And that’s that.

But it’s also not. Jimin’s chest gives a frightful squeeze, hands breaking into a cold sweat that
Taehyung must feel by now- if he does, he doesn’t say anything.

“ Go, Jimin.” He whispers instead. Jimin looks up from his spot on Taehyung’s shoulder, putting
the files on the window sill. A label on the one on the top reads: ‘London, 1944’

“ What?”

“ You know what.” Taehyung says, smiling. “I can feel it, just go.”

“Just for a bit.” Jimin reassures, not letting the boy let go of his hand.

“However long it takes.” Taehyung corrects, hanging onto his fingers until the moment he’s
walked to far to hold on- and he lets go.

Jimin slips out, form lithe and far smaller than Taehyung likes him. His hands fit around Jimin’s
entire waist now, fingers nearly touching when he wraps them around the curve of his skin.
Maybe it’s just because he has big hands but god, Jimin’s waist.

He hasn’t even left the room yet and Taehyung is already aching.

“ Do you really trust him that much Sir?” Min questions suddenly, slicing through the silence.
Taehyung shuts his eyes.

“ More than anyone.”

More than I should.

“ Where's Jungkook, Yoongi?” He didn’t want the first thing that came out of his mouth to be this,
but it is and Yoongi’s turning to him with his perpetual scowl, blue hair un-brushed, eyes tired,
hands shaking. He’s wearing black pants, boots, dark navy shirt tucked into his jeans. “You
should dye your hair black you know, it suited you.”
“ He’s at my place.” Yoongi answers, deciding to ignore his suggestion.

They’re standing in the corridor on the top floor where the shitty coffee machines are located,
Yoongi only just removing his sixth cup this afternoon from the machine, Jimin leaning against the
wall on the other end.

“Why do you drink the shitty coffee when there’s-”

“It’s bitter-“ Yoongi interrupts. “Like my soul.”

“Don’t talk like that Yoon-”

“ Jungkook.” He cuts in again. “We were talking about Guk.”

“ Guk?” Jimin repeats with a scoff. “You’re on a nickname basis now?”

“You don’t want him but the rest of us aren’t allowed a taste?” Yoongi regrets the words as soon
as they’re out.

“ You don’t get to fuck him over like that,” Jimin shouts, coming closer. “ And he’s not a fucking
cake you asshole. He’s my…” Yoongi scoffs, mocking his hesitation. “ My…”

“ You absolute, fucking hypocrite.” The pianist swears, downing his cup like it’s a watered-down
shot. “What even is Jungkook to you Jimin?”

“ Now isn’t the time Yoongi.”

“ No, I’m sure he would be delighted to know,” Yoongi assures. “ As would I.”

“ He’s…” Jimin chokes on the word. “I just love him Yoongi, with all my heart, truly.”

“ Yeah just not enough.”

“ That isn’t my fucking fault.”

“ You make people fall so fucking easily Jimin,” Yoongi shouts, angry tears prickling his ears. “ It
is your fault. It’s all your fault.”

“ I’m fucking sorry-”

“ Don’t fucking apologise.” They both feel it in the air. Yoongi ignores it. Jimin’s the one to point
it out.

“ Just fucking do it you coward.”

“Shut the fuck up Jimin.”

“Yoongi-“ Yoongi turns away, padding to the bin near the coffee machines, crumpling the cup
with a white, shaking hand.

“ Jimin I said-” Yoongi turns, stepping forward at the same time- but he’s colliding with a body
even smaller than his, arms wrapping around his neck, the smell of jasmine burying itself in his
skin, tucking itself between his scent glands.

“ Just fucking hug me if you want to you absolute bastard.” Jimin complains against his chest,
holding onto him on his tiptoes, pressing Yoongi closer.
“ I didn’t think you’d let me.”

“ Are we at the point where you won’t even hold me anymore?”

“ I want to do much more than hold you Jimin.” Yoongi answers, and to show it he wraps his
arms around Jimin’s small waist, tucking him closer into him, kissing his mop of yellow hair.

“Don’t say that when you’re pressing me so close.”

“ I thought you were dead. The whole car ride to the hospital, I thought you were fucking gone.”

“ I’m sorry.” Jimin sobs into his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“ I’m fucking sorry, sorry I fell in love.” Yoongi rasps, running his hand up and down the back of
Jimin’s head. “I’m sorry you’re so easy to love. I’m sorry I messed us up.”

“ You didn’t. You didn’t mess it up.”

“ We haven’t talked in three fucking years. I did mess us up. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have said
anything, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“ Yoongi,” Jimin untangles himself from Yoongi’s embrace but the musician holds on, pulling
him back with shaking hands.

“ Don’t leave, stay, pl-“

“ I’m not going anywhere,” Jimin assures, looking up, holding Yoongi’s face in his hands. “ Just
look at me.”

“ Don’t fucking do that.” Yoongi pleads, kissing his forehead and pushing his head into his own
chest again. “You do things like that and I’m fucking weak again.”

“ I’m sorry, I-“

“ Don’t apologise.” He frets, breathing as much of him in as he can.

“ What do you want me to do?”

“ I don’t know.”

Jimin sighs.

“ I didn’t know…I didn’t know you still…”

I didn’t know you still loved me.

“ Well I fucking do.”

“ And Jungkook?” Jimin inquires, the unspoken subtext not unnoticed by Yoongi.

“ Jungkook?” Yoongi repeats, chuckling. “ The kid’s a fucking time bomb.”

“ That he is.”

“ How do you feel nothing for him,” Yoongi asks. “ Not the way he wants?”

“ Oh I do Yoongi. Have you seen him? I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t.”

“ And Taehyung knows this?”

Jimin holds onto him tighter.

“ Taehyung knows.”

“ These are some fucked up dynamics you’ve got going,” Yoongi points out. “ You know that
right?”

“ I don’t need to be told that by sex addict.”

“ And who’s fault is that in the first place?” Yoongi retorts, letting go of him but still keeping his
hands around his waist.

“ Your Mum’s.” Jimin’s reply is immediate. “Sam’s.” Yoongi tenses. “Mine.”

“ You still have no filter.” Yoongi points out, not bothering to hide the effect of Jimin’s words on
him- the shaking of his hands so apparent that Jimin’s fingers flutter to his, holding his tattooed left
arm still, smiling.

“ You’re still good at changing the subject.” Jimin observes. He’s wearing Taehyung’s clothes
again, the grey shirt far too big, blue jeans rolled up at the ankles, hospital slippers flopping around
his feet, bed hair messy and unmade. And Yoongi is still weak. “Why isn’t Jungkook here,
Yoongi?”

“ He’s…” Jimin tenses at the break in his voice. “ He’s sick Jimin.”

They both still. Jimin steps away.

“ I…” Yoongi lets his head hang, Jimin stumbling back. “What do you mean…sick?”

Yoongi turns around at the question, walking to the line of chairs next to the beverage machines to
bring his jacket over.

Jimin whispers a quiet’ no’ when the pianist produces the familiar bottle from his pocket.

“ These are…” Jimin takes the empty cylinder from Yoongi with hesistant hands. “ These are his?
Not yours?” A shake of the head from the pianist is enough for Jimin to realise.

“ Why…why didn’t he tell me?” Jimin asks, and then more quietly: “Why did he tell you?”

“ He fainted while we were at the school.”

“ He what?”

“ From the exhaustion, the hunger…” And suddenly it seems like Yoongi isn’t talking about
Jungkook, but himself. “ You- you know how it works.”

“ Is it as bad as yours was?” Jimin’s treading on egg shells, testing Yoongi’s waters, his history
with white pills.

“ Maybe worse, I don’t know.”

“ This is all my fault.”

Yoongi doesn’t bother to correct him, because maybe it is. Instead the words he’d been avoiding
come tumbling out.
“His…” Jungkook had told him not to. Told him not to say. It’s too late. “Jimin his feet. The
cigarette burns...”

Jimin’s face falls.

“ Did you two... did you…”

“ No!” Jimin doesn’t look relieved.

He just looks numb.

“ Fuck no, who do you think I am?” Jimin raises a brow at the pianist.“ Okay...touché... But no,
no we didn’t he…he’s been sleeping at mine for a week.”

“You’ve been nursing him, like-” Jimin stops himself, running a hand through his light hair.

“ Yeah, like Sam.”

“ Like Tae,” Jimin adds. “ Like me.”

“ Jimin, his feet…”

“ He’s been to eleven care homes Yoongi.” Jimin says, letting that speak for itself. “He’s been an
orphan since he was a baby.”

“ You mean like…” Yoongi bites his tongue.

“ Like what?”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“ Nothing.”

“ Yoongi, what-“

“ Do you want to see him?” The pianist quickly asks.

“ We fought.”

“ I know, I’ve been going to check on him every night and morning. He told me.”

“ I was wondering why you’re so exhausted. Just go home.”

“ He needs you Jimin.” Yoongi pleads.

“ I can’t give him more than what you can- in more ways than one.” Jimin proclaims with an
underlying tone. “I’m sure.”

“ Don’t take that tone with me,” The musician snaps. “ We haven’t done anything. And I’m not
taking him to bed…” And then quieter, upon seeing the cocked brow on Jimin’s forhead,
“Anytime soon at least.”

“ Why not?”

“ He needs to be loved, not lusted.”

“ The fact that you think of that makes me think you’re halfway there already.” Jimin points out.
Yoongi hates him for it.

“ I kissed him.”

“Did…” Jimin fumbles with his words. “ Did…did he like it?”

“ I kissed him because he looked so sad the first time. So he didn’t have a panic attack the second.
And the rest because he asked.”

Jimin can imagine Jungkook asking for kisses, because it’s just something he’d do.

“You’re off to a great start then.”

“ He’s… he’s so fucking young Jimin.” Yoongi stars, lip kneaded between his teeth. “And
innocent. He trembles at the slightest inkling of affection. He just melts in my hands,” Jimin
smiles. Yoongi is much further gone than he’d like to admit already.

He’s the one Jungkook’s got wrapped around his fingers, not the other way around.

“ He’s so ready to submit. It’s so fucking dangerous.”

“ I know,” Jimin assures. “I know, that’s what we fucking started fighting about in the first place.”

“ You were his only role model Jimin. You…you should have taught him better.”

“ I was fucking afraid. Of making it worse, of making him fall even harder.”

“ You-”

“ I fucking failed, I know.”

“ I don’t know what to do.” Yoongi confesses. It’s not often that he doesn’t, someone like Min
Yoongi. But in the past week he’s found himself more lost for a path to take than he has in his
entire life.

“ Get him off the damned drugs Yoongi.”

“ You got me off mine. You know how fucking hard it is.”

“ Then you must know better than anyone what he needs.”

“ What he needs…” Yoongi repeats, scoffing. “He needs you. He whimpers your name in his
fucking sleep.”

There goes something else Jungkook wouldn’t have liked him to know.

“ He…he does?”

“ You’re so blind Jimin, so blind to what you make of the people you let fall for you.”

“ I can’t stop them. I would, I would if I could.”

“ He needs you right now.” Yoongi says again.

“ He needs to fall out of love. You just want me to see him because you’re afraid of what you two
have. I’m bad for him Yoongi.”
“ And I’m not? What we have? What the hell do you suppose that is?”

“ I know about the bar.” Jimin replies. Yoongi lets out a loud breath, chuckling in that disbelieving
way of his.

“ You…” Yoongi exclaims. “How?” Jimin just waits for him.“ Oh,” Yoongi observes. “Little
prince, of course, one tends to forget that you’re actually a full time espionage prince and part time
killer.”

“ Jeez…” Jimin sighs. “ Easy there on the poison.”

The silence between them isn’t awkward or comfortable, just quiet that stretches and itches
Yoongi’s hands.

“ You started playing again?” Jimin asks.

“ I think playing is taking it a bit too far.”

“ Can you just for once not have a come back to everything I say?”

“ No?” The punch that Jimin throws at his shoulder is reminiscent of old times, old them.

“Do you…” Jimin starts, unsure. “ Do you feel for him?”

“ If I say no I’d be a damned liar, If I said yes…”

“ Yes?” Jimin urges.

“ I’d be committing to something I can’t name,” Yoongi replies. “ When I’m still…”

When I’m still weak for you.

“ Let go of me Yoongi.” Jimin asks for quietly, not looking at him.

“ You can’t ask something like that of me. You just can’t.”

“ But I am, now that I see… you could love him Yoongi.”

“Don’t dismiss me like that…” The musician says in a quite plea. “ Not when we’ve only just…”

“ I’m not throwing you away Yoongi, I’m telling you to be free of me.”

“ I don’t…” Yoongi objects. “ I can’t…not- not how it is with you…”

“You just think that right now, give it a try. Love him, Yoongi, in that all or nothing way of
yours.” Jimin whispers, letting himself smile at the man the way he wants to without being afraid,
sweetly, lovingly. Yoongi has tears in his eyes when he lets his head rise from the floor. “You
sure as hell already know you will- you’re weak for boys with sad eyes.”

“ I’m weak for you.” The pianist urges.

“ Be strong for him.” Jimin says, and it seems like Yoongi can’t fight anymore because he just
pulls him into a hug again.

“ You bastard.” He swears, inhaling the jasmine of Jimin’s hair.

“ Take care of him while I’m gone.” Yoongi tenses.

“ Where are you going?”

“ Do I not get a hug?” The voice parts their bodies.

They both let go at the same time, not in alarm, as if they’re doing something wrong, but to turn to
Taehyung who appears from the wall next to the elevators.

“ How long have you been standing there?” Yoongi asks with an exasperated tone.

“ Long enough to know you need to get home to the damned kid.”

“ I didn’t know you cared Taehyung.” Yoongi questions, dubious.

“ I don’t, but Jimin does, which means I do.” The smile pulling at Jimin’s lips at Taehyung’s
words is far from unnoticed by the pianist.

“ That is admirable in a deeply twisted way.” Yoongi replies, Jimin moving away to walk towards
Taehyung.

Well isn’t that just the story of Yoongi’s life?

“ Twisted is my middle name.” Taehyung assures, pushing the IV stand away, one leg in a plaster,
balancing his crutches to kiss Jimin’s cheek when he comes over, the older telling him off for
getting out of bed.

“ I thought it was Asswipe?”

“ EVERY-“ They both laugh at Jimin’s angry outburst. “ -single fucking time you two are
breathing the same air I have to go through this.” Jimin exclaims, condemning both of them with
furious eyes.

“ Maybe if he was a bit more threatened by me,” Yoongi replies, walking closer. “I wouldn’t feel
so offended.”

“ I trust Jimin too much for that.” Taehyung assures.

“ Too much?” Jimin questions with a pout. “Should I be offended?”

“ You should be flattered.” The younger corrects.

“ You always flatter me.” Jimin replies.

Yoongi makes a retching motion with his hands and mouth, scowling.

“ Have the decency not to flirt while I’m right here, Christ.”

“ You could have the decency to not put up such a childish act when Jin told me everything
about-“

“ Well Jin’s lying.” Yoongi interrupts.

“ Yoongi.”
“ For fuck’s sake.” Jimin swears, pivoting to go behind Yoongi, pushing him into Taehyung
softly. “ C’mon boys, hug it ou-“ Taehyung and Yoongi both wrap their arms around Jimin at the
same time, pulling him into the embrace, Jimin melting into their bodies, the three Moonchildren a
tangle of limbs and lost time.

“ You distanced yourself for three fucking years man.” Taehyung rasps, one hand clutching
Yoongi’s shoulder, the other around Jimin’s waist.

“ I didn’t think you’d fucking want me near him,” Yoongi replies. “ Near you..”

“ We’re fucking best friends Yoongi. You brought us up, I don’t get to make that decision and
neither do you, not alone.”

“ You fucking died.”

“ I’ve already given him that lecture twice this morning.” Jimin assures, chuckling into their
embrace. Taehyung dismisses both of them with a dashing smile, pressing the boys closer to
himself.

“ Go home Yoongi,” Taehyung urges, stepping away. “Get some rest.”

“ I need to check up on him.” The pianist agrees. Taehyung gives him a wicked smile in reply.
Yoongi knows exactly what he’s thinking. “Don’t look at me like that,” Jimin smirks at Yoongi’s
defensive tone “ Both of you.” The pianist emphasises, letting go of the embrace.

He bids farewell with his perpetual scowl and bony hands waving them goodbye. It’s not perfect,
or like old times, but it’s a start.

And a start is all Yoongi’s wanted.

________________________________

Yoongi walks into his penthouse a little after eleven, piano and violin intermixing to sing the
melody of Ave Maria, and when the piece suddenly changes to Lizst’s Liebestraum half-way
through, Yoongi realises Jungkook must still be awake.

The pianist takes the stairs, the suitcase he filled with Jungkook’s clothes from his apartment
heavy in his hand.

The blue door, tight space, scores scattered everywhere, the one window in front of the desk- why
is it so small? Why hasn’t Jimin provided him with somewhere more comfortable to live in? Why-

The sound of Lizst fades into baroque, into the shrill of violin caressed by scarred hands.

Bach, Sonata No. 1 in G minor for solo violin

Yoongi can’t bear to stop him when he walks in, or announce his presence. Jungkook is so lost in
the piece, eyes closed, body swayed and fluttering to Bach. Yoongi adores how he plays the trills.
How he draws them out, fingers pulsating on the neck of the instrument, brow rising, a little smile
ghosting over his lips, bow flicking up and down.

It’s almost arousing, especially with his attire consisting of just one of Yoongi’s largest dress-
shirts, a light blue, slightly darker than his hair, flapping around the skin of his mid-thigh with the
harsh introduction of the second movement.
Yoongi is perpetually aroused and infuriated by him, with his shy mannerisms that promise
anything but, his body that is more scarred than Taehyung and Jimin’s put together. The coarse
soles of his feet, the gentle pout of his lip when he asks to be kissed.

Yoongi finally has enough.

“Isn’t this far too morbid for this time of night?”

Jungkook’s eyes flutter open, stopping mid-bow, pivoting to turn to Yoongi. The moonlight colors
his shirt white, the skin of his legs blue. The sound of his feet on the wooden floors issues chills
across the curve of Yoongi’s neck, down his shirt, warmth slithering down his breastbone, into his
slacks.

“ H-hi .” The violinist breathes, his hands clutching the hem of the shirt to pull it down.

“ Don’t d-do that, my god…” Yoongi massages his lids, exiling his thoughts. “Where are your
pants?”

“ Put them in the wash,” Jungkook answers, still fiddling with the hem of his shirt. Yoongi strays
his gaze away from his damned thighs. “ None of yours fit me.” Well with legs like that, of course
they wouldn’t.

“Well it’s good I brought the stuff you asked for then.” Yoongi assures, placing the suitcase on the
bed, opening it to throw a pair of sweatpants at Jungkook.

“ Thank you.” He shimmies into them almost immediately, placing the violin on top of the Grand
to pull the pants up his legs.

" Did you get any sleep today?” Yoongi asks, shutting the suitcase to carry it to his closet. Half the
wall on the right side of the elevator is a door-less closet, shoes and clothes inside the
compartments in the walls, Yoongi changing out of his clothes inside. A glass table in the middle
of the walk in holds his watches, collection of Rolexes glimmering beneath the glass.

He changes out of slacks into a pair of sweatpants, keeping the dresshirt on.

“ I…” Jungkook stops once he sees Yoongi walk out. “I couldn’t.”

“ I’m here now, I don’t think I’ll have any more business for a while.”

“ Yeah, I know.” Yoongi raises a brow at his tone.

“ You… “ Yoongi sighs. “Jimin came over, didn’t he?”

“ To say b-bye,” Jungkook whispers, not looking at him. “ Yeah.”

“ Have you been crying?”

“ Why didn’t you tell me?”

“ Jungkook-“

“ Why didn’t you tell me he was in hospital? About the fact that he was bombed? And I had no
clue for a whole week?”

“ You are unstable Jungkook.” Yoongi explains, speech slow. He walks closer, takes Jungkook’s
hands in his. “You would have been no help in the middle of all of that chaos. You wouldn’t have
been able to control yourself. Hell, I couldn’t even control myself. You hadn’t slept in weeks, you
still need to catch up.” Yoongi was planning on being soft. On just coming here, tucking the boy’s
body into his and letting him sleep on Yoongi’s borrowed time. “You weren’t eating either, and
you were drugged up off your mind just so you didn’t pass out.” Jungkook takes his bottom lip
captive in his top row of teeth and he doesn’t let go- he bites and bruises until Yoongi has to free
his lip with his thumb, and they stand there, in their cycle of confused lust, until Jungkook steps
away.

“When you say it like that I sound like such a burden, wow. I’m fucking sorry, I-“

“Don’t talk to me like that.” Yoongi snaps, then, softly, quietly: “That isn’t what this is about.”

“ I honestly don’t know what I’m doing staying here, I- I don’t even know you.”

That hurts a bit. Because Yoongi knows it’s true.

“ Jungkook, c’mon, listen to me.”

“ I need to go,” Jungkook chants, chasing away Yoongi’s worried hands. “I have to go-“

“ You’re not going anywhere in the state you’re in. You can’t sleep alone Jungkook, you can’t
sleep at all.”

“ That isn’t your problem.”

“ Well I’ve made it my fucking problem,” Yoongi makes Jungkook turn around so he can watch
when Yoongi goes to grab his wrist. “So just come to bed okay? You fell asleep really easily last
night, I held you and you were knocked out cold, so I could go back to the hospital.” Yoongi
wishes Jungkook wouldn’t say it.

“ So you could go back to Jimin.”

But he does.

“ Jungkook…”

“ This is so fucked. You understand how fucked this is? We’re both in love with another guy and
I’m- I can’t fucking sleep, can’t eat, can’t take care of myself. I’m just staying in this random
fucking guy’s hou-“

“ Don’t call me a random fucking guy.” Yoongi urges, shaking his head.

It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.

“ But you are. I’m a mess. I’m such a mess and I have exams coming up, and here I am-”

“ Jungkook, listen, just listen to me.”

“ Here I am and I just want you to touch me.” Yoongi stills. “I want you to touch me and make
me forget about him, touch all the places I’ve wanted him to touch, and chase it away, this…this
perpetual emptiness. This void he’s made in me that I can’t fill.” Yoongi pulls him into his
embrace, and what hurts most is that though Jungkook is bigger, taller, he’s small.

“ I’m pathetic. I’m so pathetic, I’m sorry.”

“ You are so unkind to yourself.” Yoongi whispers, petting his dark hair, kissing his cheek softly.
“ Because I want you to be kind to me.” Jungkook replies. It’s a premature confession of sorts-
Moonchildren don’t say things normally.

“ Like this?” Yoongi whispers, tucking his hand into Jungkook’s collar behind his head, kneading
the skin of his neck with deft, pianist’s fingers.

Yoongi realises not now, not tomorrow, but far, far later, why he plays pieces on the bodies he
fills. He played them because he missed the piano, because it was the closest he could come to
caressing the black and white keys without his hands abandoning him. That is what he told
himself.

But no, he played to forget the piano. To find a new stretch of skin to familiarise his hands with, to
caress and treat as he would the keys of the chesnut piano in his office, the instrument of his
childhood.

He wanted that new skin to be Jimin’s.

Maybe that will change.

“ Yes.” Jungkook responds to the touch so easily, arching his back, deepening his curves beneath
the pianist’s fingers.

“ And this?” Yoongi’s hand slides from his neck to his throat, pressing just next to his vein, and he
realises Jungkook’s breath sounds like the vibrato of a violin, almost like he has become the
instrument, arched his very skin into the curvature of the wood.

Let my lips claim your throat, purify the blood that runs for another man, and damn me for my
hypocrisy, let me be damned, but you enchant me, scarred boy. You enchant and petrify, and I am
so, so scared because I have a bad history with scarred bodies, sad eyes. But I can’t stop. Stop
me, stop me Jungkook.

“ Y-y-yes.”

“ And here?” Yoongi’s thumb brushes his lips, pulling the bottom one down, kissing the lighter
skin beneath his jaw, tasting bone with tongue.

“ You’re playing me.” Jungkook breathes.

“ I am.”

“ Don’t stop.” He whispers. “You’ll kill me if you stop.”

Damn me but I don’t want to either. But tell me to, don’t say things like that. I could ruin you, I
am good at ruining pretty things, and you are pretty, so, so pretty. Pretty eyes, pretty lips, pretty
skin. I’m a sucker for pretty things.

We’re all suckers for pretty things.

And I’m afraid you might be my prettiest.

“ What does it make you feel?” Yoongi asks. “Being touched. Skin, your skin in mine.”

“ Alive.” Jungkook cries. “It makes me feel like I’m burning.”

“ Burning?”

“It hurts.”
“It hurts.”

“Why?”

“It’s not real.” Jungkook says.

“ It can be.”

“ But you love him.”

“ As do you.”

And there’s nothing to say in the face of truth. It has the final say, the final word, followed by a
full stop.

“ Do you think we could stop?” Jungkook asks, still holding onto Yoongi.

“ Do you want the truth?”

The violinist’s head creeps up from the other’s shoulder.

“ And nothing but.”

Yoongi smiles.

“ Then I don’t know.”

“ That’s still better than a ‘no’.”

“ No is the ugliest of words don’t you think?” Yoongi asks. “ Dismissive, definitive, so final and
short. Like a full stop to the heart.”

“ So don’t you say it to me If you know how much it hurts.”

“ This is so fast.” Yoongi confesses with a hand on Jungkook’s cheek.

“ Don’t ignore me.”

“ You’re craving something I don’t know if I can give.”

“ I just want skin Yoongi.” God, he’s too young for this.

“ No,” Yoongi objects, the irony of it not lost on them. “ You want the warmth that comes with
it.”

“ Let me drown in my denial.”

They understand it too well, this feeling. This feeling that can’t be named, because most of us
don’t even know what it is. But it’s there, it’s real. Yoongi knows it, it’s an old friend.

Jungkook doesn’t, it’s a stranger. Just like Yoongi.

“ I’m not letting you drown in anything, okay?” Yoongi pledges, big hands wrapped around
Jungkook’s cold cheeks.

“ What if I want to?”

“ I’m not letting you.”

“ It’s not up to you.” Jungkook objects.

“ Well, let it be.”

“ I can’t.”

Yoongi feels Jungkook slipping for a moment, his knees going weak, falling through his hands.

“ We’ll talk about this tomorrow okay?”

“Tomorrow you’ll say we’ll talk about it overmorrow.”

“Yeah, yeah I’m good at avoiding.” The pianist confesses, incriminating himself while he pulls
Jungkook to bed.

“ I want to sleep.” Jungkook whispers as Yoongi sits them both on the bed.

“ Then c’mere.” Yoongi lies against the headboard, opening his arms.

“ Hyung.” Yoongi seethes, biting his gums.

“ Do you know how crazy it drives me when you call me that?”

“ Hyung.” Jungkook moans. “Yoongi hyung.”

“ You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into kid.” The pianist warns, turning his head
away from the boy’s dark eyes.

“Hyung.” Jungkook calls out again, touching Yoongi’s thigh over the blanket.

“ Don’t, Jungkook.”

“ Don’t you want me?” He asks, voice breaking.

Oh, how naïve he is. How young that he can’t smell the shameful stench of Yoongi’s wanting.
But that’s it, it’s wanting. That’s what Yoongi tries to tell himself. That’s why he can’t take
Jungkook as he is.

“ If I fucked you now, you wouldn’t be any different from all the other bodies.”

“ Maybe I just want skin.” Jungkook lies.

“ We’re going in circles here love.”

“ I like circles.” He lies again. He hates circles.

“ No one likes circles.” Yoongi says.

“ Why?”

“ You want an answer?” Yoongi chuckles. “ I was just trying to sound philosophical love.”

“ They’re infinitely ordered.” The reply comes maybe a few whole minutes later, stepping through
the silence. “ No one likes something with infinite lines of symmetry. A lot of us associate
symmetry with order, and so a circle could be thought of as infinitely ordered. We don’t like the
idea of something knowing what it’s doing so well, so much better than us. People rarely every
draw perfect circles or even attempt them for fun. We draw squiggles and criss-crosses instead,
because we’re messy and we like knowing they are too. They don’t know what they’re doing
either. They’re just lost.”

“ Are you lost Jungkook?” Yoongi asks.

“ I don’t want to be.”

“ Do I help?”

“ Your skin helps.”

Maybe Yoongi should be scared that it doesn’t hurt when he hears this.

“ Then touch away.” He whispers instead. And from this moment, only a week knowing sad eyes,
a boy who thinks he’s sick and maybe he is- no, he must be, to want someone like Yoongi- he’s
already fallen.

“ Touch away, love.”

So, Jungkook touches.

He pushes Yoongi down, sits between his straight legs, slightly bent at the knees, and he touches.
He starts at Yoongi’s ankles, and finds himself comparing them to Jimin’s, because it’s
unavoidable, because it’s him, and he’s confused. Jungkook is hesitant, so shy and yet
unquestionably forward as his fingers ride up the hem of Yoongi’s shirt. They touch everywhere,
the discs of his knee, the curve of his cock beneath his underwear. It’s far from sexual, the way he
blinks in wonder, and doesn’t make the touch any different to the others, and Yoongi, because of
the way Jungkook’s starts to cry onto his skin, doesn’t allow himself to harden.

Jungkook’s fingers shake as he explores the pianist’s unmarked skin. Yoongi doesn’t allow people
to mark him, and maybe it’s because he was readying his skin for this. For Jungkook’s hand, for
that look of utter wonder in his eyes at how an expanse of cream skin could be so…. so im-
possibly pure.

“ It’s beautiful.” Jungkook whispers, and once he reaches the expanse of skin un-presented and
hidden by the shirt, he stops. And stills.

Yoongi flicks the buttons open one by one, starting from the bottom.

“ You can touch, Jungkook.”

But Jungkook retreats slightly, and his fingers go to the buttons of his own shirt, and then his
sweatpants are off too, and Yoongi starts shaking his head.

“ I’m cold.” Jungkook whimpers, and he’s crying again.

He probably doesn’t even know what’s crying about, and that makes him cry more. Because
that’s just what it does, the emptiness.

“ My skin is yours.”

“ Your skin is mine.” Jungkook whimpers in recognition, and Yoongi realises this is the moment,
this is the moment he gave up ownership.

Handed his keys over, without any jangling, any complaint from them, utterly willing and
submitted, to this boy who’s lost his own keys, their distant echo so loud that it’s made him empty.
Here you go. There, you’ve got them now. You’ll be the third, and the last- I hope- because I have
less and less to give each time and you’re already so broken I’m afraid you’ll take me with you- I
don’t think I’ll say no, I don’t think I could refuse, if you ask with those black eyes, those pretty
little lips. Borrow another pair, and another, make yourself again, less pretty, less enchanting (
less sad so I don’t feel like I have to save you when I’m beyond saving myself), please, and ask me
again, so I can say no, so I can take my keys back.

A week.

It’s the fastest it’s taken a sad boy to lock me up again.

But if you ask with these eyes and these lips, you can rest assured I can’t say no.

No isn’t a word I’d like to know around a boy this broken.

Jungkook’s movements are slow and fast, certain and ever so unsure. He climbs on top of Yoongi,
his body beneath the pianist’s fingertips. Yoongi lets his hands wander across Jungkook’s chest,
so much muscle.

“ Don’t-“ Jungkook whispers, taking away Yoongi’s hand. “ Don’t do that.”

“ I’m sorry, I should have asked-“

“ No, the scars.” Yoongi halts his fretting. He should have known he would notice. “ Stop
counting them.”

“ You’re too beautiful to be so broken.” Yoongi says, circling Jungkook’s waist and pulling him
down until they’re flesh to flesh, Yoongi giving Jungkook the skin he so badly wants.

Jungkook thinks Yoongi is sleeping when he replies-

“ You’re too warm to be so lonely.”

_______________________________

Part II

London

The Little Prince is in London.

No one knows why, or where he actually is, but they know he’s here. That’s because Jimin wants
them to know. Let The Legacy come to him, seek him out.

London is…special. In the right ways, the wrong ways and the half way there’s.

He lands at five A.M the next day, the jet landing softly on a private landing strip just beyond the
boundary of Central.

Waiting for him as he exits the compartment is a beauty of a machine, a Bugatti Chiron, the most
powerful production car the world has every laid its eyes upon. It’s not black, black is too
mundane a color for the vessel in front of him. It’s a glimmering sheet of jade, headlights sharp,
elongated, the hood rippled, protruding at either extremity. If Jimin could describe it with one
word, it’s sexy. The power in this one vehicle transcends human cognition, like they’ve created
something that they, themselves do not understand.

Jimin understands.

The rock hard exterior, gentle curves deceptive in their immaculate sharpness, feigning
invincibility when it’s actually just…fragile. The waves of metal curling around the doors, the
rough caress of the tires on the asphalt, rubber caught in an eternal kiss, it’s all so, so fragile.

It reminds Jimin of Taehyung.

He empties the black cases with his weaponry into the back, giving the keys to one of the landing
strip coordinators who enquires after the pilot.

“ I am the pilot.”

Jimin decides to leave the car at The Savoy, allowing himself to imagine Taehyung painting the
yellow hues of the rising sun above the Thames on his skin. All he does is repeat Taehyung’s
phone number between his lips, pacing the length of the bridge. The Houses of Parliament to his
left, sitting along the river bed, the brown structure disguised gold beneath the sun. The London
Eye remains eerily still in the right horizon- the opposite side of the bridge where he stands- the
clock and Westminster Abbey just ahead.

He can’t keep a phone on him, or anything that can be tracked in general, or at least that’s he tells
himself. Buying a burner phone wouldn’t be hard, pressing the familiar pattern of numbers Jimin
whispers every time he’s away from him into the keys, hearing his voice, his breathing, making
sure it’s all still the same. That it hasn’t changed just because Jimin’s away.

I can’t go a second, a minute, an hour without his voice in my ears, his hands on my skin, lips on
my neck. He’s bad for you Jimin, you’re bad for each other.

What would you have done if he died? What would have become of you?

And now you’ve left him, left him alone, an ocean’s space between you- unreachable, he is to you,
if he were to bleed again.

Jimin is afraid. He’s here to meet The Legacy, to find the man who made him realise this mission
of his, this twisted task, the voice of his step father in his ears, it’s all…it’s nothing, it means
nothing because Jimin is never going to be able to finish it.

If he does, once it’s over, once he’s ruined Taehyung’s empire and brought him to his knees,
Taehyung won’t love him anymore.

And if he doesn’t, Taehyung is a dead man.

Jimin can’t decide which one is worse.

The vendetta of the man who bought him, brought him into his big, fancy house, feigned
kindness, trust, and made Jimin feel safe. For a week, a month, half a year. It was like it was
finally over, the nightmare. The exploit, the rape, the physical and the mental, the shredding of a
little boy’s mind. And then the other little boy came to dinner. This gorgeous, dark haired boy,
perpetually wide eyed and dressed in the nicest little suit Jimin had ever seen in his life.
He’d never thought of a suit to be nice before seeing this boy.

Because they all used to wear suits.

The people who used him.

But here was this little boy and he was so, so pretty. A little artist with messy hair and hands that
were far larger than Jimin’s even then.

He left far too soon, oblong shaped smile squeezing little Jimin’s heart in the strangest, most
peculiar of ways. But then the door is closing, the man he calls ‘daddy’ chuckling and Jimin feels
just as unsafe as he did six months ago.

He goes to bed, in the big bedroom with the books and grown up paintings that he doesn’t really
like- but it’s blue, and Jimin likes that. He’s sleeping, he thinks he is, when his step dad comes into
the room. He doesn’t feel it at first, the touching in the weird places, the discomfort, the familiar
sensation.

But then he’s saying something too, the sentence crushing Jimin’s heart that is still squeezing from
the encounter with the little artist called Taetae.

“ You’re going to ruin that little boy’s life Jiminie. You’re gonna make him pay for what his
daddy did to my family.”

And that was that. Jiminie met Taetae under a lie, in a lie, buried neck deep in it. Destined to ruin
the life of this little boy before even knowing him, before asking why he had blue paint on his
hands at dinner.

But Jimin fell in love. He was in love, from the very beginning, like the completion of a lost
constellation, a shooting star dropping into the horizon.

And now he’s fucked.

Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.

He doesn’t realise how long he’s been walking until he’s in an obscure part of central, looking
down an alleyway jutted between the identical white million pound apartments. A little coffee
shop down the alley beckons him, the aroma of coffee beans luring him down the street until he’s
standing in front of the desolate store.

It reminds him of the ice cream shop in Piccadilly circus, the one Taehyung always drags him to
whenever they’re in London, the aura of the coffee shop, how it’s tucked away, unsuspecting and
deceptively mundane, but is actually built from memories- history, just raw, timeless, history.

The jingle of the bells when he walks in beckons a very elderly woman to come his way, sitting
him down at a table- his eyes wandering around the little space. It’s very small, two rows of tiny
square tables on either side, barely enough for one person to dine, the walls a comforting white-
washed yellow, black and white photos of hundreds of different people, probably diners, neatly
framed along both walls.

“ What would you like dear?” The woman’s voice is accented, low and soft, soothing- a
whimsical tone of phrase catching his attention for a moment.

“ Whatever you make best.”

She gives him a curious smile, taking the menu from the table. Jimin lets his eyes stray to the
photos on the wall beside him. It’s an aesthetic sight, the black frames and grainy pictures upon
the light yellow background, no particular pattern to how they’re framed, all different sizes.
They’re all of people, either alone or in groups, inside the café, or in the familiar streets just
outside, the essence of sentimental history almost tangible in the air around them. It’s-

Jimin holds his breath.

“ What the …”

“ Yes darling?”

He rises slowly, calculatedly.

The cold metal of his gun slides against his hand, fingers creeping inside his cream suit jacket. His
other hand flutters to the photo that sat just above his head when he was sitting down, caressing
the black and white face of the two men standing beside each other, one with his head resting on
the other, too close, too close to be just friends.

It’s Tae.

Taehyung and Yoongi.

“ Who…” Jimin’s words come out almost silently. “Who are these people?” He asks, and maybe
it’s stupid to, because he can guess, but it’s far too much of a coincidence. Jimin doesn’t like
coincidences.

“ Who?” The lady comes to stand by his table, just as a pair of small feet patter across the store,
coming beside Jimin.

“ Nana,” The child says. Jimin turns to look at his accusing glare. “ He has a gun.”

Jimin freezes, hand slowly coming out of his suit jacket.

“ I know poppet,” she says, ruffling his hair- Jimin looks between the two with a ruefully
confused gaze, turning back to the photo.

These eyes aren't the eyes of a woman who's had someone come into her store with a gun for the
first time.

“Who are they?” He asks again.

“That’s Dante and Hans.” The little kid answers, dragging the chair out, climbing onto the wood,
rising to Jimin’ height as he points at the Taehyung look alike in the photo. “That’s Dante.” And
then to the Yoongi, “That’s Hans.” Jimin catches the smile ghosting over the lady’s face. “They
were Nana’s friends.”

God, it looks exactly like Taehyung. And Yoongi, with the black hair, nonchalant pout, pianist’s
fingers wrapped around Taeh- Dante’s shoulders while the latter’s head rests on his.

It’s like an alternate universe.

One where Jimin doesn’t exist.

“ You know them?” The lady asks, placing her hand on his hip, just beneath where the gun is
located, tapping his jacket as if to tuck it away for good, assuring him that there is no need for it
here.
But it’s too much of a coincidence.

“ I…” Would Yoongi and Taehyung have fallen if Jimin hadn’t been there? The bond is there, the
trust, the love, the unquestionable history. Why is it bothering him so much?

His eyes finally fall to the third man in the photo, standing aloof on the side, watching the other
two, but still smiling. “ And him? Who is he?” There’s something familiar about the lines of his
face, the strong jaw.

“ Damian.” The lady beats the kid to it this time. The name comes out in a flutter of letters
whispered like they’re precious, fragile. “ Your food will be ready soon.”

“ Wait, I want to know more.”

“ This isn’t the information bureau my love.”

“ He’s… Dante, that’s…he’s my…” Jimin stutters for a second. Jimin remembers having seen
photos of Taehyung and Yoongi's grandfathers of course. But to see them here, in this store,
coincidentally, when this is exactly what he came to London to do, to dig up history...“This is
Taehyung.” He says instead as he produces a photo of him and Taehyung. It’s from when he used
to have orange hair, and the younger ghastly green highlights in his dark locks.

“ He…” Jimin’s lost for words. “ He’s Dante’s Grandson.” The old woman, the label on her
uniform reading Marie Jean, stares at the photo, mouth agape. Jimin waits for her to hand it back.
It’s a photo of them he always carries around, ever since they took it. And one in the locket
around his neck, a black and white one just of Taehyung.

Taehyung also has one of Jimin, both of them forged from moonstone. They wear it whenever
they’re apart, the chains long, to reach their hearts.

“ And you?” The lady inquires, handing the photo back, obviously trying to hide her shock.

“ He’s…he’s my…”

My everything. My exhale of breath, the rush of blood to my ears, the tingling of pleasure between
my legs, the promise of spring after a winter that never seems to end- he is my naked midnights as
I am his, the blood that leaks from my lips, that’s him, the white pleasure that leaves me as I
scream for my god- also him- is Taehyung. My blood, my heart, my veins. My spit, my sweat and
screams. Taehyung is everything. He is everything and nothing at all.

The nothingness in my mouth when his lips leave, the abyss inside me when he isn’t here,
Taehyung is all of it. Everything. Everything. Everything.

“ I see.” The lady whispers, looking at his eyes. Jimin doesn’t need to say anything else for her to
know what Taehyung is to him.

“ Who were they?” Jimin asks.

The lady looks him up and down, her eyes scrutinizing the scratches on his jaw, the indent of the
gun beneath his jacket.

“ Why don’t you sit down?” Marie Jean asks, pulling out the chair opposite to where Jimin was
sitting, putting the little boy in her lap.

“ They used to come down here a lot, those three, when they were kids.” Jimin sits, realizing she’s
placed a cup of coffee on his table for him. “Dante, Hans and Damian. Dante... always quite the
character, took his Earl Grey with lemon please, he’d say, as young as eight and he’d stroll in here
wearing his little suit. Watercolors always in his pocket, brushes wrapped in this beautiful,
Windsor blue cloth… “Jimin smiles. It sounds just like Taehyung. “If it’s that time, then how old
was I? Fifteen Perhaps? Same as Dante and Damian, Hans was older by two years …”

London, 1935

“ Marie Je-eaaan,” The boys enter in a racket, as always, Dante’s every-present laughter ringing
alongside the bell, door bursting open- they come stumbling in, suit-jackets ruffled by the spring
wind, hats already leaving heads to hop onto their arms. Hans is beside him, like always, taller,
quieter, more reserved. Where his black hair is neatly combed, Dante’s is unruly, unsuited to the
times, obsidian tendrils falling across his eyes. And there is Damian, of course. Fair, light skinned,
quiet Damian. Marie Jean smiles coyly at the sight of him, his briefcase in hand, probably right
out of tuition with the other two.

“ Oh,” The brown-headed girl says, fixing the scarf she put on her dark hair to clean, despair in
her voice. “ Not you again.”

Dante scoffs loudly, fingers curling into the spine of a chair, pulling it from beneath the table,
twirling it to place it in between the two rows of seats.

He sits defeated- the wrong way around- on the dark chair, Hans leaning against the wall beside
him, Damian standing aloof to the side.

“ Oh come now,” Dante declares. “ That is no way to greet a gentle man,” He professes
passionately, hands so avid in their gestures, spraying the mannerisms of a self-pronounced
thespian here and there with each wave of the fingers. “ Is it Hans? Damian? You must see she is
biased against me, and for what? What fault do I, an innocent, have-“

“ You are a gentleman only by birth Tae, in no manner do you reciprocate gentility, your table
manners are a disgrace to your gentleman’s livery, your hair is in no way suited to the times, your-
” Hans is interrupted by Dante’s sudden rise, his ascension onto the chair. Marie Jean is so
focused on Damian she wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t let slip the rare smile at the boy’s
antics.

“ Is this what betrayal feels like?” Dante proclaims, facing the hidden sky. “Truly? You are Judas,
by god, I have been betrayed, this is- it’s treachery!”

“ You are not my god Dante,” Hans lets out a practiced sigh, a fond smile pulling his lips.“ In
what world-”

“ Oh, there we go again.” Marie Jean interrupts. “You’ve done it Hans. You’ve awakened him.
Lord be with-“

“ I am an artist, I am the very picture of gentility, the essence-” Dante miscalculates the passionate
stance of his foot on the barred spine of the chair for he slips. “ Ah-“

Hans has an entire second to roll his eyes before charging forward, eager hands wrapping around
his waist to soften his landing. Dante lands with a stumble into Hans’s chest, hand unconsciously
churning his shirt with the skin of his palm, feeling the chest beneath.
“ What…What are you…” Hans’s smile is too wicked to be innocent. Dante steps away hurriedly,
flustered complexion not a secret to anyone but himself, punching him in the shoulder before he
straightens his apparel. By this time, Damian has taken refuge besides the counter next to Marie,
the cacophony of the other two’s bickering assuring them and the rest of the street that all is okay,
normality has not forsaken them yet. Even with the news spurting occasionally from the east.

“ I am a man.” Dante shouts, condemning the other with an accusatory hand, undoing the buttons
of his suit jacket, deft hands flicking them one by one- not noticing how entranced Hans is by the
motion until the latter has already schooled his gaze again.

“ You are a child.” Hans chuckles, ruffling his hair before he can stop himself. Dante melts into it
when he should retreat- hide- lowering his head. They both recoil at the same time when
something almost akin to a purr nearly leaves the younger.

“ You are t-two…” Marie Jean shakes her head at the new dynamics between them, blossoming
more each day, with each touch, lingering stare, forbidden patch of skin unveiled. “ TWO years
older than me, two Hans.”

“ Do you not get tired of their bickering?” Marie Jean asks, turning to Damian. He’s wearing an
obscure shade of blue today, something bordering on grey “Do you think Hans will ever tell
him?”

“ Tell him what?” He has such a harsh way of speaking, Damian. Consonants so hard, t’s spit out,
articulated always with an echo that only he manages to make sound so sensual when it’s anything
but. It makes her insecure, scared that she finds beauty in his ugliest parts.

Not...good.

Damian is not good.

“ Well that he’s in love with him, of course.”

But she can only see good right now, here- dark hair, light eyes, soft, harsh words and pursed lips.
His mind, god, his mind. How clever he can be in the most unsuspecting times and when it is most
expected. Picturesque when he reads, fingers already caressing the corner of the next page as soon
as he’s turned one. His books are in tatters, pages folded in place of markers of where he left off,
though it isn't often he does not finish a book in one sitting. She can’t understand why he doesn’t
take better care of them, when he loves to read so much and so hard.

“It doesn’t matter.” He had suddenly said in the middle of watching the torpor of the afternoon
last year, sitting behind the windows- Dante sitting on the other side of the street, pretending to be
a street artist, running after people in the street and handing out portraits left and right until there
was a whole congregation of people sitting around him, the gentleman-like tramp with the hands
of a renaissance master.

“ What?” Marie Jean realised he must have seen her scrutinizing the state of his current read out
the corner of her eye.

“ The books,” Damian iterates. “I memorize them, get what I want out of them-” He stops with a
pensive look outside, at Hans who comes running down the street from the left, down the mouth
of the alley, his own mouth gaping open at the mess of people around Dante. His murky face from
the other side of the street asks them both a question, to which they shrug their shoulders tiredly,
as if to say: ‘It’s Dante.’

“ Get what I want- knowledge, that is- and I don’t need to read them again.”
“ You memorize them?”

Perhaps this was the moment she fell, Marie Jean.

“ Every word.”

“ How smart actually are you Damian?” Ah, a smile.

It’s so rare that she stops breathing, just to watch, to be as silent as she can, count the seconds it
takes his smile to stretch, to reach his dimples, to expose enamel and the silver of tongue.

When he smiles, he is good.

“ I don’t care about rips in the spines, or folds in the pages, or coffee stains even.” Sometimes, it’s
like he doesn’t care much about anything at all. “It’s what builds the character of the book
anyway, I might as well leave my mark. The book is done with me too, when I reach the last
page. It will never have the same effect on me again, it doesn’t care as much as it did the first time,
to impress me, to part the space between my lips and keep it hanging, its secrets between my teeth.
It doesn’t care after the first time.”

His words are perhaps not meant to cut a wound so deep, to hurt her lungs, clutch the roots of the
flowers his smile had just blossomed and suffocate them. “ So, why should I?”

Because…because they are fragile- she wants to say.

They don’t know you want to be impressed, to have your heart race. A lot of times they can’t
even see you heart Damian, the heart you so dearly but effortlessly hide away. Fragile spines, they
don’t know what it is to be held in your hands, to have your spit dried onto the corners of every
page. They don’t know what to do…these books- because that’s what it’s about, this is just about
books- when they’re held by you, they give so much of themselves to you the first time, self-
destructing, bending and bleeding musk into your hands, burying their scent in the shape of your
skin just to make you satisfied enough for you not to put them down, not to bore, that when you’re
finished…when you’re finished…

There’s nothing left.

“ Is that how you treat people too?” She asks then, and he looks at her.

“ Not you.”

“ And what makes me different?” She turns away, points at a laughing Dante outside, an
exasperated Hans who is fonder than he was last year, and more obvious than he was last week. “
And them, what about them?”

When he turned back to his book, even harsher with the turning of his pages, more hasty, four
seconds to each page because that’s how smart Damian is, Marie knew the conversation was over.

“ Well that he’s in love with him, of course.” He doesn’t say anything in reply. She just wants to
rip his hair out. “ Are you not going to say anything?” She asks. He just stands, walks into the
back, the space they’ve made just for them. Her papa is out, mum having left the store to go buy
milk.

Damian sits on the yellow, fabric sofa in the room behind the store, and carries on reading until
she goes to sit by him, leaving plenty space between them.

The sound of his book shutting warns maybe of his exit now, that he’s had enough.

But then he does something then that he would continue to do until the very last time he sees her,
in the most unexpected times, in the worst and the best, this is what he would do.

He glances at the terrible renaissance rendering above their heads, putting the book on the floor,
turning to her, and suddenly lays his head on her lap, and crumples his figure until he’s nearly fit
onto the space, legs hanging off the edge. Her chest hurts.

“Damian.” She whispers softly, hands in his hair- his soft, soft hair.

“What?”

“Is it your papa again?”

Again, he doesn’t reply, but he does close his eyes, and moves his head closer to her stomach
every time her hands touch his hair. And maybe that’s enough.

“ Where are you going?” Dante asks Marie Jean when she follows Damian to the back, dismissed
with just a motion of her small, roughened hand. He scoffs, taking full offence and turning to
Hans,

“ Did I just get ignored?”

“ Tae-“

“Dante is the name we decided on, if you could just exert yourself a minuscule of amounts and
perhaps-

“ Tae…” Hans whispers, cornering him into the wall. It’s still bright outside, light filtering through
the shutters to light Dante’s light brown skin in belts of gold. “ Tae…” Hans chants, hands on his
hips now, lips pressed against his shoulders, bodies flush. “Tae…”

“ Don’t….” Dante whispers when his body pulses in response. “ Don’t do that.”

“ Tae…” Hans removes himself from his shoulder, palm against the wall behind them for support,
arm straight just inches from Dante’s face. Not here, they can’t do this here. Hans gives him that
gaze. The one he gave him a few months ago, in Dante’s living room. The first time he let his lips
fall open for him.

He comes closer, uncaring about the broad daylight, their friends just a wall away. Their mouths
flirt, Dante leaves his hanging even as he tells him to stop, Hans bring his thumb to his top lip, lets
it drag down, bouncing his nether lip when he lets go.

Dante wants to taste it.

“ Tae…”

“ Hans, please.” He whimpers, nearly on the edge of tears. Hans is the only one who makes him
cry like this.

“ Why not?” Hans objects even as he steps away, eyes washed over with wanting.
“ We’re not allowed.”

“ But you do many things you’re not allowed.” Hans corrects, hand wandering to his back,
cupping his ass. “We’ve done it before, remember?”

“ I do no such things, I’m an abider of the law-“

“ The law is stupid.” Dante pushes him back, palms on his shoulders. Hans staggers away with a
roll of his eyes.

“ You are stupid.” Dante says weakly.

“ You are a coward.” Hans nearly shouts.

“ Do not call me that.”

“ What will you do about it?” And they’re back to teasing just as easily.

“ Don’t look at me like that.”

Hans smirks.

“ I’m not doing anything.”

“ You know what you’re doing.” Dante whispers, hiding his face in his hands, afraid that he’s
going to cry. Hans is right. He is just a child. “It’s hurting me.”

“ That is never my intention Dante,” Hans quickly replies, walking to the shutters, closing them
until the light completely leaves and they’re left in a comforting darkness, no one to see. To report.
“ You must know that.” Hans reiterates as Dante walks over, head falling onto the elder’s chest
just as he locks the door, rolling his hair from left to right on his chest, then back again, in a state
of dilemma, confusion, but most importantly, ancient youth. Hans holds him against the door
outside of which lies reality, laws, stigma.

“Oh it is all you ever do.” Hans recoils with a face of horror. “ Watching me,” Dante says, lifting
his head from the other’s chest to watch him in the way he watches him, to show him how much it
hurts. “ Touching me,” His fingers curl around his jaw. “ Kissing me.” Dante kisses his throat. “
All of it, when nothing can come of it, when it is for-bid-“

“ Forbidden?” Hans purrs. “What, like this?” Hans kisses him.

It shouldn’t feel this good. Not in broad daylight, not fully clothed. Mustn’t there be some skin?
Something more? But it’s not…it’s enough. He is enough even when he isn’t and Dante wants
more, he is enough and not at all.

Hans holds his cheeks, takes his tongue captive and he might cry, he really, really might. He’s
shaking so hard that Hans’s hand comes to intertwine with his-

“ And this?” –kissing his fingertips, holding his hands so tight. “And this?” He just hugs him then,
tucks him into his body. Hans is taller than him, better, less afraid. Always, always, always.“ I am
not letting them take you from me.” He promises.

“Your father will kill you.” Dante reminds him, chuckling deep into the elder’s chest. Hans closes
his eyes at the sound.

Yes, just like that, let my heart remember- tattoo its echoes into my chest, please- so I don’t forget.
“Your father will kill me.” Hans corrects.

“My father will kill us.”

“Then we’ll just kill him first.”

He says it so easily that Dante doesn’t respond, thinking he is joking. But he isn’t, not at all, not in
the slightest, and the younger senses this. His head creeps up, ever the puppy as he looks at him
wide eyes.

“ You…you mustn’t speak of such things.”

“ I am telling you it is not beyond me, if he took you away, if he found out.”

“ You’re dangerous.” Dante says, as though they don’t breathe danger instead of air when they
wake, like Dante’s father isn’t a killer and Hans’s doesn’t lie to the law for him.

“ I am not the one who sleeps with a gun.” Hans whispers softly.

“ I don’t when you’re there.” And he isn’t there often. It’s dangerous. Dangerous to share a bed,
the hours of the night where the ugliest beautiful moments are created.

“ Is that supposed to be comfort to me?” Hans asks in an uncertain voice.

Dante likes it when Hans is unsure. It happens so rarely, for him not to know, or his voice to
shake. It happens only with Dante.

“ You’re my protection.” He whispers, Hans shaking when Dante undoes his top button. “ So let’s
keep it that way, yes?” The elder brings his face to his exposed neck in response, nosing along his
vein with breath quivering.

“ You’re so weak here.” He moans, kissing his neck. “Always have been.” He senses Dante’s
knees go weak before he, himself does, and holds his waist still, his entire weight in the palm of
his hand.

“ Then don’t…” He lets out a loud cry when he feels the bite against his neck. Hans sucks on it,
licking at the red skin, lapping at it, tasting him so hard that Dante goes lightheaded, mind cloudy
as tear filled eyes flutter shut. His large hand nearly fills Dante’s entire face when it slaps against
his mouth to quieten his whimpers. “Don’t use it against me.”

“ Oh darling I don’t want anything against you but my skin.”

“ My skin.” Dante repeats, world slipping away in the other’s mouth, the veins of the galaxies
hiding in the lines of his hand. His eyes are dark, so dark they must be hiding something. Maybe
cosmos, constellations, comets.

“ Your skin.”

___________________________

Dante. Hans. Damian.

The names haunt him, a broken record as he sinks into the seat. The bartender recognizes Jimin, if
the familiar favorite drink placed in his hand minutes after sitting down is anything to go by.
They talked, him and Marie Jean, for hours. Jimin showed her some more pictures of Taehyung,
and Yoongi. They marveled at the uncanny resemblances, the fact that Dante didn’t have the mole
on his nose that Taehyung does, or that Hans had always been taller than him whereas Yoongi is
shorter than Taehyung by at least a head.

And then Marie Jean had asked if he knew any descendants of Damian’s, and that’s the thing that
haunts him.

Dante. Hans. Damian. The three most influential members of La Pente, in that order. The other
two, Jimin has realised, didn’t matter much.

Why is he so well acquainted with two but not the other one? Who is Damian Clarke?

“ Jimin?” The voice is familiar, it snaps him out of his thoughts.

“ Alistair.” He greets with a wide smile, laughing at the shock etched into the face of a man who
doesn’t become speechless easily. “ How are you?”

“ The rumors were true,” Alistair says as though he didn’t believe them for a second.

“ I’m back.” Jimin affirms, taking a sip of his gold drink, the coolness washing down his throat.

“ What are you doing here Jimin?” The younger man is taken aback, chuckling to hide the slight
hurt at the bite in his voice.

“Didn’t you miss me?” He purrs, crossing his legs, material of his cream pants stretching around
his thigh. He catches Alistair staring, smirks it off.

“ Just tell me what you want and leave.”

“ Could you be any more hostile?” Jimin asks.

“ It’s been four years.”

“ Yes, it has, which is why I expected a warmer welcome, or a welcome at all in fact.”

Alistair sighs

“ I’m still in love with you.”

Jimin wants to ask why. He’s lost count, of how many times it’s happened. It’s tiring, it’s fucking
exhausting.

Why are you in love with me, truly, my dear, what is there to love about this? This ruined body,
this loyal heart, this lying, filthy mouth? Tell me, and I’ll kill it so I don’t break anyone else. Tell
me so that I can stop.

“ I heard,” Alistair speaks, waving over a bartender for a scotch. “ About the bomb.”

They’re on the upper floor of one of the bars he owns, on blood red arm chairs facing each other,
overlooking the canopy onto the drinking bodies below.

A red haze settles around them with the dimming lights, Jimin’s cream suit painted pink.

“ New gets around fast,” He drawls. “ Doesn’t it?”

“ Is he okay?” Alistair asks, Jimin smiling at the concern in his voice.

“ He’s fine, I –I wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t.” Jimin says, more to himself than the man.

“What is it you’re here for then?” Alistair asks, stretching over the couch.

“ A man. Early to mid-twenties.” A look of recognition crosses his face.

“ Is this about the stuff’s that’s been happening to his empire recently?”

“ Stuff?” Jimin repeats. “What stuff?”

“ Nothing major, it’s just…it’s weird?”

“ Alistair.” Jimin stresses.

“ The air is weird. Like something’s going on.” Jimin sighs, taking another sip.

“ Well that’s why I’m here.”

“ What about this man?”

“ I thought he was new to the business, to this ‘world’,” He starts, quoting the word. “ But he
can’t be. The level of precision he’s carrying everything out with, the extent of his geographical
influence… it’s too much for someone that young and amateur. He must have been working right
beneath our noses far before we realised.”

“ And what do you want me to do?” Alistair asks, like someone who would do anything if Jimin
were to ask.

“ Keep a look out, I guess?” The younger requests, not even sure what he’s asking for.

“ Everyone knows London is your hunting ground, you know everything there is to know about
anyone here. Just keep me informed, if anything goes wrong, please?”

“ You’re asking as if I could ever say no to you.” He sweeps his dark brown hair back, features so
sharp, jaw perhaps the strongest one Jimin has seen. Alistair has one of those English noses, the
straight ones that just curve a bit towards the end, it takes some of the edge away. Still as clean
shaven as he was four summers ago, navy blue suit making him seem even taller than he already is
than Jimin.

“ Alis-“

His phone starts ringing.

“ Sorry, it’s my work phone.”

“ Go ahead,” Jimin reassures, then, with a meaningful smile. “ I’m not one to complain.”

Alistair presses the phone to his ear. The conversation is short, very short, and Alistair’s
expressions are schooled to a practiced neutrality, a secret intelligence agent trained to be the
country’s very best, but to someone like Jimin, it’s as clear as day that something is very, very
wrong.

When isn’t it these days?

The phone call ends. Alistair contemplates for a second while Jimin remains silent, the former
typing away at his phone.
“ What’s wrong?” Jimin finally asks, curiosity prickling at him.

“ A coffee shop, by the Thames, completely blown up. We think it’s a terrorist attack- Jimin
what’s wrong? Jimin? Hey- what are you-”

Alistair is left staring at the back of Jimin’s cream suit just seconds later, as the man runs into the
red haze, just like four summers ago.

______________________________

Fire. Debris. Red. Orange. Yellow. Dust. Heat. Blue. Red. Sirens. Neon.

My fault. My fault. My fault.

How many hours ago was it? He was just here, just before he met Alistair, eating Marie-Jean’s
food, ruffling the hair of the little boy, ‘Ami’ his name was, thinking about the fact that Marie
referred to Damian by that name a few times in her stories too. She was well over ninety, and yet
the world had kept her youthful, hazel-green eyes still shining when she spoke of the boys, of
what they had done together. Of Damian who Jimin suspects she loved maybe just a little more.

Or definitely a lot.

It’s…it’s in ruins. The door he walked into just a few hours ago is gone, the windows shattered.
Their legacy, Taehyung’s grandad, Yoongi’s, Damian, the little boy, Marie Jean…stolen kisses,
secrets, forbidden friendships….

Jimin doesn’t know why but it hurts to the point where he starts chanting Taehyung’s phone
number beneath his lips again. He doesn’t know what to do.

What to do…What am I supposed to do?

Why is he so weak? He’s done this for years. He’s killed so many people. What’s different?
What’s different this time?

A little boy, he just killed a child.

The firefighters are still flickering from one road to another, extinguishing the last few pieces of
stray flame, looking through the debris for the body of the little boy they haven’t found yet.

A black body bag is stretched along-side Jimin. He doesn’t look at it.

The alleyway is busier now that the store is gone than it was when it was still here, people dotted
here and there, gathered around the burnt apartment to watch the fallen ashes dance in the wind.
Jimin stumbles forward, bending down, his hand curling around the frame of the fallen picture.
The glass isn’t shattered. It’s the picture of the three men he had seen when he walked into the
shop.

He slides it into his jacket, walks away, slipping through the law enforcement and general public,
stumbling down the road.
This is a warning.

It’s a warning not to look for him, to let him ruin them as he wills. That he’s the only one allowed
to play.

Don’t dig deeper.

Don’t look for me.

And then there’s a hand on the hem of his coat. Jimin is half blind, looking down.

It’s Ami.

“ It’s your fault, isn’t it?” He isn’t crying. There’s soot on his chin, on his hands, face painted
nearly black. But he’s not crying, and he isn’t hurt. Jimin blinks away tears he doesn’t know why
he’s shedding. “ You killed nana.”

And then he’s gone.

Jimin whirls. And whirls again. And again. He runs into the opposite street, slipping on the
asphalt, knees hitting the floor.

And then he runs back to the burnt store, hands gripping the shoulder of a police officer.

“ Have you found him?” Jimin shouts, holding the officer’s jacket with shaking, red hands.

“ Who? Sir, I must-“

“ The little boy,” Jimin reiterates. “ Have you found him yet?”

“ No, sir, we-”

The shutter of a camera.

Someone’s watching him.

Jimin catches sight of him, the black lens, the man behind the building to the right.

Jimin lets go of the neon yellow jacket, the police shout after him.

He sprints.

Jimin’s always been good at that, running away, sprinting. He’s never lost a single race.

He’s in his hotel room, phone in hands. What’s happening?

“What the fuck is happening to me?”

He was careless. So, fucking careless walking into there in broad fucking daylight, without
thinking. But…but he didn’t walk in knowing what he would walk out with.

He didn’t walk in there knowing the information he would walk out with, he didn’t even go in
there looking for anything. He went there for fucking coffee.

Jimin came to London because this is his best chance. This is where it all started, where it ended,
where everything was rebuilt.
It couldn’t have been coincidence.

He probably drew him there, this fucking legacy, this faceless man. Bait.

An elderly woman and a child as bait.

It’s affecting him much more than it should.

“ This is your fucking job Park Jimin.” He shouts to himself. “ This is what you fucking do. This
is what you’ve always done. Get a grip, get a damned fucking grip.”

He slaps himself, hard.

Once. Twice.

Jimin starts laughing.

It’s Taehyung.

He’s in fucking withdrawal. This is all Taehyung. It’s that he isn’t here.

Jimin has never been apart from him, not for an entire day. Even when he left for five months,
skype calls every few hours, sleeping to the sound of each other’s breathing, three hour-long
phone calls. But now…. nothing. He’s shaking, like a fucking addict in withdrawal, whimpering
and aching against the door of his hotel room without his skin, without even a phone call.

Jimin is completely fucking defenceless, useless like this, without him.

He doesn’t want to do it.

“ I can’t do this.”

It itches, his hands itch for his hands, feet burning, spine forsaking him, crumbling beneath the
pressure, without Taehyung’s hand to put the discs back into their place.

Jimin’s never been so scared.

“ What the fuck is happening to me?”

He slips his phone into his hands, crawls forward, climbing up the bed, putting it facing him
against the foot, pressing the screen before retreating.

“Jimin’s…Jimin’s vlog, D-D-December…” He can’t stop shaking. Is this what Yoongi feels like?

“Taehyung…” He sobs, blind with tears. “ I- I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m so scared, I’m so
fucking scared. I’ve never done this before. I shouldn’t have left, shouldn’t have fucking left
without you, I’m fucking useless like this. Fucking…I can’t…. need you…touch me, kiss me,
please.” He’s losing it. He can tell he’s losing it, just like he used to before. “I’m nothing, I’m
fucking nothing without you. Can’t do fucking nothing right, I-I-I”

Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe.

And then he can.

It takes one breath, just one, for him to smell it.

With his uninhibited senses heightened, Jimin focused on the pungent, masculine perfume tickling
his nose alongside sewage rank and rat droppings. Dior? Hugo Boss? No, he didn’t think he’d
ever smelt this particular cologne before.

Shanghai.

Sewage system.

The legacy.

It’s the smell of that damned perfume, the one he hasn’t been able to find even after a full year.

It’s the sounds of oxford shoes gritting against his hotel door that pushes him off the bed, gripping
his phone just before he staggers to standing, stumbling to the door, opening it. Jimin looks left,
right.

There.

He follows the shadow, the fleeting figure of the man disappearing around the corner, wiping his
tear stained cheeks, refocusing his blurry vision.

He rounds the corner.

There’s no one there.

He fucking lost him.

“ FUCK, fuck, fuck, fuck.” There’s blood on Jimin’s fingers, knuckles against the wall.

He needs to get a fucking grip, he needs to get a fucking grip and he needs to do it now and-

His phone is ringing.

“ Hello?” He’s still wiping pathetic tears when he answers it.

“ J-J-Jimin.”

“ Alistair?” Jimin runs to his room at Alistair’s shaking voice, the man sobbing unlike Jimin’s
ever heard him cry, fumbling with his card, grabbing his gun from the bed. “What’s wr-”

“ He…he told me to tell you- to tell you-”

“Alistair, where the fuck are you?” Jimin clocks the gun back. “What the fuck is wrong with your
voice?”

“ He told me to tell you I love you. S-said it’s the last thing y-you need to hear b-before-”

“What?” Jimin’s halfway out of his door when he speaks again. “Alistair what the fuck are-”

“I love you Jimin.”

Gunshot.

Jimin stops.

“ A-Alistair?” Jimin steps back into his room, shuts the door. “Alistair?”

The line goes dead.

Jimin’s suddenly back here, in London, at seventeen.

Four summers ago and he’s stumbling into an English boy, a bit tipsy and lost in the heart of the
world, with Taehyung raving about the gallery they just hijacked because Van Gough was
showing there that night- eyes shining with the light reflecting off the Thames.

The Englishman, Alistair, he took them to Primrose Hill, over which the entirety of London was at
their feet, sobered them up, fed them because Taehyung kept complaining that he was starving,
and then they realised Alistair’s father owned the hotel Jimin and Taehyung were staying at.

And then there was Oxford Street, shopping until Taehyung maxed out his credit card for the first
time in Gucci and the three boys are left on the floor of the store, rolling around the floor, crying
from laughter because how the fuck do you max out a card you literally ordered this morning?

And the best part was the faces of the guards and the storekeepers, the other customers, standing
there and not being able to do anything at all to the three teenagers who just spent sixty thousand
pounds at the store in one go. So, they had to let them sit there, surrounded by millions worth of
luxuries, both in their bags and the store, rolling on the floor in their royal’s clothing. Children in
an adult’s world.

Then there’s the ice cream store in Piccadilly Circus, the one Alistair showed them, the one they
went back to every day of the summer until Jimin had tried all the flavors, one each day. There
was a market opposite the store too, where Taehyung bought that pocket watch he’s still kept until
today.

That was perhaps the best summer of Taehyung and Jimin’s lives.

The most fun they had, the closest they came to forgetting that there was an empire of crime
waiting for them when September beckoned.

All because of Alistair Jonathon Lloyd.

Jimin doesn’t know how long he stands there, looking at the blank screen of the phone. It’s too
much all at once, like it never happened. He laughs for a bit, he just stands there and laughs,
manically, boisterously. Loudly, like a fucking madman, he laughs.

Jimin stops laughing.

There’s a bottle at the bottom of his suitcase, the one he hasn’t thought about for a while.

He throws his suit jacket off, the cream rippling into the floor, unzipping his suitcase. The bottle’s
there, the familiar white skin. He takes one, then two, then four.

Then he sleeps.

For almost two days, Jimin just sleeps.

And when he wakes on the second day, and Taehyung’s number has completely slipped his mind,
he knows they’ve worked.

He opens his eyes.

And feels nothing.

Absolutely, blissfully, ignorantly, nothing.

When he stands, he takes the store-bought package, goes to the bathroom, looks into the mirror.
At the blonde hair, the puffy eyes.

The hair dye stains his hands, and thankfully his hair.

He’s got his weaponry laid out on the bed, picking and choosing between daggers, knives, semi-
automatics, his one sniper rifle. Jimin runs his hand along the spines, the black metal, the cool
caress warm in his hands.

When it’s time, he lets his hair out, drying it. He fills the magazines of a 22 round and a 45 calibre,
strapping them beneath his jacket, to the back of his tailored, customised pants, a seal knife and a
bayonet in one built-in jacket pocket, two combat knives in the other. Jimin sweeps his black hair
back, staring emptily into the mirror.

“Hello Little Prince.” He greets.

Only for a little while, he promises Jimin. Just for a bit, until he regains control, until he can do it
without Taehyung. The Little Prince smiles at his reflection. “Welcome back.”
 Stray Boys
Chapter Notes

I'm back after two months and all I have to offer you is pain, I hope you're okay with
that.
Also, I actually wrote out the entire plot and sectioned it into chapters, and I'm
pleased to say this monster is forty chapters confirmed. The last chapter's note about
me only being able to update every few months for sure still stands, sorry :(
ANGST AHEAD.
Also, I don't know why the picture is so big, I did some coding shit with the HTML
after 10000 tries and I could finally embed this SPECIFIC picture because it captures
his essence so well, but this is 1000% Sam. The only picture of Sam in existence. The
perfect picture, the holy grail, the.
Here it is.

Present, Mid December

“Taehyung called.”

“Jin, did you hear me?” Seokjin’s eyes snap to Hoseok’s. He's had this look in his eyes ever since
two weeks ago, since Taehyung’s near death. It's so familiar, it’s something Hoseok recognizes in
himself when he looks into the mirror, and yet on Jin it seems to foreign, so unintelligible that he
can't put his finger on it.

“Yeah…” He finally replies. “What for?”

Seokjin watches the New York lights from his arm chair by the window, pensive eyes flitting
from the buildings, the people, to the neon lit stores, long, never ending streets. Hoseok catches
himself staring as the sunset reflects in the man’s eyes, painting a soft orange shadow across his
cheek, a pink one on his brow. New York from the upper rooms of the Four Seasons Hotel
doesn't seem as disgusting now. Not when all Jin sees are lights and lights and lights. Little
people, little ants and their filthy, little lives.

“Before he's discharged,” Hoseok replies, settling onto the bed, one leg crossed and the other
dangling off, bouncing against the wood, a laptop in front of him. Jin wills his eyes away from his
position on the arm chair across the room, facing towards the row of windows on the room’s
furthermost wall. “He wants everyone to relocate to the summer house, Namjoon’s flying in too,
from Boston.” Hoseok knows he isn’t listening. “He said he's finished his thesis almost too early-“
Hoseok informs, chuckling. “ So he's been excused for the spring term.” Jin remains silent.

Hoseok sighs, shutting the laptop, jumping off the bed, “There's… still no calls from Jimin…”
Four long strides take him to Jin who hasn't even bothered looking up yet. “Are you… Are you
even listening?”

“Yes.” It’s exasperated. Tired.

Like Jin’s tired of him.

“Then look at me.” Hoseok’s voice breaks. He hates how desperate he sounds.
“What for?” Jin snaps, features softening when Hoseok recoils. “Listen-”

“What the fuck is going on with you?” The dancer whispers, almost like he doesn’t believe they’re
even having this conversation, as though it’s not ‘you’, but ‘what is wrong with us ?”

“Nothing.”

“ Is it because I invited myself to your room or something?” The younger man asks, crossing his
arms. “Am I not allowed to do that?” Hoseok landed only a few hours before Jin, the older flying
in from Milan, god knows why the fuck he was even there. The Kim mansion was practically in
flames, Jungkook was at Yoongi’s, and Jin’s apartment is too far from everywhere to be
convenient. Hoseok had decided he didn’t need his New York flat anymore when he relocated to
London.

So here they are.

“Hoseok I'm tired.” The owner of the name stops. Jin hears his breath hitch, and finally looks up.

Hoseok looks more scared than Jin’s ever seen him.

“ O-of me?”

“No… no, I-“ Jin’s face mellows, arms unfolding, slackening, relaxing.

No, don’t fucking relax. Jin grits his teeth.

You’ve got to do it now. Do it now or you'll actually lose him, you'll lose him forever.

“Yeah?” Jin reiterates, features hesitant. Hoseok’s expression falls again. “I don't know Seok-ah, I
don't know.”

“You can't just….” The former assassin sounds almost sounds like a child now, voice so small,
retreating flesh into bone, making himself look so small that Jin’s resolve almost breaks.

Almost.

“I can't just what bab-?” Hoseok raises a brow.

Baby.

“ I can’t just what Hoseok?” Jin retorts too softly, correcting himself.

He can't do this, he can't do this to him.

“Please,” Hoseok whispers, kneeling in front of Jin, taking his hands in his own. “Can we just…
can we just figure out what's going on?”

“ You want me to tell you what's going on?” Jin asks.

It’s now or never.

“Please.”

Jin sighs.

“ I slept with someone.”

“ You…” Hoseok scoffs. “is this a joke?”

“N-”

“ You sleep with hundreds of other people. I've learnt to deal with it… I’ve fucking gotten over
your whole billionaire fuck boy act, we talked about it, I’m okay with it so why- so why-”

“Yoongi.”

Hoseok stops.

“ I slept with Yoongi, Hoseok.” Jin says again.

“I’m still…” Jin can’t bear to hold at Hoseok’s faltering gaze, struck with tears, “I’m still in love
with him.” At the tremble of his lips, the horror in his eyes.

And then, time stops.

We say 'time stops' a lot. As though time is so considerate as to halt its path just for us to adapt, for
us to heal the unhealable, but no, it doesn’t work like that, does it?

Time stops because she’s shocked. Shocked at her own power. At how limited she is and how
little she gives people and yet, and yet, and yet… People still manage to fuck up.

“ You…” Jin sees the tremble in Hoseok’s knees, the tremor in his neck, the way his shoulders
slacken, spine brittle beneath Jin’s words. “You did…you…what?” He nearly falls back,
removing his hands from Jin’s knees, like he’s disgusted to even be touching him.

“ We fucked…” To call it that seems like sacrilege now, after he had been held like that, kissed
like that. By the boy of his fucking dreams. “The day after Tae’s surgery…” Jin’s being so cruel.
He’s so, so fucking cruel. Hoseok just stares at him like a catatonic, arms slack next to him,
crouching in front of Jin, the lights of the afternoon darker, shadows ominous on the golden
canvas of his broken face. Hoseok uncurls, slowly walking backwards, unblinking. “I still love
him. I fucking, I fucking love him so much Seok,” Jin knows he has to add more. He has to say it
out loud. “Maybe…” Jin chokes on his words, throat sewing itself together, not letting him,
knowing it’s not the truth. Not the whole truth. So has not allowed to say it, not if he’s not even
sure, not if- “ Maybe more-“

“Don’t.” Hoseok’s finger is in the air. “Don’t fucking say it.”

“ I think I-“

“Please don’t do this.” Hoseok whispers. “Please.”

“ Hoseok.”

“ I know exactly what you’re doing.” Hoseok announces, turning around, head in his hands. “
You can’t have him Jin. You fucking know that. You’ve known it since you were sixteen, that
you can’t fucking have Yoongi, and you want him.”

“ You don’t know shit, you don’t-”

“ You always want things you can’t fucking have and you convince yourself that you don’t
deserve anything else either.” He’s right. He’s so fucking right that it kills Jin. “But here I am, and
I’m so fucking in love with you.” Hoseok’s eyes go glassy at the confession. Jin bites his tongue
so hard that he tastes metal. And for a split second it’s the metal of a belt splitting his lip and his
father’s screaming over his head. The next second it’s Hoseok’s eyes turning to his.

“And instead you go fuck the one guy you’ve been in love with since you were fifteen, the one
guy you know could never love you as you do him because he’s still in love with his dead
boyfriend and his best friend’s other half.” Jin shoots up, rage percolating through him, hot red fire
prickling at his extremities, burning the tips of his fingers, piercing his chest, blinding his vision.

He’s not allowed to talk about Yoongi like that.

“You’re in love with a guy so emotionally fucked up that he actually fucked you when you
asked.” Jin stumbles back. “Because that’s what you fucking did, I know you and you went to
him and asked him to fuck you and he said yes because he’s so fucked up-“

“ Don’t fucking speak about him like that.” Jin screams. “You don’t have a fucking right.” Jin
howls, lurching forward, his hands raising.

Hoseok flinches. “Did you…” Jin’s voice hitches. “Did you think I was going to fucking hit
you?”

“ N-no..”

“ Seok...” Jin murmurs. “ Are… are you fucking serious?” Jin questions. “I wouldn’t Hoseok, I’d
fucking never, I’m not, I’m not-” Hoseok quickly steps forward, taking Jin’s raised hand in his
own, shaking his head in refusal.

“You’re not your father’s son, I know Jin. I’m sorry. It was instinct.”

“You were a fucking assassin Hoseok, I’m not as stupid as you all fucking think I am-”

“No one thinks you’re-”

“ Shut the fuck up.” Jin yells with a chuckle. “Shut up.” For a moment the only sound in the room
is Hoseok’s teeth gritting against his mouth, chewing his gums under Jin’s stare.

Jin just wants to kiss him.

He just wants to fucking kiss him like he did the first time.

But he can’t, he can’t, he can’t.

“ I’m not fucking stupid, I know it’s not an assassin’s instinct to fucking flinch, not when you
murder for money.” Jin knows he’s clawing at scarps, anything to make this less painful.
Anything to make himself look less like a fucking asshole to make it easier for himself. More like
a fucking asshole so it’s easier for Hoseok.

The dancer’s expression slowly remolds into a hard exterior, like he’s picking up his pieces from
the carpeted floor, the pieces that Jin dropped in the first place. The pieces Jin fixed a year ago.

His expression hardens like he knows that it’s a lost cause, no matter what he does.

That Jin is a lost cause.

“Stop. Changing. The. Fucking. Subject.”

“Maybe If you think I’d ever fucking raise a hand on you,” Jin starts, breathless. “You shouldn’t
be fucking here in the first place.”
“Are you fucking kidding me Kim Seokjin?” Hoseok asks. “You’re really fucking doing this.”

“ Get out.” Jin says weakly. “Just g-get out.” A sob rattles through him as he gives the verdict,
Hoseok stepping forward on instinct, to embrace him, to hold him. To banish the confusion, the
betrayal, the hurt, the guilt, all of it, with just his warmth. The warmth that’s so characteristic, the
dimpled smile that’s so fucking singular to Jung Hoseok that Jin knew the moment he saw him at
the theater for the first time, that he wasn’t going find something like this again.

And he’s letting him go.

“ Jin…” Hoseok bargains, coming forward to tug at Jin’s sleeve. “Can we just- can we just
fucking fix this? Please?” Jin shakes his head.

“Hoseok.” The older emphasizes. “Don’t make this worse than it already is.”

“ Why are you doing this?” It’s not working. Hoseok can see right through him. “You love me, I
know you love me.” Hoseok whispers, laying his head on Jin’s shoulder. “ I see it in your eyes. I
trained for this. You love me, don’t fucking lie to me. I know you love me.” Jin closes his eyes at
the sensation of Hoseok’s hair fluttering against his jaw. At th warmth of his body pressing against
his.

He only does this with Jin. Only caves for Jin, gives himself up for Jin, opens his mouth for Jin.

No one, not one person has ever prioritized Jin like that.

Except his mum.

“Why are you doing this Jin?” Hoseok sobs against his chest. “Why?” He asks, punching him
weakly. “Why? Why? Why?”

“ Please.” Jin pleads, lifting Hoseok’s head, hands so large that they encompass his whole face.

Ask me to kiss you.

Ask me to kiss you.

Please. Please. Please.

“Please leave.” Jin says instead. “I don’t deserve you Hoseok. I don’t deserve you. Please, please,
please.”

“Jin…baby, we can work this out. We can get through it. I don’t care. I don’t fucking care. I don’t
care about Yoongi, I don’t care about any of it, so please Jin, please-“

“ I don’t. I don’t love you Seok. I don’t. I don’t. I don’t.”

“Stop it, please, stop this. Talk to me, talk to me Seokjin.”

“ Please, please, please for the love of god.” Jin begs. “If you love me, if you love me, leave.”

“ I’ll wait.” Hoseok promises.

“ You shouldn’t.” Jin pleads. “Don’t.”

“ Kiss me.” Hoseok whispers, hands on Jin’s chest.

“ No.”
“ Kiss me.”

“ No.”

“ Please k-“ Jin charges. Hoseok’s face is in his hands, his lips molding around his. Hoseok melts,
like always He holds onto Jin for dear life, clutching his chest like he’s not going to let go.

But he will. He has to.

When their mouths part, Hoseok rests his forehead against Jin’s.

“ I’ll wait,” He whispers, kissing him again. “No matter how long it takes. No matter how long,
I’ll wait for you.”

And then he leaves.

Jin watches the love of his life walk out the door.

And he doesn’t run after him.

Two weeks ago, hospital

Jin sees him lying on a chair next to the coffee machines, his permanent area of residence for the
past two weeks, if the room where he’s been sleeping next to the machines doesn’t count. The
green foil packet of mints peeks out of the silver zip of his leather jacket. He's dressed head to toe
in black. Boots, shirt, jeans, jacket, a black mask across his face in case he's recognized, softly
snoozing with an empty cup falling out of his hand.

He stirs once Jin’s footsteps near, one eye inching open, looking to the right.

“ Hey…” He rasps, voice scratchy and deep, fingers blindly reaching for his mask to snap it off
his face. His lashes flutter open slowly, eyes adjusting to the light, fingers massaging his lids
softly. “How’s Tae?”

“He’s doing okay.” It's like they both wait for Jin to say it. “Jimin’s with him.”

“Yeah, of course.” Yoongi sighs, looking over at Jin’s lingering form. His eyes rake down Jin’s
messy clothes: the white shirt, ungodly ripped denim jeans that have massive rectangles cut out of
both thighs, knees and calves, converse, light brown hair naturally styled to let his eyes show,
curling over his forehead, just like how Yoongi likes it. And then the pianist looks at his tired,
sleepy eyes, pink cheeks, redder lips.

Yoongi smiles. Jin immediately reciprocates.

He almost looks fourteen again.

“Wanna join me in my humble abode?” The pianist offers, motioning the row of seats. Jin
chuckles. It's a nice sound. It's familiar to Yoongi. It's familiar the way the smell of popcorn and
the webbing of sugar spinners are familiar, because they reminisce those one or two moments of
your childhood where you were blissfully nonchalant. That's Jin. Yoongi’s version of Jin at least.

And that's always been the problem with them.

That Jin is familiar and Yoongi knows everything there is to know about him. But all the pianist
wants is the unknown. The unfamiliar.

Yoongi shivers, hands slightly trembling.

“Cold?” Jin quietly inquires, sitting down on the seat next to him, facing his body towards
Yoongi. They can both feel it. How dangerous this is.

“ And then some.” Yoongi chuckles, rubbing his quivering palms together. Jin smiles.

“ Give me.” He asks without really asking, wrapping his hand around Yoongi’s as the pianist
angles his body towards him.

“Fuck, you're warm.” Yoongi swears as Jin rubs their hands together, heat trickling between them.

“Heart of gold.” The pianist chuckles, head falling forward to laugh before he can look at Jin and
realise he has the biggest fucking love struck stare on his face, and it's all for Yoongi.

“Everything of gold to be honest.”

It comes out before Yoongi can stop it, and maybe he should have thought twice about it but
why? Why if it's just the truth?

“You… you mean that?”

Because yes Jin is gold. Jin is gold in its purest form but Jimin… Jimin’s still…. Jimin remains
Yoongi’s sun.

“Yeah Jin, of course you… you know you're a fucking beauty.” Yoongi compliments genuinely,
hands nowhere near as cold as they were minutes ago. “You don't need me to tell you that.”

“And what if I do?” Jin whispers, inching closer to him. Yoongi shuts his eyes.

“Don’t do this to yourself.” The pianist whispers, Jin raising their hands to lay fluttering kisses
against Yoongi’s knuckles. “What are you doing Jin?”

“I don't know.” He replies, lips halting, mouth open against the arch of his bones.

“Then don't do this to us.” Yoongi whispers against Jin’s hair

“Tell me to go and I will.”

“Don’t do that to me.”

Yoongi feels the first spot of wetness on his hand a minute later, and Jin lets go. “Hey…” The
pianist whispers, hooking a finger under Jin’s chin, tilting his head up. “I’m bad for you.”

Yoongi chuckles. Of course, this is where he ends up. This is how they're going to deal with it.
The stress, the fear, the not knowing if they'll be alive tomorrow or not.

“Please. I-” The elder chokes back a sob. “I know… I know you want me too.”

“Not how you want me Jin. Not like that.”

Not how I want Jimin.

“I’m gonna count to five and if you don't want me I'm going to leave.” Jin resolves. Yoongi
shakes his head.

“ Don't do this, please, c’mo-“

“ One.”

“ Jin, just listen for-“

“ Two.”

“ I'm fucking using you,” Yoongi half-shouts, raising his voice. “ Do you really not get that?”

“Three.” Jin stands. Yoongi buries his head in his hands.

He doesn't even hear the ‘four’ before Jin’s walking away.

The pianist's hand blindly reaches for his and he's staggering to standing, pushing him against the
wall, their bodies colliding.

“Why do you fucking do this to me?” Yoongi rasps, nosing along Jin’s neck veins, tongue darting
out to taste him.

He tastes the same. The same as he did when they were kids and they didn’t know better. When
Yoongi didn’t know better than to use someone who was in love with him because the emptiness
just wouldn’t let up. And he doesn’t know any better now.

“I’m sorry.”

“You don't get that maybe this is fucking me up too? You think I like being in love with him?
You think I like fucking people to fill the empty space his void has created in me?”

“Yoongi, please-“

“You come in front of me dressed like this, so fucking beautiful, with your insufferable perfect
fucking face, looking so worn out and tired with tears dried on your cheeks-” Yoongi kisses his
cheeks then, as if to prove a point, messily licking at the salt, tangling his hands in the older’s hair
and rolling his body against his. Jin whimpers at the contact. “And what? And what? And fucking
what Seokjin?” Yoongi snaps, biting his nether lip. “You expect me to say no? You do all of
this,” His fingers trail across Jin’s abdomen as he speaks, inching down, whispering along his
exposed thighs. Jin shivers, hand grasping Yoongi’s hip. “You know exactly what you're doing,
and you expect me to say no so you can feel rejected and leave with a tail between your legs? So,
you can have a sense of closure about us? We're never gonna fuckin’ have closure Jin, we were
each other’s first kiss.” Yoongi’s voice lowers as he presses them closer together, holding Jin’s
face, holding his gaze. “You’ve been in love with me for longer than I've been in love with
Jimin.” Jin winces at his name. “And you know what hurts?” Yoongi whispers, pressing their
foreheads together. “I could see myself with you, I could see myself fall for you if only he wasn’t
here-”

“Just stop it, just stop it-”

“ I'm not gonna give you the luxury of knowing I'd reject you because I wouldn't. But I'd never
love you more than I love him and that's gonna kill you every single fucking day until you're
hollow and so fucking empty-”

“Like you?” Jin whispers, pulling Yoongi in by the collar, their lips pressing together, angry hot
breath exchanged as Jin speaks against Yoongi’s mouth. “I'd become you? Are you scared there'd
be another one of you in the world? Do you hate yourself that much?”

“Shut up.” Yoongi whispers against his lips.

And then he kisses him.

He pulls them to the empty room besides the chairs, pushing him against the door once they're
inside. The pianist’s fingers latch on to the collar of Jin’s t-shirt, lips against the skin of Jin’s neck,
kissing up and down, sucking with intent to bruise, to mark, even though it isn't in Yoongi’s place
to do so.

“Fucking gorgeous.” Yoongi praises as his palm curls around Jin’s neck, pressing down as he
kisses the skin between his spread fingers. “Beautiful.” Jin quivers beneath him, under the praise,
under the force of Yoongi’s hands colonizing him, he shakes. He takes Yoongi’s hand on his
throat by the index finger and sucks on it, maintaining the gaze of his eyes on the pianist's as his
lips travel up and down, hollowing out his cheeks as he bobs his head down and then up again.
“Filthy,” Yoongi whispers, taking his finger out of the tight warmth of Jin’s mouth to replace it
with his middle finger. It's longer, Jin looking at Yoongi as he finally settles his lips around the
base of the finger, lips a red blossom around Yoongi’s white skin.

“ I can't-” Yoongi chokes out, trying to move his left hand out of Jin’s mouth as his lips latch onto
the older’s neck again.

I can’t stop myself.

“Fuck, you're so weak for me.” Yoongi rasps, watching Jin nod in agreement, softly sucking
around the musician’s finger. Yoongi knows he’s fucking up as the seconds pass and he remains
watching Jin’s swollen lips redden around the skin of his finger.

And he tells himself he can’t stop, that he’s trying, that he’s fucking trying, okay?

But the truth is, that he doesn’t want to stop.

“I don't wanna hurt you.”

“Then fuck me,” Jin mumbles, lips sliding out from around the finger, kissing Yoongi instead, one
hand grabbing the small hairs on the back of his neck, Yoongi feeling the wetness on his skin, the
other clutching onto his waist inside the jacket in a grip that's sure to bruise tomorrow.

Jin might as well leave his mark too.

Yoongi kisses him slow, in a telling way that's almost too slow, like he's thought about this before
just like Jin has. It's like they're recreating their first kiss, the very first time either of them claimed
and were claimed.

He takes his time until his lips mold into the shape of the others and Jin whines for more. What's
more painful? That he thought Yoongi would fuck him fast and hard and detached, that he
thought Yoongi would care little and sparingly. Or what he's doing now…kissing him slow, like
he cares, like he… like he…

“Hey, you okay?” Yoongi questions, hand curling beneath Jin’s shirt to caress the soft skin
beneath.

“Y-yeah, just… please, please.”

Yoongi inches his shirt higher, palms spread on his skin as he slides the fabric upwards. The
pianist crouches, swollen lips attaching to the skin lining the belt of Jin’s breastbone as he lifts the
shirt over his head, the collar catching on the bridge of Jin’s nose. As soon as his lips come back
into vision again, Yoongi kisses him,.

“Are you sure?” He murmurs for the last time. Instead of a reply, Jin raises his arms, letting the
shirt fall into Yoongi’s hands who throws it behind him as he strips his best friend. His first kiss.

They gently stumble, tangled around each other’s limbs, falling onto the bed. “Don’t be so soft.”
Jin pleads. “It’s killing me.” He whispers, Yoongi’s hands kneading the skin of his thighs through
the rips of his jeans. “Stop being so nice.” Yoongi doesn't listen. He strips Jin of his pants slowly,
kissing down his legs as he does so. The older suddenly has enough. Jin pushes Yoongi back by
the shoulders

“Just fuck me, fuck me, fuck me” Jin rambles, hitting Yoongi’s chest. “ Stop feigning making love
because I know you don't love me the way you're kissing me.” He condemns. “You don't want to
hurt me but you're here touching me like you were taught to love by Aphrodite herself. Fucking
stop it.” It’s getting harder to breathe for the piansist. His hands shake. Every word, every whisper
of truth, it’s nothing new.

How many other people has he done this to?

But this is Jin. This is his best friend. It hurts. It hurts so much more. Yoongi can’t fucking
breathe.

“ It's hurting me, stop it.” Jin rambles as he settles around Yoongi’s thighs, pushing him seated
against the headboard.

“Is this what we're gonna be reduced to?” Yoongi whispers, kissing his shoulder, biting his lip to
keep the tears at bay. “Just cold hard fucking and me being the selfish bastard you all reduce me
to?”

“ We don't reduce you to anything.” Jin retorts shrugging off Yoongi’s jacket, throwing it across
the room. “You’ve always been selfish.”

Yoongi whirls them around again, hovering over Jin’s body.

“When there's someone as pretty as you, how could you expect me not to be?” He rasps, leaving a
trail of bruises from his collar bones to the waistband of his underwear. Yeah, Min Yoongi, fuck
him because he’s pretty. Make yourself sound like even more of an asshole than you already are.

Keep masking yourself in your defense mechanisms and maybe one day they’ll really drown you.
“Hm?” The sound reverberates against the valet of Jin’s hip bones and he arches, shaking as
Yoongi spreads his thighs, nosing along his arousal. “How can I resist?”

“ I don’t want you to.”

“ Then watch me ruin you.”

Yoongi strips him of his last piece of clothing slowly, with his teeth, enamel grazing Jin’s hip
bone, the skin of his thighs, knees, calves, the arch of his feet as he finally lays naked before the
pianist who throws his own shirt across the room, joining his jacket in the moonlit hollows of their
surroundings.

From his back pocket, he removes his leather wallet, emptying out a couple of square foil packets
onto the bed.
Yoongi fucked the grief out of both of them. Every time he was too soft, or he stopped to kiss Jin
too deeply, the latter stopped him and pushed their hips together again, growling ‘harder’ and
Yoongi would hate himself just a little more.

“Fuck you…” He whispered into Jin’s ears with each thrust. “ F-fuck you for doing this to me.”

