#hoseok imagine

[violetsiren90]

Make Me

Pairing: dom!Hoseok/sub/brat!f!Reader

Genre: Oneshot; hard smut; platonic(?) fluff; BDSM lifestyle; friends to fwb to?; canon-compliant (idolAU)

Summary: You've been friends with Hobi for years, and he's your comfort zone - but when he gets wind of a dark secret you drunkenly let slip, things between you take a sudden extreme change.

Warnings: 18+ (minors, dni); hardcore BDSM themes/relationships; full consent and safe-words ❤; Hobi is a hard dom (and such a good one); MC is a brat (mostly); dominance and submission; elements of primal play if you squint; mentions of wet dreams and sexual fantasies; sexual degradation (deg-play use of the word "b*tch"); mentions of MC's hair and hair pulling in a domination context; rough physical contact in a sexual context (manhandling); mentions of drinking; kink-outing; Jimin is a menace but also the absolute best; Hobi in the studio 👀; wrestling (sexual context); spanking (sexual context); p*ssy-stepping; p*ssy slapping; sexual frustration; some initial shame and embarrassment (reader needs to work some things out); reader tries to run away from herself a bit; temporary ghosting; working through new desires and feelings; dirty dancing; ALL the communication; establishment of sexual roles/partnership; talk about birth control and protection; Hobi curses a LOT during domination scenes; leash/collar play; oral sex (male receiving); throat fucking; Hobi slaps Reader's tongue with his c*ck; cum swallowing; aftercare; restraint play (sex swing, heehee 😈); manual clitoral stimulation; teasing; unprotected vaginal sex (reader is on birth control & previously consents); female orgasm from vaginal penetration; very brief implication of a possible brush with subspace.

Word Count: ~16,000 (Double its originally intended length, oops 🙈)

Author's note: HOLY HECK IT'S FINALLY HERE. When I say I had the time of my life writing this...like, wow. I was already under Hobi's spell, but now I am OFFICIALLY down in the worst way. This fic and it's premise were completely out of my comfort zone, but I couldn't be happier that I ventured into this world, because the research alone has given me so much respect for the BDSM community, and specifically the dom/sub relationship. I hope I did as much justice to that very special dynamic as possible between these two characters (with whom I have deeply fallen in love). If you read this, I hope so very much that you enjoy it!

If no one has told you yet today, you are loved and worthy of love! 🧜‍♀️💜

Acknowledgements: The biggest of thanks to @orchidyoonkook who not only beta-read this fic multiple times, and is practically the voice of this Jimin, but also gave me so much wonderful insight into the BDSM communicty from that big sexy brain of hers (which contains an incredible amount of knowledge about so many things, let me tell you!). But most of all, she gave me the encouragement I needed to get this out of my imagination and onto the page, even when I was doubting myself the most. Yoons, I love you! Couldn't have done it without you. 💕

"What?" Hoseok's wide grin stretches further as he regards your flustered face with giddy anticipation.

     You groan into your hands, willing the cushions of your friend's leather couch to swallow you like quicksand.

     "Fucking Jimin - I'll kill him!" you whine, pressing your fingers to your temples, and keeping your eyes glued to the hardwood of the studio floor.

     The rapper laughs as he swivels his baseball cap to sit backwards on his fluffy brown mop of hair. 

     "Come on! Tell me!" he insists, sprawling back in his rolling chair, the tips of his fingers touching deviously together as he regards you with twinkling eyes. 

You sneak a glance at him before sighing defeatedly, which only earns another chortle of laughter from across the room.

     Park fucking Jimin. You really were going to kill him. Too many bottles of soju the week prior saw you blacking out at the BTS member's pad, the one he shared with your mutual friend, Jung Hoseok. You woke up the next day, memories of the night before obscure concepts of debauchery merely alluded to by the taste of bile and the dull cranial throb of dehydration. When Jimin rather gleefully handed you, along with an iced americano, one of the booze-fueled revelations you had let slip, you begged and pleaded with him to erase the memory from his brain...or at the very least to take it to his grave. He made no such promises. And now, you are facing the man of the hour - the subject of your divulgement - who had apparently been informed that you harbored certain strong opinions in his regard. Humiliating.

     You flick mildly irritated eyes back up to your friend who waggles his brows in a way that makes you want to crack a smile and sock him at the same time.

     "Before I say anything, I want to know exactly what he told you," you demand, crossing your arms defensively, no cracked smile to be found.

     He rolls his eyes up to the corner of the ceiling in recollection.

     "He just said that you had gotten wasted and admitted something kinky...about me." 

     At the last two words he drops his voice dramatically low and pins you with a grin that is sickeningly predatory. Your pulse begins to hammer and you have to remind yourself that you are, in fact, capable of speech. 

Fuck, you think to yourself, it's happening. 

You can feel sweat starting to bead at your hairline. Maybe if you get it out there, just say it aloud, it will lose its power. Maybe the spell will be broken. Maybe he will laugh and you will laugh and you'll order lunch and keep irritating him while he's supposed to be working on a track. You're both adults, right? You whoosh out a breath. 

     Hobi is still looking at you, his bottom lip pushing up and the corners of his mouth tugging down in one of his little inverted smirks while his right leg bounces a little up and down.

It is just Hobi, after all, you tell yourself. Just Hobi. You are roundly aware that it may be a lie, but it seems to allow you just enough courage to jump.

     "Okay, okay!" you practically shout, and he giggles and stomps his feet, which admittedly makes revealing this particular chestnut a bit easier.

     "I told him…

“What?”

“I said..."

     "What?"

     "Oh, Christ! Fine!" And the rest comes out like water from a fire hose. "One time I came to drop off Jimin's charger and you were in dance practice and you were watching the guys and you had this look on your face - like you were pissed or something - and it was so unlike you and I got turned on and ended up having a fucking wet dream that you were stepping on my mother-fucking pussy, okay?! Are you satisfied now?!"

     You heave a sigh and throw yourself back against the cushions, hands over your face. How you just mustered the courage to form those actual words you haven't even the faintest notion - but it was going to be you or Jimin, and it might as well be you. After your heart has begun to return to its resting rate and you've heaved a few deep breaths you steel yourself against the certain impending onslaught of Hobi's laughter and general mockery...which doesn't come. 

You peek through your fingers to see that your friend has shifted in his chair, facing a bit away from you toward the inside of the room, leaning forward, his hands gripping the ends of the chair's armrests. His face looks a little troubled, or pensive, you can't tell which. You sit up and really look at him, suddenly worried. 

Did you just fuck things irrevocably up? 

That was an incredibly bizarre and intimate thing to admit. 

Shit.

     "Hobi?" you squeak, barely over a whisper, as you regard him.

     He tilts his head suddenly to look at you, quick like a bird, and when those dark eagle-eyes regard you in return, you feel like a small, helpless creature scurrying across the tundra. Nowhere to hide. A bead of sweat escapes its perch and slips down from your temple. As he utters his question of response, the air suddenly becomes as thick as the tropics.

     "Is that something that you'd want, Y/n? To be treated like that? To be...put in your place? Put down?"

     You don't answer him. You can't.

Your words, your breath, your coherent thoughts are stuck, inert, useless as your chest begins to rapidly rise and fall in heavy swells. Your eyes are locked on his face as if by magnetic force. He stands, his baggy Louis Vuitton tee falling over his gray sweats. He shoves his hands in the pockets and takes a step toward where you sit. His posture is relaxed. His gaze is anything but.

    "Is it?"

    You want to say you don't know. That you'd never considered it again. Never once recalled the image of it - of him - standing over you as the sole of his shoe punished your throbbing sex.

     "Fuck..." you breathe, and when he doesn't take his eyes from your squirming form, you relent. "...y-yeah."

     He takes another step toward you, slowly. He's crowding you now, as he looks down, and the proximity is almost more than you can bear.

     "You see," he remarks musingly, "I thought you were gonna say something funny - something ridiculous," he tilts his head to one side, the faintest hint of a smirk on his lips, "But that's not funny, Y/n. No, that's not funny at all. Because, as it turns out..."

     He leans down, his breath fanning over your face as he speaks. Mint and espresso. You shiver and close your eyes.

     "...that's something I can do."

...what? He can...h-he can....

     "Hoseok..." you whisper shakily, because it's all you can manage.

     You hear him laugh darkly and you don't look at him.

     "Hoseok?" he mimics, "Not, Hobi, huh? Hoseok when you're like this, is it?" 

     "When I'm like...what?" You practically whimper in complaint, eyes still pressed shut as your last line of defense.

     But any manner of defense is in vain as he answers your query, the words dripping from his lips slowly like honey, sickly like venom - 

     "When you're a filthy, pathetic little slut."

     A whine escapes you at the complete and utter shock of his words. Suddenly you clamp your thighs together – whether to provide friction or obscurity to your quickly dampening cunt you are unsure. When he takes your jaw between his fingers and roughly jerks your chin upwards, your eyes flutter frantically open. 

     "Is this what you want?" he hisses, "For me to have my way with you like a needy whore?"

Fuck, is this happening? This is really happening. Your mind reels, but that's alright - it stopped doing the thinking when he got up out of that chair. Something primal in you had taken over, something that's been starving for so long – something that yearns to feed.

     You do your best to nod with your chin in his grip. He swallows thickly, his eyes darting to your lips, and then back up to yours. His pupils are blown, his eyes almost wholly black as they trace over your face. Suddenly his hand slips from your chin to the nape of your neck where his hand tangles in your hair and his head drops to the side, his gaze softening.

     "I need you to say it, Y/n, are you sure you want to do this?" he asks, his voice so, so low but without the edge that sends ice through your veins. 

His voice. He's asking you as someone who cares about you, cares what you want – your friend. 

Do you want this? No...you don't want it. You need it.

     "Y-yes! Yes, Hobi - I want this," you find yourself stumbling over the words to get them out.

     So quickly and so assured. Have you ever been this certain of anything in your life? His fingers dance against the nape of your neck and you sigh as his eyes travel all over your body.

You want to hide. You want to strip down. You want to run and you want him to chase you. You want him to punish you when he catches you. You are sick with want.  

     "A safe word, baby, we need a safe word," he nudges your racing mind back into the current moment with his saccharine words.

     You blink, your mind running up against the sudden pet name – one that he has never uttered in a tone like this before – as it scrambles for something obvious and yet not ridiculous. Something simple maybe...a flower...?

     "Foxglove," you say, and he raises his brows with a grin.

     "Foxglove it is," he acquiesces. "So if you ever want me to stop, ever – okay? You say that. Foxglove." 

     You nod.

     "Say it for me," he whispers, and you shiver again. Fuck.

     "Foxglove." It's slow and thick leaving your mouth.

     "Good girl," he purrs. Butterflies erupt in your rib-cage and your eyelids flutter. "How hard do you want it?" He asks, "How rough?"

     You scramble to find your voice.

     "Pretty rough, I think," you posit, a bit unsure of what that means.

     He hums in response, his brows knitting in thought. You were going to have to give him something to go on, you could see that.

     "I..." you stammer, "I want you to...to punish me. I want you to...to hurt me a little."

     He raises a brow - looks at you, just stares as if considering. Then suddenly you know what to say.

     "See...I'm not a good girl," you insist tilting your head back a bit haughtily, a bit defiantly. Being a good girl had gotten you butterflies, but that's not what you wanted right now. That's not what every cell of your body was screaming for.

  He's grinning wickedly again - his other hand is slipping out of his pocket and the one in your hair is gripping at the roots.

     "Hm. You're not are you?" he asks, his voice as dark and cold as the Pacific once again.

     "No, Hobi," you whisper. 

And suddenly your world is tilted on its axis as he tightens his fingers against your scalp and yanks your head back, sending a searing pain shooting through your skin as he stoops to hiss in your ear.

     "That's Hoseok, you pretty little bitch."

     You let out a whimper so needy it's nearly a sob. Your heartbeat is pounding between your legs. He lets go of your hair as roughly as he grabbed it and goes to lock the door and your stomach flips - you are totally and completely at his mercy. It's a little bit terrifying and absolutely exhilarating.

When he comes to loom over you again, you decide just exactly where you stand in all this. You know exactly what you want.

You glare up at him. He narrows his eyes.

     "You gonna listen, hm?"

It's not a question, you know it's not - it's a command. But you have one, just one, of your own...

     "Make me."

     His eyes go wide and wild.

     "So that's how it's gonna be?"

     The words are heavy and dark, but you think his mouth twitches up at the corner when you arch a recalcitrant brow in response.

     He hums and licks his lips, and you're on the verge of saying something about getting on with it when his hand darts out and fists a chunk of your hair, yanking it back with a force that makes your head spin. He's glaring down at you with eyes so hard and menacing that your rebuttal dies on your tongue. The hand at your nape squeezes and the pressure that seers your scalp is exquisite, spilling a moan from your lips as your arousal becomes more than you are capable of repressing.

     "Don't you challenge me, brat," he rumbles from low in his chest as his hand twists against your head and lowers your back to press against the black leather.

     You whine in protest, and your palms fly up to shove at him, but his reflexes are like lightning as he snatches your wrists away to pin them above you. Your head spins, eyes losing focus as your whole body flushes with warmth in the wake of his domineering aggression. 

     You wriggle in his hold, relishing in how his grip tightens and the cold steel in his eyes glints as you resist him.

     A knee slides between your legs as he leans over you menacingly, close enough for the padlock charm around his neck to lightly tap your raised chin. Good girl, it seems to whisper in Hoseok's voice, stay put.

     Yeah, fuck that.

     You snatch the necklace up between your teeth and yank it to the side where it bites sharply into the corner of your mouth.

     The sudden motion catches him off guard and he falters, crashing down on top of you with a noise of surprise and losing control of your hands.

     You scramble against him, rolling both of you to the floor with a thud.

     Your heart is hammering in your chest.

     You hear him grunt, his strong hands grappling with your thrashing form, and you catch just a glimpse of his shining eyes and white clenched teeth as he flips you over onto your stomach, hands in a vice grip at the small of your back and your cheek pressing into the cold, hard laminate.

     You start to move again but he pushes his weight into the slender fingers splayed over your spine with a low rumble in the back of his throat and you still with a groan.

     You're pressed so deliciously firmly to the floor. You can feel arousal soaking your panties as your nerves alight everywhere he has wrested control of you. You can hear him pant, proof of his efforts, and the image of his provoked expression from seconds previous flashes through your mind.

He seemed so cool and collected before. So unbothered. To think that his blood is up and because of you? You let out a trembling breath.

     "Fuck," he hisses lowly, then bends to bring his lips to the shell of your ear.

They're soft as they drag over your skin there, feather light. Your whole body shakes, and you feel his mouth pause.

     "I don't know who the hell you think you are," he whispers cruelly, "But you were right about one thing...you're not a good girl. You're a disobedient little harlot who needs to be taught the rules of this house." 

      You whimper pathetically as he presses into you even more intensely, restricting the expansion of your lungs.

     "Now," he says nosing at your exposed neck as he begins to pull away, "how about we teach you a lesson or two, hm?"

     You feel his weight leave your back, and see his figure rock back on his heels out of the corner of your eye. You are just on the verge of retaliating again when you let out a yelp at the sudden shock of your hips being yanked upward by the back belt loop of your denim shorts. Hoseok lets go of your hands and they fly forward to brace yourself as your ass raises into the air and your knees move toward your chest.

     And all at once you know what's coming and you feel your pussy clench in the mere anticipation of -

     Smack!

     You let out a wanton wail as the sharp crack of his hand against your right glute jolts through your body like a lightning strike and ends with a slam at your swollen clit.

     Again - harder! Your mind screams. So you press out a whinging moan of complaint.

     SMACK!

     It has the desired effect.

     CRACK!

     Your jaw is slack, but no sound escapes as he punishes you. It hurts. Fuck, it hurts. As if he's attempting to brand your ass with the shape of his hand. But holy hell is it making you drip. Every slap jolts your body and brings the tiniest friction to where you're neediest. Where you've never been needier in your life.

     Please punish my pussy....

     You try to mumble the words but all you can do is drool onto the floor as he deals out pleasure and pain from above.

     And then he stops. You feel hands deftly and swiftly rolling you to lie on your back.

You blink up through bleary eyes, drawing a hand across your mouth to wipe the spit away. Your shoulders are sore.

     He's leaning over you, a hand still on your hip, eyes scanning your face.

     "What? Did you say something? You need to speak up."

     His tone is still biting but his eyes seem to hold a genuine question. Concern.

     Warmth floods your chest as it registers that he wants to be able to hear you if you need him to. If you want to stop. But the light has never been so goddamned green.

     "Want..." you murmur, "...more, Hoseok."

     He curses, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as he leans forward to take your jaw in his hand again. He rakes his gaze over your soft, swollen features, unfocused eyes, and heaving chest.

     "Look at you so fucked out and all I did was smack that gorgeous ass." 

     He licks his lips, shaking his head in seeming disbelief as he releases your chin with a little shove. He leans back, dragging his hands over your bare thighs.

    "More, hm?" he hums. 

     You nod eagerly.

     He purses his lips and considers you through narrowed eyes, and you sense that if you want him to give you what you so desperately desire, you're going to have to show him you can take it - and take orders. You lay still, hands twitching at your sides as you look up at him through wide eyes. 

     He continues to run his fingertips up and down your legs as he breathes out a long relenting sigh.

     "Alright," he relents, "You took your punishment well, so you should be rewarded, I suppose."

     You clamp your bottom lip between your teeth, your heart rate rising again at the prospect.

     He tilts forward, looming over you again as he asks the question you've been dying to answer since you woke up breathless all those weeks ago.

     "What does my little brat want me to do to her? Let's see if she can use her words."

     You blink up at him, unsure if you have permission to speak...or how to put your request into words that won't make you want to immediately melt through the floorboards.

     "Cat got your tongue?" Hoseok sneers, pretty, heart-shaped lips curling up at one side.

     His hat discarded in your tussle, wavy brown tresses hang down over his brow and his eyes sparkle darkly through them. His features are so beautiful - their loveliness thrown into sharp relief by the flinty pitilessness of their expression.

     You're tempted to continue simply soaking him in, if not for the pounding ache in your core demanding that you find your voice.

     "I...I want..." your lips tremble as you will yourself to tell him what you need.

     Perhaps he senses that you require a little encouragement, because his eyes harden and he digs the edges of his nails into the flesh of your knees, causing you to yelp and moan and then...

     "I want you to step on my pussy! Please..." You press out your request with the last of the breath in your lungs.         

     Hoseok's eyes flutter shut at the last word of your plea.

     "Say that again," he commands in a husky whisper, and even without further specification, somehow, you know.     

     "Please..." You groan, letting your legs drop open demurely.

     His eyes are still closed, but he can feel the action with his hands, which have now slipped just inside your knees to your inner thighs. He inhales deeply through his nose, before exhaling with a shuddering breath. When his lids languidly raise again the piercing onyx of what they have unveiled is pinning you to the floor with more deadly force than even his hands ever could. Your pulse pounds in your cunt, your head still swimming from your previous position as he pushes himself up to stand. 

     As you blink up at Hoseok towering over you, standing between your splayed thighs with his midnight gaze boring into the damp denim covering your heat, something inside you long ajar quietly but firmly clicks into place. 

     "Tell me, brat" he seethes, eyes roving your trembling form stretched out beneath him, "Who makes the rules in this house?"

     "Hoseok-ssi," you whimper, so needy the ache is beginning to hurt.

     Every cell of your body is awake with a desperate anticipation that only he can satisfy...or deny.

     You have never felt more alive.

     And then something happens and your brain shuts off entirely. 

Everything vanishes: the studio, the traffic outside the western window, the city of Seoul and South Korea and the whole goddamned planet rolling around in the Milky Way. Nothing exists except the tip of Hoseok's Air Jordan ghosting over the swell of your crotch. 

     Your mouth waters as his foot slowly slides forward, then goes completely dry as you feel it settle with the sole aligned directly with your slit. His eyes flick up to your face, but you can't hold his gaze for more than a millisecond as he begins to apply pressure to your mound.

     Your eyes roll back in your skull, head lolling as your neck goes slack, lips parted in a silent scream as the man above you presses down with a low hum over your sex. The seam of your shorts is biting deliciously into the tender flesh of your clit, sending shockwaves through your core like a live wire, and when he rolls his foot in a circular motion you think you see god. 

You do scream then, but it's nothing more than a strangled sound in your throat as your fantasies materialize and he leans his weight into his stance, punishing the soft fat of your cunt with the sole of his shoe.

     You're going to cum. He's barely touched you and you're going to cum. He seems to see it in the twisted ecstasy of your features as his lids hood his eyes and filth begins to spill from his lips.

     "Do you like that, brat?" he taunts, "That's what you get when you're a good little girl for Hoseok -  you get your pretty wet cun-"  

     Click jangle clack - boom boom boom! 

     Hobi springs away from you, hopping back on one foot with wide eyes as a succession of rapid knocks follow the stilted motions of the locked door handle. You scramble up from the floor, heart pounding and breath coming fast as you toss yourself into the corner of the couch. 

     Boom, boom, boom!

     "Hyung, are you naked or something?" comes a familiar if muffled voice from the other side of the wall.

     You fumble for your phone and Hoseok runs a hand through his hair and takes a deep breath before pulling open the door.