“You did this to yourself.” Jin retorted, then pushed him over, mounting him, lean torso, broad
shoulders, Yoongi’s drool on his lips, all of that at Yoongi’s disposal as he gripped his hips,
spurring them to roll against Yoongi’s, like hesitant waves against a new shore, approaching fast
at first, slapping against the sea bed, but then faltering. Faltering at the warmth of the sun-kissed
shore, at the sensation of gold against blue and white.

“ You don't need to go so fast.” Yoongi assured, holding the skin of Jin’s hips in his hands as he
guided them back and forth. ““Hey? Look at me.” He said softly, his thumbs brushing the other’s ,
drawing circles on the pink skin. “Jin, love, please look at me.” Jin didn’t. He carried on burying
holes into the expanse of skin beneath Yoongi’s left hand, shaking his head.

The pianist charged up, arm wrapping the other’s shoulders to thrust upwards, his other hand
tilting Jin’s chin up.

“ Goddamit look at me,” He rasped again, joining their lips at the same time he thrusted upwards
particularly masterfully.

“ O-oh…fuck.”

“‘S-shit.”

“ I'm gonna fuck you just like this and you're gonna watch me,” Jin’s eyes strayed to Yoongi’s
lips.

“Don’t look away for fucks sake. Makes me think you're regretting it.”

“You’re a whole regret in yourself.”

“Sex 101, I regret ever knowing you.” Yoongi articulated. “Thanks man.”

“Shut up and fuck me.”

“Watch me.” The pianist ordered.

“ Okay, fuck… okay.”

So Yoongi fucks him just like that, with Jin pressed against his chest, one hand holding him still,
the other imprinting on his throat, legs bent into white bows and hips thrusting again and again,
just like that, they fuck the fear out of each other. The fear of losing someone like Taehyung, it’s
never come so close before, and Yoongi doesn't think he has it in himself to lose someone else.

Not after his mom.

And not after Sam.

Jin was near silent. He bit his lip so fervently that it finally bled, very slightly, blood rolling down
Yoongi’s shoulder where the former’s head rested.

And then Yoongi realised it's not blood.

And then Yoongi realised it's not blood.

It was tears.

“Does it hurt?” The pianist quickly inquired, caressing Jin’s mop of brown hair. “Should I stop?”

Jin shook his head weakly against Yoongi’s skin, angling his face to the musician’s neck to
suction the skin against his throat, not even a kiss but as though he was truly tasting him.

“Keep going.”

“You’re crying.”

“Don’t you have experience with that sort of thing?” Jin questioned, slightly breathless. “Making
people cry?”

“Don’t do that to me.” Yoongi pleaded with a soft thrust upwards. “Don’t condemn me like that.”

“Make me come again and I'll stop.”

“ This is your fault as much as it is mine.”

Jin lifted his head finally, resting their foreheads together as his whole body followed and he
slammed himself back down on Yoongi, hands on his shoulders.

“ No it isn't.”

They were quiet from then on. Jin let a few more tears slip because he couldn’t stop them. Yoongi
imprinted the mold of his hands on Jin’s hips, shoulders, throat, the map of his fingertips on the
panes of his cheek, the sharp of his jaw, the discs of spine protruding every time Jin arched above
him. Even though he didn’t have a right to, even though there were still those few fleeting
moments when Jimin flickered through his mind, he still did.

Then he remembered Jungkook, and that's when his hips faltered, and he came into the condom,
his hand sliding gently around Jin’s arousal, wet and blushed with blood, and in response the elder
trembled above him, fingernails painting shy pink moons on Yoongi’s back, like the interim
between dawn and morning where pink and blue ally against the white of the clouds, just like the
fingertips against the pianist’s skin.

And just before Jin went limp against him, consciousness thoroughly fucked out, Yoongi heard it
against his ear.

“ I love you so fucking much and I can't…I can't fucking stop.”

A tingling sensation stirs him, fluttering just against the crook of his elbow. It's pleasant, oddly
comforting even, but only until Yoongi remembers-until he remembers-

Seven Years ago

Yoongi, 16

“ What are you doing?” The black haired one asks, trying to pry his hand away from the other’s
grasp.
The room is large but vertically rectangular, a bunk bed in the right-hand corner, band posters
pasted tastefully around the long mirror next to it, scaling the tall wall.

The left wall is a window seat, shelves inside the wall below it, little steps leading up to the
landing scattered with books and pillows. In between the two walls, in front of the mirror, lays a
rug, throws and cushions softening the wooden floor in front of it.

The boys are bare, naked against the fabrics, the window slightly ajar to let the summer wind in.

“I’m kissing your arms.” The older one answers, lips reattaching to the crook of the other’s
elbow, tongue tracing cream skin, lips suctioning against the flesh.

“ Yes, thanks, I got that. But why there?” The younger reiterates.

“Why not?”

“Who the hell kisses elbows?”

The blue eyed one chuckles, pushing the other on his front so that he's lying with his naked
stomach to the floor, facing the mirror.

“ Me.” He replies. “ I wanna kiss places other people don't.” He whispers, kissing the younger’s
shoulder, blunt finger tips tracing the discs of his spine. “Places other people don't bother with,”
The boy massages the valley between the younger’s collar bones, open lips dragging against the
belt of his vertebrae. “I want to make you melt just by breathing on them.”

“ S-Sam,” The black haired body beneath him whimpers, feeling Sam’s breath on his opening.
The feeling of his lips doesn’t come. Instead, gentle teeth feast on the flesh of his ass, bruising
flowers into his skin before the boy hears Sam inhale against his skin.

“ You smell fucking incredible.”

“ Sammy…” The boy whines, burying his head in the pillow beneath, hugging the fabric. “
Please.” He urges, voice muffled.

“ Please what, my pretty little pianist?”

“ F-fuck…” Yoongi whines. “ Touch me please.”

“You’re so fucking polite when you're horny,” Sam swears. “ I want to leave you just like this.”
He warns, kissing the other’s pink rim, then resting his head against one cheek.

“Sam, for fucks sake,” This earns the boy a light slap on one cheek, but just before he complains,
Sam attaches his lips to his opening again, mouth suctioning softly against the ring of muscle.

“ Sammy…” Yoongi breathes. “Sam- Sam, fuck, fuck- sensitive.”

“ Yoongi peach,” Sam whispers, mouth detaching. “ Make up your mind.”

“ Stop touching me, fuck, and maybe I'll stop asking.”

Sam whirls Yoongi’s body around, hovering over him, a hand curling around the younger’s
member.

“ I can't touch what's mine?”

“ F-f-u-uck.” Yoongi whines, overstimulated, body bruised in purple and red, hands threading
through Sam’s hair as he takes the pianist’s length in his mouth.

“ I'm- Im gonna- I-m- Sammy-“

“ Sh peach, I know, c’mon, come in my mouth, come down my throat.”

“ Filthy,” Yoongi breathily giggles. “You're filthy, I l-love y-it.” They both let the slip up go, and
Sam only gives him a teasing smile before sliding down his length again, gagging when he gets to
the bottom, the corner of his eyes sparkling in the lazy morning sun. This is all they did, all night,
all dawn, in Sam’s house that just has the two of them in it. The two of them and the moon, the
sun, stained pillows and cold hard, wooden floors warmed with the sensation of slapping skin and
hungry lips.

“ Come on,” Sam whispers, lips open against the crown of Yoongi’s cock. “ I know you're
holding back. Wanna taste, c’mon.”

“ I last fucking minutes with you, I hate it.”

“ You say that it's like a problem.” Sam chuckles. “I'll jus’ make you come all over again.”

This is perhaps enough for the pianist’s stamina because Sam hollows his cheeks and sucks even
harder, milking the come out of him as Yoongi trembles, managing out to spill a ‘Sammy, hold
my hand’ just before he comes. Sam is happy to oblige, intertwining their hands as he smiles
dumbly around Yoongi’s relentless arousal that just won't soften. When his mouth finally leaves,
he rests his head against Yoongi’s hip, smiling up at him.

“ I make you that frustrated huh?”

Yoongi stops to stare for a moment. At his dark blue eyes, night waves that manage to be calm
even on the stormiest nights, the dirty blonde hair, dark brown threaded through it, so long now
that it falls across one eye, golden tendrils reaching the bow of his lips. Dark brows, red, wide,
full lips, three tiny moles in a triangular shape on the right hand corner of his mouth, the one at
the apex slightly bigger than the other two

“ Fuck off. Yoongi swears finally.

“ I’d rather fuck you.”

“ You have,” Yoongi whines. “ Four times, today.”

“ Only four?”

“ Sam.” Yoongi warns with a hand lacing through the older’s hair. Sam just chuckles with a
hand on Yoongi’s soft chest, whispering ‘okay, okay’s’ as he lays his head on the pianist’s
stomach.

“ Fuck I'm happy.” Sam declares, snuggling closer, one hand wrapping around the other’s
abdomen, the other drawing small circles on his stomach.

“ If you don't stop breathing on my dick you'll have to fuck me again and I'll actually pass out.”

“Dick game strong.” Sam shouts, Yoongi hitting him on the head.

“ Shut up you moron.”

They lay in silence, one of Sam’s band recordings playing softly in the background of the white
room.

“ You coming to the gig tonight?” Sam asks just as the song changes. Yoongi gasps. It's Sam's
song, one of the songs he's written for the band.

It’s the same song that was playing a year ago, the night Yoongi was stumbling in the alleyways
drunk at fifteen, his dead mother’s locket in his hands.

She mistakes my name.

“If I can fucking walk.” He finally replies.

I see the light come around.

A mother who didn’t remember Yoongi at all the last few months he was allowed to see her. A
mother whose brain was so ridden with the illness that she forgot her own son's name.

“ I'll carry you,” Sam says, looking up, “ And I'll say ‘You see him? That's the prettiest boy in the
whole fucking world and I love him so damned much.”

“W-what?” Yoongi stutters, sitting up, Sam’s head falling to the floor.

“Love you.” Sam confesses. “I love you so damned much.”

“Oh…” Yoongi whispers, shaking. “Shit.”

“ Jee.” Sam breathes. Tears reflect off of his eyes and Yoongi charges as Sam moves away,
muttering a quiet ‘thanks’. Yoongi grabs his hand in hurry.

“ No!” He corrects, falling down, Yoongi on top of the other, legs around Sam’s.

“ Fuck.” They both swear before the silence settles.

“ What's that look?” Sam asks when Yoongi’s eyes on his don’t let up.

“ I love you.” Yoongi whispers as a tear escapes. Sam bites his lip. “Love you too.”

“ Yeah?” The singer questions, a tear caught between his lips. “You sure?”

“ Asshole.” Yoongi swears, leaning down to kiss him. Their naked forms fit together, Yoongi
lazily rolling his body against Sam’s, the music of their lips louder than the one playing in the
background.

And strange as it seems, I’m bursting at the seams.

“ I'm so fucking happy right now.” Sam confesses again, wrapping an arm around Yoongi’s
waist, pressing him so close that Yoongi can almost feel the flowers in Sam’s lungs press against
his. “I'm so happy I feel like I could go fucking crazy. I could die right now- I could-”

“Shut up.” Yoongi cuts him off. “Don't jinx this.” Yoongi pleads suddenly, stopping the kiss.
“Fuck, if there's one thing I can have- just…”

“ What?” Sam questions, holding Yoongi’s face.

“ Fuck.” The pianist breathes tiredly.

“Yeah,” Sam assures. “I got that part.” Yoongi stays quiet, not looking at him. “You okay?”
“ Don't fucking jinx this, this is the best thing that's ever fucking happened to me. You… You are
the best thing- so don't- don't jinx it.”

“ You like me that much?”

“ Yes, fuck yes. I love you so much.” Sam lets a few more tears slip at Yoongi’s unashamed
confessions, one after the other, more than he would have ever allowed himself to hope for. Then
he brings him into a kiss, and another, and another, and that’s all they do. They kiss until they’re
bruised and red, until Sam makes love to Yoongi again and Yoongi accepts because when Sam
gives and gives it’s impossible to do anything else.

And they’re happy.

They were fucking happy.

Yoongi blinks against the hospital room. Maybe someone heard. Maybe god heard, but- but
someone must have fucking heard. Someone must have heard them and realised. No one was
allowed to be that happy. Sam jinxed it. No matter how much Yoongi urged him not to, he
fucking jinxed them.

And now he's dead.

Sam's dead.

It hits Yoongi sometimes, that he's actually dead. That Yoongi is never going to be able to touch
him again. He's never going to hear him sing. Sam… Sammy’s gone.

“ Which one are you thinking about?” Jin’s voice is like a literal slap in the face, cutting through
Yoongi’s trance.

“ What?” It’s night fall, moonlight trickling in to paint Jin’s face a soft white.

“Which one were you just thinking about?”

Maybe it's sad that Jin doesn't need to explain what he means, or maybe they just know each other
too well.

“Sam.” Yoongi replies quietly, turning around, facing him. Jin’s expression falls. His hand comes
to caress Yoongi’s brow, his lips softly moving against the pianist’s.

It feels so good. It feels so good. Kissing Yoongi feels like the most unfamiliar familiar things, like
passing by your childhood home and hearing the laughter of a different family, seeing a bike that’s
not yours strewn on the garden that’s far more well-kept than yours was. It’s different. It’s
different but it’s the same.

“ You say ‘which one’ as if there's a whole list.” Yoongi quietly observes.

“ There kind of is.” Jin replies. “And I'm not in it.”

“ Jin-”

“ Sam,” Jin begins to list. “ Mum, Jimin,”

“Can we just-”
“Jungkook.”

Yoongi’s breath hitches.

“ Who told you?”

“ I overhead Jimin and tae.”

Yoongi looks away.

“ What are you running away from?” Jin asks.

“ No one.” The older smiles.

“ I didn't say who.”

“ Who are you running away from?” Yoongi asks instead. “Right this second.”

Yoongi thinks about the shrill of a violin.

Jin thinks about Hoseok.

“Nothing.” Jin replies.

They both know he’s lying.

“You are on the list Jin.”

“Hm?”

“The list,” Yoongi reiterates. “This fucking imaginary thing you've made up for me in your head.
You are on it.”

“No, I'm not.”

“Are you fucking listening to me? I'm saying you are. It's my goddamn list, I'd know.”

When it doen'st seem like he's getting a reply any time soon, Yoongi opens his mouth again.

“Jin you've… you’re my best friend.”

“Who you made out with because you were lonely sometimes.”

Jin knows it’s a low blow.

“You fucking let me Jin.” Yoongi’s voice breaks. “You knew why I was doing it and you let me.”

“ You were there when I played at my first Chopin competition in Warsaw. You were there when
m-mom was sick.

“You’ve always been there Jin. You were there when my mum died… when Sam… when they
called me about Sam, you were right there too. You've always been there….” Yoongi’s throat
clogs up. They both sit up, sheet around their waists, skin painted blue by the moonlight.

“But Jimin’s the one who nursed you back to health.” It’s fucking petty, what they’re doing. Jin
can’t bring himself to care. “He's the one who brought you back. And Taehyung got you off the
drugs. He stopped you from becoming a fucking heroin addict.” Yoongi doesn’t object, because
it’s the truth. “I did nothing.” And then it’s not.

“Don’t fucking say that. Don't you dare fucking say that.” Yoongi urges, scrambling to sit up.
“Come here,” He whispers, caressing the sides of Jin’s head, “ Look at me,”, trying to get him to
turn his face towards him. “Jin, please.”

“ What do you w-want from me?” He sounds so small, eyes shining with a perpetual glimmer of
unshed tears that Yoongi knows the sight of all too well (because Jin’s right, he’s usually the
cause of them.)

“ Do you want me to love you?” Yoongi asks, Jin’s face in his hands, the older man craning his
neck from his position snuggled against the pianist’s chest.

“ Don't do this to me.” Jin cries, finally sobbing, choking on his words, clutching Yoongi’s bare
chest. “Please don't do this to me.”

“I’ll drop everything and love you if you asked.”

“Stop it.” Jin sobs, banging on Yoongi’s chest with weak hands. The pianist removes one of his
hands to restrain the administrations, entangling their fingers. “Stop talking, you're hurting me.”

“ I love you.” Yoongi whispers. Jin shakes in his embrace.

“ Stop,” Jin pleads, kissing him. “You’re hurting me. This is hurting me,” he kisses him again.
“Fuck,” Jin swears, mounting Yoongi’s thighs. “You make me want to die.”

“ I'm so fucking sorry.” Yoongi whispers, arms wrapping around Jin’s body, pulling him closer,
palms searching his back, maybe for an off switch, for ‘how to love an emotionally deranged
cripple’ button, a big red one, how easy would that be?

“ I fucking love you,” Jin confesses again, head falling onto Yoongi’s shoulder. “Fuck you. Fuck
you, fuck you.”

“You need to stop.” Yoongi begs. “I'm gonna kill you. I'm going to ruin you.”

“ You already have… You did, I-“

Hoseok.

“I’m so sorry.” Yoongi apologizes.

“ Don't do this again then, if you're sorry.” Jin urges.

Hoseok. Hoseok. Hoseok.

“Don’t do this to another pathetic little boy who falls in love with the pain in your fucking eyes
and thinks they can fix you and realises you don't want to be fucking fixed. Stop using bodies to
fill your empty spaces Yoongi because you can't stop yourself from using their hearts too and it's
gonna kill them inside.”

“ I…” Yoongi’s chest aches. He used Jin. He used him because he was lonely, and Jin let him. Jin
fucking let him.

But Yoongi was the one who asked, the first time at least.

Maybe this is payback. Maybe that’s why Jin asked him this time.
“Don’t kiss me the next time I ask, don't open your door, don't answer your phone.”

“ I can't- I can't do-”

“Fucking please.” Jin screams with a broken voice, hitting Yoongi’s chest. “ You've already killed
me, so you might as well, just this one thing, this one thing…”

“ You don't realise this is hurting me too?” Yoongi asks, voice scratching against his throat, hands
trembling. “This hurts me too. I'm fucking hurting.”

“ I think you think you deserve it.”

Yoongi’s response come out as just a whimper.

He’s right.

Like always.

Jin stands, gathering his clothes from around the room, fast, hurriedly like he just wants to get out.

The only time Yoongi doesn’t want them to leave and here Jin is, so quick to leave him alone.

“ Do you think I deserve it?”

Jin’s already dressed by the time Yoongi finds the courage to ask.

“ It doesn't matter what I think.” He answers without looking at him, hand on the door knob.
There’s a hickey on his neck, his lips are bruised.

His heart in fucking pieces most probably.

“You stopped listening to anyone else’s opinion the moment Sam died.”

And when Jin walks out, he thinks about how he didn’t run after Hoseok.

So maybe that’s why Yoongi doesn’t run out after him either.

Yoongi wakes up to the sound of screaming, for the third time this week, and it's only
Wednesday.

It isn't a sound he's particularly familiar with, or at least not yet. When Taehyung has nightmares,
you wake up to the sound of muffled sobbing, one or two glances around the room finding
Taehyung’s body crumpled into the nearest corner he could have found.

Yoongi cries when he's dreaming, when all he can see is Sam’s white skin on the metal slab and a
COD of ‘overdose’ and ‘suicide’ scribbled on the papers hanging from the metal in chicken
scratch doctor’s handwriting. As if they couldn’t even be bothered to write it neatly.

As if Sam wasn’t even worth that.

Yoongi has to wake up and go through it all again, the not really knowing why, with a note that
barely explained anything at all, Yoongi has had to cry himself awake and wipe his own tears
away.

But Jungkook… Jungkook’s nightmares are something else entirely.

The pianist wakes up not only because of the screaming but the thrashing kneeing into his ribs.

The first words out of his mouth are ‘it’s okay’ and he has to think about when exactly this
happened. Whatever ‘this’ actually is.

He has to think about when exactly it became instinct to say that before waking up, to reach over
for the hard lines of Jungkook’s body, the soft curls of his head, and caress them before he even
knows what time it is. Whether its night or day. Whether even he, himself is okay, he checks to
see if Jungkook is.

Yoongi blinks the sleep away, rolls off the bed, going to Jungkook’s side. He screams with his
eyes open, thrashing in the bed, and once he starts hitting himself in the face, Yoongi reaches out,
slowly, cautiously. It takes a few minutes to trap the younger’s hands in his own, ignoring the
scratches the violinist claws into his arms as he entangles them.

“ I’m here, I’m here, you're okay.”

Jungkook presses down brutally hard, bending Yoongi’s bones backwards, and the pianist’s hand
can't help but to start shaking.

“Jungkook,” He whispers over the screaming as if somehow that's going to cut through the trance.
“You’re hurting me.” He repeats what worked last night, pressing down equally hard on
Jungkook’s hands, “It hurts.”

More tears bullet down Jungkook’s pink face, teeth piercing through his lips, his hands set in stone
around Yoongi’s, body thrashing from side to side… he looks like a kid, a child, fuck, he is just a
child.

Yoongi shuts his eyes, vision burning. He's been doing this alone, all this time, he's been hiding
this from Jimin, this fucking agony, he's been screaming through it all alone. Into the void.

The void has been his only companion.

“ Y-Yoongi…”

Yoongi lets go of one of Jungkook’s slackened hands mistakenly to wipe a tear away from his
own face and the violinist starts sobbing consciously, blindly reaching for him again.

“ I'm sorry,” Yoongi’s quick to assure, holding his hand again.“ I’m sorry, C’mere, can I pick you
up?”

Dangerous.

Yoongi’s chest hurts too much as Jungkook nods with swollen eyes searching for him in the dark
of the room. One of the pianist’s hands wraps around Jungkook shoulders, the other turning the
night lamp on, lifting him. “ You’re safe,” He whispers, lifting Jungkook’s limp form from the
bed, his arms straining at the weight. “I got you,” he falls into the bed with Jungkook on top of
him, his body crumpled into Yoongi’s. “I've got you love.”

“ D-don't make me sleep again.” Jungkook whimpers, lips open against Yoongi’s shirt. “ ‘don't
want to sleep. I can't do it anymore. It hurts, it hurts so much, hurts so-”

“Okay, okay Jungkook, we won't sleep.” Yoongi lies. “I won't make you sleep,” He reassures,
tucking the younger’s head further into his chest, hands a constant brush in hair. “I'm sorry I can't
do more.”
Maybe Yoongi shouldn't have said that, because Jungkook’s head pops out of his chest and he
gives the pianist a slightly delirious look, mouth ajar. Wanting to be kissed.

Yoongi’s heart clenches at the desperate look in Jungkook’s eyes. “This is bad for you. You're not
supposed to fix it with this.”

“You do it.”

“ Not like this,” Yoongi reiterates. “Not with..”

Not with eighteen-year-old, broken, beyond ruined boys with blackening brown hair, with eyes so
fucking cracked they could give Yoongi’s a run for their money, or a body so scarred that Yoongi
can't touch anywhere and not feel the white tissue against his fingers.

Not with boys like this.

Not with boys like you.

Jungkook is quiet after Yoongi’s refusal and the pianist caves so easily, hand caressing
Jungkook’s wet cheek, touching his thigh as a sign for him to wrap himself around Yoongi, sitting
himself on the pianist’s legs, both of them in shirts and boxers.

Yoongi kisses his cheeks first, licks the salt away slowly, and remembers how he'd done the same
for Jin, then questions how many people he's done this to.

Then he wonders whether he can even put Jungkook in the same bracket as the others, because-

Because it's so hard to think about Jimin when Yoongi’s with Jungkook.

Like always, the younger is quick to respond, going limp in the spine, delirious with the simplest
touch from Yoongi, submitting himself just like that, opening his mouth slightly, closing his eyes,
tilting his head back.

Yoongi doesn't know what to think when he feels a sense of entitlement when he sees the small
pink blossoms on the younger’s neck from yesterday, a dangerous word skittering across his mind.

Mine.

He lays kisses on the curves of Jungkook’s eyelids, fingertips wandering the line of his brows,
thumb pressing against the dark arches.

“ You're so fucking beautiful.” Yoongi whispers, looking at him with a sense of awe, a look of
wonder much more obvious than he usually permits himself to display.

Jungkook presses himself closer, their underwear nearly sewn together from the proximity, and
shyly rolls his hips.

“ A-ah…” Jungkook whimpers, their foreheads naturally falling together as Yoongi’s thumb
presses against his nether lip.

“ Fuck,” The pianist growls. “Don’t moan for me like that.” He rasps even as he thrusts their
bodies together.

“F-f-fuck.” Jungkook moans, and it seems as though he's had enough, because his rough
fingertips tickle the skin of Yoongi’s jaw and then they're kissing.

Yoongi’s hands are already beneath the back of Jungkook’s shirt before he's even opened his lips,
Yoongi’s hands are already beneath the back of Jungkook’s shirt before he's even opened his lips,
palms spreading out against his spine, feeling the arch of his back beneath the curve of his own
palm.

Yoongi kisses him slow, really slow. It's slow in that kind of dirty, kind of innocent, kind of just
the sheer fucking curiosity of wanting to know what another human being tastes like so bad that
you'd be willing to reveal all the fucked up, bitter tastes of your own tongue to them. If it's
uselessly poetic to say that Yoongi tastes pain when he kisses Jungkook then so be it because
that's what it is. Jungkook tastes of scars. Yoongi knows what orphans taste like. Because he still
remembers what Sam tasted like. And Jungkook tastes the exact same.

And maybe, and maybe it's not good to compare but Yoongi’s selfish and so, so fucking messed
in the head, and maybe that doesn't excuse him from anything and maybe he relies too much on
maybe and maybe that's why he ruins everything he loves but…

But maybe…

No, he can't, he shan't, he doesn't want to, not again.

But fuck if Jungkook doesn't taste good.

Like the explosion of a supernova if it could be tasted, the birth and death of a star, so much life,
so much music in the panes of his hands, the curve of his neck where the violin sits, so much art
just in the way that he moans when Yoongi thrusts into him dry and not enough but more than
enough to muffle just a little more pain.

Fuck, there's another dangerous thought.

That maybe if Yoongi’s kisses muffle the pain just a little each time, he doesn't think he would
have any problem with kissing Jungkook until he silences the pain, kills it, suffocates it with the
taste of his own mouth.

It's the furthest they've gone, Jungkook moaning so loud every time their clothed arousals brush
together, and graduating to whimpers at each new taste of Yoongi’s mouth.

It’s so easy for Yoongi to forget who he is right now that maybe Jungkook is fucking sacrilege.

When Jungkook’s whimpers turn even more breathy, and a pearl of sweat rolls down the skin next
to his ear, Yoongi brings him closer by the neck and asks:

“Has anyone made you come before, love? Yoongi whispers, his thumb brushing against
Jungkook’s ear.

“ N-n-no…”

“Can I?”

Jungkook shivers, teary eyes not yet completely dry.

“Y-yes, yes please.”

Yoongi smiles against his neck, the hands at the bottom of Jungkook’s spine inching lower,
tentatively fingering the hem of his underwear. “Yeah?” Not too far Yoongi. Don't ruin him.

“ Yeah,”

Yoongi slips his fingers inside, each hand cupping each ass cheek, spreading them, kneading the
flesh.

“ O-oh…”

“ You’re so fucking soft here.” Yoongi comments as he uses Jungkook’s ass as leverage to push
their arousals together again. “ Ride me, c’mon, just like this.”

“ C-can I?”

“My skin is yours.”

Jungkook’s fingers inch from Yoongi’s arms to his shoulders, clawing the fabric of his shirt to
grind himself against Yoongi. “ O-o-oh, Y-Yoongi.”

“ You’re gonna be the fucking death of me if you sound like that before you've even been
touched Jungkook.”

Jungkook pays no attention to him this time, instead, his eyes flutter at the high of the not really
skin on skin contact, but it's more than he's ever had, so right now, Jungkook’s higher than he's
ever been.

“Yoongi, fuck” Jungkook swears. “ Kiss me.”

“ You do it.”

“Please.”

“ Just take it.” Yoongi permits. “Take what you want.”

Jungkook fits his mouth over the skin of Yoongi’s neck veins, and sucks like he almost wants to
taste his blood, hips rolling against Yoongi’s and they're both brutally, painfully hard against each
other.

It's a cruel kind of bliss.

“ I… I…” Jungkook stutters as Yoongi bends his legs into bows, angling upwards, his hands
imprinting on the shape of the violinist’s ass as he digs his fingers into them. “ ’m…”

“C’mon, come for me.”

And maybe it's an ongoing joke for the universe to put cookie cutter broken boys in Yoongi’s path
and expect him to have any sort of self-control whatsoever, to make them all so painfully similar
and yet not the same just enough for every time to feel like a whole life time in itself, because just
as Yoongi feels himself spill, and Jungkook’s moans reach that fucking orgasmic frequency of
sound only pretty boys can make when they let go, Jungkook reaches for his hand.

‘Hold my hand.’

‘Sammy, hold my hand.’

“ F-fuck Jungkook.” Yoongi swears as they spill into their underwear and keep thrusting lazily
against each other, Jungkook whimpers of over sensitivity and the come dripping down the
Younger’s thigh moistens Yoongi’s abdomen.

Jungkook is still shaking minutes later, Yoongi’s hand in his hair, the other drawing lines across
the skin of his hip.
“Good?” The pianist questions.

“Fuck.”

“ You okay?”

“ Can't fucking see.” Jungkook whimpers as Yoongi brings him closer.

“ I've heard that one before.” Yoongi retorts before biting his tongue. “ Fuck I,” Jungkook doesn't
look particularly hurt, maybe a bit awkward, just a little sheepish. “That wasn't the time.”

I’ve heard that one before, I’ve fucked hundreds, maybe thousands like you.

You’re no different.

But that’s the problem.

He is.

Jungkook is different.

“ We don't have to clean if you don't want to.” Yoongi reassures, Jungkook melting on top of him,
head lulling onto the pianist's chest.

“No, we have to. I've made you all…”

“ Dirty?” Yoongi suggests with a shameless cock of the brow. Jungkook blushes.

“ Yeah…”

“Shower?” At this, the younger buries his head in Yoongi’s neck, open lips pressing a chaste kiss
into Yoongi’s sweat laden skin that somehow tastes like the bittersweet silence after the last
movement of an opera, the few beats of silence between the finish and the applause where the
theatre lays in an equilibrium of relief for the nine year old who doesn't know enough yet to
appreciate what they've just witnessed, the immortal look of wonder in the eyes of the woman
who's seeing the piece for the third time, and an overall sense of unfinished business about the air,
as though they must go on, and yet the curtains refuse to open again.

Jungkook chuckles against Yoongi’s skin, the sweet sound tucked right against Yoongi’s vein,
slushing itself against his blood stream, like the sound of the violinist’s laughter has laid claim and
buried itself in the innermost tunnels of Yoongi’s soul, rippling innocently in his very blood.

“ What is it?” He asks softly. Jungkook looks up.

“ My mind works most wondrously when I'm with you.” Jungkook whispers, fingers edging the
sharp of Yoongi’s jaw. Yoongi looks at him in surprise. “ Like I must fathom the most fantastical
images to describe you to my heart who can't see, or my brain that doesn't know and most
probably hates you because you manage to make me…” The silence stays, and Yoongi doesn't
comment on Jungkook’s post-euphoria ramblings.

Because that's all it has to be.

That's all it must be because Yoongi doesn't know what he’ll allow himself to do if it isn't.

If it isn’t just sex.

“ Shower?” Yoongi asks once again, the violinist un-plastering their two bodies, feet pressing
against the cold hardwood floor, padding to the closet, Yoongi’s following presence all too
disorienting behind him.

I must fathom the most fantastical images to describe you to my heart who can't see, or my brain
that doesn't know and most probably hates you because you manage to make to make me feel so
alive, and yet utterly, utterly dead inside.

Or happy and yet irrevocably Sad. Safe and dangerous. Like an oxymoron come to life, carved
with white skin and marble hands, hair forged from a cloudless sky and eyes from the stormiest
night of the year. Happy because your hands on my back, your gentle fingertips on my spine
make me feel as though I could turn my back, trust you with this canvas of ruined skin, and like
the others, your first instinct would not be to break, but to mend.

Happy because when you hold my face, you hold it like I'm already your entire world but I'm only
three weeks, dirty sheets, and kisses that mean nothing to you as they do to me.

Because we're both in love with him, even when I'm with you I still can't forget him, and I know
neither can you and if I ask I know you won't lie, because that's the kind of fucked up honor you
hold yourself to; so I won't ask at all.

Because even though I love him… and you love him, can we… can you… can't I love you… too?

“Jungkook?” His voice. The violinist blinks. “Uh…” Jungkook looks at his surroundings,
standing clothed in the circular shower cubicle that's probably larger than his apartment, Yoongi
sheepishly contemplating just beyond he threshold.

“Y-yeah?”

“ Uh… do I… do I come in? Or?”

Perhaps when Yoongi’s confused, that's when Jungkook feels safest. When the pianist is just a
little bit unsure, not enough to stir his shaking hands or blue the color of his lips, but with the
tiniest bit of fear prickling the corner of his eyes and his teeth bruising his lips violet, not yet blue;
the violinist likes him best like this.

Just as unsure as Jungkook, just as frightened of what this (whatever this is) is.

This is safe Yoongi, good Yoongi, the one who doesn't look like a porcelain prodigy so sure of
himself and everyone else that there is seemingly nothing at all you could tell him to make his gaze
stay on you for just a little longer.

“ If… if you want.” Yoongi scoffs at Jungkook’s response, sighing like he's actually exasperated.

Jungkook is asking him if the pianist wants to be bare with Jungkook underneath running hot
water, his skin beneath his hands, water running down their naked forms, steam concealing them
from the rest of the world.

Jungkook actually has to ask.

“I’m sorry, I-“

“Jungkook, love,” Yoongi says softly, stepping inside the stone and glass compartment. “C’mere.”
He ushers with an outstretched hand. Jungkook obliges, waddling closer, sweat-laden shirt
sticking to his torso, underwear still slick with come. “Turn around if you want.” He makes it
seem like a request, as though Jungkook would ever not blindly follow Yoongi’s words like
they’re gospel.

He turns, Yoongi right behind him, his body heat scorching against Jungkook’s back.

The violinist shivers when he feels Yoongi’s cold hands on his hips, pressing down gently as they
inch down. Then his lips are tickling Jungkook’s ear and the younger nearly loses his footing.
“We’re not gonna…” Yoongi kisses the shell of his ear. “We don't have to do anything, okay? I'm
not going to…”

“I know.” Jungkook whispers, slowly lifting his arms above his head, holding them up straight. “ I
trust you.”

“ Fuck.” Yoongi swears as his fingers latch onto the sides of the hem of Jungkook’s shirt. “You
shouldn't Jungkook,” His hands lift Jungkook’s shirt, inching it higher up his back with the tips of
his fingers tucked into the hem, and his palms feeling the heat of Jungkook’s skin against them.
“You really shouldn't.” He turns Jungkook around just before the shirt catches on the bridge of his
nose, and finally his head is through the hole in the fabric and Jungkook’s face comes into view.
He's shaking, they're both kind of shaking to be honest, lips quivering, bare skin so hot against
each other.

“Let’s clean up, okay?” Jungkook just nods, their two bodies moving under the water. Yoongi
moves to the marble shelves on the furthermost stone wall. “What scent?”

“Pardon?”

“What scent, Jungkook?”

“G-green Apple?” Jungkook questions hesitantly. “Jasmine?”

Yoongi smiles, so fucking endeared and maybe a little scared because his heart skips as his hand
wraps around the bottles.

He already knew what scents Jungkook washed with, having checked his bathroom when he
went to grab him clothes. Maybe he asked so Jungkook wouldn't know that he thought about it,
that he went out to buy the shampoos, more expensive versions than what Jungkook had at his
own shower as to not raise suspicion, just because he wanted to. Because he wants to know why
his bedsheets smell of apple now and his hands like jasmine every time they retreat from touching
Jungkook’s skin.

Yoongi removes the bottles from the shelves, turning around, pressing the control pad on the left
wall, thermally regulated water spurring out of the rectangular shower head onto Jungkook’s hair.

It's a dangerous scene, pearls of water running down the ripples of his torso, wetting his brown
strands of hair. Yoongi would be entranced if he didn't have such a proper look at Jungkook’s
skin for the very first time. He takes the body wash, and moves under the water with him. “Can I
take it off?” Yoongi asks, his hands on the hem Jungkook’s underwear.

“I’ll… I'll do it.”

Yoongi steps away as Jungkook turns his back to him, the younger’s fingers clutching his
underwear and pulling it down slowly, over his thighs, knees, calves, onto the shower floor.
Yoongi wills his eyes away, taking his own off, his eyes fixed on the curve of Jungkook’s ass,
hand prints blooming on each cheek.
Yoongi’s hands.

His eyes trail higher, to Jungkook’s ruined back.

Yoongi takes the body wash in his hands, and squirts some on his palm, stepping forward towards
Jungkook. “ Can I wash you?” He whispers, his head on Jungkook’s shoulder.

Yoongi presses his palm against Jungkook’s back, the latter shivering.

“ Cold,” Yoongi affirms, slowly turning Jungkook around so they’re facing each other, slightly
out of the reach of the shower head. “I know, it’ll warm up in a sec.”

Yoongi presses the liquid into Jungkook’s skin, massaging his chest with it, biceps, arms,
spreading it on each of his fingers, circling them with his own, stretching the digits. Then his
hands move to Jungkook’s chest plate again.

“ You’re sensitive here…” Yoongi comments, pressing the body wash against Jungkook’s nipples
with his thumbs. “Right?”

“ F-fuck…” Jungkook whispers while Yoongi massages the skin between his thumb and index
finger, moving his thumb back and forth until Jungkook trembles and his hand reaches for
Yoongi’s. “S-stop, I- I’m gonna…”

“ Just from this?” Yoongi asks. Jungkook slaps him on the shoulder, head jutting forward to bite
Yoongi’s hand.

“Fuck you.” Jungkook swears. Yoongi chuckles.

“ You're fucking unreal,” The pianist smiles. “ Can I kiss you?”

Jungkook answers by jumping him, Yoongi’s arms wrapping around him to hold him against
himself. Jungkook pulls on Yoongi’s hair with one hand, the other clawing the length of his back.

“I’m here to clean you not make you dirty all over again.” The pianist warns, putting him down.
“Turn around so you don't jump me again.” Jungkook chuckles, listening either way, and gives
Yoongi the canvas of his back to wash.

The pianist stops.

Yoongi’s eyes trail down Jungkook’s bare back, the curve of his ass, his own hand prints
reddening his cheeks and it's all very, very enticing but… “Who did this to you?” He asks finally,
hands so tentative as they touch Jungkook’s back properly, actually seeing for the first time just
how fucking scarred this eighteen year old’s skin is beneath all of the muscle.

“Care homes…” Jungkook replies, voice small. “ Foster parents… uh, other kids.”

Yoongi inches closer, pressing his lips against a particularly jagged scar on Jungkook’s shoulder.
He kisses the skin much more softly than he kisses Jungkook’s lips, because he wants to devour
Jungkook but he never wants Jungkook’s wounds to reopen as his lips do when Yoongi’s near.
“You didn't deserve it.” He whispers, resting his head against Jungkook’s back. “You didn't
deserve that.” He chokes again, the body wash on his hands drying, turning scaly against his skin.

“Neither did you… what happened to your hands.”

Yoongi shuffles them closer to the stream of water, the liquid on his hands bubbling as he presses
it against Jungkook’s back, washing his spine, fingers cupping the curve of his ass as he washes
there too, then kneels behind Jungkook, massaging the inside of his thighs. “You’re sensitive here
too.”

Jungkook slowly inches around, and suddenly his hardened member is in front of Yoongi’s face
and the pianist can’t stop himself. He takes the jasmine body wash from the seat behind them and
squirts more into his hand, then wraps his fingers around Jungkook’s member.

“ F-fuck. F-fuck.”

Yoongi pumps him slow, the shower an excuse to clean without really cleaning at all, and
pleasuring him in lieu of washing. He moves them under the stream of water again to wash
Jungkook off, then takes his length in his mouth.

“ Yoongi, Yoongi, fuck, fuck-“

The pianist slides down, and then up again, kisses the crown of Jungkook’s member with his
cheeks hollowed and red lips sucking on the skin. “You taste so good Jungkook,” He comments
as he tastes the pre-come in his mouth. Yoongi flattens his tongue against Jungkook’s shaft, thumb
teasing his opening, sliding lethargically against the accumulating come, “You taste so fucking
good.”

“ H-hyung, please. Jungkook opens his eyes, squinting down to look at the pianist, his hair nearly
white beneath the fluorescent lights. The violinist shakes at the sight of him, gagging on
Jungkook’s length, hands massing his thighs, kneeling for him. Just like that.

“ Just washed you,” Yoongi warns. “Come in my mouth, down my throat Jungkookie, I want you
in my fucking blood stream.”

If there was a semblance of propriety, with that it’s gone, and Jungkook’s fingers clutch onto
Yoongi’s hair for dear life as the musician's mouth sucks the very life out of him.

Jungkook comes hard and slow, his hands curling and uncurling from Yoongi’s hair for support,
knees shaking as pianist holds him up by the thighs.

With each breathless moan fluttering between Jungkook’s lips, Yoongi milks more of his come
into his mouth, guides the brutally sweet taste of this scarred boy to the ends of his veins, to his
heart. This boy with a body like the arching, scathed skin of a violin who is not deserved by his
owners, and never has been.

Is it bad… is it bad that Yoongi wants his ownership? To own him but not to be owned, because
any time someone has laid claim to the dog tag around Yoongi’s neck, it became a noose and the
hands pulled and pulled, made him so fucking happy that Yoongi felt like he couldn't fucking
breathe anymore, and just before they killed him from happiness, just before the noose tightened
once and for all, they put a chair beneath his feet, just out of reach, just high enough for Yoongi’s
toes to tickle against the surface, just low enough for his every waking moment to feel like his last.

And here Yoongi is, kneeling once again, with the noose around his neck just a little looser
because of the taste of music and sad boys sliding down his throat, and he knows, he knows he is
not to be loved by Jungkook.

He would be to Jungkook who Sam was to him. And look at Sam’s Yoongi now, addicted to the
hollow sensation of coming inside someone whose name he doesn't remember, crippled to the
point where touching the piano while alone fucking terrifies him.

Because Jungkook was right that morning, the day Yoongi left him for the second time.
There is no one to pick up his broken pieces if the piano shatters them- when, the piano shatters
them.

And if he lets the people who are willing… Jin who loves Yoongi to the point of self-destruction?
Alex? James? The boy who doesn't look like he could even know what love means, loves
Yoongi? Who knows he is as unlovable as can be?

Jimin?

“Yoongi?” They're drying each other's hair, small white towels flapping side to side as nimble
hands work the fabric against the other’s wet hair.

“ Hm?”

“ What piece is it?” Jungkook asks, finger trailing the tattoo curling around the pianist’s wet arm.
Yoongi stops the administrations on Jungkook’s hair, holding the fabric around his face like a little
hood.

One, two…three pearls of water on his eye lashes, a mole just below the crease bottom of his
bottom lip, his black roots that he thankfully hasn't yet bothered to re-dye almost obsidian beneath
the water, his skin blindingly golden in the warm lights of the closet.

Fuck, he's beautiful.

“W-what?”

“ Did I…” Yoongi chuckles, removing both of the towels from their hair. He fastens the one
around his waist more tightly as he walks sways “ I said that out loud didn't I?” When Jungkook
doesn't reply, Yoongi turns as he shrugs on a moss green shirt. “Sorry, its-”

“It’s fine, you just…”

“ I just what?” Yoongi questions.

“You said ‘he's’ like you were thinking about me.”

“ Well…yeah?” Yoongi answers with a confused crease knotting his forehead. “I mean, isn't that
a…given?”

“No…” Jungkook whispers. “No I just didn't, I didn't think people would…” Yoongi tilts his chin
up.

“ Yeah?” When Jungkook doesn’t continue, Yoongi’s finger trails from his chin to his cheek,
lifting his head to look at him. “ Kookie?”

“Don’t-” Jungkook snaps. “ Don't call me that…J-”

“Jimin calls you that,” Yoongi quickly finishes for him. “Yeah, fuck, forgot you-”

Jungkook’s kissing him, Yoongi knows he's been shut up, and he doesn't really have the energy to
care. The younger backs him into a wall, Yoongi’s arm around his waist.

Avoid confrontation with skin. Stellar, is it not?

“ It’s Claire De lune.” The pianist finally replies as they emerge from the bathroom fully clothed,
Jungkook in a white shirt and loose shorts, Yoongi in sweats and a dark green shirt. Jungkook
doesn’t pry further as Yoongi sits on the piano stool, the former lingering by the bed. Yoongi kind
of wants him to.

“ It was my mum’s favorite piece.”

Jungkook stays quiet.

“Also, Sam’s.”

“Really?”

Yoongi smiles.

“Yeah.” He lifts the piano lid. “I got two lines after my mum…” Yoongi sighs. Jungkook’s
expression falls. “And the rest after Sam.”

The pianist lays his hand on the white keys, just to the right of the middle of the piano.

“Are you.. Are you going to play something?” Jungkook inquires.

“We do need to practice; the showcase is in January.” Jungkook bites his lip.

“Why don’t you play me something you love? And then we can practice?” He proposes shyly,
sitting down on the bed.

He wants to hear Yoongi. The real Yoongi, without watching the pre-accident prodigy through
YouTube recordings, without having to hear him compete with Jameson. The real Yoongi,
playing what he wants to. What he loves.

“Would you play something for me if I play for you?” Yoongi asks.

“ Are you bargaining with me?” Jungkook asks, smiling as he walks over to where his violin case
sits next to the balcony, on the bed-side table.

“ Your hands don’t shake when you play,” Yoongi corrects. “I’m allowed to bargain.”

“Fine, I’ll-”

The bell rings.

Yoongi stands with a confused expression. “I’ll get it.”

Jungkook follows after him, padding into the elevator. “Are you…are you expecting someone?”

“ Not at all.” Yoongi replies hesitantly.

What if it’s one of his lays coming to lay claim to something they’d left in Yoongi’s silk sheets?

It’s unlikely since Yoongi hasn’t slept with someone in two weeks.

Since Jungkook became a permeant addition to his bedroom.

But Yoongi is still worried.

Yoongi blinks and they’re suddenly downstairs, Jungkook waiting by the grand piano on the side
of the foyer while the pianist turns on the CCTV monitors next to the door.

“Fuck.” He swears.

“What is it?” Jungkook inquires, but Yoongi’s hand is already turning the door knob.

“ I thought I told you not to open the door for me.”

It’s Jin.

It hurts.

The rain is colder than usual, streaming down Jungkook’s face like tears. The violin on his spine is
heavier, feeling more like dead-weight now than ever.

“He’s just like the others Jin,” It burns.

“Jungkook isn’t any fucking different.”

New York is different when it’s raining. More beautiful in a way, purer, like the rain is washing
the sins of the people away. The ugly buildings are prettier because Jungkook can’t really see
them properly, they’re all just artistic blobs in the wet horizon, the beautiful buildings are even
more so because the rain tucks their flaws away into the folds of the blurry horizon.

The upper class, the blue collars, the lower class, and everyone in between, they’re all the same
under the rain.

It doesn’t matter how fat your wallet is, how many digits are in your balance, whether you’re
wearing Versace or hand me downs, the rain gets them all. It doesn’t matter if your umbrella
handle is ebony or plastic, if the storm wants to get you, it will.

Jungkook loves that about rain. It can make people cancel plans, make new ones, run even though
they can’t run for shit. It would be nice to be that powerful, Jungkook thinks.

Rain is the most powerful thing Jungkook knows.

“We’ll fuck and then I’ll get tired of him,” At first he thought he was walking to his apartment, but
no. He finds himself walking further and further away until he has no idea where he is.

The buildings are still tall, the taxies are still that yellow you get real tired of after living in New
York your whole life. It’s December and there’s wet snow on the ground, washed into the streets
by the rain.

It’s still New York.

That’s all that matters.

“ Or he gets tired of me.”

Jungkook’s phone is ringing in his pocket.

“I love Jimin. I love Jimin, and that’s all.”

He doesn’t hear it over the sound of Yoongi’s conversation with Jin playing over in his head.
Over the sound of the rain in his ears. Over the sound of a city that lives even as Jungkook’s heart
bleeds out.

He didn’t have a right anyway. He didn’t have a right over Yoongi. The pianist just felt sorry for
him, all it was: pity. Pity and sex. Or whatever it was they did together.

Jungkook should have been more careful. He should have had a backup drug dealer. Or any kind
of back up in case the pills ran out too early. That way he wouldn’t have fainted. That way-

“ WHAT?”

The phone is against his ear. He’s screaming at the relentless caller before he can stop himself,
billowing in the middle of the street.

“ Jesus fucking Christ.” The voice swears. “Jungkook, is that you?”

Jungkook removes the phone from his ear, looking at the caller ID.

“Taehyung?” Jungkook enunciates, cupping one ear to block out the white noise.

“Yeah man, are you fucking okay?”

“What-” Jungkook coughs. “What do you want?”

Why am I so fucking dizzy?

“ Do you wanna come over?” Taehyung asks. Jungkook observes his voice is even deeper on the
phone. He sounds older, aged.

“What?”

“ Come over to the hospital.” Jungkook’s sure that’s not what he said the first time. “The
Presbyterian.”

“ W-why?”

“ Do you have anything better to do?” Taehyung enunciates.

“ N-no?”

“ Are you asking me if you have anything better to do?” Jungkook closes his eyes at the sound of
Taehyung’s chuckle. It makes his chest hurts a little less.

He loves the sound of boyish laughter.

“I’ll be there in…” Jungkook looks around.

Where the actual fuck is he?

“ Well I don’t know, but I’ll… I’ll…”

“Jungkook?”

Taehyung’s voice echoes through the phone as Jungkook loses his footing.

“ Jungkook?”

His head hits the pavement, and contrary to common belief, his vision goes white.
 Red Boys
Chapter Notes

Yes, the word count is real. No, you are not dreaming. This is probably the last
chapter I'll be posting until my exams finish, which is on the 25th of June, so I hope
the fact that it's extra long makes up for that. I hope the plot stuff makes sense at the
beginning, but you'll have to focus on names and stuff.
Read the tags again because I've added a few in preparation for this chapter and
several things can be potentially triggering.

Also, if you didn't already see, there's a picture of Sam embedded into the last chapter
and it's quite huge but uh I've explained why and stuff in the note beforehand. I'll also
embed pictures of the other original characters once we get more time to get to know
their stories since by then you would have built an image in your minds and if I say
oh this is __, then it won't change your mind? Idk if that makes sense, but it would be
like I'm not force feeding you how I think they look like?

I really hope this makes sense :( i wrote it quite late into the night and the sun had set
and I was like????Yooooo
My exams finish on the 25th of June, as I said, but until then this is probably the last
update :( after that updates are gonna be diligently regular and I'm gonna post so
many oneshots you'll tell me to stop and it's just gonna be great I hate school so much
wow
I hope you're satisfied with this one x

Love, Charli

Kensington, London

Mid December

Jimin

When talk of torture comes up, the first word that usually comes to mind is blood. The first scene
is one of flesh pummeled so far into bone that the individual in question is fairly unrecognizable.
But if you ask someone like Jimin, someone who does this for a living, this being the extortion of
information, then he’ll tell you that first step to torture is familiarity.

“ Rough night?”

Jimin knows the moment she turns around that this one will be easy, maybe too easy.
“ O-oh…”

That's the exclamation of a regular at one of Kensington’s elite clubs who turns to order her usual,
and instead of the thirty something bearded ‘cocktail mixologist’ with a pretentious bow tie (
though don't get me wrong, bow ties are cool) who is her usual Wednesday night server, she
comes face to face with none other than-

“Something the matter?” Jimin asks.

“ You're…” Her eyes scale him. Up, down, down, they stay on his lips, her nether lip retreats into
her mouth, teeth biting flesh.

Jimin’s tongue traces over his top lip, smirk stretching over his mouth. Her eyes shift with the
movement of Jimin’s mouth. They go lower, trailing over his torso, clad in a white long sleeved
button up shirt, sleeves folded to his elbows, the top two buttons of his shirt popped open, and of
course, black hair parted in the middle, strands slightly wet beneath the heat of the lights.

“ Not Xavier, no.” Jimin drawls, eying the row of cabinets beneath the bar top concealing the
drugged up waiter inside them, swirling the block of ice in his hand with the white handkerchief.
He dries the frozen engraving on the ice with the fabric, shaving the other side into a matching
curve.

“ You’re very good with your hands.” She comments, the folding of her legs making Jimin
forsake a breathy chuckle.

“ Or so I’ve been told.” Jimin replies. They’re in the right-hand corner of the U-shape bar top,
selection of alcohol glimmering gold, red and blue behind Jimin, like the reflection of a shining
city blurred by the currents of the river front.

The three bar tops lie in front of the avalanche of liquor, counters a smooth jade, opal intertwined
into the dark stone, the white veins reflecting the soft yellow of the chandeliers behind them. The
cream, circular Persian carpets span in groups across the main body of the club -situated atop a
small staircase leading behind them- blood red sofas arranged in open semi circles on each one.

“ Oh yes?” Her voice rises in pitch, body leaning forward over the counter, angling towards Jimin.

Too easy, when you’re as pretty as The Little Prince.

“ And what else do they tell you…not Xavier?” Jimin smiles.

“ There’s usually not so much talking involved Madam.” He purrs. The plunge cutting down her
breastbone inches lower, her body drawing closer. She’s wearing red, of course she is. What other
color for a woman of thirty odd years married to a man ten years her senior who probably peaks
before she’s even fully bare, at an elite bar in Kensington, at two A.M mind you, looking for
something to make her feel just alive enough to actually keep living?

“ Oh?”

“ It’s usually just…” Jimin leans forward, caressing the curve of the sphere of ice in his hands with
the handkerchief, lip caught between his teeth. He angles his head down, then looks up at her
through hooded lids.

“ Lots and lots of…” Closer, come closer. “ Moaning.”

She shivers. Jimin relishes it.

“And it’s Jimin, madam.” He adds, uncurling from over the bar top just as the belt of neon lights
above his head alternate to a deep red, painting his white shirt pink, his face scarlet, his lips in a
color not unlike blood.

“And is that your real name, just Jimin?” She questions, manicured nail drawing lines
perpendicular to one another across the corner of the bar top.

Left, right, left, up, down.

“ Anything can become real if you try enough.” Jimin comments, sphere of ice shaved to
perfection between nimble, soft hands, the ice clinking as he sets it inside a short crystal glass,
gold liquid dripping into the ice before he slides it across the counter to a suited man sitting a few
meters to the woman’s right. “ And for you?”

“Manhattan, if you will.”

Jimin raises a dark brow, smiling. He leans forward, bringing the handkerchief to her lip, wiping
away the wine stain she probably acquired from a long night of lonesome drinking from the corner
of her mouth. “I think you’re just ordering that to impress me.” He purrs, leaning against the
counter, palms curled around the edges on his side, thumbs gently caressing the smooth stone, a
motion too calculatedly sensual to go unnoticed by her. “ I don’t think it’s very…” Jimin fakes the
essence of pensiveness, humming. The depth of the sound goes right through her, earning a shiver
from her delicate neck. “ I don’t think it’s very you.”

“ Oh?” She exclaims, smiling albeit being a bit embarrassed, a light pink dusting her cheeks. She
looks youthful like this, blushing like a school girl, without the dark gaze and red lips to deceive
into thinking that the world has truly stripped her of all her innocent by the age of thirty. “And
what do you think is…me, Jimin?”

The man in question brings the white handkerchief forward again, the fabric slightly damp from
polishing the crystal, setting it upon the corner of her lips, sliding it to the middle drop of her
bottom lip without touching the skin, raising a questioning brow from her. “May I?”

She nods without really thinking. Jimin smiles.

He drags the handkerchief across the rouge of her lips, touching this time, the white staining as he
drags the fabric left, right, then left again, until her lips are only a mirage of the blinding red she
painted them in. She lets out a whimper, then curls in on herself, but never breaks the eye contact.
Jimin massages her jaw unintentionally with the heel of his hand as he presses the fabric into her
lips, wiping away any remnant of crimson still remaining.

When he finally retracts the fabric, she exhales shakily, then gasps, for the white handkerchief
comes back stained hauntingly in red. Jimin watches her eyes-fixed on the dirtied fabric- the way
she examines it unflinchingly.

“ I think this is you.” Jimin whispers, curling over the counter even further, hand coming into
contact with the cool surface of her jewel encrusted hair clip. The bejeweled phoenix glitters red,
orange and gold, the colors just like they would be when the bird is reborn, the hues cascading
across their gradient, down the bird’s spread wings. Jimin gently removes it from her hair, yellow
tendrils falling over his hands, her long hair falling like a slow sunlit waterfall down her spine. “
Did he buy you this?” He asks, setting the clip on the counter.

“ He?”

“ The husband who left a woman like you home alone for the fifth night in the row.” Jimin
reiterates, smiling, picking up the phoenix to twirl it between his fingers. “No, I don’t think he
did.” She stays quiet, unblinking, as Jimin holds the phoenix up to the blue lights coming from
above them. The motion casts a dark shadow across his neck.

For a moment, she wonders if he’s real.

“Because this isn’t even real, is it?” He notices as the fake stones reflect the LED lights. “Now
why would a woman like you be wearing fake diamonds?” Jimin soliloquys to himself, smiling
ruefully as she crosses her arms.

“Who are you?” She finally asks, voice still just as crystal clear as it was before, unshaking. From
beneath the counter, Jimin produces a crystal tumblr, twirling it before crouching to place it inside
the freezer

He turns, palm clasping around the cold silver of a cocktail shaker on the shelves behind them,
small hands barely reaching around the swollen metal. The play pretend bartender empties ice into
the metal compartment, then pads the length of the liquor display behind him, finally settling on a
circular bottle of bourbon, a miniature statue of a man riding a horse fixed on the lid, and a
moment later also grabbing an eighteen year old Jameson, gleaming emerald beneath the bar
lights. He pours the Jameson into the cocktail shaker after removing the lid, then drips the bourbon
in carefully, adding a few other ingredients before replacing the lid and shaking the metal
container, water condensing on his palms. The whiskey glass (tumblr) he put into the freezer calls
to him as he opens the mini fridge, placing the ice cold glass on the counter, emptying the contents
of the shaker into it before staining the rim of the glass in the juice of a half orange.

“ You said it wasn’t me, but you still made it.” She comments, hands reaching for the glass. Jimin
tutts at her.

“ No, this is mine.” Jimin corrects, taking a sip.

She chuckles at his brazenness, and Jimin knows he’s refreshing for her. Not that he ever isn’t a
breath of fresh air, but this is different. She’s a prisoner. And Jimin has the key.

He suspects she’s still sitting there because she knows this too, somehow, whether it’s
subconscious or the sixth sense for danger anyone born into wealth intrinsically has. But she
knows.

Jimin smiles, taking another sip, humming, the kneeling again to bring something out from the
fridge, crouching out of her sight for a second. He uncurls to produce a-

“Martini,” Jimin announces. “For the madam.”

A pornstar martini.

She laughs loudly at the reveal, bringing up a delicate hand to chuckle into as Jimin slides the
drink closer to her, then settles another smaller glass next to it.

“ This is my favorite.” She exclaims, looking a little less suspicious of him than Jimin would have
liked.

“ I know.”

“ I would say it’s strange you don’t know my name while I know yours,” She comments, arms
leaning on one hand, elbow pointed on the counter. “ But I have a very strong inkling that you
knew everything there is to know about me before I even sat down.”
Jimin smiles in that telling way she has already deciphered to mean that he plans on ignoring her
again.

“Does your husband know why you named your son Ethan, Lily?” Jimin suddenly says.

“ No one…no one’s called me that in-”

“Precisely thirteen years, yes.” Jimin finishes for her. “Not since your little boy’s namesake left on
his motorcycle and he never came back, right?”

“ You-”

“ Would you like me to kill your husband, Mrs. Rosewood?” Jimin doesn’t give her time to speak.
She realises this, that he’s trying to strip her, and she lets her façade slowly drip off her face, just
like the make-up that Jimin also stripped off her face.

“What are you? My guardian angel?”

“ I think you know exactly what and who I am, Amelia Rosewood.” Their smiles match each
other’s, both feline, a little broken, or maybe a lot. But they’re on the same frequency, and it isn’t
often Jimin finds himself empathizing with someone. There aren’t a lot of people in the world, or
perhaps anyone at all, who is as broken as him.

“ If you’re going to call me Lily, you might as well give me the surname to go with it. Don’t you
think?”

“ Have you ever thought about killing Mr. Rosewood, Lily?” They’re both talking, listening, but
not really answering, because they don’t have to. They know exactly the kind of game this is.

“ And who hired you to kill Andrew?”

Andrew J. Rosewood.

The god of underworld banking.

No one buys a gun without Rosewood knowing about it. Not a cent is transferred from one
account to the other without the receipts landing in Rosewood’s hands the next day.

The Rosewood family are the original criminal bankers, scorekeepers if you may, black market
ghosts, shadows of crime. They know everything there is to know about anyone. The Rosewood
dynasty branches into several other families that control criminal activity and maintain peace
between the mafias, owning the majority of the world’s elite hotels, brothels, bars, hospitals,
clothing brands. The Lloyds were- are one of them, the owners of Lloyds banks and countless
world renowned hotels.

Alistair was heir to the European sector of the Rosewood empire.

So no, Jimin didn’t suddenly stumble into the Englishman by accident four years ago, he was the
entire reason Taehyung and him even went to London that summer. Alistair was just a game-piece
they needed on their side. But then he ended up being…decent. If someone that rich could even
have the right to call themselves decent, Alistair was.

Jimin realises he died without ever knowing that his meeting with them wasn’t chance at all.

And the pain the realization brings with it would be excruciating if not for the fact that Jimin is
currently beyond fucking drugged up on numbing medication.
“ Me.” Jimin corrects. “ I hired myself.”

“And what’s your reward?” She asks just as quickly as he answered.

“ Safety.”

“ Who’s?” The train of words halt. Jimin smiles.

“What’s the most important thing to you in this world, Mrs. Rosewood?”

Who is your Taehyung, Amelia?

“ You know exactly who.” She says through gritted teeth, smiling hard enough now that all her
efforts turn into just a grimace ghosting over her lips. She realises a second slower than Jimin, the
fact that he never specified a who.

“ And what exactly…” Jimin curls a finger, motioning her to come closer. “…do you think…”
Closer. “ Andrew would do…” she shivers as Jimin rests his hand on her neck, turning her head
to whisper the words in her ear. “ If he knew Ethan,” Jimin pauses. “Isn’t his?”

“ What do you want from me?” She asks.

Fear. Finally.

It’s perhaps the easiest emotion to see, once you’ve seen enough of it. Once you’ve caused as
much as Jimin has.

“ I want you to tell me to kill your husband.”

“ Is that all you want?” She questions. “To kill him?”

“ Not particularly.” Jimin purrs. “I just want information…” Jimin pads to the left, existing the U-
shaped bar to come stand next to her. “ But you of all people must know his entire empire is built
off of that.” He pulls out a chair, the scraping sound attracting the attention of a few men sitting
around a table a few meters behind them.

“ I think he’d rather die than ruin his reputation, so I’m asking for your permission, just in case he
does exactly as I predict.”

“ And since when does The Little Prince ask for a permission slip?”

Jimin’s ensuing smile is blinding, and perhaps the only genuine one he has let slip tonight.

“ Since you’re not the typical trophy wife type.”

“ So what am I?”

“ You’re a seventeen year old girl born into a family of drug lords, daughter of a man who chases
away the only person who made it just a little easier to breathe when you were choking on a sugar
storm of cocaine and you couldn’t shower away the invisible red on your hands no matter how
hard you scrubbed.”

Jimin can almost sense her eyes stinging, her hand clenching into a small fist, teeth biting into a
trembling lip.

“ And here you are, siting here, in front of me, thinking I’m going to tell your husband that his son
isn’t really his, but Ethan’s-“ And then, as an aside. “ You rich people and your tendency to name
your sons after their absentee fathers.” She chuckles softly, finally looking at Jimin. “Ethan
Manners, the bad boy on a motorcycle that made you think maybe one day you’d be able to get
away from it all, the guy your daddy threatened until he drove away and he never came back, not
knowing you were pregnant with his baby, Ethan Junior. You think ruining your life is any good
to me at all? Christ,” Jimin swears dramatically. “As if I’m that bored.”

She doesn’t say anything, almost like she’s waiting for the proposition. Jimin removes a flimsy,
grey-white envelope from his pocket. She raises her brow at the state of the envelope.

“Inside here are the codes for a billion-dollar Swiss bank account under your maiden name.” She
begins to cut in when Jimin stops her. “Mr. Rosewood knows about the one you’ve been hiding
for five years.”

“ Shit.” She swears underneath her breath as she fingers the cheap envelope again.

“ Did you expect a textured cream envelope with cursive writing inked in a Mont Blanc, Mrs.
Rosewood? Closed with a red, hot seal?” Jimin mocks, massaging his eyes.

He doesn’t think he can remember the last time he slept.

No, that’s a lie. Ninety-three hours ago, precisely, and when he woke up, he realised he had
dreamt of Tae.

“ A piece of advice? You don’t put Swiss codes in an envelope like that because it fucking
screams important. And you certainly don’t do it digitally, because that’s just fucking amateur.”
Jimin denounces with a sigh.

Jimin would say she’d turned catatonic (he wouldn’t really blame her) if not for the way her grey
eyes reflect the lights of the chandeliers with unshed tears.

“Its written in chemically modified ink.” He continues. “You’re going to go home, wake up your
thirteen-year-old son, and tell him you’re going to leave his abusive bastard of a father. You’re not
going to lie to him, no short trips to Disney land, none of that fucking bullshit.

“You’re not going to pack your bags because I know someone like you learns not to harbor
sentiment for anything in the house of a man who abuses you and your son.” Her hand grips the
hidden skin of her thigh on instinct. Jimin bites his gum. “This phoenix is your only prized
possession, because Ethan gave it to you before he left on his bike, and I think you wore it here
tonight because you knew exactly who you’d be meeting. You knew who I was long before you
sat down at this bar, and yet you still came.

“You have a safe lock in the Caribbean, and I don’t know how you managed to hide it but
Rosewood doesn’t know about it. I’ll have the stuff in there sent to Switzerland, there isn’t much
in there anyway.” Jimin takes a breath. His stomach grumbles. “The ink will become visible in
twenty hours, the exact time it’s going to take you to arrive in Geneva if you follow everything I
said correctly.” She’s stopped being surprised at this point, just taking as Jimin gives and gives,
listening to him narrate the life for her that she hasn’t been able to fight for, not until now, “You’re
gonna take Ethan Junior, you’re gonna go out the door, and never ever come back to this world
again, do you understand me?”

“ Are you finished?” She asks.

“Are you okay?” He retorts.

Her hand curls around the envelope.

“ You’re much more human than I imagined, Little Prince.” She whispers, standing. The woman
leans down to kiss Jimin on the cheek, lips soft against his skin. It doesn’t leave a mark.

She doesn’t say thank you. Jimin doesn’t add anything else.

“ I guess I’m just less of a monster than I’d like.” He says to a now empty bar.

Lily leaves Jimin beneath the yellow lights of the bar, red dress trailing behind her as she leaves.
She looks down at the envelope in her hand, turning it.

Her footsteps come to a sudden halt, her breath trembling in the confinement of her corseted chest.
Because behind the envelope is stuck a piece of cream, textured card. And in cursive, black,
fountain pain writing, is a number and an address in Geneva, labelled: Ethan Manners

Lily turns, walking hurriedly back to the bar, reading the small P.S beneath the name.

She’s at the bar before she can even lift her eyes, but once she does-

“ Xavier?”

“ Mrs. Rosewood, what can I get for you?” Lily shifts left, then right, turning to scan the length of
the bar.

“ Did you…” Lily turns once more, looking at the people walking beneath the chandeliers,
bending over the counter to look beneath the slab of stone. “Did you only just start your shift?”

“ No Madam,” Xavier replies, blinking rapidly. “I’ve been here all night.” His shirt is crumpled,
bow tie crooked.

Lily chuckles, head falling forward, eye catching the cursive writing at the back of the envelope
again.

“ Are you quite alright Amelia?”

“ I’m perfect,” She sings. “Thank you Xavier.” And then, a liberating afterthought. “Send my
regards to Andrew, would you?”

“ To Andrew?” Xavier questions, looking at her like she’s a madwoman. And she is, by god, and
it is all she will ever allow herself to be. Nothing, nothing but madness from now.

“ But…”

Lily leaves the bar, leaving the confused bartender behind with her request for him to send her
regards to her own husband, reading the beautiful cursive writing as she giggles to herself.

P.S. He’s still in love with you too.

All my love, The Little Prince

Jimin watches her from the shadows across the street, watches her drive her ’66 white Mustang
into the garages of the Rosewood mansion, smiles when sleepy Ethan stumbles out of the house
with his mother’s fur coat wrapped around the both of them. And then he watches them drive off,
never to come back. He waits, to see if she would change her mind, but fifteen minutes’ pass and
dawn spreads over the avenue like a layer of pale blue smoke, liquid sky washing the houses in its
hazy colors.

Jimin brings out his phone, one of many phones he has purchased since stepping foot in London,
out of his pocket, pressing the screen multiple times. He crosses the street, hands latching onto the
gates before he propels himself upwards, feet sliding over the metal bars as he half-climbs, half
pulls himself up. He listens for the hum of the electric wire at the top of the gate, then places his
feet between two twirls of barbed wire, having made sure the phone had turned off the electricity.

Looking right at the blank CCTV, he balances himself on top of the thirty-foot gate before free
gliding down, propelling himself off the gate, into the open air, curling in on himself once, turning
in a ball shape in midair before landing in a crouch, feet burning momentarily.

He uncurls, strolling the gardens, coming face to face with the front door, mind elsewhere. For all
the technology and computerized security, the front door is locked with six combination lock and
keys. Jimin picks them with a bored sigh, throwing the door open loudly.

He doesn’t bother shutting it, strolling into the white foyer and scaling the stairs. He knows the
floor plan of this house down to the combination of the safes and the number and makes of the
wines in the wine cellar.

He isn’t the little Prince for nothing.

The door he’s looking for comes into view as he steps into the landing of the third floor. He opens
it softer than he opened the main door, met with a walk-in closet not much smaller than his own at
the Kim Mansion. From his inner pocket he produces a photograph, then scans the row of dresses
to his right. He circles the long belt of open jewelry cases displayed in the middle of the room,
spanning the length of the closet, separating the right hand side, strictly clothes, from the left,
shoes.

Jimin walks sideways down the row of dresses, facing them, hands shuffling the dresses until he
stops, looks at the photograph in his hand again, and smiles.

Bingo.

Everyone’s looking at her, of course,they are. A new face, and as pretty as this one, is bound to
not go unnoticed by a crowd like this. Andrew Rosewood watches her, not because he’s
interested, no- most men of his status, with his particular tastes, try to hide whatever extracellular
activities warm their married beds when their wives aren’t home. But Andrew is too rich for that.
Rich, unbothered, and utterly without conscious. Which is why everyone in the banquet hall
probably knows Andrew Rosewood likes sticking his cock in the ass of pretty underage boys.
And he couldn’t give less of a rat’s ass.

So maybe it’s a bit of a bother that the woman in question has been giving him curious stares since
she stepped foot into the hall and fixed everyone’s eyes on her, because Andrew has one of those
at home, and he’s just not interested.

But the real bother is her dress. The pink satin apron dress with a straight across neck line, two
bands curled around her shoulders, sides revealed to show off a delicate waist, cream hips.

It’s the same dress his wife was wearing when he first saw her.

Andrew dismisses the coincidence, however annoying, scanning the ballroom for some male
company for the night. A nice young boy to dominate, just like he likes them.

It’s a pity, he thinks, that she would have been perfect if she were a man.

Andrew swirls the champagne glass once, twice. Then looks up.

“ Andrew?”

She’s even more beautiful up close. Her black hair is short around her shoulders, falling in a
straight waterfall around her face. Smooth, cream skin, collarbones meeting in the middle between
her shoulders in distinct ridges. His eyes travel upwards from her, to her jaw.

There’s something quite off about it, but Andrew’s eyes settle on her lips and suddenly all
thoughts of the abnormal jaw are gone. She keeps her head down, a grand white diamond choker
around her neck, throat concealed. When she looks up it’s to meet his stare with a sly cock of the
brow. The motion makes him think of how good her lips would look wrapped around him.

“Great party, no?”

“ Not particularly.” Andrew answers. Her dark eyes twinkle with amusement. The heavy, brown
eyeshadow painted across her lids in a masterfully formed neutral gradient glints at him, gold
highlights catching the shine of the chandeliers, almost like an invitation. Her lips are an innocent
pink, slightly wet from how much she trails her tongue over them when she speaks. She looks up
at him again, eye lashes fluttering a deep obsidian, curving over her eyes in a most persuading
manner that Andrew Rosewood almost caves. Almost.

“ I could change that.” The woman suggests hopefully.

“ I’m not in the mood.”

She moves forward, smiling coyly, taking his hand that’s not holding the champagne glass in her
own, placing it around her neck, just above the necklace.

Andrew gasps.

She presses his thumb into the Adam’s apple on her neck, pressing herself close enough for the
man to feel the bulge between her legs beneath the dress.

“What about now?” The woman asks, stepping away slightly. Andrew smiles.

“ Lead the way.”

So she does.

They’re a meter away from what Andrew thinks is his limo, him ahead, and the woman behind
him, when he feels a handkerchief press against his mouth. She rests his weight against herself,
opening the limo door, throwing him on the seats, looking behind her at the security-less front
doors, and the light escaping into the street from the event inside. Circling the limo, she ducks into
the driver’s seat, sighing as she starts the car, engine humming to life, breathing softly as her hands
latch onto her hairline, and she throws the wig onto the passenger’s seat next to her.

Jimin chuckles, looking through the partition at the fourth most important man in the global crime
world lying chloroformed on the back seat.
It’s almost too easy.

___________________

When some psycho says they love the smell of blood (you know, when they shoot a firearm and
inhale the smoke, that kind of thing) that's not really what they mean.

Those who are well acquainted with blood come to put it beneath a specific aromatic category by
association. A gunman would tell you blood smells like gunpowder. A slaughterhouse master
would tell you it smells like fresh meat. But fresh, deep red blood, still dripping, still oozing with a
life of its own, it smells of nothing at all.

Jimin knows better. He knows what blood in its final form smells like, initially hiding behind the
subterfuge of being harmlessly odorless.

But give it some time, and it'll show you it's true colours in the most grotesquely poetic way.

Rotting blood smells rightly so, of decay, death, impending nonexistence and a final breath. A
reddish brown, ghastly, not really a maroon, not really a burgundy, just kind of floating in a
nameless category of colours no one would wear to party all on its own. That's what it smells like,
to someone who doesn't practically wash their hands in it.

To Jimin, blood smells familiar. It smells like revenge, his parent’s last breaths, like the air around
him when he finally puts a bullet in his step- father’s skull.

It's a confirmation of pain that his victims are suffering.

Blood is best when it’s dried on the face of a row of criminals ranging from drug lords to business
tycoons having amassed their wealth from anything as mundane as retail to child pornography.

This is the kind of blood Jimin likes.

He’s long since changed out of the disguise he perhaps prepared too diligently for. The pants
around his waist fit much more loosely than they did two weeks ago, and at a loss for time, he had
to piece a makeshift button into the belt so it would hold the pants up tightly.

He’s dreading seeing Taehyung again. He’ll know just by the way his hand fits around Jimin’s
waist, that he’s straying to his old ways again.

But now isn’t the time to think about that.

The double harness shoulder holster fitted around his white dress shirt curls around his neck,
coming to a near crisscross at the front, two attachment sites fitted with an S&W shield, small,
lightweight, perfect for concealed carry, especially under a frilly pink dress for example, and on
the other a Sig P226, the US Navy SEAL’s preferred 9 mm handgun of choice. His go-to weapon
of choice for offence, though, is the MK23, with or without suppressor if need be. But no gun
beats that one for someone like Jimin. It’s not as easily concealed as the other two, but if Jimin’s
using it, there’s not much need for concealment anyway. He only brings it out to kill.

For as long as Jimin remembers, Taehyung has carried a Colt revolver, even though they’ve gone
quite out of both fashion and practical ability. He used to laugh at the gold engraved revolver
Taehyung pulled out of its holster during their missions, but he realised (Taehyung told him) that
using a revolver in a semi-automatic fight meant that Taehyung always needed less bullets to win,
and the moment his opponents see him take it out, they would know that too.
Maybe it was arrogant, or just a self-important display of a teenager in an adult’s fight, but
Taehyung always does win, so Jimin has stopped mocking him about it, and so even now,
Taehyung carries the revolver with him, fight or no fight.

Taehyung’s other weapon of choice is a Glock 19, simple, effective, and law enforcement’s
primary choice of firearm. It’s just what Taehyung needs, to dig the barrel into the temples of
disloyal associates and fire. And know the empire is just a little purer.

“ Are you just gonna stand there and look pretty, Little Prince?” The man who takes the tumble
and finally breaks the silence is Jonathan Lloyd, Alistair’s father, sitting on the second seat from
the left. All four men have equal amounts of blood and bone residue running down their faces,
even though the interrogation hasn’t started yet. Jimin just likes to loosen his victims up.

“ I would ask how you knew,” Jimin drawls, loving the way people say his name, The Little
Prince. His eyes roll along the line of four men tied to chairs in front of him, lips stretching into a
patient grin. The warehouse he’s acquired is mostly empty, grey, fluorescent lights painting the
apprehensive faces of the men a stark, delightfully enjoyable white that Jimin always finds himself
revelling in. "But that would be too humble for someone as pretty as me.” He turns to his latest
conquest, the owner of the Rosewood empire. “Don’t you think so, Andy?” Andrew Rosewood
smirks.

“Does your boyfriend know how good you look dressed up as a chick, Princey?” He asks. And
Jimin patiently listens.

It’s going to feel fucking amazing to kill this one.

“Hm, maybe he makes you do it? Do you just not do it for him, anymore, Little Prince? Does he
get bored of your little wiener and ask you to stuff it up and act like a good little cunt? Seems like
something Kim’s little bastard would do.”

Jimin runs his tongue across his bottom limp, fingering the smooth metal surfaces of the 9mms
hanging from his chest with a side smirk.

“ Men like you always do get so very noisy when they’re tied up, don’t they?” Jimin purrs, and
unsurprisingly for him, who chose his words precisely for the reaction he knew he would get from
his dead friend’s father, Johnny Lloyd is the one to reply Jimin’s words with a coughing spree.

“ You need some water there Johnny?” Jimin offers. “Maybe a whiskey? Alistair told me you
loved your bourbon just before you beat the shit out of him.” A look of pain comes across the
man’s face, and Jimin’s smirk dissipates.

“ I’ll come to you later. But for now, me and Andy are gonna have a nice, long-” Jimin feigns
pensiveness, humming. “ Or short -depending on exactly how mouthy he decides to be- chat.”
Rosewood shifts in his seat as Jimin pull out a chair from the table behind him. The long slab of
wood has on it a row of files. Jimin removes the two guns from their holsters, then places the two
firearms on the table, out of reach of the four men. He takes the MK23 in his hand, pushing the
chair he pulled out further forward with a booted foot, and sits right in front of Andrew
Rosewood, gun in hand, sitting back, crossing his legs. “And he’s gonna tell me exactly what I
need to know.”

“ Am I?” The man in question asks, cracking his neck as much as the ropes around him permit.

“ Are you?”

“Why don’t you ask, and we’ll see.”

“Where is your wife, right now, Andy?”

“ Home,” He answers with conviction. “With Ethan. “Jimin genuinely smiles at his bored tone,
biting his lip.

Fuck, he loves this. The cat and mouse game, the lies he knows the truths to, the men he could
ruin with the flick of a finger. Jimin fucking adores what he does.

“ Hm.” Jimin simply hums in reply, running his tongue along his top lip this time, side-eyeing the
other three men like they know something Andrew doesn’t. Which they don’t. But Jimin likes
making people feel like they’re let in on a secret that they’ll never truly be let in on.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Andrew asks.

Jimin ignores him, standing up. He strolls the length of the four chairs, back and forth, shoes
clicking loudly as he talks.

“ There’s someone who entered the crime world five, at most six years ago, they’re in their early
twenties now, European, probably French. When you first heard him speak, you probably thought
he was American, because it’s an accent he fakes quite often and it’s a high probability he resides
in New York and has a temporary residence here, because he spells mum with an ‘o’.” Jimin says,
remembering the little poem The Legacy had sent with the puzzle both Namjoon and Taehyung
are probably hard at work on this very second. “But when he operates in England, he probably
switches to a British one, so that’s the one you would have heard him speak with. He speaks with
an oxford accent, because that’s the accent someone not from here would have to perfect to
completely fit in, whilst also giving off an air of English aristocracy, which is probably what drew
you to him in the first place. They’re impeccably dressed, always, and I’m going on a whim here,
I’ll be honest, because I’ve met him twice that I know of, but both times he was wearing Oxford
shoes, and maybe it was simply to torment me, but he probably also wears those quite often too.”
Jimin doesn’t spare a glance at the row of men, but his ears pick up the progression of shuffling
feet, the quiet gasps of realization. “He speaks in a voice that would scare even the most heartless
of men. It’s completely and absolutely flat, like you’re speaking to an artificial intelligence robot.”

Jimin finally turns, met with the wet, white faces of four men who realise they are utterly, utterly
fucked.

“ Ring any bells gentlemen?” Jimin asks, standing in front of Jonathan Lloyd with a shit eating
grin on his face.

“ Johnny? Would you like to start us off?” He suggests, raising a brow at the man. When he
doesn’t answer, he turns to the third man from the left.

“ Chan?” Jimin suggests again, urging him on expectantly. “Okay,” He concludes, clocking back
his gun. “You asked for it.” He warns, raising the gun-”Sorry Lorenzo, I kinda liked you.” -and
then he shoots the last man from the left in the head. The blood spurts onto Chan, the owner of
some of the world’s largest telecommunications companies. Criminal intent? Chan Ying has
established a reputation for himself as the man to go for the obtainment of highly classified
information, no matter what it is, and its sale to the highest bidders.

His recently deceased father and several of the world’s most notable secret intelligence services
had mutual understandings regarding the telecommunications company’s unrestricted access to
international secrets. He’s actually a very good associate of Taehyung’s, and the Kim empire has
exploited his services on a multitude of occasions.

Jimin hopes he doesn’t take this whole tying him up to the chair thing’ personally, since he can’t
really kill this one anyway.“ I didn’t really, to be honest, you know, like him..” Jimin says,
blowing at nozzle of the gun. “I don’t know why I said that. Guess Hollywood’s getting to me.”

“ Did you just..." Andrew side eyes the dead body lying two chairs away from him. " Kill the
leader of the Italian mafia?” He asks as Chan grimaces at the dead man’s blood on his face.

“ He was breaking alliance with Taehyung, so something had to be done.” Jimin reveals, patting
his own shoulder. “I just got rid of a disloyal associate and scared you three half to death.”
Jonathan gives him a look that says: ‘you just killed one of your only four sources of information’,
and Jimin being Jimin, adds: “He didn’t know anything important anyway. He was just here to
make you three talk.”

“ Three years ago.” Andrew Rosewood says when Jimin finishes. “That’s the first time I spoke to
him.”

Jimin puts his hand in his pocket, and presses the tip of the recording device.

“ Please,” He purrs, sitting back down on the chair facing Andrew. “ Do go on.”

“ He placed in a large order for explosives enough to take out a small town with Benny, do you-“

“ Yes I know who Benny is,” Jimin cuts in with a sigh. “Taehyung’s dad practically made Benny
the ‘go to person’ for illegal artillery, Andy Darling, shut the fuck up,” Jimin swears, fingering the
barrel of the gun again, looking at the fire arm with a look that accurately manifests nothing less
menacing than homicidal intent. “And talk.”

“ So I followed up on it,” Andrew says in reply. “Obviously…or specifically, I told Jonathan to.”

Jimin looks at Alistair’s father with an expectant eyebrow raise.

“ Is that so Johnny?” He asks,

“ Y-yeah, he’s telling the truth.” Lloyd replies. “Three years ago, I remember.”

Jimin turns back to Andrew, waiting.

“ He told me not to worry about it, so I didn’t.” He says, scowling to his immediate left where
Jonathan sits. “But I still kept an eye on his purchases, the weapons he bought, his orders, because
when I heard the recordings of his conversations with Benny, the kid sounded real young, and
fake, like you said, like he was trying to sell the British accent.” He stops to think for a moment,
like something doesn’t add up. Jimin nudges him with the nozzle of the gun. “But he used so
many different aliases and account numbers that sometime last year I lost track,” Jimin waits.
“Until two weeks ago.”

The Little Prince unfolds his legs, leaning forward, the chair maybe a meter away from the row of
men. “That bomb that hit the Kim Mansion, big fucking news.” The other men nod in agreement.
“A lot of people want Kim’s son dead. Even more want you dead, so we can all live our lives in
peace without you selling every secret we keep to the highest bidder, so of course the news spread
quickly. The day after the bomb I was sent a ‘thank you’ letter, with a picture of you and Kim’s
kid in a pile of rubble and blood and all that shit, as if I had a part in it.” Andrew explains,
bewildered. He deliberates on his next words, but all that meets Jimin’s expectant glare is silence.

“ Okay,” Jimin concedes. “ Next.”

“ You’re not gonna tell me to talk?” Andrew retorts with a voice indescribable as anything but
shaky confusion.
“No, because as soon as these other two do, you will too.” Jimin replies suavely, and then stands,
moving the chair one along, to Jonathan Lloyd.

“ Alistair saw you fuck a boy his age once, you know, when he was seventeen,” Jimin says, and
the man’s eyes turn to him at once, jaw stern. “And then when he was eighteen. All the way till
his death, he watched his dad put his cock in boys his age and he had to stand there knowing that
if you ever knew he was gay, that he would be disowned and renounced off his heirloom.” He
continues, spiteful.

“He seduced all of you, didn’t he?” Jimin asks, standing. “Because what else could possibly lure
four,” He looks at the fourth dead man’s bloodied figure. “Well, three of the world’s most
powerful men into such a bloody clusterfuck? Other than sex?” Andrew lets out a defeated sigh.
Jonathan follows. Chan simply chuckles, the first to contradict the other two’s identical reactions.

“ He must be very, very pretty to score someone like you, Chan Ying.” Jimin observes, noting the
man’s fairy-like features. He’s the youngest here, younger than Jimin by a year, whereas the other
two are edging their mid forties.

“ He sure is.” Chan replies smoothly, staring right back at Jimin

“ Is?” Jimin questions dubiously.

“ Yep.” The younger boy replies, popping the ‘p’.

Jimin sighs.

“ You’re in love with him.” He realises aloud as he watches Chan’s eyes. “You’re…” His eyes
run from Andrew, to Jonathan, to Chan, then all the way back down the row of chairs, pitifully
eying Lorenzo’s crumpled, bloodied figure on the fourth chair again. “ You’re all in love with
him, Jesus fucking Christ.” Jimin swears. “Morons. How the fuck did you all manage to fall in
love with a sociopath?”

“ Shouldn’t you of all people know, Park Jimin?” Chan asks, black hair slightly too long for his
face, cat eyes peering into Jimin’s own ones, deep navy suit glinting beneath the lights of the
warehouse. “You’re in love with Kim Taehyung.”

“ If only you knew how wrong your statement was.” Jimin corrects.

“ He killed two hundred people in cold blood for you last year.”

“ I know.” Jimin smiles. Progress. “And you were invited, and yet you didn’t come. Guess it was
because you were the one who sold our mystery man my location that day.” Chan smirks.

“ I know you’re not going to kill me, Jimin. I’m the most important out of anyone here, maybe
only excluding yourself.”

“ I think definitely excluding me Channie, don’t get too ahead of yourself.” The younger man
chuckles.

“ I slept with him, the whole of last year. And a little at the beginning of this one, though I wasn’t
much use to him.” Chan reveals, then, as an afterthought. “Guess he just missed me.”

“ I doubt it, but I’ll let you dream.” Jimin retorts, hopping onto the table with his butt. “ That’s all
he wanted from you? My location that day?”

“ That’s all.” Chan replies.

Jimin fingers his bottom lip with his index finger, scratching behind his ear with the nuzzle of the
gun.

“ Is the safety of that thing even off?” Jonathan asks.

Jimin looks at the gun comically, humming deep in his thorax. “Shall we check?” And in the next
second, he’s raised the gun, pointed it at the gap between Jonathan and Andrew’s chairs, and shot
three rounds into the slit between the two men.

“ What the fuck-“

“ Fucking bastard.”

“Guess it wasn’t.” Jimin chuckles.

“ You’re fucking insane.” Chan whispers.

“ Are you gonna fall in love with me too, then?” Jimin asks jokingly.

“ He’s not insane.” Chan whispers in reply and Jimin’s head turns at the quiet but forceful defence
in his voice.

“ Oh?” Jimin mocks, jumping off the table,

“ You’re no less criminal than he is.”

“ I don’t pretend to be.”

“ I didn’t know it was him.” Andrew interrupts. “ But I hired an escort two years ago, and
continued to see him for around three months. When you gave that description just now, I realised
they were the same person.”

“ And you?” Jimin asks, facing Alistair’s father. “I’m guessing your affair with him was quite
recent.”

“ Past six months. I met him at Alistair’s twentieth birthday, he said he was a friend.”

“ You do realise you’re the reason for Alistair’s death, Lloyd,” Jimin points out.“Don’t you?” The
man looks away, refusing to meet Jimin’s eye. “Alistair isn’t someone our mystery man could
have killed that easily. I’m guessing you must have let slip your son’s location, his weaknesses,
during one or two of your heavenly nights between the sheets. You killed Alistair, Jonathan.
You’re the reason he’s dead.”

“ I didn’t fucking know Damian was going to… He said he was fucking eighteen, and he looked it
too. I checked up on his background, I was fucking crystal clear he wasn’t a threa-”

“ Wait.” Jimin orders. “Stop.” He reiterates, the last of Jonathan’s dying words muffling as Jimin
holds out an imperious hand. “What did you just say?”

“ I said I didn’t know he was a thre-”

“ No,” Jimin snaps. “Before that. The name…”

“ Damian?” Jonathan asks, confused.

“Damian Clark.” Andrew adds. “That’s the name he gave all of us.”
Jimin inwardly contemplates.

Damian Clarke, the third most important member of ‘La Pente’. Why would The Legacy use an
alias of a dead person, a notable dead person, who could easily be tracked down with a few
internet searches?

“ Spell it.” Jimin suddenly says.

“ What?” Andrew retorts, knots ghosting over his forehead.

“ Spell. The. Name.”

“ D-A-M-I-A-N C-L-A-R-K.” Chan is the one to comply, spelling out the string of letters to a
perplexed and highly irritated Jimin.

“ Without an ‘E’ at the end?” Jimin follows up.

“ Yes?” Jonathan is the one to answer. “Why does it matter?”

That’s why he used a dead alias, because they couldn’t have tracked it down if they didn’t even
know the name’s correct spelling.

“ You said all of us,” Jimin turns to Andrew. “That means you three have known about this.” The
three men nod in unison. “How long?”

“ I called Andrew after Alistair…” Jonathan trails off, unable to say the words, which is granted
since it’s barely been two weeks since he practically dug his son’s grave. “Because there’s no way
someone could have taken him…not unless… And I had been the one to tell Andrew nothing was
wrong in the first place, when he asked me to follow up on the weapon’s purchases.”

“And I overheard their conversations,” Chan adds. “Obviously, over the telecommunication
signals. And I realised they were talking about the same Damian,” He hesitates. “ My Damian.”
He adds. “ So I tried to reach him through the number he left with me at the beginning of this
year-”

“ But of course, the number didn’t exist anymore.” Jimin finishes.

It’s a clusterfuck. A fucking mess.

The legacy is connected to Damian Clarke, which isn’t the surprising part, not really. They’ve
known the Legacy is looking for revenge, probably regarding the events of the Black Rebellion.
No, what worries Jimin is that one man has managed to worm himself into the beds of some of the
world’s most important criminals, and escape without leaving a single trail that he didn’t want to.

“ What does this Damian Clark look like?” Jimin finally asks.

“ None of us have a picture.” Chan is the one to relay this. Jimin sighs, both at the fact that
practically nothing came of this ordeal other than the fact that The Legacy is either really fucking
pretty or a magician, to have been able to orchestrate four different affairs with some of the most
powerful men Jimin knows within the span of five years, and at how sad Chan sounds when he
talks about him.

“ I was… blindfolded, mostly, during our…encounters.” Andrew confesses, receiving a disgusted

grimace from Jimin.

“ He’s young enough to be your son, Jesus fuck.” Jimin swears, then looks at Chan expectantly.
“ I…” The younger boy whispers. “l-love him. Y-you’re going to kill him. I c-can’t.”

“ Jesus fucking Christ,” Jimin curses, face palming. “ You poor bastard.”

“ I don’t have anything to lose.” Jonathan relents when Jimin looks at him.“ He’s-“

Gunshots.

Jimin ducks.

The little prince crouches, turning around, pushing the guns on the table left, to fall on the other
side, one palm pressing against the table surface, the other hand shooting a few rounds in the
direction of the shots coming from the roof.

He propels himself upwards, body curling over the table before he lands on the other side, pushing
the slab of wood forward, to use it as a shield, heavily breathing against it as he fills the magazines
of the other two firearms, attaching one to the shoulder holster, and using the S&W 9mm to shoot
three rounds behind him, the barrel angled upwards at the roof.

A bullet flies through the wood next to him, inches from his ear.

Jimin laughs, shuffling to the right.

“ Shit.”

He replaces the magazine of the MK23, but just as he clicks the block of rounds upwards, the
shooting stops.

Jimin swears, pushing the table to land in front of him, legs pointing upwards.

“ Well, fuck me.” He curses, looking at the bloodied faces of Andrew and Jonathan Lloyd, both
shot multiple times in the forehead.

Overkill.

And then he looks at the empty seat next to them both, where Chan was sitting just a few seconds
ago.

“ Guess he did miss you after all.” Jimin billows, knowing they’re probably listening, wherever
they are. The legacy and his lover.

He laughs, scratching his temple with the gun again. The metal is hot, burning his skin, but he
barely registers the pain.

Something good did come of this after all.

Why? Because The Legacy was probably watching Jimin all this while, he has been since the
moment he stepped off the jet from New York and landed in London. And yet he chose this
particular moment to interrupt Jimin’s interrogation. The exact moment when someone was about
to reveal his appearance to Jimin.

“ You know, Damian Clark,” Jimin mocks, speaking to the empty warehouse, using the alias
The Legacy provided him with. “ The only thing you’re showing me by killing off your
unfortunate lovers here…” Jimin stops, tonguing his cheek with a satisfied smirk. “ Is that you’re
no stranger at all.” Jimin deduces. “We know each other, don’t we?” He continues, purring at the
silent, empty space. “I’ve known what you look like this whole time.” Jimin concludes, taking his
phone out, going into his gallery.

“ Now it’s just a matter of who.”