     The man belonging to the impatient knocks and muffled accusations stumbles headlong into the studio, the locked entrance against which he had pressed his ear and most of his weight having been pulled out from under him.

"Jimi...nie...?" Hobi greets his bandmate and his eyes track the other's toppling form with surprise and a hint of agitation. 

     Yoongi ambles in casually behind him, sipping a dewy americano through a straw, a beanie sitting atop his ashy locks gnomishly.

     Jimin nimbly pushes himself to a stand from where he had crashed against Hobi's desk, not a strand of his coiffed platinum blond hair askew as he spins around face to the dance captain. But before he can get out a greeting or an excuse for his manner of entrance he freezes as he spots you in the corner.

His eyes flick to Hobi's hat on the floor, then to the pink flush on the apples of his friend's cheeks. When Jimin's eyes slide back over to where you are curled into your nook, eyeing him warily over the tiny shield of your phone, his plush lips slowly spread into a sickeningly devious smile.

     Hobi scoops his hat up off the floor and tugs in back on before taking a seat, carefully, you notice - thighs pressed together and leaning forward - in his rolling chair. The implication of his posture has you sweating into your shirt.

You need to get it the fuck together.

     "If I would have known you were here I'd have brought you a kimbap," Jimin says, wicked grin still plastered on his face as he holds up a plastic convenience store bag.

     You blink. 

     "Oh, uh, that's okay..." you bluster, waving your hand. "I'm not hungry anyway." 

     It's true. You just lost your appetite for the foreseeable future, stomach a raging sea of nerves as Jimin places the bag on the desk.

     Yoongi shuffles over to sit at the other end of the couch, raising his free hand and drawing his mouth into a straight line in greeting. You manage your own tight-lipped grin and flash him a peace sign, hoping you did it quickly enough that the tremor in your hand went unnoticed.

     "To what do I owe this visit from my bros?" Hobi asks from where he's turned toward his computer screen to save the neglected file. 

His voice is cheerful, but you can hear the strain - how it's pitched just half a tone too high - and Jimin's eyes are still on you.

     "I dragged Yoongi hyung out for some fresh air. I took him to lunch and grabbed you a snack on the way back."

     "Yah, you took me to lunch? Then why did I pay?" Yoongi grumbles from beside you, his bare features pinched into a grumpy pout that makes him look particularly feline.

     "Because you love me," Jimin coos at him and the older musician's mouth quirks up into a smile he can't seem to repress. 

     "What are you working on, Hoba? Which track?" Yoongi murmurs around the straw between his lips, blinking patiently as Hobi seems to shake himself, pulling his hat off to run a hand through his hair before readjusting it on his head and swiveling back toward his computer screen.

     He hits play on the track and Yoongi leaves the couch to join the other two.

     This is all so normal, so typical of the guys - the affectionate repartee and chat about ongoing projects. And on an average day, you'd have joined right in. 

But today is not an average day. 

No.

Five minutes ago, you were spread-eagle on the floor six inches from where Jimin stands, with Hoseok's shoe on your bits.

     You have to get out of here.

     "I'm, uh, I'm gonna head out, boys," you muster, making a beeline for the door as soon as the inertia of your decision gives you the courage to peel yourself from the corner of the couch.

     "You're leaving?" Jimin's voice quips in a saccharine whine, with the slightest edge that makes you avoid his eyes as you slip out with a parting wave.

You do catch Hoseok's expression, whose head snaps up at your parting movements. His brows furrow and his lips part, looking as if he wants to say something, but he doesn't.

     And then you're gone.

    Your smart watch trills as your heart rate enters cardio territory. Your chest is heaving, breath coming heavy as the pliant cushion of your couch gives way to the crown of your head pressing back into it, eyes pinched shut and hand shoved down your pants. 

The bullet vibrator you have pressed to your clit is doing everything it should, and you feel it coming - your orgasm. 6:12pm on a Tuesday and it's already your third self-love session of the day. 

You tense your thighs, urging the building pressure in your core to boil over, and quickly. You groan and grit your teeth as your administering hand starts to shake. You writhe and whimper for a moment. And then it's over.

     You stare up at the ceiling of your apartment, breathlessly huffing out a despondent sigh as the empty ache in your chest returns. It has become your loathsomely devoted companion in every waking moment over the last ten days, filling you with an unshakable restlessness and sickly discontent.

     Nothing can slake it. Not reality TV. Not Cabernet Sauvignon. Not overtime hours. Not ASMR wood-soup videos. Not yoga. Not Ben and Jerry's. Not midnight runs on your NordicTrack. Not fucking yourself to climax on every single goddamned toy you own. 

     The little monster you roused the weekend before last in Hope World hasn't returned to sleep. No. She is wide awake. And she seems to grow more ravenous with each passing day. 

At first you tried to ignore her, but she kept you up into the long, bleak hours of the night. And so, in a fuzzy, staticky haze some time after midnight a number of days ago you typed some words into a search engine that would probably have your assigned FBI agent doing a spit-take.

     The thing is, you'd never seen "50 Shades of Grey", you'd never been interested. It wasn't as if you were a prude - hardly! You have always enjoyed sex, both intimate and recreational. In fact, it has always been one of your favored methods of blowing off steam, and you knew quite well how to please yourself and how to guide partners in doing the same.

     You have never had problems in taking what you wanted in life, in taking charge and ensuring that things play out your way – it's what makes you so good at your job, and valued by your peers who know that they can rely on you to take the reins and rise to the occasion.

     So when you suddenly stumbled unprepared into the world of BDSM, your visceral reaction to the concept of submission left you wondering...why?

Why, why, why? 

Why does this do it for you? Why did your very linear, stable existence have to be completely disrupted by this discovery? And most urgently of all, why, for the love of everything sacred, did all the porn in the whole wide world fail to accomplish even a fraction of the effect of Jung Hoseok's size 9 sneaker? It's all too overwhelming to process.

     You let out a frustrated whine as you pull your sticky, cramped hand, still clutching the little purple bullet, from the confines of your pants. Your phone buzzes on the coffee table and you can see the notification is from Jimin. You've been ignoring his calls and pleading texts to meet up, or just pick up. You can't face him. Not after ghosting Hobi.

     You feel a pang twist in your stomach as you haul yourself toward the shower, hoping the hot water will wash away the guilt you feel for ignoring Hoseok outright. He texted you almost immediately after you left the studio, asking if you were alright. You let him know that you were, with just one word: yeah.

     You had typed and retyped that response. "Yeah, thanks" seemed too weird. Like, thanks for what? Almost making you cum with the tip of his shoe? No. "Yeah, sorry" felt pathetic. What were you apologizing for? It seemed to imply...regret? Or fault. Neither of which would have come from a genuine place. And beyond a simple affirmation, you certainly didn't have words. So, "yeah" it was. He tried to call you later that evening, but you didn't pick up. You were already way up in your head by then. It had been radio silence since.

     You toss a coconut steamer onto the wet shower tiles and sigh, catching a glimpse of your face in the bathroom mirror as you slide the glass door shut.

     "Coward," you mutter as you close your eyes and slip under the cleansing stream.

     You're wrapped up in a blanket cocoon and sipping a cup of sleepy-time tea, trying to distract yourself from the messy tangle of emotions waging war across your various chakras with season two of Single's Inferno, when a knock on the door startles you out of your simmering reverie. You heave yourself off the carpeted floor of your living room and scoot toward the door like a fleecy Jabba the Hutt to peek through the peephole.

     Your vision is obscured as another eye looks back at you from the other side of the concave glass. You jump back, dropping your blanket shroud in a pile around your feet and let out a yelp of alarm. You slam a hand over the peep hole as giggles erupt on the other side.

     "Yah! I know you're in there - so let me in!"

     Your entire body sags against the door in relief as you recognize the voice of the would-be intruder. You swing the door open to grant him exasperated entrance.

     "Park Jimin, you just took ten years off my life! Creep," you bluster, gathering the blanket up around your body as you retreat back into your apartment. 

You plop down again in front of the TV, knowing that Jimin came to either talk you into going out or to just talk, and either way, you are truly not in the mood. Your friend snickers behind you, sauntering into your kitchen. He returns with a beer, bringing the frosty green bottle to his lips before sinking into an armchair and regarding you with an expression that waivers between amusement, pity, and disgust.

     "You look awful," he remarks, taking another swig as his gaze roves your unkempt appearance.

     Your features twist into a frown, eyes never leaving the television.

     "You don't get to barge into my apartment, steal my booze, then insult me, Park," you snip, burrowing further down into the fluffy mass encasing your body.

     Jimin raises a brow, a small smile still playing on his lips as he follows your eyes to the television where YouTuber Dex and professional model Lim Minsu flirtatiously splash about in a ridiculously opulent indoor swimming pool.

     "Fuck, Dex is hot," Jimin mutters.

     "For some reason he reminds me of Jungkook," you smirk, glancing over at him for the first time since he arrived.

     He grimaces theatrically.

     "I don't see it."

     The contestant on the screen flashes his Paradise companion a blinding smile and raises a tattooed arm to cut through the water, content to show off his stroke precision as his date watches on. The resolve on Jimin's face falters .

     "Yeah, well...Dex is hotter."

     You scoff.

     "Yeah, no. Kook-ah is definitely hotter."

     "For the love of god, just don't tell him that, okay?" Jimin pleads, "That kid is insufferable enough these days."

     "You love him."

     He hides a smile behind another sip of Hite.

     "Why did you ghost Hobi hyung?"

     Jimin blinks innocent eyes at you, as if he hasn't just dumped the last week and a half of silent agony over your head like a bucket of ice water. But the chill is momentary, because the next second your body feels like an oven. You stammer.

     "I-I...ghost him? I didn't ghost anyone...I'm busy...I..." you trail off weakly as your friend's unimpressed and knowing gaze bores into your soul.

     You sigh and scrub your hands over your face.

     "Because I'm a big chicken, okay?" You murmur into your palms.

     You don't know why, but you feel like crying. When you pull your hands away from your face, Jimin must see it because suddenly he's on the couch wrapping you in the kind of hug that reminds you why he's your ride-or-die, and in the safety of his embrace the tears begin to fall. Days of being alone with yourself and your conflicted feelings pour from your ducts and onto the front of Jimin's bright yellow flannel. He coos words of reassurance, admonishing your tears, as he strokes your hair.

     "Talk to me, you silly goose," he hums with an endeared chuckle. 

     You sniff and hiccup as you pull away, wiping your puffy eyes.

     "I don't even know what to say, Minnie...I don't know what's wrong with me..."

     Jimin smiles and grabs a few tissues from the box on the coffee table, dabbing them against your nose.

     "Well, first of all, nothing is wrong with you. But second of all, tell me what is bothering you."

     You heave a dramatic sigh.

     "If I tell you, you have to swear - and I mean swear - that you will not make fun of me or tell anyone else. And I mean not Taehyung, not Yoongi, not anyone, you hear me?" 

     He smirks, but nods in assent. You narrow your eyes at him.

     "Say it. Out loud." You demand warily.

     Jimin rolls his eyes and throws up his hands.

     "Yah! Okay! I won't tell anyone," he quips mockingly.

     You sigh again and draw your knees up to your chest, wrapping your arms around them. If this gets too hard to talk about with eye-contact at least you'll have a place to hide your bashful face.

      "I..." you start softly, not sure where to begin except the beginning, "Re-remember that thing I told you when we got plastered a little while back...about...Hobi?"

     Jimin's lips quirk at the corners as he nods.

     "Well...the thing is...wait!" You cut yourself off, suddenly gripped by a notion that has you prematurely flustered and indignant. "What did he tell you?"

     Jimin shakes his head, a small smile still playing on his full lips.

     "Nothing," he responds, looking you dead in the eye in a way that has you almost believing he's telling the truth. 

     "No, really," you press.

     Jimin leans back against the arm of the couch from where he faces you, running a hand through his hair and drawing his legs up to criss-cross in front of him.

     "Jagi, this is Hobi hyung we're talking about. You think he would do that? He has too much respect for you. He would never. Not to anyone. Not even me."

     Your chest floods with relief, affection, and regret. Fuck. Of course he wouldn't. He was too mature of a person for that. Too considerate. Too lovely. And you hadn't even had the gumption to speak to him for the last ten days beyond a mono-syllabic SMS. Jimin watches your expression do emotional acrobatics.

     "So..." he offers encouragingly, "something...happened....between you guys, right? That day Yoongi hyung and I showed up? We...uh...interrupted something, didn't we?" He can't help a devilish smile, eyes twinkling as he carefully phrases his query.

     You bury your face into your knees and squeak out an affirmation. Jimin lets out a bright laugh and you immediately raise your burning face in a scowl.

     "Hey! You said you wouldn't-" 

     He waves his hands in apology as he attempts to gain his composure.

     "Mianhae, mianhae! I'm not laughing at you!" He insists, leaning forward to grab your swatting hands by the wrists.

     "Sounds kind of like you are!" You huff, yanking your arms from his grasp.

     "So..." Jimin hums, tilting his head to track your gaze as you try again to hide your face, "If he's down, and you're down...what's the problem? Why did you run and hide? Did your feelings change?"

     You slowly raise your eyes to his, searching them as you decide just how much you're willing to tell him right now. You chew on your bottom lip as you realize you need to get it out. All of it. You drop your legs to mirror Jimin's posture, lowering your defenses with your millionth-and-first sigh of the evening.

     "Okay...well..." you muse, fiddling with the blanket still draped over your lap. "You know how I told you that stuff that I...dreamt...about Hobi?"

     Jimin nods.

     "Well...something did kind of happen...and well..." you trail off as Jimin raises his brows expectantly.

     "Oh, fuck it!" you bluster, exhausted by your own attempts at delicacy. "He dominated me and I liked it. I really really liked it, okay? And it freaked. me. the fuck. out. Like...I've neeeeever felt that way before about fooling around. It wasn't just fun, or, like, pleasurable...it was...almost..." you search for the words as Jimin stares at you raptly. "...Freeing? Like, a relief. Like, a 'where has this shit been all my life' moment."

     Jimin hums and nods, interlacing his fingers and leaning his chin against his knuckles.

     "Like...I don't know...I'm a very independent person. And capable. And, yeah, things have been crazy stressful at work, and I have a lot on my plate...but I handle it, you know? In fact, I don't just handle it, I kind of...enjoy the pressure of leadership and responsibility? It drives me. I've always been like that, in every area of my life..." 

     Jimin smiles and lets out a sound of recognition.

     "So the one who wears the crown is wondering why it feels so good to be...subjected?" He waggles his brows. You roll your eyes.

     "Grow up, dude."

     "Am I right, though? I'm right."

     You find yourself chewing your bottom lip again.

     "Essentially. I like power. I like control. What is this sudden obsession with losing it? It's...scary. And confusing."

     Jimin smiles. 

     "You know, it's actually not that uncommon, from what I understand," he states, reaching for his abandoned beer on the coffee table.

     You quirk an eyebrow.

    "I mean, everyone is different, and this is a journey you're going to have to take for yourself to get the answers, but from what I know about the BDSM community, it's not unusual for people who are in positions of power to crave a bit of a...reprieve."

     "Really?"

     "Yeah," he nods, reclining back again against the arm of the couch, "The bedroom is a good place to let your walls down. Maybe the only place, for some people. And with a trusted partner it can even be healing to play a different role than you do in other parts of your life."

     It's your turn to smirk.

     "You talk as if you know," you prod playfully, shoving your toes into his shin. He smiles that wicked smile of his and you laugh.

     "What I'm trying to say is, maybe it's not just about the...dynamics. Maybe it's also that it's Hobi hyung. He knows you. You know him, too. You trust each other. Maybe you could get to know each other in a new way. Be something for each other that you both need." He takes the last sip of his beer and twirls the bottle in his hands, gazing at you with a gentle thoughtfulness.

     You nod slowly, digesting his newly offered perspective.

     "So," you muse, raising your eyes to him again, "You think he needs it too?" 

     Jimin shrugs. 

     "Only he could tell you that for sure. But I do know this, he's awfully good at being bossy, and doesn't get a lot of opportunity to run the show - outside of dance practice, that is."

     Chuckling nervously at the thought, you try your best to conceal the spark that has crackled to life from the burning coals inside you at the mention of his natural command of authority. 

     "Hey," Jimin posits with a grin, "Maybe if he's spanking you he'll go a little easier on us when we screw up the choreo..."

     "EXCUSE ME THE FU-WHAT?!" You shriek, snatching up a throw pillow to beat him mercilessly as he falls in raucous laughter to the floor.

     Turning to glance over your shoulder at your reflection in the mirror, you smooth your hands over the back of the svelte black bodycon number you've donned for the evening. You're a vision in monochrome, having paired your LBD with sleek stilettos and dark smokey eyes with heavy lashes.

     Your phone buzzes, indicating that your ride share is close by. Butterflies flutter in your belly as you reach for the finishing touch to your outfit: a velvety black choker with a sliver o-ring studded in colorless topaz. It's just fashionable enough to still look like a necklace, but it gives you a bit of a thrill to know that it's not. To know what's tucked inside your purse to accompany it. To wonder if, going unnoticed by most, it will catch a certain pair of dark eyes.

     The drive across town to reach the Jihope residence never felt so long. You try your best to calm your nerves over the last few blocks of distance - it��s just a party, after all, and kind of a silly one at that. 

During Jimin's last visit, he mentioned that he and Hobi would be throwing a Black Day party for all of their single friends the following weekend, and after dodging his attempts at socialization so religiously of late, you felt you owed it to him to attend.     

     Black Day had never been something your group of friends had ever observed before, but it was incredibly chic to do so this year, for whatever reason. And of course, all the organizing duo of the soiree needed was the slightest excuse for Jimin to party and Hobi to host.

     Upon arriving at the building, you can already hear the music pumping from the top floor, and the chatter of guests spilling out onto the terrace. You present your ID to the security guard at the front gate, and are escorted to a private elevator that whisks you up to the penthouse. Being quite successful and comfortable yourself, you still find yourself surprised when reminded of the sheer net worth of your humble, down-to-earth Bangtan pals. Hobi is worth the most, and while he is an excellent investor and a generous philanthropist, he also likes to show out, and in style.

     You take a deep breath as you buzz the bell.

     The door swings open to reveal a handsome young man in a black t-shirt tucked into baggy dark-wash jeans, his fluffy brown hair parted in the middle and his ears glinting with rows of silver hoops. His round eyes scrunch into little moons and he flashes an adorable toothy grin, endearingly lopsided where it stretches deeper against the little orbital piercing at the right side of his bottom lip.

“Noona!" he growls, pulling you into a bear hug. "Where have you been? The last two times we went to noraebang there was no one to sing Through the Night with me!"   

     "Ah...hah...", you nervously chuckle, pulling away from his embrace as you search your brain for an excuse other than business.

     "I'll sing with you, Googie!"  

     You turn to see your salvation from further explanation in the form of a giggling young woman bouncing up to clutch Jungkook's arm and steady herself as she sways on her platform heels. She smells like soju and fruity perfume.

     You smirk and thank her, patting her hand where it clutches your friend's tattooed forearm before she's dragging him away down the hall.

     "Make sure she stays hydrated!" You call after him with a shake of your head, making your way through the throng of guests to the bar area. 

     The furnishings of the residence are a study in classy postmodern minimalism, punctuated with abstract urban art – though you notice that some of the Kaws pieces are missing, likely stored away for safekeeping from rowdy party-goers. 

     The sleek chrome and granite full-service bar is stocked with liquor and beer, and a commissioned mixologist is crafting darkly colored cocktails. A buffet-style spread offers the traditional jjajangmyeon and an assortment of other delicious eats.

     The spacious dining area is littered with small tables draped in black linens, each bearing centerpieces of hellebore, leather leaf, black carnations, and eucalyptus. The living room has been converted to a dance floor, complete with a glittering disco ball. House music booms through the built-in speaker system as guests in groups and pairs move to the beat.

     You glance over a drink menu of themed cocktails as a voice sounds from over your shoulder. 

     "I recommend the Down With Love."

     Turning, you flash the speaker a grin.

     "Alright, but is it giving Judy or Barbara?"

     Taehyung raises a disparaging brow.

     "It's a gimlet. Judy, obviously."

     You chuckle, putting in your order for the suggested beverage.

     "You look good," he remarks, gesturing at you with the unlit cigarette tucked between his first two fingers, his other hand slipped into his pocket as he leans against the wall.

     He doesn't look bad himself, you think, in his black satin top and flared Merlot trousers.

     "Thanks," you smile as the bartender hands over an inky concoction garnished with a grapefruit slice twisted into the shape of a heart and run through with a toothpick.

     You eye it skeptically.

     "How do they make it black?"

     "Activated charcoal. C'mon."

     Tae links your arm through his and weaves through the bustle to a table of familiar faces. Yoongi raises a whiskey tumbler in greeting and you clink your glass with his, sliding into a chair next to Taehyung and reaching over to give Namjoon's arm an affectionate squeeze. It seems that all the members have turned up, save Seokjin, who's been a taken man three years strong.

     You fall into easy conversation with the boys, and just when your difference of opinion with Namjoon over Lee Bul's latest installation piece is developing into a full-blown debate, Jimin slides up to the table and spills onto Taehyung's lap.