____________________

II

Presbyterian Hospital, New York

Mid December

Thursday

When he wakes, Jungkook is greeted by Liszt, the gentle tones of Liebestraum cascading around
him, tugging him awake. It's ironic, really, that this particular piece is playing, because the slumber
he rises from was nothing like the ‘Love Dream’ the piece promises so convincingly to the
listener.

The sunlight prying his lids apart is reminiscent of the same light that was pouring generously into
The Music Room the morning he first woke up in Jimin’s embrace. It’s comforting, gentle on his
forehead, warming the tips of his exposed feet. He wonders why he's not wearing socks like
usual, a habit he's accustomed himself to after one too many times of catching Yoongi sitting next
to him at night and staring at the burns on his feet.

Yoongi.

“ Jungkook is no different… he's the same as the rest of them… I'll get tired of him…he’ll get tired
of me.”

The sunlight dims just as he comes to the realization that when he opens his eyes, there will be no
one there at all. Jimin’s half way across the world, Yoongi denounced him without a moment’s
hesitation, and well… there isn't anyone else, is there? No one at-

“ Do you always have this worrying tendency to wake up and sit with your eyes closed while the
sunlight blinds you, Jungkook?”

The violinist stirs, opening his eyes, the sunlight now having dissipated and-

“ T-Taehyung?”

It's him alright, standing in front of the path of sunlight at the foot of the bed, hair a dirty gold,
curled into a messy bun at the top of his head, tendrils of light yellow straying from the top knot to
fall around his face. Jungkook hates that he recognizes the jumper he's wearing. It's white, long
sleeved, a grey graphic character in the middle, red and black lines curling around the sleeves, one
around the waist. Jimin loves this jumper. Maybe it's because it was Taehyung’s this whole time.

“ You sleep well?” Taehyung asks, hands in the pockets of his grey sweats.

“ I…” Jungkook’s voice comes out deep, croaky, and a little broken, like he’d screamed himself
awake, or cried himself to sleep. From his track record, it was probably both.

“ I ordered you breakfast.” Taehyung says, scratching he back of his head sheepishly. “I know
your favourites,” Jungkook massages his eyes, looking at the familiar sight of an IV drip attached
to his arm, the drip-drop of the liquid inside the plastic catching his eye before Taehyung
continues. “Jimin sometimes can't stop talking about you.” The musician turns at this, looking at
Taehyung, expecting some sort of hostility, maybe spite, jealousy, but all he finds is a look
indescribable as anything but utterly, utterly fond.

“ H-he does?” Or maybe a better word would be, “D-doesn’t?” Jungkook stutters, like he always
does, like anyone sane would if they woke up in a hospital room without their prior knowledge
with a Kim Taehyung standing in front of them, flaunting all of his otherworldly existence and
almost alien stare in their face without even the flutter of an eyelash.

“ What do I have to do for you to stop stuttering in front of me, Jungkook?” Taehyung asks in
reply, and of course the world hates Jungkook even more adamantly today, became the man looks
even more detached from anything else in the room when he's amused and cocking up a brow to
show it. He looks like he doesn't belong here at all, in this hospital room, in this world, and yet the
sunlight outlining his broad form paired with the Liszt still fluttering around them make him seem
not so out of place. Not so beautiful that his being here, in this moment, seems at all wrong on
such a moral sense that it actually offends Jungkook.

But he…is still, so, so very beautiful.

“ Do I intimidate you, Jungkook?” The loud knock on the door seems like a response to his
question.

As though the answer to his question isn't already painfully obvious.

But maybe that's it.

Taehyung seems like the kind of man who loves to hear responses to questions he already knows
the answers to, and since Jungkook doesn't doubt there isn't anything at all Kim Taehyung
wouldn't know, then he's fucked before he even properly opens his mouth.

The devil chuckles, and maybe that's not a very good comparison on Jungkook’s part because as
soon as his mouth stretches into a wide, noisy laugh, Taehyung transforms into someone much,
much younger, purer, as though there isn't a chance in the world that this is a boy- a man, then
boy, who, on his fourth birthday, was gifted a gold-engraved antique revolver and expected to fire
it, not at an inanimate board, or even a deer, but a living, human target.

A parade of trays and breakfasts platters are rolled into the room, Taehyung having opened the
door for the breakfast that resembles a ten-course luncheon. After having survived on bare
minimum food (because what’s the point in eating when you’ve fucked up your metabolism so
irrevocably that its beyond human capacities make sure nothing you eat is enough to keep you
alive without the help of drugs that are probably illegal everywhere except Mexico), Jungkook is
positively intimidated.

“ Oh,” Taehyung exclaims, smiling at Jungkook’s mask of terror. “Don’t look so frightened,”
Taehyung says with a lop-sided smile. Is he embarrassed? “Your array of facial expressions are
most disheartening today, Jungkook.” He continues, closing the door behind departing staff. “The
breakfast is for at least half a dozen other people too. They’ll be will be popping in throughout the
morning.” He explains, picking up a plate from the stack piled on the row of wheeled, shelved
trailers organized next to each other beneath the window on the left side of the room.
“Namjoon is landing from Boston today,” He goes on to say, putting the plate of scrambled eggs
and buttered toast on the low, dark coffee table, on the short sides of which sit two arm chairs, and
two three Seaters on the other two sides. “Hoseok and Jin both said they wanted to talk.”
Jungkook flinches at Jin’s name. If Taehyung notices, he doesn’t say anything. “Yoongi’s dad,
Min,” Another flinch on Jungkook’s part. “I don’t know if you’ve had the chance to meet?”
Taehyung thinks aloud. “But he’s coming to give me some paper work to do, too. So I won’t
force feed you all of this, Yoongi tells me you’re not too fond of that. But you’ll have to eat
something.” The sound of liquid sloshing into the ceramic cups from the dispenser convinces
Jungkook to finally unfold himself from the bed, hanging his bare feet off the side of the mattress
as Taehyung places two cups and another plate on the table.

The violinist wavers, staring at his naked feet with a look of utter disgust that he hopes Taehyung
wouldn't notice. So, he checks to see if he's looking and-

A pair of feet in ghastly half-fur slippers appear beneath his own, attached to strong, sculptured
legs, a lean torso, vast shoulders, thick neck-

“You wouldn't like it if someone else was staring at them like that,” Taehyung doesn't say the
word, he doesn't even point at Jungkook’s feet as he says it, but yes, it's clear he was paying
attention after all. “ So how about you stop staring at them like they're the ugliest things in the
world?” Jungkook’s eyes have remained on his neck, the tanned, gold- tinted canvas, the locket
around his neck, the wide jaw- “Hm, Jungkook?”

Don't look up. Don't look up.

“ Look at me.” Jungkook doesn't. He looks back down Taehyung’s body to his own feet.
Taehyung moves away, his slippered feet disappearing from Jungkook’s boxed vision and the
violinist does what he always does when his feet are naked. He stares, and scrutinizes, and-

Hands.

Hands around his ankles.

Taehyung’s hands, pulling a pair of iron man socks up Jungkook’s feet. They’re coarse, just like
Jimin said they are. But there are places where his hands are soft, like the flat of his palms, the skin
of his wrists, the curve of his fingers around Jungkook’s ankles.

Suddenly Jungkook has no scars in his view to grimace at anymore, only the red and yellow
distorted face of his favorite child hood super hero.

The man turned super hero with nothing more than intelligence and a shitload of money. Nothing
special, no pre-destined ceremonious birth. Just a man in a metal suit.

“ Now,” Taehyung whispers. “ Will you look at me?” He sounds a bit frustrated at him, or maybe
Jungkook is just making that up, but the violinist refuses and holds his ground, trying to envision
his feet without the socks, but suddenly there's a hand rising in his vision and Jungkook flinches.
He flinches and then recoils, taking his legs and folding them under his chin, setting his jaw in the
depression between his knees, eyes shut closed, waiting for it to come.

But it doesn't.

Of course, it doesn't.

Instead, there's a scarred thumb caressing the sharp of Jungkook’s jaw, a figure bending down to
match his height.
“ Open your eyes for me, Jungkook.”

He does, finally. Taehyung’s hooked finger below his jaw straightens, moving higher to his
cheek, and slowly his thumb begins to caress Jungkook’s cheekbone.

“ I would never raise my hand on you, Jungkook,” Taehyung promises firmly, and he’s not loud
at all when he says this, so Jungkook hates himself just a little more when he still manages to
flinch when Taehyung speaks. He realises this, which is why the next words that come out of his
mouth and mere whispers hovering in the tiny space between them. “ Okay Jungkook? Can you
just look at me for a second? Just for a second, look up for me please, can you do that?” Jungkook
slowly peels his eyes upwards, settling on Taehyung’s eyes that are far, far kinder up close than
Jungkook could have ever imagined. But it's close to the way Jimin describes him, very close.

It's painfully accurate. Maybe it's because Jimin’s version of Taehyung, the 3 AM child hood
stories of a boy so madly in love that he has to distance himself from his loved one just so that he
has enough air to breathe… perhaps that is perhaps the best version of Taehyung that exists. The
only version that truly matters at the end of the day.

Taehyung holds his gaze. He doesn't blink, he doesn't smile, but his eyes remain ever so
impossibly kind.

“ You mean more than the world to Jimin, Jungkookie, is it- can I call you that?”

It's the first time he's heard Taehyung stutter. It's comforting the same way it's comforting when
Yoongi is nervous, like maybe they're just the same as Jungkook, like they're not all that different.

He nods even though he doesn't particularly welcome the idea in his mind, and it's a haunting
realization when he realises that he'd snapped at Yoongi for using a similar nickname.

Because Jimin had been the one to come up with it.

“ You mean the world to him, and he means more than the world to me, he is what gives my life
worth and I know that he is the muse for the music you make. In the midst of all of this, I so dearly
hope, I could only hope, and never truly know,” He stops, takes a breath. “ That I mean as much
to him as I'd like to think. So somewhere between the lines, you and I must mean something to
each other.” He frowns, eyes uneasy. “Don't get me wrong,” He quickly adds after some thought.
“ It's not an obligation at all, but it's only natural. So, I can't have you flinching when I come close,
or being so blatantly intimidated by me when there's nothing to be scared of. I know our first
encounter wasn't… civil or so to speak, but I must excuse myself and I know you are so
introspective as to realise that I could not pride myself on maintaining neither a humble nor sane
state mind that morning, and you received the worst of my emotional shortcomings.” Jungkook
finds himself actually understanding what he’s trying to relay without actually focusing on the
words, like it’s just going right through him, like he’s just drinking the words as they come.

That’s another thing Jimin was right about.

He really does have a magic with words.

“ So tell me what you want me to correct and I will turn no stone unturned. You don't like being
touched? I won't touch you at all. Or you need a warning before I approach? Then we’ll work on
coming up with something for that too. Tell me how quietly you would like to be spoken to and
that is what the default shall be from now. Make a list, do whatever makes you most comfortable,
and I know trust is earned, I’d be-” He finally pauses, choking on the word. Voice stumbling as
he says the word ‘trust’- and then he composes himself, as if he's made no mistake at all, and he
continues in the same highs and lows in a deep soothing tone. “ I’d be the first to confess that, but
I'm sure that you also feel this bond of familiarity between us; I know about you things you
wouldn't imagine I could possibly know, and I'm sure the vice versa also stands.” That's what this
is, Jungkook finally realises, the peculiarity of the air between them, the sense of unfinished
business, it's because of the fact that they're two people who know as close to all that there is to
know about each other as they possibly can, and yet they've spoken maybe a grand total of three
times in their lives.

“ I think what I mean is, what I'm trying to convey is… do you…” He laughs shakily, a bit
unsure. If there's a word to describe it, it would be endearing. “You and I are gonna be friends,
Jungkookie, that okay with you?” He's smiling. Fuck, if there ever was a dangerous smile, this
would be it. Taehyung’s smile as he's asking broken, insecure, sad, and most importantly, fucked
up beyond motherfucking repair Jeon Jungkook to be friends with him.

“ You can say no, you kno-”

“ No!” Jungkook cuts in. Taehyung frowns. “No, I mean, yes, I-” Taehyung chuckles at him,
bringing a hand forward again before stopping.

“ It’s… it's okay.” Jungkook assures, and then Taehyung’s hand is ruffling his hair in response,
his wide, insatiable smile so bright that should be blinding, just like the sunlight behind him. But
it's not, of course it isn't. Because Taehyung is all the could be’s and maybe’s and ‘what if’s’, but
never the should be’s and must be’s. Never what you expect, but always what you’d need.

“Friends is okay.” Jungkook says after a few moments of silence, Taehyung’s large, large hand
wavering between the dark strands of Jungkook’s hair. “I think I'd like that”

“ Yeah?” Taehyung reconfirms, finally moving his hand away. Jungkook misses the skin
immediately, and blushes.

“ Yeah.”

He's stopped stuttering; Taehyung realises this too, if his ever-intensifying smile is anything to go
by. It's contagious, just like Jimin said it would be, just how Jimin raved, because Jungkook’s lips
slowly curl upwards too, and they're left there, smiling at each other a bit awkwardly, the promise
of a strange and unexpected friendship cackling softly between them, like the scarlet embers of a
fire soon to bloom. And the start of this friendship, this companionship where it's difficult to be
completely sure if there won't come a point in time where instead of stuttering, Jungkook will be
moaning in Taehyung’s presence instead, is two words:

“ So…breakfast?”

Taehyung watches him eat the whole way through the semi-awkward breakfast. It’s not overt, the
staring, but Jungkook has been stared at enough to know when it’s happening again. And though
it’s not obvious, Taehyung isn’t particularly trying to hide it either, glancing at him between sips
of his coffee and bites of his French toast.

“Why are you looking at me?” Jungkook squeaks finally, cheeks burning up, when he finishes his
plate.

“Cause you’re fucking beautiful.”

Jungkook waits for a clap back, a mocking smile, anything at all, but Taehyung’s eyes remain
piercing into his own and instead of stuttering, something else entirely overcomes Jungkook, since
instead of his default stuttering, he asks the question that has stricken him like a disease since
September.

“ Is that why you let Jimin kiss me?”

Taehyung laughs. It’s loud, just like Jimin said it would be, and unashamed. He takes a bite from
his scrambled eggs, a sip from his coffee, and turns to Jungkook with an amused smirk, leaning
back into the arm chair- Jungkook sitting on the three-seater pressed agsint the wall-, folding one
leg over the other, hands in his pockets.

“ You think I let the love of my life kiss another boy because he’s…pretty?”

Jungkook bites his lip, looking away.

“ Don’t look away.” Taehyung says immediately, and the depth of voice pulls Jungkook’s line of
sight right back to the man’s piercing eyes.

“ I… I don’t know.”

“ The man did something to you, didn’t he?” Taehyung guesses. ”The one who forced himself on
you at the school, I mean.” He reiterates, observing Jungkook’s micro expressions. “You just
didn’t want to tell Jimin. If nothing had happened, if you really did push him off, you wouldn’t
have asked Jimin to kiss you. I don’t think you would dare.” And once again where he should
sound threatening, he just sounds concerned.

“ H-he…” Jungkook tears up, and he hates himself for it. For how small his voice sounds, how
fucking weak he always is. He loathes himself for quickly he melts in front of beautiful men with
kind eyes, golden skin and a tendency to make him feel safe when all he’s ever felt in front of men
in his life is fear.

“ You don’t have to talk about it if you’re not comfortable, Jungkook.”

“ He did kiss me… He kissed me… H-He…” Jungkook hits his chest, trying to usher away the
rising sob threatening to escape from his bitten lips.

“ Jungkook…”

“ I wanted someone to take the horrible taste away…the horrible, disgusting taste of his…. I’m
sorry…Jimin’s… he’s the only one I-”

“ If I was going to make you apologize for it, I would have never let him in the first place.”

“ Can we just pretend like I’m not crying right now a-and forget I ever asked? Please?”

A knock ensues, and Taehyung smiles.

“ Saved by the bell.” He relents, craning his head to smile brightly at a young, spectacled man
who walks in with open arms, one hand carrying a brief case.

“ TAE!” He screams excitedly at a Taehyung who runs eagerly into his embrace.

“ JOOOOOON!”

Jungkook smiles shyly, watching the two friends’ embrace as he takes a sip of banana milk from
the suspicious row of them provided with the breakfast. Jimin really does tell Taehyung
everything.

“ You’ve heard about Jungkook, Namjoon.” Taehyung introduces as they part, offering Namjoon
a seat and going to the dispenser to pour him a coffee.

“ I-I have.” Namjoon stutters, avoiding Jungkook’s gaze as the violinist gives him the same shy
treatment. Taehyung places a cup of black coffee in front of Namjoon, sitting down with a very
satisfied smile,

“ Excuse him, Jungkookie, Namjoon, like all of us, has a thing for very pretty boys.” Jungkook
and Namjoon both choke on their drinks, coughing in unison as Taehyung looks on, grinning
insufferably,

“ T-tae..” Namjoon complains, glancing at Jungkook at the same time the violinist decides to do
the same. They both look away. Taehyung smiles.

“ Hopeless, you are.” He comments, finishing off his coffee with a sigh. “How’s Harvard treating
you, Joon?”

“ How any university would treat someone as smart as me, like I’m their most prized possession.”
Namjoon answers nonchalantly, before realizing Jungkook is here too, and coughing again.

“ How far are you into the puzzle?” Taehyung asks, and his change of tone tells Jungkook that
perhaps they’re delving into a conversation that Jungkook doesn’t have anything to contribute to.
Not that he contributes much to anything anyway.

“ Not far, not far at all.” Namjoon replies, frustrated knots folding his forehead into tiny creases.
His dirty green hair is parted over his forehead, thick black-rimmed glasses, white, open collared
shirt and a grey blazer over it making him look even more sophisticated than the air with which he
preserves himself. If that’s even more possible, with the things Jungkook’s heard about how smart
the man is.

“ Me neither.” Taehyung replies, closing his eyes.

“ I’m thinking about making a machine to fix it for me.” Taehyung opens his eyes in surprise.

“ Can’t you just ask one your associates?”

“ You told me no one can know about it except the six of us.” Jungkook heart clenches at having
been excluded. “And also, none of them are smarter than me. So if I can’t fix it, neither can they.”
Namjoon says in all honesty. “Have you even told Yoongi?”

“ Fuck,” Taehyung swears. “That’s true.” He agrees. “And no,” He adds, standing. “But I need to
talk to him anyway. I’ll tell him today.”

“ It’s going to take months Taehyung. Maybe half a fucking year, I don’t know. But there are
twenty thousand photos in there Taehyung, I’ve managed to isolate it into the subject of the photo,
and everything else, but the black background makes it fucking impossible.” Taehyung massages
his lids, closing his eyes again. “ But that’s not the only thing I’m here to talk to you about.”

He opens his eyes.

“ Well fuck,” Taehyung swears at the revelation. “ Let’s go outside then.” Namjoon smiles, never
knowing just exactly how Taehyung can tell what someone needs him to do before they ask it of
him, but he stands alongside Taehyung anyway, nodding at Jungkook.
“ Jimin tells me you like games?” Taehyung asks Jungkook as he makes his way to the door along
Namjoon. Jungkook nods, biting his lip. He’s too oblivious to notice Taehyung’s eyes following
the motion down to his mouth before returning to his eyes again. But Namjoon sees it, and he
looks away.

“ See the bags over there?” Taehyung motions at a few white, glossy bags in the corner of the
room, on the left of the sofa Jungkook is sitting on. “There’s like an Xbox in there, well not just
one, I got a few, just to make sure and a PS4…something? I’ve also got you some of your favorite
games, so you can just connect them to the TV, I told them to make sure it was compatible. Just
make yourself busy till I come back okay? You have my number.”

“ W-wait…” Jungkook stutters. “ W-what?”

“ What’s wrong?”

“ You bought me… a games consol- game consoles…”

“ Yeah, Jimin said you wouldn’t let him buy you anything after you found out how expensive the
violin he gave you was,” Taehyung explains, hand on the door handle, Namjoon already outside.
“ So I’m buying the things he wanted to buy you instead. And you can’t say no to me, a win-win
situation, no?”

“ B-but Taehyung-“

“ Jungkookie,” Taehyung purrs, smiling. “ The least you can say is thank you.”

“ T-thank you.” Jungkook complies, blushing furiously.

“ Thank you, what?”

“ Thank you Taehyung.”

“ Hm,” Taehyung hums. “I think you can do better.”

“ T-thanks Tae.”

“ One more time without stuttering.”

“ Thank you, Tae.”

“ See?” Taehyung finally resolves, satisfied. “We’re on a nickname base already, Jimin would be
really proud of us.” And then, with a wink accompanying his next words, he says: “You should
ask for a reward when he comes back.”

And then he’s gone.

Jungkook stares at the closed door for a full five minutes before he falls into the cushioned sofa,
pressing his face agsint the fabric, whispering: ‘ fuck, fuck, fuck’ over and over again.

And finally, after the fiftieth fuck, his head creeps up from the pile of pillows, and his eyes settle
on the plastic bags on the floor beside the sofa.

“ Fuck it.”
“ What is it?” Taehyung says the moment they’re out of hearing range of the door, loitering in the
middle of the corridor of the hospital.. Just like old times.

“ Okay firstly, what the fuck?” Namjoon swears. “No one told me he was that fucking pretty, you
could warn a guy Kim.”

“ Yeah, he’s real fucking pretty, isn’t he?” Taehyung agrees, leaning against the wall with crossed
arms. “ And if I had warned you, you would have downed a shot of something to make yourself
into an insufferably confident, playboy genius, and the priceless look on your face just then would
have been lost forever, Kim.”

“ Secondly, why the fuck is he in your hospital room with you…alone? I thought he was
Yoongi’s…I don’t know?”

“ He’s not an object, dumbass.” Taehyung argues, slapping him behind the neck. “And it’s a long
story. Just get on with what you wanted to say, I don’t want to leave him alone for too long.”
Namjoon frowns, leaning closer.

“ Is he okay?” He asks softly, eying the door to Taehyung’s room.

“ Fuck no, but which of us are?”

The VIP wing is quiet, floor a cream marble, not many people around them as they converse
quietly a few doors down from Taehyung’s room.

“ That’s…” Namjoon starts, hesitant. “Kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“ You’re killing me here, Joon.” Taehyung urges, massaging his eyes again.

“ Are you sleeping okay, dude?” Namjoon asks as Taehyung presses his thumbs into his closed
lids for the tenth time in the past five minutes.

“ Jimin’s not here,” Taehyung says, expressionless. “So what do you think?”

“ Why is he not answering anyone’s calls?” Namjoon asks.

“ I don’t know Joon. I haven’t talked to him in fifteen fucking days. I’ve never… I’ve never not
talked to him, not even for a few hours, you know? Fucking burns, man.”

“He’ll come around.” Namjoon assures, trying to undo the knots in Taehyung’s shoulders, the
muscle tense and rigid beneath his fingers. “He’s probably busy getting us shit to work with so we
find this son of a bitch, you know?”

“ Yeah,” Taehyung relents. “ Busy… guess he’s…busy.”

“ Tae…”

“ Namjoon, please, just…go ahead.” Taehyung urges, and when he opens his eyes, they’re
glassy, washed over with something Namjoon can’t really understand, but the older boy concedes,
finally, taking a breath.

“ You know…Sam, Samuel Ellis, the…”

“ Yes, I know, what about him?”

“ It’s his sixth anniversary soon. Relatively soon.” Namjoon reflects.

“ I know Joonie, it’s one of the worst days of the fucking year." He says, then curls in on himself,
not really talking to Namjoon anymore but more to himself. "We all go over to Yoongi’s only for
him to shut the door on us, and we can hear him sobbing from behind the door and there’s no way
to know if he’s thinking about…” None of them say it. But they’re both thinking about it. And the
thought itself is painful enough. “What about it Joonie?”

“ Are you… going to tell him?” Namjoon asks, fiddling with the hem of his blazer. “You said you
would.”

“ I know…” Taehyung confesses. “I know I did.”

“ So?”

“ I thought… “ Taehyung sighs. “I thought he’d be doing better, after half a decade and all, you
know?” Taehyung asks without really asking, head against the wall, staring straight into the lights
above.

His bloodshot eyes are even more apparent like this, beneath the scrutiny of the alabaster lights,
and their ever-exposing glare. “But he’s not Joon. He’s really fucking not.” He adds. “If I’m going
to be honest…Yoongi is more broken than he was five years ago now, not less.”

“ He’s going to find out you know. You of all people should know, that secrets get out no matter
what… He might even already know.”

“ I know he doesn’t.” Taehyung assures. “If he did, I don’t know what he’d fucking do, but he
hasn’t done it. That’s the only thing I’m sure about.”

“ He’s going to commit fucking homicide, Taehyung.” Namjoon warns.

The younger man chuckles, looking at him with dead eyes.

“ There isn’t anyone left to kill.”

“ I know…” Namjoon replies after a moment of silent, taking off his glasses to clean them with a
red handkerchief he produces from his pocket. “You killed every last one.”

_____________________________

III

Park Avenue, New York

Mid December

Wednesday

When Jin takes a shaky sip of the coffee, it's just how he's always liked it. Of course, it is, if there's
one thing you can trust Yoongi not to forget, it's the secrets of the past, and how Jin likes his
coffee is one those, because apparently, no one else, not even Jin himself, can make this particular
recipe perfectly. No one except Yoongi.

“ It's perfect.” You’re perfect.

“ I know.” Yoongi replies. Jin turns his head to look at the living room around them.

“ This-”

“ Why are you here?” Yoongi cuts in without skipping a single beat. He looks newly showered,
water trickling down the sides of his face, dripping from his jaw-

“Did Jungkook make those on you?” Jin asks, pointing at the map of red and purple on Yoongi’s
neck.

“And if he did?” Yoongi retorts, feline gaze fixed on Jin.

“Fuck,” Jin breathes, chuckling. “ You really are a sociopath.”

“Cause I like sex?” Yoongi questions with a raised brow. “Am I not allowed to?”

“ So you two have fucked, then?”

“ Is it any of your business?”

“ I'll take that as a no.” He finally replies. Yoongi sighs.

“ Take it as whatever the fuck you want to take it as Jin.”

“ Can you hear yourself fucking speak Yoongi?” He asks, and it comes out as much more of a
whine than he intended it to. “You sound fucking soulless, Yoon, you sound-”

“ I don't think you can retain the privilege to call me that anymore.”

“ You fucking used me for the better part of my childhood you fucking asshole, I don't think you
can retain the right to fucking anything at all.”

“ Really?” Yoongi questions with a grimace. “This again?”

“ T-this again? Are you- are you actually serious?” Jin whispers, incredulous. “Is this that tiring
for you? Having to put up with my stubborn heart that just refuses to untie itself from you no
matter how much of a bastard you turn into?”

“ Don't twist my fucking-

“ You haven’t ever realised somewhere in that fucked up brain of yours that maybe this is how
Jimin’s fucking felt all these years too?”

Jin immediately bites his tongue. Yoongi doesn’t look mad, instead, the tongue in cheek smile and
wet eyes that Jin takes as his response are far, far worse than any kind of anger the pianist could
have directed at him for that statement.

“ You are so out of line that you’re gonna hang yourself with it.” Yoongi says calmly, uncrossing
his legs, moving closer. The glass table between them seems to be a barrier. For what? I don’t
think anyone can be entirely sure whether it’s protecting them from ripping each other’s clothes
off, or ripping out one another’s throats, but some kind of imminent prophecy of destruction
cackles between them, and Yoongi’s fingers playing phantom musical scales on the glass doesn’t
ease the suspense, in fact, it intensifies it that much more.

They’re each sitting on a four-seater white sofa, the table an oval, wood and glass block between
them. A single floor to ceiling window with yellow, velvet curtains- parted prettily in the middle-
lets the angry, bright rays of sunlight paint the room in a powerful yellow light, making the sofas
look cream. On the other side of the window-to the left of Yoongi’s sofa faced away from the
door upon walking in- is a fireplace, the embers sizzling scarlet, the flame making soft cackles of
music as Yoongi looks at him expectantly.

“ There is no line, Yoongi.” He finally says, standing while patting invisible dust from his light
blue dress shirt. He’s wearing dark blue ripped jeans under it, having stepped into the house
slippers Yoongi threw at his feet as he told a very confused Jungkook to wait upstairs. “There
never has been and even if it had, you fucking cut your way right through when you walked into
my room at thirteen and said : ‘I know you're in love with me, and you know I don't feel the same
but I'm fucking lonely even when I'm in a room full of people, and I know you feel the same
because every time I turn to look at you you're already staring-”

“ So maybe we can help each other out.” Yoongi finishes. Jin turns to him in surprise, sunlight
painting his eyes a lighter yellow, and Yoongi feels his heart clench.

“ I thought I was the only one who remembered.” The pianist says.

“ Of course you did,” Jin replies bitterly. “Cause you never fucking think about anyone but
yourself.”

“ You fucking know that's not true.” Yoongi barks.

“ Maybe before Sam it was, during Sam it was, but the moment he died Yoongi, the moment he-”

“ STOP, FUCKING. TALKING, ABOUT, SAM.”

“ Yoongi-”

“ FUCKING STOP IT.” Yoongi wails, voice shattering.

“ I KNOW, OKAY?” Yoongi yells. “I FUCKING KNOW HE WAS THE BEST THING TO
EVER HAPPEN TO ME, I KNOW I WAS A MORE BEREABLE PERSON WHEN I WAS
WITH HIM. I FUCKING KNOW. I FUCKING KNOW. I KNOW. I KNOW. I- I know.”

Jin tries to reach for Yoongi’s shaking hands. They’re trembling so badly that Jin feels his own
hands start to burn, but Yoongi pushes him away.

“ But he’s-“ Yoongi chuckles, and the fact that he’s sobbing at the same time makes his laugh the
most horrible fucking sound in the world. It hits Jin right in the gut, in his very fucking heart,
pierces right through his soul.

“ He’s dead Jin- ah, S-Sammy’s dead, Jinnie,” He repeats, whimpering as he wraps his hands
around his stomach, shivering. “Sammy’s gone.” He says one more time, as if he hasn’t said it
enough already. As if Jin doesn’t already know. “So all of you, stop it.” He barks, curling into
himself, making himself small, small, so fucking small that Jin wants to kill Sam for what he’s
done to Yoongi.

Guess Sam himself beat Jin to it.

“ Stop comparing who I am know to who I was with him,” Yoongi croaks. “Because it's not fair.
It's not fair, you're not being fair.” Yoongi whines. “It fucking hurts, alright? It hurts so much, I
miss him so much. I miss him every day, every fucking night. I don't stop missing him Jin, I don't
ever stop thinking about him. I reach over at night sometimes, when I’m half drunk, or I’ve done
too much coke, and I expect him to be there, I expect the dip of his hip beneath my crippled
fingers. I expect him to turn around and look at me like I’m the prettiest fucking thing in the world,
b-but… h-he can’t…I…I can’t.” Yoongi whispers, curling downwards, crouching to the floor,
arms around his knees as he sobs into his folded arm.

“ Don't you just stop to t-think?” He hiccups, wiping his nose with the back of his sleeve. “Don't
any of you stop to think that maybe, that maybe I'm like this because I have this pathetic,
disgusting voice in the back of my head that if I break enough people, that if I mess myself up
enough, that maybe he'll come back and fix me again? T-t-that… T-hat maybe, m-maybe-”

He slowly stands, fixing Jin with a teary, accusatory glare as he wipes his tears.

“ You weren't there Jin. You say Taehyung got me off the drugs. You say Jimin nursed me back
to health. You say it as though you tried and I pushed you away but you weren't- you weren't
even there. You fucking… you…”

“ Say it.” Jin barks. “Just fucking say it.”

“ You left. You ran.” Yoongi yells. “The week after Sammy died, you fucking…” and then the
next word is much quieter, like Yoongi is reliving the shock of knowing Jin wasn’t there when he
woke up in the hospital, that he had fucking left. “Disappeared.”

“ And why do you think that is, Yoongi?” Jin retorts with a hollow laugh. “Don’t you have even
the tiniest fucking idea why I would leave?”

“ That's not enough a reason-“

“ Are you really, that fucking oblivious?” And Jin tries, he really tries not to go into this
conversation, because it’s been five years, and they’ve done what they do best, they have ignored,
they’ve pretended like it never fucking happened because no one can really believe it did actually
happen. But he can’t. Jin doesn’t fucking want to keep ignoring it.

“ I was on watch that day.” He starts, and Yoongi shakes his head, telling him not to, stepping
forward to get Jin to stop, clasping his hand over Jin’s mouth as the older man refuses and pushes
Yoongi off. So the pianist kisses him.

It’s sloppy, salty with tears, and Yoongi wraps his tongue around Jin’s so that he would just stay
quiet, so that he’d just shut up. So they wouldn’t have to talk about it. But then Jin is shoving him
off and his lips are parting to speak again.

Yoongi tries to scream over him. Tries, is a key word here. Yet he’s cried so much that all that
comes out is a shriek, a deafening croak, and Yoongi finally gives up.

“ It was my fucking turn.” Jin starts again. “It was my fucking turn to watch over you while Tae
was organizing Sam’s funeral. Jimin told me not to fucking leave you alone, not to let you out of
my fucking sight. That day, what you did, it was on ME.”

“ NO.” Yoongi yells. “ It was my choice. It was my. Fucking. Choice.”

“ No, Yoongi. I was downstairs cooking your favorite meal not because it was your favorite but
because seeing you like that was breaking me too. I was cooking because it calmed me down. I
was taking care of myself, of myself while you were- while-”

“ You don't need to have this conversation right now, Jin. I don’t want it, so please-”

“ I remember the exact moment I realised how long you'd been in the bathroom. I dropped the
spoon of hot oil on my foot, and I didn't even feel it. I still have the scar, just below my big toe,
like a daily fucking reminder of how badly I fucked up.” Jin reminisces, hands trembling. Is this
how Yoongi feels? “I ran. I've never run like that in my life, for anyone. And there are so many
fucking bathrooms in that damned house, Yoongi. I didn’t realise just how uselessly big that
fucking house is until that day.” Jin laughs, messily wiping his face with his shirt.

“I checked all twenty fucking bathrooms, and you were in the last one Yoongi. It took me twenty
fucking minutes to find you, twenty minutes while you-” He can’t even say it.

He can’t even fucking say it.

“ Not enough reason Yoongi?” Jin asks with a scoff. “It was enough reason for me to try kill
myself too.”

Five Years Ago

The Kim Mansion

One week after Sam’s death

Jin, 19

It's not the fact that this is the last bathroom left, that by now Jin is sobbing and his hands are so
wet with his tears that his fingers keep slipping on the metal, that tells him Yoongi is in here. It's
the way his stomach falls as his hand clutches the handle. It’s the way his heart tugs him inside.
But most of all, it’s the pinkish water wetting the marble beneath the door.

The door inches open, and for the first time, it creaks. Jin has never heard a single door in this
mansion creak, and yet, here he is, and the door creaks as he opens it.

And there Yoongi is.

Jin slips as his foot hits the bathroom tile, and he sees Yoongi as he falls, knees cracking on the
marble. Jin crawls, claws at the marble as if that would get him to Yoongi any faster. Yoongi who
is sitting just a few meters in front of them, the glass doors of the cylindrical shower compartment
parted in the middle. And he’s just…he’s just sitting there.

“ Y-y-y-yoongi…”

Jin scratches at the marble, claws his way towards Yoongi. He tries to stand, but slips, pink water
sloshing beneath him as his jaw hits the floor and he’s left lying there, an arm’s length away from
Yoongi’s unmoving body, his hand stretching to reach the younger boy.

He can’t move, he realises. Jin can’t fucking move.

“ Y-y-yoongi? Y-yoongi, c-can’t, I- I can’t-“

I can’t get up.

His hand aches every time he tries to pull himself forward, legs locked into place, completely and
utterly paralyzed.

“ H-help me… p-please…p-please, l-let me…l-let me-” His hand flinches beneath him, and Jin
pulls himself forward, and onto his knees, throwing himself inside the cubicle.

There’s so much blood.

There is so much fucking blood.

“ Y-yoongi… Y-yoongi?”

Yoongi’s head is against the rounded wall of the shower cubicle, his eyes open. The tears have
dried in pink streams down his face. Jin holds his arm in his hand. The bloody one. The one with
a million and one cuts running up and down the beautiful, white skin. The one with a single band
of musical notes around the bicep he had gotten after his mum died.

“ You’re g-gonna be j-j-just fine, o-okay?” Jin assures, smiling, wiping away his tears with the
hand that isn’t pressing down on the cuts on Yoongi’s arm. “ Y-y-you’re g-g0nna be j-just fine, b-
baby. I- I g-got you, l-love. I got you love, Jinnie’s got you baby.” He whispers, pressing Yoongi’s
head against his own chest. “You’re gonna be ok baby, Y-you’re.. y-you’re-“

He isn’t blinking, Jin realises.

“ L-l-look a-at me, h-hm?” Jin pleads, holding Yoongi’s face in his hands. “ H-hey…L-look at
me Yoong-gi, p-please baby? Open your eyes for me Yoongi, y-your b-beautiful, b-brown eyes.”

There’s a flash of pink hair from the left. Jin pays no mind to it. He brings Yoongi’s face closer,
hands pressing against his lids and closing his eyes.

“ WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

Jin presses kisses all over Yoongi’s face, doesn’t let the intruder take Yoongi away from him,
holds onto Yoongi until there are a pair of hands hauling Yoongi’s body away from Jin’s grasps
as he blindly reaches for Yoongi’s bloodied arm, whispering weak ‘no’s’ as they try to take his
Yoongi away from him.

“JIN WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?”

“ W-wake up, Y-yoongi. B-baby p-please, p-please wake up.” Jin can’t even see Yoongi anymore.
All there is, is red. And blood.

And Yoongi’s open, wide eyes staring back at him. Then there are small hands dragging him out
of the compartment, throwing him so hard that his head bangs against the toilet seat and
everything is white for a second.

Jimin’s here. He’ll know what to do, Jimin always knows what to do. It’s gonna be okay, Jin, it’s
gonna be just fine.

“ What have you done?” Jimin cries. “What have you DONE?”

He’s sobbing too, Jin realises through blurry eyes, holding Yoongi’s face in his hands, two fingers
pressing against his neck.

“ No, no, no, no…” Jimin chants, stripping off his shirt with a loud wail, pressing it against
Yoongi’s left arm. “Jin, call an ambulance.” Jin doesn’t. He lies there, crumpled against the toilet
seat, watching Jimin wrap his shirt around Yoongi’s arm. “, JIN I NEED YOUR HELP.” He
watches the paramedics swarm in, he watches Yoongi’s dead eyes wheel past him as he’s rolled
out, and the bloodied arm suddenly falls off the stretcher. Jin reaches out to put it back, but
Yoongi’s body has long gone past him. “Jin, are you fucking coming?” He sits there until his bare
feet and hands become wrinkled in the boiling pink water. Until that very water becomes
lukewarm, then cold.

Until the image of Yoongi’s mutilated arm is all that he sees, the smell of rotting blood on himself
all that he smells, until he becomes only a murky reflection of who he used to be. Until he
becomes to known to himself as the boy who killed his best friend. His first kiss. His first love.

Taehyung is the one to come home to tell Jin that everything’s okay, hours later, when they tell
him and Jimin and Hoseok, Yoongi’s dad, and Alex, that Yoongi is going to make it. That, just
like Jin said, just like he said, Yoongi’s gonna be just fine.

Just like Jin said he would be.

But Taehyung comes home to an empty, silent mansion, and a note left on the fountain, saying:

“ I’m so fucking sorry.

Don’t look for me.”

__________________________

“ You did… you did what?” So maybe Yoongi doesn’t know. Maybe no one knows. Not even
Taehyung. And Jin’s going to make sure it stays that way.

“ Nothing, Yoongi.” Jin snaps, fisting the velvet curtain draping beside him. “Nothing.”

“ Jin-“

“ Don’t be a fucking hypocrite Yoon. It’s been five years, I’m alive aren’t I?”

“ Jin,” Yoongi whispers, and his voice is closer, softer. “What the fuck did you do?” He’s next to
him, hand on Jin’s arm, turning him towards himself. “Look at me.”

Jin does. And Yoongi does something stupid. He does something so very, very stupid, and Jin
doesn’t stop him.

The pianist moves closer, right hand curling around Jin’s neck, pulling him down, other hand
scrunching the material of his shirt in his hand. The kiss is soft. And the door is open. Just before
Jin closes his eyes, and melts into the warmth of Yoongi’s familiar mouth, he sees dark hair and
doe eyes peering at him from the hallway beyond the door. And he doesn’t tell Yoongi.

When their mouths part and Jin opens his eyes, he isn’t there anymore.

“ What did you do, Jin?” Yoongi asks again, Jin’s face in his hands.

“ What did you do Yoongi?” The pianist doesn’t answer him. He removes his hands from Jin’s
face, letting them fall as his head falls onto Jin’s chest.

“ Why did you run away?” Yoongi asks, and he sounds so impossibly small. So young.
“ Because…because it was m-my fault.”

“ If you hadn’t run away…” Yoongi whispers, muffling his voice as he presses his lips into Jin’s
clothed skin. “ If y-you, if you had been the one to take care of me,” Jin’s arms wrap around
Yoongi, pressing him as close as their clothes permit, so close as to tether them together, to sew
their two bodies so irrevocably shut that Yoongi wouldn’t dare to hurt himself without Jin feeling
the pain he was feeling too. “I wouldn’t have fallen in love with him Seokjinnie, I wouldn’t have
fallen in love.” Yoongi’s tears burn his chest through the fabric, like poison, like truth. Like an
alternate reality where Jin didn’t leave New York the night of Yoongi’s suicide attempt. One
where he didn’t take a bunch of sleeping pills to try to kill himself.

If Jin hadn’t run away, he would have been the one to tend to Yoongi’s wounds. He would have
changed the dressing on his cuts so he could shower without it hurting so bad. He would have
been the one to follow Yoongi everywhere for nearly a year to make sure he didn’t relapse, to
make sure he didn’t try anything again. He would have been the one to fill, however much he
could, however much Yoongi allowed him to, the empty space Sam had left in the broken pianist.

Instead of Jimin, it should have been Jin.

“ It should have been you.” Yoongi sobs, whimpering.

“ And Jungkook?”

Yoongi’s head leaves Jin’s chest, craning up.

“ Literally what does that have to do with anything, Jinnie?” Yoongi says softly and then, more
aggressive as he adds: “That’s irrelevant, he’s-” Yoongi trips over the words, grimacing. “He’s
irrelevant.” Jin looks to the open door again, the hallway beyond, then back at Yoongi.

“ Does he know that Yoongi?”

“ What?”

“ That that’s what you think of him.”

“ Does it matter?”

“ This isn’t you, Yoongi.” Jin replies softly. “You can’t do this to him, you can’t keep doing this
to people, it’s not fai-”

“ Fair?” Yoongi asks, licking his teeth with a hollow smirk. “Is that what you were just about to
say?” Jin shakes his head eying the doorway. Yoongi scoffs. “You know what’s not fair, Jin?
That my own fucking mother couldn’t recognize me as a kid. That she got so fucking sick that she
thought an eight year old child was a threat to her. Her own flesh and bone.

“ You want to know what’s unfair?” Yoongi asks again, laughing. “That Samuel Ellis, the best
fucking thing that ever happened to me. The only good fucking thing to ever fucking happen to
me, the- the love of my fucking life, Sam… he fucking killed himself. He overdosed on the very
drugs that he told me he hadn’t used since we got together, and he left a shitty, shitty note that
didn’t explain anything at all, that made it so much worse, like I didn’t even deserve a proper note.
Like he couldn’t even fucking give me that.

“You know what’s not fair? That my best friend fucking left the day I tried to kill myself and came
back a year later with no fucking explanation or apology as to why, why, why.” Yoongi yells.
“You know what’s not fair? That because you weren’t there, the person I needed most through all
of it, the person that was there when I got the call…because of you, I fell in love with the one
fucking person in this world who could never love me back the way I want him to. Why? Because
he's Taehyung’s fucking Jimin, and Taehyung loves Jimin more than I could have ever. Fucking.
Imagined.

“More than any of you could possibly fucking know, but you don’t know, do you? I just have to
fucking know everything all the time, and be in the right place at the wrong time and see things
that don’t let me fucking sleep at night. I can’t even be fucking mad at Taehyung, for having Jimin
all to himself. Because Taehyung- because he…because I’ve never known anyone to love
someone as much as Taehyung loves Jimin.” Yoongi rambles, then chants: “If you knew- if you
knew-“

“Yoongi.” Jin urges, taking his face in his hands, clicking his fingers in front of the pianist’s out of
focus eyes. “ What are you even saying? What do you know? What-“

“All of that fucking unfairness, and you’re here talking about Jungkook? Some stray fucking
fifteen-year-old Jimin found on the streets? Seriously?”

“ Yoongi, stop. Yoongi stop it, he’s-”

“Jungkook isn’t any fucking different, Seokjin. He’s just like the others. We’ll fuck and I’ll get
tired of him or he gets tired of me. He’s not going to fix anything, I still love Sam, and Jimin, and
that’s fucking all. Jungkook isn’t-”

“ Shut up.” Jin screams. “Shut the fuck up Yoongi, he’s right fucking there. Yoongi he’s right
behind the fucking door.”

Yoongi turns. It’s a slow turn. And Jin expects a mask of terror, he expects Yoongi to go running
to the violinist who slowly steps out from behind the wall into the hallway, tears streaming down
his small face. But no, Yoongi does none of that. He just stares at Jungkook, and Jungkook stares
back with tears clouding his vision, purple and green matting his neck, lips bitten ruby and glossed
with his saliva and tears.

“I-I’m g-gonna g-g-go.” Jungkook hiccups, wiping his tears hurriedly with the sleeve of a shirt
that Jin recognizes as Yoongi’s. He steps forward, but Yoongi stops him with a hand flying back
to his chest.

“ Let him go.” Yoongi orders, cold, detached.

And Jungkook does.

They stand just like that, Jin behind Yoongi, the pianist staring at the empty hallway, and when
five minutes later, Jungkook is tripping over his own feet to leave, flying past beyond the arched
doorway of the sitting room and shutting the door of the penthouse behind him, once fucking
again, Yoongi doesn’t go after him.

“ W-why did you d-do that?” Yoongi doesn’t turn around. “He’s e-eighteen, Yoongi. He’s so
fucking little, Yoongi, why did you…” Jin removes Yoongi’s hand from his own chest, circling
the pianist’s body to come face to face with him. His head is hanging low, blue fringe curtaining
his eyes. “Why did you fucking break him like that Yoongi?” The pianist doesn’t look up, and
Jin’s hand flies forward to grab his chin. “Fucking look at me you cowar…”

Yoongi’s crying.

Jin lets go of his jaw, and Yoongi’s head falls back down. “You…” Jin steps back, and Yoongi
wipes his cheeks with the back of his hand, laughing softly. “You knew he was there, didn’t
you?”

“ I don’t deserve him,” Yoongi croaks with trembling lips. “Just like I didn’t deserve Sam. Just
like-”

“ Go after him.” Jin interrupts. “Get your fucking ass out there and go after him Yoongi-“

“ I can’t.” The pianist whines, face in his hands.

“Why the fuck not?” Jin retorts, shoving Yoongi by the shoulder. The pianist looks up, and then
rams into Jin’s chest with open palms, the elder stumbling backwards, then falling, landing on ass.
The words that Yoongi screams tear through them both like the most unexpected of storms. And
as Jin falls, Yoongi screams them so loud that his voice shatters half way through.

“BECAUSE I’M IN LOVE WITH HIM.”

Silence.

It’s fucking powerful. If noise is effective, then the lack of it does wonders too. Because the
silence that ensues is long and the belt of sunshine separating Jin’s fallen form -hands on either
side of himself to cushion his fall- and Yoongi’s figure standing on the other side of it, is like a
slap in the face to how far apart they’ve really gotten. And the fact that they were never meant to
be together at all.

“You…you what?”

“I’m in love with Jungkook, Seokjin.”

“But it’s-it’s been-”

“A month, I fucking know. I know.”

“ So why would you…why would you break him like that? A fucking stray, Yoongi? How could
you?”

“ H-he…he snapped at me for calling him a nickname Jimin made up, Jin.” Yoongi explains,
laughing bitterly. “He called me ‘Jimin hyung’ once or twice when he was drugged up, or half
asleep.” Jin winces as Yoongi turns to walk towards the wall opposing the door way, sliding
down the yellow plaster to sit on the floor, a few meters away from Jin.

The older folds his feet under him, sitting crossed legged. The belt of sunshine still separates them,
making it difficult to look at Yoongi without squinting, so they both look down, and Yoongi
carries on speaking. “Do you know what that’s fucking like, Jin? To be called by the name that I
used to whimper in my sleep too? You don’t think that fucks me up?”

“ Does he know?”

“ Of course not.” Yoongi laughs. “ I acted fucking indifferent because I thought it would make it
easier. The moment I heard him play in that bar, I knew I was fucking done for. I knew and I
didn’t fucking stop myself. I can’t do this again, Jin. Not for third time.”
“ How…how did you know?”

How did you know you’re in love with him?

Didn’t you ever have a realization like that about me?

“ Because I don’t think about Jimin when I’m with him, Jin.” Yoongi says. “ Well I do,” He
stutters, and the breath Jin was holding escapes. “But fuck, when I kiss him, when I hold him, it’s
just Jungkook, and his scars -fuck he has so many, Jin- so fucking many that I stay up crying about
it when he falls asleep, but when I kiss him it’s just Jeon fucking Jungkook and his beautiful scars,
his sad eyes and his ruined, ruined feet.” Yoongi rambles, and he doesn’t take consideration on
Jin, and maybe Jin doesn’t want him to. Because this is honesty and that’s not something that
comes by Min Yoongi’s lips very often.

So Jin fights through it, and listens to his first love speak so painfully about a boy much younger
than them both. Because that’s what friends do. Because it’s time he actually did his role, and for
once, not run away.

“ But I still do think about Jimin,” Yoongi continues. “But…but less and less, every time I touch
him.” And when he speaks about touching Jungkook, Yoongi’s eyes, or however much of them
Jin can see through this light, they glaze over, and then his eyelids shut closed, and he smiles so
wonderfully happily. And Jin just listens. And realises it’s not Jungkook’s heart that’s breaking
here. It’s Yoongi’s. Because the pianist is so, so terrified that Jungkook won’t be able to forget
about Jimin the way he is, that he is willing to ruin Jungkook not to ever find out for sure.

“I know there’s going to come a day where I won’t think about Jimin at all when I’m with
Jungkook, and that. Fucking. Terrifies me.” Yoongi breathes, each word a confession that Jin
hopes he’s worthy of knowing the weight to. “Because I don’t know anything else. I haven’t
known anything different for four years, and he comes into my life and I suddenly have hope, and
I can touch a piano again without feeling like my hands are going to fall off. And I’m scared, Jin,
I’m so, so scared.”

Jin waits. A minute, then five, then ten. And when Yoongi doesn’t speak anymore, Jin stands, and
walks over to the pianist’s crumpled figure and slides down the wall beside him. Yoongi rests his
head on Jin’s shoulder, and intertwines his right hand with Jin’s left that is lying open on his thigh,
ready for Yoongi to claim.

And it’s just like old times as Yoongi eventually lays his head in Jin’s lap, and the older threads
his fingers through Yoongi’s blue hair. They revel pensively in the silence, because sometimes
words seem too mundane for what they have.

Later, when they’re still sitting, watching dust dance in the sunlight, Yoongi calls Taehyung,
taking his phone out of his pocket, starting the conversation with a: “ Tae, I fucked up.”

And when the conversation ends, and Yoongi lies back in his best friend’s lap, Jin finally asks:

“ Do you really love him that much?”

And Yoongi being Yoongi, answers the only way Jin expects him to.

“ I really hope not.”

 Sam
Chapter Summary

this isnt an actual summary i just couldnt fit what i wanted to say all in the notes im
sorry ssbs

ok so grammar and spelling mistakes ahead

It's been more just about four months. And if you think I just couldn't update in these
four months you're wrong because I couldnt write AT ALL because of exams. So,
obviously, when my exams finished last week i went insane and now we're going to
get 30k chapters every week beause I am truly jobless.
ok a few more words.
I think my exams went? ok? your girl needs a lot of A's to get into university so lol if
i dont get them then my parents will disown me even more than they already have lets
hope i didnt fuck that up like everything else cOOL.
Next word of notice, HUM IS there something different about the chapter title? no?
dont see anything different, do you?

There will be up to around 5 chapters perhaps in this fic that are integral to plot that
will not follow the patern of _ Boys. It's just a personal choice but i do believe it fits,
because these are the chapters in which events imperative to the balance of happiness
and pain (which is greatly discussed in this obviously) have been narrated? revealed?
i just wrote 33k leave me alone.

Chapter Notes

So...Mr Sam.
I struggle quite a lot with his character, because i know this is fanfiction, and y'all
want to read about your oppars. jdjdbjdjd sorry im laughing as im writing this. Yes,
with no offence intended (since i want to read about my oppars too), I assume that the
amount of original characters I have in this fic and how important a lot of them are to
the plot is quite unconventional, and probably bothers a lot of people. But Sam is
very, very special to my heart, perhaps more than any one else in this fic, or any
character I've ever written. Taehyung's personality was shaped mostly by his father,
and the loss of his mother. Jin's was his dad too. Jimin by his exploited childhood.
Jungkook's by care homes, and so on.
But Yoongi as he is now, the cold, fuck boy asshole who calls Jungkook a stray and
uses everyone just to stop feeling dead inside, he's like that because of Sam.
Sam had a very big part in all of their lives during the years he was alive. I needed to
give the moonchildren this extended period of happiness that I could then take away,
and see how each of them dealt with it, and how they plastered over their wounds.
And since I'm too much of a coward to kill any of the boys, yet... y'all got Sam.
If you don't fall in love with him after this chapter, notwithstanding of the fact that
he's an original character and not an oppar, then I havent tried hard enough, and I'm
sorry.

Samgi's (Sam and Yoongi) ( (yes? they have a ship name *ariana grande gif* and
 what about it?) story seems even more fantastical and myth Like than vmin's at times,
esepcially their first encounter, but that is because in the underlying fantasy cosmic
theme of this story ya know with the moonchildren and stuff, they were meant to be
together before the beginning of time.
So let me be with my star crossed lovers theme ok thanks.

But yeah, I feel like, if I ever had someone like Sam in my life, i would be very
different to the way I am right now, and I probably woudlnt be able to write the way I
do, because ya know, most of this manifests from pain. So, Sam stays. And I'm sorry
if hes not your oppa, ( idk how else to say it im sorry hes not bangtan??? agfsgfs), but
hes very special to me.

//
TW: heavily deals with parental loss and self harm
//
I think it took me so long to write and edit this that everything blurred into one big
mess at the end. I really, really hope you like this. I worked hard on it.

As always,

Love, Charli

See the end of the chapter for more notes

You have one new message.

“Hoseok, it’s Park Jimin. I need a favor. Something happened to Yoongi, he tried to kill
himself, otherwise I would have done this myself. Taehyung’s brother, Jin, he’s ran away. We
think he’s in London, or at least that’s the last place his phone pinged off a cell tower. We need
you to find him before he does anything stupid. It’s crucial that you get on this ASAP. Thank
you.”

End of messages.

Hoseok finds him in a shitty motel on the outskirts of the city, his body is pale beneath the red and
blue neon lights filtering in through the shutters. There is an empty bottle of pills on the table next
to him. Hoseok drops his bag, walks towards the low bed, feels his pulse, and lets out a steady
breath.

“ Found him.” He texts Park Jimin, with Jin soundly alive and sleeping next to him on the car
drive into the city, the motel a forgotten mirage of neon behind them. And when he looks at the
sleeping billionaire, he feels himself fall.

______________________________________

Six years ago

One week after Yoongi’s first suicide attempt

Jin isn’t exactly sure what he expects hell to look like. Or why he’s sure that’s where he’s going.
But it sure as hell isn’t this. So maybe heaven?

He wakes in a daze, warm, low light caressing his face, silk lulling him awake.

The pills didn’t work, because of course Jin can’t even fucking kill himself properly.

He’s not in the same room he was when he had popped pill after pill, and hoped he wouldn’t
wake up. Not after what he did. Not after what Yoongi did.

Jin actually recognizes the room surrounding him after blinking away his suicide attempt.

The Sterling Suite of The Langham. London stretches before him beyond the floor to ceiling
windows, his eyes rolling across to come into contact with-

Jin is stood, pointing a gun at the stranger before he takes his next breath.

“Do all the Kims sleep with guns beneath their pillows?”

“ Who the fuck are you?”

Jin is disarmed. He doesn’t know how but one second he’s pointing a berretta at the stranger he
found lounging on the arm chair next to the window, and the next second he’s backed against the
wall, his own gun digging into the curve of his neck, right beneath his chin, and there is a feline
smirk gleaming at him, inches from his own face.

“ Sleep well, Mr Kim?” The stranger purrs. The chandelier lights bounce off the smooth, straight
bridge of his nose.

“ Who the fuck are you?” Jin spits, observing the sharp, crisp lines of his face: the high of his
cheekbones, the hollow of his dimples as he stares at Jin with a shit eating grin.

“ I did just save your life,” He reveals, feigning hurt. “Do I not get a thank you? I thought you rich
folk were taught manners early on.”

“ He says while standing in the most expensive hotel suite in all of England.” Jin retorts.

“ Hm,” The stranger hums. “ Well it is coming out of your card.”

Of course it is.

“ Who are you?” Jin repeats again.

“ Jim told me you were handsome.” The stranger comments, taking the gun and grazing Jin’s chin
with it.

“ He was being modest for you.”

“ Is that so?” Jin purrs, smirking at the compliment.

“ Are you not going to ask me how I know Jimin?” The stranger asks, pulling away.

“ There’s only one person on earth that dares to calls Jimin Jim.” Jin replies, his hand reaching for
the gun at his neck, and the stranger is being slammed against the wall. When the latter shows no
reaction to losing the upper hand, Jin realises he had let him have it in the first place.

“ Nice to meet you, Jung Hoseok.” He greets, breathing against Hoseok’s mouth. “I’ve heard
your kill count is higher than my father’s.”
Hoseok chuckles, his bottom lip a feather away from Jin’s.

“And I’ve heard your skin count is higher than Zeus.”

Jin smiles.

“ Do you want to raise it?”

And here they are, hours later, naked bodies entangled, guns safe and sound beneath their pillows,
their hands flirting in the lunar spotlight, with Hoseok’s personal armory glinting on the coffee
table a few feet away.

“ Why did you try to kill yourself?” Hoseok asks him, kissing his neck.

Jin looks at him, wonders about him, and then shuts his eyes.

“ Because I killed my best friend.”

Jin isn’t there when Hoseok wakes in the morning.

He doesn’t see Jin for another five years.

_______________________________

A week after where we left off

Planes have always been strange for Jin.

The concept of being so above everything, sky scrapers and landmarks small and insignificant
when you’re a few thousand feet high, floating in the air, in an equilibrium of steel and air,
detached, isolated, and since Jin usually flies solo, because he’s normally busy running away,
alone, has always, always been strange.

He’s feeling Yoongi slip from his hands.

What was it about their fight, and the following resolution? What was it about what Yoongi said
that now Jin feels his first love melting through his hands, evaporating from his veins, untangling
from his hair, to leave, to go, once and for all.

Jin doesn’t want to let go.

It’s- it’s not even about wanting, it’s that he- he doesn’t think he can. It was stupid of him to think
that when the wound of Sam started clotting over, that when Yoongi became just a little bit less
sad, that Jin would be his next choice. No. first it was Jimin. Now it’s Jungkook.

And Yoongi falls fast. He falls fast, and hard, and pure.

So Jin… So Jin thought, he hoped- he hoped it would be him. For once, god, just for once, he
hoped Yoongi could choose him.

But another sad boy came along, and Yoongi was gone, gone, gone.

But god, Yoongi, I’m sad too.

Not enough, apparently. Not enough.

Not enough for Yoongi to feel the need to save him, no, Jin isn’t sad enough for that.

Jin is selfless, if he’s anything. And Yoongi is selfish.

And Jungkook is young, younger than them all, the same age that Yoongi was when he lost Sam.
It’s Taehyung’s birthday soon, and Sam’s anniversary three months after that.

Maybe it’s time to let go.

Maybe it’s time for Jin to stop looking for things that will never be his, to stop thinking Yoongi is
the Jimin to his Taehyung.

But it’s hard, it’s hard not to think they’re meant to be, that their motherless childhoods were
somehow supposed to lead up to something more than this, something greater, something…
something else entirely.

It’s hard when Yoongi is so beautiful, when Jin has been to every single competition Yoongi has
won, and that’s every one the pianist has ever played at. It’s hard when Jin has watched Yoongi
grow up. When they knew each other before anyone else. When Sam took all of Yoongi’s firsts,
but Jin was allowed the ones that truly mattered.

His first time. His first steps. His first kiss. His first smoke. First class he skipped. The first time he
slept under an open night of stars.

It was Jin, through and through, who was there. When Taehyung was too young to be so wise,
and Jimin hadn’t realised he could sing so he could drown out the sound of the pianist’s demons,
and Yoongi didn’t know how to stitch his own cuts, it was Jin.

It was Jin.

“ It was me.”

“ Champagne, Sir?” A voice says, breaking through his trance. Jin quickly turns his head to the
window

“ This is economy.” He quickly dismisses, making sure the flight attendant doesn’t see him crying.
Fuck that’s embarrassing.

“ I never thought I’d hear those words come out of your mouth.” Jin blinks.

“ Running away again, Kim Seokjin?”

He turns his head around, looking for the source of the voice.

“ Hoseok?”

‘ Did you really think booking an economy flight to Mozambique was going to fool me? And?”
Hoseok chuckles, Jin refusing to look at him in his flight attendant uniform. “Mozambique, really?
Of all places? Who are you? Johnny English?” This cracks a smile out of Jin, who leans on his
folded arm against the window.

God how Hoseok missed his smile.

“ I was going to interchange to Japan.” Jin clarified.

“ Why Japan?”

“ We have friends there.”

“ You mean you have ninja friends who trained Taehyung when was six.” Hoseok adds, raising a
brow.

“ Yeah, that’s what I meant.”

Silence.

“ Jin,” Hoseok stresses. “ Look at me.”

“ Nope.”

The former assassin sighs.

“ Kim Seokjin.”

Jin finally snaps his head at him

“ What?”

It hasn’t even been that long, but they’d lived together for around six months, habituated to the
other’s proximity, omnipresence, company.

Hoseok still looks beautiful, like he always does. Even when he’s angry he looks like he’s
smiling, and unlike most people who’ve eaten blood money, he still has that twinkle in his eyes,
the one that says he’s been through hell and back, and he was the one who won.

In a war, Jin would choose Hoseok. He hasn’t told him that, not yet, maybe he never will. But Jin
knows that it’s people like Hoseok who truly win wars. People who walk through fire with a shit
eating grin, who scream too loud and are afraid of everything and nothing at all. People who are
loud, but silent when it’s called for. Those who shine when people stop telling them to, who laugh
when being laughed at.

People like Jung Hoseok…

People like him lose battles, but win the war.

“ Did you miss me?” Hoseok asks, unsure.

“ What do you think?” Jin asks.

“ I really don’t know.”

Seokjin sighs.

“ Sit down, Seok.”

Jin always hates himself for how nervous he makes Hoseok feel. The man who has a higher kill
count than any assassin in all fifty states is sitting here, legs pressed together, his hands uneasy in
the thin dent between his thighs, all because of Kim Seokjin.

“ How did you find me?” Jin asks.

“Yoongi called.” Hoseok replies, not looking at him, “Said you were probably going to run.”

“ Wow,” The other exclaims, turning his head to his lover. “I love being babied by my friends.”

“ What do you expect of us when you act like one, Jin?”

And he’s right, isn’t he? Jin is childish because he never got to be a child. He never got to be
stupid, or selfish, or irresponsible, no. He learnt how to shoot a gun when he was four. He killed
his first man when he

was six. He lost his mom when he was…

“ Sam was different.”

Hoseok almost doesn’t hear him, from how quietly Jin utters the words, but the thing with the
former assassin is that he always listens, even when you think he isn’t, he’s quiet when you need
to be loud, and so when Jin starts with “Sam”, Hoseok knows it’s time to look at him.

“ He…”Jin starts, choking on his words. “From the beginning, it was just…it was clear as day,
that Sam was different. That Yoongi was different, when he was with him.” Hoseok brings his
legs up onto the seat, turning to face Jin. He holds his hand out. Jin takes it.

The plane is relatively empty this early in the morning.

“ You know Yoongi never played Chopin, when he was with Sam?” Jin asks him even though he
knows Hoseok doesn’t know. “He said it was too sad.” He reveals, chuckling, “The romantics
were too sad. Tchaikovsky was too dramatic, Berlioz was too manic, and Chopin was just always
too sad.” Hoseok entangles their hands, resting his head against the plane seat. Jin is weak for
reminiscing, he knows that. He’s weak for all things past and nostalgic. It just makes this harder.
It just makes it harder.

“ And sad wasn’t a word you heard often when Sam and Yoongi were together, you know?”
Hoseok doesn’t know. Jin makes him very sad. Taehyung and Jimin make each other sad all the
time. So no, Hoseok doesn’t know. Hoseok can’t even possibly imagine what Sam and Yoongi
had together.

“ So it was always either Bach, or Mozart, and jazz,” Jin continues wistfully. “ A fuck ton of jazz.”
He stresses, smiling. “Yoongi would play and we’d all get drunk at Sam’s house-“ He stops
himself, trying to add two and two, take away nine from the year they’re in, and add three. “ Well,
at the beginning, the three of us would get drunk and Jimin would try to, and we wouldn’t let him,
cause you know, they were young. And so were we.”

“ What about Taehyung?” Hoseok asks when Jin doesn’t say anything else.

“ Taehyung never drank.” Jin replies. “ Or did drugs, not until…” Hoseok regrets asking with the
look that overcomes Jin’s face. The clothes he’s wearing are perhaps the most casual Hoseok has
ever seen him. A white, button up shirt, his ungodly ripped blue jeans, white converse, black
haired tousled over his forehead, fringe arched over his forehead.

“ Not until dad died,” Jin finally adds. “ No way, he never touched the stuff.”

“ Because he was afraid of becoming his father’s son?”

“ Because he was afraid of becoming his father’s son.”

Jin’s hand slowly makes its way to Hoseok’s black hair -burgundy strands long gone- carding
through the obsidian tendrils. Hoseok shuts his eyes at the sensation, and Jin doesn’t stop
caressing his hair, not even when he starts talking again.

“Sam got Taehyung to start painting again, you know? He stopped when he got old enough for
the painting to worry dad, that just because he liked holding a paintbrush that he wouldn’t be able
to hold a gun. But when Sam came along, one day we walked in and Taehyung was just covered,
absolutely covered in this gorgeous…” He trails off wistfully, eyes shining. “ In this gorgeous,
cerulean paint, and I don’t think I’d ever been happier. I don’t think I’ll ever be as happy as I was
that day.”

Jin stops himself for a second, wondering what to tell, what not to tell. But Hoseok is looking at
him, and Jin knows he loves him, he knows that Hoseok loves him more than Yoongi ever could,
Jin knows, in this moment, that Hoseok is the one. He just needs his heart to realise that too.

“ I don’t think you- you know this, but…Sam taught me guitar. I couldn’t help but be jealous,
jealous of a boy who had no parents at all, who lived alone, all because of the way he made
everyone feel. God, he- his clothes were all too small for him, he’d had the same phone for ten
years, just a block phone, you know, one of those ones?” He enunciates, unnecessarily drawing a
little rectangle in the air, hands jittery.

Hoseok takes his other hand in his too, nodding, telling Jin he understands.

“He had to drop out of high school because he was dyslexic and he just wasn’t getting the support
he needed to progress, because he lived and went to school in a bad part of town, you know? But
I- but my pathetic, stupid self still hated a boy like that. I think he kind of knew, that I would
always be envious, and yet one day, when he was practicing on his acoustic he looked over at me,
smiled that insufferably bright smile of his and said: ‘you wanna learn?’” When Jin imitates Sam,
Hoseok kind of understands. Because his tenor softens, a British accent undertones it, and he
smiles. And through Jin’s impression, Hoseok sees Sam.

“ And that was that.” Jin concludes, slapping his hands together, almost shaking away the
memories from his head, letting them drop off the tips of his hair. “He’d teach me every day after
school, and would joke that I’d eventually get better than him, and I told him I’d never be better
than him at anything at all, and he looked at me and said something…. quite strange.” He adds,
biting his lip. “He said that…” Jin hesitates, almost as if he still can’t believe what Sam said to him
that day. “ He said that i-if I hadn’t kept Yoongi alive until then, that Sam wouldn’t have known
him, or any of us at all.” A tear slips out of Jin’s eye, then another, then another until Hoseok has
to reach out and cup his face, wiping them away.

“That was his fucking problem.” Jin swears, holding Hoseok’s hand. “Sam was perfect. He was
the definition of perfect, no matter who you were. You couldn’t hate him, I couldn’t hate him, I
can’t hate him.” He stresses, as if he’s tried, and he has. Night after night, sitting there, blaming
him for what he’s done to Yoongi, for going, for going even though he promised Jin,

“ Promise me you will never hurt him.”

“ I wont. I’ll die, I’ll die before I do.”

-even though he promised Jin that he would make Yoongi happy- Jin tried to hate Sam.

But he couldn’t.

He can’t.
“ We loved him, I loved him, after a while, we all did.” His face darkens then, and his voice
quietens.

“ I think…I think you really saw the difference… the difference between Yoongi and Sam, why
they were like that, and Jimin and Taehyung, when they were all in the same room.” He whispers,
closing his eyes.

“Taehyung was…. insecure, you see. Of everything, all the time, but mostly of Jimin. It was
actually Sam who got Taehyung to confess, and once he did, instead of getting better, everything
between Jimin and Taehyung kind of became weird.” He confesses, and the restraint to his tone
tells Hoseok that this has never been talked about, not like this, out in the open. Jin trusts him.

Jin is trusting him again.

“ My brother always had to be touching him, in some way. He couldn’t really be around anyone?
Not unless Jimin was there?” He reveals, almost asking himself a question. “But the touching
thing, you see, that was weird. Like Jimin would just…” Jin stops, making a soft, ‘blowing up’
motion in front of him, “…evaporate if Taehyung stopped touching him, like he’d slip out of
Taehyung’s hands. Taehyung was terrified, he’s always been terrified.” He finishes with a hot,
quiet breath.

“But then…” Jin murmurs, like what he’s going to say next is a secret, forbidden to reveal,
sacrilege to even whisper. “ But then there was Sam and Yoongi.”

“ God,” He stresses. “ Fucking Sam and Yoongi. Yoongi and Sam.” He chants. “If there ever was
a relationship built on trust, it was theirs. When they were all in the same room, you could just see,
you could see that Taehyung and Jimin were bad for each other, are bad for each other. They
were a lot unhealthier then, they were younger, they didn’t know better. But Taehyung nearly
killed more than one person for even looking at Jimin wrong. But Sam.” Jin compares. “Sam.
Sam. Sam.” He chants, laughing to himself. “ I can’t even begin to explain the way Sam loved
Yoongi, I can’t even fucking begin.

“ The point of this is that… You’re never going to be able to love Yoongi, like him, even,” Jin
corrects, wiping his face with his sleeve until his cheeks are scrubbed pink “Because you- you
didn’t see, see the way Sam breathed life into him, you didn’t see Yoongi as he was with Sam, so
you can’t grasp how Yoongi- as the person he is now- could possibly justify himself.” The reason
for Jin’s revelations become clear to Hoseok. Once again, he’s trying to make Hoseok see why he
still loves, Yoongi even after all he’s done.

It hurts.

“But he’s…he is justified.”

Then, Jin says something that Hoseok isn’t entirely sure he heard right.
“ He- he tried to kill himself, Hoseok.” No, not that bit. It’s what’s comes next that Hoseok thinks
he hears wrong.

“Three times.”

The former assassin’s head snaps up.

“ What?”

Jin cages his mouth with his hand, trying to stop the sob threatening to spill from his lips.

“ Jin…” Hoseok whispers, thumb wiping another one of his tears away.

“ The first time,” Jin clarifies. “ You know about.”

Hoseok waits for him.

“ The second and third were in the asylum.”

“ God, Jin, I..”

“Yoongi was in a psychiatric hospital for a year, Hoseok.”

“ I’m so sorry.” Hoseok apologies even though he doesn’t know what for.

“ He tried to- He tried to hang himself, the second time,” Jin adds.

God, god, god.

“ Then- then the third, he- he nearly overdosed on the medication they’d put him on.”

Hoseok had no idea.

“ W-When, when Taehyung found out, he- he went ballistic, he said he was going to ruin
everyone in that hospital, no one could get him to calm down.”

Hoseok imagines a fifteen-year-old Taehyung having to go through his best friend’s near death
three times.

Then he realises he can’t.

“ After the third time, at the end of that year, he took Yoongi out of the hospital, to take care of
him at home.” Hoseok senses what’s coming next.

“ That’s when he started using Jimin as a coping mechanism. Pretended to fall in love with him
just so Sam wouldn’t be as painful. Because there’s no one Yoongi could ever love anyone so
soon after Sam. Jimin knows, Taehyung knows, I know, that Yoongi never truly loved Jimin like
that. And a while after that, after Jimin told him he couldn’t, after he chose Taehyung over him,
Yoongi bought himself a penthouse, moved out, and he just changed.”

Yoongi changed.

He fucked anything with a pulse but refused to be fucked. He stopped going to classes. Didn’t
answer their calls. Didn’t let anyone into his life.

“ He didn’t talk to any of us. Didn’t answer our calls, didn’t even tell us where his new house
was, we had to find out for ourselves.”

But every year on Sam’s anniversary, Jimin would go to the penthouse, and Yoongi would open
his door, and Jimin would let him cry into his chest. Jimin would make him breakfast in the
morning, kiss Yoongi’s forehead, and then leave, like he knew Yoongi would want him to.

“ I didn’t know, Jin.” Hoseok says after Jin doesn’t say anything else.
“ I… I’m trying to let go, Hoseok.”

Something shifts in Hoseok’s face.

“ L-let go?”

“I’m trying to let go of Yoongi.” Jin tells him. Tells Hoseok. Tells himself. Tells the world. The
skies outside the plane, and the stars beyond them.

Jin is going to let go.

“You…” Hoseok isn’t going to cry, he tells himself. “ You are?”

“That’s why I told you this…” Jin elucidates, kissing Hoseok’s forehead. “ Because if I’m to let
go, w-when I do let go, I don’t want the man I want to spend the rest of my life to hate the one
who’s been my life until

now. Who will be a big part of it in the future.”

Hoseok tells himself isn’t going to cry until he does. Until Jin goes ahead and tells him everything
he’s been scared of saying until now, just like this, all at once.

“You…” Hoseok can’t contain the choking sob that rattles through him, and Jin can’t stop his
heart from wrenching for what he’s made of this dancer of his. “You want to spend the rest of
your life with me?”

“ I’m sorry…” Jin chants, kissing his hair, his hands, his lips closing Hoseok’s lid to wet promises
on his closed eyes. “I know you didn’t wait long but- I- I’m scared, I was scared- I couldn’t do
anything about distancing myself from Jimin, or Tae, or Yoongi, they’re… they’re practically
family, but I fell, I fell for you and I thought maybe I could keep you safe.” Jin apologizes. “I slept
around, I fucked other people when you were waiting at home, I’m fucking sorry, I’m sorry-”

“ Does that… Does that mean…

“ I won’t, not anymore, I can’t, I- I love you.”

Hoseok shakes his head.

“ No, no, no-” He warns Seokjin, tutting at him. “ Don’t you say that again, don’t you-”

“ I love you…” Jin sobs. “You shouldn’t have to hear it when we’re fucking in an elevator
Hoseok, you shouldn’t have to hear it for the first time when I’m piss drunk, when I smell of
someone else’s perfume.” He apologizes, pressing their foreheads together. “You deserve more
than that, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I love you, baby, I love you, I love you, and I’m going to try,
I’m going to try and love no one else. It’ll take time, it’ll take time but-”

Hoseok brings their mouths together.

And for once, when he kisses him, he can’t taste piano keys. Not anymore.

Jin is two fingers deep in Hoseok, foil packets of lube scattered across the airplane toilet, his hands
sticky, Hoseok’s uniform torn around Jin’s eager fingers. The former assassin sits naked on Jin’s
half clothed thighs, the older’s cock sliding between his wet cheeks as he balances Hoseok’s
weight on the toilet seat, Hoseok’s shirt under him.

“Fuck me,” Hoseok whines with every slide of Jin’s member against his cheeks, with every twist
of his nipples in Jin’s mouth ,every caress of his spine with Jin’s fingertips.

“ You’re tight, baby, wait for me-”

“Another,” Hoseok whispers, head falling back as Jin fingers in a third digit into his leaking hole.
“Another, hngh, another, Jinnie, a_” Jin’s hand slaps onto Hoseok’s mouth as the insertion of a
third finger is accompanied by Hoseok’s immoral scream.

“ Fuck, baby, I don’t remember you being this loud.”

“ Missed you, missed this, missed your cock, Fuck, fuck-“

“ You missed my cock?”

“ I missed your fucking cock so much, fuck, hngh- HARDER!”

The door rattles open.

Maybe Jin left it open on purpose.

“ Excuse me, I-“

There’s a flight attendant at the door. She walks in to the sight of Jin four fingers dip inside
Hoseok’s ass, lubricant leaking from his puckered hole, eyes blown wide, mouth opening and
closing as her eyes fixate on Jin’s bored face.

Hoseok is too gone to notice as Jin takes his fingers out of his hole, reaches into his jean pockets,
and throws a roll of hundred dollar bills at her, the money wet with the lube from his hands. She
catches it, her hands feeling the weight of the roll for themselves.

“ Put an out of order sign on the toilet.” Jin orders.

She scrambles out, and Jin’s fingers are pumping into Hoseok’s heat again, the dancer rolling his
hips up and down.

“ Mm, yes, fuck, yes,” Hoseok swears when one of his nipples are taken between Jin’s fingers,
the nub bounced back and forth between Jin’s smooth skin.

“ How much did you miss my cock baby?” Jin questions as he experiments with a fifth finger,
Hoseok’s hole pulsating around Jin’s digits.

“ Fuck- I, hngh-” Hoseok mumbles, whimpering around Jin’s fingers as they enter his mouth.

“ Suck.” The older commands, Hoseok’s lips puckering around Jin’s fingers to slide all the way
down to his knuckles and back up. “Speak up, I can’t hear you.”

“I f-fucked myself, thinking of it, in the hospital toilets,” Hoseok stutters, clawing at Jin’s shoulder
when Jin’s thumb plays with the blown-up rim of his hole. “ Mm I- fuck, please, need it- Jin, d-
don’t tease,” He begs as Jin lazily slides his fingers inside Hoseok’s hole, tickling his walls but not
touching his prostate. “ P-put it in.”
“ Put what in?” Jin asks, the picture of nonchalance as Hoseok’s legs tremble, his hands losing
their purchase on Jin’s shoulders when all of his fingers hit Hoseok’s prostate all at once.

“ FUCK.”

“ Whatever are you talking about?” Jin pries again, taking his fingers out completely, putting
them on Hoseok’s jaw, and one by one, making Hoseok lick the come and lube from his hands
until Hoseok feels like the very essence of degredation, fucked out and filthy. “Not a drop left, hm
Seok-ah?”

“ God,” He moans after bobbing up and down the other’s fingers one last time, lips puckered
around his index finger, leaving it slick with spit after one last ‘pop’ . “ You’re so fucking mean.”

“ You love it.”

“ God, I love it.” Hoseok forfeits, stroking the length of Jin’s red member.

“ You sure you can take my big cock, Hoseok?” Jin teases, taking his cock from under Hoseok’s
ass to slap it against his stomach, tapping the latter’s wet abs with the tip of the member, spreading
his pre-come on the rippled skin .”You sure your hole can fit me in?”

They both know it can. They both know how well Hoseok takes Jin’s cock, how nicely his hole
stretches out for his length, his rim pulsating around the thick, leaking redness when he comes
untouched.

“ ‘l try,” Hoseok still says. “I’ll try, promise- ‘mm, fuck, Jin, please, please, please baby, f-fuck
me.”

“ You haven’t let anyone else fuck you, have you baby?”

“ No!” Hoseok quickly replies, looking at Jin in betrayal.

I’m not like you.

“ No one, no one could c-come close.” Hoseok says instead.

“ I love your holes baby,” Jin praises, kissing Hoseok, tasting lube and come on his tongue and
relishing the filthy, blasphemous aftertaste. “ Fuck, I love them, I love you, love you so much.”
Hoseok purrs at the affection dripping from Jin’s filthy, wet mouth. God, it feels nice. This feels so
fucking nice.

“ C-come in my mouth, a-after, fuck, come in my mouth, f-fuck my mouth.”

“I’ll fuck your mouth baby,” Jin promises, stroking his hair, “You want to feel me at the back of
your throat?” He leads on, fingering the sharp of his Adam’s apple. ‘ Need you to tell me if you
want my come in your blood stream, Hoseok.”

“ Please,” The dancer quickly says. “ Want it- want it everywhere, want you everywhere, fuck,
Jin,” He swears, looking down at his neglected arousal. “ It hurts,” The dancer complains, trying
to rut against Jin’s half open shirt. “ I’m so hard, c-can I touch?”

Jin tuts at him, softly slapping Hoseok’s prying hand away, pinning it behind his back, locking his
other one beneath it.

“ You’re gonna come untouched for me is that okay?” Jin asks him, kissing his neck.

“ Hngh, fuck.”

“ If anyone can make you come undone its me, right?” He reassures, messily licking into
Hoseok’s mouth.

“ It’s you. It’s all you, I-”

Hoseok screams as Jin’s cock enters him all at once. Four fingers and a half more than enough
prep for Jin to be able to go all in, sliding in and out, taking his cock out of Hoseok’s hole and re-
entering it.

“ How’s that baby?” Jin says, grinning at the way his cock took Hoseok by surprise, kissing all
the places his skin quivers as he fastens his pace. “’s that good? Do you like that?”
“ Mm, big, fuck, so big-”

“ Am I too big for you baby?” Jin mocks, feigning pulling out as he takes his dick out to the very
tip. “You want me to pull out?”

“ I can take it,” Hoseok growls, persona slipping into a deathly glare. “ Fuck you, I can take it.”

Jin starts laughing boisterously, holding Hoseok’s back for support as he doubles over with the
force of his guffaws.

“ Fucking asshole.” Hoseok swears, slapping his chest, the movement making Jin’s cock slide
deeper in between his cheeks and they’re both letting out long, sustained moans until Jin blinks at
him innocently and asks:

“ You sure you can take it?”

Hoseok slams him further into the toilet seat, pulling his hair back as he bites harshly into Jin’s
neck, the latter going lightheaded at the impact and Hoseok follows it with a marking agenda on
his veins.

“ You’re toeing a very dangerous line, Mr Kim.” The former assassin warns, rolling his hips
against Jin’s once more, climax approaching him steadfast and hard.

“ And you always let me cross.”

“ And I always do.”

___________________________________
II

“Hello? Is this Mr. Min, Yoongi Min?”

“Yes?”

“This is the Presbyterian hospital calling. We have an unidentified body that has just been
brought in, we need you to come to the hospital at your earliest convenience. You were the
last contacted number on the deceased’s phone. Mr Min? Sir, can you hear me? Hello?”

Yoongi wakes up screaming.

Yoongi wakes up clawing at his face, he wakes up with his hand reaching over to the empty side
of the bed, with his ring finger aching and the same phone call repeating in his head. He
remembers the woman’s voice better than he remembers Sam’s. He knows it better than he would
know his mom’s.

That’s what hurts.

That he would recognize that woman’s voice quicker than he would recognize Sam’s.

Yoongi wakes up alone.

He wakes up scratching at his sleeve of tattoos, at the self-harm scars they’re hiding beneath. He
wakes up

clawing at his thighs until angry red lines appear on them.

His hands shake when he reaches into his bed side drawer. He takes out a white, obscure circle.
It’s a pen, pens, in fact, the lids like petals, varying from light red to crimson.

He chooses the crimson.

The end is sharp.

Yoongi draws on his thigh, then over his tattoo. He draws a ring around his left index finger, the
line a stark red against his white skin. He draws and draws until the urge goes away, until it
dissipates and he’s left staring into the void, at the lift twenty yards from the bottom of his bed.

Like he’s gonna walk in.

Like he’s going to fucking come back.

Yoongi gets up. He hears screaming. Then he realises that’s just him again. He goes to the piano,
the Grand a few feet from his bed. He takes the lid, opens it, the inner workings of the instrument
coming into view, and right there, sitting on the golden metal body of the piano, is a ring. A
golden, cylindrical ring.

Yoongi puts it on his ring finger. Yoongi falls to the floor. Yoongi screams.

“ Get out of my head.” Yoongi whispers. “ Please.” He begs.

“ It hurts.” He wails, holding his left hand. “It hurts so much.” He screams, sobbing, sobbing until
his voice is raw and he’s not sure he can entirely see.

“ You’re hurting me, Sam.” He shouts. “ Sammy you’re hurting me.”

He clutches the piano leg, almost in plea, begging the one he loved even before Sam to help him,
begging the piano to drown out the noise, the static, the screaming. But he has to play, if he wants
it to stop, he must play.

“ I CAN’T.”

He can’t.

Yoongi does what he always does, when the noise gets too loud. He looks for skin.

He could call his best friends, like you’re supposed to do. He should call Taehyung, because he
always knows what to do.

That’s not what Yoongi does.

“ Hi, this is James, leave a message after the beep.”

“ I’m busy this week. Just in case you’re planning on taking me instead of your antidepressants
again.”

“ Fuck.” Yoongi swears into the emptiness of the penthouse. This is the first time James has ever
not answered his call.

Alex comes to mind next.

But then Yoongi realises he actually cares about her.

His next idea is a laughable one.

So laughable that Yoongi ends up actually laughing as he scrolls up and down his phone,
fingering the ring on his left hand.

He goes into his contact list, chooses more boys than he does girls, pretty tall ones, thick curvy
ones, ones with big cocks he can shove down his throat, girls who are quieter than they are loud,
boys who have pretty moans, ones who won’t ask questions, who’d come running when he calls.

Send to: 100 Recipients

Party at my penthouse. Leave your clothes at home.

Sent.

Yoongi looks up at the roof, caressing the coldness of the golden ring.

“ How do you like me now, Sammy?”

How do you love me now?

__________________________________

III
Nine Years Ago

Autumn

Yoongi, 15

It's dark. That's the first thing Yoongi realises. It's cold. That's the second.

He has no fucking clue where he is. That's the third.

The tips of his fingers trail the length of the wet, brick wall next to him. It's only brick by touch
though. It might be anything at all actually, because Yoongi can't fucking see.

His hands are shaking. They've never done that before.

What he can see are papers. Papers, papers, papers. Straight black lines, curved black lines, all
sorts and sorts of lines on white backdrops pretending to be words just how Yoongi is pretending
right now. Just how his father pretended. The lines are pretending to be words because they're not
words at all, they're lies. Yoongi would know that, because he lies a lot. His biggest one, like most
of us, is: ‘I’m ok.’, ‘I’m fine.’

But you see, with him, it's just a little bit different. You don't really need to know why right now,
or maybe you know enough to realise why, but Yoongi knows he shouldn't lie about being okay
because he doesn't think he's been “okay” in a very long time, and sometime soon that's going to
have repercussions.

But not now, no, right now he has to stop his hands from shaking, because you can't have a piano
prodigy with shaking hands. If Yoongi’s hands are ever to forsake him he might as well cut them
off. Yoongi’s only worth something because of his hands.

He's nothing without them.

But yes, right now, he has to stop them shaking so he can take his phone out of his pocket without
dropping it, which would be a problem because he can't see shit. Then he has to call Jimin, or
Taehyung, either would do really, and since wherever one is you'll find the other, he needs to call
Jimin and Taehyung or Jimin or Taehyung. Does that make sense?
“Fuck.”

It probably doesn't.

Just like the lines pretending to be words that Yoongi knows are lies. His dad would tell him
they're lies too, if only Yoongi could get his thoughts in order and realise this is all an elaborate
joke. An early birthday prank. A very early birthday prank.

A dream?

A Nightmare.

Yoongi has a lot of nightmares. But since we've established that this is a nightmare too, Yoongi
can safely say this is his worst. This is his worst yet even though there was that whole five year
one of his mom not remembering his name anymore. That one doesn't happen anymore. Because
his mom is gone.

The nightmares aren't though. They've just changed.

Like the ones of Jimin’s dad.

The ones of Taehyung’s.

Yoongi’s dad is good. He's the only piece of parental luck any of them have ever gotten. So
why…

So why…

He should call Jin. He knows he should.

Jin would know what to do, since he's the eldest. Since he's Yoongi’s best friend. Since he’s in
love with Yoongi, apparently. That means he would know what to do right now. Doesn't it?

Even if it does, Yoongi’s too proud to call him. He's too proud and self-entitled because Jin
blames him for being in love. Because every time they kiss out of sight of Jimin and Taehyung,
out of sight of their fathers, in the M wing of the ArKe, for the Min family, in the K wing, for the
Kims, and in every other goddamned place hidden beneath the shadows, Jin looks at him like
there isn't someone he hates more in the world. Every time Yoongi makes him come, he looks
ashamed, every time he makes Yoongi come he looks distraught.

//

“Why can't we just fucking be happy Jin?” He had asked last week, when the look Jin was giving
him while letting his tongue fall out for Yoongi to suck on became too much. When his stares
became too condemning to go unnoticed. “Huh?”

“Because you're not fucking happy Yoongi.” Jin had spat back, turning his head to the side, away
from Yoongi’s mouth. They were in the back of Jin’s car, Yoongi on top of him, sitting just above
his pelvis, pant-less.

“ I am fucking happy. Jin. I'm over the fucking moon just making you moan and having you come
on my hands okay?”

“ You’re happy?” Jin reiterates back to him, his brow cocking, lip quirking to the side as if he
can’t believe the absolute bullshit coming out of Yoongi’s mouth.

“ Yeah I'm fucking happy.” Yoongi replies. Jin scoffs.

“ Is that why you never take your shirt off when we mess around?” Yoongi pauses.

“ What?”

Jin uses the pianist’s hesitance as leverage to reverse their positions, grasping Yoongi’s shoulders,
pushing him back, mounting him just as Yoongi’s back hits the left end of the seats, their bodies
drawing a semi-circle of limbs and angry breaths.

“ No-”

Jin grabs both of wrists when Yoongi falls, pinning them above his head to the leather seats -the
Mercedes shaking with the impact of Yoongi’s back hitting the leather. He pulls down a sleeve to
Yoongi’s elbows, then holds the arm up between them, and finally looks back up at him.

It’s worse than he anticipated. It’s…

“ T-This…” Jin has to confront, he knows he does. He has to be strong. But all he sees is
Yoongi’s ruined skin. All he sees is red and white and suddenly being strong isn’t really an
option. “This is-“ His voice breaks, and he tips his head back, willing his tears away. He lets out a
shaking breath, and looks back down to be met with the sight of Yoongi trying to tug his sleeve
down. “This you being happy, Yoongi?”

“ They're old.” Yoongi retorts.

“ Old?” Jin laughs. “What? Like two weeks old? Maybe even less? I’m going to be a fucking
doctor, Min Yoongi,” Yoongi laughs at the mention of medicine. Jin snarls. “Don’t undermine
me. I know what old scars look like.”

“ And?” Yoongi cuts back.

“ And?”

“ So what Jin, so what if I cut?

Something stirs within Jin. Something breaks when Yoongi rolls his eyes and to this day he
doesn’t know why, why it was this particular moment. Maybe it was because he knew Yoongi
enough to know his question to have been genuine. It was a legitimate question. Yoongi really
didn’t see the problem with it. He didn’t see any reason to warrant Jin’s reaction.

He saw nothing wrong with what he was doing to his own flesh and bone. It wasn’t denial, or
lack of care for how his friends would take it, no, it was, and still is, just Yoongi’s pure lack of
self-worth. His inability to understand what his skin was and is worth.

It was in that moment that Jin thought Yoongi was truly lost. And he said a silent prayer, for
something, anything, someone, to find Yoongi. To seek him out and find him from whatever
oblivion it is he thinks he deserves to drown himself in.

Nearly ten years later, Jin wishes he hadn’t prayed in that moment. Because for once in his life, he
had prayed, and his prayer was answered with golden hair and blue eyes.
Yoongi would have never lost Sam if Jin hadn’t wished for Sam to find Yoongi in the first place.

“ Are you joking right now?” Jin finally says, not because it’s the right thing to say, but just to say
something. Just to get Yoongi to maybe retract his words.

“ No…?

“ What would you do if Taehyung did that to himself Yoongi?” Jin asks, and it’s not a good way
to keep this going. “Or Jimin?” It’s a ridiculous comparison because the two boys don’t even
know what Yoongi does to his skin when no is looking. Jin is the only one who knows. So maybe
a better question would have been:

‘ What would you do if I did that to myself?’

But Jin is a coward. He’s afraid of Yoongi saying he wouldn’t care. It’s ridiculous to think like
that when they knew each other before any-one else did. Because when that guy in ninth grade
had tried to take advantage of Jin two years ago, Yoongi had walked in and broken three of his
ribs. And then he pressed Jin against a wall and told him to never let a boy who wasn’t Yoongi
touch him like that again.

Yoongi didn’t have any right to demand something like that, not even close. But it still showed Jin
he cared, in his own fucked up, territorial way, Yoongi who seems like he doesn’t care about
anything at all, who kisses Jin even though he knows how in love with him he is, and who sleeps
with Alex knowing it’s probably killing her inside, cares after all.

“ Well they don't.” Yoongi reiterates.

And it hurts. It hurts. It fucking aches.

“ W-well…” Jin stutters in reply, just like any sane person would do. Just like he always does
when Yoongi is like this. “Well they don't?” When Yoongi is cold, when he hates and hates, hates
his skin, his own blood and flesh that he’s turned brittle. And there’s seemingly nothing anyone in
the whole damned world could do to get him to stop. But Jin tries. He stutters and he fucking tries,
like one does when one loves. One tries when one loves, that’s all you need to do. You gotta try,
you gotta try no matter what or who or how. You stand there and you fucking try until trying itself
tells you to stop.

And then you spit in its face, and you. Keep. Going.
So that’s what Seokjin is going to fucking do. That was what he was gonna do. That was the plan.

But then Sam came along.

And then he left.

“Yeah,” Yoongi drones. He’s bored, he’s bored, he’s so fucking bored. His tongue slips out to
strike a lick across his bottom lip. He wants a cigarette.

“ They don't,” The pianist reiterates again. “ So,” He concludes with a tooth tugging at his lip, “I
don't have to do anything.”

But then Sam came along and Jin realised sometimes trying doesn’t matter. Not if you’re not the
right person. Not if someone like Sam exists.

“And me?” Jin asks, shifting lower, unplastering their bodies and sinking into the seats, Yoongi’s
body folded beside him, the musician clearly refusing to get up. He lets his legs fall open on either
side of him, head lulling to the side, giving Jin a sly stare, looking up at him through his lashes,
tongue darting out to wet his lips with suggestive kitten licks. Jin almost, almost falls for it, but
then he’s frowning and Yoongi gives it one more lip bite before he’s giving up and sitting next to
Jin, sighing petulantly as his arousal softens. “What am I supposed to do?”