     "None of you are dancing!" He whines breathlessly, poking Tae's cheek as the other man smiles shyly.

     "Jungkook is," Yoongi rebuts, taking another bite of jjajangmyeon.

     He's not wrong, though to your amusement, the maknae appears to be getting danced on more than anything else.

    "Where's Hobi hyung?" Tae queries, prodding gently at Jimin's full cheek in return.

     Jimin's eyes dart to you, a smirk spreading slowly across his lips as his gaze rakes up from your heels to the choker around your neck.

     "Good question," he hums, rising to take your hand and pull you up from your seat. "Let's go find him."

     Jimin heads for the French doors at the far end of space that lead onto the terrace. They're propped open, and cool evening air floods the apartment, keeping the atmosphere from suffocating under the warmth of body heat and the scent of rich food.

     "Jimin!" You hiss, as you approach the rooftop patio, "What are you doing? This is the opposite of subtle!"

    He laughs merrily.

     "You're so cute when you're flustered!"

     You don't have any more time to grumble as you emerge under the darkening sky, just beginning to speckle with stars barely visible against the glow of string lights wrapped around the cozy outdoor enclosure. There's a small electric fire pit surrounded by plush patio furniture, and live greenery all around.

     The energy is much more relaxed than within, but even so, you feel your pulse quicken as Jimin guides you toward a small group at the corner of the terrace. You recognize a few of the men and women gathered as industry producers, but none of that really matters because all your brain can register is him.

     And holy shit does he look good.

     He's arresting sophistication and effortless elegance. A silk charcoal dress shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbow, ripples along the lines of his torso - save where the top three buttons have been neglected to expose the smooth planes of his toned chest. His lean, athletic legs seem even longer than usual in fitted black slacks, his pretty wrists and fingers sparkling with jewelry where his thumbs are slipped into his pockets. His hair has been slicked back from his face, and his eyes are just barely obscured by a pair of lightly tinted wire-rimmed aviators. That brilliant, warm heart-shaped smile cuts through all the sharp darkness of his garb, and your breath catches in your chest when Jimin calls out to him.

     "Hyung!"

     As Hoseok's eyes meet yours the grin stretched across his face falters, but he quickly regains composure.

     "Eyyy," he greets you, striding forward and wrapping his arm around your shoulders to pull you into a side hug. Of course he smells as incredible as he looks.

     "Hi, Hobi," you murmur a bit shyly, returning his embrace.

     "Hyung," Jimin pouts cutely, "Save us! She was putting our guests to sleep talking to Namjoon-ah about art theory."

     "Hey," Hobi chides in a warning tone, cocking his head to the side to glance down at you. "Don't enable the poor guy – he needs to get laid."

     "Well nobody is going to approach him if she's hanging around looking like that." Jimin gestures casually, a mischievous twinkle glinting for a moment his eye.

     Hobi's arm slips off your shoulders to grasp your hand as he steps back. He's never been good at keeping his feelings from his face, and the look trained on his features as he appraises you has you thinking you made the right decision when you put on that dress.

     "How about we keep you out of trouble and on the dance floor, hm?" Hobi says with a sly smile, raising your hand and tilting forward in a posture of invitation.

     You roll your eyes playfully, unable to bite back a smile of your own as you motion for Hobi to lead the way, careful to avoid Jimin's eyes as you let the rapper guide you back into the thrumming pulse of the festivities.

      He gently pulls you onto the dance floor and tugs you into him, keeping a hold on your right hand as he slips the other just below the curve of your waist. You settle into an easy step to the lively beat. Hobi's eyes search your face as you tilt it up to him, running a hand up his chest to adjust the collar of his shirt with a sigh. You fiddle with the soft fabric between your fingers.   

     "I'm sorry, Hobi," you murmur, just loudly enough for him to hear.

     When he just smiles a bit sadly you feel your heart squeeze and you drop your head to his chest. You will yourself not to cry as he slows his movements, slipping a knuckle beneath your chin to raise your gaze to his own.     

     "Hajima," he protests, "Let's talk later. Right now, how about we just have some fun? I missed you."

     His expression is sweet and earnest and you feel like your chest might not have room for anything more than your complete and utter affection for this man. 

     "I missed you too," you admit with a little grin, pressing yourself against him just a bit more firmly and gazing up at him through widened eyes. He blinks for a moment, and then suddenly, there it is again, blooming across his lips - that blinding gorgeous smile, and that heady, infectious laugh.

     In one quick motion, he spins you around to face away from him as the music drops to a deep, throbbing EDM number, his fingertips grazing your hips and his lips ghosting the shell of your ear.

     "You did, huh?" he purrs. "Alright, then...show me how much." 

     You suck in a breath because you don't ever think you'll be ready for how quickly he can turn that dark, deep voice in his chest into something that makes you feel like you're astral-projecting. Your first instinct is to push him away, make him take it from you...but this moment isn't for that. After your exit last time around, you’re determined to make him so incredibly certain that you want him. That you need him. 

     You lean back into him and, whispering a silent prayer of gratitude to the goddess of stilettos, press your ass firmly into his groin. You feel the air leave his lips in a hiss against your neck, and his hands slide to squeeze your hips and tug your body even deeper into his. You grind back against him as your body undulates with the hypnotic rhythm of the beat, but it's not long before he's taken over guiding the motion of your hips to match the rolls of his own. 

     Your eyelids flutter. You've never been this close to him. Sure, in the studio, things had gotten hot and heavy - but you had only been in his hands. He had only touched you to move you, still you, punish you. Now you are flush against his body, and everywhere you touch as he rocks you in tortuous waves against him tastes like the first sumptuous bite of a forbidden fruit. 

You can feel him beginning to swell against the plush of your ass, but even that isn't what has a familiar ache throbbing at the apex of your thighs – it's the effortlessness with which he wrests control of your body, your mind...your very being down to its most primal core.

     Hoseok's hand skids up your side and slips over your collarbones.

     "I like this necklace," he mumbles into your hair.

     You turn in his arms, slipping your fingers around the back of his neck as you raise your lips to his ear.

     "I'm disappointed in you, Hoseok," you tut, "It's not a necklace, you know." 

     He doesn't respond, but focuses on bringing his leg to slot between yours, hiking your dress up enough to tease your mound with brushes over the front of his thigh. You swallow a moan.

He's toying with you, but you won't give in. Not so easily. Not yet.

     "I guess you could call it a choker..." you rasp, trying to keep the tremor from your voice as your face presses into the side of his jaw, "That is more descriptive of its actual purpose, I suppose."

     For one millisecond in the fabric of time and space you feel his pace falter as the words spill from your lips - then he runs his hand up your back, slipping two fingers under the tight strip of velvet surrounding your throat.

     For the first time since you started dancing, you look at him. Crystalline beads of sweat have broken out on his brow, and his mouth is set in a stern line, his eyes hooded and dark as tugs his fingers back to command a view of your gaze.

     "Are you telling me," he grits out lowly, digging his fingers into the flesh of your hip so bruisingly you gasp, "...that you showed up to my party wearing a fucking collar?" 

     You don't answer him - instead you let a wicked smile slip over your lips, refusing defiantly to drop his piercing stare. He has stopped moving you against him, stopped moving entirely. His hands are firm but still where they hold you as his eyes bore down.

     "Are you out here trying to finish what we started?"

     You tilt your head back, narrowing your eyes seductively.

     "What do you think?"

     You watch a thousand and one thoughts race through Hoseok's mind as his eyes drop to your neck again and he swallows thickly.

     "Oh, fuck it," he hisses, turning and catching your hand to pull you impatiently through the crowd. 

     You barely have time to wonder what he's thinking or where you're headed when, at the opening to the hall, he spins to grasp your waist and tuck you into a small alcove. He does it so quickly and with such force that you nearly topple the potted plant on the stand beside you.

     He pushes himself against you, the tip of his nose brushing yours, and his firm body pressing you to the wall. He holds your wrists in his hands, pinning them to either side of your body. You let out a tiny whimper.

     His peppermint breath fans over your cheeks.

     "I was going to wait," he whispers loud enough for you to hear him clearly over the music from the room behind you. "I was going to ask you...to stay. After..." he traces his nose along the ridge of your cheekbone as he squeezes your wrists tightly, his nails nipping into your skin. "But you come here with the audacity to tease me like that? Out there, in front of everyone like a desperate little slut?" 

     His mouth is hovering over your ear as he speaks, sending shivers cascading down your spine.

     "I'm not a patient man," he mutters darkly, and you feel your pussy throb.

     You struggle slightly against his grasp, and he growls lowly. Turning into him, you press your mouth against his throat, letting your teeth graze his skin as you respond.

     "Then don't be."

     It's all the permission he needs. He snatches you away from the wall, dragging you down the hall toward the master bedroom at the far end. Your heartbeat hammers in your chest as you gaze at the dark mahogany door growing closer and closer with every stumbled step you take to match his hurried pace.

     He turns to glance over his shoulder, and you follow the action as he grips the handle, turns it, and...

     "What the..." Hoseok mutters, rattling the handle forcefully before raising his fist to pound against the door. "YAH! UNLOCK THIS DOOR!" He booms. 

     You hear muted voices and sounds of scurried movement from within. He bangs again and again until the door swishes open to reveal a flushed and flustered Jungkook, still fumbling with the button of his jeans.

     "Hyung! S-sorry, hyung, I was just...we were..."

     "OUT." Hoseok demands icily, pushing the door inward on its hinges to reveal the peppy, strawberry-scented young woman from before hurrying forward to tuck herself behind Jungkook as she draws a hand across her smeared lipstick. 

You bite back a grin as you watch them scuttle down the hall before Hoseok shuts and locks the door behind you.

     "That kid...seriously," he grumbles. "He knows my room is off limits."

     You chuckle, despite his lack of amusement, and he takes your hand again, drawing you toward a small couch at the far side of the large room. You take in your surroundings as you cross the space - similarly furnished to the rest of the apartment. The furniture is sleek and modern, Kaws sculptures and collectible figurines occupy tables and shelves. There are a few live plants, including one hanging from a large hook in the ceiling near a massive, raised canopy bed.

     He draws you to sit beside him, a crease still pinched between his brows, likely from having to evict the irksome intruders. You laugh softly and run a thumb over his forehead.

     "They're gone!" you chuckle, "Don't let it bother you so much. You'll get wrinkles." You tease, and his face softens.

     He catches your hand in both of his as it lowers. He sighs.

     "I needed a bit of water thrown in my face anyway," he smirks, and you glance down bashfully. "Before anything really happens, I think we should have…a conversation." 

     You nod in agreement.

     "Can I start?" you interject and he nods in return.

     You huff out a long breath.

     "I want to apologize for how I reacted...last time."

     He smiles wryly.

     "It was all very new and sudden to me, and...I don't know...I freaked out."

     Hobi squeezes your hand.

     "You have no reason to be sorry about that. I should have never initiated like that somewhere that wasn't really private. I just got caught up..." he shakes his head.

     "No! Me too! I'm glad it happened. I..." you trail off, feeling your face heat. "Oh, fuck, I don't know how to say this..."

     He claims he's not a patient man, but he waits, watching with tender eyes as you choose your words.

     "I haven't been able to stop thinking about it...like..." you take a deep breath as you gather the courage for vulnerable transparency.

     You remember what Jimin said. It's Hobi. You are safe with Hobi.

     "It was like nothing I've ever felt before. Like a release...more than sexual, you know? Like, freedom. Like, I felt so alive."

     He smiles, nodding his head in understanding.

     "I..." you continue, still nervous but with mounting confidence as he makes you feel heard, "I would like to...explore this part of myself, this new world," you gesture, "And...well, I would love for you to be the one to guide me."

     You raise your gaze to his. His eyes are shimmering. He slowly raises a hand and brushes his fingers over your cheek.

     "It would be my honor," he murmurs earnestly.

     A smile blooms across your face and your chest fills with warmth. You raise your hand, curling your fingers into his where they rest against your jaw. He drops your hands, still holding on, to his knee.

     "Can I ask how much you know about the community?" he queries, tracing his thumb softly over your knuckles.

     "A lot more now than I did a couple of weeks ago!" you respond with a laugh. "I know that I'm a sub, but one that likes to...fight back a little bit?"

     Hobi smirks, pocketing his tongue in his cheek. His eyes glint.

     "A brat," he answers. 

     "...Yeah."

     "Want me to work for it."

     Your mouth quirks up in a grin.

     "The harder the challenge the bigger the payoff," he hums, glancing thoughtfully down at your joined hands.

     "I think," he says after a pause, "Since you're new to all this, we should start slow. I already know some things you enjoy, and vice versa. But part of this kind of thing is about testing your limits. You're going to come across things you don't like, too. I need you to be able to tell me. Without a second thought. Seriously."

     He looks at you intently.

     You smile.

     "I trust you enough to know that you’d stop if that’s what I wanted. I may enjoy being dominated but I do still know what I want. And with you...I..." You tug at his hand, "I know I could say what I...need.”

     He huffs out a little breath, his brows drawing together as he regards you in reverence.

     "You know you can be that way with me too, right? Needy?" You ask softly. "I want...to take care of you, that way. Maybe we can...take care of each other." 

     You're not looking at him. You can't. It's all incredibly intimate and strange. When he doesn't respond, you begin to wonder if you said something you shouldn't have. And then your doubts vanish as quickly as they had appeared when you feel his arm slip around your shoulders as he pulls you into his chest, tucking your head beneath his chin.

     Your heart sings.

     After a long, quiet moment, Hobi pulls back to look at you. 

     "Should we set some rules for ourselves?" he asks.

     You purse your lips and nod. Admittedly, you had come with a few in mind.

     "I think...we shouldn't kiss. Well, not on the mouth. It's...I don't know. I think it might make things confusing."

     Hobi looks thoughtful, nodding slowly.

     "Which brings me to my other thought," you chew your lip. "I think this should just be about sex. We're friends, and I want to keep that aspect of our relationship strong and uncompromised."

     He smiles. 

     "Makes sense to me. But..." he says with a raise of his brows, "If we do start seeing other people, I think we should tell each other. Especially if they're going to be people we're fooling around with."

     You give an enthusiastic hum of assent.

“I don’t have a partner at the moment,” you shake your head, glancing up at him.

“Me neither.”

He clears his throat and shifts his stance.

“When we’re…together,” he gestures in the space between you. “What about protection?”

You blink thoughtfully.

“I’m on birth control.”

He nods.

“Okay…would you want me to wear a condom?”

You feel heat creep up your neck as you meet his gaze with a shake of your head.

“Not unless you wanted you.”

He stares at you for a long moment before chuckling and shaking his own head.

“Ay, you’re gonna be the death of me, you know that?”

You smile and pull your bottom lip between your teeth.

     "Oh! And we already have a safeword!” you remind him with a grin.

     "We do," he acknowledges, his eyes dropping to the glinting metallic ring adorning your throat.

     Your smile falters and your heartbeat quickens…and when he looks back up at you it's like whiplash as he sets you reeling again with a dark, hungry gaze.

     "If that thing isn't a necklace," he rasps, reaching his fingers up to touch the cold silver, "How about we put it to its proper use, hm?" 

     You shiver, pressing your thighs together as your heartbeat drops to your clit.

     "Yeah..." you whisper, your breath already starting to come quicker as you reach for your bag and fumble with trembling fingers with the clasp. 

     Hoseok's brow knits as he watches you open the purse, reaching in to produce a length of light chain about three feet long with a velvet strap on one and a claw clasp on the other. You double it up and dangle it from your hand, your heart thrumming in your chest as you raise your eyes to his.

     "You can put it on me," you purr, "...But you'll have to take it from me first."

     Click.

     That ineffable thing, that invisible force he wields that arrests you has slipped back into place. You can feel it, pouring off him in devastating waves...and you're already starting to drown.

     It didn't take him long to wrestle the leash from your grasp. Now you're on your knees before him, hands at your sides as he leans forward to affix the chain to the o-ring at your neck. You're breathing hard from your struggle. He stands to his full height, wrapping the links around his hand until the line is taught. He clicks his tongue condescendingly.

    "What am I going to do with you now, hm?" he murmurs, tugging at the chain briefly so that you lurch slightly forward. You whine complaintively.

     "Quiet," he hisses in warning. 

     You bite your lip. You need to obey now. Your panties are soaked and you can feel the turgid swell of your clit with every slight motion of your body. If you are good for him, then maybe you will be rewarded. Being a good girl should earn something. Right now, you will take anything.

     Hoseok glowers down at you, tilting his head to the side as his eyes trail over your features, coming to rest on your pouted lips. He wets his own.

     "You like to run that mouth of yours...how about we see what else it can do?"

     Holy fucking shit. You feel saliva begin to pool under your tongue, your eyes flicking down to the bulge at the front of his slacks. You start to raise your hands toward his belt but he yanks sharply upward on the chain, the metal ring biting into the underside of your jaw, ripping a mewl of discomfort and impatience from your lips.

     He lets out a long sigh, shaking his head as his lips curve into a cruel smile.

     "So eager that she can't even wait for permission?"

     You whimper again, biting your lip as he laughs darkly above you.

     "My little whore wants something, doesn't she?"

     You give a silent nod, letting your tongue slip out to wet your lips and watch his eyes darken as his pupils swallow his deep brown irises.

     "Mmm..." He hums in consideration, bringing his free hand to cradle your chin. "I've told you before, sweet thing, if you want something, you have to ask for it."

     Your eyes blink languidly as you look up at him. Your head is swimming as you sway on your knees, the dizzy helplessness of being spun between degradation and endearment hanging over you like a heavy trance. His fingers tighten around your jaw.

     "Come on..." he coaxes in a chilly whisper, "Use that pretty mouth to ask Hoseok."

     You swallow thickly.

    "Wan..." you start softly, but his grip on your jaw sharpens.

     "Speak up, I can't hear you," he commands reproachfully.

     Heat swells up from your neck and sweat begins to tickle your hairline. You know what you want, you've been thinking about little else since he was pressed against you on the dance floor...but the thought of giving your filthy, aching desires shape has every inch of your body trembling.

    "Wan...want..." you struggle over his fingers pressing harshly into your cheeks. 

     He tuts, and the look on his stony features suddenly warns you that if you don't overcome your nerves...

     "Wan' your cock!" you choke out desperately.

     Hoseok's lids dip slowly and his lips part, as if your words have been injected into his veins, and you think you could fucking cum at the sight. His eyes flutter open again and he gazes down. You fight for patience and composure with each maddening second of silence that passes. You can feel your pussy clench and your hands follow suit. Hoseok catches the motion. A sickening grin spreads over his lips.

     "Want this cock, hm?" he hums, releasing your chin from his grasp to palm over the clothed swell inches from your lips.

     You whimper pathetically, letting your eyes slip shut. Fuck you want him. You want your mouth around him. You want to choke on him. You want the thick, sticky milk of his release on your tongue.

     "So tell me, brat," he hisses, wrapping another loop of chain around his palm so that he holds you on a mere few inches of leash. "How do you want my cock?"

     Any shame has been dispelled from your being in the presence of your burning desire, and you raise heavy, lustful eyes to his dark ones.

     "Wanna suck it off."

     You can see his chest beginning to rise and fall with more effort as he pulls you by the leash, in tortuously slow deliberation, until your lips are ghosting over the zipper of his slacks. He glares down at you, the corner of his mouth curling up in a sneer as he holds you in place.

     "BEG."

     A violent tremor of arousal jolts through your abdomen and you gasp.

    "P-please..." you stammer dumbly against the soft, dark cotton.

     "Again."

     "Please..."

     "Please, what?" 

     "Please..." you breath shakily, "Will you fuck my mouth?"

     You feel him twitch under the vibration of your supplicating words. 

     "Alright," he relents in a rasp, "But keep those hands at your sides, understand?”

You nod.

“Unless,” he tugs at the chain again,”You need to stop. Then you grab my leg and squeeze.”

“Okay.”

“What are you going to do, baby? If you need me to stop?”

“Squeeze your leg.”

“That’s right,” he hums and the repeated instruction.

     You chew on your lip as he pulls off his belt and slips open the button, giving a tug at your collar. As you look up at his hooded eyes, you know exactly what to do.

     You nose at the seam, trying for one moment to ignore the throbbing bulge against your cheek as you find the zipper with your teeth and drag it slowly downward, your eyes never breaking his burning gaze. 

     "Good girl," he hisses, pushing his pants down his hips to reveal a pair of tight, black boxer briefs, a sizable strain pulling at the flexible fabric where he's hard beneath them.

He hooks two thumbs into the elastic and tugs down, his fully erect cock springing free to bob against the side of your face. A sticky streak of precum smears across your cheek as you seek his head with your lips, barely having time to register the smooth tip, or the pretty, pulsating veins as you rush to swallow him whole.

    Hoseok lets out a long, deep groan as you suckle greedily around him. Allowing your spit to slick his shaft you pull back, keeping just the crown between your lips as you worry your tongue along his dripping slit.

     He's rock hard and heavy on your tongue as you lean in to take him farther down your throat, bunching your hands into your dress at the aching urge to cup and stroke the velvet skin of his scrotum.

     "Fuck," he grits out from between clenched teeth, "That's right..."