Yoongi sighs, rolls his eyes. Jin wants to choke him. But then again, Jin always wants to choke
him.

“You’re supposed to let me kiss you and suck you off while we watch code geass,” He hums,
thinking, then mounts Jin in one swift move, movements so feline-esque that his legs are around
Jin’s and his hand is cupping his face before Jin takes his next breath.

Yoongi gives him a kitten lick to the lips, then another, the tiniest disc of his tongue hanging out,
trying to pry Jin’s lips apart. “C’mon.” He whines softly when Jin’s lips remain closed. “Hyung,”
It’s thrilling how quickly Jin’s lips fall apart at the word, and Yoongi dives, his tongue embracing
Jin’s and his hips rolling against his thighs.

“ Yoongi do not.”

Jin tastes strange. Yoongi’s always told him that. When you kiss him, he always tastes like what
you’re craving in that specific moment.

In winter, Seokjin tastes like chicken soup, he tastes warm, lips like a blanket wrapping around
Yoongi’s soul, his kisses aren’t soft, because Yoongi doesn’t want them to be. Because they’re
both hiding inside The Min House’s garage, on the backseats of Min’s car, and it’s really fucking
cold, and if they turn the heating on, Yoongi’s dad will know they’ve been in there.

So Jin isn’t soft in December, he’s demanding, he takes Yoongi’s hips and rubs their clothed
members together, and when it’s time for Yoongi to enter him he moans: “faster” and “harder”
because he knows the faster it is, the less sad Yoongi has time to feel.

In spring, he tastes of peppermints, like the first drops of spring rain, he’s not too hot or too cold
when spring arrives, he’s just right, his kisses are breezy, unannounced, and light, like the flight of
a cherry blossom.

“ You’re supposed to let me kiss you,” Yoongi repeats again, kissing him. “Turn my pages,” He
adds, another kiss tongued into Jin’s red, swollen lips. “Be my best friend.” Yoongi parts, rubs his
nose against Jin’s. “That's pretty much it.”

Jin looks at him, shaky breath leaving his lips at the departure of Yoongi’s mouth. Really looks at
him. And all of a sudden Yoongi feels sick.

They’re both thinking the same thing. That Yoongi is an asshole. That’s he’s horrible for doing
this. Not for the fucking, or the fact that they don’t even touch upon him ever bottoming for Jin, or
the kisses, or the ‘I love you’s’ he doesn’t mean, no.

He’s horrible for the little things. For the nose rubs, the circles he draws on Jin’s hips, the scales he
plays on Jin’s spine. He’s horrible for trying to make them both believe it. He’s horrible for trying
so fucking hard to make himself believe he could really do this that sometimes Jin believes it too.
Until he finds Alex’s clothes in Yoongi’s room, or he calls Yoongi only to hear someone else’s
moans in the background.

They can’t force Yoongi to fall in love, no matter how hard they try. And that’s always been Jin
and Yoongi’s story: loving someone enough to watch the world burn in flames you ignited, just so
they wouldn’t have to, but loving them in the wrong way. Loving them in the ‘it’s not the same’
way, in the ‘not like that, you don’t love me like that’ way that fucking hurts because it’s fucking
true.

“I can't fucking do this anymore Yoongi.” Jin sobs, tears unleashing between them all at once.
“You're gonna kill yourself,” He chokes out, and Yoongi stiffens beneath Jin’s hands. “One day
you're gonna fucking do it and it’ll be because I didn't tell anyone about what you're doing.”

“ You promised me.” Yoongi utters in betrayal, understanding the implications of what Jin is
saying. “ You promised everything stays between us.” He reiterates, shaking his head.

“ I'll fucking break that promise in a heartbeat if I think it’s going to keep you alive.” Jin hits
back, shifting further up the sit, Yoongi light and small on his legs.

God, he’s pretty. God Yoongi is so fucking pretty. All the lights are off in the garage, but the light
filtering through the car windows from the skylight overhead paints Yoongi in shadows that Jin
has loved since light was born.

“ If you fucking tell anyone I swear to fucking god I will…never fucking speak to you again.”
Yoongi threatens, worrying his bottom lip, and Jin should be angry. He should be very angry with
Yoongi.

But Jin is in love.

“ Are you threatening me?” He asks through the urge to kiss him again. “Are you threatening me
with your life on the line Yoon? Do you not realise how fucking toxic that is?”

The younger’s face shifts. First comes realization, the frigid jaw, teeth protruding to bite into flesh.
Then comes the pearls exuding from the corner of his feline eyes, little kitten tears hurrying down
his cheeks before Jin can even wipe them away. Then comes the opening and closing of his pink
lips, the ‘deciding what to say’, which isn’t something Yoongi does often- thinking before
speaking, that is. And that shows how much he cares, right here, in this moment, about hurting
Jin, about not saying the right thing.

It’s pathetic how much that means to Seokjin. It’s more pathetic that Yoongi hasn’t yet apologized
and probably never will, and yet Jin has already forgiven him.

How can you not? Someone who looks like this? Someone who fakes the image of absolute
impartiality but talks in a perpetual, rosy pout. Someone who eludes that they hate more than love,
but couldn’t love more intensely when they found someone worthy of it, not even if the skies
begged for it.

How can you not forgive him, for all the fucked-up shit he does? When he’s Yoongi? When he’s
him?

“ Why can't you just let us be happy?” Yoongi finally says, and Jin blinks against the darkness as
Yoongi’s face comes back into focus.
God, he’s beautiful.

“You’re the one who's not happy Yoongi.” Jin finally manages to croak out. “You never have
been. Since your mum…. You were a sad kid even then, Yoon. And I try so fucking hard to fix
you and I just…”

“ Fix me?” Yoongi asks, smiling. It’s the hollow smile, the one that Jin hates. He’s got this dead
look in his eyes, head cocked to the side, and Jin bites his lip.

“ You know I didn't mean it like that.” Jin corrects as Yoongi rests his head against Jin’s chest,
and the latter’s arms wrap around him, pulling him closer.

It’s a while later, when they’re both in a sleepy delirium, that Yoongi says what they’re both afraid
of, what Jin has always been afraid of.

“ Have you ever thought that maybe I don't want to be fixed?”

//

So yes, calling Jin is probably the best choice, but Yoongi’s proud. And since they've fought,
Yoongi likes to pretend like Jin wouldn't even pick up the phone because he's mad at him, but he
knows that isn't true. Because Jin is safe, dependable. He's plan A and plan B, in all fifteen years
of knowing him, there hasn't been anything Jin doesn't know.

He knew how to stitch a cut earlier than any of them, because he had to stitch Yoongi’s. He knew
how to clock a bone back into place because Jimin’s broken his nose a dozen times. He knows
how to cook because the Min household doesn't have a cook; Min eats at the office and Yoongi
refuses to eat anyone’s cooking other than his mom’s. Until Jin learnt, of course. Yoongi says it's
Jin because ate so often at his house when they were young, that's why Jin’s cooking tastes like
his moms.

Jin knows how to shoot a gun, even though he hates them. He knows how to help Yoongi
through his panic attacks.

For as long as Yoongi can remember, Jin has known. And he's been. Yoongi can't go to
competitions without Jin there to be his page turner. It's just out of the question. Jin is his lucky
charm.
Yoongi just wishes that he was his.

Why would his dad lie to him?

Min was supposed to be good. Min was supposed to be good.

As he feels the first waves of panic percolating from his chest, trepidation itching the tips of his
fingers-still shaking, mind you- he takes out his phone from his pocket, the device skittering in his
hand like a dried leaf in an autumn wind. He has to call Jin. He could call Taehyung, but
sometimes he forgets Taehyung is twelve.

The phone slides and slips against his fingers.

God, this is scary. The shaking is scary. His attempts at pressing the screen fail, he cant get this
hands to listen to him. “ You were supposed to be different, dad.”

He lied to him, straight, for five years, he lied through his fucking teeth. When Yoongi cried about
missing his mom, his dad lied by standing there and not saying anything.

“ Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

All this time, all this fucking time…

“ My mom is dead.” Yoongi says into the emptiness of the alleyway.

“ My mom is dead.” He whispers again.

“ My mom is DEAD.” He yells, hoping someone hears, hoping someone comes. Because she’s
dead. She’s dead she’s dead, she’s dead, and there’s…there is nothing that Yoongi can do.

Because she’s not dead the way she was when Yoongi was ten years old, no, she’s dead for real.
She’s dead.

In the midst of his epiphany, Yoongi presses the phone screen too hard, and the phone falls.

Yoongi crouches, knees hitting the ground, quivering hands scathing the asphalt.
“ F-fuck, I c-can’t feel my hands.” He can’t. he can’t feel his hands.

And he can’t find his phone.

Everything is too loud, and everything is too quiet. The alleyway is barren, Yoongi’s mind is
infested with ‘what if’s’ and ‘maybe’s’, and his hands, god his hands won’t stop. Fucking.
Shaking.

“ Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.” He reaches too far forward and tumbles, falling onto his
side. He curls in on himself, then unfolds from the ground and crawling forward, hands reaching
out for the brick wall from before. When his fingers finally brush past the rough surface, he
scrambles, throwing himself at the wall for support. Yoongi brings his knees in, tucking them
beneath his cold chin. He thinks of a piece, his panic attack song, and starts humming.

He hums Chopin , the second nocturne, in E flat major. When he’s through with it, he still hasn’t
stopped shaking, and the urge to scream has gotten too loud. Then he sees the bite marks on his
hand, and tries to remember when he made those.

“ Help.” He cries into the alleyway. “Somebody help me.” He shouldn’t have left alone. He
should have called Jin, he should have called somebody. He doesn’t have his phone, he removed
the tracking capacity so his dad wouldn’t be able to tell where he is all the time, this is all his fault.
Nobody is going to find him.

Nobody is going to find him.

Yoongi is lost.

“Please.” He whimpers. “Help me.”

And that’s when he hears it.

The music.

And that’s when he sees them.

The lights.

Yoongi hears the guitar, first. Little, fluttery strings of notes permeating through the alleyway,
tendrils of broken cords and triads wrapping around Yoongi, tickling his cold chin, drying his rain
soaked feet, and all of a sudden, he realises his hands have stopped shaking.

Yoongi stands, and his foot brushes against something.

His phone.

The area he arrives in is a little square, in the middle of the city, leading upwards into the town
center and down towards the main road.

A few scattered, excited screams fill his ears as the guitar intro comes to an end, and in its stead, is
a voice.

“ She mistakes my name.”

Yoongi’s mom was diagnosed with Frontotemporal dementia when Yoongi was six years old.
When Yoongi was six, his mom forgot where the bathroom was, and then she had to quit her job
as a nurse. When he was seven, she stopped being able to sight read the piano.

His dad had to start labelling the rooms.

Yoongi remembers standing beside his father, label-maker in hand as they went around putting
strips of paper all across the house. They couldn’t go to the Kims as a family anymore. The house
was too big to label, and Min told Yoongi he wouldn’t want his mom to be a bother.

When he was eight, Yoongi’s mom forgot who he was. And yet…and yet… through it all,
through everything, there was one thing she always never forgot.

The Moonlight sonata.

The Piano Sonata in number fucking 14, C♯ minor

It calmed her, his dad said. She was more normal with the help of Beethoven. So they let her, they
let her play it on the speakers, the record players, again and again.

“ Dad, dad please make her stop.”

“ I’m sorry, Yoongi, I can’t.”

So Yoongi would run away to Jin’s house, to Taehyung’s house, which was Jimin’s by
association, and the three of them would welcome Yoongi with open arms, and listen to him play
Bach, Chopin and Rachmaninoff until the agony of Beethoven lessened. But nothing ever truly
made it go away, nothing ever blurred out the infamous triplets and octaves.
Yoongi still has nightmares about it. He still dreams of all the hours she would make him play it,
over and over, saying it wasn’t perfect enough, saying it wasn’t the same way she plays it. And
one day she tried to show him what she meant, and she couldn’t. She couldn’t play it anymore.
Yoongi remembers the piano lid slamming onto his fingers, remembers his dead howling at his
mom, he remembers being taken to the hospital, Jin sobbing in the waiting room as they waited to
see if anything had happened to his hands.

Nothing had, but Yoongi couldn’t play Beethoven after that day.

Not until Sam.

And then, not until Jungkook.

Not until Jungkook stood there in the light of the bar, white shirt painted gold, violin glistening,
newly polished after his performance, and he uttered the words : “Violin Sonata No. 5 in F major,
Opus 24.”

“ I see the light come around.”

The pianist would watch the sunrise through the shutters of his mother’s hospital room, coffee
sloshing in his polystyrene cup, trying to stay awake long enough to watch his mother wake up,
and slip out before she fully did. She became irritable quite early on, earlier than patients usually
do. Her personality reversed.

It was worse with Yoongi’s mom, because before the illness she was good, beyond good, and so
when good started slipping away from her long, pianist’s fingers, it was obvious, it was painfully
obvious.

It was when she started hitting Yoongi when he couldn’t get his pieces right, that was when his
father admitted her into the psychiatric ward, and tried preventing Yoongi from visiting. Yoongi
had to promise he would come and leave before she could see him for his father to let him visit
again.

The Min household crumbled when Yoongi was six, and everybody knew that it wasn’t long
before it burst into flames.
The pianist nears the music like a moth in front of the sun, blinded and unequivocally allured, he
stumbles but is sure footed, the grip his fingers have on his phone is firm, his eyes are unblinking,
hands unshaking.

And that’s when the first set of neon lights hits Yoongi’s face. The sounds of the city wash into
his ears, the swaying of bodies invades his vision, but everything blurs.

The guitar blurs, the bodies was over his vision, and as he comes into an opening, the darkness of
the alleyway fades behind him, and all there is, is neon.

Yellow is the first color he sees. Belts of lemon yellow run across the stage, there’s a girl in a
yellow leather jacket swaying too close to another girl for them just to be friends.

And then…and then Yoongi sees gold.

He sees him.

“ And strange as it seems,”

He’s gold. He’s blue and gold, a halo of purple neon around long, unruly, shoulder- length blond
hair, hands painted pink against his guitar. Yoongi arrives at the edge of the crowd, and since he’s
small, he slips through easily, and suddenly he’s in the middle, center to the stage.

And then they lock eyes.

“ I’m bursting at the seams.”

The singer stares at Yoongi. Yoongi stares at the singer.

“ Oh, I’ve got a woman now.”

Yoongi lost his woman, the only woman he was ever willing to trust. Yoongi’s woman is gone.
She’s gone.
In a sea of people, the singer’s eyes settle on Yoongi’s, and they don’t leave. He’s got blue eyes.
Maybe blue is too mundane for it. His eyes are dusk, his hair is dawn, the panes of his hands are
the sails that Yoongi has always needed to get his sinking vessel to shore. The singer’s lips are
redder in the lighting, his cheekbones are higher, hair like gold veined in yellow marble.

“ Her wallet photos don’t turn me on.”

Yoongi touches his cheek. He realises he’s crying. He doesn’t know why. He stops hearing his
mother in the song and everything is suddenly too much. Yoongi backs away before he starts
panicking again, falling backwards into the crowds. He sees panic on the singer’s face, the music
muffling, guitar draining out, until all that’s left is silence.

“I…” The singer starts, and even through the ringing in the pianist’s ears, the Moonlight Sonata
ricocheting from one ear to the other, his dead mother’s hands playing Ping-Pong against his skull,
Yoongi hears him loud and clear. His voice is the surest thing Yoongi has heard in his life. The
singer is making sure to look at Yoongi when he continues to speak, but it’s obvious the stare
becomes too intense for him, because he drops his head, fingers curling into the microphone as he
presses his lips against the metal. His hair falls over his face, red lips and a strong chin all Yoongi
can see, and he says: “I’m fucking sorry for doing this, especially ‘cause I said I'd make the last
show extra special, but to the beautiful stranger who's turning to leave, please fucking don't."

The singer looks up, into Yoongi’s eyes.

“ You know who you are, don’t you dare leave love.”

There’s too many people for anyone to identify Yoongi, and the singer doesn’t stop staring at him
once he looks up. “ O-okay?” He sounds scared. Well and truly scared, to the point where he
keeps holding Yoongi’s gaze, and the crowd starts looking at the pianist. Under the stares, Yoongi
gives the singer a little nod, a shaky lowering and rising of the head.

The trance breaks.

The singer tilts the microphone forward, standing it in its place before crouching on the stage floor
to take a drink of water. Cat calls erupt through the audience, and the singer chokes on his water,
laughing before standing up just as a bra is thrown on stage. Yoongi’s lips tug into a smile at the
sight of the singer untangling the bra strap from his hair. He tucks a tendril of his black fringe
behind his ear. The singer sees this, and everyone sees the little ‘fuck’ he whispers, the water
bottle wavering in his hands. The bra drops to the floor, and the singer shakily reaches for the mic,
brushing his hair back from his eyes.
“" If I don't sing, I might get off the stage and do something very, very stupid, so,” He concludes,
giving a glance to the band before placing his fingers on the guitar strings, and the other hand on
the note board,

“ Pretty one, this is for you. This is sex .”

Yoongi chokes, and the crowd screams.

“ And this is how it starts.”

He’s beautiful.

Well and truly, truly, truly beautiful.

“ Take your shoes off in the back of my van.” He pronounces shoes like shews, it’s endearing,
Yoongi smiles, and the singer returns it, the shy, barely preserved looks and raspy, rock star
breaths he gives Yoongi in between verses tug at the pianist’s cold lips.

Yoongi knows he’s fucked, he knows he’s fucked before anything has even happened. He’s
fucked because the singer has bigger hands than him, he can tell, and that’s never happened
before. Yoongi wonders what it’s like to be beneath those hands. He wonders what his name is.
He wonders about the British accent, whether the boy has recently moved here, he wonders how
old he is, if he’s really as big as he looks like, under all those lights he seems far, far brighter than,
no matter how much the shadows of the stage try to submerge him.

“There’s only minutes before I drop you off, all we seem to do is talk about sex.” The word
‘sex’ is accompanied with a hooded glance at Yoongi, a lick to his bottom lip, and Yoongi is
gone, gone, gone. He knows this is the wrongest, rightest thing he will ever be allowed to have
before he even knows the boy’s name, before he’s even had him or been had.

He just knows.

He knows because everything is blurry but he isn’t, and the sounds of New York city, the city that
isn’t ever supposed to sleep, the noise and the nocturnal humdrum, the people and the lampposts
that distract us from all the stars, they all dissipate. They dissipate around the singer’s broad
outline, around the shoulders that could fit two of Yoongi’s own shoulder span in them.
The city sleeps so it doesn’t outshine the light of the golden haired boy, and the night sky above
Yoongi’s head dulls so the blue of his eyes can call out Yoongi from the crowds, so they can call
him and say: “you’re mine now.”

A guitar solo ensues, and the singer’s head hangs low, shaking to the roar of the drums, comet
trails of sweat springing outwards from the darker tips of his hair.

He looks like a firework, a super nova, he looks like life. Like new beginnings. Second chances.

He looks like the headspace you immerse yourself in right before bed, the safe space where
dreams and fantasies run rampant, kisses and skin slide and collide against wanting flesh, and
there is nothing, nothing, nothing at all that could quieten the songbirds of your wishful thoughts.

That’s what he is, this boy who is yellow but looks gold, and would make gold look yellow, who
is blue but seems sapphire and shames sapphires that dare liken their blues to the blues of a boy as
golden as this.

“ Now we’re just outside of town,”

“ And you’re makin’ your way down”

The singer smiles, Yoongi giggles. He shies away, Yoongi cranes his neck to see the slits of blue
iris visible beneath wild, fiery hair. God, push it away, dumbass, Yoongi want to shout. He wants
to see. But it’s exhilarating like this, waiting for the golden tendrils to stray to the side, to show, to
reveal. And every time the night breeze blows just right, and left strands go left and right go right,
and the singer lifts his head, and he looks at Yoongi, and smiles that irritatingly blinding smile of
his, Yoongi falls, Yoongi sees and he falls. He sees the bridge of his nose, the yellow light
shimmering in the pearl of sweat sitting on the dip of his cupid’s bow.

“ I’m not tryina stop you love.”

“ If we can’t do anything we might as well just fuck.”

He winks at Yoongi. The pianist splutters. Coos erupt from the crowd, the girls next to Yoongi
thinking the wink was directed at them. But it was for Yoongi, there’s no doubt about it. The
pianist feels hot, hot, hot. The tips of his fingers burn. Everything is burning. But it doesn’t hurt,
god it doesn’t hurt at all.

God, Yoongi thinks he’s forgotten something. Something he should be thinking about, something
he was thinking about. He can’t remember what it was. All he sees is him, him, him.
The song is coming to an end. Yoongi is scared. He’s scared because this kind of music is lawless.
He loves it. The improvisations, the tempo, the bass of the drum. Here, right now, they’re lawless.
This circle of a few hundred people, basking in this yellow light, threaded with the strings of a
guitar that look fluid beneath the singer’s hands, like he forges them as he goes along, his
fingertips breathing the notes into the steel rather than the other way around. It’s lawless, it’s
poetic anarchy, the kind you usually don’t think of when you hear the word ‘chaos.’

But that is what this is, its chaos. Chaos in music. These are the people who say fuck you to
curfews, who wear ripped jeans and sneak out of second floor windows.

Yoongi feels… Yoongi feels free, he fells found.

The song has ended. This is what he was scared of. There are rules now. Just like there are rules
in the Beethoven piece he has to prepare for his exam in three months. Just like there are
fortissimos and pianos, now, the crowd must clear, the crowd must dissipate for the city to
continue breathing just as the city quietened for the crowd, and Yoongi’s going to lose him. There
are girls staying behind, and Yoongi feels small again. The lostness comes back and he shivers.
Stray guitar notes sound from ahead, people brush past on either side of him, and he’s alone. He’s
alone. He’s alone.

He’s alone until a shadow crosses the stage, leaps onto the ground, and footsteps move towards
Yoongi.

The singer is standing at the foot of the stage, a handful of girls around him. Yoongi’s head is
hanging low, his hands cupped into one another in front of him. He doesn’t see the way the
singer’s eyes brush over the girls, he doesn’t hear the breath he takes, the dent his teeth make into
his lips. He doesn’t hear the pounding of the singer’s heart, the gallop of war houses beating
against a falling boy’s ribs.

He doesn’t hear, and doesn’t see, until there are feet standing inches from his, ratty combat boots,
black ripped jeans that Yoongi’s eyes spend more time rolling over than the rest of him. A thick
waist, chest-

“ Hello.”

Yoongi doesn’t want him to look at him. He suddenly doesn’t want to be looked at. But the singer
has other thoughts.

“ I’m Sam.”
Don’t look up. Don’t look up. Yoongi knows that if he looks up, he won’t be able to look away.
And it can’t be, this can’t be. If he looks at him, he’ll never be able to look at anyone else. But it
seems as though it’s not up to Yoongi, like most things, because there are calloused fingers
beneath his chin, his head is being tilted up and-

“ You stayed.”

Yoongi shuts his eyes. He opens them.

God, god, god.

This shouldn’t be allowed. This shouldn’t be allowed at all.

“I’m Sam.”

“I-I- h-heard y-you.” Yoongi stutters under his stare. Under his intense, calm and stormy stare.
Under the deep, electric waves swirling beneath strong, heavily arched brows. “I h-heard you the
first time.” The singer, Sam, hums in recognition, then his thumb brushes against Yoongi’s chin,
caressing it, angling the pianist’s head upwards, to look at him.

“Yeah?”

Yoongi’s shaking beneath his stare, beneath his hand.

“Are you gonna tell me your name?” He asks, and Yoongi wants to say no, he wants to tell him to
let him go, he wants his finger to uncurl from beneath his chin. It’s a loose grip, it’s gentle, but
Yoongi feels irreversibly tied, like if Sam- like if he lets go, Yoongi would break.

“ Y-Yoongi.” The pianist whimpers, then, hearing how small he sounds, he reaffirms, stronger,
looking up at Sam, and his naivety costing him his knees because he didn’t expect the same
intense gaze to have deepened. “I’m Yoongi.” He’s taller. Much taller, maybe a head and a half.

“ Sam.” The singer says for the third time, and Yoongi-

Yoongi giggles.

He actually. Fucking. Giggles.

Sam’s breath gets knocked out of him at the sight, his finger loosens from Yoongi’s chin and his
arms are falling to the side, his eyes are blown wide open, and finally, finally he tucks the strands
of hair around his face behind both his ears. Not so Yoongi can see him, no, but so that he can see
Yoongi.

“ I know.” The pianist reassures. Silence passes. The dynamic kind, where static crackles between
two warm bodies, the wind nipping at their exposed fingertips, and begging them to find release in
the folds of fabric rippling against each other’s chests, and perhaps to go further, to curl their digits
beneath hems and collars, and find skin. Skin, skin, skin.

“ H-hi.” Sam whispers, biting his lip. Yoongi realises that the singer is slightly bending at the
knees, not wanting to seem too big, and melting is a mild term for Yoongi’s defenses, for his walls
and impenetrable castles, for his impassable moats and unclimbable towers. Everything,
everything crumbles.

And no matter how much we tell ourselves otherwise, there never is a good kind of crumbling.

“ H-h-hi.” Yoongi stutters again.

Everything is crumbling, and all that there is left, all that will be left in a few seconds, hours, days,
will be Yoongi. Raw, besmirched Yoongi who craves affection, hands bigger than his own, and
someone one who could see the asshole and understand the motherless pianist beneath.

Yoongi doesn’t know If he wants this golden-haired creature to see him as he is, as he was, he
doesn’t know if the look of wonder Sam has in his eyes at this moment will prevail.

It’s been minutes, ten or twenty, since they’ve laid eyes upon each other, but Yoongi-

Yoongi is fucking terrified.

“ Thank you,” Sam breathes.

‘You’re beautiful,

You’re beautiful,

You’re beautiful.

“ For staying.” Sam finishes, warm breath exhaling smoky crystals into the cold, autumn air.
Thank you for staying, he says, as if Yoongi could ever leave. As if he could leave someone who
the stars had fought for so fervently. As if he could leave Sam who he is an anomaly, who is the
breath of life the stars have granted Moonchildren after a hundred years.

How could he? When it’s Sam?

When its him?

Yoongi’s too preoccupied to notice Sam’s eyes shift. He’s too preoccupied with the premise of the
fact that there is as much skin beneath all that clothes as there is fabric; too busy noticing the three
moles on the right of his lips, which he’s preoccupied with the fullness of as well.

Yoongi is too distracted by the fact that his hair is not as light as he thought it was, now that he’s
not basked in the yellow light anymore. It’s a dark blonde, gold and brown threaded wildly into it,
veins of yellow more prevalent in his fringe. He’s just far, far too distracted by all the distracting
things and this distracting boy and his-

“ Joseph,” Sam suddenly says, voice raising in alarm as he looks behind him. “Joseph, clear the
stage. Matty, take Yoongi, take him right now-”

“ Who’s Yoong-“

“ Get behind me-” Sam says to him, pushing him gently to the side.

“ Sam- I-”

It happens fast, very fast. There’s a group of armored men walking towards them. It takes half a
second for Yoongi to identify them. Crouching Tigers. They’re not that dangerous, but then again
Yoongi is best friends with the future heir and owner of The Kim Empire, so perhaps his
judgment isn’t exactly to be trusted at this particular moment in time.

Yoongi counts, five, eight, twelve, eighteen of them in total. The band’s frenzied response to
Sam’s orders gives rise to clattering, the banging of equipment behind them intensifies. Someone
empties the sound equipment into a red truck parked behind them, parked along-side the stretch of
asphalt leading to the main road.

Sam let’s go of Yoongi’s shoulder for the slightest of seconds and turns around, hands red with
fisted digits. “Run,” He shouts. “ All of you, fucking run. Matty, I thought I told you to take
Yoongi to-”

It comes too fast.

Sam’s body is turned away from Yoongi’s, he still has a loose grip on the pianist’s fingers but let’s
go as he takes a step towards the other band members and the overflowing truck. Yoongi is too
distracted by the heat of Sam’s finger tips against his cold ones. And then comes the blow.

Yoongi falls. A man had walked ahead of the other seventeen, much quicker than they’d
anticipated, and he stood around ten feet from Sam, bat angled at Yoongi when the blow collided
with the side of the pianist’s head.

Yoongi crumbles to the floor.

Sam screams.

Sam turns to the loading truck fifty yards away, turning away from Yoongi. He hears the blow
when it’s too late. It’s far too late when Sam whirls around and Yoongi’s already small form is
becoming even smaller and he’s falling. Sam hears someone scream.

Then he realises it had been him.

Sam sees red. He sees red and the white of Yoongi’s hands, much bigger than he’d expected them
to be, clutching onto the dusty asphalt. He sees red and the black of Yoongi’s hair and all there is,
is rage.

What stops him is a laugh.

A cold, hollow, drone of a laugh.

Yoongi’s laughing.

Sam knows the boy who’d administered the hit. He’s one of Charles’s lackies, Tommy.

Tommy isn’t one to be caught off guard. He’s from a broken home, and that’s a lot by Sam’s
standards, he has a scar running through the middle of his eye, which always alludes to his snake-
like demeanor.
When Yoongi starts laughing, Tommy’s serpentine smirk melts, leaving confusion. Red catches
Sam’s eye on the right, and he turns his head to find blood tricking down Yoongi’s left eye.

The rage returns.

Sam charges.

Yoongi throws out an imperious hand that stops the singer in his tracks.

“ You really…” Yoongi purrs, dusting the debris from his hands by slapping them together. Using
his hands as support, he propels himself onto his knees, black hair curtaining his face. Sam sees
the smirk stretch across Yoongi’s face before the pianist says: “shouldn’t have done that.” He sees
the change in Yoongi’s posture, the stiffening of his shoulders that in some oxymoronic way
alludes fluidity, Sam watches Yoongi’s back ripple, the heels of his feet curling upwards.

Sam watches Yoongi change before he even knows him.

That very same Yoongi, after a few moments of tense static, huffs his fringe to the side, and looks
up at Tommy.

“Sammy stay right where you are.” The pianist orders.

And then Yoongi unravels .

He begins before he’s even risen. While uncurling from his crouch on the asphalt, Yoongi’s knee
unplasters from his body, angles forwards, his hand springs out from the ground- there is a slight
moment where he looks like he’s flying as his left-hand clutches Tommy’s shoulders- angling the
gangster’s body towards himself before Yoongi knees Tommy in the stomach.

It takes Sam all of four seconds to realise the blow to the stomach had been accompanied by an
upright elbow to Tommy’s jaw with Yoongi’s right arm.

In the first second Yoongi has already grabbed hold of Tommy’s right hand, twisting the palm
backwards. In the second he uses the angle of the definitely broken fingers as momentum to twist
himself around Tommy, taking distance from the gangster to creep up from behind him, sending
him groveling to the floor right in from of Sam with a kick to the spine, a chilling crack
accompanying the stranger’s administrations.

In the third, Yoongi sprints towards the group of seventeen men.

The advance of the gang on Yoongi is pitiful in comparison to the avian display of the latter.

Sam is bewitched. He’s bewitched body and mind to the point where the former rage dissipates
into utter, utter wonder.

The singer is locked into place, fingers still curled, foot still wavering in the air. He can’t move.

For the life of him, or Yoongi’s, Sam can’t bring himself to move. He doesn’t realise in that
moment, not for a very long time he doesn’t that the reason he didn’t move that day was because
Yoongi had told him not to. From the very first moment Sam found Yoongi in the crowd, the
second blue and gold met black, Sam’s mind submitted, his body caved; the red string of fate
around his ankles loosened and curled in on itself, then, for the first time, he could see the other
end, and it was tied to the tip of Yoongi right index finger.

Sam doesn’t move because since the very first moment, he gave himself to Yoongi, his body
surrendered without even knowing the stranger’s name, and now there was nothing he could do
but listen, listen and watch and wonder, and wonder god, who is that?

At the head of the apex of men charging at Yoongi is Charles.

“ Bastard.” Sam growls, and the urge to join Yoongi becomes too strong, too strong until Yoongi
attacks.

Yoongi runs.

Seventeen men.

They’re not worth more than one minute of Yoongi’s time.

Yoongi takes a short glance at his Rolex.

One minute. Three and a half seconds to each.

Wait, no, three for that one, he’s average, but fast, a runner; two for that one with the injured leg, a
shot to the knee was what did it, maybe two weeks ago, no, he’s accommodated the limp into his
natural walk already, so four. Ah, five for the one with the switchblade, four for the bat, point
eight seconds for the Newbie, three point five for the rest.

“ It’s been a long time gentleman.” Yoongi purrs when he arrives into the circle of men. An arm
slices the air to his right. Yoongi grabs it, twists it, presses his thumb against the pad of veins on
his wrist, his forefinger against his lower forearm, and breaks his hand, the bone jutting
downwards. “ Sorry if I’m rusty.”

Foreplay is more Jimin’s forte, keeping in mind he’s twelve, so Yoongi stops his flirting.

He propels himself upwards, body twisting, leg reaching out behind him to back kick the beefy
one in the face. The air in his left shifts as he hears his victim fall behind him, a foot on his right
squeaks against new York cobblestones. A bat appears heading for his left hip. Yoongi grabs the
end of the block of metal as his right leg flies outwards, right, sending a body flying out of the
fighting ring. His lithness allows him to duck beneath the bat, his body drawing a semi-circle
under the weapon.

The pianist’s left leg is already in the air, his hand pulling the bat down as a roundhouse kick
sends the man’s jaw cracking against the floor. The bat rolls on the ground behind Yoongi. His
foot blindly reaches backwards, his heel solidifying a grip on the metal before rolling it back
forward, between Yoongi’s legs. He alternates to his toes, the sole of his shoes sliding against the
cylinder as one would slide a match against the matchbox, the metal jumps softly, landing on the
curve of Yoongi’s foot. Then the metal flies. And then it’s in Yoongi’s hand again.

Using the fallen owner of the bat as leverage, Yoongi steps on his back, propelling himself into
the air, twisting mid-flight to scissor kick the newbie in the chest, then the skull, alternating
between his two legs.

When he lands, the bat finds it’s mark against the injured knee of that one guy, and then the skull
of another shadow. Yoongi twists the bat like the rotations of a windmill, the tip hits one guy in
the chest on the right, and the handle another gangster on the left, quite a bit like ping pong.

Yoongi sees the silver of the knife just a second too late, and hears his name being screamed from
across the

Sam runs.
Yoongi dodges the blade at the last second, side-stepping the attack, his palm curling around the
attacker’s wrist, twisting it; the knife falls to the ground. His foot is prepared beneath it, acting as a
landing strip for the switchblade, propelling it back up once it falls onto the stretch of Yoongi’s
tows, right into the hand that isn’t holding the bat . The knife finds it’s mark in the shoulder of it’s
previous owner. Aimed to maim, not kill.

Ah, he’s two seconds behind.

He spares point two seconds to survey the situation, then propels himself upwards, body arching
to the side, feet locking behind the head of an assailant, his thighs pressing in on his skull as he
rotates their falling bodies in midair, before slamming the man on the asphalt.

An ankle comes into sight as he lands, Yoongi slits a deep cut into it with the blade. Blood
splatters onto Yoongi’s face. The man between his legs goes unconscious.

The rest are newbies. An inside crescent kick sends one groveling sideways, a back kick gives
way for a body falling behind Yoongi’s back.

A double round house kick hits a tiny kid Yoongi assumes to be a runner- they’re both around the
same size- on both sides of his hips. Yoongi jumps forward, leg loosely hooking the head of
another man, and when he lands, the knife is already aimed at the eye of the next head.

But when he turns, there’s no one there.

He stands in a circle of blood and crime. White and black in a pool of red and broken skin.

Sam takes a step forward, then another. There’s blood on Yoongi’s face. He knows it’s not his,
his mind is telling him it’s not his, his eyes are telling him they saw the blood spray erupting from
someone else onto Yoongi. But Sam’s turned stupid, he’s stupid and-

Gunshot.
“ NO!”

There’s a wail. A wail and then a body running towards Yoongi.

Then he realises he’s been shot.

Sam’s body collides with his, then his bloody face is in big hands and-

Fuck.

Fuck Yoongi didn’t think it would be like this at all.

His hands are warmer. Much, much warmer than Yoongi could ever fathom the hands of a boy
with such cold, blue eyes to be.

“ Y-y-Yoongi. No, no, no, no-“

He’s gripping onto Yoongi’s cheeks, tears pooling in his eyes, hands searching Yoongi’s torso,
touching him up and down. “ W-where- w-here is it? W-whe-

“ Sam.” Yoongi says.

“ ‘m s-so f-fucking s-sorry, f-fuck, w-where, w-here, I-“

“ Sam.” Yoongi says again, holding Sam’s hands, gripping them against the singer’s struggle. “
Look.”

Yoongi lets go of Sam’s hands, and his fingers curl into the hem of his shirt, pulling it up for Sam
to see.

Sam’s face drops.

Yoongi turns to the fallen body with a slackening grip on their gun.

“ You really should do your research before attacking people in the middle of the street, you
know?” Yoongi purrs, his shirt rippling down his torso again, concealing the bulletproof vest he
always wears.

The vest they all always wear. Engineered to be light, inconspicuous and thin. Like second skin.
Yoongi forgets about Sam for a second, and his hand goes behind him, below his long coat.

There’s a gun in Yoongi’s hands. A Glock 19. Standard fire arm.

“ If the Crouching Tigers decide to lay a hand on him again, I’ll tell the Kims to personally handle
you.” Yoongi warns, gun twirling in his hand. It’s obvious the man had used his last remaining
bullet on Yoongi. It’s the one with the faulty knee. He can’t get up. Yoongi realises this. “You
should really count your bullets before shooting a prodigy.” He’s left staring at Yoongi’s small
form against the lights, crippled on the ground. Yoongi walks forward, stepping onto the shoulder
of a fallen body, the face of another. Blood crumbles beneath his boots. He kneels in front of the
man. “Sammy here has big friends now, you got that big guy?” Yoongi places the nozzle of the
gun against the man’s temple. “Very big friends.” He holds the man’s chin.

He can’t do anything. The man watches Yoongi. He watches Yoongi smile, watches a tear roll
down his cheek. And in that moment, as Yoongi presses the barrel of the gun further into the
man’s forehead, for the slightest second, he imagines it’s his dad, and comes closer.

“ You should have told me she wasn’t dead.”

And then Yoongi presses down on the trigger.

Sam should be scared. He knows he should be scared. But he isn’t.

Yoongi kills him, the man who’d tried to shoot him, and the proximity of the gunshot showers his
face in blood. When the stranger stands, he wipes his face with the man’s shirt, his black coat wet
with blood. Then he turns to Sam.

They’re standing maybe ten yards away from each other. Yoongi’s face is pink and white, like a
newborn’s.

Sam expects him to be breathless, but Yoongi is steady. He’s steady and sure, until Sam looks at
his hands.

“ Y-your hands…”

It’s in this moment that Yoongi finally brings his hands to his face and realises he’s shaking again.
Yoongi takes tentative steps forward, until they’re face to face.

“ Can you reach into my coat for me?” He asks. Sam blanks. “Please?”

The singer brings his hand forward, taking a breath before putting it inside the gap between
Yoongi’s zipped coat and shirt. He’s warm.

“ Take out my phone.”

His hands are shaking too hard, Yoongi’s that is. But Sam’s too.

The pianist’s hands spasm in their position hanging next to his thighs. It’s uncontrollable. Sam just
wants to

hold them.

“ Call this number, press the phone against my ear.” Yoongi directs, then: “ Thank you.”

Yoongi watches Sam dial the number he utters, callused hands quivering against the phone screen.

Everything is too surreal.

Sam looks at him through hooded eyes. Yoongi wants him to drop the phone and kiss him.

The singer presses the phone against Yoongi’s ear, his palm tickling Yoongi’s jaw.

God, god his hands are so big.

Sam’s hand takes up the entirety of Yoongi’s face. The singer smiles, almost like he can tell what
Yoongi’s thinking about.

The call connects.

“ I made a mess. Come clean it up.”

Sam removes the phone from Yoongi’s ear when it’s clear he’s done talking, and hands it back to
him instead of replacing it where he took it from, not sure if he could handle his hand being that
close to Yoongi’s chest again.

“You’re regretting asking me to stay now, aren’t you?” Yoongi asks.

Sam’s hand gravitates towards Yoongi’s face, wiping blood from the pane of his cheek.

“I’ve never been gladder of anything in my life.”

Sam is staring at Yoongi like he means something, right now, in this moment. And Yoongi is
stupid, you see, so very, very stupid. He knows where this is going to end up. There’s an aching
in his chest. He’s stupid and he’s afraid and probably already half fallen.

“ Does that truck of yours actually work or is it just your rock star aesthetic?”

Sam bursts out laughing. Yoongi joins him.

Maybe this is gonna work out, the pianist thinks.

Maybe Yoongi shouldn’t.

Maybe he should trust her, the moon. Maybe he should trust them, the stars.

“C’mon,” Sam murmurs. He doesn’t even take a second look at Yoongi’s circle of fallen bodies
behind them. He just smiles at Yoongi, and walks.

The black jeep is old, but looks polished as they walk side by side, slowly, almost too slowly,
deliberately. It looks taken care of. Their hands brush. Sam looks at Yoongi at the same time the
pianist looks at him.

Yoongi takes a step to the side.

Sam turns his head away.

The Jeep comes into view quickly. Sam goes to the passenger’s seat, opens the door, and stands
behind it, resting against the exterior, his forearms folded on top of the line shaft. Yoongi looks at
him.

“ Well?” Sam asks, smiling.

Yoongi ducks into the car quickly, Sam’s body far too close for hesitation. The singer shuts the
door, takes a breath, and circles the car from the back.

When he reaches the trunk, he stops for a second, looks at the sky, and makes a cross across his
chest, Yoongi’s black mop hair is visible through the back window.

God, Sam’s chest hurts. It fucking hurts. It hurts so much. He doesn’t want to get in the car. He
wants to stay here. It’s a bit dramatic, maybe a lot. But not if you knew, not if you knew Sam’s
mom is dead, not if you knew his dad is dead too. Not if you knew that, that… That…

That Sam has dreamed about this.

About a boy with black hair and shaking hands.

Sam knew. Sam’s known.

And he’s-

Now he’s here and Sam doesn’t want to get in the car. He wants to stay here. He’s content with
the back of Yoongi’s head. Content with thinking Yoongi would wait an eternity in the car for
him. He’s content for keeping the stranger all to himself because god there is a chance this is all in
Sam’s head. Yoongi will ask him to drive him home. And that will be the end of that.

“ Sam?” Yoongi calls out. The owner of the name shakes his head.

C’mon, Sam. You’ve got to try.

He finishes circling the car, hand grasping the car handle.

Here we go Sammy.
Sam doesn’t start the car immediately. He sits. They both bask in the night. In each other. Then
Sam turns to Yoongi. It’s darker in the car, Sam’s cheeks are higher, eyes lighter. Yoongi feels
small.

Don’t be stupid.

Don’t be stupid.

Don’t be stupid

“Where to?” Sam finally asks.

Yoongi could have said a lot of things at that moment.

Your place.

My place.

Anywhere.

Everywhere.

Your place. Your place. Your place.

But he’s stupid, remember?

So what Yoongi actually says is-

“ Airport.”

Sam laughs. Yoongi looks at him, frowning.

“You’re not serious.”

The pianist cocks up a brow.

“Why?”

“You’re asking me to take you to an airport?” Sam reiterates. He looks like he’s on the verge of
tears. “After the night we’ve had?

“My flight is leaving in two hours.” Sam’s face falls.

“Yoongi… I…”

“If you won’t, then I can easily just call a car to come take me.” Yoongi says, not looking at him.
The shaking of his hands has quietened to a humming tremor.

Don’t do this, Yoongi.

“ Am I…” Sam trails off, opening and closing his mouth, adjusting the rear view mirror, then
brushing his hair back. “Am I…” He tries to formulate a sentence, to formulate his feelings. “
Have I just been i-imagining?” He stutters.

Did he imagine the looks, the glances, the lip bites, the shy giggles, the fucking…The fucking
feeling. This strange, insatiable sensation, this urge to run, run, run, anywhere, everywhere, if
only, if only, if only it’s with him. With this boy with jade hair and shaking hands he seems to be
scared of more than anything. This boy who kills in front of strangers, for strangers, whom the
crimson of blood looks fitting. This boy whom Sam should be very well scared of, but isn’t. “ All
these… All these feelings, am I- Am I just fucking insane or do you- did you, did you feel it too?
Am I just-”

Am I just hoping for too much?

Yoongi presses his face against the cold window, mist wetting his face.

“ Sam,” He says into the crackling air of the car.

Yoongi just wants him to take him. Right here, right now. He wants Sam to refuse to drive, he
wants Sam to press him against the back seat, and take him, take him, take him.

Take him as he is: with cuts on his arms, and his mouth still tasting of the best friend who is in
love with him.

Take me, take me, take me.

“The clean up crew I called will be here soon.” Yoongi continues instead. “I don’t want them to
see me. Please, please drive?”

Sam starts the engine.

The roar shakes Yoongi to the core. It warms him, freezes him.
Stop the car, put your hand on the console, let me hold it, let me take it, then take me.

“ I’m not taking you to the airport, Yoongi.” Sam suddenly says.

“ I’m sure you’re not stupid enough to kidnap me.” Yoongi retorts.

“ I wouldn’t even touch you without a sealed letter of consent, pretty boy.”

Yoongi gasps.

“ Shut up.”

Sam smirks.

“ Make me.”

Yoongi rolls his eyes, head pressed against the window. “ Maybe later.”

“ Does that maybe depend on how well behaved I am?” Sam asks, driving nowhere in particular.

“ It depends on how reckless I’m feeling.” Yoongi replies.

“ And how reckless are you feeling?” The singer inquires, following which there’s a stretch of
silence. And Sam expects anything, really, to come out of Yoongi’s pretty, perpetual pout.
Anything until Yoongi actually opens his mouth.

“Like I want you to fuck me against the driver’s seat in the middle of the road for all of New York
to see.”

Sam swerves, hitting the breaks.

Both of their heads fly forward, hitting the car. Then, Yoongi stars laughing. Sam looks at him,
incredulous.

“ You’re up for it?” Yoongi asks with a smile.

“Jesus fuck,” Sam swears. “ No!” Then he reconsiders. “ I mean, yes, not- not right now, I mean,
fuck Yoongi-”

“ That’s the plan-”

“ Shit, baby, just wear your seatbelt before you make me have an accident, fuck.”

They both stop.

Baby.

Yoongi lets his moment of weakness pass.

“ Why don’t you put it on for me?” He suggests, referring to the seatbelt.

“ Are you normally this big of a tease, Yoongi?” Sam asks, taking his own seatbelt off.

“ No,” The pianist replies. “And I don’t normally maim eighteen men in one night either.”

Sam shakes his head, chuckling, and then he reaches over.

Yoongi smells of smoke, clean linen, fabric softener, and soap. Sam makes the process
painstakingly slow, and Yoongi makes no move to reprimand him. Sam watches Yoongi’s nose
scrunch up, he takes a little

conspicuous sniff, and Sam smiles.

Sam knows what he smells like, he wonders if Yoongi can tell.

Sam smells of wood, oil and lollipops. Rain and wet wood, gasoline and paint, and the yellow
lollipops he always keeps in his pocket, in the dashboard, in a crystal bowl on the kitchen counter.

Sam moves closer to Yoongi, his hand reaching over the pianist’s small chest. Sam holds his
breath, but Yoongi breathes faster, puppy breaths leaving him in trains of small inhales and
exhales, the smell of mint caressing Sam’s face as he moves even closer.

Kiss me. Yoongi is thinking.

Can I kiss you?

Sam can hear Yoongi’s heartbeat. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard something more beautiful in
his life. Such a loud, big heart for such a small, unsuspecting boy. And it’s all for Sam. Sam
knows it is. That in this moment, right now, Yoongi’s heart beats for him. It beats for their
proximity, for the closeness of Sam’s lips to his own, for the heat of Sam’s arm against his chest,
for how larger than life Sam looks up close, enveloping Yoongi whole.

When Sam presses his chest against Yoongi’s, his fingers grasping the metal of the seatbelt,
Yoongi’s hand unconsciously hits Sam’s chest, scrunching the material of his shirt, fisting it in his
hand, his lips quivering, lashes fluttering, and puppy breaths held in the cavities of his beating
chest.

Sam could just… he could just reach over. He could just…move a little bit closer.

Closer.

But Yoongi looks scared. His hand that has found refuge in the folds of Sam’s shirt is shaking.
And Sam decides that if it’s meant to be, he doesn’t want Yoongi to be afraid while it happens.

“ Open your eyes.” Sam whispers when Yoongi’s eyes shut closed, the former too close for the
latter, too warm. The places where Sam is touching ache, they burn, and it’s too much.

It’s too much.

Yoongi opens his eyes, his lids inching open to reveal his dark, misty eyes, clouded over with
wanting and lust, and something we all like to call love this early on, but is more akin to curiosity,
to the initial tumble down the edge of the cliff. Something that feels a lot like freefalling.

“You really are just all talk, aren’t you pretty boy?” Sam whispers, his thumb fingering Yoongi’s
lip.

“ S-shut up.” Yoongi whines. “ G-get off.”

Sam clasps the seatbelt, the leather stretching over Yoongi’s body as the former recoils.

They bask in the silence, in the tension, the sexual kind, the non-sexual kind. The ‘it’s only been a
few hours but I don’t think I’ve ever felt like this in my whole life’ kind.

They bask in it until Sam finally starts the car, blushing at the memory of why he stopped it in the
first place. Yoongi doesn’t talk for a few minutes, and neither does Sam, because the sound of
Yoongi’s breathing sounds like his mom’s. And Sam hasn’t heard hers in a very long time.

“ You’ve really gotta go faster than that if I’m gonna catch my flight any time soon.”

“ You’re really serious about this?” Sam asks him, and perhaps Yoongi’s chest shuts in on himself
when Sam’s voice comes out as a bit of a whine, and his grasp on the steering wheel slips.

“ I know what you’re thinking Sam,” Yoongi replies, and he finally, finally turns around, and
looks at him. Sam’s eyes are on the road, but they reach an intersection, the lights are red. The car
comes to a halt. Sam looks at him. For a moment, the breath gets knocked out of Yoongi. “C-
cause I’m thinking the same thing. Sam looks down, wiping his eye.

“ Which is?”

Yoongi looks at him, waits, wonders if he’s doing the right thing, wonders if being reckless the
way he wants to would be better than this.

“ Have you ever killed someone before, Sam?” Yoongi asks. Sam stiffens. They both know the
answer to Yoongi’s question, but Sam still says:
“ Yeah.”

Yoongi sighs, watching the lampposts go by like fireflies.

“ You don’t react to gunshots.” Yoongi observes. “You don’t hold your ears because of the bang.
When you see a stranger kill someone, the first thing you do is wipe away the blood of the dead
guy from the killer’s face.”

“ That’s-“

“ We’re perfect for each other.” Yoongi declares. Sam’s head turns to his immediately. “ You
know what happens to perfect things, Sammy?”

Sam turns away.

“ They break.” He replies, eyes on the road.

“ You think you can handle me, right now. You think you can handle me because you’re ok with
me shooting a man in the head. Because you have this fucked up idea that good things can ever
come out of fairy tale meetings in mirages of yellow light. Because you think gold and black could
ever go well together when one shines brighter than all there is, and the other is the reason why
we were all afraid of darkness. But when I’m sitting there, I’m screaming into my pillow because
even the silence gets too loud sometimes, you’re not going to be able to handle me, so don’t for a
second give yourself the illusion that you can.” Yoongi finishes with a hot breath, on the verge of
breaking.

“ I would scream with you.” Sam says.

“What?”

“ I would scream for you until someone heard us.”

“ That’s…” Yoongi laughs. “That’s not how it works.”

“ God, it’s barely been hours and you’re fucking shutting me out.”

A car horn blasts behind him. The light is green.

“ Take a right.” Yoongi says. “ JFK is that way.”

“ You know,” Sam starts, chuckling as he restarts the engine. “ I thought, just for a second, just for
a damned second when you were standing in that crowd, looking at me like I- like I… I thought,”

“ Me too.” Yoongi whispers. “ Me too.”

“ Then…” Sam whispers, making a turn. “ Then why? god, we haven’t even had a chance.
You’re not giving us a chance.”

“ I can’t.” Yoongi whines. “I can’t make boys with eyes like you happy.”

“ God, what does that even mean?”

“ Take a left.”

“ Why do you know the way to the airport off by heart?” Sam asks. He takes his eyes off the road,
looks at Yoongi.

“ This isn’t the first time I’m running away.” Yoongi answers.

The city shifts beyond the windows. New York is quieter tonight, but brighter, like a silent beacon
of support. The lights blinking at Yoongi telling him that he’s being ever so stupid. The reflections
of the tall, tall buildings, the reds and yellows, the midnight blues and shimmering golds, they’re
all reflecting in Sam’s eyes. Yoongi knows he’s staring. Sam knows he’s being stared at. And
Sam isn’t even looking at him when he says-

“You’re beautiful.”
Yoongi’s heart- Yoongi’s heart tightens.

“I just felt like I needed you to know, before we got there.” The small, rowed houses of Queens
come into sight. They’re so close. Yoongi’s so close, to telling him to turn around.

But god, Yoongi knows, he knows he’s not allowed happy endings. He knows kids like him, who
look up at the moon and hope it’s the same one as always, who look up at the moon and hope she
never changes, that she never gives up on them…these kinds of kids don’t get their happy
endings. Yoongi knows that. The moon knows that. She tells him not to, she tells him to let Sam
drive. Because she knows what the stars have planned. Because it’s too uncharacteristic of them to
give a Moonchild someone like Sam. And yet…

“ I…”

“ Don’t…” Sam whispers. “ Don’t say anything.” Yoongi’s jaw starts trembling as the airport
comes into view.

“If I- If I hear any more of your voice I feel like I won’t let you get out of the car.” It’s four am,
traffic is non existent. The airport inches closer.

“ I believe it.” Yoongi suddenly says.

“ What?”

“ I kinda believe it when you say it.”

“ Fuck,” Sam swears, slowing down. “You’re making this so hard, you realise that?” He asks,
stopping the car. Yoongi looks right.

They’re at the entrance. Yoongi makes no move that might insinuate he even wants to get out, that
he has a flight leaving soon. Sam deliberates, hands twirling around one another, heart too loud for
him to even think of coming up with a plan.
“ Do you want me to not let you go or something?” he asks finally. Yoongi stiffens.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

“ Are you going to accompany inside?” The pianist inquires, ignoring his question.

“ Are you going to let me?” Sam retorts. His voice is a bit cold. It hurts.

“ I can’t tell you what to do.” Yoongi replies, equally harsh.

Again, neither of them move.

“ Look at me.” Yoongi hears Sam whisper. “ Please.”

Sam waits. Waits for Yoongi to look at him.

Yoongi does.

Sam kind of regrets asking for it.

“ What is it?” The stranger says in that telling way. In the way where you know exactly what’s
wrong, where it couldn’t be more obvious. And yet you still don’t want to hear it come out from
the other person’s mouth.

Sam doesn’t answer him.

Someone’s face moves closer to the other. Yoongi’s lips are quivering. His resolve is weak.

He is weak.

They’re so close. Sam is so close. Yoongi gasps.

His eyes aren’t just blue.

“ They’re gold.” The pianist whispers in awe.

“ What?” Sam asks, smiling, smiling because at least he gets to be this close. At least he gets to
have this.

“ Your eyes are gold. T-they’re not just blue.”

“ There’s… There’s so much more for you to see than that Yoongi, please…”

Yoongi’s mouth opens. Sam stares at the gap between his open lips. It’s not a very big mouth. It’s
small, the bottom lip is bigger than the top, his cupid bow is wide but accentuated. Sam wants it.

Sam wants him.

Yoongi is blinking at him through his long, black lashes, looking up at Sam, who’s taller than him
even while seated. Sam closes in.

Yoongi hopes he’s begging hard enough. He hopes his eyes give him away, and that his lips are
as pretty as Jin has always said they are. He hopes. He hopes. He hopes.

Sam’s hand is holding Yoongi’s face, Yoongi’s eyes aren’t shutting, no, he needs to see this.

Everything burns. There’s light, god, why is there so much light?

Yoongi’s phone rings.

The pianist pulls away.

“ Fuck, I think they’re looking for me.” Yoongi says, grabbing the car handle. “ I- I’ve got to go,
Sammy.”

Yoongi throws out his sim out somewhere between the car and the airport entrance. Sam is just
tagging behind him, watching how sure footed he is as he navigates the airport, he wonders about
how many times Yoongi has done this before.

“Your earliest flight, international.” Yoongi says once they reach the desk. Sam’s eyes widen.
“ I thought you said-”

“ Sorry, sir,” She purrs, looking at them like the children they are, maybe on a runaway trip with a
few hundred they’ve stolen from their parents, reckless and irresponsible at five in the morning.
“There aren’t any international flights tonight. They’ve all been cancelled because of the
upcoming storm.” Yoongi sighs, then reaches into his coat. He takes out his wallet.

Sam’s mouth falls open.

The leather barely shuts with the thickness of bills inside. The woman behind the desk raises a
brow, and then Yoongi takes out a gold card that reflects the airport lights- a yellow shadow
passing across Sam’s face- and slips it across the desk.

The woman’s demeanor shifts.

Sam watches the exchange, tapping his foot on the ground, leaning against the desk. The urge to
itch his neck intensifies.

Fuck, not now.

“ I’ll take a jet.” Yoongi says, sighing. “From landing strip X double zero, I know you always fly
out from there.”

“ Yoongi,” Sam pleads. “You can’t fly out in a storm, please-“

“ Y-yes.” The flight attendant stutters. “ W-we weren’t expecting VVIP tonight, She says
apologetically, fingers typing hurriedly across the keyboard. “ I deeply apologize for any
inconvenience.”

“ It’s kind of urgent, so if you could please hurry.” Yoongi urges her, ignoring Sam’s frustrated
breaths next to him.

“ Yoongi-”
“ Is it just the one ticket Sir?” The woman confirms, her hands slightly shaking.

Sam doesn’t even have time, doesn’t have the headspace to think, to ask who the fuck Yoongi is,
to ask what he’s gotten himself into. He just doesn’t want Yoongi to go.

He just doesn’t want him to go.

Yoongi looks at Sam.

“ Just the one, thank you.”

“ Uh…” The woman stutters.

“ Yes?”

“ Could you just give me a second, please Mr?”

“ Min.”

Yoongi Min.

Sam’s heart clenches.

There’s something wrong. Yoongi knows it as soon as the computer flashes red when his card is
swiped. Something is terribly wrong.

And this is what Yoongi was waiting for. This sign.

He sees the suited men before they see him.

“Shit.” Yoongi whispers.

“What?” Sam asks. “What is it?”

“ They sent people for me.” Yoongi says. “They sent people.” He says again, smiling.
Sam looks at him, unblinking, mouth open. The woman behind the desk looks at Yoongi
nervously.

“ Fuck, I can’t get on the plane.” Yoongi observes. “ I’m not going to be able to board a flight.”
He says, chuckling.

Sam is confused. Yoongi is beyond the fucking moon. The woman is a little bit scared she’ll have
no job to return to tomorrow.

The singer finally notices the suited men running at them from across the airport.

“ Are they- are those-”

“ Y-yeah.” Yoongi stutters, not able to contain his glee. He’s looking at Sam with stars, stars and
cosmos in his eyes. He’s biting his lips and Sam kind of understands, kind of doesn’t, really wants
to. “ I can’t board the plane.”

“ W-what…” Sam has stars too. They’re a little bit brighter than Yoongi’s, or maybe the pianist is
a little bit biased. “What do you want me to do?”

Yoongi smiles at him. A tear slips out. Sam looks at him with worry etched into the folds of his
creasing lids. He reaches out to wipe the tear away. Yoongi holds his hand, stopping him. “ Let it-
“ He says, breathless. “Let it stay there.”

God, they really stopped him. They’re stopping him from running away.

Yoongi can’t run away anymore.

What do you want Sam to do?

“ I think you know.” The pianist says. “I think you know.”

Sam stops himself. He stops himself and looks at Yoongi. At his teary eyes. He stops himself and
thinks about this fucking night of theirs. He stops himself and really looks at Yoongi. This boy
who gives hope and takes it away with a lick of his pretty, pretty lips.

“Yoongi…” Sam whispers, their hands still slightly entangled, inches from yoongi’s cheek. Their
fingers slide against each other. The suited men get closer.
And then, Yoongi says:

“ Take me, Sam.”

Sam’s knees go weak.

“Take me.” Yoongi chants again. “Fucking take me.”

Hands tighten, hearts pound, fingers caress flesh, and suddenly they’re running. Sam is holding
his hand, Yoongi is holding his.

“Are you sure?” Sam whispers. “Are you sure I’m worth not running away for?”

“You’re…” Yoongi breathes as they run, breaking out of the airport doors. Sam doesn’t want to
let Yoongi’s hand go as he opens the door for him. They’re both laughing, laughing so loud as
Sam pushes him inside, loud and hard and unafraid, so, so unafraid.

Sam lets his hand go. He lets his hand go not before leaning into the car, and pressing a kiss
against Yoongi’s knuckles.

The kiss takes an eon and a second. Yoongi holds his breath as Sam’s lips press against his hand.

When he’s finished, Sam’s lips leave his hand, leaving a wet imprint of the first place and last
place he would ever kiss Yoongi.

The place where it mattered most.

He looks at him. Yoongi looks back.

Sam lets his hand go, shuts the car door, then comes back, takes Yoongi’s hand, and kisses it,
again and again.

“ Dumbass,” Yoongi swears, giggling as he pushes his head out. “ Dumbass we’re gonna get
caught.” He yells.

“ Get in the CAR.” Yoongi screams at him, laughing as Sam trips over himself, circling the car,
this time from the front.
Cars appear behind them. Yoongi shouts at him to hurry up. The engine is roaring before Yoongi
can even look away from Sam’s laughing face.

“ We are so fucking screwed.” Sam curses as police lights appear behind them. “That’s- that’s not
actually-“

“ They just do that to scare the public Sammy, drive, drive.”

So, Sam does.

The cars chase them. Sam drives. Yoongi laughs.

“ Why are you LAUGHING?” Sam shouts over the howling wind. The windows are all down,
Yoongi’s hand is dancing outside in the open air. “Yoongi!”

The pianist sits on his heels, craning his neck outside of the window. Once the wind is thrashing
in his hair, billowing with the crackling of balance, the balance of how happy people like Yoongi
are allowed to be,

Yoongi screams.

Yoongi screams and screams and screams.

A giggle follows every scream. And then Sam joins at him.

They look mad. People that have started pouring into the streets, making their daily commute to
work, are staring at them.

“ You’re crazy.” Sam shouts over the song of Yoongi’s screaming.

Over the Moonsong of a moonchild’s screaming as the moon gives way to the sun.

As light gives way to dark and gold and black collide.

“ Get inside!” Sam shouts as the police sirens reappear behind them. “Get inside I need to make a
turn you madman.”

Yoongi plops back into his seat just as Sam swerves, making a U turn, and the cars fly past them
down the road.
There’s a moment of silence.

And then they both start laughing.

They’ve lost the cars chasing them. The highway is empty. Yoongi is still breathless with the force
of his screams. Sam is smiling, smiling so wide and hard as he steals glances at Yoongi and
Yoongi steals glances at him. The singer puts his hand on the console, palm up. Yoongi bites his
lip.

“Take me.” Sam whispers.

Their hands slip into each other, Yoongi’s fingers sliding against the gaps between Sam’s. And
they know, they just know, in this moment, right now, that nothing except death could ever make
them let go.

“ Can I…” Sam says quietly, blushing. “ Do I take you home? Or-“

“ Can you…” Yoongi stutters. “ Can we go to your place?’

“ Oh.” Sam exclaims. “ Yes, sure. Of course, we can- It’s quite uh…far? I don’t have enough
money to live in the city you know but- yeah, my place is, my place is fine, my parents aren’t
home, well they’re never home but- actually, I mean- not that? If they were home that anything
would not not happen, you know? Like not that, we’re gonna do anything, but I mean, of course,
if you asked, I would totally, but it’s not, sorry, that came out wrong, we, obviously, we just- like,
met and stuff, you know? And-“

“Sammy.” Yoongi says. Sam hears him even through his train pf rambling, and stops, taking a
breath.

“ Y-yes?” Yoongi brings their entangled hands to his face, and kisses Sam’s hand just as he did to
him.

“ Breathe.” Yoongi instructs, smiling, pressing their hands against his lips, laying kitten kisses
against the warm, entangled skin.

“ If you don’t stop doing that I’ll have to pull over, Yoongi.”

“ Mmm,” Yoongi mumbles. “Then do it.”

Sam looks at him in disbelief.

“ Tease.”

“ I can do worse.” Yoongi whispers, biting his lip as Sam looks away, banging his head against
the car seat as he chuckles.

“ We’re not gonna get home at this rate.”

Yoongi looks at him.

“ Home?” He questions. It takes Sam a few moments to realise what he’d insinuated.

“ Y-yeah.”

“ Home.” Yoongi murmurs beneath his breath, resting his head agaist the head rest. “ Home.”

Yoongi falls asleep. Sam falls in love.

The city lights darken and set light to Yoongi’s face, lampposts and buildings painting his sleeping
visage in different colors every time Sam gets the chance to glance at him, and all Sam can think
is:

God, Sammy, don’t you dare wake up.

Because it’s not real. It can’t be. Real things aren’t good. Real things are blood and paying the
bills, being the man of the house, living alone as soon as you hit ten years old.

Yoongi?

Yoongi isn’t one of those real things.

And if he is…

If he is…

Sam realises he hasn’t smoked all day, not since the concert began.
The urge comes back, just for a second, when he’s looking at the road, and Yoongi’s too small,
far too small, curled up on the seat, for Sam to see him through his hindsight. But then he looks at
Yoongi, and the urge dissipates.

Another red light brings them to a stop, Sam’s house inching closer. Yoongi shivers.

The singer’s head turns, resting against the headrest, watching Yoongi curl up further into the seat,
bringing his knees in, nuzzling his head between his knees.

Sam is scorching. He massages his chest to calm the aching. God, even looking at him hurts.

He takes off his leather jacket, the one that’s kept him warm through many a winter, the one he
never lets anyone touch, and he blankets Yoongi with it, realizing Yoongi has taken off his own
bloody jacket and tossed it in the back seat.

“Small…” Sam whispers. He’s so fucking small. With the jacket ot without the jacket dwarfing
him so endearingly, Yoongi is small. Small but larger than life.

The singer’s cheek is suddenly wet, and he brushes away the tears with his hands, hastily,
embarrassed as he curses a little: ‘Fuck’ and drives the car through the green light.

Sam’s never taken anyone home before. It’s always either their place, a motel or in the middle of
not particularly anywhere. Never home, no.

Maybe he knew. He knew he had to save this, save the house his mom decorated, save the old
couches and yellow wallpaper for Yoongi. For him.

They pull up at Sam's house. It’s on a steep part of the street. Just like Sam, it’s golden. It’s a little
two story detached house, the color halfway between the inside and the outside of a banana. You
can see whoever’s made it has tried, yes, they’ve tried very hard, to separate themselves from the
rest of the street. From the overgrown, decrepit gardens, the houses with peeling, gray paint, the
creaky, splintered picket fences, the rusty fences, the broken porches no one reads on anymore.

No, Sam’s house isn’t like that at all.

First and foremost, Sam’s house is yellow.

The garden is small, boxed in by a white picket fence that looks newly painted, maybe because it
is, because Sam paints it over often and religiously.
“Like the movies, Sammy baby, the white picket fences, love, you remember seeing those in the
films, the ones with the happy families inside? And- and roses? Maybe? Yellow, for sure, they
have to be yellow. It’s not…It’s not the best part of town baby, but.. But we can make it work
sweetheart, he’s not here to hurt us anymore. Thank you, little one. Thank you, Sammy.”

Maybe it’s because his mom liked it. Because they bought this house after his dad died, when Sam
was eight, and everything was going to be okay. Because even though his mom was fired from
her job as a nurse- the hospital didn’t want a worker who was involved in an involuntary man-
slaughter case- they had a little bit of money left, and the bad part of town meant houses were
cheap enough for people like them to settle in.

It was all… It was all gonna be alright.

They painted it together, sweltering in the summer heat, yellow lemonade melting, sitting on tray
on the porch, ice shimmering with the gold of the afternoon sun. They planted the yellow roses,
just as Sam’s mom wanted, they trimmed the grass, put a nice rocking chair they bought from the
charity shop on the front porch, and god, it was the prettiest house on the whole street.

“ Prettiest house for the prettiest mom.”

“ Prettiest house for the prettiest son.”

Sam’s ninth birthday was…incredible. His mom baked a cake, and she’d never done that before.
There were a few balloons here and there, and she’d saved up for a nice little something.

“ Here, Sammy.” His mother had said, putting the jacket on his lap. They were sitting on the
floor, against the foot of their yellow, cotton sofas, the cake half eaten on the little plastic coffee
table. “It’s- it’s far too big for you right now, I know. I would have- I would have bought you, a
game or something, or those paintbrushes you like so much, but you’re a good boy, I know, and I
see how you get cold sometimes at night, so I got you this, it can- it can keep you warm both
inside and outside, when I’m not there baby, how about that? Hm? You like it?”

Sam wasn’t really listening. Because he loved it. It was his first proper birthday present. He
resents himself for every asking for the brushes in the first place, because now his mom might
think the jacket isn’t enough or something. Which it is. It was. It still is. “ I just saw it in the store
and saw a beautiful young, yellow haired boy wearing it. It was you when you’re older. I just
knew you had to have it.” Sam listens. He listens, absorbing the intonations, the highs and lows of
his mother’s English accent. “ And if there ever is a little girl…or a boy you like who’s cold and
you don’t like them being cold, you can put this jacket around them, how about that Sammy? You
like it? Are you sure you like it?”
Sam wore that jacket around the house every single day, the hem dragging on the floor, the wind
washing in from the windows making the fabric blow around him like a little cape, his arms
dwarfed inside the massive sleeves, like two wings on either side of him. Sam felt like he could
fly, in that jacket. Truly, really, fly.

That winter, he went to sleep with the jacket wrapped around him like a leather cocoon. That
spring, he sat in the jacket, a little pool of leather around him, and drew. The following Summer,
Sam wore the jacket even through the heat, took it everywhere with him. Sam loved it, Sam loved
that jacket just a little bit less than he loved his mom.

The winter after that…

The winter after that…

Sam woke up on Christmas day, just six days before his tenth birthday, and he kind of knew
something was wrong. Because Sinatra wasn’t playing on the little, second hand vinyl player he’d
saved up for and given to his mom for her birthday that year. Because the house didn’t smell like
scrambled eggs, Sam’s favorite. Or maybe he had just convinced himself that it was his favorite
because that was the only thing his mom knew how to cook.

So Sam woke up, brushed his wild, blonde hair back, massaging his little, groggy blue eyes, and
stepped into the kitchen.

There was a little yellow post-it note on the fridge.

And all it said…

All it said….

All it said was:

“ im sorry”

The ‘I’ wasn’t capitalized. There was no apostrophe in ‘I’m’. Ten-year-old Sam shouldn’t have
thought like that. That his mom didn’t capitalize the I because he didn’t deserve it. That he wasn’t
even worth an apostrophe. But he does. He did. And he still thinks it.

Sam’s mom left on Christmas day.

It was snowing outside that day.

Sam doesn’t really remember crying about it.

He remembers making himself scrambled eggs, putting a little chair in front of the stove and
kneeling on it so he wouldn’t be too tall or too short; he remembers the hot oil splashing on his
hand. Sam doesn’t remember crying.

Not until he sat down on the floor, in front of the open front door, feathers of snow flying in from
the cold, New York winter, and the eggs…

The eggs didn’t taste the same.

The eggs didn’t taste the same.

They didn’t taste the same.

They didn’t-

“Sammy ?” Yoongi whispers, eyes too heavy to open. “Why have we stopped?”

Sam blinks.

“ We...we’re here.” Sam answers, cheeks wet, his hands clutching the steering wheel. He’s afraid
Yoongi will open his eyes and see him like this. But Yoongi just melts further into the seat.

“ Mmhmmp.” Yoongi mewls, nestling against the leather.

“ Yoongi?” Sam asks, his hand gravitating towards Yoongi’s mop of jade hair. “ You asleep?”

He is. He’s already fallen asleep again.

Sam lets his sleep deepen, and after a few minutes gets out of the car, shutting the door softly and
resting against it, neck curved towards the roof, head banging against it.

Dawn approaches fast. The sun births lilacs and oranges across the blue New York roof, and
Sam…And Sam just for a second thinks that this is God’s way of telling him that this is it. That
this is his new beginning. Like the sunrise is the hand of god, Sam’s cheek is a new, fresh canvas,
and Yoongi is the new paintbrush Sam asked for seven years ago.

“ If you-” Sam chokes on a sob and doubles over, crouching on the floor, then kneeling, holding
his chest.

“ If you’re… if you’re gonna give me h-him…” He chokes out, fingers looking for his necklace
beneath the hem of his shirt, coming into contact with the cool metal cross a few moments later.
“After e-everything… if y-you’re gonna give me s-someone like him…” Sam cranes his neck
towards the sky, the stars, the vivid constellation of Sirius that is always unmissable for Sam who
is always awake at dawn.

“ Don’t you take him away.” He begs. “Don’t you take him from me.” He prays into the coming
light of dawn.

“ Don’t you dare take him from me, do you understand me?” Sam sobs into the morning sky. “Let
me have him.” He requests. “ Let us be happy.”

Sam doesn’t know how long he stays kneeling on the ground, but when he rises, his knees ache
and his thighs are sore. He circles the car towards Yoongi’s side, his hand rests against the handle
for a moment, watching the rise and fall of Yoongi’s chest, his sleepy, incoherent mumbling that
makes more sense to Sam than all of the clearest things in life, and he opens the door. Yoongi,
previously curled up against the door, falls into Sam’s arm.

Sam is right there to catch him. He’s light, so very, very light that Sam picks him up with one arm,
and takes him out of the car. Yoongi nuzzles his head against Sam’s chest, his hand
subconsciously gripping Sam’s pine green shirt again.

Sam looks at the sky one more time before shutting the car door, and making his way towards his
white picket fence.

The little stranger barely bobs up and down in his arms, he’s steady, stable, Sam’s big arms
holding him rightly as the singer balances Yoongi’s weight on one and a half arm while quietly
jangling the keys.

Sam wonders why he’s so small, whether he’ll have a growth spurt in the future, whether he’ll be
in Sam’s life for the singer to be able to see it.

Sam opens the mustard door, at the top of which there is a semi-circle of stained glass, reflecting
the colorful mirage of dawn on Yoongi’s white face as the door inches open. The red, blue and
yellow stained glass is Sam’s favorite part of the house, and it always has been. He remembers his
mom and him staring at the top of the door with dazed, wondrous looks in their eyes, wondering
why something like that exists on a street like that, a house like this.

Sam carries Yoongi into the house, shutting the door lightly with the sole of his foot. It’s warm
inside, because now, Sam has enough money for heating. The door opens into an open seating
space, two yellow sofas facing one another, perpendicular to the door, a low, square coffee tale in
between them, sitting on a square carpet.

The floors are a dark wood and on the opposite wall to the entrance is a small kitchen, white
cupboards lining the walls, a fridge and a storage room to the left, sink to it’s right, a counter
separating the kitchen from the living space, and two chairs tucked into the kitchen island. On top
of the counter sits a bowl of yellow lollipops.

On the left side of the open space are two doors, and at the end of the corridor separating the
kitchen from the left wall is the bathroom. On the right of the fridge are the stairs leading up to the
attic.

Sam glances at his room, higher up the corridor, then his mom’s room, lower down, and settles on
the sofa.

Three long strides take him to the couch. He lays Yoongi softly on the cotton, the latter’s body
curving in the gap between Sam’s arms.

Yoongi’s jade tendrils fall in a heart shape circle around his forehead.

God, Sam wants to kiss it.

He doesn’t, though, not while Yoongi is sleeping, not while he couldn’t stop him if he didn’t want
it.

Sam lays him down, taking his jacket off Yoongi’s body so that he doesn’t get too hot, retreats
from his curled form, then stops.

“ No…”

Yoongi’s sleeve has ridden up his arm, sitting half way between his wrist and his elbow. He curls
into himself, and Sam steps back.
But when I’m sitting there, I’m screaming into my pillow because even the silence gets too loud
sometimes, you’re not going to be able to handle me, so don’t for a second give yourself the
illusion that you can.

Sam stumbles further back, back, runs into the corridor, into the bathroom, shutting the door
behind him.

He starts crying. It’s immediate, it’s unexpected, and the sobs rattle through him, one after another,
as he sinks against the bathroom door, falling to the floor.

Yoongi’s arm is ruined. It’s thoroughly, completely ruined. It’s red, white and dark brown. It’s
sliced horizontally up and down. There’s barely space left to kiss, to hold, to touch. There is no
white to bruise lovingly as Sam wants to in the quietest hours of the night. Yoongi’s sad.

Yoongi is one of the sad ones.

He’s sad enough- he’s sad enough that he-

Sam should have known that a boy with eyes that beautiful couldn’t not have a few scars of his
own. He should have known. He should have known but he hoped that maybe life had treated
Yoongi better than it had him. Maybe he hoped that Yoongi gotten a one-way ticket out of the
bullshit, because he’s too pretty, because his hands look like dove wings, because he smells of a
new house and all the humble beginnings that come with it.

Maybe he hoped that because he wasn’t happy, because he knows so many people who aren’t,
like Joseph, his best friend who’s arms used to look the same as Yoongi’s, that it was the price
they all had to pay for people as beautiful as the pianist to be allowed to be content. To be happy
enough, at the very least, that they wouldn’t have to paint their sadness on their skin.

Sam cries. He doesn’t know how long for but he cries, and he hopes that Yoongi sleeps through
it.

His pretty, pretty skin. His pretty, beautiful skin. And Yoongi… Yoongi was so sad that he took a
knife to his flesh. He looks at the roof of the bathroom, looks at the god beyond with rage.

You just had to make him sad, didn’t you?

He then takes out his phone, types in one of few numbers he knows off by heart into the Nokia,
and waits.

“ Sam?”

“ J-Joseph, hey.”

His best friend’s voice comes through the phone, the voices of the other band members in the
background hushing down as Joseph shouts a loud: ‘ Guys shut the fuck up’, before answering
Sam.

“ Man what the fuck happened? We’ve left you a fuckton of fucking miscalls. Did Charles fucking
do anything to you? Are you okay? And that- that fan that was with you? Is he-”

“ We-”

“Samuel are you crying? “

“ He, he beat them all up,” Sam stutters, wiping hise nose with his sleeve. “ K-killed one, b-but
that’s- that’s not what I-”

“ That small five foot thing?” Joseph exclaims, voice raising in pitch. “He beat up-”

“ Joseph.” Sam says quietly. “ He-he self-harms.”

His best friend quietens, silence wrapping the phone call in it’s wings.

“ Oh..” Joseph whispers. “ Sam…”

“ I… I shouldn’t have told you, I just-”

“ Where are you right now?” Joseph asks him, Sam’s sobbing coming through the other side of
the phone in broken, heartbreaking strokes.
“ H-home obviously-”

“ You…” Joseph exclaims softly. “You took someone back to your place? You took someone
home ”

“ Yeah,” Sam whispers. “ He-he’s sleeping.”

“ Did he tell you…or?”

“ N-no,” Sam replies, thinking of Yoongi’s red and white arm, hanging off the sofa, just like it
would on a hospital stretcher. But no, no, no, Sam isn’t going to let it get that far. If- If Yoongi lets
him that is, if Yoongi lets him help, Sammy’s gonna make sure he doesn’t do that again. “I saw
it.”

“ Okay.” Joseph breathes. “ Fuck,” He swears after a few moments. Sam really likes the sound of
breathing, for some reason, perhaps it’s because it’s a conformation that someone is there, that
somebody is watching over him. “Don’t bring it up, okay Sam? I know you must be…shocked,”
Joseph says. “And scared right now, but maybe he didn’t want you to know, so you’ve just got to
pretend like you don’t. Do you think you can do that for me?”

“ N-no,” Sam immediately says, then cages his mouth with his hand, softening the echoes of his
cries. He can’t wake Yoongi up. A boy like that, a boy like that… He probably doesn’t get
enough sleep. And if he’s trusted Sam enough to sleep in his car, in his arms, in the confinement
of his home, then Sam has to make sure he can have all the rest he can get. “Y-y-yeah? I’ll- I’ll
pretend, i-if it would make him comfortable.”

Joseph smiles, Sam can hear it, even over the phone.

“ Sam, you…” Joseph starts, sighing, “ Are you sure about this, man? It’s been…what?” He
deliberates. “Four hours since the concert? And you’ve taken him home, you’re…you’re sitting
there crying over his… What’s…” He ponders over his next words. “What’s going on Samuel?”

Sam doesn’t fucking know.

Sam doesn’t have a fucking clue.

All he knows, all he feels and sees and hears is that-

It’s that-

“ I don’t know…” Sam murmurs, his lips red with spit. “ I don’t know Joseph… Just that-“ He
sobs, hitting his chest. “ Just that he talks like mom… He sounds like mom when he talks, he
sounds like mom Joseph, he-”

“ Okay, Sam, okay, Ellis, The drummer urges. “You’ve got to breathe for me okay?” He pleads,
voice low and comforting, the same way Sam’s would always be when Joseph would call him
when everything got too much.

Joseph knows Sam. He knows Sam doesn’t fall in love. He knows Sam doesn’t trust girls because
his mom betrayed him. He knows Sam started working out because he used to be really small as a
kid, his mom would get hit and little Sammy couldn’t do anything at all. He knows Sam doesn’t
bottom, that the one time he tried the guy was bigger than him and he broke down, and had to call
Joseph to come pick him up.

Joseph knows a lot about Sam, maybe more than anyone, and he knows Sam’s house is sacred,
that no girl or boy Sam fools around with is ever allowed in the house, and no one is ever allowed
in Sam’s mother’s room.

But first and foremost, Sam doesn’t fall in love. Not like this, not in the way he sounds over the
phone. When he comes even slightly close to loving someone, he tells them he can’t. Not in the
asshole way, the selfish way, just-just that he can’t. He’s scared one day the boys are going to
grow bigger than him and start throwing him around the way his dad did. And he’s even more
scared the girls will leave yellow post it notes on his fridge with misspelt apologies on Christmas
day.

“ I stopped because of you, didn’t I?” Joseph says sweetly. “You got me to stop, you can do the
same with him. You’re Samuel Ellis, there’s nothing you can’t do,” He continues, and god, he
means it. “ Just go and take care of this stranger of yours, Sam, and tell us when we can come
over, you can introduce him if you want, the band is really worried about you. They’re all really
worried about you.”

“ Y-you…You really think so?”

“Sam,” joseph spells it out for him. “You’ve never taken any one home.” He adds. “That shit you
did on the stage? The whole, please don’t leave thing? The band was laughing about it wondering
who it was that got you so riled up. If he feels even half as you do, I’d say you two are sorted.”
“ Thank you…” Sam whispers. “Thanks Seph, I- I’ll call you, later, when he-”

“ Don’t worry about it lover boy, don’t you worry about it.”

Joseph hangs up because he knows Sam doesn’t like to be the one to do it. The singer keeps the
phone against his ear, the metal wet against his sweaty hands. After letting a few more tears slip,
he stands, going to the sink, splashing his face with cold water, the drops burning his tears away.

“ You’ve got to be strong, Sam.” He says to himself in the mirror, brushing his hair back, and for
once it actually stays back, the tendrils slick with water. “ If you can’t be strong for him from day
one, then you don’t deserve someone like that, okay?” He watches his reflection. His reflection
nods. And Sam shuts off his tear ducts.

Shakily, Sam places his hand on the door, and pulls it open. He wobbles down the corridor,
massaging his eyes, and peeks into the sitting room when he hears a little mewl.

Fuck.

Of course he’s the kind who makes noise in his sleep.

Sam is done for. He’s done for before he arrives into the small square in the middle of the open
space, done for before he sits down, and done for before he puts his head in between his hands
like a blossom, and watches Yoongi breathe. Watches him live. Live even though he’s sad, sad
enough to hurt himself in places he doesn’t want anyone to see.

He brings his knees up to the sofa, folding them beneath his chin, his hands wrapping around his
legs. It’s too warm inside the house, because now that Sam has heating, he always goes a little too
overboard with it, forgetting that there’s enough to go around now, so Yoongi doesn’t need a
blanket- in fact, his cheeks are looking a little red, and Sam reprimands himself for not having
turned off the heating before leaving the house that afternoon.

The golden-haired stranger falls asleep watching the jade haired one, through the rising sun, the
scorch of the afternoon, and the descent of dusk. They sleep unlike they’ve ever slept before, even
apart, with no skin to hold or lips to kiss, they sleep and dream, dream, dream of the life that waits
for them, the life they will wake up to after this yellow night of theirs. They sleep dreaming of all
the ever after’s and happy endings Moonchildren have never been allowed to have, and little did
they know they had three years, from this moment, three years and a few months, and everything
they’d ever known, all the light, the yellow haze painting their wanting eyes, the roses scenting the
tips of quivering fingers, it would all be washed away, by eclipse.
“ Sammy?”

For a second, Sam thinks it might have been a dream. Because he hasn’t woken up to that name in
six years. But then he’s opening his eyes to the curled form of a black-haired stranger on his
yellow sofa, and he remembers, he remembers. Dusk has settled outside, the moon has ascended
upon them, and the white, shimmering light filters into the room through the glass, floor to ceiling
windows- decorated with yellow curtains- criss crossed with white bars, flanking the main door, to
its right.

Yoongi massages his eyes, groggily sitting upright, a little bit dis-coordinated as he takes in his
surroundings.

“ God I’m so sorry, how many minutes has it been? Has it been long since we arrived?”

Sam takes a look at the clock behind Yoongi’s head, on the wall between his mom’s room and his
own.

“ It’s been…” Sam trails off, taking his phone out of his jeans, and then let he lets out a
disbelieving breath.

“ Wait,” Yoongi exclaims. “ Is it…night?” He asks, looking at the sky through the doors leading
out into the porch. “ Again?”

“ It’s been around…” Sam says, pausing as he calculates, then he chuckles as he concludes: “
Thirteen hours.”

Yoongi looks at him, deadpanned.

“ I slept thirteen hours?” He asks in the manner of someone who doesn’t even know what double
numbers mean when it comes to sleep.

“ Maybe you…” Sam waves off, a little bit amused. “ Needed it?”

“ No, you-” Sam’s amusement washes off as he looks as Yoongi’s genuinely distressed reaction. “
You don’t understand I- I don’t-” Yoongi stops himself, wondering if he hasn’t already opened
enough emotional baggage tonight.
“ Yoongi?” The blond inquires after the pianist forgets to finish his sentence.

“ I don’t sleep.”

“ You…” Sam imitates. “ Don’t sleep.”

“ I…I nap?” Yoongi replies in an uncertain tone, sitting up fully, crossing his legs on the sofa, but
not before looking at the clock behind him and swearing under his breath again. “Kind of? I don’t
really…sleep at night. Not that I don’t, I- I particularly can’t? I- thirteen hours, are you- are you
fucking with me?”

“Yoongi,” Sam stresses, fighting off a smile.

You’re cute.

“ The moon is literally out.”

“ Jesus,” Yoongi swears. “ Fucking Jesus, fuck, I feel alive.” He declares, then adds: “ I also ache,
though.”

Sam blinks the sleep away, panicking as he throws his legs off the sofa.

“ I- I would have put you on a bed, but I- I didn’t know if you were okay with that? I’m sorry, I
should have probably put you on a bed. I’ve slept on the sofa a lot, because- well you don’t need
to know why, but I have, I thought I was comfortable, and I’m you know? Pretty big, so I thought
it would be…” Sam stops himself.

Yoongi’s smiling. He shakes his head a little, biting his lip and Sam, with the little bit of courage
that he has lift, bites his own lip in reply, tongue darting out to leave a stripe of wetness across his
mouth.

“I meant,” Yoongi stresses when the urge to rip Sam’s clothes off muffles by his very sane and
rational mind that his body probably couldn’t take it with the state that’s in. “ I meant aching as in,
a good kind of aching. I- I haven’t slept like that since-”

Since my mom died. Since the first time my mom died.

“ Since?” Sam pries.

Yoongi smiles

“ Since forever.”

The urge to rip his clothes off turns into the urge to sit on his lap, which is kind of the same thing,
and with the way Sam is looking at him Yoongi hopes he’s thinking the same thing. Yoongi kinda
knows he is.

“ Do you want…” Sam says, breaking away their stare. “ Breakfast? Dinner? B-brunch?”

“ B-” Yoongi stutters, laughing.

God Sam could get used to that. God, Sam could fucking use some more of that.

“ Brunch.” Yoongi gets out once he stops laughing, blushing at the thoroughly endeared look on
Sam’s face.

“ We slept the whole day,” Sam starts in defense. “I don’t know what to suggest asshole, give me
some

credit.”

“ Can you even cook?” Yoongi questions with raised brow. When Sam’s face scrunches up in
defense, he starts laughing again.

“ I can- I can make eggs?” Sam suggests with a hopeful contortion of his face.

“ Eggs.” Yoongi deadpans.

“ Yeah, eggs.”
“ And you suggested dinner?”

“ In my defense,” Sam retorts, shaking his head.“ Eggs are perhaps the most versatile food there
is.” Yoongi doesn’t skip a beat in reply.

“ What about cheese? Tomatoes?

“ Shit.” Sam swears, Yoongi laughing at the realization haunting his face. “You’re fucking right.”
He admits, eyes blown wide, as though he’s been met with the face of god.

And…

And he kind of has, hasn’t he?

“ I often am.” Yoongi replies after he’s finished laughing. God he’s never laughed so much in his
life.

“ You’re the same person who was going to board a plane without even telling me your second
name this morning.” Sam points out, very as a matter of fact and Yoongi hides his face in his
hands, to Sam’s dismay, then looks up at him through his folded arms, only the upper half of his
face visible when he says:

“ I’m here now, aren’t I?”

Sam smiles.

“ You’re here now.”

Being with Yoongi is euphoria. It’s forgetting he hurts himself in places he probably doesn’t want
Sam to see. It’s forgetting until the little pianist goes quiet, nibbling on his lip, waiting for Sam to
make the next move. But Sam remembers red and white and line after line, and suddenly he’s on
the verge of tears again.

“ What’s wrong?” Yoongi asks him, worry crinkling the corner of his eyes.
“ Nothing,” Sam quickly says, forcing a smile that eventually doesn’t need to be forced because
looking at Yoongi looking at him through long, black lashes tugs up the corner of his lips no
matter what. “ It’s- just never slept that long, I’m fine.’ He reassures. “You okay?”

Yoongi nods.

“ I-I’m okay.”

“ Good.” Sam says.

“ Good.” Yoongi sings back.

“ Do you…” Sam says suddenly. “ Do you smoke? I- I felt the packet in your jacket when I-”

“ I smoke.” Yoongi quickly confirms, sensing another nervous ramble from the blond.

“ You don’t mind if I…?” Sam trails off, taking a lighter out of his jacket. It’s his dad’s lighter.
The only thing of his dad’s he has, except the color of his eyes. He’s kept it as a symbol, a two-
inch block of metal slowly turning his lungs grey. The same way his dad would turn them red.

“ Can I come along?” Yoongi asks, unsure, as if Sam didn’t decide the moment he laid eyes upon
Yoongi that he couldn’t deny of him of anything if he were to ask for it.

“ A pretty thing like you shouldn’t smoke you know?” Sam reprimands, unknowing of his
hypocrisy, which Yoongi very well wants to tell him off about, but his heart betrays him and
instead he spills out something else entirely.

“ You think I’m pretty?” Yoongi asks. Sam looks at him with a raised brow. He looks hot when
he does that, because his brows are very full, close to his eyes, and arched; he looks like he could
swallow Yoongi whole.

And Yoongi kind of wants him to. In more ways than one.

“ I think you know very well what I think.” Sam retorts with a smirk plastered across his mouth, a
twinkle accentuating the ring of gold in his blue eyes, and his bottom lip caught between his teeth.
“ Enlighten me.” Yoongi says, challenging him.

Sam raises both arrows this time, comes closer, balancing himself on the very edge of the sofa,
leans forward, and answers him.

“ I think you’re fucking gorgeous.”

Yoongi holds his breath.

Sam lets go of his.

The moonlight paints half of Yoongi’s face white, the other half obscured in deep, shifting
shadows. Sam wants to paint him, he needs to paint him bad.

The pianist doesn’t say anything in reply, he just blushes. Maybe because he doesn’t believe Sam,
because he does, because he doesn’t get told he’s fucking beautiful as often as he should, and if he
doesn’t then Sam should very well tell him that he’s not surrounding himself with the right people,
not at all.

“ How- How about that smoke?” Yoongi asks, interrupting his train of thoughts. Sam blinks the
infatuation away, eyes focusing on Yoongi’s questioning gaze.

“ C’mon,” He ushers, standing, slightly light headed as he wobbles towards Yoongi’s sofa,
waiting for him. Yoongi stands, waiting in front of Sam, almost two heads shoulder, his head
barely reaching the bottom of Sam’s neck. “You’ll get cold.” Sam says quietly, taking his jacket
from the armrest of the other sofa and coming over, holding it out in front of Yoongi.

The pianist makes no move to put it around him, and Sam gets the message. He airs out the jacket,
letting it ripple down between him and Yoongi, then flips it inside out, taking one side and putting
it around one of the stranger’s shoulders, circling it behind his back, and hooking the collar onto
the other shoulder. Yoongi’s lips are brushing against Sam’s chest, his hair fluttering against
Sam’s neck.
“ You’re so…” Yoongi whispers, his hand coming to caress Sam’s chest, subconscious taking
over.

“ Mm?” sam hums, retreating slightly to look down at Yoongi’s face, his hands still fixed on
Yoongi’s small shoulders.

“ Big…” Yoongi mumbles. “You’re so big.” He finishes, fingertips quivering against Sam’s shirt.
Sam smiles sadly.

“ Does it…” He utters. “Does that make you uneasy?”

Makes me feel safe. Want to be held. Want to be kissed, fucked, against a wall, maybe, with your
hands beneath my thigh, with your mouth on my neck, and your eyes on mine. Want to be loved.

“ No…” Yoongi says instead, not knowing he is, he already is. Not knowing he will be, more and
less than he could have ever hoped for.

“ Okay.” Sam whispers, hand coming to ruffle Yoongi’s hair. The pianist stops himself from
mewling, and fails.

“ Okay.” He mimics softly.

“ Let’s go.” Sam says, pulling away, leaving Yoongi feeling cold even beneath the jacket that
dwarves him whole. The pianist resists the urge to hold Sam’s hand. The ten steps he has to take
to reach the glass doors leading to the porch are equivalent to three of Sam’s.

It gets Yoongi very flustered. Hot and bothered. Aroused.

Sam throws the doors open softly, cold air washing in. Yoongi realises Sam never smokes inside
the house, if he’s going through the trouble. The pianist wishes he could say the same.

The view from the porch isn’t particularly pleasing. The rest of the street pales, very literally, to
the yellow roses and gardenias scrambling across Sam’s little garden. But the sky looks beautiful,
and so does Sam and-

“ God,” Yoongi whispers suddenly, as they lean against the white porch. “Is that Saturn?” He
exclaims, pointing at the little ringed circle sitting overhead.
He’s too busy staring at the sky to realise Sam is staring at him, so Sam doesn’t stop himself, and
watches him, wanting to tell Yoongi the most cliché fucking things. Like the fact that his eyes
shine brighter than all of New York’s stars and billboards alike, that Sam can never look at stars
the same way again, not when he knows there’s a boy out there who is sadder than he deserves to
be and yet still manages to be bright, bright enough for Sam to think that this perpetual darkness
isn’t so infinite after all.

Yoongi is the end of infinity, and the beginning of it. The middle ground, the high ground, the
lows, the not so sure’s, the grey areas, the-

“ Sam?”

“We’re quite far from the city,” Sam replies. “The stars are brighter here.” Yoongi turns to him,
Saturn forgotten.

“ They sure are, golden boy.” They both hear the tone of Yoongi’s voice. And that the pianist
isn’t talking about stars at all, and neither was Sam.

“ Golden boy?” The blond asks, smiling as he takes his pack of cigarettes out. Yoongi wants to
tell him that his are more expensive, then decides against it.

He likes Sam as he is.

“ I thought I was under the liberty.” Yoongi responds.

Sam chuckles.

“ You’re under much more than that.”

Yoongi reconsiders his train of thought, then says it anyway.

“ Maybe I’d like to be under something else.”

They both stop breathing. Yoongi gives Sam his best “ fuck me” gaze, and Sam gets the message
loud and clear, but it’s been a day. It’s been a day and Sam already knows Yoongi looks like he
means things when he doesn’t, and says things he doesn’t want the other person to listen to, so
instead of throwing Yoongi over his shoulder and laying him on his bed, he questions Yoongi’s
feigned uncertainty.

“ Maybe?”

Yoongi smirks.

“ Definitely.”

Sam wants to tell him that he’ll be the death of him before long, but he’s sure Yoongi already
knows that, and death doesn’t seem to be a very likely or desirable prospect, not anymore, not
now that he’s here.

This little black haired star.

“ We should smoke.” Sam says, taking out two cigarettes,“ Before we do anything else.”

“ We should.” Yoongi agrees, shying away from his own advancements. God, I really am just
talk. “ I mean, technically, we shouldn’t, but-”

“ Yoongi.” Sam interrupts, holding out a cigarette horizontally.

“ Yeah?”

Sam flicks the lighter on. “C’mere.”

Yoongi does.

He wobbles closer, taking small, hesitant steps, until they’re the touch of a hand away. Sam places
the cigarette over the yellow flame, the tendrils of fire reflecting orange in Yoongi’s eyes. He
brings the cigarette to his lips, Yoongi follows the placement of the cylinder into Sam’s lips,
watches his eyes roll back with the inhale of his chest.
“ W-what about me?” Yoongi asks, just as Sam takes the cigarette out. Yoongi expects him to
blow out the smoke, sideways through his lips. He expects anything and everything, but what he
doesn’t expect is for Sam to hold the smoke in his mouth, come closer, and curl his hand around
Yoongi’s neck.

His touch is cold, the proximity of his lips is warm.

Yoongi’s lips fall open. Sam comes closer.

Their lips brush, flutter, just a whisper, just a breath.

Yoongi moans.

Sam blows the smoke into Yoongi’s mouth, the latter’s eyes roll back, the smoke cascading down
his tongue, percolating down his windpipe. Sam moves away, just an inch, but Yoongi grips his
shirt, pulls him back in, their foreheads colliding as Yoongi whines.

“ Fuck.” Sam whispers, the hand around Yoongi’s neck going to his face, the other letting go of
the cigarette, stepping on it, before grabbing Yoongi’s waist and pressing their bodies together. “
W-we…”

Yoongi nuzzles his nose against Sam’s, his lips brushing past the latter’s, like he’s asking for
Sam’s face to chase him. Their faces flirt in abstract lines, no particular pattern to it, Sam’s bottom
lip wetting Yoongi’s, Yoongi’s fingers trailing circles on Sam’s cheeks, his spine curving deeply
into Sam’s chest.

“ We shouldn’t.” Sam whispers.

“ W-why?” Yoongi utters, voice barely more than a breath.

“ You’re sad.” Sam says, their foreheads still plastered together, lips inching closer even though
Sam tries to pull away.

I don’t want you to kiss me because you’re sad.

I don’t want you to regret it when you’re not sad anymore.

“ How do you know?”

Sam holds Yoongi’s hand that’s on his cheek, removes it, then slowly shifts away, taking
Yoongi’s warmth away, and places the pianist’s hand palm up on his own, his thumb caressing
the little hill of Yoongi’s palm, and he hopes that Yoongi understands.

“ I saw.” Sam says, not looking at him.

“ You…saw…” Yoongi repeats in a broken trail, trying to understand. Then he sees the tears
circling Sam’s eyes, the way the blond is looking at his clothed arm, the gentle grip he has on
Yoongi’s hand.

And then it clicks.

“ Oh…” Yoongi exclaims, suddenly pulling away, curling into himself. And Sam regrets
everything. “ I-I…”

“ I’m sorry…” Sam apologizes, holding Yoongi’s face, trying to make him look at him. “I’m sorry
Yoongi…”

“ N-no,” Yoongi stutters, trying to pull away. “ I-I I’m sorry I- I shouldn’t have- I shouldn’t have-
”

“ Don’t,” Sam begs. “ Don’t freak out, please, just- just stay here. Come inside.” He guides,
pulling away, stepping out of the porch, into the house. “ Just give me a moment, okay?” When
Yoongi makes no move to come inside, Sam puts out his hand. “Please?” he asks, offering his
hand to Yoongi. “Will you come inside?”

Yoongi takes his hand, shuffles inside. Sam shuts the balcony doors.

“ Just… give me a second.” Sam assures, running into the kitchen. He doesn’t even rummage
through the cabinets. He opens the one next to the stove, knowing exactly where what he’s
looking for is. He takes something out, and runs back to Yoongi.

It’s dwarfed inside the size of Sam’s hand, and Yoongi can’t exactly see what it is.

“ I want to give you this.” Sam says, holding out his hand. “Just so you know… so you know this
isn’t… weird for me or anything…” Sam assures, twirling the little circle in his hand. It’s
approximately the size of his palm. A white circle with five little protrusions, quite a lot like a red
flower.
“That you’re not any less beautiful to me now than you’ve been this whole night, or any kind of
bullshit like that…” Sam stops, taking a breath, watching Yoongi watch him ramble away. “That
I’ve…helped, or- or tried to help before. I… I made this for my friend, when he was going
through the same thing. It helped him, or at least, I hope it did. I guess it did, you know, since he
told me? But I just…fuck,” Sam swears, taking the lids of the little pen attachments to the circle
one by one, anxiety swallowing him. “I shouldn’t have said anything. But I didn’t want to lie…
God, I never want to lie to you, Yoongi. So, I wanted you to know I saw them, and if there was a
way I could unsee them, if that could make you happy, then I would but-” Sam looks up from his
jumbled mess of a speech. “Yoongi, Yoongi why are you crying?”

“ You-” Yoongi sobs, understanding what the little circle is before Sam’s even explained it, and
he cant stop, he can’t stop crying. “You made this?”

“ Yoongi, please, please stop crying.”

“ G-go on, k-keep talking. Keep talking, Sam.”

“ It…” Sam starts, trying to do as Yoongi asked. “It’s a five ended pen, you see. The tips are all
different sharpnesses… like, this one,” He demonstrates, taking the lightest red colored lid, closer
to a red peach than it is an actual red, drawing a thick, pinkish, line across his other hand. “This
one, or example, it’s thick, so drawing on your skin with it doesn’t really hurt, and the red is light,
so that if you want more color to come out, then you have to press harder, but because it’s so thick
and bulky, you know, like a highlighter? It won’t hurt.” Sam finishes, replacing the lid, and
opening the pen to it’s right, the one with the darkest colored lid.

“Whereas, you see, this one,” He exhibits next, drawing a thin, bleeding red line on his hand.
“The end is sharper, and it hurts more to press against your skin, but the red is really vivid, see?
Almost- almost like-

“ Like blood.” Yoongi finishes for him.

Sam frowns, wanting to hold him.

A halo of moonlight from the window behind the pianist sits on top of his head of jade hair, the
light outlining him in a shimmering line of blue.

“Yeah,” Sam confirms. “Like blood.” Yoongi looks at him. Sam looks back. Maybe they should
have just kissed. “So you don’t need to press as hard for the ink to appear on your skin, the way I
assume you want it to.”
“

You…” Yoongi breathes, taking the pen from Sam’s hand, his fingers caressing it. “ You made
this Sam? You truly, really made this? For your friend?”

“ It’s…” Sam replies, scratching his head. “ You know the drummer? I-in my band?” Sam asks, to
which Yoongi gives a small, shaky nod. “ His name is Joseph, I- he doesn’t, you know, do it
anymore, but- I made a few of these for him, a couple years ago.” He continues. “Oh, and- and by
the way, the ink is made from, natural shit? You know, I- I actually have a list of like- ingredients
and stuff, but, your skin doesn’t absorb it, so it doesn’t wash off easily, and it’s quite permanent
until you take a bath, like- like the real thing you know? I-I’m rambling, I’m sorry,” He quickly
apologizes, brushing his hair back. God, he should have fucking listened to Joseph.

“ But the point of this is that you don’t- you don’t scare me, or anything like that. Because that’s
what Joseph thought, and- and well that’s just bullshit because- because you’re just showing me
which parts of you need more love than the others, n-n-not that- not that I love you, or anything, I
mean, of course I- but-”

Yoongi’s face is in front of Sam’s. And then Yoongi is wrapping himself around Sam’s torso, his
head buried in Sam’s chest.

The pianist nuzzles his head upwards, curling his toes to stand on tiptoes, but he’s still too short to
reach Sam’s face. The singer leans down, face hot against Yoongi’s.

Yoongi whispers a small thank you, and kisses his forehead.

“ Thank you.” Then kisses his cheek.

“ Thank you, Sam.” Then the other cheek.

And when he pulls back, toes uncurling to put him back on the ground, looking up at Sam with
something that would be dangerous to call love, but probably was, even then, he says:

“ I think you’re going to be very good for me.”

In between staring at each other and Yoongi resting his head against Sam’s chest and Sam not
wanting him to ever, ever leave, Yoongi had felt faint, a little bit dizzy, and melted in Sam’s arms.

So now they stand, after Yoongi has washed up inside the bathroom, a towel around his neck,
with Yoongi inside Sam’s mom’s room, Sam in front of it, holding onto a stack of clothes.
“These will be…” Sam trails off, looking at the stack of his own clothes in his hands. “Very big
on you.” He finishes, handing the stack to Yoongi who takes them with a smile.

“ Are your parents not going to be home anytime soon?” Yoongi asks. “Not that-”

“ No,” Sam says, smiling. “ They’re not…We-” Yoongi looks happy. Sam doesn’t want to ruin it.
“ We’ll talk about it later okay? You… I think you’re very drained, right now. You slept off the
night but not everything that’s happened so… sleep it off, okay? I-I’m right next door. If you need
me.” He finishes, taking a step back.

“ Okay.” Yoongi replies, taking in the scent of the clothes. “Are you- Are you sure me staying in
this room is ok?” He asks while Sam thinks about how no one except him has been inside this
room in years, about how the one-time Matthew mistakenly mistook it for the bathroom when he
was drunk and Sam had completely lashed out at him. “I mean- me staying at all? You really-”

“ Yoongi.” Sam cuts in, lip caught between his teeth. Yoongi stops talking, hugging the clothes to
his chest

“ Y-yes?”

When Sam doesn’t say anything, Yoongi looks up at him.

“ I’m not willingly letting you leave anytime soon.”

Sam blushes. Yoongi smiles.

“ Okay.” The pianist agrees. “ Good.” He adds.

“ Good.” The singer’s hands are crossed on top of the doorframe, his arms supporting his weight
as he sways back and forth.

God, he’s huge.

“ G-g’night Sam.” Yoongi says before he does anything another few hours of sleep could make
him regret.
Sam looks at him with a restrained look clouding his eyes, and Yoongi knows exactly what it is.
That’s why he pulls away, hand on the door as Sam takes a step back, his arm swaying at his side.

“ Night Yoongi.”

“ Fuck.”

“ Shit, fuck, fuck me, god, fuck me.”

One thing Sam forgot to tell Yoongi was the walls are thin in this house, being cheap and all,
very, very thin. So every time Yoongi plops on the bed next door, rolling from side to side and
cursing beneath his breath, Sam can hear him. The singer takes his shirt off, abs upon abs rippling
with the contraction of his arms, tanned body gold and blue under the moonlight. He falls on his
bed, face up, trying to sustain his stupid, smiling face while listening to the swearing arising from
next door, until it stops, and there’s a knock on his door.

“ Fuck.” Yoongi swears, looking at himself in the mirror. “Fuck, fuck me, god, fuck me.”

The thing with Yoongi is, he doesn’t wear other people’s clothes. Ever. They’re always too big,
too long, they fall off his shoulders, and he just overall looks like a right mess.

He looks like that now, too, don’t get him wrong.

But it… it kind of feels…

He takes the collar of the long sleeved white shirt, and buries his head in it, inhaling the warm
scent of paint and childhood sweets. God, this smells a little familiar.

He thinks he hears himself moaning, he’s not too sure. But all Yoongi knows is that he’s utterly,
utterly fucked. The sleeves hang a good few inches down his hands, the collar slipping around his
collarbones, but god, it feels so fucking right. The sweatpants were too big. No matter how many
times he rolled them around the waist, around the ankles, they just fell right back down. So
Yoongi stands there, hugging himself in Sam’s ocean of a white shirt, pant-less and smiling,
smiling, smiling.

“ God, Yoongi, you’re pathetic.” He reprimands into the floor length mirror, and then he looks
around. The mirror is fixed onto the rectangular door of a white, French armoire, with intricate,
curving hand carvings around the domed top, and the tiny feet. Next to the wardrobe is a low
table, a white chair tucked into it, s single perfume and a few items of cosmetics neatly arranged in
a little group next to the mirror. The bed behind him is white, a yellow throw covering it, a long,
wooden lamp and its lampshade on it’s right, and a little two door drawer on its left. Yoongi goes
towards the drawer, opening the first door.

He doesn’t know what he expects. Condoms? Maybe?

Lube?

But he opens the door and his hand comes into contact with a worn, leather book cover.

A Bible.

“Little church boy.” Yoongi whispers, opening the bible, gasping as he finds hundreds upon
hundreds of little marker stickers, stuck to different pages, each little arrow head pointing at a
different verse. They’re all different colors, but yellow between them is scarce.

Yoongi flips the bible to the yellow-marked pages.

Psalm 147:3

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”

Yoongi’s heart pangs.

Pangs because the little arrows are old, bent at the places they mark the book as if they’ve been
opened many times.

1 Samuel 16:7

“ But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have
rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things human beings look at. People look at the
outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."
Yoongi’s heart tightens and tightens.

Psalm 27:10

“Though my mother and father forsake me, the LORD will receive me.”

Yoongi stops.

He looks around the room he assumes to belong to Sam’s mother. At how ordered it is, the dust
patterns in places where they would be forming if the room was uninhabited.

“They… They’re never home.”

Yoongi thinks of his own mom. How… How this entire night, with Sam, with Sam holding his
hand, with Sam’s chest against his head, he’d forgotten, he’d forgotten the pain, the betrayal, the
hurt. A boy with a whole ocean worth of pain of his own, made Yoongi forget his.

Yoongi isn’t wearing pants, no. The shirt reaches mid-thigh, the sleeves are too long on him, his
hair is messy, his eyes are a little bit swollen from how long he slept on the sofa, overall he’s half-
naked and probably a sight to behold, but he still runs. He runs, throws the door open, naked feet
sliding down the wooden floors, and then he’s here, he’s here and –

‘ I’m gonna knock, I’m gonna knock-”

Sam opens the door before he can.

They both don’t know exactly what they’re doing. They don’t even have a vague clue. But Sam is
shirtless, and- well, Sam is shirtless. That’s the problem and the solution. Yoongi loses count of
the number of protrusions on Sam’s abdomen after around eight.

The wind from Sam’s open window hits Yoongi’s thigh and Sam’s eyes trail down to Yoongi’s
naked, white legs, not a scar, not a bruise, not a blemish in sight. Then he looks at the expanse of
Yoongi’s neck, collarbones sharp and long against his shirt, one sleeve falling down a smooth,
ivory shoulder.

Yoongi looks at him with a question in his eyes. Sam looks at him with an answer in his.

Someone is moving, someone takes the first step, someone makes the next one, and Yoongi is
propelling himself forward, into Sam’s embrace, and like he will always be, like he always was,
Sam is there to catch him. Sam’s hands are under Yoongi’s thighs, each hand holding the entire
mass of flesh in just a span of a palm, Yoongi’s hands locked behind Sam’s neck. A door is
closing, Yoongi is pressed against it, and then their foreheads are married again, their lips breaths
away, and Sam stops, just for a moment, holds Yoongi’s entire weight with one arm as he brings
the other one to his face.

And then they’re kissing.

And then Sam kisses him.

Sam’s bottom lip curves beneath Yoongi’s own, top lip curled above it, the former licking around
the pianist’s mouth like an uncertain kitten, too gentle for how hot his hands feel on Yoongi’s
naked thighs.

The pianist takes Sam’s chin in his hand, bites into his top lip, and the growl Sam sends his way
has Yoongi trembling under his warm hands, his knees giving out. Sam chuckles, holding him
back up as his lips pucker, sucking on the tip of Yoongi’s tongue as the pianist tries to say
something, whining when Sam’s mouth doesn’t let up.

“ S-Sammy..” Yoongi whimpers, even his mouth dwarfed by Sam’s, and god, he’s never felt so
exhilaratingly small, small and safe, and held, taken, taken, taken,

“ Baby…” Sam whispers, kissing Yoongi’s jaw, kissing Yoongi’s cheek, his forehead, his closed
eyes, leaving the imprint of his lips everywhere, because god forbid Yoongi’s face ever forgets the
shape of Sam’s lips, the wetness of Sam’s tongue, the warmth of his mouth. “Gorgeous,” He
chants, kissing the curve of Yoongi’s neck, butterfly kisses leading down to the dip between his
clavicles. “ Fucking beautiful.….” He compliments, breathless, lips opening to suck on Yoongi's
skin.“ /this okay?” He asks soflty before making a mark on Yoongi’s neck, eyes glassy, his teeth
grazing the white of Yoongi’s neck. A nod from the pianist has Sam biting down, soft, then hard,
and Yoongi can’t take it, he truly, completely, can’t take it. Sam is naked, bare, and beautiful
around Yoongi’s form, and the pianist wants nothing more than to feel skin, skin, skin, beneath his
hands. He wants nothing more than to rip the barriers between and around.

To take it off, off, off.

“ Fucking gorgeous.” Sam admires, worshiping him like he does his lord, and it’s his church boy
aesthetic that really messes with Yoongi’s head, because someone who loves God as Sam does is
adoring Yoongi like he’s a religion.

“ Fuck,” Yoongi moans, lightheaded from Sam’s praise, dizzy from banging his head against the
door every time Sam bites down. “ Bed- bed, please-”

“ You sure?” Sam asks, voice muffled as his lips scent themselves on the lobe of Yoongi’s ear,
teeth biting down on the shell just as Yoongi unhinges his ankles from Sam’s back and falls down
against the door, steadying himself with a hand trying to fist Sam’s shirt but coming into contact
with hard, golden skin, forgetting that he isn’t wearing one.

Yoongi takes his hand, twirling them around, walking backward, the back of his knees hitting the
bed, Sam following him as he falls on his back, the singer mounting him as they maneuver up the
bed. It’s a king size, and with Sam over him, Yoongi feels impossibly little.

Sam is above him, legs on either side of Yoongi’s thighs, hands on his Yoongi’s hips, fingertips
gently inching his shirt upwards, and Yoongi should be scared, but just as he even thinks of it,
Sam stops exposing his stomach, and his lips dive in for the belt of skin he’s revealed. All Yoongi
is wearing beneath the shirt is boxers, and the sharp of his hipbones feel divine beneath Sam’s
grazing teeth.

The singer lays butterfly kisses from one hipbone to the other, his thumbs fingering the waistband
of Yoongi’s boxers, inching inside and out, Yoongi wriggling, his back arching and his fingers
finding safety in the locks of Sam’s golden hair, carding through them with glee as Sam mewls
and hums in satisfaction over him.

“ Kiss- kiss me-” Yoongi begs, pulling Sam’s hair.

“ I am, baby, I-

“ Here,” Yoongi points at his lips.“ Here, please.”

The singer leaves Yoongi’s stomach wet and blooming forget me nots, blue and pink against
The singer leaves Yoongi’s stomach wet and blooming forget me nots, blue and pink against
white.

He rises, watching Yoongi’s mouth fall open for him.

“ God, forgive me.” He apologizes, glancing upwards, at his lord whom he does'nt think would
approve of this pretty, naked boy beneath his hands, and then he dives in, taking Yoongi’s hands,
lost in his hair, putting them over his head, locking them under one of his own hands, arms
stretching on either side of his black head of hair, before taking Yoongi’s jaw, fingering his
bottom lip down, and claiming his mouth once again.

“ Fuck,” Yoongi whines. “Fuck, Sammy, fuck.”

“ You sound so fucking pretty,” Sam tells him, kissing his forehead, down the bridge of his nose,
biting the tip, licking his cupid’s bow. “ You know that?” He whispers against Yoongi’s lips as
the pianist’s hands struggle with Sam’s hold on them.

“ I a-am pretty.” Yoongi whimpers, his lips searching for Sam’s again, head lifting from the bed
when Sam pulls away to look at him.

“ God,” Sam groans. “ God, you are,” He agrees, the hand that’s not holding Yoongi’s wrists
imprinting the shape of his thumb on Yoongi’s cheekbone, caressing all the whites and blacks of
his beautiful face. “ You’re so fucking pretty, kitten.”

“ Kitten,” Yoongi repeats, his eyes shutting as Sam marks his neck again.

God, everyone is going to know who Yoongi belongs to, for weeks, for months on end.

“ Kitten,” Sam praises, tasting the word in his mouth. “ You like that?”

“ Fuck,” Yoongi whines, turning his head away, Sam’s grip on his wrists hardening him beneath
his boxers.

“I’m embarrassed.” Yoongi says quietly, curling into himself. Sam unplasters their bodies, sitting
up.

“ Why?” He asks immediately. “ Yoongi?”

The pianist manages to sit up, positioning himself against the headboard as sam sits on his heels in
frtonf of him.
“ I jus’ am.” He reiterates as Sam comes and sits next to him, both of their legs bent, arms locked
around their knees.

“ Yoongi?” Sam says after a few moments of silence.

Yoongi hides his face in his folded arms.

“ Yeah?”

Sam doesn’t skip a bit.

“ Do you wanna sit on my lap?”

Yoongi chokes on his sleeve, eyes blown wide as he turns his head side ways.

“ Do I… want to…sit on your…”

“ Lap,” Sam finishes for him. “ Yes.”

“ I…”

“ Baby come sit on my lap.”

Yoongi buries his face in the little crater he’s made for himself in the gap between his thighs and
his knees, his arms hiding him from Sam.

The singer waits.

After a few moments, Yoongi makes a little noise and uncurls himself, bringing his knees under
him and sitting on his heels. Sam smiles as Yoongi makes his way over, putting one leg around
Sam’s bent knees, then the other.

“ How does that feel?” Sam asks him.

“ G-good?”

“ Is that a question?”

“ I’m embarrassed, dumbass.” Yoongi retorts, hiding his face in Sam’s chest. The singer’s hands
come around to play with Yoongi’s hair, and the pianist is gone, he’s gone, gone, gone, and there
is no way he could ever want anything else.

“ Why?” Sam asks, a little hurt leaking through his voice.

“ You’re so…big.” Yoongi says in awe, looking at Sam without craning his neck for once now
that they’re eye level.

“ I am,” Sam forfeits. “ Is that what’s making you embarrassed?”

“ No that- that’ just an observation.” Yoongi corrects, his fingertips tentative against Sam’s chest.
The singer adjusts Yoongi’s position on his legs, and their arousals brush, Sam hard and long in
between Yoongi’s clothed asscheeks, and they both let out long, drawn out moans, chuckling
when they manage to blush in synch.“ Are you…” Yoongi starts, biting his lip. “ Are you this
big…everywhere?”

Sam’s grip on Yoongi’s hips stiffen, his face comes closer, jaw ticking the valley of Yoongi’s
neck as he bites

Yoongi’s ear, whispering-“ Why don’t you feel for yourself?”- before his grip on Yoongi’s waist
tightens more and he’s rolling their hips together. Sam watches Yoongi’s eyes roll back in content,
pushing his cock deeper between Yoongi’s clothed cheeks. The pianist holds onto Sam’s
shoulders, rolling his hips experimentally, his eyes closed, hair wet with sweat over his face, his
lips open, little gasps escaping every time their clothed members are pushed together.

“ Hngh,” He mumbles, incoherence and kitten whimpers spilling from his mouth in a broken
stream. “ Fuck, I-”

Sam feels heat coiling in his stomach, lashing the more Yoongi ruts against him.

“ Sammy- I-“ Yoongi gasps, quickening his pace, eyes unfocused and hazy as his lips latch onto
one of Sam’s nipples, his hands clawing Sam’s shoulders for support. “I think-”
“ F-fuck,” Sam swears. “ M-me too-“

“ We should-”

“ Probably stop-”

“ Too fast-“ Yoongi adds.

“ Right?” Sam agrees, and yes, they’re going to be responsible about this.

“ Hngh,” Yoongi moans as Sam’s hand curls around his neck.

“ Here,” The singer Says, holding Yoongi’s face before they come all over themselves. “ Look at
me.” Sam directs, kissing Yoongi’s jaw, licking him back to consciousness. They lazily roll
against each other, kissing and biting until one of them pulls away, their jaws red and their lips
bruised.

“ So…” Sam breathes, chastely kissing Yoongi. “ Am I that big everywhere?”

Yoongi glares at him.

“ Shut up,” He reprimands, biting Sam’s jaw. “Dumbass.” Yoongi swears, hitting Sam’s chest, not
noticing the love-struck look the singer is fixing him with as he rests his head against Sam’s chest
once again, and decides this is his favorite position, this is going to be his favorite place to be, to
breathe, to be held, right here, on Sam’s chest, larger than life, feeling small, but big, big enough
for someone to care about him like this.

“ Why are you embarrassed, Yoongi?” Sam finally asks. Yoongi’s head creeps up, the pianist
sitting down.

“ C-cause…” He stutters, pondering. “ I’m totally losing it and we barely know anything about
each other.”

Sam smiles at him, shaking his head.

“ I’m Sam.” He says. “Samuel Ellis.”

Yoongi deadpans, but smiles at the revelation of his full name.

“ What are you doing?” He asks, sitting further back, Sam’s fingers drawing circles on either side
of his hips, his hands slightly tucked into Yoongi’s shirt so that the pianist can feel his hands
against his skin.

“ Just,” Sam stresses, ruffling Yoongi’s hair. “ Go with it.”

Yoongi looks at him, dubious.

“ Yoongi Min…” He hesitantly says. “ Well- Min Yoongi, in Korea we, it’s the other way
around, cause… you know…”

“ I…” Sam breathes, unable to contain his smile. “ I don’t, but that’s pretty cool, Min Yoongi.” He
compliments to Yoongi’s blushing dismay; then, he takes Yoongi’s face in his hand, “ Now
c’mere.” And kisses him.

Yoongi gets the message when the kiss is small, chaste and Sam reveals another fact straight after
it.

“ I’m sixteen.” Sam says.

“ Fifteen.”

And then they kiss again.

Yoongi giggles, Sam’s hands travelling further inside his shirt, spanning the length of his bare
spine. Yoongi shivers beneath his fingertips, back arching away from Sam, head falling back, but
Sam’s hand is ready to curl around his neck, and bring their faces together again.

“ January first, 1993.”

“ March ninth, 1994.”

Sam smiles, kissing him. “You’re younger.”

“ As if that wasn’t already obvious.” Yoongi complains, biting Sam’s jaw again.

This kitten behavior will truly be the death of him.

“ Just a baby through and through aren’t you? There’s gonna be three months every year where
I’m technically gonna be two years older than you.”

“ Shut up.” Yoongi warns, realizing he’s right. “Kiss me.”

“ I already have.” Sam corrects. “Next fact.”

“ Fuck you.” Yoongi swears, diving for his lips just as Sam dodges.

“ Mm,” The singer hums, cocking up a brow, the picture of doubtfulness. “ You think you
could?”

Yoongi gasps in disbelief, hitting his chest.

“ Shut up, asshole.” Sam doesn’t let him breathe before kissing him, making Yoongi hold his next
breath until the singer detaches their mouths and speaks against his lips.

“ I dropped out of high school.”

“ Mm,” Yoongi mumbles. “ You’re smart for that, I go to the ArKe.”

“ You” Sam pulls away. “The ArKe?”

“ My uh-“ Yoongi thinks about whether he should say this. “My best friend k-kinda? Owns it?”
“ I have a very important question.” Sam immediately proposes.

Yoongi stiffens at his strange tone, nodding for him to go on.

“ Will you be my sugar daddy?”

Yoongi bursts out laughing, giggling against Sam’s torso as Sam looks at him, very serious about
his proposition.

“ We would be the weirdest sugar daddy and sugar baby on the block,” Yoongi comments. “
Your hand is bigger than my ass.”

“ Hm,” Sam hums, his hands going from Yoongi’s spine out of his shirt and onto his underwear,
cupping Yoongi’s cheeks. “I- wouldn’t be so sure baby.” He teases, churning Yoongi’s ass in his
hands as the pianist bites his lips, trying to stop himself from giving Sam the satisfaction.

“ Are you fondling my ass, Samuel Ellis?” He questions, hand slamming on Sam’s chest when
Sam’s hands travel beneath the hem of his underwear’s leg holes, the singer’s forefinger and
thumb on each hand making two V’s, fitting into the junctions between Yoongi’s stomach and his
legs.

“ And what if I am?” Sam purrs, rolling their hips together again.

“ Just making sure.” Yoongi sings back, biting his lip to keep himself quiet, but not for long.
Sam’s plan backfires and he feels the familiar heat coming back, just with a few rolls of their hips.

God, he’s not going to last with Yoongi at all.

“ You wanna be in that band forever?” Yoongi asks

“ Yeah, wanna make a name for myself, you know?” Sam replies, nuzzling his head in Yoongi’s
neck.“ What do you do?”

“ I want to be a concert pianist.”

“ Yeah?” Sam leads on, because of course someone with hands as beautiful as that is destined to
do something great, “Are you any good?”

“ Hm,” Yoongi smiles ruefully. “I dabble.”

“ That’s not an answer.” Sam says.

“ Then you’ll just have to wait and see.”

“ Does that mean you’re still going to be here when I wake up in the morning?” Sam asks, a sad
look overcoming his face. “You’re not going to run away?”

Yoongi looks at him, really looks at him, like he did the first time he realised his eyes were ringed
with gold, and says:

“ I’m never going to run away again.”

It’s in the darkest hours of the day, when nightfall has descended and the moon shines proudly,
when Yoongi’s leg is thrown over Sam’s, the latter’s hand is caressing the softness of Yoongi’s
thigh, and the pianist is fitted into Sam’s chest; when Sam’s arm is beneath Yoongi’s head, and his
hand is around Yoongi’s shoulder, when Sam is caressing his hair, when Yoongi feels unlike he’s
ever felt before, and the warmth of Sam’s chest is leaking the sadness out of Yoongi, onto their
bed sheets, melting it into gold, when Yoongi is sleeping and Sam is not, because he can’t waste a
moment not looking at Yoongi’s face when this is the moment his whole life has led up to, that
Sam whispers:

“ I’m going to make you so fucking happy, okay?”

And he did.

Sam did.

They were happy. They were happier than anyone should ever be allowed. Thy were happier than
 Moonchildren have been for eons. Sam made Yoongi happiest. For three and a half years, for a
period of time that resembled the beginnings of infinity, this bottomless concept that we talk of but
could never really grasp, for one thousand two hundred and seventy-five days, from the first day
of fall to the first day of spring, Sam made Yoongi happy.

And then they took him away.

And then they took him away.

Chapter End Notes

Uh...how was it? was it ok? idk i havent gotten feedback on this from anyone this
time I wanted it to be a total suprise. And that was a whole one shot in itself, well
done for getting through it. Sorry if you cried? I mean i damn well hope you did haha
I had a whole panic attack or two writing this.

Okay, so I finally made a spotify playlist or rather i made a new acount because i'd
used my real email on the old one. The songs are very lyrically important, so just
keep that in mind if the song choices seem strange at times.

Y'all just, come scream at me tumblrok, I like talking to people.

Also, if you're not following the moonchildren tumblr? what are y'all doing? I made it
but i must say, especially on pc the visual references are uh...gold.
hismoonchild
there's the tumblr people, the porn is tasteful and plenty, cause im a classy bitch

i rlly hope u liked that chapter :////

also comments fuel my soul obviously, so even if u wanna keyboard smash u

keyboard smash, i'll appreciate it either way. writing is my entire life, its not patiularly
the reception that drives me, but encouragemnt or even constructive criticism is
always wonderful
also, Im actually writing a novel? that i want to publish along side this, i have been
writing it for around four years, so i need to fix myself an update scheudle, i dont
know if I'll be able to update every week if im going to be writing chapters this long,
but i will update you on that soon. At least you wont have to wait four months again.

also oof sorry that whole chapter was double spaced i forgot ao3's weird? uh layout
thing after not posting for 4 months.

anyways,
fuck im gonna post rn and im so nervous my heart is beating so fast what if theres a
spelling mistake in the middle of a rlly intense part fuck me
ok
cool
love, charli
 Stranger Boys
Chapter Notes

There will be a weekly update schedule she said. There will be a weekly update
schedule from july she said.
Well. It's september so. That obviously didnt
happen,,aha,,,aha,,,,ahahahahahahahahahhahahahah.
okay. thats enough.

HOWEVER.

This is 64k words. That is basically the equivelant of the first 8 chapters of
moonchildren and I fEEL like that is some sort of consolation although i shat this out
mostly in the last week or so.
So life's shit but this is just a lot of porn idek why this chapter exists tbh, linking in the
songs probably took me longer than reading the actual chapter.

you should rlly listen to the classical pieces to get a vibe for [redacted] redacted], one
of those words is orgy, but like idk some of them are quite long and time is passing
differently in the story obviously.

I'll try? to update more regularly but honestly does depression and non-stop failure let
me? no.

however there are scenes in this chapter which i have been thinking about writing for
a VERY long time so. at least that's out of the way.
This might seem like a lot of emotional sexual jumbo mumbo (which it is) but uh
character development i suppose peeps.
Also i feel like i should give a slight warning.

Blood drinking. That's it, that's the warning.

uh also i wrote all of the action scenes to: this which is the film version of the car
chase scence in black panther which i NUTTED to. Yes i've only just watched it
because it came out during exams and i've only been to the cinema for one film in the
past ten years which was call me by your name whiCH BY THE WAY? you guys
should watch and read because my writing style has kinda been influenced by the
book and theres a reference in this chapter so. yeeet. go watch it and read it you wont
regret it 10/10 *chef ksis galore*

That version of the remix is kinda like creaky? idk how to say it because they havent
released the film version so for a better quality during literally any fight scene i write
you can listen tor
this version because god all of em are such big nuts im nuttin.

okay so uh what else.

Oh, here are Sam's band:
Matty
Gabriel
And uh Joseph's inspired by someone irl but like I saw this shit and like,,, you already
know what went on. Ji Chang Wook is joseph and I don't take constructive critism
thanks. did i just spell critisism wrong? probably lmfao. did i do it twice?
 anyway.
There's four people including Sam if that wasnt obvious.
Okay so I'm not going to promise an update schedule but I will tell you that I'm going
to university next year instead of this year because of visa issues so? I'll probably? Be
able to write more regularly than I have until now but anyway. also for those of you
who saw my entire life update among other things that i posted like on my birthday or
something I am SO sorry that was supser tmi and unnecessary anyway, everything in
that turned to shit in the past few months so that doesnt even matter. ANYWAY. I
did screenshot and save all of your comments so thank you so much for everything
you said I'm sorry I couldnt reply.
So yes. Here it is, I suppose.
Fingers crossed.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Six months ago

“ When will you have this done by, Joon?”

“ It’s hard to convince them all by myself, Taehyung. You’re asking a bunch of billionaires to
declare bankruptcy.”

“ And the black book? They know about it?”

“ They do. It did scare the shit out of most of them, but they want you to go over there, man.”

“ They want me to go around the world threatening them with my own mouth? Do I look like I
need a fucking hobby or something?”

“ This is three hundred years of Legacy, Taehyung.”

“ I guess this means you have some flights to book.”

“ Flights for two?”

“ Jimin isn’t coming.”

“ Taehyung I…”

“ You know why I can’t take him.”

“ Flights for one, then?”

“ Try to spread it out. I need a fucking break.”

“ How long do you want to be gone for?”

“ Five months, I guess? As long as possible.”

“ And Jimin will be okay with that? You’ll be okay with being away that long?”

“ I guess we’ll have to manage, won’t we?”

“ Are you sure about this? Are you sure it’s gonna work?”

“ It’s gonna fucking have to. There’s only so much I can take and I can’t take it anymore. This
has to work, Joon. For the kids, for Jimin, for Jin, for Yoongi, for all of us.”

_______________

Two days ago

The knock comes around dawn, jolting Jungkook awake. He’d fallen asleep playing games on the
sofa again, another night spent in Taehyung’s company, in the four walls of the man’s hospital
room.

It’s easier to fall asleep here, he’s realised, sedated by the ruffling of Taehyung’s movements
behind him, the slide of photographs against each other as he ponders over the puzzle on his bed.
Jungkook looks back to see Taehyung assuring him that it’s nothing, the older man stumbling
towards the door with half-lidded eyes.

“ They left this for you at the front desk, Mr Kim.” The stranger at the door says. “You told us we
should-”

“ Yes, don’t worry,” Taehyung assures. “ That’s fine.” He adds, thanking the man, and taking the
parcel in hand. Jungkook can’t see him from here, peering over only to be met with the blues of
the darky lit-room and the vague outline of Taehyung’s still form.

“ Everything okay?” Jungkook asks.

“ Yes.” He hears, eyes heavy. “Everything’s fine.”

Taehyung waits for Jungkook to fall asleep, listening for the steadying of his breath. When his
breathing finally evens out, Taehyung sets the box on the bed with tired hands. It’s white,
wrapped in red ribbon, medium sized.

An envelope sits on top of it, labelled Kim Taehyung in refined, cursive writing.

He opens it, slipping out a piece of paper.

It’s a Christmas card.

And all that it has written inside is:

An early gift of sorts.

P.S. Don’t cry, I’m not there to see it.

Merry Christmas, Kim Taehyung

Taehyung’s fingers pinch the ribbon, pulling on the end, crimson sliding off of the cream coloured
box smoothly. His fingers curl into the lid of the box, and he pulls it off.

A camera phone.

Taehyung presses the middle button, and-

He turns it off.

With wet eyes he looks towards a sleeping Jungkook, then he clutches the camera phone in hand,
reaching shakily to his bedsides for his earphones, and he walks out, slowly at first, then faster. He
comes to the door, pressing down on the handle, shutting it behind him, and collapsing against the
frame on the other side. Taehyung holds the phone to his pounding chest, his fingers quivering,
pressing the headphone jack into the bottom of the phone, trying, and failing, trying and failing,
until his tenth attempt -through blurry vision and unsteady hands- the jack pushes in, clicking into
place. Taehyung turns the phone around, presses the home screen, sees the first frame of the
video, and looks away.

There are few nurses roaming the corridors during the graveyard shift, and they leave him alone,
having already been warned regarding his status.

Taehyung puts the earbuds in, pressing the phone against his trembling chest, and he presses play.

It’s a dark video. It might not even be him. But it is. Taehyung knows how Jimin looks kneeling
down. He knows the angle Jimin’s head makes when he’s looking up at him, taking his cock into
his mouth. He knows the curve of Jimin’s spine better than he knows the panes of his own hands.

And there he is. The video taken from above, probably from a camera fixed to the righ-hand
corner of the ceiling, pointing downwards at Jimin’s kneeling, naked form. Well, nearly naked.

He’s wearing boy shorts. Soft, baby blue, silk, boy-shorts panties, kneeling down, chain tight
around his neck, blonde hair wet against his forehead as he takes the stranger’s cock into his
mouth, the right side of the frame cutting off at the man’s head.

“ You like that Jiminie? You like daddy’s cock in your mouth?”

A man who isn’t Taehyung.

Taehyung gags, stumbling up. He runs left, then right, then left again, the location of the public
bathrooms lost to him. He’s throwing open the WC doors minutes later, knees sliding against the
wet floor as he heaves himself into a bathroom stall, and he vomits.

And he vomits.

And he vomits.
And he vomits.

He doesn’t stop throwing up. Not until maybe an hour later, his stomach doubling over in ten
minute intervals, until all he feels in his mouth is the sick, wretched acidic aftertaste of puke.

Taehyung holds up the camera phone, pressing play.

Jimin looks up at the man with tears in his eyes, and from this far away Taehyung can’t tell what
kind of tears they are, but the words that come out of Jimin’s mouth are enough an indication on
their own.

“ Y-yes.” He moans, gagging on the man’s length. “L-love daddy’s cock in my mouth.”

“ You like it better than that bastard Kim’s cock in your mouth, boy?” The man’s voice is
distorted, barely understandable, but Jimin’s? Jimin’s little pants are loud, sickeningly familiar to
Taehyung’s ears.

“ Y-yes. Y-yes, I- I-”

Taehyung stops the video, looks at the date on the bottom right hand corner, at the colour of
Jimin’s golden hair, at his build.

This was taken during the five months Taehyung was away.

This was taken during the five months he was away.

The phone slips out of Taehyung’s hands as he empties himself into the toilet again.

It takes all of three hours for him to watch the full video, which is only three minutes long.

And when he’s done, Taehyung sobs.

Taehyung sobs.

________________

Yesterday

“Taehyung, are you alright?”

He blinks, the room coming into focus.

“ I’m perfectly fine, sorry.” He apologises. He’s lying on a four-seater sofa, a woman sitting next
to him. The name tag blinking at them from the other side of the room, sitting on a large desk,
reads Doctor Tamila Young, the certificates framed along the wall next to it reading Harvard
School of Medicine, another with Harvard School of Psychiatry, and a third with Harvard school
of Psychology staring back at him as he lays his head on the headrest again.

“ You zoned out,” Tamila observes. “ What were you thinking about?”

“ Have we started already?” Taehyung teases with a grin, massaging his eyes even though he
knows she’ll pick up on it.
“ I’m not your therapist, Kim Taehyung.” She objects. “ I’m your friend.”

“ But here we are doing a psych eval.” Taehyung points out, glancing at the clipboard in her hand,
Tamila sitting to his left on a low, leather chair.

“ You asked for this. We’ve been doing this for five years now.”

“ I know I did, I’m sorry.”

Taehyung shuts his eyes, tendrils of sunlight warming his grey skin, leaking through the cream
shutters.

“ What were you thinking about?”

“ Jimin.” Taehyung replies, truthfully.

“ How long has he been away?”

Taehyung opens his eyes, glancing at his watch, then closing them again.

“ Twenty days, three hours and forty minutes. Forty one now.”

Tamila shakes her head, but smiles anyway.

“ And when did you start counting?”

“ Our last kiss.” Taehyung replies with a tone of finality. And after a long pause, Tamila says:

“Word association.”

“ My favourite.” He sings with a sigh.

“ Ready?”

“ Always.” Taehyung assures, smiling. He counts down the seconds to when he knows she’ll
start…three, two-

“ Taehyung.”

“ Self.”

“ Boy.”

“ Man.”

“ Blood.”

“Water.”

“ Family.”

He hesitates.

“ Blood.”

“ Gun.”
“ Life.”

“ Death.”

“ Sam.”

It’s Tamila’s turn to hesitate.

“ Father.”

“ Bastard.”

“ Mother.”

“ Oblivion.”

“ Empire.”

“ Legacy.”

“Criminal.”

“ Me.”

“Children.”

“Naïve.”

“Duty.”

“ Children.”

“ Brother.”

“ Sister.”

“ Seokjin.”

“ Coward.”

“Jin.”

“ Dad.”

“ Jimin.”

“ Everything.”

“ Betrayal.”

Taehyung sits up, opens his eyes, and looks at her.

“ Jimin.”

“ Is that really your answer?” She asks him, pen hitched onto the paper, wavering.

“ Are we done?” Taehyung asks.

“ Did you fill in the form?”

The boy takes out a file from the bag sitting next to the sofa, and hands it to her, sitting up. Tamila
reads through it silently, flipping the pages gently, coming to an end maybe ten minutes later.

“ Three hours of sleep a week?” She asks calmly, though Taehyung knows she is nowhere near
the level of composure she’s feigning.

“ Sometimes two.” He hits back with a grin.

“ The nightmares you’ve written about, are they nightly?”

“ Uh huh.”

Taehyung should probably take this more seriously. But something about Tamila always brings
out the child in him. The careless.

“ And you don’t take the pills I prescribed?” She questions, Taehyung settling back into the
cushions, folding his legs over the sofa, putting his chin in the gap between his knees, looking up
at Tamila sweetly.

“ You expect me to run an empire on antidepressants?”

“ I sure as hell don’t expect you to run it on cocaine.”

“ Ah…” Taehyung whispers, blushing. He didn’t think she’d know.

“ Taehyung your psych evaluation is a mess. They wouldn’t even accept you at Target, not to
mention in the high-risk environment you’re in right now.”

“ What do you want me to do Tamila?”

“ One short term trigger and you’re guaranteeing yourself a psychotic break, Taehyung, do you
understand me?”

Taehyung doesn’t, really.

And in all honesty? He doesn’t think he really cares.

___________________

Four Years ago

One year after the death of John Kim

Central Intelligence Headquarters

Langley, Virginia, McLean, Virginia, United States

“ Fucking dread this bit of the course.” A boy with a name tag spelling: S. Forster, comments
while the cadets around him, neatly piled into four rows of desks on either side of the classroom,
empty their tablets and engraved stationary onto the tables.

“ Huh?” He turns to the girl to his side, combing his fingers through jet-black strands, wetting his
hands in his gel-coated hair as he opens the first case file on the stack front of him, the pile of
folders mirrored on the desks of the fifteen other cadets sitting in the room.

“ I mean? This whole familiarisation bullshit?” He explains, opening and closing the files one by
one, slamming them onto the table like dirt. The one on top of the girl’s stack, neatly piled and
untouched, reads:

Hierarchical Familiarisation

Case file 3Bi

The Kempire: Associates

The girl looks at him sceptically, removing the first case file and opening it, the next one reading;

Hierarchical Familiarisation

Case file 3Bii

The Kempire: Structural Specifications

“ It’s the largest criminal organisation in the world, dumbass.” She whispers, looking at the door
before turning back to him. “ Of course they want us to be familiar with it.

“ Bullshit.” Forster swears, flipping through the Associates file, landing on a page boasting a
picture of two suited boys arriving at Met Gala of the previous year. “ Have you even seen the
course material?” He asks, scoffing. “ Just a bunch of pretty daddy’s bitches who have the CIA on
their payroll.”

The girl gasps, tapping his shoulder, mouth opening to speak before the boy shakes his head
again.

“ What are they? Like twelve? And they’re such a threat that the CIA has casefiles on who they
fuck and who they don’t? Isn’t that a bit extreme to you? And look at these numbers, this entire
institution is built on the money that the Kempire blows on bribery of Secret Intelligence, and it’s
not just the CIA- it’s-”

The girl, her name tag reading L. Garcia, looks more terrified with each word out of the boy’s
mouth, until eventually, Forster trails off, boasting a confused contortion of his sour face before he
realises how eerily silent the room is.

“ Is that what you believe, cadet?”

There is a collective intake of breath as those who hadn’t registered the presence of the newcomer
finally do, and a unanimous twisting of the neck turns half of the cadets’ faces to Forster, and the
finally do, and a unanimous twisting of the neck turns half of the cadets’ faces to Forster, and the
other half turns to the newest addition of their congregation.

Forster turns slowly, the fingers perched on the edge of the pages of the file slowly uncurling,
dropping into his lap as he comes face to face with-

“ Doctor Christian Woodlock, Deputy director of Targeting and Intelligence Collection Analysis
with the Directorate of Intelligence Offices. Mr…” The man peers his eyes at the boy’s name tag,
eyes travelling back upwards to land on his eyes. “Forster, is it?

The director is a tall, middle aged man, clean shaven, eyes a blue akin to a clear morning sky,
spectacles perched on the bride of a long, straight nose, cheekbones sitting proudly under
prominent eye bags. The dress shirt tucked into light grey pants is a few shades softer than his
eyes, a silver watch that looks almost too expensive for a man of his salary sits around his tanned
wrists. Around his ring finger is a strip of skin not as tanned as the rest, but pale enough to suggest
that a ring of sorts is regularly removed.

“ Y-yes Sir,” The boy squawks, bravado long replaced by regret. “Forster, Sean.”

“ I will be handling the Hierarchical Familiarization classes for the next three months, Mr.
Forster,” The deputy drawls, walking towards the front of the room, taking the remote control
siting on the desk into his hand. “ Do you think this is a waste of time?”

“ No Sir.” Forster quickly replies, straightening out his dress shirt under his open suit, spine
uncurling to straighten, hands folded atop one another on the desk.

“ Pretty…” The doctor purrs, twirling the remote in his hands once. “Daddy’s…bitches. Is that
so?”

“ Doctor Woodlock I-”

“ Miss Garcia?” The director cuts in, turning on the projector behind him.

“ Yes Sir.” The yellow haired cadet replies, sitting to attention, hands deftly scrambling to
straighten her pile of files, tucking hair behind her ears on both side of her face. The
announcement of her name dusts her cheeks in delicately youthful pink, her golden curls -shoulder
length- bouncing softly as she straightens, angled button nose and perched, upper lip glazed with
perspiration, and hazel eyes watching the director with an aching to impress.

“ You’ve been through the subject material for today, yes?” Garcia beams at the question, dusting
the files in front of her with rough, callused hands.

“Thoroughly, Sir.” She replies, eyes shifting to the screen lighting up to the Director’s left.

“ The people of interest on the agenda today are the people you see on the screen.” He
announces, giving a pointed look at Forster, then at the girl. “These three,” The man says, pointing
at the three black haired boys dispersed around a tall blond. “Go.”

Lillian Garcia looks at the screen, six people caught in an unsuspecting moment of chaos across a
stretch of rich grass, a modernised Victorian castle spanning the length of the backdrop behind
them.

Two of them, a girl and a boy, wear graduation caps, most of the rest in white uniforms, except
the one in the middle, the tallest of them, who is caped in gold, unruly blonde curls falling around
his face, holding on lovingly to the much shorter, black haired boy to his left, kissing the top of his
graduation cap while the one to their left, the only one not in uniform but instead suited in an
immaculate navy tuxedo, rolls his eyes at the probable couple. The girl, brown skin reflecting like
dark honey in the summer heat-struggling to fit her unruly hair inside the graduation cap-gets help
from two, much younger dark haired boys with hands latched inside her cap to pull it down.

The picture chills Garcia, slightly, and a cough from the director ushers her to turn her attention to
the far right, where the two boys in white uniforms are helping the girl with her graduation cap.

“ On the far right, Kim Taehyung, seventeen, grandson of the founder of La Pente, the largest
criminal organisation in the world by number of associates. The K Empire, or Kempire as it has
been recently popularised is a multinational conglomerate which serves as a ruse for the criminal
activities of La Pente. Let’s just say, the influence of The Kempire is so widespread that if they
were to declare bankruptcy, global domestic and criminal economy would be drawn into chaos.
Imagine Wall Street Crash, but global. Kim Taehyung is the current owner of the Kempire, after
John Kim’s passing just about a year ago. No heirs to his throne have been announced as of yet.
Net worth is unknown and currently unestimated, but his only known residence in the states, The
Kim Mansion in New York City, is valued at 1.5 billion dollars. He has an estimated IQ of 190.
Fluent in fifteen languages. Pressure points: John Kim, his father, deceased, Kim Seokjin, his
brother, Min Yoongi, child-hood best friend, and Park Jimin, his…lover.”

“ And him?” The director motions, pointing at the boy on the other side of the girl, slightly shorter,
baby fat still pouching his cheeks youthfully,

“ Park Jimin,” Garcia says, “ Also seventeen, known currently as the Prince of Espionage, or
rather more heavily popularized as The Little Prince after his entrance into the working levels of
the Kim Empire at age fifteen. His influence in the empire is predicted to be second only to Kim
Taehyung himself. In the three years that he has made a name for himself in the criminal
underworld, his skills have been utilized for the national security of their respective countries by
the CIA, the FBI, British Intelligence, Interpol, the SVR RF and North Korea. He has also been
privately consulted by eleven European prime ministers, the Queen of England, and the Iranian
Government. Net worth is unknown. Fluent in twenty-eight languages. Estimated IQ of 205.
Pressure points: Min Yoongi, Kim Taehyung.” The director ushers her to go on.

“ Yoongi Min, twenty, has spent a year inside a maximum security mental asylum after the death
of his fiancée, Samuel Ellis, two year ago, who is the blonde to his left. Diagnosed with severe
chronic depression at age eight. Four suicide attempts in the last ten years. Diagnosed with a rare
psychosomatic tremor in his hands following a car crash of reportedly non- sinister causes, which
happened last year. His family has handled the legalities of the Kim Empire for three centuries. IQ
of 177, attends Julliard school of Arts, passed the bar exam in the top 0,1% bracket in the country,
considered to be one of the greatest piano prodigies of the twenty first century. Fluent in English,
Korean, German, Italian, Latin, Japanese, and French. Pressure Points: cocaine, nicotine, opiates,
Samuel Ellis, deceased, Alexis Young, Joseph Carlisle, Kim Seokjin, Kim Taehyung, his mother,
Min Yeon A, deceased, his father, Min Ji Hoon, Park Jimin, Joseph Ellis, and Aileen Ellis. The
CIA is keeping an eye on his relationship with Jameson Thomas, who has been seen frequenting
his penthouse in Park Avenue for the past few months.”

“ And how many pressure points is that, Mr Forster?” The director asks with a curious smile.

The boy hesitates, before answering:

“ Fourteen, Sir.”

“ Fourteen pressure points.” The director sings back, walking towards the left side of the
projector, tapping Yoongi’s face with a smile. “ And if we toed any one of them…” He drawls,
walking in between the two rows of desks to come stand behind Forster, hands in his pockets, and
the shadow of his large frame falling over the boy against the blue light of the projector. “Our
friend here is bound to break instantly.” He whispers, leaning down to speak in the boy’s ear.
“Why do you think that it’s important for us to know that, Mr Forster?”

“ I…”

The director scoffs.

“ Do you know who assassinated Kennedy, Sean?”

The boy in question deadpans, wincing before replying:

“The…driver?”

There is a cacophony of restrained laughter in the room before the director uncurls to stand.

“ I see you’ve been busy with your conspiracy videos, Mr Forster.” The director teases, heading
back to the front of the room. “But no. It was the CIA.” The room is silent. “ Or more specifically.
It was a Kempire assassin.”

A tense wave ripples through the room. Forster quivers.

“ I don’t particularly care if this information leaves this room.” The director adds. “Why?” He
questions, rhetoric, as he pauses behind the stand on the right of the projector again. “Because no
one will believe you.”

Static echoes, still, unused pens sitting on rigid desks and a fifty-year-old secret weighing on frigid
spines.

The director takes a breath.

“ The Kempire is what it is today because they are the very best. Central intelligence has achieved
the dirtiest, most unconstitutional things you could possibly imagine, Mr Forster, because the
Kempire has covered our tracks for nearly a hundred years.” He continues, massaging his
forehead.

“ We want anything, we only need to, say? Make a hologram of Mr Min here’s dead fiancée, send
him knocking on the Park Avenue penthouse door-” He devises, pointing at the smiling face of
Samuel Ellis. “ And the Kempire is in the very palm of our hands.”

He changes to another picture.

The room stills.

“ These..” He states, clicking through the slideshow of beheadings, mutilations and

dismemberments. “ Are the bodies of every single associate of the Kempire that Taehyung Kim
has personally killed since his ascension to the throne.” The director explains, pausing. “Two
thousand, three hundred and sixty-seven people.” He articulates, flying through slide-show,
pausing between each picture, the white faces of the cadets turning grey the more progressively
gruesome the images become. “ Those are just the people he killed himself, and not without cause,
either.” The man assures, opening his own case file on the table.

Offices of foreign relations

Case file 4567A1: The Golden Rebellion

Casualties

“ Treason against his father, extortion of crime money, anyone who was involved in child
prostitution and trafficking ,” He begins to list, flipping through the pages, the rustling of the
papers against his fingertips the only sound in the room. “ Arms deals to non-approved countries,
anyone who was keeping personal slaves under forced contracts. Gone. Gone. Gone.” He
declares, flipping a page with every word, and then shutting the case file, slamming his hand on
the table. “ Banning child position and trafficking is going to cost the Kempire around nine
hundred million dollars on a yearly basis. Killing everyone who was involved cost him even more
in repercussions. He doesn’t have a problem doing…” He trails off, clicking the remote once
again, a human pyramid of skin and blood piled on the screen. “ With doing this,” The director
says, “ But the first thing he did when he came into power was try and find every single child’s
family, and send them back.” He finishes with a low breath.

“ Do you know why the CIA is terrified of Kim Taehyung, Mr Forster?” The director asks
without even looking at the boy in question as he turns the slide show to another picture, one of
six people inside a news article. “He’s a sociopath with a conscious, and an elite circle of friends
who could collectively infiltrate every single national and international secret on the face of the
earth.” The man points at the boy furthest to the left. “ That’s Namjoon, Kim.” He introduces. “IQ
of just under 200, won the fields medal at the age of twenty for his work on the geometrical theory
of chemotherapy.” Then, he points to the next man. “Hoseok, Jung, newly retired assassin,
formerly part of the elite team of ShadowK assassins, currently MIA. Highest kill count in both the
States and western Europe, the highest profile assassinations of the twentieth century have been
done by his predecessors and veteran ShadowK teams. ” He points to a strikingly handsome man
on Teahyung’s left. “Kim Seokjin, his brother, has 4 PHD’s at the age of twenty-one, in
Chemistry, Biology, Physics and Biomedicine. This older brother of Taehyung’s is so profoundly
secretive that his CIA file is only two pages long. While his brother’s?” He trails, turning to
Forster. “Well over five thousand pages.” He compares, beginning to pace between the walls on
either side of the projector.

“ How many people do you know of on this earth who have a circle of friends like Kim Taehyung
at the age of seventeen?” Woodlock asks, addressing the class. “How many people do you know
who are running the world’s largest and most structurally intricate criminal organisation before
they’ve even got the right to vote? He poses again, met with an awkward but reflective silence.

“ This teenager could assassinate the president of the United States on national television and get
away with it. Nuclear codes?” The Director questions, scoffing. “The Kim boy probably uses
them as a coaster for his morning coffee.”

The room is utterly still. Forster opens his mouth.

“ Director I-”

“ This familiarisation bullshit of yours is imperative to the CIA, cadet, because we are on their
payroll, yes, but they’re on ours too. And if one or the other has more dirt on the opposing party,
then balance needs to be created. That’s how the Kempire has maintained sustainable relationships
with Foreign Intelligence for the past hundred years, and the CIA would like it to remain that
way.” Doctor Woodlock enunciates with a sharpness to his tone that works in lieu of threat. “Kim
Taehyung and Park Jimin are two of the most dangerous individuals the CIA has come into
contact with. Their psych profiles resemble something that secret intelligence globally can only
ever try to achieve similar to in their agents. We have allowed their criminal activities not because
we are on their payroll, though the Kempire does fund a large proportion of Us military spending,
but under the conditions that we can have unrestricted access to most of their services.”

“Most?” A voice says from the back of the room.

“ Most.” Woodlock replies. He lets out a sigh before continuing.

“ To give you an idea of the roots of this relationships, I’ll mention that before the world wars, La
Pente had a very close association with the western governments. Eighty five percent of the
artillery used by the allied powers in the two world wars was provided and in fact, manufactured
by La Pente themselves. That association has persevered until today, but of course, it has adapted
in nature to the needs of both sides.

“ I want to ask you, Forster,” The Director says, addressing the young man with crossed arms,
leaning against the projector, his shadow casting obsidian across the images on the screen. “What
were you doing at eight years old?”

“ Sir?” Forster questions, raising a brow.

“ I’ll tell you what you were doing.” The deputy suggests. “You were still wetting the bed, still
afraid of the dark,” He lists in sing song manner, “Still crying on the first day of school. Am I
correct?” Forester’s question begs him to insist. “ Am I wrong, cadet? He’s not. He’s read each
cadet’s personal file twice beforehand.

“ N-no Sir.”

“ Not just you.” Woodlock reiterates by way of consolation. “Any of you. If you’re here now,
with the level of skill that you have acquired, you probably are because you decided to early on, at
twelve years old, or latest at sixteen.” He concludes, looking at each cadet in the face, counting
fifteen. Did he skip over one?

“ These two?” He questions, the missing face forgotten in an instance. “Kim Taehyung started
training for his role as heir at four, and Park Jimin not long after.”

The director turns his attention to the laptop, the keyboard clicks dissipating the tension in the
room as a black screen gives way to a play button. A video.

“ Following the Golden Rebellion which marked the change in leadership of the two empires, the
Kim boy released some archives to the CIA. We didn’t entirely know what to expect,” He reveals
with a dark chuckle, “ But it certainly wasn’t this. From the age of four, John Kim ensured that
former KGB agents worked closely in association with Taehyung’s training, and a few years later,
Maclieen D. Park, Park Jimin’s adoptive father, put his son through the same training regime as
the Kims. The Archive videos range from the ages of 4 to 12, because by then, they already knew
everything they needed.” The room waits.

The Director presses play.

The video begins split into two points of view in a large, open space, perhaps a warehouse, greys
and browns dominating the screen. In one half of the screen, ten tables sit centred and
perpendicular to the viewer, the lens placed on the vertical axis to the tables. A man stands just to
the left of other frame, tattoos crawling up his thick, pale neck, dressed in coordinated shades of
black. On each table sit a pile of objects concealed by a piece of grey fabric, rippling almost
purposefully over their ominous outlines.

The next half of the screen shows the view to the front of the tables, the frame centred as one
would see it standing between tables five and six. Nine targets stand from left to right, starting
from twenty feet away from the first table, and progressively getting further, wherein the ninth ring
of targets is plastered to the furthest wall from the camera.The strip of warehouse in front of the
tenth table, the one closest to the lens of the first frame, is empty. A voice over says:

“July 2001

Kim Taehyung, 31 11 97

Firearm Handling

Lesson 12

Objective: Live target”

Seventeen years ago

Taehyung, 4

A little black haired boy standing in all of his three feet glory comes to stand in front of the first
table, unaccompanied.

“ Good morning, Taehyung” The man says in heavy Russian.

“ Good morning, Alexei.” Answers the little boy in mirrored fluency, not looking at the man. The
tailored suit fitted to his body is too shiny under the warehouse lights, like it’s showing off, like it
knows something the little boy doesn’t. He unbuttons the suit as if he is two decades older than he
really is, the buttons sliding against nimble, scarred fingers. He throws the suit jacket onto an
eleventh table placed inconspicuously y next to the first, lower and smaller than the rest; he
pinches his right cuff, unhinges the golden cuff link -a beautiful, wild-maned lion- and moves onto
the left as the trinket chinks softly onto the table.

Then he takes his cuffs into his hands again, folding them crisply-once, twice- then rolls them to
just below his tiny elbows. A long scar has discoloured the skin of his left forearm. The white
dress-shirt framing his back is wet with the summer heat, and through it, long belts of bruises
colour the thin shirt in sickly purples and swamp greens.

“ Ready?” The man questions, in English this time. Taehyung gives him a firm nod. “ You’ll be
timed.” He mentions, accent heavy.

“ Of course.” The little boy replies.

Alexei takes out a stop watch from his pocket, hand wavering over the buttons.

“ Start.”

Alexei says start. I pinch the tip of the fabric, sliding it off the table.

Glock 17. 9 mm. Standard self-defence firearm. Used widely by law enforcement.

Thirty-four components.

By the time I’ve listed this, I’ve removed the magazine. The slide of the metal against the frame
makes me wince, or it did, once. It stopped making me wince sometime last year. Boys don’t
wince, father says. The gun is your best friend.

I take apart the magazine. It’s empty.

Insert. Tube. Floor plate.

The gun is my best friend.

I turn the Glock to its side, facing towards the target, the ejection port facing downwards, and I
retract the slide. Once. Twice.

A round falls out, twinkling onto the concrete below. I kick it away, and it rolls noisily into the
warehouse beyond.

I feel the slide pins beneath my thumbs, I push down with one hand, put weight against the slide
with the other. The slide comes free. I unhinge the spring from inside the slide, then the barrel,
which wets my hands with oil. I don’t need to look for the Glock tool to know it’s there, waiting
for me on the table. Firing pin assembly. Spacer Sleeve. Wait, what’s that?

Oh, it’s the extractor depressor plunger assembly.

I always thought that was a ridiculous name.

Firing pin safety, spring, spring cups, the plastic tube they couldn’t come up with a better name
for.

Now the frame.

Locking block pins first, then the trigger pin-

I’m done before I can finish listing in my head.

It’s been twenty one seconds.

“ Assemble it.” Alexei says as if I haven’t done this a hundred and sixty-two times before.

Locking block. Magazine catch. Firing pin. Again.

I’m done.
“ Fire.” Alexei says.

I fire. Bullseye. I’ve always wanted to know why it’s called that. No one really knows.

Next.

I hesitate. The second table also has a Glock 17. Alexei watches me.

Ah, there’s a blindfold. I take it into my hands, thumbs stretching it across my palms, placing it
straight across my eyes, curving around my head. One knot, then two.

I reach for the Glock, I know where it is. I see everything.

They say I have a photographic memory. I don’t entirely understand what it means.

“ It means you’re better than everyone else, son.”

I do the same thing I did at the first table, but blindfolded this time.

I shoot. I know it’s not going to hit bullseye. I didn’t aim for bullseye. I aimed just a little to the
left, so that I would need more lessons.

Because more lessons mean more time away from home.

Away from father.

Alexei tells me to keep the blindfold on. I do.

The third table is harder because I can’t see the firearm this time. I take it into my hand, caress the
metal case, take out the magazine, emptying the cartridges into the palm of my hand, measuring
one against my fingers, letting the others fall while I feel the weight.

170g

9-10mm

It’s a 40 Smith and Wesson.

That took me point eight seconds too long.

It’ll probably be a belt thrashing for that. It’s fine, I’ll make it up on the next table.

10mm. Disassemble. Assemble. Lock the magazine. Shoot.

Disassemble. Assemble. Lock the magazine. Shoot.

Number five is a semi-automatic, the one after that is an M4. At first, I think it’s a commando, but
no.

They’re too heavy for me to hold, and I struggle under the automatic’s weights, but I’ve trained
for this. They said I need better upper body strength, that I’m too scrawny.

Last week, they took me inside this room. At the end of it were cotton bags that they said I’d have
to drag from one side to the other. I don’t think they were normal bags, though. They were cream,
but most of them were stained in red, like-

Like blood.

But they were too small to be proper bodies. Big bodies.

I was too small then to realise that the bags were the same size as me.

Seven is an Ar15.

Eight is a 500 S&W Magnum.

I don’t know what nine is. I can’t disassemble it, I get stuck halfway through.

Shit.

That’s something my dad says when I do something wrong.

Alexei tells me to move on. Number ten.

I reach for it, feel it in my hand. And I realise that ten is-

Ten is Simba, my revolver.

The gold one, with the rubies encrusted into the handle, two lion heads protruding from the tip of
the barrel, that my father gave me for my fourth birthday. I called it Simba because of that.
Simba’s my favourite you see. And this is my favourite gun. Because it doesn’t look much like a
gun, it looks pretty. Father says guns are beautiful. I only think this one is.

“ Take the blind fold off, Taehyung.”

I do.

There’s-

“ That’s a man.” I say, because there is a man in front of me, half way across the room.

“ Chest shot.” Alexei says to me.

“ But that is a man.” I reply back.

“ Kill him, Taehyung.”

I think I start crying. My face feels wet. I don’t know if the man looks scared or not. He has a
blindfold on. The tables have turned.

“ You know what happens when you disobey, Taehyung.”

I do know what happens when I disobey. They said I’m clast- claos- claustrophobic. That’s it.
That I’d need to fix it before I grew up. The doctors told them it’s not something that you can fix
just like that, but that didn’t really stop father from locking me inside one of the meat freezers in
the basement. He said it was good for cold endurance too, in case someone ever used it as a
torture method.
I’m grateful towards father. If someone ever did torture me, I’d like to be able to make it out alive.

I have an empire to run one day.

“ My patience is thin, Mr Kim.” Alexei says to me. That means he’s mad, when he calls me by my
second name that is. I never realised how heavy the revolver was until now, until now that I’m
being told to use it. The rubies are cold beneath my fingers, the gold reflecting the white lights.

The man’s not sweating, I realise. His hands are steady. His proportions are wrong. Flawed.

There’s something wrong.

I raise the gun, I’m not shaking, or maybe I am, just a little. I steady it.

I have a suspicion. I point. I shoot. I don’t know why, but I fall back with the impact of the shot,
even though the revolver is lighter than most of the other guns on the other tables.

The man doesn’t fall. He doesn’t even react.

I was right.

“ You passed.” Alexei declares. “ Barely.”

He was wearing a bulletproof vest.

“ Are you going easy on me, Alexei?” I ask. I sound older than I am. I don’t know if I like that.
And I’m sure Alexei doesn’t like it, because he gives me a very pointed look.

“ Your father has someone very special reserved for your first kill, young master.” He says,
glancing at the open warehouse doors where my car waits for me outside. My victim of sorts takes
his blindfold off. He goes to Alexei with an outstretched hand. I see the look in Alexei’s eyes
before he does.

There is a flash of skin, metal, a gun in Alexei’s hand, a gunshot ringing in my ears, and the man
is dead.

I stand still.

I’ve seen exactly one hundred and ninety-nine people die since I was born

This one is the two hundredth.

Two suited men hurry into the warehouse from behind me, their hands latching into the lapels and
collar of the fallen corpse, dragging him away. Blood smears across the grey concrete in a long,
winding trail of wet, leaking, red, discontinuous in places like crimson talons, reaching out for my
feet.

My car honks. I mirror what I did when I came in. I unroll my sleeves, hook my cuff links into my
sleeves, put on my suit jacket. I go to the tenth table, pick up my revolver.

“ I’ll take this back.”

Again, older than I am.

I walk away from Alexei, trailing the belt of blood that reaches far beyond the light pouring in
from the open warehouse doors.
“ Young master?”

I stop. I don’t turn around. I can almost hear Alexei’s sneer curl around his mouth before he
speaks.

“ Next time, don’t wear white.”

The screen turns black, and then turns to another image.

“December 2005

Taehyung Kim, 31 12 97

Jimin Park, 13 10 97

Torture Endurance: Russian Roulette

Lesson 50

Objective: Unspecified

Eleven years ago

Kim Mansion Basements

“ J-Jiminie I- I can’t.”

Jimin looks calm. He always does. Taehyung hates it. He knows he shouldn’t, but he thinks that
maybe Jimin just isn’t all that scared of anything happening to his best friend like Taehyung is.
But at the end of the day, the younger boy knows that that isn’t it. He knows Jimin puts on a brave
face for him because he knows this is always harder on Taehyung than it is for himself.

“ I’ve gotta be brave for the both of us, mm? You know that… right Taehyungie? I just gotta be
strong so you realise you can be strong too. You know I love you right?”

Taehyung knows. He still hates it, though, how he panics. And cries. Especially during this.

The room is small box with a high ceiling, walls painted a concoction between green and grey,
Taehyung and Jimin sitting in front of one another, Jimin to the right of the room, and Taehyung
to the left, from where the closed, white door stands a few feet away.

Jimin’s sitting shirtless a few feet away from Taehyung on a sorry excuse for a metal chair, hands
tied behind his back, roped in and out of the metal frame, feet equally restrained against the two
front chair legs. Sharp tendrils of wet, black hair stick to his forehead with sweat. He’s smiling.
Taehyung hates it when he does that. Because he knows he should be scared right now, even if
it’s their fiftieth time doing this and they’ve spent much longer than they should have on the
roulette, but he isn’t, just for the few seconds that Jimin smiles at him, Taehyung is okay.

Jimin is wired into four different machines standing around him. Taehyung still isn’t entirely sure
what they’re for. There’s an electrocardiogram machine, a screen connected to the camera fixed
behind Taehyung’s head, zoomed onto Jimin’s face for micro changes in expression, and two
other machines Taehyung still doesn’t know the purpose of. Jimin has wires strapped onto his
chest, wrists, and forehead –just like the younger- and still manages to give Taehyung reassuring
nods, letting little, puffy-cheeked smiles slip here and there.

The handlers left them for five minutes so the machines could equilibrate, and Jimin doesn’t stop
trying to distract Taehyung, uncaring for the cameras he knows are on them.

“What do you wanna eat when we finish, hm?”

“ I dunno, Jiminie.” Taehyung whispers, hands sweating against the rope behind his back.

Jimin gives him an upset pout. Taehyung knows he shouldn’t think the way he does in a lot of
aspects. But especially not about the fact that he really wants to see how his mouth feels against
Jimin’s pout, just once. Just to quench this ghastly oral fixation of his that only seems to stir when
Jimin is around. Which lately, is always.

Not that Taehyung is complaining.

“ Fine,” Jimin sighs, the picture of melodrama. “I suppose,” He deliberates, smirk plastered across
his mouth. Taehyung squints. “ We’ll just have caviar then.”

Taehyung gasps.

“ You monster.”

He’s replied to with a muffled giggle as Jimin tries to bite his laugh away through his lips.

“ You’re the only person at school who doesn’t like it,” He says for the millionth time. Taehyung
rolls his eyes. “ How is that possible?”

“ Jiminie,” The younger emphasises, trying to lean forward. “ Caviar is disgusting.” Jimin looks
furious. It makes Taehyung laugh. He looks like an angry puppy. Taehyung loves puppies. “I
don’t think you can judge my culinary preferences, Park,” Jimin knows what’s coming and he
tries to cut in before Taehyung can say: “ You eat pineapple on pizza’

“ That’ BECAUSE I’m a revolutionary.” Jimin shouts, almost falling out of his chair with the
force of his outburst.

“ No, it’s because you’re crazy.” Taehyung corrects, sitting back, eyes fixated on the little angry
knots on Jimin’s tiny forehead.

“ But you love me like that.” His best friend fight back, Taehyung blushing in reply. Jimin smiles
at him. Taehyungie is so silly.

I do love you like that.

And then the handlers come in. It shatters their little eight-year-olds’ trance, and caviar and
pineapple fades into the grey, scarred faces of the three men who walk into the room, Jimin’s
smile uncurling into a façade of bravery that sometimes seems more believable to Taehyung than
anything he’s ever believed in.

He believes in Jimin.

And maybe that’s enough to get through this for the fiftieth time.

One men stands behind Jimin, another stands behind Taehyung. The third stands further to the
back of the room, in between them, but not in their direct line of sight, sitting behind a metal slab
of a table, a bulky computer in front of him.

Taehyung sees the man behind Jimin take out a revolver, and the rustling behind him tells him that
his handler is doing the same. The agony of watching Jimin’s handler take out a bullet, light
bouncing off the metal, slitting white across the man’s face, putting it inside the revolver, clasping
the cylinder, and cycling it, is just as bad as it was the first time. Jimin shivers as the man presses
the nuzzle of the gun against the back of his head.

Taehyung momentarily closes his eyes, shaking.

It’s always Jimin’s turn first, because they know Taehyung gets riled up more, and the worse they
put him through, the more he’ll have to fight against caving into his heartbeat and shaking hands.

“ It’s okay.” Jimin mouths to him. Taehyung knows it is. That they won’t really kill them. That
even if they pretend they don’t, they know which chamber the bullet is in, somehow.

“ And anyway, you know nothing’s gonna happen, Taehyungie, you’re heir, and I’m…well,
they’re not actually gonna do anything to us, you know that right?”

“ You promise?”

“ I promise.”

Taehyung watches Jimin’s handler carefully. Jimin watches Taehyung. The cameras watch them.

The younger watches the handler’s eyes. The man’s hand tightens around the trigger, Jimin keeps
his eyes fixed on Taehyung’s.

The click of the gun takes hours to sound, in Taehyung’s mind. He can almost see the mechanism
in front of him, the release of the trigger, the press of the handler’s callused thumb against the
smooth metal. He sees Jimin take a quick breath, hold it, he sees the fear leak out of Jimin’s eyes
onto his trembling thighs. The older boy chews the inside of his mouth, scraping away skin into
the gaps between his teeth. He’s had to go to the dentist a lot for doing that, the doctor said he has
anxie-

Click.

Taehyung almost screams.

The monitors flash red, Jimin’s heart rate shooting up.

A tear slips out of Taehyung’s eye, curving over his cheek, dropping into his lap. Jimin quickly
looks to his right, where the man behind the table is sitting. The man gives him a shake of the
head. Jimin closes his eyes in defeat. Fail.

“ Taehyungie,” Jimin whispers softly. “ You gotta stop crying, Taehyungie, or we’ll never pass.”

“ I c-can’t, I c-can’t.” Taehyung replies in a train of restrained sobs spewing out of his lips,
trembling like petals in a storm.

“ Look at me.” Jimin says to him. “ Look at me, Taehyungie.”

Taehyung does.

“ Just keep looking at my face okay? Yeah, just like that. Just like that, Taehyungie, keep
watching me- keep watching my-“

Jimin isn’t paying attention to Taehyung’s handler, all of his focus concentrated on his best
friend’s blotchy, upset face, so he doesn’t notice when the man removes the nuzzle of the gun
from the back of Taehyung’s head, arm curling, pointing upwards, straightening, and then-

Taehyung shakes, the gunshot echoing in crevices of the tall ceiling.

There are five empty chambers in each handler’s weapon. One full. They click the blanks against
the two boys’ heads, the monitors assessing their vitals for reaction against threshold limit, and,
without warning, the single bullets get shot into the ceiling.

His son’s blooming friendship with Park Jimin worried John Kim, of course it did. But after
consultation, he realised, that with the threat of Jimin’s life on his head, Taehyung would do
anything he wanted. And, when it came to vice versa, Maclieen Park knew this too.
So here the two boys sit, watching each other in fear as one sees what the other cannot, and senses
what the other feels. Taehyung has sat through hundreds of long, excruciating sessions of
Mithridatism, the act of immunizing oneself to poison. Instead of tires, he carried corpses to build
upper body strength, instead of paper targets, now, he shoots at the sweaty, beaten, fat faces of his
father’s traitors. Instead of petting kittens, now, he mutilates them. Every morning, he wakes up,
goes into the labs, digs his thumbs into the bones of a different kitten’s neck, breaks it, claws it’s
insides apart, washes his hands with custom made mandarin orange, cedar wood, and lavender
infused hand wash, imported from Japan, dries his hands with a Hermès hand towel, which the
maids throw away after he uses it, and he runs upstairs with a smile on his face, eating his
breakfast (made by a different Michelin chef every day) with the two thousand dollar Hermes
Attelage cutlery set, and makes sure he looks his very handsomest, because Jimin will be over
soon.

Every morning, until he’s twelve, they said. It gets rid of the humanity, they said.

If they think Taehyung’s to be rid of his humanity that soon, then they don’t know that, lying
along in his bed at night, Caran d’aches and Polychromos inscribed with golden KTH’s scattered
across his bed, Taehyung draws the most wondrous, human, portraits of Jimin to exist. He dusts
Jimin in light fleshes, breathes life into his rosy cheeks in Rose Carmine, highlights his smile in
gold, dabbing his cheekbones in silver, threading ringlets of yellow into his black hair, and
maybe, gold and black aren’t entirely the best combination, but on Jimin, it always look right, and
so maybe, Taehyung always uses a little too much gold. In his hair, in his eyes, on the sharp of
Jimin’s jaw, on the fat of his smiling cheeks.
And maybe, Taehyung would realise that gold and black was never a Jimin thing, no.

It has always been a Moonchild combination.

“ Is it ringing in your ears, Taehyung ?” The man behind the desk asks. Jimin grits his teeth.

“ Yes.” His best friend replies, drawing blood from his lip. They should both really stop doing
that.

They both failed the first round. Taehyung’s heart rate scintillates red at 110 bpm, Jimin’s at just
above 80.

“ Again.” The man behind the desk whispers.

“ Again.”

When the white door opens, some few hours later, Jimin is let out first. He’ll be waiting at the top
of the stairs, Taehyung knows this from the other forty nine times. So when the ropes uncurl from
around his hands, his handler hooks his shirt around his shoulders and Taehyung charges, hurtling
out, his shirt pooling around his wrists, falling down his back as he plunges through the door,
running across the basement, pounding up the stairs, left, right, left, right, propelling himself faster
with his hands on the banisters, and finally, finally, his hand is grasping the door, his foot is sliding
it open and-

“ Taetae.”

He runs straight into Jimin’s arms, blind and deaf, the only thing in his ears is the sweet, sweet
chant of his name leaving Jimin’s lips. “ Jiminie.”

“ We…” Jimin uncurls his arms from Taehyung’s shoulders, stepping away as the latter reaches
for his hand, pulling him back in, a giggle straying out of the former’s mouth as they stand nose to
nose, a bit too close for how old they are, for the little boys who should be best friends and
nothing more, and far too far for the blooming lovers beneath the innocent smiles and gentle,
undeliberate touches.

“ We passed, Taehyungie.” Jimin is so close. The warmth that has always been comforting,
always innocent, always adolescent, always more childhood than it was adult, that warmth, it
flickers slightly, in this moment, right here, with Jimin looking at him a little strange, with the
darkness from the staircase of their reluctant reality below and the light from their childish illusions
colliding, with warm becoming hot and boy becoming man, sooner than most, it flickers, and
blooms.

“ We passed.” Taehyung finally sings back. Jimin comes a little closer. Taehyung inches further
forward. Jimin should smell of gunpowder, but he doesn’t. Taehyung should smell of tears, and he
does, but the look in Jimin’s eyes says he smells everything but sadness on his best friend.

Jimin makes a little sound when Taehyung smiles at him, perhaps because it wasn’t a normal
smile, not really. It was a smile Taehyung learnt from a film.

They’d watched a film, the other night. A film they probably shouldn’t have watched. A film that,
if they had parents a little more like everyone else’s, they would have probably been quartered and
crucified for watching. But they don’t. So they watched it. They really shouldn’t have, because
Taehyung feels a little strange, and the expanse of Jimin’s neck looks more inviting than it used to.
And Jimin was already beautiful at eight, you see, stunning would be the word for it. And
Taehyung was gone long before they knew what skin was and learnt what to do with it.

“ We never have to do that again Taehyungie, we never, ever, ever, ever-” He giggles wildly,
falling backward with the force of his laugh, breathless. Taehyung’s arm wraps around his waist,
stabilising him, bringing him back, closer now, like the world creates more space in between them
just so they can close it again. “ We never have to do that again.”

Taehyung smiles.

“ Never, ever, ever, ever, ever?” He asks, connecting their foreheads, his thumb absentmindedly
playing with the hairs on Jimin’s neck. He senses Jimin shiver beneath him.

“ N-never,” Jimin assures, shaking. “ Ever,” Their noses touch. “ Ever,” Taehyung brushes his
nose side ways against Jimin’s.

“Ever,” Taehyung whispers, smiling.

Jimin brushes his nose the other way, mirroring Taehyung’s little game.

“ Ever,” Jimin murmurs, Taehyung lowering himself slightly, taller, even then, brushing his nose
against Jimin’s one last time.

“ T-Taehyungie?” Jimin says.

“ Y-yeah?”

“ D-do it.”

Taehyung gasps.

“ Okay.”

He swoops down and swoops back up. He leans down, presses his lips against Jimin’s, and before
tongue can taste tooth and lips turn hasty, before Jimin’s hands claw their destined path down
Taehyung’s naked skin, and before Taehyung does to his best friend all the most un-best friend
like things in the world, his lips take their leave.

It’s a second, it’s an eternity. It’s a lunar defiance of the very foundation of time. A rebellion
against what is considered too soon. Against what is too young and what is besmirched and what
is not. Because if the stars bathed Taehyung in blood before he was even born, if they decided his
to do’s and not to do’s before time itself, then Taehyung can give Jimin this one kiss. Until they’re
old enough, and cinema can become truth, Taehyung is allowed to give Jimin a taste, a promise of
how he will love him, a promise of how he will make white, of how he will forge gold from the
blood their galaxies gifted them.

Jimin’s eyes are wet. And boys don’t cry, no. Not boys like them. Not when it’s still afternoon
and the moon isn’t yet here to bask their tears in moonshine. But Jimin cries. And, like always, so
does Taehyung. Jimin cries, from the gunshots, from the softness of his best friend’s lips, from
everything and nothing at all, from Taehyung and everything that isn’t him, everything and
nothing, and holds onto him close enough so that they can pretend they’re still kissing when
they’re not, that they’re allowed to and won’t be stopped.
And then,

“ I- I think I love you Taehyungie.” Jimin says. “ I think I love you the way they loved each other
in that film.”

And Taehyung says,

“ I-I think I do too.”

I think I love you like that too.

“ T-together?” Jimin asks, and Taehyung hopes, he prays to a god he doesn’t entirely believe in,
(because how can you believe in god when you’re told you are one?), he prays that one day,
Jimin will ask him this question without the uncertainty, without the hooded, wet lashes, without
the bitten lips and hesitation that to Taehyung, has always meant that Jimin doesn’t trust him
enough.

He doesn’t know it takes them far, far longer, to get there than he’d hoped at ten.

“ Together?” Taehyung repeats, laying a long, long kiss on his best friend’s forehead. “Always.”

The screen shifts for the last clip.

‘January 2013

Taehyung Kim, 31 12 97

Jimin Park, 13 10 97

Armed Combat’
Five years ago,

Iran, Tehran,

Hidden Weapons Base, Mount Damavan,

“ Motmaeini, darmorede een?”

You’re sure about this?

A man stands behind one way, glass screen, thickly bearded, draped in blue silk, reading
spectacles perched on top of a fat nose, another man, noticeably less well dressed, but taller,
standing next to him, armed with a handgun at his hip, dressed in all black.

“ Mikham bebinam chera een ghadr gharbiya azashoon mitarsan.”

I want to see why the westerners are so afraid of them.

“ Vali… harchi bashan, faghat bachan.” The taller man argues quietly, watching the two boys
beyond the glass screen prepare for the dual.

But, at the end of the day, whatever they are, they’re still kids.

“ Mibineem.”

We’ll see.

Jimin walks out in a sleeveless top. The piece of shit. The grey vest hugs his small waist,
accentuates his protruding chest, toned arms rippling as he struts past Taehyung to the weapons
table, hips dancing side to side, boots pounding against the training floor with vigour.

Taehyung wants to fuck his teasing little hole to submission. He will, after this shit-show is over.

He contemplates, watching Jimin’s hands flirt playfully with the selection of artillery laid out on
the long, steel-bejewelled table, stretching along the length of the left side of the room.

“Te tuviera en tus rodillas si no nos estaban mirando los iraníes, lo sabes, ¿verdad?”

I’d have you on your knees if the Iranians weren’t watching, you know that right?

Jimin guffaws, his hands stopping in their pursuit for steel.

“Didn’t take you for a little pussy, Kim.” He comments, giggling as he settles on a dagger the size
of his forearm, twirling it in his hand, letting the weapon draw figure of eight motions, fingers
dancing with the blade as he leans on the table, cocking his head to the side, raising a brow at his
lover. “Why Spanish? Because you think they won’t understand?”

“ Look who’s talking about pussy,” Taehyung purrs, ignoring his question as he takes three
calculated strides to the table, leaning down against Jimin’s ear, their arms touching, the former’s
hand curling around a pair of seal knives when he licks Jimin’s ear, out of eye of the men beyond
the glass, and whispers: “ When you’re probably still dripping from this morning.”
Jimin shivers, pressing his thighs together. He thinks Taehyung might truly slam him against the
table, but his lover retracts, coming to his full height, a head taller than Jimin. The older turns his
head to the side, biting his lip, thirsty for scandal.

“Don’t be so sure, baby.” Jimin corrects, looking up at Taehyung, trailing a finger from his collar
bone down to his chest, stopping just above the waistband of his jeans. Taehyung holds his breath.
“"Il est possible que je t'ai déniché un petit garçon iranien mignon à croquer pour injecter ton
semen en moi.” Jimin whispers, thrilled at his own wickedness. Maybe I got a cute little Iranian
boy to fuck your cum back inside me.

Taehyung smiles. He’s not going to give Jimin the satisfaction of scandal.

The older rolls his eyes at Taehyung’s cool exterior. If they were home, he would have put him on
a leash. And tightened the collar if Jimin begged for it.

“Jimin mon chéri, pourquoi du français?” Why the French, darling? Taehyung mocks,
reprimanding him, then, in English, “Afraid of the Iranians?”

Jimin seethes, looking at the glass, the men he can and cannot see beyond.

“ You’re getting soft, Taehyungie.” He purrs, “If we were home, you would have my knees
bleeding by now.” Taehyung shakes his head, walking away, the knives dancing carelessly in his
hands as he takes his position.

“ I have an empire to represent, little one,” He explains, as if Jimin is a child. Jimin knows the
Iranians see the way Taehyung is talking to him.” We wouldn’t want them to see how I play with
my toys, would we?”

Perhaps these words makes Taehyung’s cum that a cute little Iranian boy certainly did not fuck
back into him trickle down his thigh, making him feel utterly, utterly, filthy. He nearly kneels there
and then. “Do you want them to see how I fuck you silly, little toy?”

There’s a knock on the glass before Jimin can react.

They Iranians want them to hurry up.

Jimin smirks.

“ At least I don’t cry when I take your dick, little king.”

And then he charges.

It’s just like the other four thousand times. Hundred thousand times.

Combat to Jimin and Taehyung, to moonchildren born in blood and bred in the lightness of
titanium, the versatility of aluminium and the reliability of steel, is child’s play. Combat to
Moonchildren is like play fighting, at times, but most times, it’s a lot like sex.

Sex, but instead of skin, it’s metal, instead of cum, is blood.

Climax is the clash of weapons, and every whisper of metal is a thrust.

Taehyung goes left, Jimin goes right. They’re playing, they’re flirting, they’re fucking.

“ Are you going easy on me, little king?” Jimin asks, ducking to the ground, stretching his legs
towards Taehyung, going for a kick against his ankle, but Taehyung leaps over it, knives going
for Jimin’s hips and wrist respectively.

“ Wouldn't dream of it, little prince.” Jimin rolls over, his legs flying upwards, body curving into
the air to form a half arch against Taehyung’s body, ankles locking behind his boyfriend’s neck,
twisting him, his body making a circle in the air before Jimin is slamming him down onto the
training room floor, mounting him with his dagger aimed at his throat. Taehyung’s knives make a
cross against his neck, Jimin pressing the knife against the middle of the cross, smiling down at
him.

They’re absolutely equal in strength. Taehyung fights back as Jimin presses himself further down
Teahyung’s body, his ass situated right against Taehyung’s twitching arousal. A bead of sweat
rolls down the side of Jimin’s rosy face. Taehyung opens his mouth, the pearl falling right into the
gap between his lips.

Jimin swears at the sight, faltering. Taehyung chuckles, forcing the knives upwards, Jimin’s
dagger screeching as he overthrows the balance, Jimin falling, rolling backwards, landing in a
crouch a few feet away from Taehyung, only to propel himself backwards, back-flipping to land
on top of the table on the opposite side of the room, pinching a shiruken between his sweaty
fingers and throwing it at Taehyung.

“ Bastard.”

Taehyung is suddenly in the air, twisting himself like a butterfly taking flight, his boot making
contact with the throwing star before kicking it towards the wall opposing the looking glass. Jimin
scoffs, sending another one his way, and another, and a fourth one. Taehyung lands, and ducks,
the three stars hitting the wall behind him, indenting the plaster in a neat row.

“ You really hate me that much Jiminie?” Taehyung asks, faking a cry as his boyfriend flips
himself forward, curling in the air, and Taehyung notices the fifth star coming his way just a
second too late to be ale to do anything other than send it flying left, his knife screaming against it
as it flies towards the looking glass, and is deflected, dropping against the mirror, clanking
pathetically onto the floor.

“ You knew it was bulletproof?” Jimin asks.

“ I’d be offended if it wasn’t.” Taehyung replies, alternating the knives between his hands,
blowing his long, wet strands of hair out of his eyes.

“ You gonna punish me or not?” Jimin teases, licking his lips.

“ You never learn, do you?”

“ Discipline me then, little king.”

God, Taehyung loves him.

They both move at once, dropping their weapons, and charging with skin, and only that.
Taehyung’s leg flies to Jimin’s side, Jimin grabbing his ankle, twisting it, only to have Taehyung
twirl and kick him in the face with his other foot as they both fall. Jimin grabs a longer weapon
than the last, and throws a similar one to Taehyung.

“ Let’s give them a little blood, shall we?” Jimin asks as they circle the middle of practice room.
Taehyung gives him a look.

You sure baby?

Jimin rolls his eyes.

They can’t know we’ve planned every single step of this whole thing, can they?

Taehyung gives him a wicked smile.

Just like we practiced?

Jimin beams, and then Taehyung thrusts the katana in his hand forward. Jimin licks his lips, thrusts
himself forward, circling his head downwards, creating a semi-circle beneath the sword, his left
leg –side kicking Taehyung in the abdomen in the meantime.

“ Shit,”

“ Careful, baby.”

Taehyung’s sword cuts into Jimin’s abdomen. Half an inch thick, like they agreed. Blood wets the
sword, trickling down the metal. Jimin rolls his eyes.

“ That wasn’t half an inch.” He cuts into Taehyung’s shoulder, piercing the knife into Taehyung’s
shoulder, only to have him grab his wrist, twisting it, slamming Jimin onto the floor, aiming his
sword for his throat. Jimin’s leg comes up behind where Taehyung is sitting on his chest, kneeing
him just to the left of his vertebrae. Taehyung crumbles, falling forwards, coming face to face with
Jimin who –head-butts him, their skulls crashing. The younger rolls backwards, dizzy from the hit.