     You bob lower and lower on his shaft, seeking to take as much of him as you are able. When you feel his tip brush the back of your throat, you moan around him. His free hand flies into your hair, and suddenly he's yanking you off of him. You cough and splutter at the sudden motion and he tugs the chain so that you raise watery eyes to him. He releases your hair to absently stroke himself as he lightly pants over you.

     "Asked me to fuck that throat. Think you can take it?"

     You nod as you attempt to wipe drool pooling on your chin into your shoulder.

     "Words," he pushes, snapping the chain around his wrist.

     "Yeah," you mock, matching his tone, a spark of defiance reigniting inside you.

     Hoseok lets out a hollow laugh.

     "So confident. We'll see about that."

     He slips two fingers of his free hand into the strap of your collar and tugs you back toward his cock. You open wide, extending your tongue to catch the head and pull him between your lips.

You move to swallow him again, but he halts you.

     "Keep still," he mutters coldly, and the fingers at your collar hold you tightly in place as he slowly slides his hips forward in a thrust that has him inching toward your soft palate.

Your eyes water, but you have never been more determined to fight your gag reflex as he pulls back and pushes in again, deeper, his cock tapping again at the back of your throat.

     "Goddamn, you really can take it," he groans in a shaky voice. "Such a good little slut for Hoseok. Such a pretty, filthy little mouth."

     Your nostrils flare as you draw air through your nose, and you swallow, the muscle of your throat contracting tightly around him. At this he seems to break, suddenly pulling back his hips to snap them forward as he sets a rough, self-indulgent pace.

     Your eyes water, spilling over from the brutal stretch and sting, but you dig your fingers into your thighs, determined to take him as long as you possibly can.

     You start to feel light-headed, and just when you think you're going to have to tap out for air, Hoseok's pulling you off of him and wrenching your face upwards to run his wild eyes over it.

    You gasp for breath a moment, and then you're opening your mouth to him again, blinking up through bleary eyes in a silent, hungry plea. He shakes his head slowly as he gazes down at you, chest heaving.

     "Shit, look at you..."

     You're a site. Tears and mascara streak your cheeks, saliva and precum slick your chin and neck, your parted lips swollen. Hoseok's fingers twist where they're still hooked into the collar. 

     "You still want it, don't you? My god..." he smears the tip of his cock along your bottom lip.

Your eager tongue wriggles forward to brush over him again. He swallows, and with a growl he slaps his cock down harshly over it. You let out a little sob as your soaking, aching cunt clenches around nothing. 

     "Alright," he mutters in a husky whisper, "Gonna fucking ruin that tight little throat. Gonna fill it the fuck up. Blow my load all over that nasty little tongue. And you want that, don't you? Wanna be Hoseok's pretty little cumslut, hm?" 

     You nod, and then remember the rules.

     "Yes," you croak, and open wide for him again.

     He grits his teeth and tugs at the collar to pull you slowly over him again with a shudder. You've proven more than capable and it's not long before he's chasing release at a punishing pace. It's sloppy and desperate - the hollow, wet sounds as he fucks your face a pornographic symphony. 

Suddenly you think you can feel his cock twitch and jerk as it hammers into your mouth, and when he grows so incredibly hard, you know he's about to reach his peak.

     You lock eyes with him through your tears, watching his features strain to maintain their composure. Without warning he grabs the back of your head and slams into you, arching over as he cries out.

     And he cums.

     Thick ropes spurt down your throat as he quivers and throbs.

     The moment he's spent his last drop of release he fists into your hair and roughly pulls you back, letting his softening cock fall free. You gasp for breath, coughing as you choke down the last remnants of his seed. Lips trembling, your eyes search his face for what you so desperately need...and you find it.

     His lids are heavy over his eyes, mere glistening slips of midnight visible as they gleam down at you; his beautiful lips are parted as he pants, the honey planes of chest glistening with sweat where his shirt fails to obscure it.

     He's breathless and sated and glorious, and you bask under the intensity of his gaze. He releases his hold on your collar and lets the leash clatter to the ground, bringing his hands to your face. He cups your cheeks, brushing his thumbs over the streaks of tears.

     "So, fucking good for me," he mutters shakily, his brow drawn, "Such a pretty, perfect little brat." 

     Your eyes slip shut under his words of praise. You could move mountains if he asked you to, you were certain. In this moment, in this space, anything for this man. Everything.   

     You feel his hands leave your face as he moves to help you stand, before tugging his briefs back into place. 

The heat of the moment past, you become acutely aware of the stinging soreness in your knees as you struggle to your feet – and the sticky ache of persistent hunger throbbing between your thighs. You teeter on your heels as blood rushes to your lower legs.

Smiling, he reaches out and pulls you to him gently by the waist, swiping a thumb over your chin.

     "You were a good girl, baby. So, so good," He coos in a husky whisper. "You remember what good girls get, hm?" He's still calling the shots and demanding answers, but his eyes are soft as they regard you.

     "A reward?" you answer hopefully.

     He hums in assent.

     "That's right, baby. That's right," He brushes at the smeared makeup under your eye. "But let's get that messy little face cleaned up first." 

     After unfastening your collar he sits you down on the bed, bringing makeup wipes to gently dab away the proof of your efforts, and offers you a bottle of cool water. He comes to sit beside you, eyes tracking you attentively as you drink.

     "Want Hoseok to take care of that needy little pussy?" he asks, with a smirk.

     "Fuck yes," you breath as you lower the bottle from your mouth.

     He arches a brow, and you purse your lips in an attempt not to grin.

     "Please," you add in correction.

     "Mmm," he acknowledges thoughtfully, turning to gaze over his shoulder at the spider plant hanging from the ceiling a few feet past the other side of the bed.

     "Does my little girl want to try something new?" he asks, his eyes still on the suspended planter.

     You feel your pulse quicken and stomach twist in anticipation.

     "Yes, Hoseok, I trust you," you respond without reserve.

     He flicks his eyes to your face, brows drawing together. He wets his lips and huffs out a breathy laugh.

     "You have no goddamned idea what you do to me when you say shit like that."

     You look away, smiling brightly as you preen under the heat and affection of his gaze.

     He reaches for your hand and guides you to rise to your feet.

     "Alright, ditch the dress," he orders, gesturing with a flick of his chin as he leans back on his hands and spreads his thighs in a posture of recline.

     You step back to give yourself space, already weak in the knees at the prospect of stripping for him. You steel your composure, a spark of boldness lighting in your belly. Taking a few steps away and turning from him, you look back over your shoulder to watch his face as you reach behind to slowly drag the zipper down your back. You make a slow, sensual show of peeling the garment from your body to reveal a lacy black balconette bra and matching thong. Stepping out of the dress and tossing it away, in nothing but your lingerie and stilettos, you stride back to stand patiently before him.

     He leans forward and runs his hands up the sides of your thighs until they reach your hips where they slide back to squeeze the meat of your ass.

You bring your hands gingerly to his shoulders. 

Tugging your body toward him, he draws himself to the edge of the mattress, pulling you between his thighs as he uses his sharp, white teeth to nip along the soft flesh of your belly. He sucks harshly at some places, leaving flushed little souvenirs of claim in his wake. You don't hold back the proof of your pleasure - repaying his ministrations with gasps and low moans as his hands and mouth explore you.

     Hoseok raises his face from your skin, his pupils wide as his gaze settles at your breasts. 

"Bra off," he commands, squeezing your ass again as you reach back to unfasten the clasp and pull the straps from your arms.

     He hisses and grits his teeth, raising greedy hands to knead at your supple flesh, before pulling them away to twist and slap at your nipples. 

You groan and throw your head back, relishing in the shocks of sensation – gushing, as if you could ruin your soaked panties any further. As you press your trembling thighs together he glances down at the last remaining vestige of your modesty, lips spreading into a wicked grin.

     "You know I can fucking smell it - how wet you are? My god, want you to wear it like a perfume, fuck..." He runs his right hand to rub against the dampness that has the lace clinging to your slit.

     The moan you let out is so needy it's practically a sob. Hoseok laughs low in his chest.

     Suddenly he’s standing and spinning you around, leading you to the end of the bed. He places your hands on the footboard and instructs you to bend over, sliding your hips back until your ass is on full display. He runs his hands over the bare flesh of your cheeks.

    "Now," he growls, "Can't fuck this ass until it's properly marked, can we?"

     You swallow and let out a whine. The blood is already rushing to your head in a familiar surge and in the split second of silence before impact, you know what's coming - the anticipation somehow even more intoxicating when you remember how it feels when he...

     Smack!

     You whimper, your fingers gripping the bed frame as he delivers blow after searing blow. When he has satisfied himself with the flushed tone streaking the globes of your ass, he gives it a final squeeze, commanding you to wait where you are.

     You hear him as he moves to the side of the bed to pull an object from beneath it. He seems to be grappling with something - the clink of metal and soft rustle of leather interrupting the sudden heavy hush. He returns to your side, taking your hands from the bed and bringing you to stand. As he leads you to the far side of the bed, you see it: hanging from the large hook in the ceiling that once bore the spider plant there is a large leather contraption. You've never seen one in real life, but you know what it is.

     "You have a sex swing?" you murmur in awe, momentarily forgetting yourself as you reach out to brush your fingers over the soft leather. There are buckle straps at different places and a metal bar running across the top. He lightly grips your waist, turning you to face him again. He dips his head forward and you inhale the cool mint of his breath.

     "Gonna put you in it," he murmurs, "You remember our word, right?"

     "Yes," you breathe.

“Say it.”

“Foxglove.”

He smirks.

     "Good girl. Panties off," he instructs.

     You couldn't be more eager to pull the sopping fabric down your legs and toss it aside, but when you reach to remove your shoes, he catches your wrist.

     "I didn't say you could take those off, did I?" he reprimands, and your pulse begins to hammer in your throat.

     He’s gonna fucking strap you to this thing in your goddamned heels.

     You comply with him as he helps you into the seat, fastening your wrists together to a strap that has them raised above your head. After securing your hands, he raises your legs, carefully stretching them so that your feet are on the outside of the wide set cables, hooking your heels to catch on the bar across the top to hold your legs, spread wide, in place. With each restriction he checks in, making sure you’re completely comfortable with his choices. 

When he finishes he comes to stand before you, heaving out a sigh through his nose as he trails a hand down the back of your thigh.

     "Look at you," he groans as his eyes rake over your body.

     You can feel your pussy leaking. Your heart pounds. The muscles in your legs strain a bit from the stretch and the bindings nip into your wrists and feet. You are completely exposed to him...and it is utter perfection. Like you were made to be at his mercy. You blink up at him through the fuzzy haze that keeps intensifying as you relinquish yourself deeper and deeper into his control.

     His eyes slip shut for a moment and he gives an almost imperceptible shake of his head before bringing his lips to graze against the back of your calf.

     "Hoseok..." you whisper, trembling. 

     His eyes open and lock with yours. You hold each other's gaze in silence. 

Nothing needs to be said - you both know. You both understand.

     He unbuttons his shirt and slips it off, and after discarding his briefs he is as naked as you are. With one hand he grips your leg, slipping two fingers of the other to slide through the swollen, sticky folds of your cunt. You cry out, your pelvis shuddering - so ripe to be touched that the contact sends a shock like an electric pulse through your being. 

     "What a pretty fucking pussy...so desperate for me," he mutters.

     You watch his beautiful fingers as they slip through your glistening lips and over your throbbing clit before he pulls his hand up. He lets it hover in the air for a moment before bringing it down with a harsh smack against your mound. 

A scream strangles in your throat as he repeats the motion again. Your whole body shakes with arousal. 

He clenches his jaw as he trails his fingers down to your aching hole, dipping in shallowly to gather your bountiful slick. He raises his fingers to his lips, tasting you as he watches you tremble beneath him. He withdraws them with a pop.

     "You know how much you like that? Getting this little cunt slapped?" His eyes trail down. "You're dripping down your fucking ass."

     Shuddering violently, you whimper, tugging impatiently at your restraints.

     "Yah," he warns, and you still. "Guess you're ready for me, huh? Just like that day..." He smirks condescendingly. "You're always ready, aren't you?" He hisses. "Need me so fucking badly...all of the time."

     You sob as your walls contract again and again. He takes his cock into his hand and slides it through your folds, teasing the tip over your clit.

     It's euphoric, but it's not enough. You sink your teeth into your bottom lip as you fight your own desperate need until the copper taste of blood seeps across your tongue. Somehow, it doesn't even hurt – you can't feel anything past the need for him to fill you. You feel his tip prod your entrance and you gasp.

     “Look at me," he rasps.

     Your eyes snap open. Your legs are shaking, vibrating the entire apparatus as he finally, slowly, sinks into your wet heat. The stretch of him is exquisite, and your eyes roll back in your head as he groans, steadily pulling back to push into you again.

“Shiiiiiitttt…” he hisses through his teeth, “Fucking made for me. Does my little brat like that? Hoseok’s cock stuffing that tight little cunt?”

“M-more…p-please…” you mewl, nearly unable to even form the words as his ridges drag deliciously along your taught walls.

     You're so incredibly worked up that already you can feel a climax building in your belly, and he's only just started to fuck you. Unable to touch him any other way, you squeeze around him tightly.

     He lets out a grunt, picking up his pace as he uses the mobility of the swing to pound you onto his cock. 

You cry out, your head rattling against the leather as stroke after stroke sends you hurtling toward your high. Your mouth hangs open, and your vision begins to blur at the edges, the position of your arms making it harder to breathe. It’s going put you over the edge. He catches your glazed stare.

     "Don't you fucking cum until I say," he grits out breathlessly, and you let out a wail, head falling back. 

     You can feel yourself barely holding on as he slams into you, teetering on the edge as you hear his voice.

     "Whose little whore are you?"

     You try to speak but the words won't rattle out of your chest.

     "Whose?" he booms.

     "Yours!" you press out in a sob.

     "Who do you kneel for?"

     "You!" 

     "Who owns this pussy?"

     "Y-you!"

     "And who the fuck am I?"

     "HOSEOK!"

     "Cum, slut." he growls.

...And you free-fall through time and space.

     The summer evening air is warm against your skin as you step out under the rose gold twilight. Behind you the chic dining venue is still abustle, and you wave coworkers a fond farewell as they head off to continue the evening with karaoke. It's been a big day for you, and there's someone you've been waiting to talk to.

     You press the green call button and wait as the line rings.

     "Yeoboseyo?" 

     The warm voice on the other end has a smile blooming on your lips.

     "Hey, Hobi-ssi!" you hum.

     "Hey hey!" he chrips, "What's up?"

     "Oh, nothing," you respond casually, "Just got done with a company dinner. Someone got a promotion, so we all went out."

     There's a pause on the other end.

     "Oh," answers slowly, "That one you put in for?"

     "Mhm."

     You hear him scoff in amusement

     "Well, at least you seem to be taking it well."

     "I'd say I'm taking it extremely well, which is only natural, considering I got the job."

     "Yes, well...wait, YOU WHAT?!"

     You pull the phone momentarily away from your ear as his joyful, raucous laughter blasts through the speaker.

     "You're gonna make me go deaf!" You chide. Your smile is brighter than the setting sun.

     "I'm so proud of you."

     "Thanks, Hobi."

     "You should celebrate!"

     "I did go out with my work friends...but..."

    "You should come over," he interjects.

  The register of his voice has changed. You recognize the new one.

     "Yeah?" you swallow, as your heart rate quickens. "Well...what if I do want to go to karaoke?"

     You wait for his response, watching your ride share pull up to the curb.

     "Yah - you gonna be a good girl…”

     You hold your breath.

     “...Or do I have to make you?"

-FIN-

#hoseok fic #oneshot #bts oneshot #hoseok smut #hoseok imagine #hobi x reader #hobi smut #hobi x y/n #jhope smut #jhope fanfic #jhope x reader #jhope x you #jhope x y/n #jhope imagine #bts imagines #bts smut #bts x reader #fic: make me

[starbandit]

Sticky (J.H.S)

Preview: You gulped, swallowing down all the thoughts that flooded your brain. You wanted to pounce on him, something animalistic was growing inside of you. 

contains- teasing, slight degradation, small amount of ass slapping/spanking, hair pulling, unprotected sex, orgasm denial, dom!hoseok, dirty talk, begging, established relationship 18+ MDI!

word count - 2.8k/unedited

You held your breath as you typed in the code to the studio. Hoseok had left early in the morning, while the sun was still working its way into the sky and the morning dew was still hugging the grass. He didn’t leave before giving you a soft kiss on the forehead, and a gentle tuck of the blankets though. He loved the way you curled up closer to his side, stealing any of the left over body heat. 

You wanted to surprise him with a late night snack,you had a little craving for ice cream and wanted to share the sweet treat with him.You had picked up some ice cream on your way over and snuck into the Hybe building. The door unlocked with a click and you silently pushed the door open, hoping you wouldn't give up the surprise too soon. 

Only, the room is empty when you open the door all the way. Hobi’s computer is powered off, the chair is neatly pushed in, everything is perfectly in its place and shut down. Did he leave while you were on your way over? No, you would have crossed paths at some point, right? Maybe he had stepped out for a minute and would be back. You took a deep breath before your brain started to feed you extreme thoughts. Kidnapping, him cheating, all of it rushed in at once before you shut the door and made your way down the hall. There was one more place he could be. 

As you approached the practice room, you could hear the loud and heavy beats of music. You weren’t sure how he hadn’t damaged his hearing yet with how loud the music was, but you creeped in, trying not to be spotted and sat on the couch in the corner of the practice room and admired your boyfriend. 

He was staring himself down in the mirror, examining every small step he made. Each one was done with practiced confidence, perfect execution. You would never not be amazed at how his body went from moving in a wave, like he had absolutely no bones, to these extreme sharp movements in an instant. 

Soon enough, Hoseok stopped dancing and instead crouched down to check his phone. It wasn’t until he looked into the mirror that he spotted you. His face instantly lit up, a large smile growing as he stood back up. “Baby!” He squealed out as he rushed towards you. “When did you get here?” 

You giggled as he cupped your face and planted tiny kisses all over your cheeks and forehead. He caught you in a warm kiss, soft and innocent. You smiled against his lips before he pulled away. 

“I brought ice cream.” You smiled as he made a surprised expression, mouth forming a cute ‘O’ shape. 

Hoseok smiled and pulled you into a hug. He was sweaty, his shirt damp from the hours he spent dancing. He gave you a tight squeeze, rocking from side to side. “Thank you.” He planted yet another kiss on the top of your head before releasing you to dig into the ice cream. 

The two of you enjoyed the ice cream, both giggling as you stole bites of the other's flavor. Conversation flowed naturally as Hoseok talked about his day, all the hard work he had put into his set, and how he was so excited for you to see how it turned out. He listened as you rambled on about your day as well, nodding along with the conversation as you talked about annoying co-workers and wanting to stay in bed all day. 

“I’m going to run through one more time and then I’ll head home with you,” Hoseok moved to clean up the empty ice cream cups. “Does that sound okay, baby?” 

Your heart fluttered at the pet name. No matter how long you had been together, it still made you feel like the day you started dating. You hummed in confirmation and nodded your head. “I’ll be cheering you on, like always.” 

He smiled and finished cleaning up, before running back over to the mirrors and tapping play on his playlist. You watched him carefully as he ran through, making it about halfway before his actions made your heart race. You watched as the mirror began to fog up, you could see the sweat beading on his face. 

Hoseok reached down and tugged his shirt off, throwing it off to the side as he continued to dance. His soft abs flexed with every movement. The blood rushed to your face and you felt your cheeks growing hot. Sweat glistened on his skin, dripping down and highlighting every section of his abs, all the way down to the thin layer of hair that dipped below his waistband. 

You gulped, swallowing down all the thoughts that flooded your brain. You wanted to pounce on him, something animalistic was growing inside of you. 

Suddenly, the music stopped and Hoseok was stood in front of you. He crouched down next to you and silently captured you in a kiss. It was soft and warm, a stark contrast to the dance you had just watched him perform. It was always warm with Hoseok, something you could melt into in an instant. You did so, easily falling into his touch and the softness of his lips. 

His hands held you gently, a small hum sounding from him as you moved closer to dig your hands into his hair. Your hands made their way to the back of his head, your fingers tangling in the sweaty strands. You gave them a gentle tug, something you knew Hoseok enjoyed. 

He let out a small whimper at the movement and you quickly captured his bottom lip in a light nibble. You whined quietly as he pulled away from the kiss, not yet untangling your fingers from his locks. “Come on, let's go home.” Hoseok said quietly, moving to help pull you up. 

You shook your head, fighting the movement. You wanted, no, needed him now. You weren’t going to wait for however long it took you to walk home. You pulled him down into another kiss, this time growing much hotter. Your hands gripped his hair, tugging at the locks a little harsher this time, and deepened the kiss. Your tongue peaked into his mouth, tasting the remaining sweetness of the ice cream on his tongue. 

Hoseok smirked against your lips as he pulled away. “That impatient?” He questioned in a teasing tone. He shook his head. “Such a needy baby.” He gently tugged you closer, tugging you into his lap after he sat on the ground. You could feel his growing erection against your heat, the thin shorts he had on covered absolutely nothing. You sighed at the feeling, rocking your hips forward in a slow grind as you leaned in for another kiss. 