Jimin looks worried. Taehyung rolls his eyes before placing his palms on the ground, propelling
himself around and kicking Jimin in the chest. The older goes flying back, feet screeching against
the ground before landing in a crouch. Taehyung charges, sprinting towards him, thrusting himself
upwards, leg outstretched towards Jimin’s face. Jimin angles his knife, cutting just above
Taehyung’s ankle. Taehyung falls, back towards Jimin, rotating, coming to standing, sword
outstretched.

Jimin thrusts his weapon towards Taehyung’s neck and-

They stand in the middle of the training ground, swords laying against each other’s necks, one on
either side, smirking proudly. Always equal. Always one. Always together.

A drop of blood hits the ground, trickling down Jimin’s hip, wetting his grey shirt. He gives
Taehyung a little smile.

“ Checkmate, little king.”

Taehyung stares at Jimin, digs the edge of the sword further into the older’s neck. A droplet of
blood trickles down his skin, tanner in the Iranian summer.
Taehyung has a filthy, filthy urge to drop his sword and suck at Jimin’s neck, to feel his blood
twine with his own until they are well and truly one. Taehyung knows Jimin can see him staring at
the blood, at Taehyung’s corrupted need to feel Jimin in himself in more ways than one. To know
his heart beats and Jimin’s blood runs and-

“ Gentlemen.” The Iranians enter the room. Jimin and Taehyung slide their weapons across each
other’s neck, depriving steel of skin, letting the swords hang on their sides as they turn to the men.

“ Ba demonstration-e ma razi boodin, aghaye vazir?”

Were you pleased with our demonstration, Minister?

“ Very pleased, Mr Kim. Your Persian is remarkable…” The Minister of Defence praises, then,
with a pointed look, and a forced smile, he turns to Jimin. “ Your French even more so, Mr Park.
We do have microphones installed in this room.” Taehyung turns to Jimin with a gasp.

Jimin gives the men a wicked smile.

“ I know.”

“ If you are to carry out a mission for the Iranian Government, we do expect a semblance of
propriety on your part, Little Prince.” The other man says, averting his eyes from the bruised
expanse of Jimin’s neck.

Taehyung did that on the plane ride to Tehran las night.

“ I’m really not the one you should be lecturing, Foreign Minister."

"Jimin.” Taehyung warns, putting his hand behind Jimin’s neck, squeezing. “ Behave.” He growls
low in their native tongue.

Jimin rolls his eyes, but still submits, and under the eyes of the Iranians, he feels utterly humiliated.
The small plug tucked into his rim is sucked further in as Taehyung’s hold on his neck hardens,
and Jimin’s legs turn languid, ready to kneel.

“ We’ll be on our best behaviour, Ministers.” Taehyung promises, giving them a dashing, regal
smile.

“ You have my word.” He gives Jimin a pointed, taming look. “Our word.”

The Heir thinks he hears a supressed mewl escape Jimin though he thought him, he knows him
stronger than to slip into headspace with just a few regal exhibits of power on his part, but here
Jimin is, and he’s slipping, Taehyung can tell.

“ Are we to be excused?”

“ This mission we’re entrusting you with is of imperative importance to our national security. We
hope you are as good at keeping your word as you are your head, Mr Kim.” The Minister of
Defence emphasises, narrowing his eyes at their proximity. Perhaps this isn’t the best time for
Taehyung to tell the minister that his eighteen-year old son has a boy ruining their bedroom sheets
every time his parents are away. Maybe he’ll just send him pictures.

Jimin radiates lust, lust, and heat, beside him. Taehyung can see he’s getting impatient. Perhaps on
the verge of tears. Perhaps on the verge of something else entirely. He takes the sword from
Jimin’s hand, caressing the hill of his palm, bringing his hand to his lips and laying a kiss across
the discs of his knuckles.
He takes their weapons to the table, and fixes a golden dagger which had caught his eye on his
belt. Then, he returns, and upon seeing the wet, gleaming desperation in Jimin’s eyes, he grips the
fat on Jimin’s waist, and stops for a moment at the way the skin actually gives way in his hand.
He’s proud of him, for how far he’s come. For how far they’ve come with this. With Jimin’s lack
of care for his skin. It distracts him for a moment, the way his waist perfectly gives way to
Taehyung’s hand, and instead of bone, he finally feels flesh. Jimin looks up at him hopefully,
Taehyung relishes in their height difference, in the way Jimin always has to look up and yet could
make Taehyung feel small at any given moment. It’s not about the physicality. It’s about Jimin and
who he is, and who Taehyung becomes when he is with him.

The little king connects their mouths, Jimin’s body arching into the taller’s, his hand coming to
clutch at his black shirt, fisting it in small, red hands, his tongue hanging out for Taehyung to lick,
the latter’s mouth rolling Jimin’s tongue back inside his lips. Taehyung’s lips suck on Jimin’s
mouth, gripping his chin with his other hand, keeping him anchored. When his mouth takes its
leave, his hand comes to caress Jimin’s cheek, wiping the stray tear from the corner of his
beautifully swollen eyes. “ Good boy.” Taehyung praises, kissing his forehead, carding his hands
through Jimin’s hair, his arm curling around his waist, pulling him closer. He praises him even
though Jimin hasn’t done well at all, he’s slipped into headspace in front of company, whored
himself like a little, useless slut, and made the Iranians question their ability to complete this
mission un-besmirched. Does Taehyung really care about all that? No, not particularly. Is he still
going to punish him for it? Abso-fucking- lutely.

“ I’m as good at keeping my word as I am at fucking this one to tears, Minister.” Taehyung
assures, grabbing a handful of Jimin’s ass, leading him out of the room. They pass by the men,
Taehyung’s shoulder brushing by the one on the right. The heir takes one look back at the white
faces of the disgusted men, smiling, before saying: “ You have nothing to be worried about.”

Everything is a haze of open wounds and dripping blood. Not a lot of people know that they do
this, or rather, barely anyone does. But Jimin lies with eyes rolling back and forth at the back of
the limo, partition pulled up, and Taehyung lays next to him, Jimin’s head in his hands, and his
neck between his teeth, blood coating his lips. “ You taste fucking divine.”

The first time had been by mistake. Taehyung was kissing his wounds, bandaging them, and a
drop of blood fell into his mouth. And from then, it became their secret. This is how they would
clean each other’s wounds and it’s- it’s far from human, from normal, but Jimin’s blood gives him
a high, and when Taehyung kisses him with his blood still in his mouth and when Jimin kisses
him back with Taehyungs blood in his own, they’re defying god. They’re defying what it is to be
human.

Jimin moans when Taehyung spits his blood into his mouth and Taehyung whimpers with every
new gush of red entering his mouth until Jimin whines with light-headedness.

“If anyone knew…they’d lock us up.” Jimin whispers, licking the blood off of Taehyung’s jaw
with a red tongue.

“ It’s good they don’t, then,” Taehyung replies, fingering a smudge of blood from Jimin’s mouth
and licking it off his finger. “ Isn’t it?

It’s when they step into the penthouse hotel suite towering over the richer streets of Tehran,
Taehyung pointing at the stairs, ushering him to go into their bedroom, it’s when Jimin steps inside
their temporary room, and Taehyung shuts the door behind him, when he feels Taehyung’s cool,
collected intake of breath, that he hears:

“ Kneel.”

And he does.

His knees hit the floor, head hanging low, hands shaking in his lap. He sees more than hears
Taehyung’s legs pass by him, his king going to sit on the bed, a few feet away from him.

“ Crawl.”

“ Come to your king, Little Prince.

They have a week or so before the mission. They’d both practically memorised the case files on
the car ride back. A week. Jimin crawls, on all fours, head hanging low, knees hitting the soft,
Persian carpets as he inches forward, until he’s staring at the golden clasps of Taehyung’s Italian,
leather boots.

“ Lick.”

Jimin gasps, looking upwards, only to be met with a sharp tug at his jaw, pushing his head down
towards Taehyung’s boots. “ Did I say you can look?”

“ N-no.” Jimin feels filthy as he lowers his head to the shiny expanse of Taehyungs spotless
shoes.lk,

“ Clean them.”

Jimin’s tongue hands out, curling towards Taehyung’s shoes.

There’s a hand on his jaw, pulling him up onto his knees, Taehyung’s forehead hitting his.

“Were you really going to lick them clean, Jimin?” Taehyung asks him, licking his mouth. “ Like
a filthy…” He takes Jimin’s face in his hand, caressing his left cheek with an open palm. Jimin
nods, understanding their little signal, and closes his eyes. Taehyung slaps his left cheek softly,
playing, like Jimin’s just his toy to be messed with. “Little…” Right cheek, harder this time. Jimin
winces, then moans. “ Whore?” This one is the hardest, leaving Jimin’s cheek throbbing, almost
pulsating for another.

Blooms of dusty pink colour Jimin’s cheek, spit slobbering out of his mouth onto Taehyung’s
hand.

He’s just a little, collared puppy, acting up only to be tamed again.

“ I-” Jimin stutters, licking Taehyung’s hand. “I do whatever you tell me to.”

Taehyung laughs, not loud enough to scare Jimin in his headspace, but enough for the dampness
in the latter’s pants to wetten even more, blissfully crushed by the mockery Taehyung is subjecting
him to.

“Is that so, little one?” Taehyung asks, kissing Jimin’s bruised cheek. “That’s not what you were
saying when I told you to behave, kitten.” He stresses, narrowing his eyes at a mewling Jimin.

“ I-I-I’m sorry.”
“ You’re sorry?” Taehyung mocks, chuckling again, playing around with Jimin’s painted face.

“ T-Taehyungie-” Jimin moans, rutting on the floor, pressing down on his arousal with a sweaty
palm.

“ I don’t think you have the right to call me that right now.” Taehyung corrects, shoving away
Jimin’s prying hand with his boot, pressing down on the latter’s bulge with his show instead

“ I-” Jimin struggles under the pressure, the grip on his jaw, the foot on his cock, the way
Taehyung’s eyes remind him of what he is, right now, kneeling and drooling at the foot of a god.
He’s just a toy.

“What do you think I should do to you right now?” His god asks.

“ F-fuck me?”

“Fuck you?”

Jimin blinks, eyes wet.

“Fuck me like a whore.”

Taehyung scoffs at him, shaking his head.

“Like a whore, baby?” He imitates, standing to his full height, Jimin but a small, crumpled mass of
lust and precome in between his legs. “ No, no, little bird,” Taehyung assures. “I’m going to fuck
you like a king.”

Jimin purrs and mewls, rutting himself against Taehyung’s slacks.

“K-king.” He repeats, drooling on the fabric.

“Are you going to bow to your king, Jiminie?” Taehyung asks as Jimin presses his face to the
leather of Taehyung’s shoes, kissing them.

“ I w-wanna bow to my king.” Jimin splutters, rutting himself against Taehyung’s leg, rubbing his
nose against the scrunched-up material covering the latter’s knee caps.

“ Is that what I am?” The younger asks, crouching to Jimin’s height, holding his face in his hands,
kissing his jaw, licking a stripe upwards, across his lips, lips puckered against the tip of his red
nose. He kisses his eyes, warm beneath hot lips. “Your king?”

“ M-my…”

Taehyung smiles, cooing at him, taking Jimin’s arms and locking them around his own neck.
Jimin holds on for dear life as Taehyung picks them up, twisting around and laying Jimin on the
bed, his black hair fanned across the white duvet, spit dried on his jaw, glassy eyes searching for
Taehyung’s face through the haze of hotel lights.

“ Mm,” Taehyung hums, mounting him, pinning his hands on either side of him as he lowers
himself, pressing their foreheads together. “ Your?”

“ M-my-” Jimin hiccups, lips open for a much needed kiss. Taehyung indulges him, giving him
more tongue than lip and more tooth than tongue, until Jimin is breathless, and ruined, and utterly,
utterly his.

“ What am I, Park Jimin?” Taehyung asks once again, not for the show, not for whatever it is
“ What am I, Park Jimin?” Taehyung asks once again, not for the show, not for whatever it is
they’re doing, but because he needs to know, he needs to be reminded sometimes, and Jimin? And
Jimin is always willing to do exactly just that.

“ My everything.” Jimin cries, kissing him, pulling him closer as they both roll in silken sheets. “
My- my everything.” He chants, laying his lips on every inch of Taehyung’s face as though he
kisses the face of his god. “ My everything.”

“ Your everything.”

They wake bruised, with Taehyung staring at Jimin, laying on his side, the sunlight hitting his
golden back, the iridescence of dawn paling in comparison to the spring garden Jimin carved out
of Taehyung’s skin the night before.

“ Tae?”

He’s awake. Jimin blinks at him through heavy lashes, the sunlight shutting his eyes closed.
Taehyung puts out a hand, his palm covering the patch of sunlight hitting Jimin’s face, setting the
violet ring of bruises around his throat alight, like amethyst. The younger reaches out with a
tentative finger, trailing over the bruises. Jimin shivers, whining.

“Asshole,” He swears softly, swatting away Taehyung’s hand. “‘m sleepy.”

Taehyung chuckles, leaning down to kiss his forehead, carding long fingers through silky, black
hair.

“Please?” He whines, knowing Jimin will understand, rubbing his nose against Jimin’s before
coming back up. “ Mm, Jiminie? You wake up so late, I just have to watch you sleep for the
whole night.”

“Creepy, Taehyungie,” Jimin mumbles, curling himself further into Taehyung’s body, his hand
stretching upwards to curl around Taehyung’s neck and pull him down for a soft kiss. “That’s so
creepy, I thought we fixed your sleepy thing.”

“We did,” Taehyung assures quickly. “You’re just beautiful.”

He hears a tiny gasp as Jimin opens his eyes, and scrutinises him, even as his lips tug into a
bashful smile, pink powdering his cheeks in a youthful glow.

“ Shut up,” Jimin whines, burying his face in Taehyung’s chest, mumbling something
indecipherable.

“ What was that?”

“ ‘s not gonna work, asshole.”

Taehyung chuckles, kissing the top of his head.

“ Praise isn’t gonna work on you?” He questions. “ Really?”

Jimin punches him weakly, whining as his bruised hand comes into contact with his hard chest.

“ Don’t treat me like a praise slut, punk.” He reprimands, pressing their bodies closer.

“ Mm,” Taehyung hums, lying down to untuck Jimin’s face from his chest, making him look at
him.

“ But you are, aren’t you? Pretty little praise slut?”

“ T-Taehyungie,” Jimin whines, shifting under the covers, hiding his face. “ C’mon, wanna
sleep.”

“ You don’t need more than three hours of sleep a night,” Taehyung points out, joining him under,
blue light shimmering under the duvet. “ You’re just being mean.”

“ Call it what you want, my king,” Jimin purrs, folding the covers over himself once again, and
turning away, lying with his back to a defeated and half-hard Taehyung, staring at the expanse of
his naked body, his hand inching towards the curve of his ass only half covered by the white
sheets. “I’m not moving an inch.”

Taehyung pouts, watching as Jimin’s breathing steadies.

He’s in love. There’s nothing more, nothing less. That’s just it. Taehyung is in love, he has been
since they were six and he didn’t know what love was. He has been since they were eight and he
started to understand, since the first time he tried to tell Jimin that he did and couldn’t. Taehyung
has been in love since love knew how dearly we hold onto it and how easily we chase it away.

His fingers are magnetised, he feels currents drawing his hands to the dip of Jimin’s hip, a belt of
bruises lining the little depression like a landing strip for Taehyung’s limbs.

The younger pinches the sheet covering Jimin’s lower half, sliding it off. Jimin shivers, and
Taehyung, just this once, indulges himself. Let him be cold, let him be cold for Taehyung is
burning.

“ Fuck.”

The lines of his body, the plumpness of his ass, bruise after bruise loved into the ample fat, purple
and green shining in the golden sunlight like rhinestones, they’re all new to Taehyung, they
always will be. Because how do you get used to this?

How do you get used to something like Jimin? Because he’s not a someone, is he? He’s an entity,
he’s something else entirely, something Taehyung doesn’t understand, something he doesn’t think
he ever will, and he hopes he doesn’t, because maybe that way the world will give him more time
-even when there’s no time left- to keep stripping Jimin until all that’s left is pure, golden light.

Because that’s what he is, beneath the skin -god, that skin- beneath the lips sewn from sin, the
curves carved from blasphemy, beneath the legs in between which Taehyung buries his head and
tastes all the salt and sweet of a higher power, beyond leaking holes and unholy screams, Jimin is
more of god than anything else in this world. He’s the insanity of religion, the uncertain indemnity
of god, he’s the falsehood of shadows and deception of light.

His body is sewn from lies, Taehyung knows that now, and he still finds himself uncaring, he
finds himself utterly indifferent, because beneath lie lies truth, and if there is as much truth in Jimin
as there is lie, then Taehyung is okay with living a lie, tasting him, breathing him in in all of his
purgery.
Because Taehyung is okay with Jimin as he is, as he was, as he will be, as long as Jimin is his, as
long as he belongs to Taehyung, and the world lets them be.

“ You’re fucking gorgeous,” Taehyung whispers, wiping the corner of his eye. “ Look at you.”
He chants softly, his hand caressing the dip of Jimin’s hip. The older shifts, sighing.

“ Do you ever stop?” He jokes, scuttling to press his back against Taehyung’s front. “I’ve just
woken up, I do not look gorgeous. I’m bruised all over.” Taehyung doesn’t answer, tears
streaming down his face, hiccupping as his palms play with the unfamiliar fat on Jimin’s hips,
relishing the way the skin feels in his hands.

“ Oh my god,” Jimin whispers. “You’re crying aren’t you?” He exclaims, turning around, facing
an abashed Taehyung who hides his face behind his hands.

“ Tae, you can’t beg me for sex then start crying.” Jimin says, wiping Taehyung’s cheek with the
back of his hand.

“ A king does not beg, thank you very much.” The younger complains, wiping away the last few
remnants of his tears. “ The lighting is atmospheric ok, you know how I get about lighting.” Jimin
chuckles, shaking his head at the absolute silliness of it. Shutting his eyes, he distances himself
from Taehyung, folding his top leg over the other, his cock lying against his thigh, arm bent at the
elbow lying on his waist.

“ Describe it to me.” He whispers, looking the picture of high renaissance, skin like ivory dusted
in gold, dipped in a lake of stardust, a garden of bruised, gleaming white.

“ There’s this patch of sunlight on your shoulder,” Taehyung whispers, voice raspy. “ It’s lighting
up this pink bruise like a flower, like a peony, every time you move, it looks like it’s blooming.”
He narrates, touching the bruise with tentative fingertips. Jimin shudders, moaning.

“ More.”

“ You look softer in this lighting, younger, like when we were fourteen. It looks like the morning
after-”

Jimin cuts in.

“ After the first time?” Taehyung smiles.

“ Mm.”

“ Remember how soft you were with me?” Jimin says, opening his eyes.

“ Shut up.”

“ Oh, Jiminie,” He mocks Taehyung, imitating him. “ Are you hurt? Are you okay? Do you need
me to stop?”

“ You’re saying that as if I don’t still do that every time.”

“ Mm,” Jimin hums. “ But now you leave pretty bruises all over.”

“ They’re only pretty because they’re on you.” The older’s breath hitches, crumbling under
Taehyung’s stare, hands coming to hide his face. He knows Taehyung hates it when he does that.

“ ‘S that so?” Jimin questions dubiously, hiding his face under Taehyung’s penetrating stare, and
Taehyung knows it’s because he doesn’t quite believe him, not yet.

“ Why don’t you like your cheeks, baby?” Taehyung questions, unplastering Jimin’s hands from
his face. “They’re beautiful, you’re so goddamned beautiful.”

Jimin curls into himself, always weak for Teahyung’s post-sex monologues, the way he talks and
talks, and Jimin falls and falls, weak to this headspace Taehyung always lures him into, this safe
space where Jimin is beautiful, where he’s wanted no matter what, where Taehyung talks and
talks but also listens, and touches him like he is made of moonlight. Like he is the reason why
earth is not afraid of nightfall, not anymore.

“ They make me look fat,” Jimin whispers. “You know that.”

Taehyung rolls his eyes, kissing Jimin’s face, again and again, slobbering all over him until his
cheeks are throbbing and the older pushes him away with a giggle.

“ Yeah but,” Taehyung says before one last kiss. “ That’s okay. Even if they do, which they don’t.
I can actually feel your skin in my hands now, you know how much I like that. You feel all soft,
baby, you feel amazing to hold.”

“ And I didn’t before?” Jimin questions, cocking up a brow. Taehyung slaps him lightly, huffing.

“ You know that’s not what I mean.”

Jimin chuckles, a little bit emptily.

“ I have eight percent body fat.” Taehyung narrows his eyes at that.

“ You are just in the healthy range, we’re still working on that.”

“ God, I’m not gonna be able to move at this rate.” Jimin complains, playing with the skin at his
hip.

“ The bruises look so damned pretty on you right now,” Taehyung praises to Jimin’s growing
glee, his defences melting under the praise. “ You look so healthy baby.”

“ Mm sure. Healthy and fat.”

Taehyung sighs.

“ Jiminie.”

Jimin smiles.

“ Taehyungie.”

“ You’re not fat.”

Jimin rolls his eyes, drawing circles on Taehyung’s shoulder.

“ K.”

“ Wouldn’t care even if you were.”

Jimin laughs at him like he’s crazy. Taehyung doesn’t appreciate it.

“ You’re saying that now.”

“ I’d say that whenever.”

“ Liar.”

“Look" Taehyung says, “ C’mere.” He says, taking Jimin in his hands, manoeuvring him to sit in
his lap. Jimin whimpers as his bruises stretch under the pressure of moving. Taehyung spreads his
palms on Jimin’s clavicle, then grabs his hips, feeling bone beneath his hand.

“ They’re still sticking out right here, way more than they should be.” He whispers, kissing
Jimin’s jaw, tilting his chin up. “You’re still too thin Jiminie, you know that, and I know you still
secretly weigh yourself every day.”

Jimin gasps, his head falling, immediately tearing up with shame.

“ I…” He breathes, pressing his face against Taehyung’s chest, their bare cocks brushing as Jimin
presses himself closer with embarrassment. “I’m sorry.”

“ Don’t apologise pretty baby, mm?” Taehyung assures, kissing him, over and over, chanting:
‘Look at me baby, look at me.’, until Jimin finally looks up at him, tears ringing his eyes. “You’re
healthier than you’ve been in years, Jiminie,” Taehyung praises. “ We’re gonna keep it that way,
mm? I’m not letting you hurt yourself like that again.” He promises, smiling. “ But you gotta stop
lying to me baby, okay?”

“ I-I’m sorry.”

“ Don’t say sorry baby, you have nothing to be sorry for.”

“ You’re not gonna let me get bad again, are you?” Jimin asks with wet, wide eyes.

“ No, never, I’m never letting you get bad again, love.”

“ You can’t leave me, okay? If you leave you know I’ll get bad.”

“ I’m not gonna. I’ll take you everywhere with me. And you’ll take me with you wherever you
go, won’t you?”

“ I’m so sorry Taehyungie.” Jimin cries, shaking with embarrassment at going against what
they’ve been working on together for so long.

“Look at you, Jiminie,” Taehyung coos, shaking his head at the apologies spilling from Jimin’s
swollen lips. He pushes Jimin back by the shoulders, the older falling softly onto the bed, legs
parting for Taehyung to sit in between them, his hands covering his arousal, trying to close his
legs more the further in Taehyung sits. The younger tutts at him, removing his hands from his
cock, placing them at his sides, giving him a look that says: ‘move them and you’ll pay’

“ What do you have to be sorry for when you look like this? Taehyung asks trailing his hands
along the fat of Jimin’s thighs, kissing each knee cap. Jimin shudders, back arching in response to
Taehyung’s fingertips following the inside of his thighs. His thighs shake, hands plastered to his
sides where Taehyung put them, fingertips reaching up to hide something, anything, to cover the
blush on his cheeks, the tears leaking from his eyes, to hide all the weakness and the skin he
knows Taehyung loves more than Jimin hates it himself.

“ L-like what?” Jimin stutters, Taehyung’s lips latching onto the skin of his inner thigh, licking
over bruises, biting down just enough for it to hurt, the way he knows Jimin likes it to. Taehyung
stops his administrations, looks at him, straight into his eyes, pouring lust, love and everything in
between into Jimin’s wet, desperate gaze.

“ Like a god.” Taehyung replies. “ Like a fucking god.” He repeats as Jimin mewls, his legs
bending, back curling upwards as Taehyung licks around his hole. When Taehyung’s mouth
latches onto the puffy, leaking skin of Jimin’s rim, the older lets out a high, fluttering moan, his
legs convulsing around Taehyung’s head.

“ You’re a god baby, they’re all jealous of you up there.” He declares, glancing upwards. “Look
at you, fucking look at you. Look at how pretty you are, mm? Look at this.” He chants, pressing a
finger into Jimin, his hole taking him in easily, almost winking at Taehyung’s fingers when his
hand leaves to open Jimin’s legs further.

“ D-don’t.” The older pleads, already sobbing from the sheer intensity of Taehyung’s touches.

“ You don’t like that?” Taehyung teases softly, massaging his hole with his thumb with one hand
as the other presses down on Jimin’s stomach, massaging the bruised skin.

“ I-”

Taehyung stretches, reaching backwards towards the bedside table, his hand coming into contact
with the wet bottle of lubricant. He dribbles some onto Jimin’s stomach.

“ Ah-”

“ Cold?” Taehyung asks, massaging the lube onto Jimin’s stomach, spreading it down into the
junction of his legs, wetting the triangle of skin around his cock.

“ Y-y…” Taehyung chuckles at him, taking the lube and, unbeknownst to an oblivious Jimin, he
presses his legs further back, plastering them to his chest, holding the back of his thighs with one
hand, then, he holds the bottle directly above Jimin’s hole, then points it down.

Jimin screams.

“ T-Tae- T-Tae, T-Taehyung, p-please,”

Taehyung dives down, taking Jimin’s hole into his mouth.

“ I- oh o-oh god.”

“ That’s right,” Taehyung praises, sucking, tongue delving inside the ring of muscle, his fingers
stretching out the dusty pink halo of skin around his mouth. “ Call my name baby. Call me by
your name.”

“ God,” Jimin shouts, his hands finally moving, shaking, trembling as his fingers latch onto
Taehyung’s hair, pulling him further in. “Taehyung, god, p-please, please-” He hiccups, voice
cutting into a small whimper as Taehyung presses two fingers into him, inching them further in
when Jimin’s hole relaxes to lure the digits closer. “ P-please.”

Taehyung fingers him languidly, watching Jimin lose sanity beneath his hands, arms flailing
around, not knowing what to hold, tears curving from his eyes down to his ears, tummy
trembling.

“ Baby, you’re shaking so much.” Taehyung sweetly mocks, laying a hand on Jimin’s stomach as
his legs fall. “Relax, Jimin, relax.”

“ C-can’t. F-fuck, I can’t. More, Taehyung, more, please, god, more.”

Taehyung takes his fingers out at the plea, “ N-no, p-please-” and his hands wrap around Jimin’s
cock, lengthening to its fully erect size on Jimin’s stomach. “ N-no, I- ‘m g-gonna cum,
Taehyungie, p-please…”

“ Shhh,” Taehyung coos, taking Jimin’s leaking head into his mouth, suckling on the red wetness.

“ T-Taehyungie I-I ‘m-”

“ You wanna come baby?” Taehyung asks, licking a stripe down Jimin’s cock.

“ N-no, w-want-” Jimin takes a breath. Gosh, he’s so weak. They’re not even doing a scene and
he’s this far gone, always, always putty beneath Taehyung’s hands.

“ What is it? Tell me.”

“ F-fuck me, fuck me please, please please please.”

“ So polite, Jiminie.” Taehyung exclaims, circling Jimin’s hole with his fingers.

“ I’ll die if you don’t, I- I really oh, oh-” Taehyung presses three fingers in, simultaneously
lowering his mouth down Jimin’s cock, choking slightly, looking up at Jimin through hooded
lashes, the older sitting up on his elbows, leaning against them as he watches Taehyung slide up
and down his length, his fingers working him loose at the same time.

“ Fuck, Taehyung.” Jimin swears, his headspace dispelling into something more primal at the sight
of his cock in Taehung’s mouth, the heir’s jaw wet with his cum, his hands knuckle-deep in
Jimin’s hole.

“ How am I doing little prince?” Taehyung asks, coming to rub his lips against Jimin’s tip,
shutting his eyes at the sensation of Jimin’s cum-stained skin against his face, sucking the precome
out of Jimin’s tip, holding it in his mouth, tasting it. Jimin growls at the sight, clutching
Taehyung’s hair in his hand, pulling him up roughly.

“ My king.” He whispers as a trickle of come dribbles over Taehyung’s red lips, painting them
white. Taehyung spits it into Jimin’s mouth, both of them moaning at the exchange, Jimin leaning
up to lick his own cum from Taehyung’s mouth, biting harshly into his jaw. Taehyung presses his
fingers into his own mouth, collecting the cum he still hasn’t swallowed, and transferring it into
Jimin’s mouth for the older to suck.

“ My prince.”

Jimin overturns them, pushing Taehyung back, mounting him. “ My king.”

“ You’re the one who looks like a king right now.” Taehyung declares, watching the sun thread
Jimin’s hair in gold, his body alight in the fiery rays entering from the floor to ceiling windows
spanning two walls of the penthouse, curtains pushed aside to reveal the sky scrapers scattered all
around them.

“ My king of hearts.” Taehyung whispers, palms spread on Jimin’s sides, trailing up and down,
taking his nipples in his hands and pulling, Jimin mirroring a broken puppet as he arches back
instead of forward, mewling. “ My slave.” Taehyung chants, gripping Jimin’s hips, hard. Jimin
screams, bruises darkening beneath Taehyung’s hand.

“ Your slave.” Jimin sings back, true to his name, as Taehyung takes his hand in his own, their
cocks sliding against each other as the latter pulls him closer.
“ My master.” Taehyung growls, hand wrapping around Jimin’s discoloured throat, pulling him
down with one rough tug, their foreheads smashing together.

“ Your master.” Jimin moans as Taehyung’s hand tightens around his neck.

“ My right hand.”

“ Y-your-” Taehyung presses down on either side of Jimin’s windpipe with the extremes of his
hand, more, more, Jimin spluttering the words into Taehyung’s mouth, only a few millimetres
away, gasping for breath. “ Y-your right hand.”

Taehyung relaxes his hold on the older’s neck.

“ And my left.”

“ And your left.”

He lets go, and Jimin sits up, hands coming to grab his own throat, puppy breaths leaving him as
he pants for air.

“ Sit on your throne, Jimin,” Taehyung orders, grabbing his hips, lifting him. “Come sit where you
belong.” He growls, holding Jimin’s thighs as the elder holds onto Taehyung’s stomach for
support, his rim swelling around Taehyung’s tip.

He shakes as Taehyung lowers him onto his cock with one hand, other hand intertwined with his.

“ Just like that baby, just like that my Little Prince.” Taehyung whispers, his hands soothingly
massaging Jimin’s hips as the prince breathes the discomfort away, and registers the fullness of
Teahyung’s cock inside him. He can feel it in his stomach. His hand travels across his abdomen
feeling the protrusion of Taehyung’s cock inside him.

“ You’re so big,” Jimin says for what’s probably the millionth time, and definitely not the last,
always needing to habituate himself to the sheer immensity of how Taehyung feels inside him. “
You’re so fucking big.”

Taehyung growls at the praise, thrusting upwards once, only to have Jimin scream, crumbling
forwards, hands slapping onto Taehyung’s chest.

“ Only the best for my prince.” Taehyung assures, kissing Jimin’s forehead before gently nudging
him backwards again.

“ I wanna ride your throne.” Jimin whines, rolling his hips.

“ Ride my throne baby,” The other encourages, moaning as Jimin slides off his length then sits
right back on it, balls deep. “ Y-yeah, fuck, just like that.”

Jimin rides him languidly, Taehyung moulding bruises beneath his hands and relishing in the way
Jimin whines in bittersweet pain. How far they’ve come, these moonchildren of ours, from shy
mouths and boyish innocence to these blasphemous highs of theirs that they milk until all that’s
left is sacrilege and skin. Skin. Skin.

“ Taehyungie,” Jimin whines in a certain way, and Taehyung sits up, palms spread on Jimin’s
spine to hold him upright.

“ What is it, baby?”

Jimin glances to their bed side table, urging Taehyung to follow his line of sight to the guns
glinting against the wood.

“ Baby,” Taehyung coos.

“ Please,” Jimin begs. “ I really want it.” He pleas, pouting in all of his cum-stained glory.

Taehyung tutts at him, reconsidering.

“ Okay baby,” He assures, shifting both of their bodies back, his own hitting the headboard as he
reaches over to their bedside table, his hand coming into contact with the cool surface of their
guns. He empties the magazines with one hand, the golden bullets clattering onto the floor, the
sound like gospel to Jimin’s ears.

“ Please.” He whispers, eyes rolling back as Taehyung hands him his gun.

Two gold Colts, custom made. His is gold, black worked into the handle, the slide smooth, save
for the intricate, inconspicuous engravings and little K.T.H’s inscribed on either side, near the
nozzle of the gun.

Jimin’s is much more flashy. They’re both 1911’s, passed down the family from Dante Kim, and
Hans Min. Where Taehyung’s slide is smooth, the engravings on Jimin’s slide protrude out of the
gun, hills upon hills of gold curling and bulging along the slide, the handle encrusted in opal, a
gold ornament of a leopard engraved on it, whereas on Taehyung’s is a lion.

Taehyung presses the nozzle against Jimin’s forehead while Jimin’s rests against his thigh, limp, as
he breathes in the scent of gold.

“ F-fuck.” Jimin moans, Taehyung pressing the nozzle harder against his forehead.

“ You like that?” Taehyung questions, thrusting upwards into Jimin just as he clicks a blank
against Jimin’s head, the sound echoing orgasmically in the older’s ears.

“ Fuck, Taehyungie, this is so hot.”

Taehyung takes Jimin’s hand with the gun wrapped inside it, and presses it against his own
temple.

“ F-fuck.” Jimin swears again, rolling his hips. “ W-we’re crazy.”

“ You’re the crazy one baby.”

“ W-want y-you to f-fuck me w-with one.” Jimin whines, bouncing up and down on Taehyung’s
cock, his hand struggling to keep the Colt angled at Taehyung’s head.

“ We’ll get a – fuck baby, slow down- we’ll get a nice diamond revolver, mm, when we get home,
and I’ll fuck you to tears with it cherry, how about that?”

“ Y-yes, yes, please.”

“ Take it into your mouth baby,” Taehyung directs, putting the gold nozzle of his colt against
Jimin’s lips. “ Suck it like the good little gun whore you are.”

Jimin takes the colt into his mouth with vigour, hand awkwardly holding his own against
Taehyung’s forehead. “ Am I a good little gun whore Taehyungie?”

“ You’re my good little whore baby,” Taehyung parrots sweetly, kissing his cheek. “ Show me
“ You’re my good little whore baby,” Taehyung parrots sweetly, kissing his cheek. “ Show me
how well you can ride me peach, show me how well you ride your king.” He chants, holding the
gun inside Jimin’s mouth like a gag.

Jimin bounces up and down, his grip on his own colt slackening, the gun falling into Taehyung’s
lap like a little toy. Taehyung presses the trigger again, the gun shaking in Jimin’s mouth.

Jimin comes, slick spurting onto Taehyung’s stomach, onto his jaw, wetting the marriage of their
abdomens as he lets out a high, loud, wanton scream, his hands slapping against Taehyung’s
shoulders as he leaks his release onto his lover’s skin, back arching and uncurling with each wave
of his orgasm shuddering through him. “ Come for me, baby, just like that, Jimin, show your king
how you paint him baby, that’s it, that’s it-” Taehyung encourages, his thumb playing with Jimin’s
tip, come smearing onto his fingers, the latter erratic on top of him, the last spurts of come leaving
him in weak bounces, landing on Taehyung’s thighs, milky white criss-crossing his chest, inching
down the sides of his thighs comfortably, almost like they’ve landed home. “ Good boy.” He
praises, taking the gun from Jimin’s forehead, coating it in the pools of cum on Jimin’s skin,
pressing against his lips. “ Lick baby,” He coos, pressing the gun into Jimin’s mouth, the latter’s
lips swollen red around the gold. He looks a picture.

The picture of all that is holy and profane, good and not, bad and worse, sits here, in the form of
Jimin, with one hole stuffed with cock and the other with a cum-slick Colt, lips red, almost like a
flower of blood around the golden slide, a map of bruises inching their way down a white, delicate
neck, and his hands searching for his abandoned colt in Taehyung’s lap. His fingers latch onto it,
lifting it with shaking fingers as he presses his forehead against Taehyung’s, tasting his come on
the metal of the gun. “ Lick your sin away, Little Prince.” Taehyung murmurs, Jimin trailing the
nozzle of his colt against Taehyung’s face, mapping out the sharp of his jaw, the round of his
cheeks, Taehyung shivering beneath the coldness of gold against his face. Jimin takes the gun like
he does cock, like he’s made for it.

“ F-fill me up, baby.” Jimin moans, trailing the arch of Taehyung’s strong brows with the gun,
tucking his hair behind his ear with the barrel, revealing his wet forehead, which he kisses,
grabbing the back of Taehyung’s head in his hands as he lets his lips rest against Taehyung’s skin
. Taehyung’s hands grab the fat of Jimin’s ass, the gun cold in his right hand as he holds it against
the swell of his left cheek, bouncing Jimin up and down while pistoning himself deeper into his
hole. “Y-yeah, j-just like that.”

“ Wanna be bred, Jiminie?” Taehyung asks, the words spilling from his mouth as he watches the
protrusion of his cock dip into Jimin’s stomach, watching the way Jimin touches the pulsating
bump with fascination.

“ W-wanna be bred.” Jimin sings back, Taehyung taking the gun in Jimin’s hand in his own, left
hand curling around the handle and pressing it on the underside of Jimin’s throat.

“ You think you’re pretty enough to be bred by a king, Jiminie?”

“ Y-yes,” Jimin splutters, humiliation dusting his white cheeks. “ Y-yes, ‘m pretty, t-tell me I’m p-
pretty-” Taehyung presses the gun further into the skin of his throat, his right hand snaking the gun
in between Jimin’s leaking cheeks, fitting it against his rim, shivering at the sensation of the nozzle
against his dick. He decides to milk the humiliation out of Jimin, refusing to give him the praise he
craves.

“ What’s the magic word, baby?” He asks, Jimin’s eyes fluttering open and closed as he starts to
cry on demand.

“ P-please, T-Taehyung, t-tell me I’m pretty.”

“ You know you’re pretty, Jiminie.”

“ T-tell me.” Jimin cries, punching him with a weak fist. “P-please, I-”

“ You’re the prettiest, baby.” Taehyung caves. “Prettiest boy in the whole damned world, aren’t
you?” He asks. “ Mm?” He puts both of the guns down, the gold pair landing on the bed in
harmony. He grabs Jimin’s chin, pulls him closer with his other hand. “ Are you the prettiest boy
in the whole damned world? Prettiest little thing on this fucking shithole, aren’t you?” He chants,
kissing him. “ Aren’t you, pet?”

“ Y-yes, ‘m pretty, ‘m pretty enough to be bred. P-please, p-please, Sir-” Taehyung stops
thrusting.

“ Sir?” He mimics, smirk plastered across his face.

“ T-Taehyung,” Jimin growls, headspace dispelled and intensified simultaneously, clouded with
the mockery spilling from the younger’s lips. “I- I m-meant Taehyung.”

“ Say it again.” Taehyung whispers, smiling wickedly.

“ F-fuck you.” Jimin swears, biting Taehyung’s lips, trying to draw blood.

“ You don’t wanna be full of my come Jiminie?” Taehyung asks, noticing Jimin is close again,
knowing he, himself is nearly on the edge. “ You don’t want me to stuff your cunt full with my
seed, baby?” He purrs, massaging Jimin’s back, the latter’s moans turning into whines, then quiet,
fluttering yelps, his hole relaxing to take more and more of Taehyung in.

“ P-please-“ Jimin whines unknowingly, biting his lip as the plea escapes unbeknownst to his will
and useless pride.

“ T-that’s it,” Taehyung coos, thrusting harder, pumping faster.

“ P-please S-sir.” Jimin begs, finally, joining Taehyung’s administrations as he wills himself to
gather his last remnants of strength, fucking himself on Taehyung’s length.

“ Mm,” The heir hums, pleased. “ J-just like that.” He stutters, composure slipping as he feels
himself swell inside Jimin.

“ S-stuff me full p-please,” Jimin blabbers, not entirely conscious of the filth leaving his swollen
mouth. “ S-stuff me full Tae, f-full of- f-full of,” Taehyung’s hands suddenly slam against Jimin’s
shoulder blades, clawing their way down his spine, leaving angry red lines down his white skin as
he convulses, letting out a long, sustained growl, “ O-oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. S-Sir-”Jimin falls back
with the intensity of his spams, Taehyung mounting him as the former wraps his legs around his
body, pushing him further in, the cum filling Jimin’s belly in hot, full, spurts. “T-tae, m-my, m-my
G-god, God, God, God, y-yes, yes T-tae, T-tae, Tae, T-T-”

Jimin comes with Taehyung’s name on his lips like a prayer, Taehyung comes with trains of
‘Baby’, ‘Fuck’ and ‘Jimin’ spilling from his mouth, biting onto Jimin’s shoulder so hard that Jimin
screams, crying out even as euphoria numbs pain and pain stings into the cloud of orgasm
washing over his head.

His body delights in the sheer volume of cum inside him, arms wrapping around Taehyung to pull
him close, his head in the latter’s shoulder. “ I love you.” He whispers into Taehyung’s skin, their
bodies sewn together in sunlight and locked with the marriage of their wet, tired limbs. “ I love
you.” He says again, Taehyung smiling at him as he chants the three words into the younger’s
skin. Taehyung takes Jimin’s head in his hands, lifting himself up to look at his face properly.
I love you. He mimes, wiping the wetness from the corner of Jimin’s eye. “ So damned much.”

“ Love you.” Jimin whispers again.

Love you. Taehyung mimes again, kissing him sweetly,

“ Love you.” Jimin sings back.

“ You love me?” Taehyung asks, giggling deeply.

“ I love you.” The little prince murmurs, then: “ You love me?”

Taehyung nods, and kisses him. And kisses him. And Jimin kisses him back. And for that
afternoon, they’re okay. Basking in the sunlight, rolling around in dirty sheets, tethered in cum that
feels like second skin, they’re okay. It’s been more than a year since Sam has left. Yoongi doesn’t
talk to them anymore, or rather Taehyung pretends like he doesn’t exist, after what happened. But
they’re okay.

“ We’re gonna be okay, right?” Jimin asks. Taehyung smiles at him like it’s the silliest question in
the whole world.

“ We’re gonna be just fine.”

______________________

The Deputy Director steps out of the classroom, files marked with CLASSIFIED stamps
bouncing in his arms as he puts the hard drive containing the films in his pocket, whistling to
himself in the emptiness of the corridors. Where is everyone?

He senses the presence just a second too late, just before metal hisses against his throat and he’s
being pushed into a secluded corridor, face against the wall, with someone unbreathing behind his
neck.

“ I’m going to need those files, Doctor.”

The voice speaks un-besmirched by accents or human tone. The knife at his throat is pressed just
below his jugular, the assailant’s arm curled around his left shoulder, a blue light radiating onto
the wall from the right.

“ Why?” Woodlock asks, voice steady, adjusting the position of the knife against his neck in tiny
micro movements until the pressure is slightly relieved, but he suspects that’s only because he’s
not a considerable enough threat for the stranger to care.

“ Huh.” The man behind him puffs, sliding the knife along Woodlock’s throat, black-coated arm
uncurling, leaving Woodlock standing with his back to the man, nose brushing the wall.

“ Interesting.” He comments. “ ‘How did you get in? What do you want? Please don’t kill me,”
The aggressor mocks in the manner of an unsuspecting hostage. “I expected.” He finishes. “But
why?” He asks, chuckling. Woodlock doesn’t turn around, staying exactly where he is. The man
smells strange, but familiar. It’s a scent Woodlock hasn’t smelled in a very long time, characteristic
of-

“ I need to see what I’m up against Director,” The man explains, accent profusely English.

“ As you said, the Kim boy has very powerful friends, one likes to be prepared.” He ends with a
haunting lilt to his voice, almost like a caged songbird who sings instead of speaking, just to see if
they will let him out if he sounds pretty enough.

Which he does, this attacker, he sounds pretty, a little unreal, like you’re hearing him through a
glass of smoke. Clear and yet… eerily unreachable.

The Director considers his next words, hand slowly, very slowly, coming up to push his
spectacles further up his nose. The attacker makes no move to stop him.

“ I disabled them.” The man says. “There’s no use trying.”

Woodlock smiles, his hand slipping from the miniature button on the frame of his glasses. “ How
old are you, young man?”

“ Old enough to know when you’re stalling.” The stranger sings. “ You can turn around you
know? I don’t bite, I like them a little younger I’m afraid.”

Woodlock twists his left foot, pivoting slowly, barely making a sound, his hands raised in the air
next to him, head-height, in feigned submission, and turns. He sees the man’s shoes first. A
strange choice. Burgundy oxfords, cheap, sixty bucks at most. They don’t match the rest of his
attire, everything else is far too expensive, Saint Laurent, Tom ford, Breitling watch. Sixty dollar
shoes. Not only cheap, but worn too.

The director smiles. It’s a ritual.

The scuff marks, the rips, the dirt, they’re all newly inflicted wounds to the cheap leather. A
ritualistic assailant who smells of the lingering, nostalgic aroma of stale but longingly fragrant
incense, characteristic of all catholic churches. Seems like for the next few moments, the director
has a psychopath on his hands.

Woodlock finally looks up, and-

“ You.”

The stranger smiles.

“ Me.”

The Director narrows his eyes, surprise leaking through his features.

“ You should really pay more attention to who’s sitting in your classroom, Doctor Woodlock.”
The stranger advises, smiling.

“ That’s now why I’m surprised, you’re-”

“ Yes.” The stranger cuts him off. “I am.” He reveals. “More handsome in person, I’m sure.”

Woodlock looks at him. Really looks at him. The combed hair, the near-perfect bone structure, the
pout sitting on his lips. Then, he looks at his eyes.

“ You’re after them, those kids in the photo,” Woodlock says suddenly. “Aren’t you?”
The stranger stares at him, tilting his head to the side, twirling the knife in his hand.

“ Yes,” He replies. “Hence, the file.” He reminds, making a beckoning motion with his long
fingers, nails cut too short.

Woodlock counts around four minutes in total before he’s dead. The recording device in his watch
couldn’t have been deactivated, he hasn’t taken it off the whole day. So, he milks it for what it’s
worth.

“ Does he know about this?” The Director asks, the other man scoffing in return, touching his
neck.

Pressure point 1.

“ We wouldn’t be so comfortable if he did,” He insinuates. “I assure you.”

“ Did he die?” The director interrupts him.

Woodlock has obviously caught him off guard, and the man stutters out his next word.

“ What?

Pressure point 2.

“ The priest who abused you.” The man’s face darkens, though the change is barely noticeable.
He touches his neck again. “That was your trigger, wasn’t it?”

The boy breaks into a reluctant, forced smile. Woodlock catches him chewing into his jaw, the
hand not holding the knife drumming on his thigh.

Bingo.

“Seems like your five years at the BAU did some good after all.” The boy comments, voice lilting
towards the end, human tenor cutting into his words, making the length of his syllables uneven.

He almost, almost sounds human.

“ I’d say it was probably physical, sexual,” Woodlock says slowly, pensive “ Three to five years,
I’d say, not long enough for you to be deterred from sex totally, and you were young enough to
not remember much more than the shoes he wore every time he came into your room, which was
at the top of the church, with a low ceiling. You have this tendency to ruin your perfect posture
with the way you lean your head down, like there’s an invisible ceiling above your head.”

Bingo. Bingo. Bingo.

The shots hit home, one after another, but the man’s composure remains more or less calm.
Impressively calm.

“ I didn’t know they taught creative writing at Central Intelligence,” He exclaims, sounding almost
like a child, before his face turns into stone again. “I’ve always been lacking a little in storytelling,
I would have signed up.”

“ Did he read you stories before slipping his hands beneath the waistband of your little boy
trousers?”

The boy laughs, doubling over, and when he stands, all Woodlock sees in his face, is void.
“ This is a lot of imagination for a man who has three minutes to live.” The stranger says, taking
out a gun fitted with a silencer from behind him. Woodlock takes a breath.

“You were planning on going back to kill him, you probably thought about it every second of
every day, but nature beat you to it.” The stranger lifts his weapon. “So, the source of your trauma
is dead, and now… now you’re after the reason you were there in the first place, and the source of
that-”

Woodlock shuts his eyes and continues speaking, hearing the slide of the man’s beautiful fingers
against the sun.

“ Is The Kempire.”

The Legacy presses down on the trigger. Blood splatters onto the wall behind the agent, red
misting onto the white plaster in patterns the boy knows better than he knows his own face.

“ He doesn’t fucking shut up,” The Legacy swears, crouching down, reaching into the man’s
pockets for the file. “ Jesus fuck,” His hand comes into contact with the hard drive, tucking his
gun under his jacket once again before grabbing the paper files with his other hand, and standing.
He relishes in the silence, then begins humming. Bach, Goldberg Variations.

“That’s better.” He sings, pivoting on his heel to walk away, before stopping, and looking back.

“He did read me stories.” He says suddenly. “ He was…” The legacy pauses. Something foreign
prickles his eye, his fingers touching his cheek only to come back wet. Strange. “ He was
beautiful.” He whispers, almost like he doesn’t want Woodlock to hear him. “The picture of god,
they used to call him.” He murmurs, tears running down his face. “Fair headed…” He pauses.
“Blue eyed, fair skinned, I- I-” He laughs. It’s been a long time since he’s cried like this. “ I
thought I loved him, by the time I reached eight.” He looks at the disk in his hand. “But then I met
someone, and I- and I realised it wasn’t love at all. It was…It was Stockholm syndrome.” His
voice breaks, cracking. “He abused me for six years…” He whispers in reminiscence. “Until I was
twelve.” He steps forward, again, and again, and then crouches down, pressing his thumbs against
the Director’s closed lids, and then…and then he presses in. He burrows his thumbs into his lids
until blood splatters onto his shirt. Then he presses his thumb into the flap of the lid, and opens the
director’s mutilated eyes. “He died three years ago.” He starts painting on the man’s face with his
bloodied thumbs. He paints a boy on one cheek, then another boy on the other, taller than the first.
Then, on his nose, he draws a line, going up the bridge line, and finally a circle to complete it,
right between his eyebrows.

A lollipop.

“ And you know who’s fault all of this is?” He asks. “You know who I’m going to make pay for
every scar, for every single time I kneeled and put my little, unknowing mouth around a priest’s
cock?” His bloody fingers wrapping around the Director’s throat, mouth opening to scream, to
howl at the mutilated masterpiece. “You know who I’m gonna make fucking pay for what’s been
DONE TO ME?”

He presses. And presses. Until he feels bone crumble beneath his fingers, until he feels blood leak
onto his hands, until he can see the workings of the man’s throat and the discs of his oesophagus.

He presses.

And then, from his inner coat pocket, he takes out a photograph. The same one from the
presentation, with the six of them standing there, smiling like the stupid fools they are, unknowing
what would happen to them just a few months after the photo is taken.
“ Them.” The legacy whispers, standing. He takes a lighter out of his pocket. It’s gold, scuffed,
and doesn’t really belong to him.

It doesn’t belong to anyone living, anyway.

He flips the lighter open, flicks the flame on, holds the tendrils of fiery orange against the corner of
the memoir, and burns it.

He watches the photo fall, evaporating like smoke, falling onto the man’s bloody chest. Then,
from his pocket, he takes out a yellow lollipop. He unwraps it, plops it into his mouth, and sucks,
turning.

“ All of them.”

II

London

“ T-tae…” Jimin is sick of his own moans. He’s fucking sick of moaning his name, coming into
his fist, fingering himself to sleep at night, waiting, praying, begging the sky for some kind of
fucking lead. For anything that would distract him from the fact that it’s been a month away, a
month without his mouth, his skin, his hands on Jimin’s hips.

His hips.

Smaller. Smaller than they were even at fourteen, when he first realised he wanted to be as small
as humanly possible.

How is he going to explain this to him? To Taehyung? To Taehyung who’d know how horribly
Jimin had strayed just by putting his fingers on his famished, abused skin.

“ Ah…” He’s three fingers deep, bent over the bed, mouth open against the pillows, drool matting
the sheets. “T-tae…” He moans. “ Taehyungie…”

“Taehyung…”

“More…”

“Please..”

It’s after his third orgasm of the night that he breaks down, spilling angry tears onto the bed,
naked, wet, form leaking cum and sweat onto the sheets, rutting against the pillows, moaning
different variations of his king’s name.

“ Just-” He sobs, biting down on the pillow, fingers still knuckle-deep inside him, fucking away
the emptiness with his short, pathetic digits, fingering the hunger away. "Just call him, Jimin.” He
sobs at himself, clawing at the cum-stained sheets. “ Call him.”
But he can’t. He can’t, it’s- it’s not that fucking easy.

Something’s changing. Something’s changed. Jimin doesn’t know what it is, but he knows it’s
there, he knows they’re burning out, he’s burning out, and calling him would set fire to them.

He misses him.

“ I miss him.”

The room isn’t one he would usually rent. It’s simple. A king size bed ( the vastness of which
doesn’t help his cause) pressed against the left wall upon entering, two bedside tables flanking it,
floor to ceiling windows on two sides, all of them currently covered by sheer white curtains and
velvet drapes. A bath flanks the right of the door upon entry, and going around that is the open
kitchen that Jimin hasn’t touched. The light entering through the gaps between the sapphire
drapes paints the room in a clouded, blue haze, Jimin’s sullied body coloured in periwinkle, dawn
reflected pink on the dark, wooden floors.

His weapons collection lays dull and neglected along the belt of the dining table on the other side
of the room, perpendicular to the kitchen island. Bayonets, daggers, Seal knives…Five sub
machine guns lie in open cases on the floor. He only has two assault rifles, each one sitting on a
customised stand, made by himself, pointing towards each of the two floor to ceiling windows,
ready for him to pick up and shoot at potential assailants in the surrounded skyscrapers.

Fragmentation and smoke grenades sit in rows on boxes on the right side of the table, not that
Jimin thinks he’ll be using them anytime soon, with how fucking dry this investigation of his is
going. Because he’s useless, isn’t he? Without Taehyung. No matter how much he tries to tell
himself otherwise, he’s only functional with him at his side, with him only a phone call away.

The five months Taehyung was away changed something. It was the short not so short term
trigger to something that has been brewing since… since forever.

They’re not sustainable. They haven’t been since they were eight, since Jimin started lying to
Taehyung and telling himself that he’ll tell him the truth himself before Taehyung ever found out.
Jimin didn’t realise, as a child, that the stars were burning themselves out. The hydrogen in this
relationship is Taehyung’s unconditional trust. And that’s gonna run out. Maybe now, maybe
tomorrow, but Jimin isn’t stupid enough to think that Taehyung doesn’t know- not everything, of
course- but it’s childish to make-believe, to think a man like that doesn’t know when he’s being
lied to.

Are they even stars anym0re? Or has Taehyung’s hydrogen already run out? Are they just red
giants? Just façades of cooling stars, still bright, still beautiful, but no longer warm, no longer
something you wish upon when it gets too cold at night, a star but not really a star.

But it’s okay, right? Jimin has a plan. It’s delayed because of the threat of the legacy, but he still
has a plan. He doesn’t know what it is, but it’s there.

He’s going to get out of this. He’s going to tell Taehyung the truth, escape from his step father’s
clutches…

He’s going to kill his step father, just like he killed his own parents, just like-

The ring comes timely, when Jimin’s hands are aching for his phone, drawing the curve of
Taehyung’s jaw on his sheets, kissing the imprints to breathe them to life. The ring comes timely,
when Jimin’s face whispers along silken sheets, lips dragging and biting down, pleas escaping his
mouth in the form of choked sobs, begging the silk to taste somewhat like the sinews of
Taehyung’s golden skin.

The ring comes now.

Jimin fumbles for his phone, hands stained in cum, fingers wrapping around the metal, puling the
phone off of the bedside table.

“ H-hello?” He kicks himself for stuttering. Revolted, he cleans himself off with the pillow cases,
sitting up to put the phone against his ears.

“ Mr Thebeau?”

Jimin squints his eyes at the surname. Fuck, it’s the authorities.

“ Yes,” Jimin replies, massaging his eyes, then recoiling at the sensation of cum getting into his
eyes. Shit. Fuck, that burns. “ I-it is he.”

“ I know it’s awfully early for a morning call but you told us to immediately inform you in case
there were any developments in your grandmother’s case.” The man explains, the post-orgasm
haze clouding Jimin for a moment before he realises he had posed as Marie Jean’s grandson, so
anything retrieved from the burnt ruins could be sent to him.

“ Yes.” Jimin manages to choke out, massaging the cum out of his eye. “Is there- is there
anything?”

“ We’ve uncovered something, from the ruins.” The man relays, office humdrum buzzing in the
background as Jimin stands, soft, wet cock hanging pink between his legs, thighs streaked in
white. Stumbling to the shower, he lingers in front of the mirror opposite to the bathroom door,
looking at himself with a certain distaste in his eyes. He looks so fucking ugly. Thin. Sickly. Not
eating isn’t making him beautiful.

“ Something?” He asks, turning away, looking at the pathetic arch of his spine over his shoulder,
the whites of his unmarked cheeks.

“ It’s better if you get here yourself, Sir. Your brother said he would be here soon.”

Jimin’s hand slides over the door handle.

“ My what?”

“ Your brother, Sir?”

Jimin takes half a second to survey the situation. It passes like an hour in his head, the word
brother provoking a train of thought that leads him to one conclusion.

The Legacy.

“ You called him before me?” Jimin asks.

“ Directly before you, Sir.” The man says, slightly shakily “Is that a problem?”

Jimin sniggers. He’d directly bribed them to call him first.

“ No.” He replies, plastering a smile on his face. “It will be a pleasure to reunite with him.”

“ We’ll be waiting, Mr Thebeau.”

Jimin hangs up the call, steps into the bathroom.

“ And so will he.”

Jimin steps into the Bugatti Chiron ten minutes later, showered, and dressed entirely in the Dior
winter collection, black lambskin jacket, green wool round neck jumper and deep blue calfskin
ankle boots. He arches himself into the Chiron, body relaxing at the scent of leather. He hesitated
whether to fly this or the blue and white over, or better yet, his red Maybach, but the black Chiron
stole his heart ever since its release last year, and Jimin’s driven nothing but it for the better part of
this year. Taehyung is less sentimental about his cars, and a lot more logical. His three million
black Lykan Hypersport is strictly for personal matters, and the car he drives most often. A
Bentley or Rolls Royce always does well for business meetings. Most of the brightly-coloured
neon sport scars of their teenage years are discarded in the mansion garages, the staple of which is
the gold chrome Ferrari spider.

That car was Taehyung’s fucking favourite.

They drove it around when they were way too young, spinning around New York with their fake
ID.S at fourteen, Sam, Yoongi and Jin screaming at Jimin to slow down from the backseats. Every
party, late night out, flashy entrance, you name it, was accompanied by that gold chrome Ferrari.

Until 20th March 2012.

Until less than two weeks after Yoongi’s birthday. Until Jimin and Taehyung, mere ages of
fifteen, making out inside the Ferrari at an unsuspecting drive thru, on the most seemingly normal
day of the year, waiting for Yoongi and Jin to finish cake-tasting, and for Sam to join them from
wherever the hell he’d disappeared to, so that they could go clubbing, like they’d planned…

Until Jimin and Taehyung got that call.

Until Taehyung got the call, and there wasn’t enough time to get a cab, to get out from that god-
awful gold monstrosity. So that’s how they had to turn up at the hospital, wearing clubbing
clothes, with metallic glitter smeared around Jimin’s kohl-lined eyes, sheer, white sleeveless shirt
bejewelled with a gold body chain, wrapping around his throat, going around his shoulders and
hips like a harness, torso scandalously exposed, wearing jeans with two long rectangles cut out of
them, from the middle of his thigh to the ankle, rips showing silvers of skin at the base of his ass
cheeks. Taehyung’s attire was more modest to degrees but still not inconspicuous enough. Not
inconspicuous enough for a mortuary visit in the middle of the afternoon, his white hoodie
threaded in gold patterns, vivid flowers and renaissance inspirations decorating the junctions of the
patterns in yellows and reds and pinks, trousers also white, pleated with hundreds of little radiating
suns, and of course, yellow shoes patterned in real gold.

If you asked anyone where they thought these two strange boys were going, it wouldn’t be the
mortuary. It wouldn’t be the deathbed of their best friend.

Taehyung nearly set fire to that car after leaving the hospital, which in itself, took a whole day.
Jimin stopped him, they all did. That car was- is forged from memories, it holds the few years of
happiness they were all allowed in its curves and edges. Jimin wasn’t going to let Taehyung ruin
that in a moment of reckless insanity.

So, it sits in the garages, with all the other cars, the ones they’ve made love in, the ones they’ve
fucked against, the ones they’ve never even driven, forgotten, gathering dust, just like the versions
of them they used to be.

Jimin blinks.

He’s here.

Click. Flash.

He looks to his right just as a shadow disappears.

Fuck his father’s little spies.

Not only does he have to deal with the snipers, the red lasers on his forehead at every turn, but he
also has to deal with the fucking photographers trailing his every fucking move.

Because that letter, the letter and the photographs they’d received a week after John Kim’s death,
and the accompanying threat “ Checkmate, son”, that wasn’t really from John Kim, was it?

Taehyung’s father was a proud man, but more than that, he was a realist. He was a bad ruler, the
plague of La Pente and its legacy. He couldn’t give less of a shit what happened to the empire
after his death. But the great Maclieen D. Park? He needed Taehyung to stay in the empire, he
needed Jimin to infiltrate that empire next to him.

And to this day, Taehyung doesn’t know. He doesn’t know the snipers that follow them, the
photographers who watch their every move…that they're all at the courtesy of Jimin.

Jimin’s stupidity. Jimin’s twisted sense of Stockholm syndrome towards a man whom he owes
nothing.

Nothing at all. And yet.

He’s had it drilled into his brain since he was five years old. For sixteen years he’s had the same
thing drilled into his stupid, infant mind. One wrong move, and he’s dead.

One wrong move and they’re dead.

One wrong thought and he’s dead.

One wrong thought and they’re dead.

He’s at the counter of the police station, having waited in a queue already. Skipping would just
draw attention. He hadn’t even registered getting out of the car.

“Adrian Thebeau for case 234B? Marie Jean Thebeau?” Jimin says, leaning against the counter,
voice droning jadedly. The main raises a brow, looks at Jimin, then at the door.

“Uh…” The man stutters. “Give me a second sir.”

“ Everything okay?” Jimin asks, following his gaze towards the door, cocking up a brow at the
complication.

The man ushers him to wait with a hand while he goes through a door behind the counter, people
looking Jimin up and down as they wait their turn.

Jimin grits his teeth.

Someone’s fucking stalling.

The young man comes back five minutes later with confused knots playing across his forehead,
pushing his spectacles further up his nose.

“ Mr Thebeau has already retrieved the item from the vaults, Sir.” The man says with a nervous
tick raising his ears.

“ Excuse me?” Jimin exclaims, looking around, then back at the man, the handle of the MK23
fitted to his hip biting into his bones. Not enough flesh to cushion it anymore.

“ I…” The man’s eyes shift to Jimin’s right, every passing second inching the man’s eyes wider
open.

“ Little Prince?”

Jimin blinks.

That voice.

That monotone, sing-song voice.

That smell.

The hand beneath his jacket curls around the handgun, and he whirls.

A gunshot comes his way, then another, Jimin ducking to the floor, flying over the counter, hands
catapulting him over, his body landing crouched onto the ground just as the spectacled man drops
dead next to him, his body thudding over the sound of the gunshots.

Jimin counts..

Two, five, seven, ten. Twelve bodies.

“ Catch me if you can, PrincE.”

Jimin smirks.

His hands latch onto the counter top, and he hauls himself over, landing on the other side already
in a run. He doesn’t look at the bodies scattered around him, blood matting Dior boots as he runs
towards the exit. He pays no mind to the distant police sirens ringing in his ears. He just runs.

Seconds later he’s throwing himself against the Chiron, looking right, then left.

There he is.

The hooded figure gets inside a bwhite Audi a8, and the fucker actually waits for Jimin. As if
Jimin needs to be waited for.

Jimin scoffs, fingers turning the ignition.

“ What the fuck?”

The masked figure inside the car ahead smirks at him, roaring away, away from Jimin’s clutches,
into the maze of Central London.

He rigged his fucking car.

Jimin stumbles out, the car speeding out of his vision in the distance.

And he runs.

“ This is my fucking city.” He swears, zooming into an alleyway on his left. There’s only three
paths he can take from here. And if he waited for him, that means he wants confrontation. Jimin
swerves left again, into another alleyway, the white Audi skimming past him through the gap
between the two.

There must be a metal staircase just about-

There.

Jimin flies, taking three steps at once. He presses his watch.

“ Vitals.” He breathes, seething as he rips his hand open on an exposed part of the rusty metal
banister.

“ 70 bpm. 28 m/p/h-”

The rest of the woman’s voice droning at him through the watch blurs into the sound of rushing
wind as he jumps onto the roof of the residential block of Victorian apartments. His eyes shift to
the road for the Audi. Fuck. He doesn’t need to go any faster, but the gap between this building
and the next beckons him as he gasps for breath, feet perched on the ledge as he jumps, flying
across the gap, probably around seven meters. He lands against the wall, knee hitting the brick.

“ Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” Red hands curl tighter around the ledge, pulling himself up with a growl,
feet sliding against the brick for purchase as he throws himself over the ledge, rolling on the roof
before stumbling up, and running blind. Jimin grins.

“ Vitals.”

“ 90 b.pm.”

Damn him. Damn him for not eating, for straying from all the hard work him and Taehyung had
put into his body.

Jimin runs, another roof crossed, and another, and when he looks at the road, he breaks into a grin.

He has a lead on him.

The Little Prince shuts his eyes, letting his subconscious work on autopilot as he envisions
London in his mind. Where could he possibly be going?

Jimin makes a split-second decision, and swerves left. The ledge beckons him, the Audi maybe
ten blocks to his left, far behind him.

Jimin’s feet hit the edge of the roof, and he freefalls.

The wind rushes through his open jacket, billowing in his pants, hair flurrying upwards in the cold
breeze, The Little Prince chuckling through the slapping of the roaring wind against his red
cheeks.

The ground approaches, and Jimin straightens his body, slightly bending his knees, ready for the
impact. The Dior boots he brought from New York are customised for shock-absorbance. He’s
practiced and carried out jumps triple the size of this.

Thirty feet?

It’s a piece of cake.

Jimin lands crouched, knees bending to absorb the impact, jumping after landing to lessen the
load, He turns left, to the Audi approaching him at thirty five km/hr. People around him scream,
children throwing themselves at parents, civilians seeking shelter inside stores, skittering into
alleyways.

Jimin curls his hand inside the green sweatshirt, pulls out a thin, black turtle neck from beneath the
collar, and fits it over his mouth, the cotton soft against his jaw, wet tresses of hair dropping over
his forehead in the consistency of black grass, cheeks flushed red, and sweat dripping from his
temples, curling around his face, into the collar of his neck.

The Audi is maybe a hundred meters away.

Jimin stands, holds out an arm, and waits.

Fifty.

Thirty.

Jimin smiles.

“You’re not gonna kill me, Little Legacy.”

Ten.

Jimin raises a brow.

Five.

The Audi stops an inch from Jimin’s thighs, engine roaring in his ears.

The Legacy gets out of the car.

The Little Prince begins laughing manically, looking the stranger up and down, down and up, and
his eyes resting on the man’s face.

He’s wearing a gold and blue masquerade mask that takes up his entire face, two slits for eyes,
and a thin horizontal slit between small, perky lips. The gold is customised for his features, nose
mould protruding over his face.

“ Did I miss the memo? I would have dressed more appropriately.” Jimin sings, hand slipping into
his jacket to produce two bayonets, throwing one to his other hand, twirling them between each
set of fingers.

“Wouldn’t want you to know who I am now, would we?” His voice has changed since the last
time, it’s lower, almost completely separated from his previous register. Jimin sighs, looking
towards the car, and the artefact he probably has tucked away in it’s shadows.
He’s good.

“ Why do you speak like that?”

The legacy stops in his tracks.

“ Like what?” He asks.

“ Like that.” Jimin replies, narrowing his eyes, crossing one ankle over the other, knives still
dancing in his hands. The mask makes it near-impossible for him to deduce any reactions from the
stranger, so he waits.

“ How rude.” The Legacy scorns, chuckling. “You could at least ask my name first.”

He’s draped in a navy blue, ankle-length trench coat, grey hoodie beneath pulled up to cover his
head, the color of his hair undecipherable.

“ And your answer would be?” Jimin twitters back, playing his game.

This is the man who nearly killed Taehyung. Who did kill him.

“ Clark.” He replies crisply, British accent prominent now more than ever, leaking through his
pronounced consonants. “Damian Clark.”

Jimin chuckles, knife in his right-hand hovering between third and fourth finger while the other
continues to dance. Beyond the mask, The Legacy’s eyes shift to Jimin’s left hand. The Little
Prince smiles.

“ A poser as well as a psychopath, then.” He concludes, throwing the knives between his hands,
then up, then returning to his little drumstick game, all the while not breaking eye-contact with the
man.

“ Grand of you to say,” The Legacy purrs, pausing. “ Park Jimin.”

That, is exactly what Jimin was waiting for. A mistake.

He made this personal. This is no longer business. It’s about Jimin and him. Him and Jimin.

“ Is it?” The Little Prince questions, feigning hurt. “I’m neither of those things.”

The mask shifts, and if Jimin could see anything through it, he’d know that the man behind it
gritted his teeth at the defence.

“ You think having Taehyung doesn’t make you a psychopath?” He asks.

Jimin raises a brow.

Not the direction he was expecting.

“ I think not killing a dozen people in a police station in cold blood makes me not a psychopath.”

The Legacy’s jaw tightens, mask quivering, a breathy chuckle leaving his mouth.

“ You have the audacity to set yourself apart from the likes of me?” He questions, intonation
leaking through monotony. “What sets you apart, Park Jimin? What makes you better?”

The question catches him off guard, the knives in his hands halting to hover between his fingers,
and after a few moments, Jimin decides on:

“ Love.”

The Legacy tilts his head.

“ You think I don’t know what that is?”

Jimin restrains himself from knotting his brows in confusion.

Who is this man?

“ Do you?” Jimin questions.

The Legacy doesn’t say anything.

Love?

“ I’ll take that as a yes.” Jimin concludes, tongue darting out to lick his bottom lip.

The Legacy waits. Jimin deliberates.

Maybe, provocation?

“ They don’t love you back, right?” Jimin gambles, taking a step forward. The Legacy’s hand
darts beneath his coat at the motion.

So he is afraid of Jimin.

“How could they?” Jimin pushes, edging the invisible boundaries between them. “Someone like
you-”

“Taehyung knows, you know.”

Jimin stops. So do his knives.

“ This again?” He purrs, sighing. “We’ve already done this, if I’m not mistaken? Shanghai?” The
legacy grips the mask, pressing it further up his jaw. “You saying-”

“ I sent him a cute little home-made video.” He interrupts, the revelation tightening Jimin’s grip
around his knives. “ Of his darling prince sucking daddy’s cock.”

Jimin’s heart falls.

No.

“ Liar.” He scorns, jaw tight, fingers ready for blood.

“ Am I?” The man sings in a manner that tells Jimin he’s very well not lying, no, he’s not lying at
all.

“ You couldn’t have possibly obtained a video like that.” Jimin hits back, smiling the uneasiness
back into his stricken chest. “ And he’d know,” He adds. “ He’d know I was forced if he saw
father’s fa-“

“ No, no.” The legacy twitters, voice fluttering through the breeze, reaching Jimin like the
beginnings of a storm.
Like an omen.

“ It was just you…” He drones, coming closer. And closer.

Jimin stills, The Legacy circling him. “ On your knees…” His hands tighten around the daggers,
The Legacy’s breathing cutting through him from the back, on his right, and then- in front of him.

“ All your holes open like the little bitch you are, and a faceless man in the shadows.”

The Legacy watches him, five steps away, eyes serpentine through the thin slits, glinting at the
star-struck Little Prince like cursed jade.

“ He…” The legacy tilts his head.

The sun ascends behind Jimin, warmth leaving his back and tendrils of light rising above him,
setting

The Legacy’s mask alight in gold, sapphire blue mocking Jimin like an ocean on fire.

And for a moment, for a moment, this damned, one of a kind blue…

It reminds him of Sam.

“ He thinks I’m cheating on him?” Jimin whispers, voice too shaky to blame the wind.

He’s scared.

Jimin is terrified.

“ Aren’t you?” The Legacy questions, Jimin sensing the insufferable smile in his uplifted tone.

“ If you know as much about me as you presume then you must realise you sound insane.”

“ You could have pushed him away the first time, said no-“

“ It’s-” Jimin raises his weapons, angling them. “It is not that easy.” He seethes, baring his teeth.

Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Not here. Not again.

And of all the things he expected to come from that abominable slit for a mouth,

“ I know.” Wasn’t one of them.

Jimin laughs, knives quivering in his hand, one foot put in front of the other, blades angled at the
stranger one behind the other, one arm outstretched and the other bent outwards from his shoulder,
the silver reflecting rays of sun next to his face, setting a belt of his skin across his jaw alight in
white fire.

“ You…” Jimin breathes. “ Know?”

“ I just like making you feel like shit.”

The guffaw builds itself from Jimin’s stomach, up to his chest, tickling his throat, and then he’s
laughing, knives shaking in his hands.

“ You’re gonna have to try a lot harder than that, Damian Clark.” He challenges, rolling the knife
angles next to his face between his fingers, sweat dripping from the handle.
“ Oh I will.” The Legacy purrs. “ I have.” He adds with a strange tone.

“ I’ve been rigging your pathetic little lives since you were fifteen, Park Jimin.”

Something shifts. Jimin’s mind retreats into his memories.

Fifteen?

“ Fifteen?”

The legacy scoffs.

“ Think, Little Prince.” He mocks, and from his pocket, he takes out a dagger. A single,
bejewelled dagger, a gold, decorated handle scintillating between his gloved fingers. It’s ancient,
probably priceless.

Jimin squints at it.

Sentiment.

“ Fifteen?” He asks again. “ I-“

“He hasn’t…told you…” The legacy whispers realisation leaking through his quiet epiphany. “
Has he?”

Jimin bites into the muscle of his mouth, patience dangerously thin. He refrains from feeding into
it. Into whatever it is he’s doing. The Legacy, on the other hand, seems to delight in the revelation,
looking at the dagger almost in companionship, as though they’re both elated at the prospect of
Jimin not knowing something they do. “How is that possible?” He taunts. “How could you not…
know?”

Jimin breaks.

“ Who?” He yells. “What hasn’t he told me?”

The legacy looks up from the dagger. Jimin gasps.

He knows that gaze.

He’s seen that gaze before.

But where? Where?

“ Kim Taehyung stopped trusting you long before I started sending him videos, Little Prince. In
all honesty, I don’t think he’s ever trusted you…at all.”

“ What do you want?” Jimin cuts in. “There must be something greater than making Taehyung
hate me- something-

“ That’s the thing,” The Legacy screams. “ You damned fool. He could never hate you, you-”

“ Do you know us personally, Mr Clark?” Jimin interrupts, trying to cut through The Legacy’s
momentary loss of control “Do you know what we’ve been throu-“

“ Shut up.” The man seethes. “ You disgust me.”

Jimin thinks of his reflection. At least they agree on one thing.

Jimin thinks of his reflection. At least they agree on one thing.

“What is your relation to Demian Clarke?” Jimin interrogates, stepping closer.

The Legacy scoffs.

“ You should ask your father.”

Jimin stops approaching.

“ My…father?”

“ Maclieen D. Park.” The legacy purrs, each letter pronounced, as if he’s giving Jimin a clue.
“How haven’t you realised it yet?”

Jimin’s brain rallies through the letters. Maclieen? Maclieen D Park?

Realised what?

“ Realised what?”

“ So much for that precious IQ of yours, Little Prince.” The Legacy mocks with a shaking head,
tutting. “Maybe Taehyung will figure it out, but then again…you don’t trust him either, do you?”

The words stir Jimin’s heart.

“ I trust him more than anyone.”

“ Then why did you run away to my city…without him?”

“ Your city?” Jimin questions, sniggering. “ This is my fucking city, OUR city, I know this city
better than you ever could.” He corrects, eyes shifting to the rooftops he had chased him down on
just moments before.

“ Ah, yes.” The legacy sings, as if only now remembering what they’re here for. “You’re here for
my precious cargo, no?”

“ You… want me to have it.” Jimin parrots, stomach suddenly churning.

Fuck. He doesn’t remember the last time he ate.

“ After a fair fight of course.” The Legacy adds, dagger slowly raised to angle at Jimin.

“ Why would you want me to have it?” The Little Prince questions. “Why would you take it in the
first place?”

“ So many questions, Little Prince.” He mocks, taking a step forward.

“ You’ve already had me chained up and naked,” Jimin reminds with an empty smile. “I don’t
need to preserve myself in front of you.”

They circle one another in front of the car like two lions of different prides.

“ I see why he loves you so much.” The Legacy says with an eerie tone of finality.

“I assume you’re talking about Taehyung.” Jimin says.

“ No,” The Legacy replies. “I’m not.”

And then the throwing stars blind Jimin’s vision.

Jimin soars upwards, body rolling in the air horizontally, tresses of hair hitting him in the eye, the
side of his boot connecting with one star, then the other, aiming specifically for the windshield of
the Audi.

He lands to the opera of screaming glass, the windshield dropping like a waterfall in his peripheral
vision, crystals washing over the hood in a cacophony shrieking glass.

The sound distracts The Legacy, his eyes shifting right just long enough for Jimin’s body to rocket
upwards, his legs cycling in the air, body turning, and leg kicking outwards to the side, to circle
the air, colliding with the Legacy’s head just as the man grabs his leg, twisting it, his body thrown
circularly behind his head.

Jimin lands on the hood of the Audi, the metal denting beneath his bone as he bends his body
further back, legs curling behind him, using the momentum of the collision to throw his body
backwards, arching in the air to land crouched on the hood of the car, blood rolling down the side
of his face.

The Legacy whistles just as Jimin leaps, daggers aimed downwards. The Legacy surprisingly
joins him, flying upwards, body whirling in the air as he lands a kick to Jimin’s cheek, the latter’s
head turning as he falls face down on the floor.

“ You haven’t ate… have you?” The Legacy teases.

So he knows about that too.

Great.

Blood spurts out of Jimin’s mouth, red leaking from his jaw onto the asphalt, a silver of his
reflection hitting his eyes through the pool of red.

“ Enough.” Jimin yells. “ ENOUGH!”

He rises suddenly, without warning, without realising himself, and attacks.

He doesn’t stop attacking. Limbs fly, Jimin’s punches dodged and deflected by the legacy’s
masterful defence. There’s no way. There’s no way he could be dodging Jimin so easily.

Jimin finally lands a punch, fist hooking into the legacy’s jaw, knee hitting him in stomach, the
stranger thrown back, flying into the asphalt. Jimin follows him, one dagger discarded for the
precision of the other, blade thrusted into the stranger’s proximity, aimed at his chest.

The Legacy creates a cross against his body with his arms, wrists locked against Jimin’s weapon,
pressing against it, the latter straining to pull the dagger out when the Legacy’s knee springs out,
aiming to hit him in the chest.

Jimin suddenly lets go of the handle, twisting himself upwards, legs flying towards the legacy, the
ball of his foot flicking the dagger upwards as he arches himself, and lands crouched several feet
away, the dagger flying into his hand.

Jimin looks up with a smirk at the winding trail of blood the knife had laid in its wake, starting
from the bottom of the legacy’s jaw, uncovered by the mask, where the blade had grazed, to his
neck.

“ Make sure that doesn’t scar.” Jimin advises. “ Wouldn’t wanna ruin your pretty face, mm?”

The Legacy charges towards him with his dagger.

Jimin grins.

Close combat, huh.

He flies at him with his dagger, Jimin blocking it with two of his own, slipping the other out of his
belt to seethe them against The Legacy’s weapon. It doesn’t stop there. The man forces himself
against Jimin, the latter sliding back, feet gritting against asphalt as he finally pushes back, The
Legacy going for his hip. Metal clashes, screaming in the hollow crevices of the open street,
white, Victorian houses looming over them, the distant sound of police sirens blaring in their ears.

Jimin grins, he’s getting sloppy.

After failing to land any blows by aiming at his sides, finally, the legacy stabs at him head on with
the dagger.

Big mistake.

Jimin’s hand whirls around the dagger with one arm, leaning back slightly, face out of reach for
the blade, while the other finds an opening in the Legacy’s left, and with his other arm, finally,
Jimin pierces his knife into the legacy’s shoulder.

Blood splatters onto Jimin’s face, his hand digging the knife further into the man’s flesh, the
latter’s other, non-injured arm hooking around Jimin’s body, aiming for his side. The Little Prince
removes his knife, simultaneously kicking the legacy backwards, the man’s dagger falling out of
his hand as he’s thrown back, crumbling to the ground. Jimin flies forward, pocketing the golden
dagger before mounting the Legacy in one swift move, one dagger aimed at his throat, the other
right between the eyes.

“ Checkmate.” He sniggers, just as the first drops of rain fall onto the dagger pointed between the
Legacy’s eyes. “ The weather thinks so too.”

Jimin forces the knife pressed against the man’s neck further in, blood coating the tip of the
weapon. His hand clutches around the base of the mask, curling inwards.

“ It’s over. Legacy.”

It happens slow and breathtakingly fast. One moment, Jimin is watching the silver of skin reveal
itself as the legacy’s jaw is unveiled, and the next the legacy is screaming:

“GRENADE.”

The familiar clinking of a grenade sounds, the pear-shaped weapon rolling on the ground next to
Jimin.

He has all of three seconds. Remove the mask. Remove the mask.

Ther’s no time.

Jimin throws himself backwards, flying away from the grenade, sliding into an alleyway just as
fire blooms behind him, the street burning red and white, then orange, as the grenade overtakes.
The fleeing shadow of the legacy taunting him as he sprints towards the fire.

The front half of the car is in flames, The Legacy nowhere to be seen. Tendrils of smoke paint the
street grey around him, and just as his fingers latch onto the door handle, a second wave of
explosion has him flying back, head hitting limestone.

Tires screech against asphalt, police sirens blaring in his ears, a familiar face clouding his vision.

“ Not you again,” The chief constable is saying as he holds out a hand. “ We have enough on our
plate without The Little Prince setting the country in flames, Mr Park.”

“ I need that car.” Jimin chokes out, jaw grazed red from the impact, vision hazy. “ You’ll be
compensated, just get me whatever’s in that car.”

“ Don’t you kids have anything better to do than cause trouble in my city?”

“ No, Sir.” Jimin breathes, laughing even as he chokes some blood onto the pavement, red
distorting his vision. “ We don’t.”

Jimin is good friends with the Chief Constable, he kind of has to be, since he manages to brew up
some kind of ruckus every time he’s here. And by good friends, one means that everyone on the
police force is under his pay roll, and their families under his protection. So it’s with no surprise
that several hours after the explosion, Jimin having bathed the blood away, sitting in his bathrobe,
finally having decided that eating something will do him some good, seeing as even The Legacy
noticed it, there’s a knock on his door.

Jimin opens the door still in his bathrobe, jaw scathed red, forehead an angry black, and both sets
of knuckles wrapped in bandages, fired up on pain killers for the self- diagnosed concussion the
dizziness and semi-functional vision told him he probably had.

“ Constable.” Jimin smiles, gaze immediately shifting to the chest at the man’s feet.

“ As you requested, we didn’t touch it.” He assures, tapping the chest.

“ We can always count on you, Sir.” Jimin expresses, seeing the tail attached to the box.

“ It was too heavy to carry.” The constable explains, handing the rope to Jimin.

“ Too heavy?”

“ Precious cargo, I’m assuming?” The constable says with a curious look at the chest.

It’s a large, dark brown chest, belts curling around the curved lid, buckles shut over the side, and a
rusted, silver lock keeping the contents out of easy reach. Jimin leans down, finger sliding against
the top, a thick layer of dust coating his hand

“ You have no idea.”

Jimin fits a silencer onto his MK23, the chest at his feet on the floor. Having changed out of his
bathrobe into nothing at all, just underwear too loose around the curve of his hips, he scrutinises
bathrobe into nothing at all, just underwear too loose around the curve of his hips, he scrutinises
the dusty artefact with a tired, hungry gaze. His stomach rumbling just as he raises the handgun.

“ God, I had a fucking apple.” He swears, slapping his abdomen. “Shut the fuck up.”

The curves and straight edges of the chest beckon him. Jimin raises the MK23, pointing it at the
lock,

and shoots.

He takes a breath. And another. The sound of his breathing, how loud it is, how…empty, it seems,
as if it isn’t coming from inside him but from nowhere at all, accentuates just how alone he is, as
he takes a step towards the chest, then another. The moonstone necklace around his neck bounces
against his breastbone. He takes it, opens it, kissing the photo of Taehyung next to the touchscreen
pad on the other side, the size of his thumb.

He considers pressing it, considers calling Taehyung. But his hand is latching around the broken
lock, unhinging it, and the chest is being flown open.

“ Oh my god…”

Sitting inside the chest are leather bound notebooks, tens of them, maybe a hundred, and stacked
on top of them are letters grouped together with string, the paper yellowed and frayed, cursive
writing beckoning Jimin upon the yellow-washed envelopes.

Jimin sits crossed legged on the thankfully heated floors, shivering, then he stands again, walking
towards the bed. Crouching down, he pulls out his personal suitcase, and from it, a sweater. It’s
Gucci, yellow, with a depiction of a calm, sleeping tiger on it. It’s Taehyung’s favourite. Jimin had
nipped it from the mansion before coming to London.

He slips it on, the softness sedating his cold, starved, bones, and returns to his position in front of
the chest, feet sliding against the wooden floors, the sound reminding him of how long it’s been
since he’s danced.

Poor twelve-year-old Jimin who thought he could join Yoongi at Julliard, who thought they could
all be one big, happy family together.

He takes out the stacks of letters, maybe ten groups of fifteen envelopes in total, and puts them
next to him. Then he realises that the notebooks are numbered. 1,2,3,4…

His hands curl around the spine of the first notebook, the cover a worn, dark brown just like the
chest, and he opens it to the first page to an entry written in French.

And he begins to read.

Summer, 1928

“ Something strange happened the night before last. Three peculiar boys knocked on the door of
Mama’s store, soaked like little rats in the rain. Mama let them in, when she saw how little they all
were, one them much taller than the other two. They said they needed a place to stay, or that- the
smallest boy, Dante- black haired, black eyed, and hanging onto the other black-haired boy like a
little mouse- needed a place to stay, or his Papa would beat him dead. He had these horrible
bruises all over his face. Horrible, I’m telling you. I called them rats before but once we had them
dry and proper, they looked like those rich boys Mama tells me never to talk to.
Papa tended to his wounds while the other two watched, the black haired one, Hans, they called
him, fussing and cussing all over the place.

The third one was even stranger than the other two. He looked kind of different, fair headed, blue-
eyed, quieter, not fussing like the other one, but…I suppose? In a way? He looked even sadder
than the big one. I don’t really know why.

They left yesterday, without a good bye, but on the counter, was a shiny- pocket watch, made of
pure gold, or at least that’s what papa said, and a note with a Thank You written on it in fancy
curly writing.

I hope Dante is okay, and that his Papa doesn’t hit him anymore. He doesn’t look like the kind of
boy who deserves it. I also hope that Damian learns to smile more, he looks nice when he does
that. But then again, I do suppose it doesn’t matter, I won’t be seeing them again.

Love, Marie Jean

Jimin flips to the next page, heart pounding in his throat.

“ They came back.”

Spring 1929

“ Dante’s Papa hit him again, it was bad. Hans was a mess, Damian was absolutely hell-bent on
running away. I’ve never seen him this mad, ever. Mama cried when I told her…”

Summer 1932

“ The boy’s are growing awfully fast. Dante’s become the most prodigious painter, Hans never
stops scribbling away in his little book, reading us his little horror stories before we all go to bed
on the little sofa behind the store. And Damian…Damian loves to read. And I… I like to watch
him read, I think. He looks pretty when he has his lip stuck in his teeth and he flips away page
after page like some kind of madman. I like Damian a lot, I think. I like all of them, of course. But
I feel like I need to like him a little more. His eyes seem to be the loneliest.”

Summer 1933

“ Damian told me something strange last night. Something about dreams he’s been having when
we all go to bed. Dreams he doesn’t think he should be having. And I asked him what it was
about, and he blushed. Damian Clarke blushed. I don’t think he’s ever done that before. And
when I asked him again, his eyes gave him away. Because he looked over the room, at where
Dante was sleeping on Han’s leg, and he looked back at me with the saddest look of guilt in his
eyes, and he begged me not to tell.
Summer 1934

“ I love him. I think I love him. I think I… I think I truly, completely may be in love with Damian
Clarke…

Winter 1935

“ I don’t know if I should write this down, or if I should take it to the grave, but I must. I am so
sad that I must. For this afternoon, when the others were out, and me and Damian were all alone,
he started crying.

I’d never seen Damian cry before today, but he cried, true and well, and he looked at the shifting
figures of Dante and Hans tidying the storefront beyond the windows, and he looks at me, he
looks at me and says: “ I love him.”

“ Well of course you love him, Damian,” I quickly said even as my heart pounded against my
throbbing chest. “ He’s your best friend.”

“ No, Maria. I…I love him in the way boys aren’t supposed to love each other.” He told me, tears
wetting his cheeks, running down like bullets, one after the other. I knew of course, I knew since
they were twelve and Damian only smiled when Dante was around. But for him to tell me? For
Damian who never speaks his heart to sit there and speak of love?

“ I love him the way he loves Hans, Maria, and I…I don’t know what to do.”

So I took his cheeks in my hands, I wiped them away and I…

And I kissed him.

Summer 1937

It happened. I don’t know if it was inevitable, but- but it happened. They did it. I suppose that’s
too vague but… Dante told me he isn’t a virgin anymore, and I didn’t ask which girl had raptured
his heart, because I knew it was no girl at all. He looked brighter, happier, though a little scared.
I told him to tell me how it felt, whether he bled, the way I did. The way I did the year before,
when Damian had taken me to his room and…

Spring 1938

Hans is married. They married him off to some rich foreign girl with a lot of money. I’ve never
seen Dante cry like that. I’ve never seen anyone cry like that.

Winter 1938

Dante is married too…

Spring 1940

They don’t come around as often anymore…Damian is aloof…Hans has a one year old son….

Winter 1941

Something’s wrong…. Apart from the war…. something is very wrong…I’m afraid…I’m so
afraid.

Winter 1945

He’s dead.

Damian is dead.

Jimin’s heart is pounding, pulse thrashing inside his throat. He scrambles for his phone, typing in
the number by heart.

“Jimin?”

“Joon. We hit gold.”

III

“Come in.”

The office they enter is medium sized, a set of windows with cream shutters fitted over them
filtering light into the room to reveal the wooden, glass covered shelves filling the entirety of the
left wall upon entering, a mahogany table placed directly in front of it. In front of the table are two
large, maroon arm chairs, enough space in each one for someone to tuck their legs beneath them
and melt into the comfort of the cushioned, heated leather. It’s snowing outside. The mirage of
white fluttering beyond the shutters leaks yellow light into the wooden space, giving off the
illusion of light swirling through blanket of dust although the room is impeccably clean. There are
three sets of lights: a row above the table, one above the two arm chairs, and another above the
large four seater occupying the far wall- to the right of the door- a large, potted plant placed to the
left of it.
A long, rectangular, yellow ochre coffee table sits in front of the two arm chairs, scuff marks and
worn edges narrating a tale of conversation and coffee- clouded truth.

“ Merry Christmas, Mr Jeon.”

There’s a woman sitting behind the table who stands, and walks towards them, holding the door
open. The golden, low lighting colours her dark skin a combination of pecan and cinnamon,
glazed with dark, running honey, like a continuous sheet of smoky quartz, shining under the
sunlight. Her hair is shaved, dark eyes becoming deeper when Jungkook’s eyes roll down her
closed collar, dark green shirt long tucked into boot leg, slick black pants, and, surprisingly,
comfortable heeled slippers.

Jungkook wavers in the threshold of the door, Taehyung warm and large, as always, at his back.
He puts his hand on Jungkook’s waist, clad in a big black hoodie, ripped jeans on his legs, seeing
as Taeyung had told him to wear whatever he was comfortable with.

Jungkook keens, just a little bit, when Taehyung touches him, then steadies himself as he steps
inside, the elder murmuring a little ‘it’s okay’ when he hesitates.

“Merry Christmas Ma’am.” Jungkook says, low in his chest, voice raspy from how early he’s
woken up.

There’ll be less people around, I thought it would be more comfortable for you, Taehyung had
said when he shook him awake gently, another pantry of breakfast fit for a royal feast prepared at
Jungkook’s feet.

The boy lingers awkwardly as the woman shuts the door, Taehyung almost towering beside him
even though they’re more or less the same height.

“Not a fan of the holiday?” The woman asks, leaning against the back of the arm chair on the
right. Jungkook’s eyes snap up to hers, mouth parting.

“ How…”

“ There was a depression in your tone when you said Christmas.” Taehyung says before the
woman can speak, smiling at Jungkook.

He’s impeccably dressed, as always, not that it’s really something to point out anymore after
spending the past few days with him, having associates and partners alike visit him in his hotel
room to hold meetings Jungkook couldn’t understand any less if he tried to.

Tight, deep blue pants adorn his legs, lengthening them ending in reddish-brown boots circling his
ankles. A gold Day-Date 40 Rolex sits on his wrist.

The color is so immaculate that it reminds Jungkook of the inner workings of a piano. They’ve
taken the cast out of his arm already, even though it’s only been three weeks. Jungkook doesn’t
really know how that works, but it probably has something to do with the fact that he doesn’t
think Taehyung is entirely human. Like, for example? He shines all the fucking time.

Like, really, shines. It doesn’t help that he’s always embellished in gold either, or the fact that
Jungkook always feels like he’s looking into a porno mag and the eyes of the Pope all at once,
when he’s looking at Taehyung.

It’s something entirely different to Jimin, to anyone he’s ever seen before.

His smile doesn’t fit. It’s boxy, and big, and imperfect. It doesn’t fit with the rest of him, with the
perfection meld into skin and bone until it’s all Kim Taehyung knows. It doesn’t fit, or? It’s not
supposed to.

But it does.

He sneezes too loud, it’s boisterous, like a thunder-clap, and scares the absolute shit out of
Jungkook. He doesn’t drink coffee, that time Jungkook thought he was, it was-

Tea with milk, can’t stand coffee, it’s too strong.

It’s…too strong.