Hoseok gently cupped your face, taking control of the kiss this time. He kissed you a little too soft, a little too slow, just enough to keep you wanting more. Each time you tried to deepen the kiss, he pulled back slightly. He was teasing you, like a bird taunts a cat through the window. He did it for long enough to draw a needy whine out of your throat before he fully kissed you, capturing you in a red hot, messy kiss. 

You moaned at the feeling, your hands reaching up to find purchase on his bare chest. You melted into the kiss, allowing Hoseok to paint your mouth with his tongue. His kisses were intoxicating, your brain buzzing with the feeling and taste of him. The subtle sweetness mixed with his natural taste was enough to soak your underwear. 

“Couldn’t even let me finish my work,” Hoseok snaked his hand between the two of you, fingers dancing over your clothed center. “You were that desperate for my cock, hm?” He teased as he pushed your hair to the side with his other hand. His head dipped down to suck on the sensitive skin of your neck. “Such a needy little baby.” 

“Hoseok,” You whimpered as he rubbed small circles over your clothed clit. Your hips twitched forward, searching for more friction. “Hobiii,” Your eyebrows furrowed together. 

He hummed against your skin, trailing his tongue from the base of your neck up to your ear. “What is it, baby? What do you want?” He nibbled on the outside of your ear, a shiver snuck its way now your back at the sensation. 

“You, I want you.” 

Hoseok chuckled. “Be specific.” 

Your ears grew hot. You could be specific. Tell him about how you want him to strip you naked and eat your pussy like it was his last meal, wanted him to sink his fingers deep into you and massage the spot that made you see stars. You could tell him how you wanted to ride him, bounce on his cock until you were shaking and out of breath. 

But that isn’t what came out of your mouth. “I want you to fuck me, please, fuck me until I can’t walk.” 

“Come on,” Hoseok withdrew his hand and bounced his leg to get you to stand. You stood up and followed Hoseok. He led you to the front of the room, straight in front of the large mirror that sprawled across most of the wall. He quickly grabbed his discarded shirt and folded it, placing it in front of the mirror. “On your hands and knees.” 

You froze for a second before a smack on your ass made you jump. “I said, on your hands and knees, or do I need to force you?” Hoseok questioned. You quickly dropped to your knees, falling onto the shirt. You watched as Hoseok pulled his shorts and boxers off at once, kicking them across the floor. Saliva built up in your mouth as you stared at his cock, tip pretty pink and shiny with precum. 

It wasn’t long before Hoseok dropped to his knees as well and pulled your pants down, the waistband settling in the crevices of your knees. “I want you to watch.” He gently tugged on your hair to make you pick up your head. You locked eyes in the mirror, your stomach fluttering with nerves as you watched him. Your arms shook as he placed a hand on your ass and used the other one to drag his cock up and down your pussy. You watched as he caught his bottom lip between his teeth, admiring you. “Hobi, please,” You whimpered as you pushed back slightly, trying to get him to do something. 

His hand pulled away before coming down again, a sharp smack sounding through the room. You winced as he rubbed his hand over the area, soothing the hot skin. “So needy,” He muttered under his breath as he teased your entrance with the tip of his cock before plunging in. 

A moan ripped its way through your body as he settled into place. Your arms shook before crumpling under you, your cheek making contact with the cold floor. Hoseok gave you a few thrusts, hips moving with practiced ease, hitting every spot that made your eyes roll back. You whimpered with every movement.

Hoseok's grip tightened on your hip, pulling you back with each movement to meet him. His other hand trailed up your back, fingertips tickling the skin and making you wiggle with every touch. His hand landed under your shirt, skin hot and burning your back the longer it sat there. He stayed for a few moments before his hand retreated from under your shirt and moved over the fabric, finding its way up the back of your neck and into your hair. His fingers tangled into the locks, twisting them over his hand and tugging hard. A whimper flew out of your mouth as he tugged again, this time enough to get you to push back up to your hands and stay there.

“Good girl,” He growled out a small praise. “Look in the mirror, watch yourself.” 

You were a mess. You caught a fuzzy glimpse of yourself in the mirror, the glass was fogging back up, moisture beading and dripping. Your lips were bitten red and glossy, the color matched the deep blush of your cheeks. Drool glistened and stained your chin, sweat dripped down your neck and painted the hickeys Hoseok had so graciously left on your neck. Your eyes were glassy and pupils blown, eyebrows furrowed together in pleasure. 

Your eyes flickered to Hoseok, who was intensely watching your every move. An animalistic glint glossed over his eyes and a smirk painted his face as he delivered a particularly deep thrust. You tightened around him, watching as his jaw clenched and a groan pushed its way out of his body. 

Every roll of his hips brought you closer and closer to your orgasm. The drag of his cock over your walls made your thighs shake. You pressed back in desperation, trying to get him impossibly closer, deeper. Tears welled up in your eyes as you gasped, chasing the high that was just out of reach. 

“Poor baby, do you want to cum?” Hoseok wiggled his hips before stopping his movements, cock nestled deep in your pussy. “Pretty girl, are you close?” He released your hair, gently combing through the sweaty strands. 

You whimpered and nodded. “Please, wanna cum.” You pushed back against him. The heat was dissipating with every second. “Please, Hoseok, I can’t.” You let out a broken moan. 

“I wanna watch you do it, fuck yourself on my cock, baby.” He planted another smack on your ass. 

Tears welled up in your eyes again as you tried to find a messy rhythm. You rocked yourself back on Hoseok’s cock, moving your hips in an attempt to hit the same spots he was. A frustrated whine left your lips as you desperately tried to chase your high back, the heat slowly building up once more in your abdomen. 

You continued until you were out of breath and collapsed forward with a pathetic moan. “Too tired, baby?” Hoseok reached forward to gently stroke your hair. You gave a small nod. His features softened before his grip on your hips tightened. “You were so close, huh?” He rolled his hips forward once more. He clicked his tongue and let out a breath. “Do you want me to make you cum?” 

You had never agreed to anything faster. Hoseok immediately picked up where he had left off, moving his hips in ways you could only dream of and hitting spots that made you see stars. His hands danced from your hips, snaking around until his fingers found your clit. 

“Fuck, fuck,” A guttural moan ripped through your body. The heat in your abdomen grew as Hoseok rubbed the bundle of nerves. “I-i’m gonna cum, please don’t stop.” 

“Cum for me, baby.” Hoseok grunted. The sound of his hips slapping against your ass grew louder. “Cum on my cock, I know you want to.”

“S-shit.” Your whole body shook as your orgasm washed over you, your pussy spasming around Hoseok's cock. Your vision went white and your ears began ringing as you let out a loud, pornographic moan. 

You heard Hoseok let out a string of curse words, his hips stuttering forward in a messy rhythm. “Gonna fucking,” He let out a strangled moan, “Fill you up so good.” You gasped as he released, hot cum painting your insides. That alone was almost enough to push you into another orgasm, almost. 

Hoseok stayed where he was for a few moments and drew small circles over the exposed skin on your lower back. “You ready?” He questioned softly. He waited for a hum of confirmation before slowly pulling out of you. The cum dripped down your thigh as you collapsed to the ground, groaning at the soreness in your muscles. You were thankful of the shirt Hoseok had placed below you, it had both saved your knees from more pain and was going to make for easier clean up. 

Hoseok hushed you as he wiped you clean with the discarded shirt before wiggling your pants back up over your hips. He gave your ass a soft pat before moving to get redressed himself, digging through his bag to find a fresh t-shirt.

He wasn’t about to let you sleep on the floor, instead coaxing you up with promises of a nice bath and a head massage at home. He giggled and cooed over your tired expression as you stood up, dodging a playful slap from you at the teasing. Hoseok admired your features for a few moments longer before you two set off back home. He couldn’t believe you were his, his pretty baby.  

#hoseok smut #jhope smut #hoseok imagine #hoseok fanfic #hoseok x reader #jhope x reader #jhope fanfic #bts smut #bts x reader #bts fanfic #bts oneshot #hoseok oneshot #jhope one shot #jung hoseok smut #jung hoseok x reader #my writing #once again based on a dream i had

[euphoricfilter]

bangtan shorts masterlist

night thots and other shorts ‼️

☆ short #1 ~ jungkook: stupid amounts of cum

☆ short #2 ~ yoongi: oral

☆ short #3 ~ namjoon: belly bulge

☆ short #4 ~ taehyung: a simple love for thighs

☆ short #5 ~ jin: cock warming

☆ short #6 ~ jimin: mutual masturbation

☆ short #7 ~ hobi: fake cum, real cum & a butt plug

☆ short #8 ~ jungkook: morning sex

☆ short #9 ~ taehyung: ghostface

☆ short #10 ~ taehyung: cum swallowing

☆ short #11 ~ jungkook: body worship

☆ short #12 ~ yoongi: sex in the dressing room

☆ short #13 ~ jimin: oral fixation

☆ short #14 ~ jin: fingering

☆ short #15 ~ namjoon: a specific love for creampies

☆ short #16 ~ jungkook: car sex and pantie stuffing

☆ short #17 ~ hobi: dacryphilia

☆ short #18 ~ taehyung: praise

☆ short #19 ~ jungkook: boob luvr

☆ short #20 ~ jungkook: mirror sex & a beefy back

☆ short #21 ~ jungkook: face riding

☆ short #22 ~ namjoon: slip of the tongue

☆ short #23 ~ namjoon: size kink

☆ short #24 ~ namjoon: in the closet

☆ short #25 ~ yoongi: make-up sex

☆ short #26 ~ jungkook: new toy

☆ short #27 ~ yoongi: hair pulling

☆ short #28 ~ jungkook: alternative methods

☆ short #29 ~ jin: brat tamer

☆ short #30 ~ jin: breeding kink

☆ short #31 ~ jungkook: clit teasing

#bts fanfic #bts fluff #bts smut #bts #namjoon smut #seokjin smut #yoongi smut #hoseok smut #jimin smut #taehyung smut #jungkook smut #namjoon imagine #seokjin imagine #yoongi imagine #hoseok imagine #jimin imagine #taehyung imagine #jungkook imagine #bts x reader

[lillsisamarshmallow]

7 Hybrids Moved In With Me Masterlist

Pairing: Hybrid!Poly!BTS x Fem!Reader

Word count: 61.1k

Read time: 4hrs 50mins

Warnings: Slight Swearing, Homelessness, Mentions of Violence, Blood, Fluff, Reader is described as being ‘smaller’ and ‘shorter’ than the boys.

Genre: Hybrids AU, Fluff, Angst, SWF, Caretaker!Reader

Status: Ongoing

Description:

When the dog hybrid who visits her bakery starts taking extra food Y/N follows it through the alleys to find out why, but what happens when she stumbles upon an empty alley only to find 6 more hybrids and some very familiar pastries?

Chapters: 

Teaser (0)

Bake, Eat, Run (1)

Trespassing (2)

Bunny Boy (3)

Nurse Y/n (4)

Roommates? (5)

Living Arrangements (6)

Water Fountain in the Kitchen! (7)

Rainy days, mysterious notes, and wet apologies (8)

It’s over…? (9)

Working Boys (10)

The Plan (11)

Fair Day (12)

The Betrayal (13)

House Guests (14)

Jealous! Jealous! Jealous! (15)

*This story is also posted on my Wattpad*

 ⚠!This is a work of fiction so please to don't apply anything seen and shown in the book to real life people or situations!⚠

 P.S.

I love receiving feedback and seeing people make up their own theories, headcannons, and ideas about my work so please feel free to do that and ask me any questions you like about the work! This is also my first long term/full length project and the first writing project in a few years. 😊

#bts x reader #jungkook x reader #bts ff #yoongi x reader #LillsIsAMarshmallow #Lills BTS #Lills Kpop #LillsWrites #Lills 7 Hybrids moved in with me #namjoon x reader #jimin x reader #taehyung x reader #seokjin x reader #hoseok x reader #hybrid bts #hybrid!bts x reader #7HMIWM #bts imagines #bts #bts fic #namjoon imagine #seokjin imagine #yoongi imagine #hoseok imagine #jimin imagine #taehyung imagine #jungkook imagine #bts fanfic #bts hybrid au

[ugh-yoongi]

Jess' B-Day Hobi request:

Hobi x Reader - Amusement park date. Maybe cute and sexy, like reader feels bad for making him go on a particularly scary ride, so she blows him?

HAPPY BDAY JESS!! 🎉🎉🎉💜💜💜

this is so dfljlgdlkjgf. everyone please pray for hobi he really needs it.

swallow your pride

pairing: hoseok x reader genre: est. relationship au, pwp; smut warnings: this is mostly just porn, so — a handjob, oral sex (m. receiving which i'm sure you could've guessed), come swallowing, very slight overstimulation. use of pet names. i apologize for the extremely on-the-nose title but it had to be done. no pronouns used for reader. unedited. rating: explicit. minors do not interact. wordcount: 1k

You’ve barely crossed the threshold into your hotel room.

Perhaps naively, you’d thought it’d be fun. Thought you’d go on and laugh and grab on to one another and buy the mortifyingly ugly photo at the end. Add it to the stack of all the other mortifyingly ugly photos you’ve collected after years of dragging Hoseok on roller coasters he otherwise wouldn’t go within two-hundred feet of.

Clearly you’d thought wrong.

“I almost died—”

You sigh, pushing Hoseok far enough into the room to close the door. “It was Space Mountain, babe.”

He scoffs. Looks really affronted, offended that you think it so impossible that he could’ve died on Space Mountain. Which just isn’t true. He very well could’ve died—it was very dark and had a lot of sharp turns, not to mention he was a previously undiscovered shade of green by the time it was over.

Not to mention the photo.

Hoseok knew it’d be bad. Knew he hadn’t ridden a second of that roller coaster without the ugliest, most fear-stricken look on his face, and all he could do was try to cash in whatever good karma he had left that it wouldn’t be that bad.

And you—you’d waited for it to pop up on the monitor with the most wicked grin he’s ever seen you wear. So sinister it’d rapidly diminished any hope he’d managed to conjure up. Stuck out your credit card to buy it before he even had a chance to beg.

“That’s not—w-what are you doing?”

What you’re doing is planting both of your hands on his chest to push him onto the bed, rolling your lips to keep from laughing when his knees hit the edge and he tips backwards, overpriced Mickey ears falling off and bouncing to the floor.

What you’re doing is dropping to your knees in front of him, nudging his legs apart to kneel between them. Hoseok’s breath catches in his throat when you start to undo his belt, and it’s instinct, the way he sinks into the mattress, busies his hands in the sheets. Knows to keep them to himself.

What you’re doing is—“Blowing you,” you answer. “That alright?”

“Uh-huh,” comes his automatic response. “Yup. Per-perfectly fine.”

What you’re doing is unbuttoning his jeans and dragging the zipper down, sly smile on your face, tongue pressing into the fat of your cheek, as it strains over his erection. What you’re doing is pushing the denim down to his knees, ghosting your nails along the sensitive skin of his inner thighs, delighting in every small gasp that makes it past his lips.

There’s a way Hoseok likes to get sucked off, and it’s almost never like this. Hoseok has never shied away from his neuroticism, and that innate need of his to be in control bleeds into every aspect of his life, including here, so maybe you shouldn’t be, but you’re surprised at how pliant he is beneath you. How subdued. Surprised that his hands are still gripping the sheets and not the back of your head. Surprised that his hips are staying level to the mattress, that his mouth isn’t running a mile a minute.

“You’re being awfully behaved,” you note, eyebrow quirking in question.

He blinks, head lolling forward to ask, “You gonna try to dom me?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, darling,” you retort, taking his cock in your hand. He’s already so, so hard, flushed and leaking precum. “I’m simply assuaging my guilt.”

Hoseok snorts at that. “Because I almost died?”

You spit in your hand, stroking him once, twice. There’s something about the way he shudders in your grasp. Makes you feel powerful, has a quiet whimper of your own slipping through your parted lips. All of it just serves to rile him up even more, his hips rolling in time with your wrist.

“God, you’re so fucking hot,” you say, unable to help yourself; unable to keep the awe out of your voice.

And Hoseok, the cheeky fucker, preens. Closes his eyes and smiles up at the ceiling, not a hint of shame to be found. “What are the od—fuck—odds of you apologizing with your m-mouth?”

You pretend to think it over. “Hmm.” Lean in closer, your breath ghosting along all that sensitive skin. “Pretty high, I’d say.”

There’s another tart comment on the tip of Hoseok’s tongue, practically visible in the stale air of this hotel room, but it dissolves into nothing but a guttural groan once your lips are finally wrapped around him. Tapers into staccato whimpers as your throat constricts and you swallow. He’s still rolling his hips, fucking into your mouth, squeezing his eyes shut and gripping the sheets tighter every time he hits the back of your throat.

Hoseok has never once denied himself of anything. This included.

Spit pools in the corners of your mouth, drips down your chin. Messy, just how he likes it, and there’s nothing more dizzying than Hoseok in the throes of pleasure. Nothing that drags you to the edge faster than watching him go mindless from the indulgence of it. Makes it nearly impossible to focus, but you want to unravel him all the way, want to be responsible for it, want to push him to the brink of overstimulation.

On you go.

It’s so much—your hollowed cheeks, the way you’re fisting at what doesn’t fit, the sounds both of you are making. Has his balls tightening, has him stuttering out your name in a pathetic little whine. Has him so disoriented that the first drop of cum hits your tongue before he can warn you.

“Fuck, fuck—baby I’m gonna, shit—”

He spills into your mouth with a cry, hands finally moving to the contours of your cheeks. And normally you’d take it easy on him, swallow and move up the bed to kiss him just as sloppy, sit on his face, but something about Hoseok in this moment has you feeling undone. Has you wanting to ruin him entirely.

So you keep going.

Hoseok’s eyes go wide. He panics, tries to pull you off, but you know him. Know he wouldn’t let you if he really didn’t want to, just needs a minute to push past the discomfort. You also know you’ll be paying for this later, after he’s come back down to earth, but you’re finding it hard to care.

After all, he almost died. You’ve got a lot to apologize for.

#hoseok smut #jhope smut #bts smut #hoseok x reader #jhope x reader #bts x reader #hoseok imagine #bts imagines #bts scenarios #hoseok fanfic #jhope fanfic #bts fanfic #fic: jess drabbles

[blueberryarchive]

RECORDING (+18)

Were you move in to Montenegro Hills. A peaceful neighborhood with caring neighbors and walking dogs at 6pm.

The night of the welcome party, you meet Park Jimin: the president of the neighborhood committee. After a few shots and a little bit of flirting, he makes a proposal you thought you'll never hear from anyone in your life.

▶pairing; stalker!jimin x fem!reader

▶word count; 13.4k

▶genre: 80's au, enemies and lovers, thriller

▶tw; grammar mistakes (english is not my first language), horny!jimin all the way, your boy Hoseok it's a freak too, gore scenes (blood, wounds, death, descriptions of pain and bodily fluids), toxic relationship, smut (dub-con/non-con, penetration, knife play, degrading names, manhandling, spanking, fingering, choking, mating position) everyone in here is a piece of shit ngl, misogyny, mentions of drugs and alcohol.

▶playlist; 📼

Record, the verb, comes from the word cor or cord in Latin, which means heart or remember, which in itself is beautiful. To repeat over and over again, to keep track of it, to save it in the memory. Save is one of his favorite words to describe what he does. Salvus as in to keep safe, in both senses. 

There's nothing more precious to him than his collection of VHS tapes in the little room in the hall. All were put in alphabetical order and cleaned every Friday when he was free from work.

To watch every movie again and again, to remember the little details to heart, the dialogues, the gestures; he loved it. He loved taking care of it.

Now, it was Friday and, you see, as he was in the row from D to H, he heard one of the most precious pieces close the door abruptly of her Ford Cortina, just right outside of his house. He walked slowly through the hall of the rather dark place, the curtains were closed most of the time. His neighbors took it for privacy. 

Jimin was a very quiet and sheltered man, but he was very polite and helpful. Always there in Montenegro's activity programs, charity funds, birthdays, and Christmas parties. He helped with the food, made the kids laugh, and the wives adored him. Jimin was the best neighbor, and he worked hard for it. 

As he moved closer, his finger brushed the hem of the curtain in the living room, letting the sunlight paint a streak across his face. His eye settled on your feet, more like the heels. Who moved in with heels on?

You were wearing slingback pumps and a little pencil skirt, coming straight from work. Tired and all sweaty in the middle of the summer, when people remember why they don't like the heat in the first place. Jimin enjoyed it. It made people come out of their houses and forage for a little bit of shadow and conversation.

The white blouse you wore, had a little white bow that made you look like a dainty Victorian doll. The translucent blobs forming under your armpits were beginning to drip sweat down the sides of your ribs. You took a small carry-on suitcase from the co-pilot and closed the door putting on your dark, cat-shaped sunglasses. Chanel, so you also had money. The prices in Montenegro are not cheap by any means, but the people here are all so subtle in the ways they show it, with guilt and tight lips. But you weren't afraid to show that you could afford things, that maybe you loved the sound of pearls on your wrists and the sweet smell of Angel by Mugler on your clothes.

If he wasn't in his pajamas, Jimin would have opened his door to introduce himself just to let his nose feel the pleasure of your aroma in that heat.

Jimin knew that you were going fast and that you didn't want anyone to know about your arrival until you were in better condition. He looked at his wristwatch, it was barely five in the afternoon, and he didn't know if there was time. 