Taehyung is just…he’s funny. He’s funny and overflowing with contradictions that make
Jungkook even more enamored, because it’s obvious Kim Taehyung just isn’t someone you
understand. You stand, and you bow, and you blink when he tells you to, look up at him when he
tilts up your chin and tells you not to look away, you submit, you cave, you become conquered,
and you just…admire.

“ I always did say you’d make a great psychologist Taehyung.” The woman says. Taehyung
smiles.

Enamoured, is the word for it, all right. And endeared.

Endeared because the man walks as if he’s walked the shoes of emperors, of the gods, the angels,
and demons, and from it all he’s breathed life into a walk of his own that encompasses the very
essence of regality. Of power. And, most scandalously, sex. Endeared because even after all of
that, his hair is a mess. It’s far too long, falls in front of his eyes, brown roots leaking into the
blond. When they’re all alone, with Taehyung rummaging through file after file and peering at the
puzzle spread out on his bed, he puts his hair into a little pony tail at the top of his head. It makes
his fringe hang over his forehead, curling picturesquely downwards when he’s reading. It makes
Jungkook want to fall in love with him, just a little bit.

“ Alas,” Taehyung replies, wiping away his bottom lip with a thumb as he smiles, playful.
Jungkook understands why, now, why Jimin would never- could never, not when he has someone
like Taehyung wrapped around every extremity and filling every swollen, wanton hole. “I have
more criminal matters to attend to Mrs. Young.”

The woman narrows her eyes at him but breaks into a white smile at the sight of his beaming
face.

“ Please, Taehyung, Tamila,” She corrects, circling the arm chair to go towards her desk,
straightening a photo to sit diagonally facing them. Jungkook gasps. “He’ll think we’re strangers,
you silly boy. And it’s Doctor, I didn’t go to no Harvard for you stand there and call me Missus,
young man.”

Taehyung breaks into laughter, doubling over, bringing a hand up to push his hair back, head
tipping back to reveal the sunlight outlining the dips and curves of his neck, his hair showering
around him again when he stands upright.

Jungkook swallows, and turns to the woman.

“You’re…” He says, not entirely knowing if he saw the picture right or not.

“Jungkook,” Taehyung says. “This is Alex’s Mom.” He introduces. “Doctor Tamila Young, one
of her PHD’s is from Harvard Med in developmental Psychology.” The Doctor rolls her eyes at
the introduction, standing behind the desk, shaking her head as if she’s only waiting for Taehyung
to finish his theatrics. “She is a very dear, very trusted friend of the family, and the best Doctor I
know in this field.” Tamila doesn’t grant him even a breath before she cuts in, waving dismissive
motions at the introduction with a ringed hand.

“ My daughter’s told me a lot about you, Mr Jeon.”

Jungkook looks up again, neck straining.

“ J-J-Jungkook is okay.” He stutters. “A-and…she d-did?”

Doctor Young pauses for a second, watching him with a disarming -but comfortably so- smile.

“ All good things.” She assures. “I watched your performance of Mendelssohn’s concerto in fall,”
Jungkook’s hands turn unsteady at this. “ You were remarkable, I was blown away,” She praises,
and Jungkook looks at Taehyung through hooded, shy eyes, only to meet his kind gaze, smiling at
him in a way that says he agrees with her. Jungkook doesn’t know if he’s watched a recording of
that performance, if he even knows what she’s talking about, but like always, Taehyung looks at
him like he knows, and understands. “I was blown away, and that is a feat considering the little
geniuses Alex used to bring home for dinner when she went to the ArKe.” She reminisces with a
pointed look at an abashed Taehyung. “I didn’t know where to look from the piano prodigy to the
dance genius to the cello virtuoso to the boy who could explain my thesis’s better than me.”

Yoongi. Jimin. Jin. A-and?

“ C-cello?” Jungkook asks.

“Taehyung plays cello,” The doctor reveals, to Jungkook’s utter bafflement, “You didn’t know?”

“ You…” Jungkook breathes, looking at Taehyung in awe. “You do?”

“ I…” Taehyung scratches the back of his head, smiling sheepishly. It’s the first time Jungkook
has noticed him looking self-conscious. “Not-not anymore.”

“We’re all still very angry at you for that, Taehyung.”

“I- I just wasn’t good enough, Tamila,” He whines. “You-”

“Nonsense.” The doctor cuts in. “You should play with each other, I’m sure Jungkook would love
to have a string partner to play with.”

“He’s far out of my league, I’m afraid,” Taehyung replies promptly, smiling at Jungkook. “And
I’m far too out of practice.”

“T-that.” Jungkook squeals. “Isn’t true.”

Taehyung grins.

“Is so.”

“I-s not.” Jungkook disagrees, playing with his hands, looking down as he says. “I…I would love
to hear you play.”

“Yeah?” The suggestion in Taehyung’s voice tilts Jungkook’s chin up.

“I’d really like that.” The younger boy confirms, lips tugging into a bashful smile.

They look at each other in a way they haven’t really before, it’s a comfortable sort of silence, both
smiling; Jungkook could get used to this.

“The verdict has been given,” The doctor says, stepping into their trance. “Taehyung shall claim
the bow again.”

Taehyung walks towards Jungkook in two long strides, and raises his hand slightly, looking at
Jungkook questioningly before the violinist nods. Taehyung brings his hand to Jungkook’s hair,
ruffling it, grinning.

“If Jungkook stops stuttering when he talks to me, then maybe I’ll think about it.” Jungkook
blushes furiously, keening under Jungkook’s large hand.

“I’m sure you intimidate him, silly boy,” Tamila reprimands. “Look at you standing there like a
king, come sit down, the both of you.”

“But I am a king.” Taehyung reminds, his hand leaving Jungkook’s head. Jungkook’s head
almost follows it, wanting to be touched again.

“A good one, still,” Tamila replies. “I hope.”

Something cackles between the two. Jungkook moves closer to the armchair on the left, Taehyung
following him to the one on the right.

“A tired one, mostly, I’m afraid.” The king answers, the bags darkening the underside of his eyes
solid evidence of his words.

Jungkook hovers in front of the armchair, waiting for Taehyung who looks pensively at the snow
beyond the shutters, two ringed fingers widening the slit between the shutters to let a belt of light
set his shoes alight in gold, brightening the room.

“ Tea?” Tamila asks, going to the little beverage station fitted into the far right of the bookcase.
Jungkook wavers.

“ Uhm…”

“Jin gave this to me a very long time ago, do you remember?” She asks, presumably to Taehyung.
“He brought it specifically from Japan, it does wonders for anxiety.” The tea twinkles in the
morning light, sloshing in delicate china as the doctor settles it on the low coffee table. “Would
you like to try it?”

“ T-thank you.” Jungkook says softly, looking back at Taehyung who still hasn’t made a move to
sit down.

“ Taehyung,” Tamila ushers. “ Please stop brooding.”

The man looks at them with a disarming smile.

“ But it makes me ever so handsome, don’t you think?”

Tamila scoffs, sitting behind the desk.

“ Do you agree,” she says. “ Does it make him more handsome?” Jungkook realises she’s talking
to him only after silence overcomes the room.

“I-” He suttters. “He- uh,” Jungkook’s words die in his mouth, Taehyung’s smug complexion
winking at him from the corner of his eye. “I think- I think he’s- he’s always…h-handsome.” He
says the last word softly, embarrassed, cheeks heating up as Taehyung strolls over to where they
are.

“ See?” Tamila assures sarcastically. “Come sit your ass down Mr Saint Laurent.”

Taehyung gasps.

“ This is Gucci.”

“This is America, sit you’ Korean ass down.” Jamaican undertones flower her speech when she
tells Taehyung off. Taehyung just does that people, Jungkook supposes, strips them softly,
distracting them with scintillations of gold and boyish smiles, undressing them with intention no
less pure than wanting them to feel okay around him.

“ You should do that more often, you know.” Jungkook looks up at a pensive Taehyung, then
realises he had been smiling to himself, and a deep, bashful pink colours his cheeks as he bites his
lip and looks away.

Tamila chuckles, ushering Taehyung over, the man finally settling in the right arm chair after
tilting his head at Jungkook to do the same.

“ We need him calm, Taehyung,” The doctor lectures, pushing herself further into the table. “ Not
blushing.” Jungkook’s cheeks obviously don’t agree as he becomes redder and redder, finally
melting into the leather of the armchair which curves inwards at the sides so that he can see
Taehyung and Taehyung can see him.

“ W-why do you need me calm?” Jungkook asks, him and Taehyung both leaning forward to take
a cup of tea at the same time, their fingers gently brushing against one another. Taehyung takes the
cup on Jungkook’s side and hands it to him with yet another warm smile, then takes his own, and
they both lean back.

“ We’re going to talk about some stuff, Jungkook.” Tamila says, a business-like air rippling
through the room. “Is that fine?”

Jungkook looks at Taehyung, tea sloshing gently in the cup. He bites his lip fervently, looking
from Taehyung to Tamila and back.

“ I…”

Taehyung looks at him with a question in his eyes.

“ Are you okay with me being here?”

“ I-”

Taehyung had told him, obviously, that they’d be coming here, that there’d be a doctor, and that-
and that Jungkook could tell them anything he wanted, but- but-

“ I-I think so.” Jungkook whispers, knowing Taehyung is trying to catch his eye, so he does what
he does best. He hangs his head, and looks away.

“ You have to be sure of such things, Jungkook.” Tamila says, voice gentle, soft, and Jungkook
knows that it’s her job, this tone of voice, the way she speaks to him like he’s broken, fragile, and
precious all at the same time; he knows that she probably speaks to all her patients the same way.

But Jungkook likes being spoken to like this, the same way that he likes his hair caressed, the
same way- “ People read along the lines when you’re not.”

Jungkook takes a breath.

“ I want him to stay.”

“ Okay.” Taehyung replies, maybe slightly relieved, that Jungkook trusts him this much, that he’ll
be allowed to stay, just in case he can help in any way. “That’s good.” He whispers gently.

It’s strange.

“ What things do I have to talk about?” Jungkook asks.

It’s utterly strange and yet completely understandable, the way Taehyung aches to take care of
him. He sees Jimin in Jungkook, and a little bit of himself as well, as though the violinist is shaped
by midnight stories relayed across the wrong side of the bed and Jimin’s selfish escapades.

He wants to take care of him. He wants to nurse him back to health, to teach him-

Taehyung realises… he realises that he wants to a very fucked up version of a father, for him. One
that sometimes stares at Jungkook’s lips too long.

“ You don’t have to do anything.” Tamila says. “Not in my office, that’s for sure.” She looks at
Taehyung. “And not when you have people like Taehyung around you.” The named boy blushes,
shaking his head though he knows what she says is true. Jimin wasn’t sure of himself, he still isn’t,
never has been, not with Taehyung. He wasn’t with…with Yoongi. He isn’t with Jungkook. He’s
never entirely sure how he feels. Just that he’d burn the fucking world for Taehyung using his
own skin as propellant, but not who he wouldn’t be willing to burn for him.

But Taehyung? Taehyung is sure. He’s always been sure. It doesn’t matter that he can’t stop
himself from staring at Jungkook’s lips, none of it matters at all. Because if there’s one thing he’s
sure about its Jimin, no matter what the line of his eyes say, or the aching of his fingers. It’s Jimin.
Only Jimin that he’s ever touched, that he ever will touch, that he’d ever want to touch.

Taehyung is sure. Jimin is not.

That is the way it has always been.

“ W-w-what…” Jungkook’s stuttering reels Taehyung back into the room, sunglight warm on his
cheek. “What things are we gonna talk about?”

“ Christmas, for example.’ Tamila responds, folding her arms over the desk, leaning closer. “Why
do you feel the way you do towards it?”

Jungkook looks at Taehyung, then back, his hands curling closer around the teacup.

“Christmas isn’t…” He starts, already tearing up. “Christmas the best time when you’re…” The
teacup starts trembling, tea splashing around the porcelain. Taehyung reaches a hand over, placing
it on Jungkook’s arm rest. Is it for Jungkook to hold?

He doesn’t. He doesn’t think he could handle touching Taehyung right now.

The man doesn’t remove the offer though. His hand remains on the armrest, radiating heat
somehow to Jungkook’s cold, shaking fingers, more so than the tea in his hand. The violinist’
breath quivers, skippering out of his mouth. “When you’re a... an orphan.” He finally says.
Tamila doesn’t say anything. Neither does Taehyung. So Jungkook continues.

“Never felt it in the air, the way people say they do.” He whispers, remembering all the
Christmases he would watch fluttering past the window, carols he’d try to unhear, shop windows
he would try to unsee. “I didn’t uh- didn’t go to particularly good care homes. They were all…”
He tries to find a word other than shit, he really does. He can’t. And Taehyung can tell.

“ You can talk comfortably Guk.”

The nickname does something to him he can’t quite put his hand on. But it-s something, and
subconsciously, Jungkook places his hand on the armrest, just below Taehyung’s, not quite
touching. “ Shit.” He whispers. “ Just shit.”

Tamila looks at him in a way that says she knows what he means, probably a lot better than
Taehyung. But then again, Jungkook wouldn’t know.

“ You wanna tell me about it?” The doctor asks, voice almost indistinguishable from the stillness
of the air. Jungkook scratches his neck, his ankles curling around each other, one shoe scratching
against the other. The action catches the attention of both of his audience.

“ They uh…” His thumb brushes against Taehyung’s. “ Would…hit me? I guess?” He asks, and
then realises he’s the one answering the questions. Taehyung starts caressing the side of his hand
with his thumb. Jungkook’s heart calms and thrashes all at once. “I- I wasn’t very good at school,
I- I didn’t really want to be taught, I’d get into a lot of trouble because of- well? Because of anger
issues and stuff, and so I’d get punished for that. I guess.”

“You guess?” Tamila finally says.

“ I’m-” He’s sure, he’s sure that he’s sure. It’s just sometimes, he can’t tell what’s real. Whether
it’s the dreams or the memories or waking hours spent lusting over every handsome boy who steps
in his path. “I’m sure.”

“ Do you say that because you don’t want me to take you seriously?”

I say it because I really don’t know if it happened or not anymore.

“I- I dunno?”

“We do take you seriously, Jungkook.” Tamila explains, her eyes slipping to the unknowing
flirtation of their hands resting on the armchair. She doesn’t think in all twenty years of having this
office, that these two chair have felt so many scars caressing their leather at once. And so much
incandescence. “No matter what you might think otherwise,” She assures, voice rising gradually
as to tell Jungkook she’s serious, but gently so. “ It’s my job to see through damage, to make
something beautiful out of it. Or rather, to let the beautiful breathe long enough for it to bloom, all
by itself.”

Jungkook chuckles, his hand drawing away from Taehyung’s.

“I…” He laughs again. Cause it’s funny. “There’s… There’s nothing beautiful about me for you
to uncover like that.”

Taehyung’s hand inches towards his, trembling. He doesn’t think he’s seen Taehyung tremble
since the night he met Yoongi at the bar.

“I think a lot of people would disagree with you there, Mr Jeon.”

Jungkook sniggers, scoffing. He knows he shouldn’t, she’s only doing her job. But it’s ridiculous,
it’s ridiculous to think there is or ever has been anything beautiful inside Jungkook to uncover. To
breathe back to life.

“ Like who?” Jungkook asks.

Tamila gives him a knowing smile.

“ Like Taehyung.”

Jungkook chokes, some tea spilling on his thigh.

“ Tell him.” Tamila ushers Taehyung. “ Go on.”

Taehyung finally takes Jungkook’s hand in his own, his fingers slipping over the dome of the
violinist’s curved fingers, the former’s digits fitting in the gaps between Jungkook’s. Then, his
other hand comes closer, closer, to Jungkook’s face. The violist gasps, Taehyung’s fingers
pinching his chin softly, turning his face to the right, where Taehyung’s eyes look at him from just
a few inches away.

Tamila is forgotten, for just a moment, as Taehyung looks at Jungkook unburdened by propriety,
by Jimin.

“ I think you’re fucking beautiful, Jungkook.” He says. “You know that already though, you must
see the way I look at you.”

You must see the way I stare at your mouth when I think you can’t see me.

Jungkook pulls his hand away, then his face, his shoulders shaking all of a sudden, the intensity of
Taehyung’s stare a reminder, a rekindling of memoirs Jungkook has buried. A life that died with
the coming of Jimin.

“ I…” His face is wet. Through the corner of his eye he sees Taehyung panic. “I…”

“ Jungkookie?” He inquires, his hand reaching over, too sudden, and Jungkook curls into himself.

“ Why are crying, Jungkook?” Tamila asks, steadying a frenzied Taehyung with an imperious
hand, telling him to settle.

“ I…”Jungkook whimpers. “I don’t know.”

Tamila stands. She circles the desk on the left side, and comes to crouch in front of Jungkook.

“ Did he call you beautiful as well?” Tamila asks, offering her palms to a shaking Jungkook. “
The boy who made it all a little less painful?”

Jungkook looks down at her crouched form, teary.

“ J-Jimin?” He questions, not entirely understanding.

“No.” Tamila answers.

Jungkook’s entire world comes to a standstill. “You know who I’m talking about.”

It takes a few moments, perhaps minutes, for Jungkook’s mind to reconfigure, to unleash layer
after layer, to scrape away the cement sheltering Jungkook from himself and a past he didn’t think
he’d ever have to delve into again, not after Jimin.
“ You…” His face turns to Taehyung, slowly, accusingly. “You did a background check on me?”

Taehyung panics, once again. He looks at Tamila for help, then at Jungkook.

“ I…” His mouth opens and closes, helpless. He hadn’t expected Jungkook to figure it out so
quickly. “ Did he used to tell you you’re beautiful as well?” Tamila asks again.

“ I…” A choked sob rattles out of his chest, his mouth closing around the sound, not wanting the
world to hear, not wanting Taehyung to hear. “ I don’t- I don’t want to..”

“ It’s okay.” Tamila comforts, caressing his hands. His thumbs callused, even more than
Taehyung’s used to be. “You don’t have to, Jungkook. We can- we can do this another ti-”

“ I don’t-” He interrupts. “I don’t wanna do this at all. I-I don’t wanna come back.”

Tamila stands, uncurling slowly.

“ You don’t have a choice in that matter I’m afraid.” She declares, looking down at him.

“ You- you said I can choose.” Jungkook objects. “ Y-you said-”

“ Not when your life is on the line, Mr Jeon.”

“ ‘m fine.” He argues, standing up. “I’m fine.” He chants, trudging towards the door.

Taehyung charges up, following him. Jungkook presses down on the door handle.

“ You can’t sleep.” Taehyung shouts, grabbing his arm, twisting him again around almost too
harshly. “You can’t eat. You can’t-”

“ Stop it.” Jungkook seethes. “You sound like Yoongi.” Taehyung’s grip on his arm loosens. “
You sound like fucking Yoongi hyung.”

Tamila watches the exchange from her original position in front of Jungkook’s armchair.
Taehyung stands, bristling silently.

“ I’m not-” Jungkook yells, suddenly laughing. “I’m not just a- a fucking charity case.” He says
more quietly. “ I’m not your fucking charity case, Taehyung.” He sneers through the burning
tears.

“ You’ve?” Taehyung looks at him in offence, the strain in his posture relaxing, arms hanging at
his sides. “ You’ve never been my charity case…” He whispers, hurt leaking through dazed eyes,
not entirely sure if he heard Jungkook right.

“ Then…” Jungkook whispers. “ Then why are you doing this?”

And that’s the last straw for Taehyung.

It’s the last fucking straw as he charges forward, pulling Jungkook towards him by the lapels,
faces inches away.

“ BECAUSE I CARE.” He yells in Jungkook’s face. “Because you’re BEAUTIFUL.” He

billows, hands grabbing Jungkook’s cheeks. “ Because…”

He’s too close. Too loud. Too-

Too Taehyung.

His hands tremble against Jungkook’s face. Jimin was right. Like always. Like never.

There are stars in Jeon Jungkook’s eyes. And maybe that is why the world’s given him all these
scars, maybe that’s why Yoongi’s teeth map out constellations on the ups and downs of his neck
that still haven’t fully healed, and then tears them apart with a single, one syllable word.

Stray.

“ Jimin loves you to fucking bits.” Taehyung’s hands slip from Jungkook’s cheeks.

They’re soft, still boyish. Not like Jimin’s, not like his at all. The reason for it makes Taehyung
tear up, why Jimin’s cheeks don’t feel like Jungkook’s. “ He adores you.” Taehyung says, a tear
slipping out. “And I adore him a-and yeah? It’s fucked up? But?” his fingers card through yellow
hair, not knowing what to say. “But somewhere along the line? I have to feel something? Right?”
He asks, looking at Jungkook, looking at Tamila, at the particles of sunlight surrounding them, the
waves cascading through Jungkook’s obsidian hair, the gold lining the angry sweat wetting the
bridge of his too-large nose that somehow makes him that much more exquisite because no one
else could ever seem so perfect- be so perfect with his cluster of imperfections that seem to
encompass the life time of a million stars. “ You’re too beautiful to be screaming yourself awake,
at night, Jeon Jungkook,” Taehyung says, remembering the past week, the 3 am’s spent coaxing
Jungkook awake from sleep paralysis and nightmares alike.

Remembering how fragile the wetness of his terrified skin seemed beneath his hands, how his
fingers would clutch Taehyung’s chest, saying that it wasn’t his fault, saying that his feet are
burning, once again. Taehyung remembers all of it, and is suddenly- he’s suddenly angry, furious
at Jimin- furious at him for- “ And I don’t give a shit if you don’t realise that.” His voice raises.
He brings it back down. “I do.”

“Jimin is-” There’s no going back if he says this. It’s not about the fact that he is or isn’t here. It’s
about how Taehyung has never said this out loud. How he never thought there’d come a day
where he faults Jimin like this, out in the open, because of another man, another boy, another
Moonchild just as broken as the two of them.

“ Jimin is a fucking coward.” He chokes out. “ Always has been.” He adds, the words
evaporating from the flat of his fiery tongue. “Always was.” Taehyung hates how good this feels.
“Always will be.”

It’s the first Christmas they’ve spent without each other since they were six. Since fifteen years
ago. And it’s not like Christmas is special, anyway. Because it’s not. Not anymore.

Once upon a time, for three years that were only six years ago but seem a lifetime away, the
period from Christmas to new years day used to be…

Magical, is the word for it.

Christmas eve. Christmas. Taehyung’s birthday. And then…

Sam’s.

New year’s day.

The parties…god, the fucking parties. The people, their friends. The presents, the ‘ let’s see who
can make Sam the most shell shocked this year’, the calling Louvre at 1 am on new year’s eve
and flying to Paris at 4 am and dragging a sleeping, oblivious Sam onto their jet. The waiting for
Sam to wake up and realise he’ perched against an unsuspecting Michelangelo, the ‘who can get
the best open mouthed photo of him and post it before he beats our fucking asses?’

“ This is…”

“ The louvre.”

“ There’s- There’s no one here.”

“ Because it’s all ours. For today, at least.”

“ This- this is-”

And because Yoongi was the only one allowed to call him that- he’d say-

“ Happy birthday Sammy.”

And not many people can say they’ve ate chocolate cake on the floor of the louvre staring up at an
unsuspicious Mona Lisa as they fault the brushstrokes of Leonardo Da Vinci, but the
Moonchildren can.

So its not like Christmas is special anymore. It’s not. Just like Taehyung’s birthday, it’s just an
introduction for mourning, for the moonchildren’s ritual of going to a shitty dollar store and
buying a crappy chocolate cake, because that’s what Sam used to do before Yoongi came along.
It’s a ritual for locking themselves up, each one alone, and putting candles on a cake that they
can’t blow out.

One, two, three- ten, fifteen, twenty- it’s

It’ll be twenty-five candles this year.

So it’s not like Christmas is special.

But at least, with Jimin, it was bearable.

And now?

“ He’s scared of overstepping.” Taehyung says. “Like you two did on your birthday.”
Jungkook’s head hangs low at the recollection. “ He calls me saying someone tried to rape you
and you’ve never even been kissed before.

“ What the fuck did you expect me to do when he asks to take that pain away?” Taehyung asks
him “Say no?” He laughs, cold. “Do I seem like such a monster to you Jeon?”

The boy wipes his tears away hastily, messily with the back his hands, looking much more like a
child than a man. “ People care about you, Jungkook.” He yells, turning, pacing towards the
curtains and back, massaging the back of his neck from countless nights spent crouched over a
puzzle that doesn’t seem to want to be solved. “Get that in your fucking head.”

Jungkook shrivels under his stare, the intensity, the sincerity, the tears rimming his angry, genuine
eyes. “People. Fucking. Care.” Even though he’s shouting, even though he’s loud and Jungkook
doesn’t like loud things, Taehyung seems quiet, small. Like he can’t be loud enough. Like even
the body of a king can’t do the heart of a god justice. Just the way that a heart of a god can’t beat
loud enough for the scars of moonchildren. “Because you deserve to be cared about. Because you
deserve better.”

“Because we all deserved better.”

Taehyung leaves. He hurtles out of the room, shaking and out of control, hands slipping on the
metal knob. Jungkook watches him run past the glass covering half of the wall next to the door,
his form filtering past the slits between white shutters.

Jungkook crumbles against the wall, curling into himself, his hands wrapping around his knees.

“He…” It’s barely a whisper, but he’s reminded of Tamila’s presence when she responds by
coming down and sitting next to him, cross legged. “ He used to call me angel.”

Tamila doesn’t say anything.

“ We… I was twelve, when we got really close. He was…”

Jungkook tries to remember the lines of his face, the hardness of his body, the way he was bigger,
smarter, better than Jungkook ever was or could be.

He can’t. He doesn’t entirely remember what he looked like anymore. It’s been only four years.

It’s been six for Yoongi. Jungkook wonders how much he remembers. “ He was two years older,
and- together we were strong enough to- to make them stop, you know?”

Tamila waits, takes a breath, and asks:

“Make who stop?”

Jungkook shuts his eyes.

“ The… the other boys who’d dare me to sit through the…” His eyes threaten to open, but he
keeps them anchored, keeps his lids closed, his hands gravitating towards his feet. “ The other
boys who’d dare me to sit while they burned my feet w-with- with the cigarettes.” He’s never told
anyone this, he realises. “ I- I needed money, I- I wanted to run away and I- I…”

It’s better that his eyes are closed, at this moment, because he’d realised how messed up this is,
how messed up he was, if only he were to look at the horrified lines of the doctor’s face.

“ You charged them for every scar.” She realises.

“ And then…” Jungkook smiles, eyes still closed. He bites his lip, almost- almost seeing that day,
the day it all changed, right in front of him. The ring of the door-bell, the smell of oil. “ And then
the new boy came.” He opens his eyes, looks at Tamila. “They called him Stranger,” He reveals,
the new boy came.” He opens his eyes, looks at Tamila. “They called him Stranger,” He reveals,
smiling. “ Because he didn’t have a name, y-you see? And no one really knew where he came
from.”

Tamila smiles back, and Jungkook turns his body to also sit cross legged, turning to the side as
Tamila mirrors him, their folded knees almost touching now. “ You became friends?” She asks
without accusation or the knowingness Jungkook expected.

He blushes, looking down, tucking a piece of stray hair behind his ear.

“ M-more.” He whispers, shy.

“ More…” Tamila parrots, putting her hand on his knee. It’s a worn hand, a mother’s hand. Gold,
scuffed rings bejewelling callused, short fingers.

“ When it was-” The red of his cheeks deepen. “ When it was really cold and there weren’t
enough blankets we would- we would take our shirts off and press ourselves against each other.”
He says quietly, almost tasting his skin beneath his mouth. “And- and one night…”

And one night, hands wandered for warmth beyond the innocence of boyish, red skin. They
didn’t entirely know what they were doing. Teeth clashed and knees knocked, and they couldn’t
make a single sound in case they woke up the others. Jungkook was thirteen and he was fifteen
and they were, objectively, too young.

But he told Jungkook he loved him, and he kissed each and every burn on his foot and told him
one day they’d have so much money that he’d never have to do that again. He told Jungkook that
he hadn’t done this before, that he didn’t know what to do, how to kiss, how to fuck, how to make
anyone except himself come but-

“ But I know how to love you.”

But he knew how to love him.

They stumbled down the creaky stairs, stole the olive oil, Jungkook blushing all the way down to
his neck as he asked if that’ll be enough, and Stranger made beautiful little constellations all across
Jungkook’s neck as they drunkenly - on something called love and nothing else- ran to the park,
where they wouldn’t be seen, or heard, by anyone or anything other than the songbirds and the
rise of dawn, when moonchildren always make their prettiest memories.

Jungkook took it like a virgin, he cried, and bled, but somehow it made it more official, and
Stranger loved him through the tears, and god, he loved him so well. He loved him until pain bled
into pleasure and bruise bloomed into flower and Jungkook saw fireworks, well and true, in the
ascent of dawn above them, eyes rolling to the back of his head and fingers clutching the grass as
his insides were painted with unavoidable sin. He came, and came, whimpered “Stranger,
stranger” until his moans wouldn’t let him and all he could whimper was “ Stray”, the same name
Yoongi scorned at him as if Jungkook could ever think bad of it, and Stranger loved and loved
him through it. He came and came and they lay on the wet grass, skin glistening with cum and
remnants of yesterday’s storm, unknowing that the moon had delayed her descent just to watch
them make love on the moonlit grass.

And as soon as she lay claim to Jungkook, to Stanger whose real name even she didn’t know,
everything went wrong.

Long before, before humanity, before stars and planets and Zeus, starlings were taught how to
shine by the gods. They were taught how to be beautiful, how to scintillate, how to brighten the
darkness of the brooding skies when something they called ‘night’ ascended, so that the angels
wouldn’t be afraid to come down to something else they called ‘earth’. And the brightest of them
all, Luna and Solis, the starlings that the gods favoured most, became the Moon, and the Sun.

It was a privilege. It was a rarity to be blessed as such by the gods, a gift.

But Luna didn’t think so.

She refused and fought and screamed when they told her that she was to be earth’s beacon in the
darkest hours of twilight for it would mean…it would mean that she was never to see Solis again,
never to touch her, never to shine in synchrony the way they had done for millennia.

They had thought that if they were good, that if they shined the brightest, that they would be left
alone. That the gods would let them be.

In the plight of her tears, the anarchy of heaven and the support of hell in her fight to love her
golden star, dusk was born. And with it, came dawn.

The sun and moon were not to meet. And yet, with dusk, the cosmic law was broken. With dusk
came opportunity.

But also, rage.

You will suffer for this, they said to the moon. Solis told her that they wouldn’t let her be, that the
gods were too quiet, that it was too easy.

And it was.

Because when earth was born, and Adam took the apple in hand, the moon took a liking to the
earthlings. Not all of them, no, but as years passed, she would shine brighter at night for the
children who stared lovingly at her through their broken windows. She would look down, smile at
them, and when dawn arrived, she would tell Solis not to shine too blindingly upon the cheeks of
her special little earth-goers, to warm their cheeks and paint them in gold until twilight fell upon
them again.

And so, they came to be known as The Moonchildren.

And with moonchild came opportunity for the gods to take their revenge.

The Moonchildren are to be bled, the gods said to the Archangels. They are to pay for what she’s
done.

And dusk?

“ Do you know why people are busiest at Dusk, Gabriel?” God asked the herald of his
archangels, after the curse of the Moonchildren was vindicated and the heavens wailed in uproar,
because though the angels did not approve of the moon’s defiance, the moonchildren had come to
be known as seraphs, children of the sky, and every time the moon lay claim to a new one, the
heavens would swear to protect it.

“ No, Sire.” Gabriel said.

“It is so no one has time enough to look at the colours, so no one looks at the skies, at the descent
of Solis and the arrival of the moon, so no one looks up and sees how beautifully they are paying
the price of their sins. That is why humanity is busiest at dusk, why their little man-made machines
run rampant in their roads and people hurry to get inside their homes and leave the openness of the
coloured sky. That is how it has been since the beginning of time. That is dusk’s punishment. And
it is only Moonchildren who watch the sunset now, only them who run out with their little lenses
and sit capturing nightfall, waiting for dusk. Only Moonchildren and no one else.”

So the moon lay claim to Jungkook, even though she wasn’t supposed to, even though his name
couldn’t be found in the books of the scribe, or the skirts of fate. And with her, she brought blood.

“ You loved him?” Tamila asks.

“ I…” They both know that he did

“ Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

The million dollar question.

“ I…” Two tears fall, one down each cheek, hurtling down his skin one after the other. “O-one
night-”

The stuttering comes back, the quaking hands plaguing his previously steady hands. “ When I
was- when I was fourteen, he- he packed all of our bags, and he said he’s gonna take me away.
He said he’s gonna take me away from there.” Jungkook whispers, and suddenly it’s four years
ago and he’s making out with Stranger against their shared bedroom door, being told to wait.

“ He kissed me. He kissed me for- for such a long time and he, he made me feel the m-most…the
most wonderful things, a-and-” He sobs the words out of his mouth, choking down on hiccups,
tear after tear streaming down tired, rosy cheeks. “That night, h-he, he told me to wait for him,”
He says finally, voice hoarse. “ -on the highway ten minutes away, h-he-” The violinst looks up at
Tamila, says the next words like he still cant quite believe it. “ He kissed me and disappeared, he
melted into the shadows, and I went, I was- I was on time,” He emphasises, voice raising in pitch,
almost like a child.

“ But-b-but-”

“ But he never came.”

Jungkook waited.

He packed his little duffle bag, the taste of strange lips and stranger boys still tantalisingly warm
against his mouth. He skipped all the way to the highway with their bag of ratty clothes and their
envelope of money for stranger who said he’d gotten them a car, heart a little uneasy at the sight
of the empty bridge, but paying no mind as he leaned against the railing and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And woke up.

The cold had lulled him to sleep, crouched over in his position against the railing, duffle bag
The cold had lulled him to sleep, crouched over in his position against the railing, duffle bag
clutched like a brief case of diamonds in his aching, red, fingers.

He hadn’t come.

He didn’t come.

“ He- he abandoned me.” He cries, wiping his tears with his palms. “Or- or at least that’s what I
thought, that he- that he lied, that I- that I wasn’t good enough for him to run away with.”

They both know that isn’t true. If Taehyung has done his research, which Jungkook very much
does not doubt that he has, then they both know. They both know that didn’t happen.

“ I ran, that night. With all the money I’d gotten from the kids who’d make scars on me to let their
own pain out, with all the money we’d saved together, I ran, I came h-here- to New York.”
Jungkook utters, starry eyes caught entirely in a nebula of reminiscence. “ To the city of dreams,
the city of- of our dreams, where we were supposed to make a life for ourselves.” He condemns,
looking beyond the shutters to the white mirage of the city below. “I admitted myself into a new
school, found the abandoned music building and- and for a year I lived- I lived like a body
without a soul, hoping, hoping that one day he’d just- that he’d turn up.”

Jungkook filled the music room with flowers, painting as far high up the walls as he could reach,
as the chair beneath his feet would allow him, he studied, he studied hard, even though it didn’t
really come to anything in the end, waiting, waiting for him to turn up one day, to turn up and see
the kick-start Jungkook had given them for their new life. He worked his fucking ass off at a
mechanics and fixed cars the way Stranger had thought him to, just to keep himself from realising
how far beyond the breaking point he was himself.

“ I was fifteen, it was six months later when- when I found an old newspaper article in art class
about…”

From behind the door, leaning against the wall, listening to Jungkook’s quiet revelations from the
corridor, Taehyung whispers: “ A hit and run.”

“ About a hit and run on the highway by my old care home. I slept through it, apparently,” He
chuckles, shoulders trembling with the force of restrained sobs and untold secrets.“ And- and there
was a picture- of- of him.” A tear slips, then another, and another, and they stay like that until the
tears dry on Jungkook’s cheeks and his face turns serious, stoic.

“ Stranger…” Saying the name physically hurts him, that much is obvious. He swallows, pain
burrowing its way down his throat, settling into his aching chest, his hand clutching his shirt in a
plea for his ribs to stop getting so close. “Stranger didn’t have records, or anything like that, he- he
was just a ghost. They- they didn’t even bury him properly, they- they just- they just burned him
cause no one could pay for a burial and- I-I-”

And then he says it.

“ To this day I…”

He doesn’t say anything. Tamila takes his wet hands in her own, wiping the tears away from the
scarred skin. “ What is it Jungkook?”
“ The thing is?” He whispers, looking up, smiling. “ To this day, I still don’t know if he was even
real.”

Tamila’s features soften beyond what Jungkook thought was even possible.

He just starts sobbing again at the way she’s looking at him, like-

Like a mother.

“ I went after him. I spent, I spent every…waking moment of the next six months searching for the
guy who hit him. And when I found him, when I found him I-”

Tamila sees the signs, she sees the way he struggles to breathe, his eyes shifting everywhere for
some sort of shelter beyond the open space, his hand clawing at his shirt, trying to pry apart his
chest, trying to find air to blow into his trembling mouth.

“ Hey, hey, Jungkook. Jungkook.”

Taehyung stumbles in, the door thrown open behind Jungkook as he kneels on the floor, taking
the boy in his arms.

“ Hey, Jungkookie,” He takes Jungkook’s cheeks in his hands, wiping away his tears one by one,
his thumbs caressing the panes of the boy’s face, skin and bone trembling violently beneath his
touch. “Look at me, look at me,” He chants, holding his face firmly in his hands. “ You’ve got to
hold your breath, Jungkookie. You gotta hold your breath, I got you, I got you, I’m here.”

It doesn’t work. It gets worse. Jungkook’s face turns red, mouth shaking as he gasps for breath.

“ Taehyung you’ve got to-”

And then Taehyung is kissing him.

He fucking kisses him.

He leans in and leans out, it’s barely a touch of the lips but it’s there and it’s a kiss. Jungkook
gasps and Taehyung’s lips are warm against Jungkook’s and before he can stop himself, tongue
touches tongue and Taehyung strays. His mouth moves on its own and he’s holding Jungkook’s
cheeks, breathing air into him and then leaving, leaning back, and wondering what the fuck it is
he’s just done, what the fuck it is he was thinking, but instead-

“ Breathe for me.” He whispers, hands coaxing Jungkook back with his hand kneading the skin
behind his neck softly, his other hand still on his cheek. “ Breathe.”

“ I-” Jungkook hiccups, his head almost keening in Taehyung’s palm. “ I killed him.”

Taehyung probably already knows, and so does Tamila. They know. They know.

“ I found him, I followed him, and I- and I hit him.” Jungkook doesn’t even look like he’s
registered the kiss and maybe that’s for the better. And yet he’s looking at Taehyung like there’s
no one he trusts more in the world, with a billion and one nebulas struggling to hold onto the edge
of his lids. Taehyung’s hand doesn’t leave Jungkook’s face as he talks, his thumb brushes up and
down his cheekbone, fluttering against his quivering lashes, immediately wiping any tear that
leaks from the corner of his eye. “I k-killed him- killed him with my bare hands, I kicked him until
I felt his bones cracking beneath my heel and I- and I liked it.” Jungkook knows Taehyung
understands. Not just because of what he knows and who he is but because of the first time he
saw him, three years ago.
saw him, three years ago.

Jimin took Jungkook to Taehyung, naturally, a few weeks after the crash. Jungkook was standing
on the stairs leading up to the mansion, Jimin putting the car in the garage. The door was open, he
heard a struggle from inside the house.

He walked in, stopped just a step away from the fountain, and to his right, to his right-

He looked over, peered over into the grand sitting rooms and-

And there Taehyung was, seemingly unaware that he had a guest, digging the heel of his leather
boot, shining even from such a distance- into the crushed, bloodied face of a screaming man. The
smile on his face brought about equal parts arousal, fear, and nostalgia within Jungkook. He still
remembers seventeen-year-old Taehyung’s shit eating grin, the way he laughed as the man
screamed, the way his reflection must have painted itself across the pool of blood on the marble
floor. He remembers it all.

And in that, in him, in Taehyung, he remembers himself.

“I knew Stranger would too, if he was there, cause- we…we…”

Taehyung’s eyes watch him dangerously softly and Jungkook’s hands fist the material of
Taehyung's trousers as he continues.

“S-so I hit him for both of us,” His eyes flit from the floor to Taehyung, to and fro, Tamila
forgotten once again, as he checks to see if the man is looking at him any different with each word
uttered from his mouth. But no. Taehyung is Taehyung. He looks at Jungkook like he
means…means something, everything, anything. “ I beat him until it wasn’t even a man anymore,
it was just…just skin.” And he wants to say something else, and he suspects Taehyung already
knows why he hesitates, “ Like-”

Taehyung shakes his head.

Like how Stranger looked like when they were burning him. When they were killing him again
without even telling me first.

“That’s when you met Jimin.”

“ That’s…”

That’s when Jungkook met Jimin.

They both look over at Tamila, inching out of their lost world into this one. “I- I just wanted to
die, that night. He didn’t abandon me, no, they took him away, which was- which was worse,
because I- I could have- I would have, I did have, but…but they took him away.”

Taehyung hears Yoongi. It’s laughable. He hears Yoongi, himself, all of them, all of them, six
years ago, sitting in that hospital corridor, in front of the morgue, watching Yoongi cling to a
naked, cold corpse with an engagement ring on his left hand, watching him cling and cling, his
little body fitted perfectly over Sam’s icy one over the metal slab.

Watching him and wondering how the fuck they’re ever gonna tell Yoongi that he has to let go.

“ So I just…I left the body where I found it, in the bad part of town, where I knew someone was
bound to find him and come looking for me, everyone knew that part of the city was gang
territory.”
Taehyung had thought all this time that Jungkook couldn’t possibly…he couldn’t even imagine
that Jungkook would ever be able to handle something- someone like Yoongi. Because he hadn’t
seen it, because he doesn’t know, because he wasn’t there when Yoongi and Jin pulled up to the
hospital and Yoongi refused to get out. He wasn’t there when Taehyung was screaming at
Yoongi to get out, Hyung, get out of the FUCKING CAR.

Jungkook wasn’t there, no.

He was with his own kind of Sam.

“ I didn’t realise at the time that I had a lot internalised bleeding, my organs were fucked up, I’d
drank myself to death trying to find the guy. I just- I just thought I was dying. There was blood…
there was blood everywhere, and it was all- it was just red, this comfortable red haze and I
thought, I’d finally be able to see him, I was finally gonna be okay.” His eyes go out of focus,
Taehyung’s vision painting mirages of the red light district that he has owned since birth in the
browns and blacks of Jungkook’s wet eyes, “ And then-and then-”

“ And then you saw Jimin,” Taehyung whispers, hand curling tighter around the back of
Jungkook’s neck.

“And then I saw him. And then I saw Jimin.”

And he- for a moment, for the slightest moment, he thought- he thought it was Stranger. And the
first thing that came out his mouth was Angel.

“ When I- when I fell off the bike, that night, and woke up in the hospital, and Jimin was late, I
thought I’d been abandoned again. But- but he came through, and this time- this time I told myself
it was gonna be different.” He reveals. “That I was going to be different.”

Taehyung’s head hangs low at the mention of the hospital, remembering his tantrum, his stupid,
drunken, half-high tantrum in front of a fifteen-year-old orphan’s door brought about by jealousy,
by pure fucking envy at the thought of another boy stealing Jimin away from him like this.

It was the first time he’d gotten that drunk. Taehyung never even touched booze before his
father’s death, and didn’t even think of drugs until Sam’s.

“ I- I told him the bare minimum, I pretended like I hadn’t let a strange, nameless boy touch every
part of me that could be touched.” Jungkook shivers. It’s such an innocent gesture, the way his
body quivers at the thought of being touched like that, it’s so, so fucking pure, and Taehyung
knows its wrong to be moved by it, to stray from what he is supposed to be for Jungkook- a
protector- even for the slightest of moments, but alas, he’s moved and for an awful moment Jeon
Jungkook seems like the perfect thing to help him forget the tape. The Tape.

“ I pretended like I could sleep at night without screaming, I pretended, for Jimin, because I
thought maybe, that way, I wouldn’t be abandoned again.”

For Jimin.

“ I forgot Stranger. Until-until the dreams where he’d be the one pressing cigarettes into my feet.
It-uh, I didn’t- I didn’t think what we had was- was anywhere near perfect, or ideal, nowhere near
what- what…”

He looks at Taehyung, bites his lip, hoods his eyes.

What you and Jimin have.

What Sam and Yoongi…had.

“ We were just- we were just two boys who liked being naked against each other when it was
cold and- and sometimes, he made me feel beautiful, and… and I… I thought that maybe I could-
maybe I could be happy with him. That we could be happy with each other. It… It was stupid.
That’s why- that’s why I didn’t tell anyone.”

“ You started taking pills.” Tamila says, her first words since Taehyung came into the room again.

“ Last year, when it- when it became clear Jimin- Jimin wasn’t going to be my Stranger, because..
because…”

Taehyung’s stomach turns. He avoids Jungkook’s darkening stare, but is forced to look up when
the violinist doesn’t say anything. In Jungkook’s eyes he expects resentment, he expects envy,
tendrils of hatred, anything, anything at all except-

His reflection.

“ They fasten metabolism, but reduce appetite.” Tamila is the breaker of their trance, once again.

“ I just uh… I stopped eating. I just- just drank these protein shakes, took supplements. Didn’t
sleep, I- I still kind of don’t.”

Taehyung’s hand wraps around his shoulder. A cold breeze swirls into the room from the open
door, hospital humdrum coming to life beyond the corridor outside. The breeze settles around
them as Taehyung holds Jungkook by the shoulders, lifting him up, Tamila following suit.

“ We’re working on that though, aren’t we?” He asks him, Jungkook unsteady on aching knees.

“ G-guess so.”

None of them say anything.

“ Jungkook?” Tamila says, stepping through the silence for what Jungkook hopes is the last time,
because he can’t stand the way Taehyung is staring at him anymore.

“ Do you think you’re unfixable?” She asks him, and when Jungkook looks a little closer, he
realises that her cheeks are wet.

“ I think sometimes you try and fix something a little too hard and you end up breaking it even
more.” He answers, and for the first time, he doesn’t stutter.

“ Do you think that’s the case with you?” Taehyung follows up.

“ Maybe.”

“ Are you willing to try and work through this with me,” Tamila asks. “ With Taehyung, with
your friends?”

Jungkook chuckles.

“ I don’t think I have a choice.”

“ You always have a choice.” Tamila reminds him instantly.

“ I’ve never had a say in how things are.” He replies just as quick.
Taehyung stirs beside him, a warmth enveloping Jungkook’s right hand as the former puts his left
hand palm up beneath the latter’s, raising it, putting his right palm over it. Taehyung’s skin is
slightly darker than his, more golden.

“You do now, Jeon Jungkook.

________________

They’re watching the snow beyond the hospital window of Taehyung’s room, watching white
envelope neon and rage against the towering sky scrapers, the storm ravaging the city that never
sleeps in its cold, unforgiving clutches, Jungkook on the right and Taehyung on the left, standing
just the touch of a hand apart.

Taehyung opens his mouth.

“ I’m sorry.” Jungkook beats him to it.

“ Don’t be.”

“ No I- I am. For- for lying, for getting angry, back there- I-”

“ Hey, you-” Taehyung sighs, his side suddenly straining as he barks at the pain, face contorting.
Worry replaces apology and Jungkook is ushering him to the bed, ignoring Taehyung’s train of ‘m
fine’s, stop fussing’s’ as he rests him against the bed, scrambling up the mattress to come and
sheepishly sit in front of Taehyung cross legged. “You don’t have to be sorry, Jungkook. You
have nothing to be sorry for.”

“I have a fuck ton to be sorry for.” The violinist stresses, head hanging low, fingers fiddling in his
lap.

“Hey,” Taehyung says. “Look at me.”

There’s a soft authority to his voice that tilts Jungkook’s head up. “You have nothing to be sorry
for, okay?” Jungkook doesn’t reply.

“Can I kiss you?”

Jungkook’s head snaps up. Taehyung is looking at him in a very specific way. A very, very
specific way. His lips are slightly open, wet, tendrils of golden hair arched over his forehead,
brown tresses curling around his face. God, he’s a fucking piece of art, looking at Jungkook like
this, sunlight spotting his eyes and threading his hair in gold.

“What?”

Taehyung moves closer, comes on his knees. His hands are coming to hold Jungkook’s cheeks
and for the strangest reason, instead of beating harder, Jungkook’s heart slows down.

“Right here.” Taehyung whispers, their faces inches away as Taehyung presses his fingertip
against the violinist’s forehead. Jungkook gasps. He has a mole under his lips, one on his nose, he
knew that, since he spends the majority of his time staring at his mouth.

But he hadn’t noticed the one on his lower right lid.

The violinist supresses a smile at the imperfections of a perfect man. “Jus’ here.” He murmurs
again, his thumb caressing Jungkook’s forehead. “I feel like it hurts a lot.”

Taehyung is warm. Jimin told him he wasn’t. That when they were younger, Jimin would always
be the warmer one. He was wrong. This is one thing Jimin was wrong about.

“How do you know?” He whispers, face small and heated beneath the older’s hand.

“I can always tell when someone’s hurting up here.”

“Can you tell how much?” Jungkook asks, not realising the lack of stuttering.

His heart is calm, stable. It jumps with boyish excitement every time Taehyung’s thumb moves
against the pane of his cheek, but other than that, it remains steady, as though he’s accustomed to
Taehyung’s touch already, as though there could be nothing safer or surer than his face in the
hands of a boy turned man with more blood on his hands than water. With bone residue covering
his old books instead of dust, with gold in his veins instead of blood . “ The more beautiful the
person, the worse the pain.” He finally answers, and then: “So you must be in agony,
Jungkookie.”

He’s telling you you’re beautiful.

“And we’ll make it go away, okay?” Taehyung promises. “I’ll keep you warm without needing to
take our clothes off, is that okay?”

He’s referring to Stranger, Jungkook realises. He’s referring to the way Jungkook bared his body
for a boy he barely knew just to feel a little less cold in the cruel winters of New York City.

“ T-that’s okay.”

Silence settles faster than the snow outside, and their heads both turn to the window to watch
white flutter past, flurrying down the glass like Jungkook’s defences and walls of straw-like steel.

“ You don’t like snow either then?” Taehyung suddenly asks, observing the way Jungkook peers
at the snow, his gaze colder than the white storm. “Since you don’t like Christmas and since we’re
in new York, they’re practically the same thing…”

“ No, I-”

Taehyung raises a brow. Jungkook thinks for a moment, about how him and Stranger used to play
in the snow, how his cold hands would grip his cheeks and kiss him, hard. And kiss him, soft.
And kiss him, and kiss him. Kiss him until they’re both blue and Jungkook, like the besmirched
flower that he is, that he was, would arch for more, and more, and more.

“ I like it.” Jungkook whispers, cheeks coloured with the reminiscence of skin. “Rich kids and
poor kids all play in the snow the same way. I like that about it.”

Taehyung doesn’t say anything.

“ Beautiful.” Taehyung whispers.

“ It is.” The younger agrees, snow reflecting in his starry eyes.

“ No,” Taehyung corrects, Jungkook’s face turning. “I meant you.”

The violinist gasps. Taehyung is already staring at him before their eyes meet, and Jungkook’s
heart falls.
“ Why….” Taehyung raises a brow. “ Why do you say stuff like that?” He asks, not entirely sure
if half the things he hears from the enigma-like man are just figments of his boyish desires.

“ I’m not allowed to appreciate beauty?” Taehyung inquires, smirk playful along his lips. He wets
them, and Jungkook’s eyes travel downwards at the action, before coming back to rest on eyes he
doesn’t think he would even describe as mere brown anymore. There is just so much fucking gold
in and around Taehyung. Everything looks...

Gold.

“ No, you- you are.” Jungkook quickly rectifies, not knowing where this is going.

“ Then?”

“ You keep…” Damn his heart. Damn his stupid, naïve heart. That’s Taehyung, idiot. That’s
Jimin’s Taehyung who is Taehyung’s Jimin who you’ve spent more than one sorry, cold night
crying yourself to bed because of. This is the untouchable man in the untouchable sky who has
Jimin all to himself. Stop gasping for him, you damned fool. Stop beating so loud. Stop it. Stop
this. This stupid frivolous habit of being stirred by any boy or man who gives you the time of
fucking day. Stop it, Jungkook.

Just stop.

“ You keep blurring these lines, Taehyung.” He finally says, out of breath. Taehyung is surprised
by the statement. He laughs, caught off guard, white teeth glimmering between open, chuckling
lips before he turns away, to the side, unfolding his legs to hang them off the bed, sitting
perpendicular to a crossed leg Jungkook.

“ Lines?” He parrots. “You think there are lines between people like us?

He sounds offended. Jungkook actually puts himself at the liberty to wonder whether it’s because
he’s astounded Jungkook could think he’d ever want to blur a line for him, or if it’s because
Jungkook’s caught him staring at his mouth one too many times, or if it’s…because of what
happened at the gym.

________

Early yesterday

“There’s… no- no way you can do more than me.”

Taehyung chuckles, growling, muscles rippling with sweat, tresses of wet, salty hair plastered to
his forehead. Jungkook growls back, laughing when Taehyung sticks his tongue out at him,
immediately biting down on it as his arms bend to bring the weights back up. They have the gym
to themselves, sweat wetting the air, Jungkook on the weight machine directly opposite to
Taehyung, both shirtless.

“ H-how many is that?” Jungkook chokes out.

“ Just keep going pretty boy.”

Here’s the deal. Jungkook’s body is fucked. He eats whatever Taehyung gives him, and in turn,
he gets to do this even though Taehyung said the doctors would prefer if he didn’t do any work
outs at all, at least for the time being.

“ I can’t not work out, Taehyung. It’s all I ever used to do when I was alone at the care home, it
basically saved my life, kept me grounded, you know? I can’t just let that go.”

And so here they are.

“ Fuck, you’re m-making it look so ef-effortless.” Jungkook observes through gritted teeth,
Taehyung biting down on a shit eating grin, adrenaline flurrying to his head in the masses. It’s his
first weight workout since the bomb, four weeks past. Jungkook can tell he revels in it nearly as
much as himself, the way he smiles through the strain, laughing the sweat away.

It’s only when exhaustion settles into bone and Jungkook feels himself slackening that he allows
himself to watch Taehyung properly.

His shoulder span is bigger than Jungkook’s, chest angling inwards to a small waist, muscle
bulging on his abdomen with each weight lift. Sweat looks golden on Taehyung’s skin, threading
around his rippling arms, highlighting the burrows of his abs. He has so many scars, Taehyung
does, that Jungkook realises he can’t really count all of them. His back is even worse.

The hills of his abs are speckled with knife wounds, straight edged scars sliced across every inch
of skin that Jungkook’s eyes settle upon.

One, two, three- eight gunshot wounds disturbed across both shoulders, one-

“ I win.”

Jungkook nearly falls off his fucking seat.

Taehyung’s face is right in front of his, leaning down, ribbons of sweat curling around his hair,
leaking onto Jungkook’s lap.

“ W-what?” Jungkook’s hands curl tighter around the bars, holding the weights midway up.

“ You stopped lifting.” Taehyung points out. Jungkook can smell him. It’s supposed to be
disgusting, but god, fuck, Jungkook just wants to press his thighs together at it. But that would
mean pressing Taehyung, currently in between said thighs, closer as well.

“ N-no I didn’t.” Jungkook stutters, whining as the weights get too heavy for him to hold up.
Taehyung’s hands are suddenly on his, curling in between his fingers, leaning even closer, down,
noses inches away as he lowers the weights, his hands not leaving Jungkook’s.

It’s when he inches closer, their faces a hand away, when Jungkook realises his eyes are wet.

“You were too busy staring.” He murmurs, their naked calves brushing past one another,
Taehyung’s eyes clouded over with something undecipherable.

“ W-where did you get this one?” Jungkook whispers, his arm bending upwards, hand gravitating
towards the expanse of Taehyung’s left shoulder where a fairly new bullet wound has darkened
his skin, pointing diagonally towards his left clavicle, scar tissue a dark but faded purple, much
newer than the rest of the entry wounds.

“ Few months back…went away for some stuff…I…”

Taehyung’s hand is on Jungkook’s cheek, Jungkook is quivering under the heat of the man’s wet
skin.

“ T-Taehyung I…” Jungkook’s voice comes out needy, whine carrying in Taehyung’s ears. He
feels himself harden with the proximity, with the sheer largeness of Taehyung against him.

“ You don’t want it?” Taehyung whispers, caressing Jungkook’s cheek.

“ Why…” A tear rolls down Taehyung’s eye. It’s the strangest combination of feelings Jungkook
has ever seen in someone’s gaze. Agony and pure, unadulterated lust. “Why are you crying,
Taehyung?” Jungkook whispers, finger coming to press the tear away from the older’s cheek.

“ I…”

Taehyung looks at the tear on Jungkook’s finger, dazed, not realising he’s crying.

“ I…”

“Taehyung?”

He stumbles back, falling on the floor.

“ I’m so fucking sorry.” Taehyung sobs, bewildered. “ I- I’m so sorry?” Tears stream down his
face, face blotchy with sadness instead of sweat. It reminds him of that day in the mansion, after
the three am call, after the bar, where Taehyung would look at Jungkook like he wanted to devour
him, and not in the good way, then break down on Yoongi’s chest seconds later. “ Fuck, please-
don’t- don’t tell J-”

Don’t tell Jimin.

“ Don’t tell anyone…” His hands come to cup his own face, choking sobs into it. “ Fuck, what the
fuck is wrong with me? I- Jungkookie I-”

“ Taehyung it’s-“ Jungkook comes to kneel in front of Taehyung, knees hitting the rough carpet of
the gym. “ Hey it- it’s ok we-”

Taehyung’s hard, Jungkook realises with a gasp.

“ We…” The revelation strikes him as he fumbles for words in front of the broken man. “ We
haven’t done anything just- just please stop crying I- I’m not gonna tell anyone.”

“ Please…” Taehyung whimpers, looking utterly crumbled as he looks up at Jungkook. “ I don’t

know what- what’s gotten into me I-I…I…”

_____

“ You think there are lines between people like us, Jungkook?”

“ I…” Jungkook’s eyes focus back on Taehyung’s face, not sweaty or crying this time, but stern,
looking at him as though he’s insane.

“ If there are you must realise we’re…edging them.” Jungkook bites his tongue at his word choice
“ Edging them…” Taehyung whispers, smirking. Jungkook averts his eyes from the man’s lips.

“ There are lines between everyone, Taehyung.”

“ And ours are made of Jimin?”

He says the most obvious thing as if it’s not obvious at all. Like it’s a question.

“ Ours are made of the fact that no one has ever loved anyone like you love each other.”
Jungkook corrects.

“ Me.” Taehyung says sternly.

‘What?”

“ Like I love him.”

Jungkook ogles at him

“ You don’t think he loves you the same way?” Taehyung doesn’t say anything. He looks like
he’s going to cry again. “Tae?”

“Mm.” He hums, standing.

“ T-that…” Jungkook think back to this morning. “ The package you got…was it? Was it about
Jimin?”

Taehyung chuckles, circling the bed.

“ I need to shower, Jungkookie.” Taehyung points out, his cream jacket coming off in one swift
motion, thrown on the sofa on the other side of the room. “If you’re not gonna join me then get
out, please.” He says, smiling not particularly warmly.

“ You…you’re going somewhere?” Jungkook asks, deciding to brush over his suggestion.

“ Do I need to ask your permission?” Taehyung questions, his fingers flicking the buttons of his
dresshirt open, golden skin glimmering in between the opening gap. At the sight of his chest,
Jungkook stands.

“ Taehyung I…”

“ I’ll be fine, tomorrow.” Taehyung quickly assures, shirt off. “ Christmas isn’t just shit for
orphans, Jungkookie.”

“ I…” The violinist inches sheepishly towards the door, eyes averted from Taehyung’s
progressively more scandalous show of skin.

“ Jungkook?” The owner of the name looks up at him. This time, Taehyung is stern, cold, and
utterly unlike the Taehyung of a few minutes prior when he order” “ Leave.”

Jungkook’s hand is latching onto the door handle just a few seconds later.

“ I’m sorry.” He whispers, opening the door.

“ I should be saying that.” Taehyung laughs, stripping off his pants.

Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look.

Jungkook ends up looking, eyes straying downwards. Taehyung doesn’t catch the gaze.

“ You’re…you’re coming back, right?” Jungkook asks, voice small, glancing at the bath next to
the door, on the left.

“ I don’t have a choice.” Taehyung replies, having slipped into his bathrobe behind Jungkook’s
back.

___________

Christmas Day,

Five Years ago,

The ArKe,

“ So that’s how many students?” Taehyung asks, walking alongside Jimin down the length of the
chapel hallway, arguably one of the prettiest stretches of the school ground. He’s in his uniform,
so is Jimin. They’re not entirely sure why, just that dressing up or dressing down feels wrong.

Jimin’s first term of eleventh grade has gone by in a flurry of parties, pulling unconscious
Taehyung’s out of different people’s mansions everyday , putting him in a car, cleaning up his
puke from the corners of a sobbing mouth, letting him fuck the sadness out of them both against
every viable surface there is, letting him leave the deepest bruises on his hips that Jimin feels
bittersweetly for weeks after, lining his collarbones with cocaine for Taehyung to sniff.

Jimin doesn’t remember the last time he himself even drank.

It’s funny how it took two deaths and two suicide attempts for their roles to completely reverse.
Funny isn’t really the right word for it but it’s funny, there isn’t really any other way to describe it.

And yeah, two. Yoongi tried, again.

Again.

He tried to hang himself, they say. Well, Taehyung says.

He was there.

Taehyung was the one who found him.

Guess they’re even now, Taehyung and Jimin.

Getting that call from a sobbing Taehyung from over the phone, trying to decipher the wet muffles
of his cries through bad reception and the hospital racket, Jimin thought it would have been the
last straw.

“ J-j…Jiminie…he…h-hyung….Yoongi h-hyung….t-tried…he…they say…suicide…rope….found

him…I… c-can’t Jiminie…c-ca’nt do it anymore….said…they said if I found him a second later…
if I hadn’t went to visit….What if… Why…why would Sam do this to him?”
 “ There’s around seventy students?” Jimin finally replies. “Seventy…six?” He adds. squinting at
himself. "Yeah, just under eighty staying at school for the holidays. There’s some seventh grades
too, which is pretty shit.’

“ These fucking parents man.” Taehyung spits, taking out a flask from inside his pocket. Jimin
sighs.

“ At least you kept it open this year, otherwise you’d have a bunch of eleven year olds staying in
hotels with babysitters and shit by themselves on Christmas day.”

“ The only reason I even got to make that decision is because father is dead.”

“ Taehyungie…” He says softly, hand going towards the flask

“ Don’t.” Taehyung snaps, turning away. “ Don’t you dare.” He warns, chugging the liquid
inside.

Jimin puts his hand around Taehyung’s.

“Baby.” He coos, taking the flask from him. Taehyung doesn’t fight it, hand slackening. “ Baby
you’ve got to stop, mm?”

He falls into Jimin’s arms easily, arms curling around his shoulders, pulling him close, and
thankfully, if there’s one thing that’s still right with this world, one thing that hasn’t changed about
this Christmas, it’s that Jimin still fits into him the same way. He still fits perfectly, and Taehyung
knows just how much to crouch so he can fit his face into the nook of Jimin’s shoulder.

Jimin doesn’t let go, he never does. He never lets go first. He waits until Taehyung’s head creeps
up from his shoulder, lips wet, and eyes begging for something more than clothed skin. So Jimin
gives it to him.

“ C’mere.” He whispers, opening his mouth. Taehyung chases his lips, their noses flirting as the
older smiles. “ Kiss me, King.”

“ Kiss you?”

“ Kiss me.”

Taehyung does. His bottom lip curls below Jimin’s, and he takes his tongue into his mouth,
sucking on it. Taehyung recently tastes of sweet whiskey and salty tears. “ Taehyungie…” Jimin
lets out a sweet, shaky moan when Taehyung’s teeth lay suggestive bites down the curve of his
neck, taking his jaw between his lips, kneading it in his mouth until it hurts, until it hurts so good
and so hard, Jimin’s hands coming to cup Taehyung’s cheeks, pulling him further down.

“ Here?” Taehyung whispers, his hands sliding alternately over the gold buttons on both of their
white jackets.

“ Wherever you want.” Jimin whispers. On burning mountain ranges, in the sky, on wet, dirty
soil, against bushes and knives, in thorns and in silk, all of Jimin’s holes would throb for
Taehyung, wherever, whenever.

“ Wherever you need me.” Jimin whimpers, jumping upwards, Taehyung’s hands ready to clutch
the underside of his thighs, whirling them around, and Jimin is being slammed front-first against
the chapel wall, Taehyung at his back and anyone at the liberty to walk into the courtyard
separated from the corridor by tall, white pillars, and see them.
“ You’re gonna take my cock in the house of god, Jiminie?” Taehyung whispers, Jimin’s buttons
suddenly clattering onto the ground. That’s the twentieth time, this month.

The sound of Jimin’s shirt tearing cuts through their ears as Taehyung bites into his neck, hard,
over the hickey he never let’s heal, just above where Jimin’s collar usually sits.

It’s so everyone knows you’re mine.

That’s another thing that’s changed, since Sam died. Since Yoongi tried to. Since John Kim
passed. Since Yoongi failed again.

Jimin is Taehyung’s now. Not that it’s a surprise, but now, Taehyung whispers it against his skin
fervently.

Mine, mine, mine, mine.

When he thrusts hard and rough and wet into Jimin, making him feel owned and owned and
worshipped.

“ This is your land, and you are my god.” Jimin whispers, cheek pressed against the wall as
Taehyung brings up his shirt for him to bite down on.

“ Bite, baby.”

One of Jimin’s hands gather the skirts of his jacket, scrunching them against his stomach, the other
holding the wall as Taehyung’s hands curl into the hem of his pants, pulling them down.

Jimin’s knees give out at the sensation of the cold winter wind hitting his ass.

“ S-so cold, Taehyung.” He complains, pressing his thighs together, the action pushing the plug
between his legs further inside him, a long, choked moan escaping bitten, wet lips as the toy
massages his insides.

“ Wanna go in?” Taehyung whispers, laying soothing, warm hands on Jimin’s ass cheeks, kissing
the flesh as he buries his head between Jimin’s legs, pulling his pants further down, the material
pooling at Jimin’s ankles.

“ No!” Jimin quickly whines. “Here. Just. F-fuck me. Fuck me, please.”

Taehyung smiles at his pleas, crouching back to look at the whites of Jimin’s legs shivering in the
cold.

“ T-Taehyungie, h-hurry.” Two hard slaps -one to each cold cheek- have Jimin’s flesh burning
with pain, his arms crumbling against the wall, tears pooling in his eyes. “Ass-asshole.” He
whimpers, biting his lip at the blissful aftertaste of the pain.

“ Warm now, bun?” Taehyung teases, moulding the flesh of Jimin’s ass in his hands, nosing at the
glimmering plug fitted between his cheeks.

“ Shut up. Shut up and fuck me.” Jimin growls, his right hand coming back to grab Taehyung’s
hair. Taehyung laughs, suddenly grabbing the hand, pinning it to his back , Jimin’s cheek hitting
the wall as the younger stands, pressing the older’s face further into the plaster, taking his other
arm and pinning it behind his back as well.

Jimin whines at his harshness, head being crushed in Taehyung’s hand

“ Or what?” Taehyung growls. “ You belong to me.” He snarls in Jimin’s ear. The possessiveness
gets to Jimin’s head, eyes rolling back, tears burning the corner of his eyes as Taehyung grabs his
hair, pulling him back, Jimin screaming. “ You are mine. I can do whatever I want.”

This happens a lot. Taehyung loses himself to headspace. A single safe word brings him back.

Jimin says Eclipse and Taehyung will be on his knees, he knows because it’s happened just once,
just once before. It wasn’t even because Jimin was hurting, no. He had used to because he could
tell Taehyung was. Hurting, that is.

“ Whatever…” Jimin cries. “Whatever you want.” Taehyung doesn’t say anything, his breathing
hot and overpowering next to Jimin’s ear. Jimin whines at the sound of a zip being pulled down,
Taehyung rustling behind him. The younger’s fingers are being pressed against Jimin’s lips,
massaging them for entry. Jimin opens his mouth, tongue wetting Taehyung’s digit as he takes
them deep into his throat, choking. “ “ Tae I s-s-s-s o-oh oh, a-ah.” Too busy on sucking on
Taehyung’s fingers, Jimin hadn’t registered his legs being parted with Taehyung’s left hand, and
his fingers playing with the plug until he has fisted it further in, the toy abusing Jimin’s prostate.

“ P-p-p-pl-please.”

And then the plug is being pulled out completely, and Taehyung’s cum from yesterday comes
gushing out of Jimin’s hole, trickling down his thighs.

“ I…hngh-” Taehyung’s fingers leave Jimin’s mouth just far enough for him to suck on the tip and
talk. “I feel- f-fuck, t-that’s so dirty.” Jimin whispers, voice muffled by Taehyung’s fingers acting
like a gag, the latter playing with his swollen opening like a toy, the plug clattering onto the floor.

And suddenly there’s two fingers entering him and Jimin falls to the floor, Taehyung’s arm ready
to wrap around him, bringing him back.

“ You’ve got to stay put, little hole.” Taehyung warns, griping Jimin’s bare waist with one hand,
letting go of his pinned arms, letting Jimin hold the wall for support.

“ F-fuck.” The pet name has Jimin’s eyes rolling back once again, keening sweetly, back arching
to have his nipples brush against the wall.

“ You like that? You like being my little hole?” Taehyung mocks, knowing just how to twist
Jimin around his long, meticulous fingers.

“ I…I…” Jimin whimpers for breath, for words, for anything that would tell Taehyung how
wonderfully humiliated he feels, shame leaking in the form of Taehyung’s cum down his cold
thighs, chastened and defiled by the sensation of Taehyung’s hands prying apart every wet,
puckered, winking hole.

“Don’t seem so little now though, do you?” He taunts, fitting all five fingertips inside him just
deep enough for Jimin to spasm with the promise of being full. Taehyung twists his fingers
around, his hand entering further in before all his digits leave Jimin empty at once, a light slap to
his swollen rim wobbling his knees, his elbows grazing the wall for release.

“Look how stretched you are little slut,” Taehyung laughs, his head resting in between Jimin’s
shoulder blades. He kisses the gap between them, massaging the older’s arms. “I could fit
anything in here couldn’t I?” He asks, lifting Jimin’s shirt while still teasing Jimin’s opening, the
older boy’s pink hole winking at him, relaxing every time his digit’s ghost against it to pull them
further in, hungry to be occupied, bred, and owned.

He kisses his way down Jimin’s spine, leaving bites on either hip, moulding the skin in his hands.
Taehyung falters for a moment at the lack of skin to knead between his hands, but Jimin is far too
gone to notice. The younger grits his teeth before bruising the flesh at Jimin’s hips, taking as much
skin as he can between his teeth and blooming the flowers that Jimin doesn’t believe he deserves
into the curves of his tiny, starved waist.

At Taehyung’s prolonged silence, Jimin curls his head around only to see the former situated
between his cheeks, lips suckling at the small of his back. “ I l-love you.”

Taehyung smiles as the older turns back towards the wall with a fucked out grin on his face,
pressing his face against the coolness of the plaster to relieve himself of the burning between his
legs. “Is my cock even enough for you baby, mm?” Taehyung asks, Jimin’s legs trembling under
the weight of the younger’s humiliating train of naked mockery. “ Answer me.”

“ T-Tae- I- oh-” He feels something wet, thick and familiar sliding between his cheeks,
Taehyung’s cock slipping up and down, his cheeks clenching against it. “ I- p-please- e-even- j-
just the t-tip, I n-need it.” Jimin can’t fucking hear himself speak, filth leaving his mouth in trains
of drool wetting his jaw, sin hanging from his red lips in ropes of spit.

“ Just the tip?” Taehyung parrots. What? Like this? And his cock enters Jimin at once, the head
pushing past the opening to let the tip sit there, just as Jimin had stupidly begged for.

“ I-” Jimin’s tongue comes out to lick at the dirty plaster, head lolled against the wall, struggling
for air. “C-can’t b-breathe.” He cries, fucked silly and high off of the promise of being filled to his
very bones, rendered helpless, pathetic, begging for skin.

“Breathe baby,” Taehyung coos, hand curling around Jimin’s neck to turn his head, soft kisses
blown into the elder’s mouth, his drool licked up from his jaw by the younger’s gentle tongue, spit
back into his mouth in between filthy exchanges and softer encouragements like: “ Breathe, baby,
breathe for Taehyungie.”

“ M-more.” Jimin shamelessly begs, back aching with the strain of arching so prettily with no
reward. “Fuck me, Tae.” He chants, the younger’s name coming out of his name in a sweet,
wanton flutter.

“ Fuck me please. Need it. Want it. Want your cum, want it.” He babbles, so much drool painting
his lips that the wetness muffles his words.

“ You want it?” Taehyung is impossibly hard at how utterly small he can make Jimin who’s very
breath is larger than life itself. At how easily Jimin lets go under his touch, beneath his words,
around his skin.

“Wan’ it.” Jimin whinges. “Wan’ it so bad.”

“ How bad?”

Taehyung knows he’s edging it, maybe a little too much, but god, god if Jimin doesn’t look pretty
like this. More than usual, more than always, which is- which is a fucking feat for someone who is
as beautiful as Jimin normally is. But no, right now, ruined Jimin, pink, wet, wanton Jimin, this
Jimin is something akin to what Taehyung could only fathom as divinity. His sweat shines like
opal, pooling in the dimples at the bottom of his spine like little rhinestone lakes.

“ I…” Jimin’s at dead ends. “ P-please? Please? Please? Please, I-”

“ Do you know how much I fucking love it when you beg?” Taehyung asks, the head of his cock
still inside Jimin. “When you beg me like a little slave for cock, like a little cock slave, mm?”
“ I… I c-can’t it- Tae it-it hurts.”

Worry ghosts over Taehyung’s face before he sees the filthy look on Jimin’s pink face, the elder
boy turning around to bite his lips, eyes hooded.

“ Where?” He teases mercilessly.

Jimin has the audacity to blush, the flush of colour on his face deepening as he turns his head
towards the wall again

“ M-my hole.” He whispers.

“Your hole?” Taehyung imitates, scoffing. “That’s not how we refer to it now, is it Jiminie? .”

“ D-don’t.” Jimin splutters. “Don’t make me say it.”

“ What hurts Jiminie?” Taehyung belittles. “What is it? What do we call your little hole?”

“ M-my…”

“ Go on, baby.” Taehyung urges. “Tell me what hurts.”

“ M-my…” Jimin shuts his eyes, biting down on his tongue in defeat. “ My p-pussy.” He whines
to Taehyung’s delight. “Tae, fuck- please, it hurts-”

“ Your pussy’s throbbing for cock Jiminie?”

“ Y-yeah.” Jimin replies, clouded with absolute submission.

“ Beg.” Taehyung finally orders.

“ Fuck me.” Jimin obeys. “ F-fuck my pussy, please. Please, please, please, I- I love you, I love
your cock, I love it so much, p-please, Tae, please, f-fill my cunt, baby, fill it how you know best-
I wan’ I wa- oh- oh go___d.”

Jimin’s broken moan ricochets through the courtyards, birds taking flight at the pure debauchery
of the sound, the note breaking into a serious of high, drawn out whimpers and whines, Taehyung
having entered him to the very hilt, balls -deep inside him finally, finally fitting into him the way
Jimin deserves after being such a good fucking boy.

“ T-thank you.” He chants, Taehyung’s hand coming to twist his face towards him as he thrusts
once, twice.

I love you so fucking much, he mimes, mouth forming the words as his thrusts fasten, hands
coming round to massage the skin of Jimin’s nipples, sensitive in the burning cold.

“ L-love you.” Jimin whines back, Taehyung manoeuvring them a bit backwards, taking Jimin’s
hands and pinning them at his back, the elder no longer having the wall to hold onto as Taehyung
bends him completely, his arms curling beneath Jimin’s to use as support, the elder dangling in the
younger’s arms like a little white puppet as his other hand wraps around Jimin’s throat.

“ Y-yes, y-yes,” Jimin breathes. “ I- I’m ‘m not gonna last, Tae.” He warns as Taehyung takes
Jimin by the hair, pulling his body towards him with one hand clawing his head of black hair, and
the other locked under his arms to bring Jimin to a painful arch against his body, the hand in his
hair going around his throat again.

“ Me- me neither, fuck,” He swears, deepening his thrusts, teasing blurring into loving and
“ Me- me neither, fuck,” He swears, deepening his thrusts, teasing blurring into loving and
fucking into lovemaking as Taehyung’s headspace dispels into the pure, wet image of a
beautifully arched Jimin. His Jimin. “ Tight little baby.” Taehyung praises, laying kisses on
Jimin’s hair, inhaling vanilla and green tea and sweet, sweet cherry blossoms, all so
characteristically Jimin. Sickeningly sweet, calm, and spring.

“ Mmm,” Jimin grins, drool hanging from his bottom lip, eyes rolling back everytime Taehyung
hits his walls. “ l-love it. Love it when you call me that.”

“ Baby?” Taehyung coos. “Little baby?”

“ Y-yeah,” Jimin whimpers, turning around for a kiss. “ That’s-” He chokes upon the entry of
Taehyung’s tongue, the younger’s lips leaving him to latch onto his neck. “ That’s what I am.”

“ Beautiful.” He praises. “You’re fuckin’ beautiful.”

“ I love you.” Jimin says again “ I love you, fuck, I love us.”

“ I love us.” Taehyung chants back, burying his head between Jimin’s shoulder blades. “I love us
too. I love us so much.”

“ I…” Just as Jimin is going to parrot the words back to him, Taehyung angles himself particularly
masterfully and Jimin-“ T-t-there.”

“ Here?”

Taehyung does it again.

“ God, god, I-I’m gonna- ‘m gonna- T-Taehyungie I-”

Jimin feels fireworks. He hears bangs, loud echoes of his orgasm flurrying all around him,
Taehyung’s come shooting upwards into his hole, wetting him, fulfilling him, breeding him as
well as he can. Taehyung is saying something to him but his vision is blacked out, shaking, and
shaking, and shaking against the wall, revelling in the fullness, the filthiness, the utter sin of what
it is they do, how they fuck and get fucked, every day, every night, every chance they get.

“ Jimin.”

He can’t feel his legs. He can’t feel his eyes, his cheeks, his wet, wanting mouth. He can’t feel
anything but Taehyung, Taehyung who-

Who isn’t inside him anymore?

“ Jimin.”

“ Taehyungie?”

“ Jimin we’re being attacked.”

Jimin squints, thighs trembling, blindly searching for the wall as he opens and closes his eyes.

The fireworks, Jimin realises suddenly, eyes thrown open wide.

They weren’t fireworks.

They were gunshots.

“ T-tae?”
Jimin turns around, crumbling against the wall, blinking away his orgasm to see Taehyung zipping
himself up with shaking hands, wiping away cum stained fingers on his trousers.

“ We’re being fucking attacked, baby. Hey, hey, look at me.”

“ Oh-oh god, oh fuck. Fuck, Taehyungie.” Jimin shakes as he scrambles for the pool of fabric at
his legs. Taehyung beats him to it, taking off his jacket, shivering at the wind hitting his skin,
wiping up Jimin’s legs with it, pulling his underwear and slacks back up his legs. “ You okay?” he
comes up to hold Jimin’s face, doing up his buttons, the bottom one torn from his earlier assaults.

“ I… fuck… Taehyung…the kids.” Jimin whispers as if they’re not kids themselves, wiping away
his mouth, disgusted at himself suddenly.

They both stare at each other for a moment.

“ You good?” Taehyung asks, pressing their foreheads together. “ You’re good to go?”

“ ‘m good. ‘M fine, We-“

Gunshot. Gunshot. Gunshot.

Screams.

Kids.

Children.

“ We-”

“ Go inside the chapel.” Taehyung orders.

“ Excuse me?”

“ Jimin I’m not letting you come inside with me.”

“ Are you fucking serious?” Jimin asks, bewildered. “I’m better than you.”

“ You have cum dripping out of your fucking asshole, you’re in no-“

A punch comes in Taehyung’s way before he can register Jimin moving towards him and he’s
being thrown against the pillar.

“ Don’t you fuckin dare belittle me like that again.”

Taehyung laughs, Jimin’s fiery cheeks a force to be reckoned with, his eyebrows furrowed at
Taehyung’s antics.

“ You insufferable piece of shit.” Taehyung swears, kissing Jimin’s forehead.

“ The wing is above us.” Jimin realises, closing his eyes to bring the blueprint of the school to the
front of his memory. Taehyung raises his brows at him.

“ Race you up there?”

And then they’re running into the courtyard, Jimin propels himself off of a bench, Taehyung from
the fountain at the centre of the space. Jimin lands just a few inches above Taehyung, both of them
scaling the limestone towards the Moon Balcony, on the west wing, where the sun sets over their
heads.

And they climb.

And they run.

There’s an Ak-47 in Taehyung’s hand, two handguns clutched in Jimin’s fingers, both of them
dressed completely in black, vests weighed down with weapons. The climb took fourteen
seconds, changing into their bulletproof uniforms another fifteen, the run to the central grounds
where the CCTV rooms are located.

Taehyung fumbles with the master keys, pressing them inside the lock, hurtling in.

“ What speed?”

“ Twenty.”

“ Are you-”

“ do it.”

They watch the clips at x20 speed, forty monitors shifting in front of their eyes, Jimin scanning,
watching, observing everyone’s movements from this morning until now.

Jimin watches the monitors, Taehyung watches the doors.

The clips come to an end. Jimin turns to Taehyung, shuts his eyes, heart pounding, pounding,
pounding,

“ Ten shooters. All of them on the ground floor. There’s one five hundred meters from us. “ The
students are distributed across the ground floor and second floor, most of them in the lounges.
There’s a few who went up to the rooftop to smoke weed, they’re scared, but they should be safe.
And-and-” Jimin suddenly panics.

There’s seventy-seven kids.

“ There’s a kid.” He whispers.

“ What?” Taehyung quickly says. “ What do you mean? A seventh grader?”

“They’re alone. Third, no- fourth floor toilets. Toilet 25N.” Jimin quickly remembers eyes blown
wide. He was wrong.

There’s seventy-seven kids.

Who the fuck is this little kid? Why isn’t his name on the list?

“ Taehyung go.”

The younger’s arms wrap around Jimin, taking his locket in hand as Jimin’s hand holds onto the
former’s identical one.
“ Anything happens, you signal me, okay?” Taehyung urges, kissing Jimin’s forehead, the older’s
moonstone necklace cold in his hand as he kisses it,. They bought the necklaces at ten. A photo of
one another in one side of the locket, and an inbuilt touch-sensitive pad on the other. If one of
them presses the pad, the coordinates of their location is sent to the other’s phone, and the pulse of
the touch can be felt on the matching locket no matter how far away the other is.

Meet me under the moon.

Because whenever the moonstone has to be used, when the lunar gem tells one moonchild where
the other is, they would meet, beneath the moon, which is there even when it isn’t, and moonstone
would bring them together.

Taehyung lets go of Jimin’s lips when he realises that if he doesn’t let go right now he never
might, and they run opposite ways.

Jimin knocks on the first classroom, a list of everyone in the school right now circulating in front
of Jimin’s eyes.

Seventy seven kids.

Forty guards, one at each major exit.

Another gunshot goes off, Jimin scrambling to get behind a locker.

The holiday cleaning team, fuck, how many were there? Eight? The gardeners, three of them, the
kitchen staff, fifteen people.

One hundred and fourty two people. Seventy seven kids.

Jimin peers around the locker, and looks at the first classroom on his list.

Four hundred fucking classrooms. Eighty hallways. Forty five bathrooms.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Jimin presses down on the handle of the first classroom.

Locked. Good.

Jimin knocks.

It isn’t an ordinary knock.

If you go to the ArKe, if you cook here, teach here, clean here, you know the rhythm of this
knock. The knock rhythm changes every month, and the person who engineers it is Taehyung,
and before him it was the head teacher. In case a terrorist attack happens, and you need to get
inside a classroom, this is the knock you use, so that the people inside know you’re one of them.

Jimin hears footsteps. A lock is turning, door creaking open, handle sliding down, and-

“ Jimin.”

The girl who opens the door hurls him inside, shutting the door behind them, and jumps into his
arms.
“ Jimin, god, thank god, thank fucking god.”

Jimin kisses the top of her head, quickly scanning the room. Six people.

Seventy one.

He crosses off the names in the room on his list. Everyone is looking at him in a flurry of
intimidated glances and hopeful sighs. Park Jimin is here…they’re saved.

“ H-have you…Did you…get them?” The girl, Irene, an eleventh grader just like them asks,
surveying his outfit up and down.

“ No, I’m gathering up the kids first.” Jimin replies, calm. “ You guys are okay?”

“ It’s…” She looks up at Jimin with wet eyes, shaking. “ It’s selfish but- but my brother, he- he’s-”

“ I know where Minho is,” Jimin quickly says, clocking back his handguns. “I’m gonna get him.”
He promises, holding her gaze. “Okay?

“ Thank you. Thank you.” She chants as she hurries back to what Jimin assumes she was before,
five other kids of different ages, all of them whom Jimin knows personally, crouched under tables
and chairs, the blinds shut to exile all light from the room.

“ You guys are okay?” Jimin asks the kids, especially the two seventh graders in the room. He
gets shaky, unsure nods from the cluster of students, and gives all of them a firm gaze.

They’re all gonna get out of here alive.

Jimin turns, and feels a certain heat on his chest.

One location signal per one child located.

He probably got the kid in the bathroom, Jimin doesn’t have enough time to check.

He breathes out a sigh of relief, his hand latching onto the door handle after pressing the
moonstone button six times.

Seventy.

“ Lock it.” He orders before stepping out.

“ Who-”

His handguns are ready to shoot as soon as he feels movement to his left, but he comes face to
face with-

They shoot twice, one in each chest plate.

Jimin takes the bullets calmly, sighing as the vest deflects them.

SWAT.

Jimin swears under his breath, crouching from the impact of the bullets as 4 SWAT agents point
their weapons at him. From his pocket, he brings out a piece of identification, holding it up. The
agents stand back in shock, saluting him slowly. Jimin points at two of the them, then points
upwards, towards to the higher floors, then holds out a 2 and a 0 with his hands.
Upper floors, twenty civilians.

He singles out the other two, and tells them to follow him.

They come to the next classroom, Jimin pointing ahead for them to go, knowing this one is empty.

Unlocked.

He looks inside.

No one.

Six more classrooms, only three more kids.

Fifty-seven.

Eleven bathrooms.

He finds a total of seven kids each standing with shaking knees on a toilet across the eleven, and
upon seeing him they would jump into his arms, no matter if they were seniors or eighth graders.

Escorting them all to classrooms is a task.

Jimin finds Minho first, standing with his feet tucked onto the toilet seat, face red, trying not to cry,
hands sweaty on either side of the stall, hair damp, crouching down so that his head doesn’t show
from over the stall.

His breathing leads Jimin to him once the latter opens the bathroom door, quiet steps taking him in
front of the stall. Minho lets a choked sob out, not knowing who’s behind the door. Not knowing
if this is it. Not knowing-

“ It’s me.”

He lets out a wail, slipping off the toilet seat as he throws the door open and once again Jimin is
welcoming another terrified hug from his friends.

“ Is Irene okay? Did you-did you-‘

“ She’s fine. She’s fine, are you? Are you okay?” Jimin quickly asks, holding his hands in his
own.

“I-”

That’s when they hear the drops of water, or rather, tears, falling into the basin on the other end of
the row of stalls. Jimin approaches cautiously, putting one handgun in his belt while he holds the
other one up.

The dripping loudens as he nears, hand pressed against the stall.

“ It’s Park Jimin.” He whispers. Young, unrestrained sobbing arises from the toilet stall but the
person inside doesn’t make a move to open the lock.

“ I’m gonna have to break the lock if you’re not gonna open it for me okay?”

Jimin holds out his hand, forming a fist, before punching through the lock, his knuckles seething
with the impact, the lock falling into the stall, the empty hole giving him a view of the young boy
inside.
Minho breathes loudly behind him as Jimin nudges the door open.

“ Oh, sweetheart.” He whispers, the little boy on the stall not even looking at him, his hands
barely long enough to reach either side of the stall. “ Do you know who I am?” Jimin whispers,
holding out a hand. A wet streak starts at the little boy’s crotch and ends at his ankles, yellow
liquid dripping into the toilet. He can’t be more than ten. Jimin was learning how to mutilate a man
so that he fits into a duffel bag at ten years old.

“ J-Jimin.”

“ Yeah,” Jimin smiles. “ That’s right. Do you trust me?”

“ I…” Jimin waits for him. “ I trus’ you.”

“ Take my hand.” Jimin urges. “We’re gonna get you out of here.”

The boy looks at him with wet eyes, their heights nearly identical with the help of the toilet seat,
and he takes Jimin’s hand.

“ I’ll hold him.” Minho quickly offers, frowning at the state of the little boy.

“ We’re gonna have to get you two inside a classroom.” Jimin explains, Minho picking the little
boy up. They follow Jimin as silently as they can, the boy crying into Minho’s chest.

Jimin opens the door, holding a hand for them to stop behind him.

He steps out, looking out of the bathroom, right, left.

“ Come.” He whispers, his two companions wobbling behind him. With his arms curved behind
him, on either side, Jimin creates a shield for the two boys, escorting them to the right, into the
nearest classroom that Jimin knows is unlocked.

“ Here-” He ushers, pushing them into the classroom. Giving them a quick, white-toothed smile
before pressing the moonstone twice.

Fifty Five.

Like clockwork, Taehyung answers him back with four signals of his own.

Fifty on-

The shot comes just as he uncurls from the classroom door, stepping out into the open hallway,
and then Jimin is falling to the ground, bullet lodged into his shoulder. He looks up just as another
shot comes his way, to the same shoulder, the momentum too strong for the vest to deflect, and
Jimin screams, crumbling over while holding up both handguns and open firing on the assailant.

He hears the body thud but doesn’t look up, feeling inside his torn skin with pants escaping him.

Just missed my heart.

The bullets are a few inches apart. He’s gonna be fine.

Then, with a weird smile he realise that this was his first time getting shot.

Fifteen double pulses heat on his chest as he struggles to stand, slipping on the floor. Like they’d
agreed, double pulses for non-students, single pulses for kids. Triple for the shooters.
He takes out his phone, looking at the coordinates lighting up the basement of the school on the
screen.

The kitchen team.

Forty non-students, fifty one kids left.

Jimin takes out a dagger attached to his calf, tearing a hole into his trousers, ripping a ribbon of
material from his ankle, wrapping it around his shoulder, working a stiff knot into the material to
minimise the bleeding. The tightness of the knot has him doubling over, groaning in pain.

He comes to standing minutes later, and black, weapon-clad figures appear in front of him,
automatic weapons raised. Jimin takes out his other handgun, shooting three rounds from each
weapon alternately into the haze of assailants.

Four down.

Scattered yelps resound from the classrooms at the noise, and Jimin, holding onto his shoulder
with one hand, his fingers working four triple pulses into the moonstone, knocks on what’s
probably the twentieth room of his search. A boy he doesn’t know too well opens the door,
gasping in shock. Thank fucking god.

In his bloodied, gunshots to the chest fiasco it had slipped his mind that this was the cinema room
where you’d find most kids during lunch hours. When he steps inside the darkness of the theater,
he counts twenty-three kids in total. His hand begins to tap away at his moonstone as the kids
breathe out sighs of relief, some of them breaking out into stifled sobs at the sight of him.

Twenty eight.

Five pulses on his chest from Taehyung’s side brings that down to twenty-three.

Jimin exits the theater to come face to face with SWAT, who hold out forty fingers. Jimin doesn’t
know if that’s students or adults.

Twenty-five left in total.

Then, what Jimin assumes to be the captain of the team holds out a hand, mimicking a handgun.
Shooters. Then, he mimes three down.

That’s three left.

The SWAT team whirls around at sound of footsteps approaching them, and two more shooters
fall to the floor.

One more.

The last thing Jimin hears is the slapping of feet against marble before he falls, head clapping
against the floor as his adrenaline gives out and blood loss has him shutting his eyes.

SWAT rings the school bell, Taehyung and four team members clearing up the last of the
students, gardeners, and cleaning team from outside, the latter finding the last shooter and
throwing him into a SWAT van for questioning. The younger boy sprints to Jimin’s last known
location with a shit eating grin on his face.

Everyone is okay.

But he gets to the grand K corridor and-

“ JIMIN.”

Paramedics rush into the building from the other side as Taehyung slides onto the floor, taking
Jimin’s crumpled form in his hands.

Students begin to pour out of the classrooms, circling them, gawking at the sight of Taehyung
taking Jimin’s bloodied shoulders in his arms, kissing his unresponsive lips, Jimin’s words muffled
as Taehyung’s tears fall onto the elder’s pink face.

“ Jimin,’ He sobs, blood coating his hands as he takes Jimin’s face in his red palms. “ Jimin, jimin,
baby, b-baby,” The names come out of his mouth in choked sobs, Jimin’s lips opening and
closing, trying to speak to him through the pain. “Hey, hey, hey. Baby? Look at me. Jiminie-
Jiminie-”

“ There’s…” Blood spurts out of Jimin’s mouth, spitting onto Taehyung’s face, who lets out a
broken wail at the sight of Jimin’s words caught in between blood bubbles and red spit.

“ You…” Jimin holds out his hand to touch Taehyung’s face.

The younger grips onto Jimin’s hand, putting it on his own cheek after kissing it, chanting “ Yes,
baby, what? What is it? What is it love?”, through angry red tears.

“ H-h-how many…” More blood escapes Jimin, Taehyung’s tears falling into his mouth. “ How
many students….”

“ S-seventy six.” Taehyung replies, smiling. “Like you said. Jiminie,” Taehyung assures, wiping
away the blood from Jimin’s lips. “Jiminie you’re gonna be okay do you hear me? Hm? Baby?
Look, look at me- open your eyes, baby, don’t sleep, mm? Can you stay awake for me Jimin? Can
you do that for m-”

“ N-no- T-Taehyungie there- there was-” There’s too much blood in his mouth for him to speak.

Taehyung presses his mouth against Jimin’s, licking away the blood with his tongue, drinking it
in, red wetting his lips. “ There’s seventy seven- there’s seventy seven kids.”

“ What? No- we – we only-”

Jimin’s eyes flutter closed before he can see the stretcher coming towards them from the other side
of the corridor, the sheet covering a small bump on the bed.

“No…” Taehyung whispers.

Taehyung…Taehyung forgot. Taehyung forgot about the kid- the little kid Jimin told him to get-

He forgot.

He’d found another kid wandering alone in the corridors, and once he noticed the hearing
impairment device in his ear, he quickly escorted him into the nearest classroom. That’s when he’d
heard the gunshots from the kitchens, and he’d ran. He forgot about the kid, the seventy seventh
kid. And he ran.
He forgot.

“ Agent reporting. One casualty. Total death count: 1, unidentified child, 5-6 years old.”

Taehyung is wailing as they unplaster Jimin’ body from his, taking him away, putting on a
stretcher.

And that was the first child and only child Kim Taehyung ever killed.

_________

Taehyung wakes up with a gasp, clawing at his throat.