One way or the other.

He grabbed the corded phone near his couch and plopped down crossing his legs. With one hand he dialed a number so quickly that his fingers seemed to move automatically.

With the other, he searched for a roll in his work suitcase. It took less than the ringing of the call to put the film into the camera, a '72 Olympus, a beauty that belonged to his mother.

"Mm." answered a scratchy voice, Hoseok wasn't in the mood and that wasn't a good start.

"Hoseok, I need you to convince Nancy to have a party tonight, well, maybe not tonight but-." he put the phone between his shoulder and his ear, walking to the window. You were still inside, but the Cortina door was still open.

"What do you want me to do? She won't do anything until she's six months in." Hoseok exhaled. "Why a party? Who is it this time?"

Jimin wrinkled his nose, focusing the camera just as you went out to close the door. A single suitcase of clothes, your Chanel glasses, and your blurred lipstick. You were a work of art, he had to convince Hoseok to create an excuse.

"Park," Hoseok mumbled as the bustle of his office sounded on the other end of the line.

"Let's meet the new neighbor."

"Neighbor? I haven't heard Nancy speak of a neighbor at any time."

Click, just as you close the door. Click, the strokes of your hands and your quick steps.

"I'm seeing her now."

"Now? Is she already with you?" Hoseok sounded hurt, offended. His annoyance changed to a muffled, nasal voice.

"No, I wouldn't meet anyone without you, Jung." Jimin chuckled, his cheekbones popping with the jeer in his voice. "She's in front, where the Jimenez used to live."

"Yeah, okay—You better not." Hoseok interrupted.

Jimin closed the curtain and looked at the door at the end of the hall, three locks keeping it secure.

"So will you talk to Nancy?"

"Let's see, the hormones have her in a frenzy and she still forbids me to even drink, smoke or fuck her. I'm going insane." Nancy was Hoseok's wife, she was a sweet and calm girl, she always smiled and her voice reminded Jimin a lot of Shelley Duvall. A sheep with deep black eyes, like two dark lakes. She was Hoseok's jewel. Park didn't believe how sweet Hoseok could be with her, knowing how he could be outside his bubble, he pampered her fervently and always saw her like searching for scrapes and bruises.

Jung Hoseok was the perfect husband. Handsome and caring, made everyone light up with his contagious laughs.

They were one of the most beloved couples in Montenegro. Nancy was in charge, not officially but popularly, as the person who organized the parties. They were always the best. The best-grilled meats, iced tea, and the best conversations after a mojito or two. It was in these places that Jimin caught the big fish. But since Nancy's pregnancy, things have been quiet in the Jung household.

Nancy had become paranoid, barely leaving the house, walking around the patio of her house barefoot and in nightgowns. The women of her family tended to lose pregnancies easily, and every time she had a pregnant friend, or anyone for that matter, she treated them like porcelain, hundreds of tips on how to take care came out of her heart-shaped lips.

Now that it's her turn to be the pregnant one, she doesn't wear tight clothes and doesn't go upstairs. She eats hot things if Hoseok cooks because she's afraid of the stove. She thinks that her body, due to an uncontrolled impulse, will throw itself into the flames.

Convincing her wouldn't be easy, but Jimin hadn't seen her neighbors in a while, and seeing you caused his chest to shrink with curiosity. You were attractive, even when you thought you weren't.

Hours passed without any sign of life, dead hours in which Jimin decided to work on developing the photos he had taken of you. The pungent smell of vinegar and chemicals in the small room bathed in red light. His hands covered in black latex immersed the piece of paper in the water until the image appeared like a cloud of grays: your face, your hands, your hair sweating. Such a recent memory and he had already missed it.

He held the photo closer to the hanging light bulb, it was perfect. Even though it had come out a little blurry, he told himself that it made him want to have it more, the two minutes it had taken you to get there, close the windows, take out your suitcase, and look around you were fleeting. So having a small detail, like a photograph of a bird that was believed to be extinct or that of a very distant planet. He began to be fond of your nebulous figure.

His first frame of you.

Two clamps held the material on the cord so it could finish drying. The ringing of the phone brought Jimin out of his hedonism, he didn't wait for it to ring twice. Now, the words Hoseok said as he picked up the phone made the man smile.

"Saturday, 6 p.m. At my house." God bless Hoseok's convincing tactics. He must have made up an article in the newspapers about how Boston University theorized that a lack of communication with the outside world could cause hormonal problems and even affect the psyche of the fetus.

Wait…Saturday?

"You say tomorrow? It's too early, I don't have anything prepared yet."

Hoseok laughed. "No, moron, next week."

Jimin took off his gloves, disappointed with how little effort his partner had put into his work.

"That's a whole week away."

"You should suck my dick for getting something in the next four months."

"If you weren't as useless and ate her out, you would have had it by this Sunday, at least."

Hoseok bit the inside of his cheek, twirling a pen in his fingers. His eyes were arranged in a corner of his office, and with a sigh, his legs spread out. "Describe her to me."

Jimin smiled searching for a cigarette in the kitchen, the phone in his hand, the cord jumping a little by his steps. He switched the phone to his other ear as he turned on the tip. "She's not a Maeve, she's not your typical Montenegro mom, maybe more like a workaholic like Charlie."

"Any children?" Hoseok interrupted excitedly.

"No, I don't think so. She has a very… disorganized style for being a mom."

"Divorcee?"

"I don't think this woman spent more than six months with the same man." Both men laughed, Jimin brought the cigarette to his mouth but stopped mid-action when he saw a shadow pass through the living room window. "Wait." Jimin put down the phone and walked into the hallway. The VHS were arranged, shiny and neat, on the right shelf.

They hadn't knocked on the door.

Knock, knock.

Jimin raised his shoulders tensely. It was you? Could it be true that Jimin was lucky enough to not have to poison you with chemicals until he dragged you into his bed? That he didn't need Hoseok's charms to convince you that what they were doing was sick, but he just needed a little alcohol, a little bit of will from you, too.

He walked quickly to the door and opened the handle with so much pressure that it made noise. The young girl on the other side of the door flinched, opening her eyes like a frightened bird before smiling at the man who was sweating at the front door. 

This is Cosette, for the second time this week.

If Jimin didn't know how to control himself, Cosette would have been planted in the garden serving as fertilizer a long time ago. He fervently hated teenagers, of all types: athletic ones, Star Wars fans, those who went to his movie theater to make out with their boyfriends for the three hours of the Gone With the Wind special, those who drove in their parents' Chevelle speeding through the streets; all of them. Especially those from Montenegro.

Cosette wasn't part of any of the groups mentioned, but don't let her think that Jimin hated her any less. Cosette, who had a strange taste in everything, including her social circle, was at her door. Her hair was always in a high bun, her bangs covered her forehead, a jean jacket that hid her body, and bright pink lips that made Park's eyes water.

She always carried something new with her, something for Jimin to notice and talk about. This time, she had a kerchief tied around her head colored in a nauseating green. She smiled even more when she saw that Jimin was only wearing an unbuttoned t-shirt.

He looked in the direction of your house, the curtains still closed. Shit.

"Cosette," he greeted her, pressing his lips into a smile. He refused to look at her bow so she wouldn't mention it either.

"Mr. Park, today is Friday. I wanted to bring you the films you lent me so you can clean them up and keep them organized." Her voice was tremulous as she blatantly looked at Jimin's arms and chest.

"Thank you," his eyes narrowed as he held up the stack of rectangular drawers his neighbor handed him. "I'll definitely have something by Cronenberg or Kubrick for you next week."

Cosette blushed aggressively. "Dad says Kubrick is just an excuse to watch women being-"

Her words stuck in her throat as Jimin's dark pupils sat on her features, lips slightly parted.

"It's sex, Cosette." Jimin exhaled, leaving the VHS on a table. "Nothing is going to happen to you if you see it, much less if you say it." His hand went to the girl's shoulder, her fingers curling around themselves anxiously.

"Yes, obviously. I know that. " The girl looked down, letting silence cover time. "Do you think I can help you with cleaning your collection this week?"

Jimin smiled sweetly and denied. This was Cosette's way of wanting to interfere in his life or maybe she thought something would happen if she stood in the middle of his living room and closed the door. What a poor fool, she really made him feel sorry for her. That's why he tried to find a healthier and legal connection.

Jimin lent him five movies to watch from Monday to Friday. They all had a theme: Italian horror, neosurrealism, buddy films, western, romance…

She watched them all religiously. Sometimes she even took advantage and went to the cinema to watch it even when she had the same movie at her house. Just to see Jimin.

"Sorry, darling. I already finished doing that this morning."

"Oh, I understand." Cosette nodded stupidly quickly, taking a step back. "It's okay, Mr. Park."

"See you on Monday."

Colette did not respond, raising a hand as she turned her face away to get away as quickly as possible from the shame that consumed her. A small mocking laugh appeared on Jimin's lips and he took out his hidden arm from behind the door, revealing the disintegrating cigarette.

His heart dropped to his stomach when his eyes flicked to your porch and there you were, in the same position as him. Cigarette hanging from your lips, your damp hair combed back and eyeliner singed into your dark circles.

Not at all a mother from Montenegro, not a daughter, not even the whores that the divorced men brought in looked as broken and disoriented as you. Jimin’s heart pounded when your eyes never left his as you took a drag. Smoke billowing out of your nose. You didn't smile or extend your hand to say hello like a good neighbor, instead, you looked at Jimin suspiciously, closing the door seconds later.

Jimin raised his eyebrow. What had he done? Worried, he closed the door quickly, head resting on the wood. He cursed Cosette under his breath as he walked to the phone in the kitchen.

"Hoseok?"

"Don't tell me. Marcus' little girl."

"I get a headache every time I hear her babbling."

"Don't be so cruel, she admires you a lot."

Jimin closed his eyes, your gaze had hurt his fragile ego, and he had to know why you were so hostile between two and a half puffs of your cigarette.

That week was about to be lethargy, hell, Dante's tenth circle.

Day 1

Movie in theaters: Ghostbusters The curtains are still closed, I can see your silhouette at night, and the lights you use are dim. Halogen, you like calm environments, corners covered in soft shadows. You play music from the moment you get home from work, 5:15 without fail; you usually leave it on when you leave again.  Every day, you come back with a paper bag, I assume with groceries. 5.45. You are wearing a leotard in one of those colors that Cosette likes so much. Perky titties bouncing while you take down the porch stairs;; couldn't help but take some pictures. You exercise until 6:40, then, ironically, smoke a cigarette or two in the yard. Smiling at people while pearls of sweat dribble down to your cleavage. Zuri is the first one of the committee to see you and waves her hand with curiosity. You two talk for a little. I'm here wishing I could read lips, but even with a thorough education, yours will need a whole degree only for me to concentrate on not kissing them. I go to sleep at 11:30, one glass of whiskey and half a joint I stole from Marcus months ago. I dream of eating you out through a small cut in your leotard, sweat dripping down your body to mine. You whimper, but I can't hear you.

Day 2

Movie in theaters: Friday The 13th: Part IV At 6:25 in the morning, I wake up to the sound of your heels going down the stairs to get to your car. I can't get up fast enough to see what you're wearing for me today. You accelerate quickly, you don't care if you wake up the neighbors. You don't come back all day. After work, I watch one of my films on TV until I fall asleep, Birdie's laughter drowns out my curiosity as I doze. 5:15, you're not home from work. Maybe you went out of state, considering how you dress, you seem like a busy woman. I thought about the clicking heels and imagined your foot stepping on my erection. I go outside to calm my thoughts. One thing led to another, and without knowing it I find myself in your backyard. You're not stupid, all the doors and windows are closed; curtains included. But you don't know who I am still, what I need about you.

Day 3

Movie in theaters: The Evil That Men Do 4:55. I'm at the Millers' house, they've invited me to check out their new screen and sound system. Watching a movie with them, but due to August Miller's silent decision, we ended up at the outside bar, drunk on mojitos and pina coladas that Lou Miller learned to make with a cassette he bought at the supermarket. The cocktails are very sugary, but they help clear my head. I find myself sitting steps away from Mr. Miller. I tell him I'm writing notes for a new review in the newspaper, but all I can think about is your absence all day. There is no news from you, and I am afraid that you have decided to leave the house. I don't understand, the house is adorable. Too big for one person, but the Jiménez filled it with pets and children in less than two years. It has off-white floors and large windows to let in the light. A huge patio and pool so you can indulge in leisure activities such as gardening and nudism. 00:13, you appear with your car lights off and your arms down. You carry the same paper bag in your hands, and I accidentally smile when I have your presence. I knew having a garden in your yard would convince you to come back.

Day 4

Movie in theaters: Footloose Something that my drunken brain from yesterday had forgotten to write down, that was overlooked, or that the mojitos simply erased from my memory. I managed to open a window in your backyard. Around 6, Lou Miller, in her forties, was no longer the same when drinking and it seemed she had forgotten because getting out of the pool she vomited every cocktail and every appetizer she had made for her husband and for me. Mr. Miller, due to his age and lack of exercise, had to leave the task of helping his wife up to the room to me. There, lying on the bed like some kind of rag doll passed out and with her vomit leaving a trace in her mouth, I thought of you. Maybe because this wasn't the first time a drunk and unconscious woman was in front of me or because she simply couldn't think of anything else. I went downstairs and said goodbye as decently as I could in my tipsy state. How strange it was to be drunk in the middle of a sunset. The days seem long and with you absent, God knows I need to at least get something that reminds me of you. You made things so difficult for me but I appreciated the detail, seriously. It's been a while since I enjoyed taking out my tools to open doors. People in Montenegro take security so lightly that I don't know how there hasn't been a massive burglary in every house. My arms wobbled and my cheeks burned. Half an hour later, I could hear the click that took me to your kitchen. I didn't do anything else, things had to go little by little between us, and I was willing to take it slowly for you. You're worth it.

Day 5

The night passed me like a breeze, it hit me like a stone on my temples. The nauseating taste of alcohol and sugar on my palate. Surely my face was swollen and that wouldn't help my next plan. The mirror showed me dark circles and short red marks on my ribs and chest. Going over your fences left me like shit. I put on some sunglasses and walked to my garden, I had been negligent with my roses and grass since your arrival. I had to make a good impression, and that was the first thing you saw of me. And this is where my conversion to religion begins. The first thing I hear is those low heels, the red ones you wore the first day, then Poison by Dior collided on my sensitive, hungover nose. That aroma was so familiar, maybe Zuri or maybe on Marcus's ex's boudoir. The conversation was like out of nowhere passing through the thin fresh humidity of a cloud, I remember nothing but the white and the voice of a seraphic being speaking to me.

"Don't you think it's pretty cloudy?" It was the first thing you let out of your angelic lips. Jimin closed his eyes and let a small shy smile appear as he turned around.

You had your hair back, revealing your entire face while you squeezed your eyes shut looking at the sky. A steaming mug in hand, a floral dress that almost reached your knees.

"Good mor-"

"For sunglasses, I mean." You interrupted, bringing the cup to your mouth. Chocolate, he smelled. You weren't one to drink coffee in the morning, noted.

"I try not to let my neighbors understand how hungover I am this morning."

You weren't one of the shy ones, he knew it from the moment you looked at him talking to Cosette and he loved that. You weren't wearing a ring either, noted.

You laughed at your neighbor's confession, Park's chest widened as he inhaled the sweet melody of your laughter. What if he confessed more things to you and you ended up fucking your hungover neighbor in the garage?

"Park," he raised his hand, and you raised yours squeezing lazily while still looking at him. "Jimin Park, I'm the president of the neighborhood committee, I also write reviews for The Hours."

"Good representation of what awaits me on Saturday."

Jimin raised his eyebrow at him. He was supposed to be the one inviting you, he would come to your door with good wine and his expensive perfume on to ask you to crash a party a couple of doors down, something "impromptu."

"Ah yes, that." Park licked his lips turning off the sprinkler.

“Aren’t you going?” Was that disappointment in your voice? Oh, honey...

"It wouldn't be a party without me"

"I see that." You pointed to his glasses again. The third joke about his hangover, you were nervous.

You just looked for an excuse to see him closer, and he had to respect your courage, it would have taken him a few more weeks, and after that, he ended things quickly after convincing his... how to put it? Muse? To leave it as it is.

"Well, I have to go, Park, but it was a pleasure. See you Saturday night."

"At the Jung's house, at 8."

You smirked, your eyes taking one more scan of the boy's body before turning around and walking to your car. Your hips moved soft and firm with each step, you worked for it and he appreciated it.

Continuation of Jimin's diary. Day 5: Page crumpled and torn from the small notebook. Attached with adhesive tape.

Yes, yes, yes. I know I should have waited at least half an hour for you to leave the area to go to the back door, but seeing you up close, smelling you, and hearing your voice. They were simply the last stop on my patience. I was walking through the small forest behind your house, the path was muddy under my boots and the sky threatened to break into thick drops. I prayed that it was true so that it would cover up the evidence of yesterday and today. I opened the door again with ease and entered your kitchen, closing the door softly. You still had things in boxes and my hands were tingling to open them, but I'm smarter than that. I didn't waste time and went up to your room. I came for something, then when you invite me to dinner or watch a movie I can have the pleasure of admiring your home. I looked in the drawers, under the bed, and in the closet. Here is the list of things I took that I know you would only assume were lost in the move: a red lipstick from the Besame brand, some used black panties with a small bow in the center, a white photo of you and black, a key that I found under a chest full of rings. I have no reason to take a key without knowing what it is for, but the ribbon covered in river pearls from which it hung was so delicate that I smiled thinking of you decorating something so simple. Now, I write these pages because I have arrived safely at my desk, with all things in hand. But I must say that you gave me a tremendous scare when you arrived at the house without the vehicle. I heard banging downstairs, and the hissing of keys. Luckily I was able to escape out the window that looked right into the pine trees behind the neighborhood. I spent another hour walking around the steep path, admiring how the thick, century-old trunks swallowed me up. As I predicted, the sky turned black. The last rains of September cleaned everything I left behind. I put my hands inside my pocket and took out the panties that I had wrapped delicately. I opened them like a letter as the rain soaked my body and the fabric in my hands further. I brought its center to my face and inhaled deeply, letting my back fall onto a log. Pungent and strong was your taste, I gripped the material in my teeth as I desperately undid my pants. It's the first time I've tasted you and I couldn't contain myself for long, the rain drowning out my moans as whitish streams fell on the wet earth.

There is no collection from day 6, a simple crumpled sheet, previously wet with an unidentified liquid (among the possibilities tears, stolen perfume, human remains), marked with a lipstick that Jimin wrote with hearts in the 'i's.

If there was something that surprised Jimin every time, it was the way Nancy could prepare a party in such a short time. Her backyard became a show under incandescent light bulbs and freshly cut grass.

Jimin stepped on the silage with guilt because of how perfect it was. He looked at his white suede shoes, removing a leaf that settled on them. He wanted to be impeccable. He had cut his hair past his ears and was wearing jeans and a T-shirt tight on his arms and chest with the words: 'LOVE 1984' by Yves Saint Laurent. His biceps were something to talk about and Nancy didn't let it go unnoticed.

"Is there anyone special coming today, Park?" Her honeyed and soft voice approached Jimin, offering him the first cocktail of the night. Unlike Mrs. Miller's, Nancy's coconut mojitos were the best.

"I don't know, that's the wonderful thing about your parties. The last one the Bee Gees didn't come through that door because Jung wouldn't let you pay for it." They both laughed.

"Well, I wouldn't say the Bee Gees." She thought about it, maybe he would bring them next summer. "Cher, I love Cher. I know a friend from college who has her number."

"For God's sake, Nan."

Jimin smiled again, looking at Nancy's profile: her face was as delicate as her voice. Her hooked nose curved gently and her lips pursed, seeing what else he could arrange before the others arrived. Her hand unconsciously caresses her visibly bulging stomach.

"Do you know what it is?"

Nancy's eyes sparkled at the mention of her fetus. She denied it.

"Zuri is planning to hold a small celebration for me to tell me my gender in a few days."

"Ah, another party. This is where Sonny and Cher show up to say she's a girl."

Hoseok came out wearing an apron that blatantly said 'Kiss the Cook' and a pile of bloody, seasoned meats on a plate. The grill in front of him waved a nice heat as the first piece sizzled.

"You know I can't live without a good celebration." Nancy stepped back, gravitating away from the heat of the fire. "I'm going to see if I can help Lucy with the canapes."

Nancy turned around smiling an apology at Jimin who reciprocated. Without wasting time, he pulled a Marlboro out of his jeans and approached Hoseok, enjoying the warmth that covered his torso. Hoseok held a piece of bright red charcoal and brought it close to his partner's cigarette until he lit it.

"She did it again, the patio is beautiful."

"You know my Nana just needed a good excuse." Hoseok smiled, holding up the cigarette to take a drag. "Ever since I mentioned there was a new single woman in the neighborhood, they went crazy."

"Have you seen her yet?" He was somewhat suspicious that Hoseok had beaten him to invite her to his barbecue. Make no mistake, the party was the Jungs', but the purpose of the party was so that Jimin could meet you. The plan didn't work unless Jimin said it was going to happen, Hoseok was part of them but only as a proxy.

Luckily for Jimin, Hoseok shook his head in disappointment, looking at the grill.

"I heard she looked like a slut waiting to get paid for a blowjob on the sidewalk in a yellow leotard."

"Pink." Jimin interrupted, irritated by the words, sipping the mojito until he finished it. "Who told you that? Zuri?"

The day Jimin saw them talking, Zuri was wearing a friendly smile and you two had a small conversation.

"No, of course not. Zuri just said that she came home from the gym and the others-"

"Maeve," Jimin mumbled, setting the glass aside.

Hoseok smiled. "You know this happens to everyone who arrives, it happened to me and Nancy, to Marcus, to the Espositos for being Catholic in a place like Montenegro."

Christopher Esposito was a father at St. Eliam's Chapel, a small white building where few in the neighborhood went. It was California and people only believed in themselves. But, of course, Nancy had to invite them. Well, religion is not religion at the end of the day, but status.

Coming back to you.

"She is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. But not beautiful in the aesthetic sense, there is something about her eyes."

Like you know something Jimin doesn't.

Hoseok raised his eyebrows at him flipping the cuts.

"Fuck, she has you in the palm of her hand."

Jimin denied listening to the commotion coming in and talking inside the house. "Tonight I will be the one who will have it in mine."

There you were, in a black high-necked dress and black boots. You smiled at everyone and shook your hand.

For a second, when Jimin brought his cigarette to his lips, you looked at him. He to you. Both smiled before each one went back to his work.

Let the show begin.

Glasses slowly piled up on the wooden table that Nancy had impeccably decorated about four hours ago, plates with bones and half-eaten vegetables.

The music was loud but the voices shouting stories from the past about alcoholism and deranged adolescence were even louder.

Jimin was sitting next to the unlit grill, the subtle smell of burning charcoal and meat had him nauseous. He brought his knuckles to his lower lip as he watched you talking to Hoseok and Nancy, an impeccable smile on your lips, you looked like a little angel; anyone would steal you from that place. 

Several of the husbands had taken a glance or two at your legs and swallowed your flirtatious, drunken laughter. You only drank wine and the tinted mark of alcohol covered your lips. So kissable and unattainable.

Hoseok had already taken a look at your hands, they were one of his favorite features. Luckily for him, your hands were decorated with rings and varnish the color of the wine you drank.

Nancy laughed at a joke you said, you blinked slowly looking at the woman in front of you with the concentration that only being drunk gives you. Hoseok looked back and nodded at Jimin. It was time.

"Could you get our guest another glass of wine, love?" Hoseok took your glass and Nancy nodded still laughing at the story you told her about your childhood.

Hoseok placed a hand on your back guiding you through the people. You let him, who knew that a couple of drinks could give you so much fluidity?

Still, you felt this tickling in your neck since you arrived.

"Are you enjoying the party?" Hoseok was one of those men that you watched your friend marry and sometimes you wished you had that kind of stability. Nice, he made you laugh, he protected you.

You nodded to the question.

"I'll introduce you to a few committee members, they're excited to meet you."

They both made way for a blonde woman with eyes so blue that you couldn't stop looking at them throughout the conversation, the green shadow on her eyelids was so singed that it looked like a healing bruise.

"This is Maeve."

"Oh, dear, welcome." Her body felt tense in the hug she offered you.

When she let you go, she once again engineered that smile that seemed to hurt her to extend. You looked where her gaze was guided: two children dressed alike were running around near the pool.

"Come back here." She murmured, pointing to the area where the other children were.

"Maeve is in charge of children's events and birthdays. She is an artist."

"Oh, Hoseok, please." Maeve rolled her eyes at her enjoying the compliment. "Why didn't you bring your children, dear?"

"I don't have any, work won't let me." You smiled. Maeve raised her eyebrows.

"And your husband, he also works a lot? He should have at least stopped by to say hello-"

"There is no husband either."

Hoseok licked his lips enjoying the shock on Maeve's face.

"Oh okay." She laughed softly, fixing his pearl necklace. "I mean, things aren't like they used to be." Maeve sought support from Hoseok. You also looked at the man next to you who almost choked in his drink.

"America," Hoseok explained, taking a swig of brandy that made his nose wrinkle.

"God, yes. It's like it doesn't belong to the man anymore." You laughed hard, you didn't know where so much energy came from but you were static, you could feel every look and every touch.

Every look.

"California has become Sodom in just ten years."

"Oh, there's Zuri and Charlie!"

Hoseok grabbed your arm and dragged you away from Maeve's quips. Two women were sitting near the pool, the black woman fixed her glasses and continued the conversation. Her hands were intertwined with the brunette's in front of her. You didn't want to interrupt but Hoseok didn't give you time.

"This is Zuri and Charlie Munson."

The hairs on the back of your neck perked up as you heard another voice behind you. You couldn't tilt your head because the two women stopped to shake your hand. He was just who you wanted to see.

"You came," you mumbled to Jimin as you squeezed the taller girl's hand. She was beautiful.

"Charlie, this is our new neighbor." Jimin placed both hands on your shoulders, massaging discreetly. You were breathing hard as you tried to hide a smile. The pads of his fingers hit the tense spots.

Charlie was tall, the square glasses covering half of her face. Seeing Jimin, her calm expression soured. You gave her your hand and smiled at Zuri who stood behind her like a little girl.

"Charlie's a lawyer, in case you one day end up getting a DUI like me." Jimin laughed, you didn't know if it was a joke. If you saw Zuri's reaction, yes. If you saw Charlie's, well he had simply said that he ran over a child or something.

"Zuri is-"

"I already met Zuri on one of my outings to my patio."

"Oh perfect." You smelled divine and the brandy was starting to feel like the plan could go well without the help...no, in fact, without Jung's presence.

"I work for Martines & Sons," Charlie spoke again.

Your eyebrows raised in surprise still with Charlie's hand in yours.

"Martines & Sons, you're not just any lawyer then. I know one of the sons, David has told me a lot about you." You responded. Charlie smiled proudly, fixing her glasses. Was that blush Jimin saw on Charlotte Munson's cheekbones? Oh, you were a top whore, you flirted with Charlie in front of her own wife and poor Zuri didn't notice.

You and Charlie lasted a short silence smiling at each other.

"Zuri is a piano teacher." his wife stammered, letting the woman with the long, poorly dyed hair shake your hand. She wore necklaces of different colors and a ring that almost covered her index finger with a purple stone. "She graduated from Stanford."

Barely, Jimin told himself.

Before they can continue the conversation, Maeve calls out to the two women. Perfect.

The music was loud enough for Jimin to have the excuse of brushing your ear with his swollen lips from biting them so much.

"That's Marcus," he murmured, letting the warmth of his breath caress your lobe. You closed your hands into a fist, wetness pooling instantly inside your silk underwear.

Marcus was like a Jesus if he had become a writer. His hairy knuckles held a cigarette about to burn his skin, he didn't talk to anyone but instead admired the water of the pool in silence.

“That's his daughter, Cosette,” Jimin's palm guided your hip to the kitchen window. You were so drunk that Jimin didn't have to do much to make your physiognomy move, like wet clay between his calloused fingers.

"Victor Hugo fan?"

"Don't even try to do it, he'll spend hours talking to you about Les Misérables." They both laughed in a drunken stupor. Like two boys gossiping.

Cosette was wearing a plaid skirt and blue eyeshadow. To attract attention this time she had put on red lipstick.

Seeing Jimin, she raised her hand and smiled, revealing her silver braces.

No, she was too shy to greet Jimin like that.

You greeted her with both hands so he could see you better in the darkness on that side.

"Ah, you know her."

"Yes, I almost crashed into the poor thing at midnight when she was running away from her house." Monday the 17th, you arrived at 12:13 that night. Anyway, it wasn't logical for you to be out at midnight.

"I didn't consider her one of those who ran away at night."

"Sometimes it can get lonely, doesn't it?" You both looked at each other at the same time, your cold knuckles pinching your lips.

Hoseok was nowhere to be found and Jimin's cock was already starting to hurt under those tight jeans.

Fuck it.

"You don't need to go to be with little Cosette to feel accompanied." Jimin rolled his eyes, the iridescence of the water reflecting on his face and you felt the wine line your blood. The tickling behind your neck subsided and you could only think about those high, rosy cheekbones that you wanted to nibble on ever since you saw them.

"I don't feel alone now."

"And in your house?"

You squeezed your eyes shut.

"Surprisingly, at home, I feel like I have someone else. In the hallways behind me, behind the curtain when I shower, in the corner of my bed when I go to sleep."

A cheeky smile spread across your face, Jimin swallowed, pulling out a cigarette.

"Ghosts," he rolled his eyes playfully. "The worst plague."

You stole the cigarette from Jimin's hands and lit it with the lighter you had inside your left boot.

"What do you say, Park? Do you have ghosts in your hallways while you go to pour your coffee?"

If you only knew, love.

"Unlike you, no one loves me enough to haunt me even in my dreams."

Your eyes fell after two drags, on the third you stopped at your chest and held the cheeks of the boy next to you, your crimson nails squeezing gently letting Jimin's lips bulge allowing you to pass the cold smoke to his lips.

"Hmm," Jimin groaned, letting the air come out of his nose in frustration. He closed his eyes and opened them gently until he looked at your pupils dilated and determined for the next step.

This is the first time Jimin has asked the question instead of Hoseok, who from his mouth didn't sound so creepy. But the unfortunate man was busy playing a game of poker with the other parents. Now that little Jung came to the family, Jimin, and his hobbies were something that Hoseok apparently wanted to put behind him, he wanted to become a suburban father.

"Have you ever been recorded...um-" Jimin swallowed hard, moving closer to hide in the shadows of the night. "Doing it?"

You tilted your head back to look at Jimin again, he wasn't playing around. You lifted the corners of your lips, a husky laugh on your part.

“You fucking freak” You scoffed.

"I can show you my films if you want to."

"Yeah, sure-" you huffed, taking a step back.

"Pick one." Jimin took your arm, the look in his eyes was daring. "Pick someone here. Anyone."

Your gaze rolled around the party until it stopped at the sweet Maeve who was singing karaoke next to her husband, a martini in her hands. Surprisingly, Maeve was a crowd favorite.

Jimin smiled evilly. "Do you want to know if Mrs. Johnson enjoys being recorded?"

No, you wrinkled your nose.

Your eyes softened at the thought of Jimin arranging the camera to focus on Maeve's cobalt eyes, curiosity flowing faster than alcohol.

"I thought so." Jimin offered you his hand and surprisingly, yours landed on his before he could say no. "Be like the one she's had too much to drink, we need an excuse to get out of here."

In the end, Jimin was right. The only thing he needed to get you into his bed was a little alcohol and a little bit of you.

Jimin's house had so few lights that when you entered it took you a few seconds to adjust to the darkness. The lamps illuminated the corners, the pieces of newspapers with his reviews on the living room wall, his photo on several of them.

Leaving the party wasn't as difficult as they both thought because everyone was so drunk that they didn't even notice his absence, even Hoseok who was winning his useless poker game.

Now you were with your legs crossed on the leather furniture, your boot clattered on the floor waiting for Jimin who was in the hallway, he had put on reading glasses that made him look older than he was but you loved thinking about that little girl. fantasy that he was about to give you a class.

Jimin muttered the letter M over and over again until he found Maeve between Mad Max and The Magnificent Seven. Handwritten with a green marker it said: Maeve: June 3rd, After the Twins' Birthday.

"Here it is." A nostalgic smile appeared on Jimin's face. You followed his steps with your eyes until you reached the small VCR in front of the television.

"It bothers you?" You took a joint out of your purse, but Jimin denied it, crawling to the furniture and positioning himself between your legs, his glasses reflecting a certain emotion that you couldn't decipher. But he looked comfortable, happy to be able to present one of his works, his hand caressing your thigh while he lit the joint.

"On the contrary, I believe that substance use enriches the experience." Now it was Jimin's turn to take your breath into his, but his hand was rough and he clenched your jaw to get you off. You didn't complain, that's how you liked it. "Speaking of substances, brandy?"

“Please,” you coughed, your eyes stinging. You looked around the room as he stood.

Jimin went to the open kitchen that joined the living room, his gaze and body were already adapted to the blackness of the apartment. There was only the light from the television and a small lamp at the end of the hallway that led to his study.

"Are you going to explain to me how you got frigid Maeve Johnson to let you do this or..."

"Of course, I just let Hoseok do the hard work of casting and convincing."

"Hoseok? Your neighbor Hoseok?"

"Yeah, he's like my producer if you want to call it that." The coppery liquid settled in the glasses, leaving a pleasant woody smell in the air.

"And what do you gain from that?"

Jimin turned around and looked at you impatiently.

"Have a drink before you start, it will surely be strong for you."

"You don't know me, Park." You responded, sitting closer to him to take the glass he offered you, a small drink.

It was enough.

Your swollen and tinted lips closed with his in a tender and passive kiss, Jimin breathed deeply without closing his eyes. He placed both glasses on the table without taking off his eyes of the screen and put his hands on your waist. The tips of his fingers touched your curves above the silk of his dress, turning from a caress to a rapture.

"Mphmf" You took off laughing a little, the weed had you smiling and Jimin loved that. He loved it when his girls started laughing sheepishly at their own fantasies.

"Shall we begin?" Jimin held the controller in his hands and pressed the button.

Hoseok is the first image you make out on the screen, his lips pursed as he fixes the camera.

"You're sure?" Could be heard behind the sudden movements of the camera.

"Mhm, it's just something I like to keep in case I want to see your face moaning my name again."

Hoseok takes off just as Maeve blushes and rolls her eyes at him. His movements were light, and his shoulders didn't seem as tense as those of the woman at the party.

"Is she on drugs?" Asked.

"No, she only drank two glasses of wine before starting. The three of us were a little tipsy."

A pale figure approaches Maeve and removes the low tail she has, surprisingly, this makes the woman relax even more. Seeing the hands massaging her shoulders you realize it's Jimin.

"Is she ready yet?" she murmured.

"The only thing missing is the boom," Hoseok responded by teasing Maeve about her beauty.

"Quickly, I can't wait any longer." Jimin laughed flirtatiously, approaching Maeve's neck to leave a couple of chaste kisses. Johnson closed her eyes.

"Almost there," Hoseok complained before the sound changed from a crisp sound to a sleeker one. Now you could hear Jimin's lips smack.

"Action," Maeve laughed and the two boys laughed at her. Hoseok was no longer in front of the screen. But you could hear the dragging of a chair and a belt being removed. Voyeurism, interesting.

What happens next is just what you thought, but you still couldn't stop watching Maeve being completely devoured by a man who was, surely, her first experience fucking her and having her be the center of attention.

The camera focused on her and her alone. But you couldn't stop watching Jimin in the corners, he was a damn artist with his body. He was not the protagonist but without him, there was no dance.

Hoseok was breathing hard behind the camera throughout the entire movie.

When Maeve was sweating and panting on the furniture right where you were sitting, the screen went black.

You looked at Jimin, his mouth resting on his knuckles. The light from the static emitted a pale light on his body, you could see how seriously he had taken the film, he had only moved to take a couple of sips of brandy without taking his eyes off the screen.

"What do you think about it?"

There were no words that could describe the feeling Jimin had when he heard the three words that left your lips.

"I want one." You had a feline smile. Jimin knew you were sick, but you looked like you had fallen from the sky that summer afternoon.

Park's head shook, nodding quickly.

As he stood up from the furniture, he felt as if his body was going to lean forward, perhaps he had drunk too much brandy.

"Woah, are you okay?" You held his arm, but he nodded instantly.

"Yes, sorry is the excitement." He laughed walking down the hallway, each step echoing off the walls of his brain. Something was wrong, but he couldn't stop now. He had to look for his camera.

He searched for the keys in his pocket until he found the key to the study, turned on the lights, and looked for a tool in the corner of the room. Upon entering the studio, it surprised you how many plants, lamps, and furniture of different sizes and shapes there were.

Maeve had surely been something improvised, but now Jimin and Hoseok had vast resources to create something first-class.

"You can take a seat wherever you like, I'll take care of the rest." The man stammered, putting the batteries in the camera.

"What camera is it?"

"It's a Sony BetaMovie, I love how the colors look in the image." He swallowed hard because when he got up, the room seemed to spin. "Shit."

"Come, I'll help you. Take a seat." Your voice guided Jimin to a white piece of furniture near a window. Your hands brushed the hair from his forehead and he smiled. You really were everything he needed.

"I'll put the cassette on while you rest. You hit the joint too fast." You laughed before placing a sweet kiss on his lips, Jimin's cock throbbed as he felt the softness and heat emanating from your body.

“Quick,” he whispered, watching you put the device on the tripod.

His eyebrows rose at how quickly you set up the camera and sound. Even better than Hoseok, he dared to say.

Where was Hoseok?

Jimin's heart started to beat fast as you let your ass fall into his lap, a hiss coming from him as he put both of his hands behind his head. Your hips began to move back and forth, and the fabric of his jeans rubbed roughly against his cock.

"Fuck." He mumbled, looking up, lips parted into an oval. The room stopped moving when you started playing with his hair. "You're s-so fucking cute. I like you so much, I-I don't want to share you w-with that bastard Hoseok."

You laughed at his babbling. He was so excited that if you touched his cock he was sure to cum in seconds. You flattened your tongue against his jugular and felt the growl he made.

"You're so fucking cruel. C'mon, take my fucking cock out."

"Do it yourself, you lazy fuck." You whispered, leaving a hickey on his collarbone.

Jimin obeyed as fast as his clumsy hands could, he didn't know what was happening to him but he didn't care. Maybe what he smoked wasn't weed but if you were in the same state, things were fine.

Everything was perfect.

"Take that fucking dress off. God, I wish you had that pink leotard on."

With both hands on the edges of the dress, you lifted it until your naked body was visible.

"You're breathtaking, baby."

"I know." You kissed him with so much hunger that the taste of blood began appearing between your tongues, but none of you knew whose. You raised your legs to remove the wet panty, you held Jimin's cock in your entrance, and your fingers felt the veins that were pulsing frantically. "Don't you dare cum without me"

"Just ride me, baby, please. I feel like I will die if you don't." He sounded desperate, on the verge of crying. "Nice and slow, let the camera see how good you can take it." Jimin gasped with every inch you let into your tight pussy. Both hands went to his mouth muffling his moans when you sat straight up on his cock, leaving nothing out.

You bit your lower lip in a smile, you pulled him closer to your body and he buried his face in your neck. Right where you wanted it.

"I know you have my key." You whispered.

Jimin pressed his fingers on your hip to make you stop. Fuck.

"What are you-?" The air was forced from Jimin's lungs as his rib bent in pain. The warmth of his blood damaged the new T-shirt.

You had stabbed him, he didn't know what it was but he could feel the thin edge moving menacingly inside him. A guttural sound came from him as you rotated the handle of the knife.

"You were the one who entered my house."

Jimin laughed, the lightness that losing blood caused him ecstasy.

"I didn't tell you to stop moving, you slut," he growled in your ear, your pussy clenched around him, he noticed and smiled even more. You were so done with him. You grabbed a fistful of hair from his head to get a better look at him.

He was a fucking liar, you told yourself as you held his head, his eyelids fluttering with the errant movement of your hips. If you had drunk the brandy that he offered you, you would be in that state, the same one that Maeve was in, the same one that everyone on every cassette in the hallway was surely in.

"Where is the key?"

Jimin couldn't stop smiling, he grabbed your chin and pulled you closer to leave wet kisses on your lips. His tongue playing with yours. A fight of teeth and saliva.

"What do you need it for"

"It's not your damn problem."

"Then I don't have the key."

You were sick of his games, you bit his bottom lip so hard it bled. That along with a sit on his cock made him so sensitive.

"Fuck, fuck, FUCK." He hissed on your chest, he did not know if it was for pleasure or because you were taking out the blade from his body. Thick, white cum pouring down your legs.

"Okay, then. I'll just do it myself."

The last thing Jimin remembers is your head smashing his to unconsciousness. Bliss, pure heaven after the torture of having to love and deal with you.

He was fucked.

And here was Jimin, his eyes were like two black bullets pointing in your direction.

And there you were, helping Nancy arrange the gifts on the Baby Shower table. You dressed so casually and sweetly. You smiled as if nothing had happened.

Jimin inhaled sharply and felt his rib sting under the gauze protecting the wound. By luck, or rather experience, you didn't hit a vital organ. Which to him is surprising.

"This is what you get for not telling me to go with you," Hoseok served Jimin the punch filled with cubes of fruit, it was too sweet but since it was Maeve's party it had to be kid-friendly.

Hoseok didn't know about your act, he only knows that there is a tape of what happened, and what hurts Jimin the most is that he doesn't even have it. You took him away, you left his house in a mess looking for the key, and all the tapes scattered on the floor. It took full days to fix them.

"Now you're dedicated to being a full-time dad."

"Sorry, I have to do my job."

Jimin looked up at his partner, he wanted to tell him to go to hell, to him and to everyone else. But Park Jimin was always a sweet, calm, and helpful neighbor. Today he gave the excuse of having a migraine so he could sit and be quiet, so he could see you through his sunglasses.

"Did you at least fuck her?"

Jimin looked at his empty glass, a small smile threatening to tug at his corners.

"It's the best work I've done so far." He responded after a long silence.

"Fuck, man," Hoseok complained, thinking of all the possibilities.