It’s the same dream, every time, ever since Jimin has left. It’s images of a boy, a pretty little black-
haired boy, no older than four or five, all dressed up in chiffon and silk and velvet, make up
adorning his little cheeks, waiting in rooms and on beds far, far too big for his little body. It’s
images of men of different shapes and sizes, different colors, suit after suit being un-plastered from
their body, invading the little boy’s space, crawling onto his bed, touching him, opening his legs,
undressing him, playing with his holes. It’s cocks being pushed into his tiny, red mouth. Into his
bleeding opening. It’s sobbing and crying and screaming, at first. And then, it’s defeat. It’s images
of a little Jimin opening himself up beforehand because he learnt that that was easier.

It’s images of Taehyung’s little prince being ruined before he ever even knew him.

And then, nightmare turns into reality and frames from the tape come to mind. Jimin pleasuring
someone else. Jimin moaning someone else’s name. Jimin trusting someone else enough to kneel
for them.

Jimin being a liar.

Jimin lying to him, cheating- cheating on him.

Cheating on him.

Taehyung wakes up crying, cheeks wet, the partition separating him from the oblivious driver,
surrounded by sacks and sacks sitting clustered around the inside of the limo, and four presents
sitting next to him, on the seats. He wakes aching for Jimin, for his best friend, for his family, for
Yoongi, for Sam, for Jin who never seems to be around when you need him. But Jimin. Jimin
most. Always, most. He wakes thinking of Jungkook. Of the tape.

Of the fucking tape.

He presses a button on the car door.

“ How long left?”

“ A few minutes, Sir.”

Good.
They pull up in front of a house. It’s a modest one, the area of town not one someone like
Taehyung would visit often. He takes out a rich, textured envelope from his pocket, and the
smallest, bedazzled box of the four sitting next to him, and steps out of the car.

Snow flurries around him. He’s not dressed like his usual self. He’s wearing a light grey hoodie,
fringe cutting across his eyes, sapphire blue parka jacket protecting him from the cold. He looks
nearly normal, if not for the way he uncurls from the car, in motion so meticulously picturesque
and slow that it is as if he holds time in the very palm of his hands. He seems normal, if only for
the black limo he gets out of, if not for the fact that strapped below the jacket, onto his belt, is a
berretta, two knives inside his pocket, and for the shock proof vest below the fabric of his
sweatshirt.

He seems normal, but isn’t.

With burning thighs, freshly raw from this morning’s exercise, he takes the first step leading up to
the characteristically brick-red New York apartments, then the next, and the next.

And then he’s here.

He knows which bell to press, he hasn’t forgotten. It’s only been a year and anyway, how could
he forget? When this is the first place he visits every Christmas since the shooting?

He counts the steps it would take for her to get from the living room, where he sees her adjusting
the tree -through the murky windows- to the door. He knows exactly how many it takes.

It’s less than seventy seven.

The lock turns, the door is open, and her kind face comes into view.

“ Again, Mr. Kim?” She asks. Even after all these years?

“ Always, Miss.” He replies with a warmer smile of his own, holding out the present and the
envelope on top. She’s a plump woman, white, curly, greying hair pulled around her head, an
apron barely fitting around her stomach. Taehyung was always endeared by her, even then.

She had always been his favorite dinner lady.

He just wonders why he never bothered to ask if she had any children.

“ You do know it wasn’t your fault?” She says, and how Taehyung would like that to be true.

“ It was my property,” He replies, stern, the cold painting his nose red. “ My responsibility.”

She sighs, tears prickling the corners of her green eyes, her mouth fighting off the tears with a
maternal smile.

“ You were fifteen.” She reminds him.

“ And he was five.”

“ I don’t blame you.” The woman says once again, like she does every year. But it doesn’t matter.

“ It doesn’t matter.” It doesn’t matter that the child’s mother doesn’t blame him. That she should
have taken responsibility for bringing him into school that day unannounced, that he’d wandered
off and she’d let him because The ArKe is supposed to be the safest place in the whole
goddamned world. That Park Jimin and Kim Taehyung had made a haven out of that school for
kids born in crime and blood money from parents who didn’t want to see their children on
Christmas day.

It didn’t matter.

“I’ll take this burden to the grave.” Taehyung promises.

“ He loved Christmas, Mr. Kim.”

“ Taehyung.” He urges. “It’s just Taehyung.”

I’m just Taehyung.

“ He’d hate to think you hate Christmas because of him.” The lady says quietly, the gold,
reflective wrapping of the present in her hands painting belts of gold on her chin. “It’s the birth of
Jesus Christ.”

Taehyung has to bite his lip to stop himself from laughing, his head hanging. He looks up with
scorn, wanting her to be mad, wanting her to hate him.

“ And that’s enough for you?” He questions.

She smiles at him.

“ I know Jesus is taking care of my baby, just like god took care of him.”

Taehyung scoffs, turning away with hatred burning in his eyes, and turns back, more helpless than
he is angry.

“ I wish I believed.” He confesses.

“ In god?” She asks.

I am his god. He is my god. We are god.

But gods don’t cheat. They don’t- they don’t…

“ In…” He looks down at the red bow sitting mockingly on top of the box. How many shades
darker was the little boy’s blood, wetting the stretcher that went past them that day?

“ Taehyung?”

“ In anything.”

The parka comes off, the Rolex around his wrist unwrapping, the boots on his feet switched for
ratty sneakers. Two of the sacks slide onto Taehyung’s back, and he steps out of the SUV, having
swapped the limo for something a little more inconspicuous. Another SUV pulls up behind him,
four suited men getting out; each of them walk to a different part of the street, taking their
positions. He’s in a part of New York he only visits once a year, on Christmas Day. The highest
proportion of destitutes, prostitutes and homeless children reside in this part of the city. Taehyung
isn’t fully healed enough, hence the four bodyguards tailing him, already melted into the shadows,
invisible to all but Taehyung himself.

He takes the same path he’s taken since he was fourteen. It’s the first time he’s done this without
Jimin.

The first alleyway he steps in is lined with clusters of limbs on either side, covered in shrouds and
pieces of ratty fabric alike, doing little to shelter them from the cruel winter cold. Some of them
glance up at him wearily, in scorn, others don’t look up at all, and some… some recognize him
from all the other years he’s come wobbling into this alleyway, sacks on his back with the shorter,
brighter boy, who’d always drag him along and smile at every wrinkled, dirty face, no matter how
darkly they would frown at him.

“ Where is he?” One of them, a guy called Joe, asks him as Taehyung crouches down in front of
him, his feet wet inside the sneakers. From one sack he takes out a coat, unfolds it, puts it around
the man, from the other he takes out a packaged meal, wrapped around inside foil, still warm in his
hands, and puts it in front of the man as well.

“ He’s not here today.” Taehyung replies with a forced smile, siting on his tiptoes.

“ Trouble in paradise?” Joe asks, Taehyung scoffing.

“ Probably.”

The man hesitates before giving him a pitiful look. His dark, wrinkled skin blinks at him wistfully,
the torn hat on his head blowing in the wind

“ He cheated on you.” He concludes.

“ You… I…”

“ I know what a man looks like when he’s been betrayed.” Joe assures, putting a cold hand on
Taehyung’s own.

“ I… it’s not… It’s not for sure.” Taehyung lies, more to himself than to Joe.

And it’s- the worst thing is that Taehyung- if only Jimin loves him more than he does that man,
that faceless man who Jimin had pleasured so fervently, then- then Taehyung can- can live with it.
He’ll- he’ll cry himself to sleep until he can see Jimin, and Jimin can tell him it’s a lie. And if it
isn’t- if it isn’t-

“ The way that boy looks at you,” Joe starts. “I don’t think he’d do such a thing, young man.”

“ You barely know anything about us.” Taehyung reminds, cocking up a brow.

“ Sometimes a man can tell.”

Taehyung hopes that’s true.

Another coat, another meal. Taehyung makes himself feel more human, more normal, rampaging
the streets of New York with his wealth and oh so humanitarian intentions. But at the end of the
day, he’s still Kim Taehyung. He still owns The Kempire, the world’s largest multinational
conglomerate, which is, even then, just a face for La Pente, a criminal legacy he has trained for,
been bred for, and one he has maintained since the age of sixteen.

The day ends and Taehyung is still… not entirely human.

The children are the hardest part.

The kids sitting on varying corners of the streets, shivering in the cold, trying to sell enough hand
warmers to take money back for addict parents, sick parents, no parents.

If it isn’t bad enough, if giving little coats to freezing kids in Bronx isn’t bad enough, Taehyung’s
eye catches a poster. A very, very old poster, that somehow, by some god awful fate, has endured
through the past six winters.

MOONCHILDREN

JAN 1

NEW YEAR’S CONCERT

SAMUEL ELLIS, JOSEPH CARLISLE, GABRIEL A. GRIFFON,

MATTHEW FERAWARE

Taehyung goes towards the poster, fingers trailing across the top.

MOONCHILDREN

Where are they now?

“ Where are you now?” Taehyung asks the poster. No one’s seen Gabriel, not since the visit
Yoongi payed him after getting out of the asylum. Knowing him he’s probably getting shitfaced
somewhere in Europe, blowing daddy’s money, drinking the pain away.

And Matty? Matty’s still in New York but he- he doesn’t really want to see them anymore.

And Joseph?

Taehyung looks at his watch. Nearly afternoon, he better get going. It’s a long way from Bronx to
his final destination.

He sleeps on his way there, and this time there are no nightmares. A grin takes over his face once
the car finally stops. A genuine one. A real one. God, this is the only good thing about Christmas.
The only good thing left.
He steps out of the car, having changed out of his attire again into a gold two piece, floral patterns
sewn into the reflective surface of the suit, black thread highlights lining the pockets, black lapels,
a white dresshirt, and black bowtie, paired with brown heeled shoes. The driver holds up an
umbrella for him, opening the door, Taehyung getting out. The house he arrives at is far less
modest than the last one, but still mundane by his standards.

The walkway towards the house is curved to the left, plain stretches of glass on either side, a black
gate obstructing Taehyung from the entry.

He presses the bell.

Seconds later, a familiar voice comes through the teleprompter. “ You’re late.”

“ Open up, Carlisle.”

The door buzzes open. Two guards stand outside the gate, and two near the entry of the door. The
mansion itself is a light brown brick, medium grey roof, white accents around the pillars,
highlighting the windows in ivory. The garages lie to the right of the house: a separate, smaller
building with ochre doors facing the mansion. Hedges line the stretch of glass on his right, and
flowers on his left. The door to the mansion flies open, and through the haze of the white
afternoon, come-

“ UNCLE TAE!”

Come the twins.

Aileen and Joseph Junior Ellis, not to be confused with a twenty-three-year-old Joseph Carlisle
who follows the children into the snow with indoor slippers, shouting at them to get back in.

The kids run into the snow, giggling, screaming as they launch themselves at an open armed
Taehyung.

“GUYS! IT’S COLD!”

Taehyung brushes off Joseph’s shouting as he takes the kids into his embrace, leaving the presents
on the ground for Joseph to fetch as he runs inside with the two ten year olds bouncing in each
arm, J.J in his left and Aileen in his right. Because what else was fifteen-year-old Sam to name his
two half siblings after taking them from his mother’s dead corpse if not Aileen, for his mom, and
Joseph, for his best friend.

The best friend that is swearing at them as he runs to save the presents from the incoming storm,
Taehyung out of breath as he settles the children on the front porch, smiling at their golden, white
faces, and even brighter, blond hair.

J.J is the picture of Sam, piercing blue eyes, long, unruly fair hair, and a dashing boyish smile.
The very picture of Sam. Of his half-brother who everyone knew as his dad.

“ Daddy didn’t come?” Aileen asks with a knowing look at Taehyung’s unaccompanied arrival.

“ I’m sorry, Ellie.” Taehyung says, leaning down to give her a kiss on her forehead, J.J jumping
up for one as well.

Joseph comes back red faced, frowning at all three of them.

“ You two. Inside. Now.” He orders the children, trying to hide his smile as they wobble inside,
giggling at how hard he tries to be strict. Settling the presents on the porch, Joseph ushers
Taehyung inside, shutting the door on the unwelcome winter.

“ Yoongi?” He asks, the same question as Aileen, like always.

“ I’m sorry.” Taehyung says again.

Silence settles, both of them basking in the situation, in the two kids next door, messing up the
decorations for what’s the fiftieth time today.

“ Do you think he’s every gonna want to see them?” Joseph asks finally, black hair shorter this
time than the last time Taehyung had managed to visit.

“ With the way J.J is looking more and more like Sam these days?” Taehyung asks, forced smile
plastered across his face.

They both know the answer is no.

Taehyung rests against the door frame, smiling at him. The foyer is small, by their standards at
least, it leads straight up a flight of stairs on the left and on the right into a corridor that leads into a
kitchen. On their right is the living room, the clattering of the playing children like Haydn to
Taehyung’s ears.

“They ask about him, you know.” Joseph says finally.

“ Sam?”

“ No, Yoongi.”

Taehyung’s head snaps up.

“ They do?”

“ They look at their films,” Joseph replies, head craning to look inside the living room. “ At the
photos, at the pictures Sam painted. And they say, does daddy not want to see us?” Joseph relates,
biting his lip. “And- and the other day? J.J comes up to me and shows me a picture from- from
when Sam was the same age as him? And he says-” His nether lip quivers, a tear slipping down
his cheek. “And he says: ‘Is it- is it because I look so similar to dad? To Sammy? Is that why
daddy doesn’t want to see me?’ and I- I mean? What do you even say to that?” He asks. “I didn’t
know what to tell him. He’s not supposed to be that smart, you know? He’s not supposed to make
that connection.”

Taehyung fumbles for something to say. He never was good with words whenever Sam was
involved.

“ And then he said- he said he’s okay with just Aileen going to see daddy, to see Yoongi by
herself, because- because she really misses him-” Joseph chokes out.

“ And- and she keeps talking about this memory…” Taehyung waits for him. “ This picture in her
mind of the last Christmas they all had together, when they were four.” He narrates, gold and red
clouding over his eyes.

“It’s the only thing she remembers, Yoongi in a shiny, red shirt and trousers that were way too big
for him, and Sam… She remembers the two of them slow dancing next to the Christmas tree to
Elvis’s I can’t help falling in love with you,” He tells, chuckling, Taehyung’s mouth shaking as he
tries to smile. He can’t. “ Her and J.J sitting on the sofa watching them. And J.J doesn’t even
remember it, he doesn’t remember anything about them. All they have is the photos, and the films
and-”

“ Joseph I…”

“ Every Christmas, they hug each other and dance to that song until you come along, hoping that-
just- that maybe-“

“ Next year, Joseph.” Taehyung cuts in. He wants to say ‘ I promise’. He wants to give his word.
But promises don’t exist with Yoongi. Not anymore. “ Maybe next year.”

Joseph laughs scornfully.

“ You’ve been saying that for six years.”

“ It’s-” Taehyung sighs. “ It’s Yoongi, we- we can’t blame him.”

“ Is he… is he…”

Is he okay?

“ No?” Taehyung blurts out. “I don’t know?” He deliberates whether to tell him. “He- he has a
new plaything.”

“ Oh?” Joseph exclaims, face falling. Another distraction for Yoongi to fuck the pain away with.

“ He’s just eighteen,” Taehyung relays, thinking of Jungkook’s pink, cheeks, redder lips. “ He’s
fucking with the kid’s head, thinking he can play Sam or something, cause he’s the same age
Yoongi was when-”

“ Taetae?” J.J’s head peeks out of the living room, frowning at the adults for talking so much,
Aileen on his heels.“ Aren’t you coming?” He whines with a heartbreakingly familiar pout. God,
Taehyung doesn’t blame Yoongi. He doesn’t blame him at all, for not being able to do it, for not
wanting to see the kids. Everything of J.J’s is the same. Everything is the same as Sam.

“ Just a second punk, give the adults a sec, mm?” Taehyung promises, crouching down to take the
boy in his arms and spin him around, giving him a fat kiss on the cheek before ushering him into
the living room. Aileen tells her brother off for being so impatient with a narrowed look that
Taehyung has always said she adopted from Yoongi.

Yoongi and Sam. Aileen and J.J. Ten years old again.

“ They want their dad, Taehyung.” Joseph says to the distracted boy. “They want their family.”

“ You’re their family.” The other says in consolation, sorry knots ghosting over his forehead.

“ We both know I’m a substitute,” Joseph says easily. “Yout lifestyle isn’t one you could raise
them in otherwise there wouldn’t be a chance in hell you’d give them up to me.”

“ You…”

Again, Taehyung doesn’t know what to say.

“ I’m sorry, I-” he takes a deep breath. “They’re going to middle school next year.” Joseph
reminds. “Doesn’t Yoongi want to see that? Doesn’t he want to be in in his kids’ fucking lives?”
And then, the low blow Taehyung expected. “ Isn’t that what- isn’t that what Sam would have
wanted?”
What Sam would have wanted. Would have. Wanted. Would have.

Dead.

Dead.

Dead.

“ You can’t expect someone who tried to kill themselves three times to think about when his dead
fiancée’s siblings are going to go to middle school, Seph.”

“ Kids.” Joseph seethes with gritted teeth. “They’re their kids.” He corrects with a stern jaw. “Sam
raised those kids. He took them from his mom’s dead corpse and he fuckin raised them, and
Yoongi raised them right alongside him.” With each word he gets closer until he’s neck to neck
with Taehyung, staring down at him with calm, ancient rage. “Those kids in there are Yoongi’s
fuckin son and daughter. Nothing less, Kim Taehyung. Don’t you dare reduce them to that.”

They’re face to face, Joseph a few centimeters taller, five years older, a dad of two at twenty-six,
carrying on his dead best friend’s legacy.

“ It makes me sleep better at night.” Taehyung replies with a pathetic smile.

“ Have you looked at yourself in the fuckin mirror?” joseph asks, retreating. “You look like you
haven’t slept in a month.”

Taehyung laughs at this, massaging the swollen bags flanking his nose.

“ You…” At his expression, Joseph stills. “ You haven’t?”

“ Jimin’s been gone a long time, my friend.” Taehyung replies as if it’s any kind of justification for
the state of his face, but Joseph understands, if his softening gaze is anything to go by. Of course
he understands. He watched Jimin and Taehyung fall in love.

“ He-” The older boy deliberates on what to say, what’s the right thing to say, what’s the best
thing, what’s- “He hasn’t called?” He finally asks, replied to only with a sheepish shake of the
head.

“ Why? “He questions. “ How is that possible?”

Taehyung’s laugh turns cold, J.J’s complaints rising from the living room again.

“ Beats me.”

Joseph comes forward, putting his hand on Taehyung’s shoulder.

“ Tae?” He breathes, and it’s nice. It’s nice to be touched like this by someone Taehyung knows
as off limits. Maybe if he had a little more coke in his system, he wouldn’t be. Maybe.

“ Is everything okay?” Joseph asks just because it’s common practice, because convention is
supposed to bring normality and normality is a luxury too sparsely exercised by people like them.

“ Is anything ever okay for people like us?” Taehyung whispers back, putting his hand on
Joseph’s.

For Moonchildren?
 IV

Yoongi stares at the line of cocaine dusting the top of the grand piano, one of eight on the ground
floor. He stands upon a landing of sorts, a circular stage set upon a series of round disks in the
entertaining room. In front of him is a pane of glass curved to the outside, and a set of straight-
edged windows flanking either side of it, each one separated from a matching window on the
upper half of the wall by rows of decorative plaster.

Dark gold balloon-platted draperies hang over the windows, blowing softly at the sides, framing
the top of the framed grass like waterfalls, the folded pleats catching chandelier lights, painting the
sweeping cream carpets in a soft, yellow glow.

Single-seater chairs sit scattered around the room, velvet, gold coverings almost reflective, basking
in the light of the two chandeliers hanging overhead. Two velvet salmon sofas sit perpendicular to
one another in the middle of the room, flanked footrests and mini wooden tables.

Baroque and Elizabethan flirt in the careless regality of the lazy but refined décor, egg-shell white
and alabaster undertones highlighted by the golds and sky blue carvings in the painted ceiling.

Yoongi leans down, hundred-dollar bill rolled between his fingers. He sets the green note at the
end of the line of white powder, and sniffs, drawing the note along the little hills of white and
coming to standing upon finishing, head rolling back, looking up at the ceiling with the cocaine
finally in his system.

It’s a replica of the ceiling of the Great Hall where he had auditioned for Julliard eight years ago.
Another replica lies in a yellow house in the poor part of town, on the ceiling of the attic where
Sam had painted it for him months before Yoongi’s audition. He already had unconditional
admission into the school, of course. But Yoongi wanted it to be because he was Yoongi, the
pianist, and not Yoongi the prodigy. So it was nerve wracking, terrifying even, to think that he
wouldn’t be accepted based on his own merit.

So, Sam went and did that. He painted a replica of the domed ceiling in their little attic so that
Yoongi could practice looking up at it, knowing he will always be Yoongi, the pianist, to Sam.

And when Sam died, Yoongi commissioned someone else to do the same here, in the Entertaining
Room where he’s probably hosted more celebrations of skin than he could count. And every time
he’s fucking into another hole, he’d have to look up, head lolling back, and he’d have to watch
cherubs and angels alike look down at him scornfully from their sky-high horses, and ask him if
Sam would still love him if he saw him now.

But it doesn’t matter.

The entry of the room is to the right of the piano, leading into the back of the yellow room where
Yoongi had so easily proclaimed Jungkook a stray just a week ago.

Opposite the stage where the grand piano sits (a 1907 mahogany Bechestein, satinwood inlay and
curved, gated legs with floral detail) lies the kitchen, separated from the entertaining room by three
wide, wooden steps. A U shaped, glass covered kitchen island of sorts sits in the middle of the
wooden space, the open part of the U pointing towards the entertaining room, boasting an inbuilt,
straight-edged half-circle of seats, a table sitting in the middle, four chairs pushed under the table
on the other side.Three sinks sit around it, one in the middle of the longest edge of the island, and
two on the extremities of the right and left belts of glass-covered marble, cabinets of varying sorts
camouflaged into the outer walls.

The kitchen is surrounded by gilded, alabaster walls, a long oven inbuilt into the left side, and two
silver fridges standing behind the U-shaped island, a pair of glass doors on either side leading into
the main living room, and the vast terrace beyond. Glass-covered, French cabinets lie on either
side of the stove, and to the left, the pantry twinkles through open doors, the wine cellar eerily
dark on the right, leading into the basement.

The doorbell stirs Yoongi who looks backwards towards the yellow room, pupils dilating, heart
pounding in his chest. The euphoria overcomes him, tendrils of chemical pleasure caressing the
tips of his fingers then his chest, and finally, hitting his head. The ringing intensifies and Yoongi
navigates his way to the door, crossing the boundary into the yellow room, then going right,
through the long corridor leading into the foyer, and finally-

“ Yoongi, my man.” The first of a row of people is a large, dark-skinned boy, more than a head
taller than Yoongi, a violin case over his shoulder, a tie sitting around his neck on a light-blue,
long sleeved shirt with rolled cuffs. A gold earring scintillates on his left ear, and his white,
blinding grin draws Yoongi in. The pianist smirks, and with a hand curling around the boy’s neck,
he pulls him downwards and inwards, towards his mouth.

The kiss erupts a series of hoots and whistles from the corridor, the line of scandalously dressed
people shouting as the boy presses Yoongi against the door, the latter’s legs wrapping around his
hard torso, making way for the incomers to pass through the gap between the door and the new
couple, into the golden crevices of the penthouse.

“ You taste better than last time.” The boy, Jacques, whispers into his mouth, fingering Yoongi’s
jaw with his thumb, widening the pianist’s mouth to make way for his tongue, licking the
swollenness of his pink lips. “ Look at you.” He coos, massaging the corners of Yoongi’s eye
with one hand while the other kneads the flesh of Yoongi’s ass in his slacks, the pianist in a
simple, oversized white button down. “ Beautiful.”

Sam’s button down.

“You started without us?” Jacques questions, staring at Yoongi’s over-sized irises.

“ Mm, put me down.” Yoongi moans, Jacques’ hands not leaving his ass as Yoongi’s slippered
feet hit the floor, people still entering through the door. He grabs the hips of a girl in a red dress,
hands itching for cliché as he presses her against Jacques.

“Hello to you too, Min.” She purrs, baring her neck, head lolling back onto Jacque’s shoulder, the
latter’s hands on her hips, Yoongi’s hands on his.

The pianist’s mouth gravitates to the cluster of blood vessels at her neck, the fragility of green and
violet against ivory skin like the vulnerability of black keys against a row of white. Yoongi bites
down, blood rushing to the surface of her flesh to meet him with a reddening smile, neck blushing
in response as he marks her. She moans, voice fluttering over his head like Allegro, fast, panting,
then diminuendo, she slows down, adagio, perhaps Yoongi’s favorite movement, moan taking
over shy, breathless whispers as Yoongi’s finger slip under one band of her crimson, satin slip
dress.

“ This okay?”

He doesn’t need to ask. People pour in behind them practically in the nude, barely covered, and
even when they’re not, by the time they reach the entertaining room, stumbling against skin,
they’re no longer plagued by the burden of silk or linen.

The material slides over her breast like a falling curtain, pooling beneath the swell as Yoongi takes
her nipple into his mouth, fingers kneading the swell in the palm of his cold hands. Jacques’ finger
hooks beneath the other band, and the dress slips off her body, down to her abdomen. Before
she’s fully exposed, he hands quickly grasp at the material, scrunching it against her stomach. She
blushes down to her breasts, bottom lip caught between her teeth, eyes cast downwards, straying
from Yoongi’s stare.

“ Look at me.” He commands, gently tipping her head up. She looks at him with an arch in her
spine, breasts quivering as Yoongi’s grip urges her to keep her gaze on him. Jacques caresses her
sides with the sharp of his nails, watching as Yoongi’s legs bend. “ Don’t look away.” He
whispers, coming to a kneel, his hands hinging into the pool of fabric at her waist, pulling the
material down.

The girl, a singer if the lack of an instrument is anything to go by, shakes down to her toes,
convulsing in Jacques’ embrace as the cold hits her bare thighs, Yoongi’s hands snaking their way
between her legs, nudging them open, all the while his neck craned upwards, not leaving her
clouded gaze.

“ May I?”

Yoongi’s response is a whine of sorts, Jacques molding her breasts in his hands, laying kisses
along the length of her shoulders. God, how Yoongi missed this.

He presses his thumb against her opening, her legs on either side of his hand like violin strings
after the final, concluding stroke. The difference, of course, is that Yoongi’s only just getting
started.

The pad of his thumb presses in, massaging her folds, head bending to situate between her legs.
Yoongi takes one thigh, lifts it, motioning for Jacques to hold it, spreading her wide.

“ You have an audience, princess.” Yoongi whispers, her eyes looking around them in response to
see newcomers having gathered around the foyer, watching them with deep, appreciative stares.

She immediately tries to put her elevated leg down, shaking as Jacques grips her harder.

“ Don’t be embarrassed now, love, let’s get you nice and relaxed, hm?”

And then Yoongi’s mouth latches onto her opening. He chuckles as the first string of piano notes
sound from the left side of the foyer, where a couple’s slapping of skin is accompanied by the
opening from Erik Satie’s Once Upon A Time In Paris. Not an obvious choice, but Yoongi finds
himself pleasuring her to the quiet notes of the piano solo no longer piano solo as violin
intermixes, the crowd around them unsheathing their instruments and competing as his guests
always do, in a symphony of sacrilege and skin.

There’s a string quartet around them, someone brought a fucking cello. Yoongi laughs even as the
girl grips onto his hair, come coating his jaw as he laps at her flower, deflowering it with the
blades of his lips.

Satie blurs, clouding into something else, an interim of sorts, and she’s coming, putty in Yoongi’s
hands. She drips into his mouth, Yoongi standing, giving the crowd a dashing smile before he
unzips himself, pulling out his length and he’s entering her, cock resting in the landing of her
opening just as the crowd around them breaks into Tchaikovsky, and Yoongi laughs, biting into
her shoulder as the jewels of Julliard suitingly transition into Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker;, someone
having rolled over the harp from the Entertaining room into the foyer to start them off.

You wouldn’t find something like this anywhere else in New York, anyone else in the world in
fact, Pas de Deux being so casually played inside a foyer by naked, come-stained bodies
surrounding a prodigious threesome of sorts as the musical climax marks the girls’ second coming,
and Yoongi’s first. Someone uses a table instead of a timpani, slamming their palms against it as
the piece escalates, sound and skin ascending to reach musically blasphemous highs. Yoongi
finishes breathless, head presses against her shoulder, Jacques watching him with intent that is
loud and clear. Yoongi turns, hands twisting the girl’s hair in his hands as he piks her up, throwing
her over his shoulder.

“ What would Tchaikovsky say?” He asks jokingly, addressing the crowd around them with a
dark smile as they make way for him, his feet taking him to the yellow room, Sam’s shite shirt
stained in the cum dripping down the girl’s white thighs.

“ He’d be glad we didn’t play Swan lake.” A boy says, Cor anglais resting on his shoulder, torso
matted in sweat.

And the room erupts into laughter.

Skin sings, drugs run rampant, and throats palpitate around well-endowed lengths, bobbing up and
down to the time signature of spontaneous Chopin competitions, pianists seated around the piano
on the stage, deciding which of the boys can play the most amount of nocturnes while being
sucked off, boys and girls and in-betweens sitting between their naked thighs on the stage, the
pianist’s hands flying across the piano as their cock slides further down the giver’s throat.

On the other side of the room to where Yoongi leans against the row of seats in the kitchen, fully
clothed again, the top-ranking violinists of the school, the prodigies of the prodigies and virtuosos
beyond comprehension hammer away at Bach as their classmates decide to see who can make the
very best cave, stutter, make a mistake.

Hands grip the violinist’s hips, lips latching onto breasts, fingers tucking themselves between legs
and mouths nibble at the wet slits of leaking cock, the sound of Debussy’s Reveriecoming from
the upright piano next to him, on the other side of the kitchen.

There isn’t anything like this, Yoongi decides. His kind surrounding him, all around, string and
brass and woodwind and percussion, the piano accepted into the orchestra without needing to
outshine everyone else.

The sex is an excuse for company, it always has been. The high is momentary, dull, but the drugs
keep him sedated, and that’s enough, that’s enough to keep him from sobbing into old, white shirts
at night, golden ring mocking him on his left hand, screaming at a boy who never dared lay a
wrong hand on him while he was alive to stop hurting him now that he is dead.

What hurts most is that Yoongi had never once said those words when Sam was alive. And now,
and now Sam is hurting him, and there’s nothing he can do to make it stop.

Yoongi imagines him, because he’s a sadist, because he’s fucked up, because pain was his lover
before Sam and his blades loved his skin before him too…he imagines Sam.

He imagines him standing in the corner of the room, watching him. He imagines him in gold,
because if not gold then what else? He imagines him bright, shining, looking at Yoongi like an
angel with a vendetta, with angry, raging eyes and a sword of retribution. But it doesn’t last, of
course it doesn’t last, because even in his imagination, Sam has control. And damn him if he
would let Yoongi think of him like that, even dead. Damn him if Yoongi is to think that Sam
would be mad, that Sam would ever look at him as though the pianist owed him anything.

Yoongi shouldn’t, he shouldn’t imagine Sam in the corner of the room, watching the orchestra of
skin unfold, watching all the holes Yoongi has defiled leak onto Persian carpets, watch him, watch
them, watch Yoongi stray as far as he can from Sam’s Yoongi so that maybe he would come
back. He shouldn’t but he does, and because of that- because of that Yoongi has no choice but to
think of the first time. The first time he woke up in Sam’s embrace, no longer a runaway.

September 23rd

Nine Years ago

Day 2/1275

He doesn’t want to open his eyes. He’s afraid of repercussions, the reality of what it is he swore
himself into the moment he let the singer’s eyes catch his in the crowd. Yoongi has always hated
science, and so it should come to no surprise that he’s terrified of evaporation. Science shouldn’t
apply to dreams, and if it does, Yoongi doesn’t want this dream to evaporate as soon as he opens
his eyes. Because Sam… Sam is the prettiest dream he’s ever had, and if- if the touch of his hands
on Yoongi’s hips wasn’t real, then nothing will be, nothing is, and nothing was. It can’t be, it can’t
be a dream. But what if it is? What if Yoongi blinks his stupid, waking eyes open and Sam isn’t
there anymore and he’s in his stupid room with his stupid manuscripts lying across his bedside and
everything was fake, and everything was fake and Yoongi made it all up and-

“ You’re so fucking beautiful.”

Yoongi’s heart falls, falls, falls. He’s next to him. His eyes scrunch further shut, hands trembling,
fisting the sheets. He can’t open his eyes. He can’t. There’s- there’s a hand on his cheek, caressing
his skin. It’s warm. It’s so fucking warm. But not hot, it’s just- it’s perfect.

Yoongi doesn’t know anything about perfect. Perfect isn’t something that comes Yoongi’s way
often, or at all. Perfect doesn’t come near his skin, near the weird shape of his round face, near his
stupid pout, near his broken friends, his family, near- near anything at all but- but-

“ You’re not gonna let me see your pretty eyes, Yoongi?”

But here it is. Here he is. Here it is, here perfect lies in the most unsuspecting combination of
sapphire and gold and a boy who looks as far from Yoongi as a boy could, but is perfect, perfect
for all of Yoongi’s deep, winding empty spaces, perfect for his not so empty spaces, and spaces
that are empty because they’re meant to be filled with the ups and downs of Sam Ellis.

“ S-Sammy?” Yoongi whispers, his hand uncurling from the sheets, reaching, reaching out,
towards the warmth coming from his right and-and

Fingers lock into his.

He’s here. He’s here.

Yoongi opens his eyes.

“ You’re here.” He murmurs, one of Sam’s hands on his cheek, the other interlocked with his
own.

He smiles at him. Sam smiles. Sam smiles and Yoongi’s home. He’s home.

He’s real. He’s real. He’s real.

“ Where else would I be?” Sam asks, and- and Yoongi sobs. A choked cry comes out of him all of
a sudden, his body trembling with the realization of this new reality of theirs. It’s pathetic and it’s
embarrassing but he throws himself at Sam, at his golden skin, at his open arms, at his face, and
his mouth, the mouth Yoongi knows will heal him, the mouth that spends the next three years
kissing Yoongi’s scars closed and loving his gaps and aching limbs until he doesn’t feel so broken
anymore.

And Sam is there to catch him.

Though worry stains his face at the sound of Yoongi’s sudden cry, he’s ready, his arms open wide
as Yoongi throws himself at him, and his mouth is ready to receive Yoongi’s in a desperate,
longing kiss. Yoongi claws at his shoulders, wraps himself around him, propriety and shame
evaporated on their warm pillows. Sam kisses him the way Yoongi wants to be kissed. He kisses
him hard, he grabs Yoongi’s hips and pulls him closer. He turns them around, he presses Yoongi
into the mattress, he presses his lower body against Yoongi’s and he kisses him hard enough that
Yoongi knows he’s well and truly here.

Yoongi scratches his way down Sam’s back, pushing Sam’s head into his own every time the
older boy grasps for breath. His legs wrap tighter around Sam’s torso, pulling his body closer, the
warmth of his naked chest not enough. It’s when Sam bites into his lip, his hands molding the skin
of Yoongi’s hips, and their arousals slide against each other, when Yoongi moans ungodly loud,
whining ‘Sammy’ into the hollows of their unsupervised dwellings, it’s when skin is edging into
sex and Yoongi realises his sleeves are brushing up that Sam pulls away with a loud, wet breath,
his forehead plastered against Yoongi’s. “ Good morning to you too,” He greets, wiping away one
of Yoongi’s tears, and with a smirk, a god-awful, stomach-coiling smile, he adds: “ Kitten.”

Yoongi watches him wide eyed, mouth open, swollen, and jaw sprinkled with bruises.

“If you wanted a kiss, you could have just asked.” Sam teases gently, tucking a tendril of hair
behind Yoongi’s ears.

“ I…” Sam watches him intently, blinking forsaken for not missing a second of Yoongi’s
breathless gaze upon him. “More,” Yoongi whimpers, holding Sam’s face. “ More, please.”

Sam freezes, breathless, relishing in the unadulterated desperation in Yoongi’s voice, the way his
hands clutch his cheeks with such gentle hunger, the curl of his thighs around his torso, the way
his lips beckon him, bruised and thirsty. “ Sammy…kiss me.”

Sam takes Yoongi’s hands from his cheeks, kisses them, each one after the other, dragging his lips
along the hills of Yoongi’s knuckles, then intertwines his fingers with his own, sliding, sliding,
and locking into place. He presses them against either side of Yoongi’s head, leans down, and
stops an inch from yoongi’s lips.

“ Ask me again.”
“ Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss-”

Sam dives. His hands mold themselves into Yoongi’s, and he’s falling, falling into the blooms of
Yoongi’s swollen lips, kissing, kissing, tasting, breathing him in, his hands finally caving and
unlocking from the pianist’s to hold his face, to touch him.

Yoongi moans, and sings, and whimpers and whines ‘Sammy’ like it’s the very last word left in
the world, five letters uttered as though they are nothing and everything and all that is in between,
murmured again and again between hungry, ragged breaths and Sam’s wandering hands inching
lower, grabbing Yoongi’s thigh, riding his shirt further up his stomach to lower himself, lips
budding roses around Yoongi’s navel, marking him, introducing his teeth to the sinews of
Yoongi’s skin, whispering ‘Hello, I’ll be taking care of you from now’ as he gives the ups and
downs of Yoongi’s stomach a taste of what he’s planned for all the years to come.

Yoongi’s shirt is sitting just below his nipples, head thrown back, spine arched, Sam’s hands
keeping his hips anchored to the bed as flowers bloom from hipbone to hipbone.

From his stomach Sam inches lower with a smile, nosing at the protrusion of fabric along the
length of Yoongi’s arousal, grinning back up at him.

“ Sam I…” Yoongi’s hands grasp for his hair, stopping Sam in his tracks, sitting up even as his
head lolls back at the oversensitivity of Sam’s fingers on his bare thighs, trembling as he swats
Sam’s hands away, taking them into his own instead, the elder raising his head to press their
foreheads together, holding Yoongi’s face. “We… if you…if you do that you’ll have to…”
Yoongi blushes, looking down.

“ You’ll have to f-fuck me.”

Sam chokes, spluttering as his head falls downwards into Yoongi’s lap, the pianist giggling,
holding onto his sleeves as Sam looks at him with painted cheeks, biting his lip. He glances at the
way Yoongi is clutching his sleeves, and then back at the pianist’s clouded eyes.

“ Do you…” Sam whispers, stroking his cheek, tucking a piece of hair behind the pianist’s ear. He
comes forward on his knees to kiss him, Yoongi’s spine melting into his with urgency. “ Do you
want that?” The older boy asks when his lips take their leave, licking Yoongi’s mouth before
drawing back, breathless.

Yoongi’s hand slams against his chest, trying to fist fabric that isn’t there, his eyes fixed on the
ripples of Sam’s abs stretching below him.

“ W-what?” Yoongi whimpers, fingertips cautious against Sam’s stomach, wondering how it feels
to have their torsos skin to skin, wet, stained, sullied by cum.

“Do you…” Sam blushes once again, hair curtaining his face, gold and brown shielding the shy
regard of his fleeting eyes. “ Would you…” He bites his lip. Yoongi’s hand shivers as he lifts it,
pinching a tendril of Sam’s hair, and putting it behind his ear like he did for him.

He does the same to another, and another, and Sam keens at the touch. It’s so fucking endearing,
the way he melts into Yoongi’s hand, but with a few more tendrils tamed by Yoongi’s quivering
fingers, Sam’s eyes come into view, finally, painstakingly, and there’s nothing endearing about the
way he’s looking at Yoongi, with red and blue smoke in his eyes, the world dizzy and shaky
around them, his gaze telling the pianist he could very well be naked in the proceeding moments,
and though it should, it doesn’t scare him. “ Do you want me to…”

Yoongi’s stomach rumbles.

Yoongi looks up, Sam looks down. It’s exactly seven seconds later that Sam is erupting into a
loud, infectious laughter, his head falling into Yoongi’s lap, the pianist mortified, hiding his face in
his hands while Sam’s head rolls around on his legs, panting with laughter.

“ We- we should-” The laughter overtakes him again and he’s falling back, head falling onto the
mattress, lying in front of Yoongi, holding his stomach with the force of the outburst.

“ Asshole,” Yoongi swears, slapping the top of his thigh. “ Stop LAUGHING.” He yells with an
angry smile, mounting Sam’s legs to come sit on his chest, hitting him weakly in the chest, but
suddenly Sam’s palms are curling around his ass and Sam is sitting up, pulling Yoongi into his
chest, their foreheads clashing as the former’s final tendrils of laughter dissolve into an ungodly
smile, lust and infant love an inevitably jarring pair in his soft but piercing eyes.

His hands knead Yoongi’s ass, fingertips grazing the hem, then travelling under his shirt, palms
flattening to map the belt of Yoongi’s spine, caressing the discs with his fingertips, Yoongi
arching, spasms overtaking him as the gentility of the touch encompasses him like a physical high,
eyes rolling back, rolling forwards, lips bitten red with the efforts of his teeth to keep his whines
contained.

But alas, Sam’s mouth latches to his neck, licking the bruises flowered from yesterday, and he
kisses the skin there, lips embracing the cream of his collarbones like the touch of a butterfly
against wet wood, fleeting but substantial, and enough for the wood to remember its touch long
enough for the butterfly to return again.

“ Sammy…” He moans, a particularly sharp bite to the curve of his throat sending him quaking in
Sam’s lap, hands slamming into the older’s shoulders for release as Sam’s hands snake further
under his shirt, grabbing a handful of Yoongi’s hair and pulling, the pianist’s head lolling back
with a whine, the collar of his white shirt falling over his left shoulder, slipping around ivory skin
to expose more skin for Sam to greet.

Yoongi chants his name like a madman, like a wiseman, like the weak, infatuated fool that he is,
arching and melting and caving as Sam’s lips mark their territory, the skin that is rightfully his and
his alone until Yoongi learns how to treat it well.

“ Baby…”

And Sam is no less mad than he is, no less wise or love-struck, so Yoongi’s chants are echoed
with prayers of Sam’s own, fate and destiny spilling from his mouth in the form of praises, “
beautiful” and “gorgeous” leaving his lips so breathlessly easily, as though with each word
Yoongi doesn’t let himself slip further and further, soar higher and higher, until fire licks at his
stomach and physical high turns into chemical and he-

“ Y-you’re gonna make me come,” Yoongi erupts, shaking as Sam takes his leave once again,
kissing him with lips that taste of Yoongi’s smoky skin, and a tongue that exudes pine, and
strangely, snow. “I s-swear y-you’re gonna make me come.” The pianist whispers again when the
warning only encourages Sam further. The singer looks at him wide eyed, kissing his jaw,
pushing Yoongi’s hair back to look at his flushed, wet face.

“ Just from this?” Sam questions, and Yoongi drops his head in humiliation, only for it to be tilted
back up.

“ I…” Yoongi’s at a loss, orgasm on the very edge of erupting at the tip of his achingly hard
length, his eyes fixed on Sam’s because the large hand on his chin doesn’t seem like it’s going to
let go anytime soon.
“ Are you usually so quick to bloom little kitten?” Sam asks, and thank god he forsook vulgarity
for a more lyrical form of humiliation because Yoongi doesn’t think he could hold himself if he
said something along the lines of: “Do you always come this quick little whore?” Which would
have, ideally, made him come quicker.

But no, Sam takes precaution, he speaks to Yoongi like a flower, and the pianist stutters his way
through a pathetic excuse for an answer. Sam watches him with the most insufferably knowing
smile, caressing his back in a show of innocent comfort but it doesn’t even matter because even
though he knows he shouldn’t, Yoongi just wants to fucking come.

“ Don’t, I- I’m not- I don’t usually- it’s just- it’s just-”

Sam’s smirk puts a stop in his tracks.

“ Me?” The singer asks with a shit eating grin, and Yoongi’s stupid, sex-clouded gaze drops to the
thrilling but honestly terrifyingly large dent in Sam’s pants and he’s throwing his head against the
musician’s chest, mumbling a muffled ‘fuck you’ as the singer chuckles, kissing the top of his
head with a softness that Yoongi knows he will never be accustomed to.

“ I don’t think you could do that on an empty stomach.” Sam teases, patting Yoongi’s back in lieu
of his belly as Yoongi turns his head to the side, mumbling:

“ He says as if he’s not the toppest top to ever tipitty top top top.”

Sam erupts into laughter again and Yoongi can’t help but to giggle, lifting his head, neck tender as
he looks at Sam. And Sam looks at him.

“ I could make an exception.” The singer says with a look that Yoongi really doesn’t like, because
it’s accompanied with flashing images of Sam pressed into a pillow, giant body curled into a little
ball, back arched, biting into a pillow with his ass leaking in the air, whining the words ‘fuck me’
as Yoongi’s fingers press further into the smallest opening of his body, his swollen rim-

“ Feed me.” Yoongi rasps. “You’re driving me fucking insane you gigantic lump of testosterone,
just fuckin’ feed me.” He finishes with an angry breath, reluctantly unplastering himself from a
visibly amused Sam, rotating to hang his legs off the edge of the bd.

“ Gigantic lump of testosterone? Is that all I am to be reduced to? I’ll have you know-”

Yoongi grabs his hand, pulling him off the bed until Sam is shrieking at him to stop, both of them
plopping down onto the wooden floor, Yoongi screaming as Sam reaches for his ankle, pulling
him back. The pianist staggers to standing with a fit of giggles and loud screams, Sam hot on his
heels. Just as he thinks he’s pulled off his masterful attack, hand curling around the door knob, that
there are hands on his hips and he’s being whirled around, slammed against the door with a pair of
lips biting into his, fingers digging into the fabric at his waist in retribution, Sam growling as he
grips the underside of Yoongi’s thighs, lifting them, forcing him further against the door as he
claims his mouth, again and again, until Yoongi opens his eyes but still can’t see.

“ You think you’re stronger than me, kitten?”

Sam knows Yoongi could probably kill him in a million different ways but still teases the words
into the hollows of Yoongi’s ear, biting down on his lobe as Yoongi yelps, head banging against
the door, the impact dizzying his mind further until he is a pathetic, clouded mess of pre-come,
shaking hands and drooling lips.

“ I-I k-know I’m stronger than you, Ellis.”

“ Your stuttering says otherwise, Min.” Sam hits back with a bite pressed into the pianist’s jaw.

“ Sam-I-” The tinge of fear masking Yoongi’s eyes-hands still clutching the ends of his sleeves-
shakes the flurry of Sam’s advancements, the singer’s lusting eyes softening at the pianist’s
apprehension.

“ Do you want me to stop?” He quickly asks, hands letting go of the younger’s thighs as Yoongi
drops down, feet hitting the floor, head hanging downcast, fingers quivering against Sam’s chest.

“ I really don’t want to come in my pants,” Yoongi whispers, the golden panes of the older boy’s
chest calling to him as his lips latch onto the glistening skin, kissing Sam above the breastbone,
laying his head against him. “I don’t have any other underwear.”

“ Who said you have to wear underwear?”

Sam’s reply comes just as mischievous as Yoongi expected and he looks up at him with red
cheeks, biting his lip when here plies:

“ The fact that you’ll have me naked in seconds and…”

“ And?” Sam leans down, sliding his nose against Yoongi’s before kissing the tip of it with gentle,
warm lips. Yoongi looks at him apologetically.

“ The crippling fear of being seen naked by someone like you.” He whispers, eyes straying to the
side just so he doesn’t have to see the hurt plague Sam’s heavy eyes.

“ Someone like me?” He murmurs, hand slipping from Yoongi’s cheek. The pianist shivers, cold
settling into his skin as Sam moves a step back.

“Can we…” Yoongi breathes, hand inching out to touch him. “Can we please eat?”

“ Yoongi you know I don’t care,” Sam says with urgency. “ I told you, last night, I-”

“ I just-” Yoongi grabs his neck, standing on his tiptoes as he rests his body against Sam’s, the
older boy’s arms wrapping around his waist, pulling him in, lifting him off the floor as Yoongi
kisses him, silencing the hurt with his mouth. “ You scare me.” He whispers when their mouths
part.

“ Don’t you say that, baby, I-”

“ I- I wanna show you everything.” Yoongi declares, Sam putting him down. The pianist takes
Sam’s hand in his own, puts them against his chest, and guides them down his body, his fingers
brushing against his nipples, warm against his clothed stomach. “ I want you to take me. I feel like
we have a decade of time behind us and a century ahead and it’s only been two days,” He says,
Sam’s hands interlocking with his own. “ Give me some time to be scared…” Yoongi asks. “
You’re too perfect to not be.”

“You’re beautiful.” Sam whispers, taking Yoongi’s hands, bringing his arms up to his face.
Yoongi shakes as the older boy brings his wrists to his face, and kisses the silver of unmarked skin
peeking from the edge of his sleeves. “ No matter what, no matter if you let me take you or not,”
Sam replies, hands cupping Yoongi’s face. “ You’re fucking beautiful. You’re fuckin’ perfect,
Yoongi, okay?"

“ ‘s not true, Sam,” Yoongi mumbles, blushing. “ you haven’t seen-”

“ Look at me.” Sam urges, brushing away Yoongi’s fringe from his face. “Look at me, Yoongi.”
He says again when the pianist refuses. “ You are the most beautiful boy I’ve ever laid my eyes
upon.”

“ And the girls?” Yoongi teases, wiping away wetness from the corner of his eye. Sam chuckles,
shaking his head.

“ I think you give the girls a run for their fucking money.”

“ I d-do?”

“ Yeah, yeah damn straight you do.”

Silence stretches and Sam leans down to kiss him just because

“You think I’m pretty?” Yoongi asks, uncertain.

“ I think you’re goddamn incandescent.” Sam says firmly.

“ Incandescent?” Yoongi asks with a smile, rolling his eyes.

“ Luminous.” Yoongi’s grinning by now, standing with his heart in his mouth and his brain in the
dumpster and hands aching, aching, for skin. “Never done before, amazing, beautiful, show
stopping-”

Yoongi catapults into his arm, Sam spinning him around as the pianist reaches for the door knob,
opening it mid-kiss.

“ Take me into the kitchen you giant hunk of American beauty ideals.”

Sam wobbles with Yoongi out of the room, pressing him against it only to be slapped on the back
by a famished Yoongi who pushes him into the kitchen, the elder stumbling to the destination with
a giggly Yoongi in hand.

“ I’m actually half English, you know.” Sam corrects, putting him down against the fridge.

‘ Of course you are.” Yoongi sighs with an eye roll, Sam’s hands immediately clutching his
tummy to tickle him.

Yoongi looks at him with a dead look in his eyes. Sam gasps. “ You’re not ticklish?”

“ Nuh uh.” Yoongi hums with a smirk

“Impossible.” Sam denounces. “ He’s a witch.”

“ Fae, actually.” Yoongi hits back with a hair flip.

“ Must explain the fairy like good looks.”

Yoongi snaps his teeth at him, mouth latching onto Sam’s jaw as he bites down.

“ It explains the fangs.”

“ Bite me, senpai.”

They both stop.

Yoongi stumbles back into the fridge, looking at him in shock-horror.

“ Oh my god.” He whispers.

“ What? What? What?”

Yoongi circles the fridge in shock, backing up into the kitchen, towards the skin, with his hand
covering his mouth in dread.

“ He’s a weeb.”

Sam charges, crouching to take Yoongi in his arms, throwing him over his shoulder as the pianist
screams, punching his back, yelling at him to put him down.

“ FUCK YOU!” Sam screams, Yoongi’s legs kicking at him with chaotic intent. “I THOUGHT
SOMETHING WAS WRONG YOU ASSHOLE.”

“ I’M SORRY,” Yoongi shrieks , biting his shoulder as one of his legs flies into Sam’s knee, the
older doubling over in pain, hands gripping Yoongi’s ass over his shoulder. “I’M SORRY YOU
PUSSY, PUT ME DOWN, FUCKIN PUT ME DOWN SAMUEL ELLIS OR ELSE-.”

“ NO.” Sam screams back with a throaty laugh, “I WILL NOT PUT YOU DOWN YOU-”

Without realizing, one of Sam’s hands comes down on Yoongi’s ass, and the slap issues a moan
to escape Yoongi, his body going limp in Sam’s embrace, fists clawing into his back as the pianist
whimpers with the aftertaste of the spank on his pink cheek.

“ P-put me d-down.” He whispers, biting his lip.

Sam, with all of his remaining self-control, unhinges Yoongi from his shoulder and puts him down
in front of him.

“ I’m so fucking sorr-”

Sam looks down to see a dent in Yoongi’s shirt, the pianist’s hands wuickly covering his crotch as
he looks away with crimson dusting his cheeks.

“ You…” Sam breathes, scratching the back of his head, arms contracting with the momement and
Yoongi nearly, nearly kneels. “ You’re…into t-

“ Y-yes, asshole” He quickly cuts in. “I like that kinda...stuff.” He confesses with a dark, bitten
lip. “Next topic of d-discussion.”

Sam comes forward, closer, closer, and this time he doesn’t lean down to talk to Yoongi, no, he
makes the pianist look at him in all of his full height, large, ripped shoulders invading Yoongi’s
vision as the pianist cranes his eyes up and all he sees is intent to break.

“ Okay then….next topic of discussion is that…” Sam trails off, his thumb brushing against
Yoongi’s jaw. “I really…want to fuck you right now.”

Yoongi mewls. His body involuntarily quakes and he whimpers at the sight of Sam’s shadowed
face.

“ I won’t.” The elder says. “But I just thought I should tell you I’m imagining you naked on every
surface in this house.”

“ I …I uh” Yoongi stutters, not knowing which part of Sam’s body to hold for purchase, the line
of Sam’s shaft visible through his grey sweatpants hurling the air out of his lungs. “ I…”
“You?”

Yoongi looks up at him with his best efforts to seem intimidating before he’s met by the red-
clouded gaze of Sam’s stare, eyes rolling down Yoongi’s body, and back up to his eyes as if he
isn’t right there.

“ S-stop b-being such a dom for a moment I c-can’t fuckin’ think.” Yoongi mumbles, pathetically
angry.

“ Huh.” Sam huffs with a tilt to his head, licking his bottom lip. “ M’kay.”

“ D-don’t do that.”

“ What?”

“ Don’t hum, that’s such dom behavior, I am disgusted.” Yoongi says, furiously biting his lip.

“ Yeah, you look pretty disgusted babe.” Sam hits back with a glance at Yoongi’s boner and
another at his fiery cheeks.”

“ Babe?” Yoongi chokes. “ Oh we’re on babe terms now?”

“ You look like you want to suck my dick, I’d say we’re on babe terms.”

Yoongi fumes, choking on his breath as Sam’s stare refuses to let up, the humorous mood
completely dissipated as ice-thin lust overtakes them both, threatening to render Yoongi
defenseless.

“ Wow-I?” Yoongi stutters, grappling for his next sentence, hands perched against the skin,
completely cornered by the panes of Sam’s towering height. “ I-?”

“ You?”

“ You would NOT be this cocky if I was sucking your dick right now.” Yoongi finally yells,
voice coming out more whiney than angry and that is IT, he will not stand for this absolute
mockery of his submission for any-

“ I wouldn’t?”

“ No.” Yoongi yells. “ No you-”

“Try me.” Sam cuts in with a smirk.

“ You think I would ever suck your dick?” Yoongi questions with a shaky laugh, eyes fixed on
Sam’s just so they wouldn’t stray anywhere else.

“ You wouldn’t suck my dick?” Sam questions with an eyebrow raise, pressing his finger against
Yoongi’s nether lip and pulling down. The pianist swats his hand away with an angry huff,
edging on breaking point.

“ I do not want to suck your dick,”

“ You don’t want to suck my dick?” Sam parrots with a softening smile before he breaks into a
charming grin at the smoke blowing at out of Yoongi’s ears -knots dancing furiously across his
creased forehead- riffling Yoongi’s bed-hair with an endearingly amused chuckle. “ I’m just
messing with you, pretty boy.”
“ Fuck you.” Yoongi swears, crossing his arms. “Fuck you and your stupid big dick.”

Sam guffaws, chuckling.

“ Am I being big dick shamed?”

“I can’t believe you’d tease me like that.” Yoongi complains petulantly, turning his head away.
Sam comes forward, taking his head in his hands as he lays kisses on both of his angry eyes, then
on the tip of his nose, downwards, Yoongi whining as he skips over his lips, and then bites his
lobe, licking over it as he rasps:

“ But you’re so fuckin pretty when you’re heated, kitten.”

And with this, Yoongi has had it.

“ Just fuck me raw, god.”

Sam’s tongue stops in its tracks. His head uncurls from Yoongi’s shoulder, bouncing upwards like
an oversized puppy.

“ W-what?”

Yoongi gulps.

“ What?”

“ You said-”

“Ididntsayanything.” Yoongi mumbles, taking back his words.

“ You want that?”

“ I-”

“ Cause last night, and just now you-”

“ I know.” Yoongi apologizes. “I’m sorry, you just make me…”

Safe. And weak. Safe to be weak and weak to be safe is the epitome of what Sam did to Yoongi,
does to Yoongi, with how big he is but how small he could make himself look just so it wouldn’t
overwhelm the pianist, and how his hands know where to touch and when to do it and how to
touch him so that instead of needing to say “ You’re beautiful” Yoongi would feel the flowers
bloom in his veins.

And when the pianist doesn’t say anything, Sam takes a breath to speak.

“ I'm just, I'd just like to do that very much, very very very much and you have a habit of saying
stuff you don't mean, you know?

“ No, I know, I'm sorry…”

“Because ...” Sam starts with hesitant glances cast at the younger. “ Last night... when I touched
your arm you-

“Y -yeah, yeah okay.” Yoongi babbles, pulling down his sleeves past his hands again, his collar
falling around his shoulder. Sam’s eyes catch it, and his hand comes to push the shirt back up
Yoongi’s arm, noticing the way the pianist curls into himself at his touch.
“ Do you wanna come sit? Do you wanna…talk about this?” Sam asks, holding his hand out.
Yoongi takes it with a nod, the older leading them out into the open space of the sitting room, the
pair hesitating once they reach the sofas.

“ Uh…”

“ You’re sitting on my lap.” Sam decides.” I mean, would you- do you wanna sit on my lap?”

Yoongi giggles at him, jumping up into his arms as Sam collapses into the cushions with the red
faced pianist in tow.

“ Okay.” Sam says. “I'm gonna be honest.” He reveals with a serious face even as a smile pulls on
the corner of his lips. “ I physically can't take my fuckin’ hands off of you.”

“I…” Yoongi smiles. “ I’ve noticed, and I-” He stops just to watch Sam listen to him. It’s
beautiful. He’s beautiful. “ I don't want you to.”

Sam takes a breath, shuts his eyes, Yoongi giggling at the hardening seat behind him as the older’s
head uncurls from the sofa.

“ So how do you wanna do this?” He asks.

“ What... what is this? Yoongi questions, biting his lip.

“This?

“Yeah like... you and me?”

“ You mean us?” Sam corrects with a strange smile, running his hands through Yoongi’s hair.

“ Y-yeah.”

The proceeding silence puts Yoongi on edge until Sam opens his mouth again.

“ Do you think I’m one of those ‘let's not label this just yet and take things slow' kinda guys
Yoongi?”

“ The question catches the younger off guard.

“ N-no?”

“ Good, cause I'm not holding your hand and having you walk around with marks I made on your
neck and not giving you a damned label.” Sam declares with an equally sincere stare poured into
Yoongi’s eyes. And then. “ Cause you deserve all the gold fucking plated labels in the world,
Yoongi.”

The pianist smiles, then blushes, then smiles again, and the train of very non-Yoongi mannerisms
continues until Sam quietly exclaims: “ God you're so fucking beautiful when you do that.” And
Yoongi gapes because honestly, how many times a minute can you really tell someone they’re
beautiful without it getting old?

An infinite number, apparently.

“ God you're just so fucking beautiful always, fuckin’ look at you baby.”

Yoongi would mock Jimin for being the praise whore but look at him now, purring at the slightest
complimentary thing that escapes Sam’s lips, though there isn’t anything slight or subtle about the
way his fingers whisper: “ I probably love you already and if that makes me crazy that’s okay” in
Yoongi’s hair and Yoongi’s smile says back:“ I think I love you too and maybe Happy Ever
after does exist after all

“ Sammy.” The pianist whispers, because what else is there to say when he’s looking at him like
it’s prom and Yoongi’s the only person in the room he’d ever want to dance with?

“ And god,” Sam breathes. “ I've hated my name for so long because…”

Because it’s the name his mom called him.

“ And then you come along and I- and I never want to wake up to anything else, other than that
name, coming out of your lips.”

“ Sammy.” Yoongi whispers. “ Sammy.” He moans. “ Sa-” And Sam is kissing him.

It’s the kind of kiss where he needs to taste the words on Yoongi’s tongue, where his mouth needs
to hear all of Yoongi’s cells, every ribbon of blood and inch of skin chanting his name, speaking
in tongues inside a boy whom Sam promises himself he is going to love the way love was
intended to be felt.

“ What's my label, Sam?” Yoongi asks, their lips resting against one another, fingertips red with
the rush of wanting blood and desperately pink-dusted cheeks.

“ What do you want your label to be baby? Because I'd put a ring on you right now if that didn't
make me mad.”

“ God, you're actually crazier than I am.” Yoongi exclaims with wet- wide-blown eyes.

“You're the one who's sitting in the lap of a guy like me when you could have anyone out there, so
look who's talking.”

Yoongi seriously considers the integrity of Sam’s brain cells for a full minute before he bursts out
laughing.

“You're so stupid.” He manages to choke out in between bursts of laughter, Sam a confused mess
of aching dick and knotted brows below him.

“ Have you ever looked in a mirror Ellis? God you're just a stupid hunk with abs of steel I can't
believe I settled for an Abercrombie and Fitch model?”

Sam chokes at the unexpected affront, grappling for his defense as Yoongi shakes his head at him,
an endeared smile ghosting his lips. “I look in the mirror plenty, this hair doesn't fix itself?”

“ You have ZERO-” Yoongi starts, holding up a circle with his fingers. “ Zero hair products in
your bathroom.” He exposes with a satisfied smirk. “ I don't even think you OWN a brush?” He
adds with a tangle of fingers trying to get through Sam’s hair.

“ I can't believe I'm being exposed like this, a-and- and second?” Sam scoffs with a hair flick.
“Abercrombie and Fitch?” He asks, deadpanned. “My abs are offended and so is my morality.”
Sam defends, blowing his hair out of his face, biting down on his tongue as Yoongi suddenly
moves in his lap and his length ends up sitting right between the pianist’s clothed cheeks.

“ Your face should be offended,” Yoongi corrects, “ As well as the fact that you're sitting here
thinking I could sit on anyone else's lap after sitting on yours.”
“ It is quite a nice lap,” Sam agrees boldly, “If I may say so m’self.”

“ No one asked you to compliment your lap.” Yoongi hits back with a pointed look, raising a
brow when an insufferably gorgeous, haughty smile takes over Sam’s face.

“ And thirdly…” Sam trails off with a smirk, Yoongi’s heart pounding in his chest. “ Settling?”

Yoongi deadpans. “ Settling?” He parrots with a confused stare.

“ You said you can't believe you're settling for an Abercrombie and Fitch model.” Sam reminds to
Yoongi’s horror.

“ O-oh.” The pianist exclaims, Sam’s hands tightening around his waist, suddenly pulling him
closer to have their faces lip to lip, eyelashes loosely entangled, black and golden arches married
in a cosmic embrace.

“ Well…” Yoongi says with a smile, the older progressively more delated at the development,
watching Yoongi’s pathetic excuse for a defense with a shit-eating grin.

“ So you do you want that ring after all.” He says, fueling the pit of embarrassment heating
Yoongi’s face.

“ God if anyone-” Yoongi starts, hitting Sam’s chest lightly with every word. “ If anyone. Heard
us. They'd think. We are. Absolutely insane.” Yoongi finishes with a hot breath. And Sam?

“ You're settling huh?” He teases further, completely missing the point, and then, with a more
uncertain expression he charms his way into Yoongi’s neck, enamoring him with kitten kisses and
popping his head back up to quietly ask:

“ So uh,,, does that mean you wanna…” He starts. “ You wanna…” He trails off, kissing the
pianist’s neck. “ Be a c-couple...or…somethin’…or…no? Or…” Yoongi holds in his laughter
with aggressive intent, watching the sure-mouthed blond embarrass the fuck out of himself for
once.

“ What exactly is the other option?” Yoongi decides to ask, laughter dissipated on the flat of his
tongue.

“ I mean…” Sam suggests. “ The sugar daddy thing is always on the table, I am broke.” He jokes
with an embarrassed chuckle, only to be replied immediately with-

“I'll give you all the money in the world.”

Sam looks at Yoongi with laughter on his lips that melts as the dead-serious look on the pianist’s
face hits home.

“I could buy all of New York for you.” Yoongi promises, watching the boy who epitomizes the
magic of New York City in the span of his gold-dusted shoulders. “ I’d do it before you even
asked.”

Sam watches the words leave Yoongi’s mouth a bit weirdly, and the pianist thinks he’s gone a bit
too far when-

“ I know this is supposed to be romantic and all and I'm very very flattered and my heart is like
boom boom beating like crazy and-”

“ Sam.” Yoongi urges.

“ Are you mafia?”

The laughter finally erupts from Yoongi’s mouth and Sam’s arms tighten around his waist to stop
him from falling back. “

“ W-What?” Sam asks, equal parts scared and aroused.

“ And what if I am?” Yoongi gets out through his laughter.

“ Oh my god…” Sam whispers. : Oh my god, oh my god-

“ Sam shut UP.”

“ You’re…actual mafia?”

“ NOT EXACTLY?” Yoongi quickly corrects, squaling while Sam’s life flashes before his eyes.

“I shouldn't even be telling you this oh my god I've gone mad, I-”

“My boyfriend is in the mafia?”

He's NOT EXACTLY in the mafia it's just-”

Sam’s words ricochet in Yoongi’s head

“ Wait.” He interrupts himself. “ Your boyfriend?”

“ W-wh- m-my- u-h?”

Yoongi beams at the potential pay back for the “settling” fiasco, cocking up a brow at a stifled
Sam who looks at him with a question in his eyes. “ M-my uhm-”

“ Your boyfriend's close circle of associates have ties to the top circle of command of the biggest
criminal organization in the world, yes.” Yoongi replies, finally, huge smirk stretching across his
lips.

“ But he really does just want to be a concert pianist.” The best one in the world, though he leaves
that one for Sam to figure out later on.

Aside from officiating the ’boyfriend’ thing, their gleeful smiles flirting with one another in a
series of lip-bites and shy, straying eyes, Sam points a very important detail. “You could literally
kill me in a hundred different ways.”

Yoongi chokes, head falling onto Sam’s chest. “ Thirty seven using my bare hands and two
hundred and-” Yoongi looks around the room with a teasing roll of the eyes before returning to
Sam. “ Twenty nine different ways using the objects in this room.”

Sam deadpans, watching Yoongi turn from hot to hotter with hooded eyes

“ S-should I be turned on by this?” Sam stutters with a hot breath.

“ I don't know,” Yoongi purrs. “ Are you?

“ I'm really fucking hard right now.” Sam reveals with an appropriate roll of his hips against
Yoongi’s
“ Yeah,” The other breathes, smiling. “ I’ve noticed.” He teases, fingers playing scales across
Sam’s chest, and then, a daring suggestion. “Should we do something about it?” He proposes,
fingers dangerously close to Sam’s length.

“ I thought-”

“ Yeah, I know.” Yoongi quickly dismisses, unwrapping Sam’s hands from his waist, pushing
himself off of the sofa before settling on the floor, between Sam’s legs. “I meant this.” He reveals,
nosing at the material covering Sam’s inner thigh

“ So you do want to suck my d-dick.” Sam says shakily, softly grabbing a fistful of Yoongi’s hair,
pulling him up for a kiss.

“ I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to do anything more.”

_____________

He’s watching him, Yoongi realises. He has been through the entirety of his memory, and he
nears just as a tear slips out of the pianist’s eye, and another, and suddenly, the stranger whom the
pianist doesn’t remember inviting is in front of him, his hand wiping the tears away from Yoongi’s
cheeks with a smile that terrifyingly reminds Yoongi of Sam.

He has unruly blonde hair, blue eyes, and he reeks of trouble and bad decisions, and Yoongi
decides he’s tired of the emptiness, so he takes the boy’s hands, soft, un-callused, turns them palm
up, and identifies:

“ Pianist.”

The boy smiles, kissing the top of Yoongi’s knuckles.

He reeks of Sam. From that specific blue of his eyes to the ochre tendrils weaved into his head of
golden hair, to the way he opens his lips against the hill of Yoongi’s hands, to the way he’s taller,
much taller, and bigger than him, to the way Yoongi is very much considering something he
hasn’t once considered in six years, to the way-

“ Mine are much less precious, and beautiful, than yours, I assure you.” The boy whispers against
the shorter’s hand, smiling. Damn him.

Yoongi looks up at the ceiling, at the stars beyond.

Damn them.

“ I don’t remember inviting you, I don’t know your name.” Yoongi says, their little counsel
shadowed by the emptiness of the kitchen, the party worlds away, twilight entering from the
kitchen balcony painting the boy’s face a certain blue that fucks with Yoongi’s head.

“ My friend said I’m pretty enough for you to excuse a plus one.” The boy says with a blue blush
painting his face. Yoongi is sick of it. He hasn’t seen this sort of blue in so long.

It’s been so long. It’s been so fucking long.

“Then your friend knows me very well, stranger.” He replies, a lazy smile on his lips, and he
doesn’t realise it, but he’s giving the boy the kind of eyes he shouldn’t be giving anyone, the kind
of eyes he’s promised himself he’ll take to his grave, that he did take to the grave, to Sam’s grave.

“I’m-”

“Don’t.” Yoongi quickly stops him, pressing his fingers against the boy’s lips. “Don’t tell me your
name.”

The boy smiles, it stirs something in Yoongi, and its only when the former asks

“Why?”, does Yoongi realise what it is.

“You used to go the Arke.” Yoongi suddenly says to the boy’s visible surprise.” You’re really
fucking young,” He realises. “ How old are you?”

“ I just turned eighteen,” The boy replies. “ It’s my first year at Julliard.”

“ A first year, huh?” Yoongi says, a dark look clouding his face. “That means you know about
us.” He says with an empty side smile, a list of anyone sick enough to do this rattling in his mind,
names and organizations swirling at the front of his vision as his eyes roll up and down the boy.

“What?” The boy asks with a very convincing frown and he’s suddenly being pressed against the
balcony doors, Yoongi has a knee against his crotch and a hand wrapped around the boy’s throat,
eyes leaking with wrath.

“Are you doing this on purpose?” Yoongi interrogates. “ Did someone send you? Because if they
did, I will cut your fucking -”

“ N-no one-” the boy chokes, face red. “ Sent me, Yoongi.” The urgency in his voice slackens
Yoongi’s grip around his throat. “I- I’ve had the biggest fucking crush on you since seventh
grade.”

The older pianist deadpans, slowly putting him down, the boy chuckling as apology masks
Yoongi’s face.

“ You…you have?”

“ I… I’ve been in love with you for the longest time.”

Well. That is fucking awkward, is the first thing that crosses Yoongi’s mind.

Not again, is the second.

Another one? Is the third.

“ And how much you looked like him never crossed your mind?” Yoongi asks, still untrusting.
“Not once?”

“ Of-of course it did-” The boy truthfully confesses, form crumpled against the balcony doors. “
But- but I- that’s not- you haven’t been to classes lately and I- I just wanted to see if you’re okay-
that’s why- that’s why I came.”

Yoongi looks at him. He looks back.

“ Play me something.” He says to the boy, pointing at the piano next to them, a smaller upright
fixed into the wall of the kitchen.

“ I’m sorry?”

“ Just because you go to Julliard doesn’t mean you’re good enough to be at one of my parties.”

It kind of does, but Yoongi needs a ruse, and the boy waddles over to the piano, pulling out the
stool, sitting down.

The upright is an antique white, fitting with the rustic but refined, French look of the kitchen.

Yoongi stands to the left of the piano, watching him, and just as he plays a note, Yoongi stops
him.

“ Not baroque. Romantic. Play me Debussy, Rachmaninoff, or-”

The boy’s hands throw themselves onto the piano before Yoongi has finished talking and-

Chopin.

Etude 1, op 10

Ten notes in and Yoongi regrets it. Yoongi regrets this party, regrets sobbing next to his piano,
regrets asking the boy to play.

Because it’s what he wanted to hear. What he expected. What he hadn't expected, what he wanted
and didn’t want to happen, because Yoongi wanted to see if he was worthy, this strange boy with
blue eyes, of making Yoongi feel a little less empty, of being the first, and only, to- to

Yoongi can’t think. Over the sound of the violins and the harp on the other side of the room, the
brass and woodwind and ten other pianos on the ground floor, the boy’s song sings louder,
clearer, the way Sam’s words did in the loudness of the city during many an impromptu midnight
walk.

And Yoongi is tired, Yoongi is cold, and he’s empty. It’s Christmas eve and around him are a
bunch of kids who chose skin over family and Yoongi over their friends and it’s tiring to have
power like that but still be so…impossibly… lonely. And this boy right here, breezing over Chopin
as if it doesn’t take only the very best to make Chopin sound as right as this, this boy looks right.

It’s unbearable. And he aches. Yoongi aches, the emptiness inside him is screaming, it’s thrashing
for something, anything, it’s tired, it’s exhausted of filling when it hasn’t been filled the way it
became accustomed to for so long.

So when the final chord hits home, and the boy is looking back at Yoongi with a knowing look
that says: ‘is that what you needed to hear?’, after six, long years, after six years of pain
unimaginable to most, to nearly everyone and anyone who hasn’t had a Sam, and trust Yoongi to
know that not many people have, because the world wouldn’t be what it is today if they did, after
six fucking years of hell every day, every minute, Yoongi. Fucking. Breaks.

He grips the boy’s collar, hauls him up, and they’re stumbling, stumbling out of the living room,
through the corridors, passing by one of Yoongi’s favorite parts of the house, the alcove, a little
depression in the wall where a beautiful, antique Crown Jewels Steinway sits pointed towards a
semi circle of curved windows with a view towards the greenhouse beyond.

Yoongi is balled up in the boy’s hands, his finger clutching the underside of his thighs, kisses
bitten into the older’s neck and he lets go. Yoongi lets go. He stops thinking. He stops breathing,
and hopes- and hopes that Sam isn’t watching him because he’s tired. Yoongi is so tired.

“ Where?” the boy asks once they come to a series of openings in the corridor leading into various
seating rooms and toilets. Yoongi grabs his head and brings him back in for a kiss, and another,
and chokes out:

“ K-keep going, t-there’s a lift- j-just, k-kiss me, p-please-” Yoongi sobs. “ Keep kissing me.” The
boy wipes his tears away as he obliges, kissing and drying his cheeks with the panes of his gentle
thumbs, and thank god, thank god that he knows, that he’s grown up watching the moonchildren
bring a new blond boy into school one day and bearing witness to the way everyone everywhere
fell in love with Samuel Ellis. Thank god he knows why Yoongi is sobbing as he bites bruises
into his neck, as he grips tightly onto his hips and makes him feel smaller than Yoongi has felt
since the morning of Sam’s death, when Sam came onto him with a haughty smile and Yoongi
swatted him away, impossibly sore from the night before.

He didn’t get to have Sam that one last time, that dreadfully unsuspecting morning of a dreadfully
unsuspecting day. And when Sam leaned in for a kiss Yoongi punched him for the bruises he had
left on his neck which Yoongi had to meet all the caterers with that day. And Yoongi didn’t
fucking kiss him goodbye when he left.

He didn’t fucking kiss him goodbye. As a joke. As a stupid, idiotic, secure joke.

And he never got to kiss him again.

Not alive, he didn’t, but when he stepped into that mortuary, he tried. He tried to press his lips
against Sam’s cold ones. He tried to mold their mouths together like they always would. But it
didn’t fit. Their mouths didn’t fit and Sam just- he just- Sam wouldn’t fucking kiss him back.

Why wouldn’t he fucking kiss him back?

“ Yoongi?” The boy is whispering against his ear, and when the older pianist looks around he’s
pressed against the lift, hands fisting the material of the boy’s shirt, face even wetter than it was
before, and he asks:

“ Is this worth it?”

“ What worth it?”

“Do you still want to fuck me in the state I’m in?”

“ You…” The boy’s mouth drops. “You want me to…”

“ Yeah.” Yoongi chuckles, another tear slipping out. “Yeah, I do.”

“ But they-” The boy stutters. “Everyone knows you-”

“ Look at you,” Yoongi says, caressing his face, the lift cold against his back, the finger-activated
button sitting just to the right of his ass beckoning him, a keyhole sitting just below that in case
anyone else has to use the lift. “ Look at you with your blond hair and blue eyes.” He sings. “You
came in here knowing what you would do to me,” He purrs, one arm curled around the boy’s neck
and the other dropping to dance blindly across the touchscreen pad. “ Maybe not at the surface of
your heart, but somewhere deep down, somewhere dark, you fucking knew what someone like
you would do to me so”

“ I’m sorry I- I-
“ So take responsibility and fuck me.”

The lift doors open, Yoongi’s thumb against the pad and the tears stop, just like that.

Yoongi’s eyes plead him with desperation, tears pulled back into their ducts and hands shaking
furiously against the boy’s shirt.

“ Please.” Yoongi begs, for the first time in a very long time. “ Please, fuck me.” And with that
he’s pushed into the elevator. The boy’s hands grapple for the single button inside, and he returns
to Yoongi with sad look in his eyes before kissing him, and kissing him.

Someone’s hands tear into someone’s shirt and there are buttons clattering. Yoongi is moaning in
a way he didn’t remember he could moan, whining and whimpering at every touch pressed into
his skin. The boy kisses his shoulders, kisses his fingers, bruises his mark into the flesh of
Yoongi’s hips and the latter can’t stop himself when they arrive at his room, the lift doors opening
and he moans.

“ Sam.”

The boy doesn’t hesitate. Yoongi moans another man’s name but because he knows the only
reason that he’s even here in the first place is because of the lines of his face, the boy doesn’t
hesitate and instead undoes the last button of Yoongi’s shirt to have it slip off his shoulders, and
that’s when he…that’s when he sees them.

There’s very few of them on Yoongi’s right arm, that’s why the tattoo only needed to cover the
ones on his left. But they’re still there, and at the sight of them the boy still tears up, taking
Yoongi’s hand and trailing his mouth over the whites of the scars he didn’t know were there.

“ D-don’t do that.” Yoongi whispers, not having even registered the name that had escaped his
lips.

“ Don’t kiss them like that.” He pleads low, taking his arms out of reach of the boy’s lips.

“ Why not?” He asks, standing.

“ I don’t want you to make love to me I want you to fuck the emptiness out.” Yoongi reminds him
with a dizzy head.

“ Is that what he would have done?”

Yoongi seethes.

“ This isn’t about him.”

“ Then why did you just call me Sam?”

“ I…” Yoongi stops. “I did?”

He’s looking at him in a very particular way, and Yoongi just wants to be fucked- he truly just-

“ You’re so fucking broken, Yoongi.” The boy says, and it was the last thing he expected, and
Yoongi is restless, and he can’t, he can’t do this.

“ Then fix me.” He still begs. “Fuck me. I’m begging you, I’m-”

The boy picks him up, throws him over the shoulder, and he’s stepping out of the lift with angry
steps, tossing Yoongi onto the bed and mounting him, fingers latching onto his slacks and pulling
steps, tossing Yoongi onto the bed and mounting him, fingers latching onto his slacks and pulling
them down in one swift motion.

Yoongi is chanting “Thank You’s” and “ faster’s” like he doesn’t realise how fucked up this is,
and the boy grips his hips and turns him around, pressing his face into the pillows like he hasn’t
dreamed about making sweet love to the pianist for the majority of his adolescent years.

But instead, here he is, pulling down Yoongi’s underwear and bruising his cheeks like he is
nothing more than skin. His mouth latches onto Yoongi’s rim and the pianist spasms, screaming
into his pillow at the wetness of it.

“ J-just like that, p-please.”

“You’re so tight, Yoongi.”

“I haven’t…” Yoongi chokes out, lifting his head to look behind him, the boy shirtless, face
between his cheeks and tongue toying with the puffs of Yoongi’s rim. “You have to- p-prep me I-
I haven’t- ”

“ Get your fucking hands off of him.”

________________

Alex is at dinner, listening to her mother say grace in front of her, her father stern at the head of
the table on her left and her little brother impatient on her other side when her phone lights up and
something catches her eye.

“ Alexis, you know there is a no phones rule-”

“ I’m sorry, Sir,” Alex quickly says, her mother’s knowing eyes following her shifting gaze, the
former’s hands dancing across the phone as she goes into Instagram. “I really have to check this.”

Her father tucks into the pre-Christmas feast, little brother Adam attacking the chicken like a fiend
as her mother continues to watch her with a worried stare.

Alexis finds the notification, pressing it with curious dread, and there it is. A video, posted a
minute ago of a party of sorts. Alex looks at the comment.

“ @lexiyoung, you’re not at Yoongi’s party?”

And that’s when she looks at the video in more depth, the half-naked bodies filtered by over the
top emojis and instruments scattered around every frame.

It’s Yoongi’s house.

Alex’ heart falls, fingers scrolling down at the comments.

-Where even is Yoongi?

-I don’t see him in the pictures?

-Isn’t he supposed to be the host?

-Everyone’s on live saying he left with some guy or something.

-Yoongi? At his own party? With a guy? You sure?

-He was that new blonde pianist or something, idk man.

“ Alexis sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Tamila asks.

“ It-It’s Yoongi.” Alex stutters, suddenly standing. “ I- I have to go.”

________________

The spare key Yoongi gave her locks into the keyhole and Alex is hit by the stench of
pheromones and the melodious cacophony of music like Julliard incarnate. She tells off the bodies
inside the corridors, hitting them with a “ get the hell out” as she makes her way through the house
into the entertaining room, and when she gets there, she doesn’t know whether to cry or laugh or
scream bloody murder.

Sure, Yoongi’s had some outrageous parties. The year after he came out of the asylum was
probably the worst. But this? This makes his other parties look like playdates.

Alex screams, yelling “ Party’s over” with blood in her eyes, and a hundred pair of eyes turn to
look at her, and with another “ get the fuck out of this house”, bodies are scrambling, silk sliding
against skin as glances of recognition place Alex as the top student of Julliard’s cello department,
which only makes them scurry out faster.

Alex gets out of there before the bodies have even completely evacuated, stomping her way to the
lift, pressing her other spare key into the keyhole before she’s zooming upwards to the penthouse
suite on the third floor.

She sees them through the glass lift doors, and for just a moment, her heart drops at the sight of the
blond stranger’s back, and how easily he could pass off at Sam and for an ever crazier moment,
she lets herself think if that’s him, if he’s alive and the past six years have been nothing but a
nightmare to give all nightmares a run for their money, but no- Yoongi is whimpering, naked
under the boy’s hands and Alex panics, knowing Yoongi would never forgive himself if the first
one to claim his skin after Sam is a one night stand, a nobody, so she yells:

“ Get your fucking hands off of him.”

The tangle of skin in front of her uncoils, and the boy turns around to look at her.

It’s not Sam.

Of course it’s not Sam.

“ Are you fucking serious?” Alex yells, pushing back her hair, heart betraying her and fluttering at
the sight of Yoongi’s naked back laid so beautifully on the bed, his legs open, kneeling.
“ He-he asked me to.” The boy says shakily, scrambling up from the bed, standing beside
Yoongi’s body, still ass-up, with a sheepish look at Alex.

“ Get the fuck out Lexi.” Yoongi swears, grabbing a handful of the sheets next to him and pulling
them over his ass as he turns, scooching up the bed to sit against the headboard, arms crossed. He
reaches over the bedside table, hand curling around a pack of cigarettes before returning, lighting
one up.

“ Yoongi are you fucking serious?” Alex asks storming her way to the bed, the lines of Yoongi’s
body

“ Alex this is my house and I’m telling you to get the fuck out.” Yoongi says, voice low and still a
little whiney, not having changed his registers from ‘being fucked’ to ‘fucking up everyone else’s
life because mine is shit and I’m justified’.

“ You.” Alex says to the boy, eyes narrowed. “Out. Now. Put your clothes on, get out.”

“ He asked me to, I s-swear-” The boy keeps saying as if that’s what Alex is even furious about.

“ Do you think that fucking matters?” She yells, grabbing Yoongi’s chin, his cigarette falling onto
the bed as he yelps an “ouch”, picking it up and throwing it into ashtray before she’s pulling at the
skin of the underside of his eyes, dragging them down.

“ You see his eyes? Do you know how much fucking cocaine he’s on right now? And? And
MDMA? At the same fucking time Yoongi? You’re twenty fucking three Yoongi you-”

“ I begged him to fuck me, princess, don’t you worry, he’s not-”

“ What, you begged him?” Alex screams, the boy scuttling away through the lift doors, picking up
his items of clothing on the way. “Like you did with Gabriel? And look how that fucking turned
out, Yoongi, no one’s seen him in five years.” Yoongi chuckles, trying to light up another
cigarette before Alex is swatting it away with an angry hand.

“I didn’t tell you that for you to bring it up at a time like this.” The pianist reminds her, face
clouded with the memory.

“ I am…” Alex breathes, expression dropping. “ I’m so fucking disappointed in you, Yoongi.”

“ Thanks mother,” Yoongi chuckles. “ Get it line.”

“ When are you gonna stop?” Alex asks him, to Yoongi’s absolute dismay.

“ I’m guessing you threw all my guests out?” The pianist sighs in dismay, ignoring her question.

“ When. Are you. Gonna. Stop?”

“ You should see yourself out too,” He adds. “I wanna sleep…” He trails off. “ Or,” He suggests,
not turning around. “ You can join me.”

“ WHEN ARE YOU GONNA FUCKING STOP, YOONGI?”

“ WHEN HE FUCKING COMES BACK.”

Alex’s face falls.

Yoongi looks at her, knees drawn up to his face, arms clutching his folded legs. His hands shake
first, then his feet, then the curve of his lips, and he lets out a piercing sob.

Alex dives, taking him into her arms, hands caressing the map of his wet hair, kissing his
forehead, his face, wiping his tears away with the hill of her palms.

“ I’m sorry, I’m sorry Yoongi, I-“

“ H-he’s gone.” He sobs into her chest, thrashing against her hold, hands rattling with unconscious
spasms as he screams into the hollows of his room. “H-he’s gone lexi, he’s gone and he- he’s
never gonna come back.”

“ I’m sorry,” Alex chants, kissing the top of his head. “I’m so sorry Yoongi I’m so-”

“ But we were so happy.” Yoongi cries. “We- we were gonna get married, we were gonna be o-
one b-big family so w-why? Wh-why would he d-do that?” He asks her. “W-why d-didn’t he tell
me if he w-was sad? Why didn’t he-”

“ I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry I”

“ I j-just wanted to stop feeling empty.” He whispers. “W-why- why couldn’t you just let me be f-
full for once?”

“ You don’t want him, Yoongi.” Alex cries into his hair. “You don’t want him you just wanted
Sam baby, you just wanted-.”

“ Then w-where is he?” Yoongi screams. “W-why isn’t he coming b-back? Why- w-why-”

“ I don’t know, I don’t know, baby, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry-”

“ It HURTS.” Yoongi screams, the ghost of Sam’s hands burning against every inch of his body,
his soul. “ I’m in so much fucking pain, Alex…” Yoongi whimpers, eyes rolling back and forth
with the intensity of his tears. “ M-make it stop,” He begs.” P-please m-make it stop.”

“ I can’t.” She cries. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I- I love you so much, Yoongi I-”

“ W-why couldn’t he j-just let me die?”

Alex’s heart drops.

“ What?”

“ I f-felt him.” Yoongi whispers. “When I cut myself I felt him, I felt his hands on my arms, I
know what he feels like, I know it was him. When I hanged myself I fucking felt him, I felt him
holding me up. He stopped me, I know he fucking stopped me and I hate him, I hate him. I hate
him.” He keeps repeating, rocking back and forth. “ I HATE YOU.” He wails, throat raw and
torn. “I HATE YOU. I HATE YOU. I HATE YOU-”

Yoongi feels a pair of hands on him, locking into his own and when he looks at Alex her hands
are around his face, her wet eyes staring at him. Yoongi looks down at the space on the floor next
to the bed, fists his hand, then opens it again, and he doesn’t know he’s looking straight into the
blue eyes of Sam’s ghost when he sobs,

“ I hate you so much.” And the cocaine rolls Yoongi’s eyes shut.
Chapter End Notes

Now, breaathe.
Few things:
This was the mask people, when I saw it I was like holy shit. Yes. This is it.
Secondly uh. How was that 64k of mess? Good? Not? Tell me down below(pls). Shit
is probably gonna escalate now what with the chest and things and the fact that
tae,,,knows hopefully the next chapter wont be 64k of whatever this was (unless it
was good, was it? i wouldnt know im sick of reading over this lmao imagine editing a
64 chapter i can relate, and i bet theres still like a spelling mistake like shit instead of
shirt thats gonna ruin a totally intense scene I BET. no, really, im broke, pls.)

la links:
Tumblr
Moonchildren Tumblr
Spotify Playlist
Follow the moonchildren tumblr pls it's a work of art and you'll be able to see how i
see the moonchild world, yanno?
but, no, really, pls tell me what you thought, that's always nice. thank you.

Love, Charli
 it's not an update, don't be daft.

listen up frens and frenemies,

this isnt a discontinuation note or anything, i've said i'l continue this for my main bitch sam and i'm
a people of my words

This aint getting updates until at LEAST july. my exams once again finish on the 24th (hey that's
one day earlier than last year) and since i removed my twt and curious cat from the end of chap 15
and deactivated, (because i felt uncomfortable with certain people having access to it,) i thought i
should. give y'all a heads up. I don't really have to beause this is my story, but i promised that the
update would be on the 1st of december and it wasnt. the reasons for that are various and deeply
pathetic. but. alas.

i'm probably in the worst state i've been in in all the four grand years that i have been depresso
nespresso ,and yanno what. it's chill. and i realised that the fact that my mom doesnt love me and
that my dad sees me as a waste of money aside, it's probably the internet's fault too. ( and my fault
for thinking the internet is my friend, woosh woosh). like. ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!???!

after that note i published after the trailer came out, worse shit happened. I know. how could
things possibly get worse. well, my people? they do. things always get worse before they get
worse. but everything was already so shit i was like things could NOT possibly get worse. guess
what. they did.

anyway. i would go into the specifics but like. what's the point. and anytime i talk to anyone about
anything i'm eventually gaslighted for it because anyone can talk about anything except charli.
lmao. and i keep bouncing back an forth between "everything's my fault and i'm so shit and i need
to stop ruining people's lives" and " i put my life on the line for everyone i meet, i sit there and i
talk them out of doing stupid shit, i'm whatever they need whenever they need me, wherever they
want me, 24/7." that's how i always am with people, I'm always exactly what they need. But as
soon as i need help, and they offer it, i realise, shit, either they don't really want to try as hard as
me, or no one can BE like me. Whenever anyone says it's okay, it's gonna be fine, or says the
random bullshit anyone says in situations like that, god, it just sound so,,,repetitive. monotonous.
like no one really means it. but when i tell you it's gonna be ok, when i tell people i'm gonna be
there, i mean it. but as soon as i need help and i refuse help because i don't KNOW how to receive
it, because no one ever taught me. I'm tired of being gaslighted for the very shitty mental health
that i help people with every single day of my life. you don't get to blame me for not knowing
how to accept help when no one even fucking tries to teach me the way I fucking teach people
how to love themselves. you don't get to do that. you don't get to tell me i made you more
depressed or that i made you more suicidal when you've wanted to slit your throat since you were
five, you motherfucker.

don't you fucking dare talk to me like that. You're not jin, I'm not yoongi. you're not my best
friend, you didnt grow up with me to see why I'm like this. you think you know so much because
i've told you my father hits me or that my mom doesnt even look at me, that she wishes i died. not
by suicide because god forbid her reputation blows up. but just quietly died. so she doesnt have to
deal with me anymore.

you don't know shit. you don't get to sit there and tell me I'm toxic, or that i made you worse off.
you'll never have a better friend than the friend i was before you started gaslighting me. because
you came to ME when you needed help. you came to ME when it was 2 am and no one else
answered your call. don't fucking pull that shit with me. and to all my friends who are sending
pussy anons lmao, it's not my fault you realize you couldn't help me. it's not my fault you're
incapable of putting another human being first. you don't get to make me feel guilty every single
second of every single day for being sick in the head. i don't blame you for making me sick,
because you didnt. so dont you fucking dare make me feel like that. especially if we were only
friends for three months.

so yeah. that's why there are no updates, or there werent any in the end of 2018. and right now
there arent any because these exams are really important to me. i fucked up last year because i was
too sad to function and that was purely my fault for letting the depresso get to me so fucking bad.
but this year im not gonna fuck up again. i dont think the internet is good for me at all.

I'm at a point where i dont even know if any of the friendships i had were real because i dont
know who said what and said what message. just think about how fucking shitty that is. half of
you are in love with moonchild yoongi because he's so fucking broken, you don't blame him for
what he is because you know what happened. so don't fucking blame me either. this is my story. i
am yoongi. you don't get to sit in your safe bubble and love broken characters but condemn the
real thing.

and to the people who've been reading this from the start and never dmed me and to whom i've
never talked but are still reading and still understand the story for what it is and who havent
forgotten the plot even though it's been 6 months and who keep rereading the chapters. thank you.
that was the original purpose of this story and the high of the human contact i never had made me
forget it. but that's why i'm doing this, so people can read and heal. so thank you. I'm only sorry to
those people, who've been waiting for so long, but there will be an update in july. and it'll be
double the six of 15 just to make up for this hiatus. between 100-150k.

that's all i have to say. i'm not going to share anything personal anymore. but i just wanted to make
sure the people who deserve to know, knowthat i'm very sick and i don't blame anyone for it.
blame is overrated, but i do blame the blame that all of you throw around so easily. that's fucked
up. you're a fucking adult and older than me by at least a couple years. get a grip, honestly.

so yeah, that's why i'm not writing.

you don't have to comment anything, I can't reply anyway. and this isnt a victimisation plan or a
pity party, but I said a lot of sorry's in 2018 that people didn't deserve to hear. and i don't want to
do that to myself anymore. i really don't deserve that. if sam isnt coming along then i might as well
be my own sam and take care of myself. and i'm doing that by taking back all the pieces people
took away from me in the last year. you don't get to keep me or my story like that.
also. ps. sorry for the crude NO TRANSLATION note at the beginning of the fic. a lot of
translators have translated and uploaded this in another language and i wanted to say it in a
langauge they'd understand, pun intended.

anyway.

Thank you. i love sam and tae and that's all.

Charli (no love this time because i ain't got any left to give,yeet. )

(btw ive already written a lot of 16. i'm just too busy and sad to write any more at this current
moment in time.)

peace

woosh. i feel better after writing this. i deserved it. and guess what. i didnt name no names, so
don't fuckin attack me lmao. i'm allowed to say what i want, this is my story. woosh, thanks.

love, sam

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