"I can't take this anymore, I'm going outside for a cigarette."

"Don't stay too long, we almost announce the gender."

What a weird fucking sentence, Jimin thought taking, his pack out of his pockets.

"Care to share one?" You said and Jimin's body hair rose like static.

You wore sunglasses just like him, and you carried two glasses of rum and soda.

"You can take that fucking drink and choke with it."

“Mm,” you smiled. "Someone is not in a good mood."

"Do you know I can sue you for what you did?"

You laughed heartily covering your lips, Park's stomach altered. Of course, he couldn't, you already knew about his deepest secret, and you had the evidence. God knows Jimin was in your hands and you didn't need much to close it and crush him.

"Where's the tape?"

"Where's my key?"

"I don't have your fucking key."

"Then you can forget about your tape, sweetheart." You mumbled under your breath before stealing the cigarette from him. Jimin's hand turned into a fist.

You walked languidly down the sidewalk, Jimin following slowly behind you. You knew.

When they arrived at the house they both stayed at the entrance door. Your hands are arranged behind your back.

"Open the door."

"I thought you were going to come in through the window like you did before."

"ENOUGH!" Park shouted, scaring you, luckily there was no one around. "This is not a game."

"It is."

"No, it's not. You came to ruin my life."

"And you don't help solve it."

"The only way this problem will be solved is if you get out of Montenegro."

"Or if one of us ends up dead."

Jimin frowned, and you smiled. You were playing again. What a fucking tease.

Before the staring game continued, a noise inside the house caught both of your attention. To Jimin's surprise, it seemed like you didn't know what the noise was either.

No, quite the opposite.

"What's that?"

“Fuck,” you muttered before pulling out your keys and opening the door as quickly as possible. "Do not enter." You were frantic, scared. Jimin did the complete opposite.

"I told you not to come in,"

"Please help."

"Jimin Park, if you want to stay alive I swear-"

The man pushed you aside to follow the trail of blood that ran from the basement door to the living room and kitchen. When he got to the door, there was a woman tied up trying to open the door with a knife. Her hands were tied with gray tape, she was wearing dirty work clothes and she smelled horrible.

When the girl saw Jimin she became alert and she went to him on her knees, hands above her so that he could help.

"JI-" you swallowed hard, entering the kitchen. "No."

"Shh. I'll take care of it."

In the blink of an eye, Jimin's gaze changed to that of a monster. The woman noticed, got up on her weak legs, and ran through the kitchen to the stairs where she stumbled so hard that her knees couldn't take it anymore.

"No Please!" the woman screamed into Jimin's hand muffling her cries, Jimin's free arm chaining itself to her weak neck squeezing tightly. She moved like a fish out of water for a few seconds until only small spasms remained.

"Shh, I have a migraine. God."

You watched from the start of the stairs, your body trembling and your heart beating in your esophagus about to vomit it up. When he turned to see you there was a smile on his face, red with effort.

This was the card Jimin needed to match.

"The time I came into your house, you weren't the one making all that noise." He gasped, releasing the lifeless body from his arm.

"I do not know what are you talking about." You stuttered, taking a couple of steps back.

Knock, knock.

If you could, your racing heart would have already been on the ground.

"Hello, are you there? Nancy wants you to be there for the reveal."

Zuri's voice chilled your blood. You looked at Jimin and then at the body on the stairs.

Jimin trapped you between the door and his body, you looked up into his eyes.

"Let me guess, my little girl doesn't know how to hide a body."

It hurt you to say it but: "Help me, please." You whispered into Jimin’s lips and didn’t have to say more.

"Be like the one who was leaving the kitchen in ten seconds, wait for the second ring."

You nodded, watching Jimin lift your victim's body until he disappeared through the basement door. You fixed your hair and your dress, and you walked around the bloody kitchen.

"Are you there?" Said Zuri again.

"Yes, one second." You walked quickly trying not to slip on the red liquid on your heels. You opened and closed the door as quickly and subtly as possible. "Sorry, work."

"Oh, no. I understand, sorry." Zuri said with the sweetest smile on her lips.

"I'll be there in about ten minutes."

"Ten, of course. I'll inform the boss." She winked before walking down the sidewalk to the other row of houses.

You sighed before walking back into the mess, Jimin was standing with his shoulder covered in someone else's blood, hair fluttering, and cheeks flushed from the effort.

Your angel.

"There's blood on you... everywhere," your voice trembled.

"What an insightful observation, darling." He laughed, cleaning his hands with his jeans.  

When you both saw each other, there was something undeniable between, and as if pulled by threads, both were attracted to each other until they collided in a kiss with arms intertwined in your bodies. Jimin knew in your arms that heaven was in the middle of chaos.

Jimin's hands traced the lines of your body until he reached the back of your thighs and lifted you so that you were chained to his waist. His rib burned with pain and he was sure the wound was opening again, but it did not matter now.

You two were even.

You gasped as you felt his hands squeeze your ass with anger.

"Shut the fuck up, I'm done with your bullshit."

Your eyelids drooped as you felt his soft lips leave kiss after kiss until your lips did not come away, the undeniable taste of weed and rum. Sweet and dangerous. His tongue entered your mouth, playing with yours, circling until he sucked it, a docile bite that made you moan.

Why did he still want you even after you stabbed him and made him ejaculate, intoxicated?

"Look at you doubting yourself." You said right in time when the silence became evident.

Jimin's blood boiled at your mockery and he led you to the furniture in your small living room. The sofa was still wrapped in plastic and the crisp sound of your body falling into the cushions excited you. A hand on your neck squeezing enough for you to open your mouth for air, the blood of your victim staining your pretty dress and skin.

Out of nowhere, Jimin took out a knife from his pocket and your hair stood on end, your pussy getting wet when he slowly ran it over your chest until he broke your bust and left your nipples exposed.

"Where's the tape?" He asked bringing the sharp tip to one of your nipples, the cold of the metal making your toes curl.

"There's no tape." You smiled biting your lip. Jimin let go of your neck to slap you so hard that he took away your smile.

"Say that again." He was fuming, his wide nose searching for air to calm himself, teeth biting the inside of his cheek.

"There. Is. No. Tape. Park. I just prepped the camera and left it off."

He didn't understand why you felt so proud when it was clear that he could push the blade through your chest, but your nipples were getting hard and saliva was pooling in his mouth.

"Why is there no tape, you fucking cunt?" His fingers squeezed your chin so you would stop watching him play with your tits.

"Because I want to be the one who has it."

Jimin frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Open that box." You pointed at the table next to the couch. It was the only box that looked used and worn. With the same knife, Jimin opened the box and felt a rush throughout his body, almost like vomiting.

A Sony BetaMovie, new in the box. His dazed and disoriented gaze went to yours.

"It arrived this morning."

"Oh, you didn't."

"I want my own film. No Hoseok, no drugs, just you. I saw you in the other ones while you were drugged and God," Your pupils shone with such grace and prayer that Jimin didn't understand.

"N-no, this is not how it works." The only thing he could do was laugh.

"But it can."

You began to kiss his fingers, one by one, giving him the necessary attention. "You just need to let me put the VHS inside and we can start."

Jimin denied it as he let his guard down. You got up and improvised a tripod out of boxes until the camera was right in the center where you could see the couch and Jimin sitting, without understanding what the hell was happening.

Having the VHS and pressing 'Rec', you turned back to Jimin. You kissed his cheeks and his neck, he moaned a few times, closing his eyes.

"In this one, you're my main star." You whispered in his ear and his cock hardened until it hurt. "Use me, please."

A growl from him.

He snatched your body from his side until he had you in his lap, your chest pressed against his knees. With the edge of the knife, he spread your legs and spat on his fingers.

"I wish I could kill you right now." He murmured entering two slender fingers inside your sopping cunt.

"I wish you would just shut up and fuck me like you hate me." You whimpered as his fingers collided with your entrance with pure blows. Your juices were making noise throughout the room, you grabbed a cushion, pressing your face into it.

Jimin didn't like that. "No, no, lift your face. Let me hear you cry." His fingers fisted into your hair as he thrust two more fingers in, the knife threatening to cut the inside of your thigh at any moment.

Your body trembled as his index and ring fingers curled into the gummy walls of your pussy.

"That's it, cum you fucking slut. Flirting with all the husbands at the party, smiling at Charlie Munson in front of her stupid fucking wife, all that with your perky tits bouncing. Showing Zuri your pretty body in that leotard."

His pinky started to play with your throbbing nub until your pee came out, making a mess out of the plastic-covered furniture. Jimin laughed without stopping until he saw you trying to crawl away from him. He took his wet hand and smeared it in your mouth, you spit out the excess watching him with drooping eyelids.

"Look at the mess you made, how dare you ruin my jeans."

A rough hand collided with your right ass cheek.

"Say you're sorry." Another one, this time the left one.

"S-sorry, sir."

The name caught his fancy. You were really hanging on his hands, you were the dirtiest whore for him, and he could play with you no matter how. You were so fucking sick and he loved it.

"Sir?" He laughed, caressing the reddened skin. "That's so cute, keep doing it." He spanked you again and again.

"Please, sir, it hurts."

"Good, now come here and make me cum until it comes out of your nose," he smirked putting you between his legs. 

Your trembling and useless hands took a moment to remove Jimin's pants, revealing his defined legs that made your mouth water.

You felt the tip of the knife on your chin and you raised your head. "Take off the underwear, too."

You hurried until you found Jimin's thick cock throbbing on top of his stomach. You licked your lips unconsciously and got to work right away.

Jimin's moans were drawn out like he was going to curse and drowned it out in a grunt at the end, you loved every second of it as your tongue circled until you reached the base. The air cutting from your throat.

"Kiss it until you can taste the saltiness down your throat, angel"

"Yes, sir." You whispered, letting Jimin fuck your face, covering your ears with his hands so that you could only hear the saliva lubricating the exit and entry of Jimin's cock into your abused throat.

You closed your eyes when you felt just what he promised you. His cum enters directly into your esophagus.

His hands lifted you up in a rush, your lungs flaring for oxygen for the first time in what felt like hours.

"Open your mouth." He have demanded and you obeyed. He spit into your mouth and then closed it with his fingers. "You belong to me, slut."

"Yes, sir." Your words seemed like blurs of what you wanted to say.

Your body was arranged on the furniture with your legs on your chest and Jimin squatting on top of you. He was going to hurt you but it was going to feel so good.

Your juices lubricated your entrance and your asshole, shining with the afternoon light that was scattered through the curtains. Jimin wanted to break you so bad that he grabbed the back of your ankles and spread you even wider until your pussy revealed your dark, hot insides.

Aiming the tip of his cock he rammed you hard until you screamed, biting Jimin's arm. The blood of others staining your bodies, Jimin's wound hurt so deliciously that the stain on his tissues became bigger and bigger.

You couldn't hold it in and you dug your finger into the gauze making Jimin's eyes widen, a roar came out of him and he held your neck squeezing so hard that your face started to turn red. However, you smiled, going dumb with his dick.

Jimin's eyes threatened to go black with pleasure and pain. Your pussy felt like wet silk. It was warm and cozy. He could die fucking that tight hole until the last spurt of semen was also his last breath.

Damn succubus, that's what you were. You smiled like a demon and fucked like an angel.

The angle ended up making you cum a second time, making your walls throb.

"Oh my God, keep doing that." Jimin grabbed your body in a ball until he covered you completely with his body and fucked you with short, desperate strokes, like an animal in heat.

As he came he felt like his soul was ripped out.

"Fucking love you, love your-...I hope you get pregnant with my warm cum deep inside your stomach."

You rolled your eyes.

"Oh, honey. If this ain't the one, we can try again." You promised.

"This is the last time you'll see me," Jimin promised back.

And there it was, oh the gods must have blessed you with such a perfect smile because even though he knew he was screwed, he was still in love.

In a quick and agile movement, you were now the one holding the knife and pointing it directly at the bleeding wound.

"I have a game." You smiled slowly positioning yourself to ride him.

The cum bursting out, warm and viscous to his pelvis. Jimin kept looking at you with a tense stomach.

"Let's play Guess who accidentally gave Cosette one of his movies instead of giving her A Clockwork Orange."

No no no. No.

"No." Jimin tried to get up but you raised the knife to his throat with menacing eyes.

"Knowing Cosette, it will be the last one she watches because of the explicit themes. But you must be on time."

They both looked at the clock on the wall. It was 4:55. Cosette always started the movies after coming home from chess club.

Five minutes or it was going to be a total disaster. Chaos. Jimin had shown Cosette porn, his porn.

"Here's the solution: I give you my car key and you either leave to stop her or let the whole neighborhood know that you traumatized Marcus's poor little daughter with your sick hobby."

Park's eyes stung as two tears fell to his temples.

"If you say the first, that means you will take the key on my conditions."

And this was where Jimin knew that he had made the wrong move.

He was trapped everywhere. Checkmate.

"Fuck you," his voice trembled.

You lowered the knife disappointed, and you sighed.

"Well, if you wish."

The handle of the knife collided with Jimin's forehead letting the pain dissipate with a deep sleep.

The first thing Jimin could smell was artificial pine, then the selage of your perfume. His eyes struggled to open as the blood from his forehead had dried onto his eyelids. It was dark, it was night around him and he could only see the road along until it plunged into darkness. He doesn't remember going out anywhere, much less somewhere so barren. His neck moved little by little until he reached a small market illuminated by white and purple lights.

Jim's Stop Sign, read an old, disused sign.

A bell rang as a woman was let out, it was you.

Shit.

Jimin tried to lift his sleepy body but he was tied to the seat. His body shook with every step you took towards the car. Now that Jimin realized, it was your car.

As you got closer he realized that you were wearing Jimin's t-shirt and the bright green leotard underneath, despite the night you were wearing sunglasses.

When you opened the door, his body was twisted with tension, waiting for you to do something.

"Oh, you woke up." You turned on the dome light, the pungent smell of blood and rotting flesh suddenly filling the car until it completely drowned out the smell of pine. Park tried to vomit but stopped himself. "I see your stomach is still sensitive, you should eat something." You pointed to the paper bag full of snacks and odds and ends like glasses and hair dye.

There was a tingle on Jimin's back but he was afraid to look at the back seat. You put the keys in and sped through the quiet night. The putrid smell subsided as you opened the window for Jimin.

"We had to leave without saying goodbye to Hoseok, I know you probably wanted to see him one last time but the body was starting to decompose and there was no remedy."

That was it, Jimin guided his eyes to the back where a long black sheath tied up who he assumed was the girl you kidnapped.

"She was the girl who had bought the house." You explained when you saw that Park didn't take his eyes off the cover that was shaking with the car. "I convinced her to have a cup of coffee when I met her at the gym and hit her in the face with a bottle of wine. I didn't know how to get rid of her, she just didn't want to die, and spent days feeding her and trying to find a solution." You bit your perfect nails with your other hand on the steering wheel.

Jimin was trying to breathe slowly.

"The solution was you all along." You smiled caressing his thigh. That made Jimin strangely relax.

"We need to find a place to bury them."

Them?

"When we get to the outskirts of Las Vegas we will be more suitable."

"Them?" Jimin’s raspy, tremulous voice touched you.

You looked at him worried, he doesn't remember.

"Cosette's body is in the back." You explained sweetly.

The vomit that his stomach held back came out when he heard those words, the viscous liquid falling on his sweater and his seat.

"Oh, Minnie, this is the second time you've done this on the trip."

"I want to go home." He cried while you stopped to clean his mess.

"We're getting there, don't worry."

"No, I want to go back to Montenegro."

"But you can't. You killed Cosette in her room, don't you remember?"

"You're a fucking liar, I'll never do that to her," he yelled so loud spit came out of his mouth. You just stayed there taking paper towels to clean his chest.

"She said very offensive stuff to you when we went to get the tape. She didn't like that a man was with her dad." You tensed your mouth in a strange smile.

"I didn't do it." He repeated it again and again.

But then again, He hated her guts. The only thing he needed was for her to snap at him once. But he couldn't, he wouldn't.

The night fell again into the silence of the car mechanics accelerating down the deserted highway toward Las Vegas. Jimin looked to the side of him: your hand was resting on the open window while your hair was fluttering in the wind, you looked tired but still murmured the lyrics the song in the radio.

Feeling Jimin's gaze, you looked out of the corner of your eye and smiled tenderly.

You got him out of a huge mess, he was grateful for that. Your hand went to the back and you removed the knot from Jimin's wrists. Looking back at Jimin you kissed the back of his hand and continued looking at the road.

The sweet act confused Jimin so much that he could only stand there looking at your profile, it reminded him of Nancy's. Appeased, away, and scheming things. His stomach was burning with love and he didn't understand it, but thinking about your furrowed eyebrows while you helped him lift Cosette's body made Jimin take you more than just appreciation.

"Did you bring a shovel?" He asked.

#bts #jimin fanfic #jimin smut #jimin x you #bts imagines #taehyung #halloween #bts smut #bts au #bts fanfic #jimin imagine #jimin x reader #halloween smut #bts x reader #bts x you #hoseok imagine #hoseok smut

[jhugas]

‘Of Course Baby.’- Jung Hoseok

✿✼:*ﾟ:༅｡.｡༅:*･ﾟﾟ･⭑

Genre: Drabble, smut, fluff at the end♡

Pairing: military! Hoseok X Reader

Summary: You needed him one last time before he left again..

Word count: ~1,2k

Warnings/tags: Buffed!Hoseok, military!Hoseok, big dick lol, kissing over his boxers, oral (m receiving), making out, cums in her mouth, unprotected sex, he cums twice, cunt penetration, stand up sex (he carries her), rough sex, creampie, clothed sex.

✿✼:*ﾟ:༅｡.｡༅:*･ﾟﾟ･⭑

‘Don’t go babe~’ you tell him as he’s ready to leave the apartment early.

‘I have to, next time we’ll see each other we’ll spend another amazing week, alright?’ He said trying to comfort you.

He was leaving for the military again and was already wearing his uniform.

And though you had enough time this whole week to do as you pleased together, you wanted more, just one last thing.

‘Please baby…’ you whisper with a pout while locking eyes with him.

He then gets closer to you and whispers back ‘What do you want?’.

‘You know what I want…’ you answer him, meanwhile your hands start caressing his buffed chest, fingers going over his covered nipples before going straight to the point and holding his bulge entirely in your hands, squeezing it.

His leg twitches at the sudden touch but he doesn’t reject it, instead, he puts his hands over yours that’s on his crotch, and asks you one more time ‘Are you sure?’.

You nod immediately, and he starts moving his hand with yours on his cock on the side of his pants.

You can feel his cock getting harder and harder as you hear his breath becoming irregular.

Your lips then reach out for his, connecting each other like a puzzle and sucking his bottom lips, nibbling on it before his tongue starts playing with you.

Now that you were both making out and things were getting really heated.

You decided to unbutton his pants, pulling them down just enough to see his cock entirely in his Calvin Klein boxers.

You pull your lips away from his, then get down on your knees and get close to his boner. And to make it better for him, you try to arch your back as much as possible to make your ass more visible for him.

Indeed, when you looked up to him after, you got to see him looking at you with his siren eyes and a smirk, admiring your face and position from his point of view.

You couldn’t lose any more time.

You start kissing lightly his thigh before reaching his boxers and kissing his crotch, then finally, kissing his length over the tissue.

You place a few wet kisses from the top to his bottom and once you reached his tip, immediately wrapped your lips around it, making sure your spit passes through the tissue as you suck it like a lollipop.

You can hear Hoseok moaning, and you moan back with his tip in between your lips, making him feel vibrations.

But he needed more… he pulled you away then got his dick out of his boxers before pulling you back in harshly, his tip hitting the back of your throat.

He has his hands on your head, holding your hair as he pushes himself in and out your mouth recklessly, because nothing turned him more on than your gagging and wet sounds coming from your mouth, or pussy.

He feels himself already hitting his high as you suck him off like a pro, and indeed, a minute later he found himself pushing himself as deep as possible as he releases his cum down your throat.

Afterwards, he pulled out and took your hand, then carried you to get you up. He kissed your lips, as you tried to stand up correctly while your pussy was making wet sounds.

And when Hoseok heard your pussy begging for his thick cock, he knew he had to please you.

‘Fuck me please… I need you inside…’ you said with the strength you had left, and he answered without any doubt ‘Of course baby.’. But since there wasn’t any place to lay down, he thought he’d just do something he always wanted to try, have sex with you, standing up.

First, he took off your pants and panties with his strong hand, then he picked you up by your ass, making your legs wrap around him as his cock was fit and ready to penetrate you.

‘Can you really do this?’ You ask him, scared that he wouldn’t be able to pull this position the entire time.

‘Of course I can.’ He answered with confidence. Indeed, you could feel his strength in his arms, he could probably do this all day actually.

He quickly spits on his hand and spreads it on his hard cock, before finally getting you lower and pushing his tip into your wet cunt, making you feel him entirely and each inch of him.

You moaned deeply when he entered you, and then he started pounding in you, already finding your sweet spot and making you see stars around you.

There was something incredibly hot about him being able to carry you, make you jump up and down on his dick while he was standing up. Clapping sounds and loud moans were resonating around the room.

He was someone that always encouraged you to be as loud as needed, he always made sure you were confident about your body and moans and always empowered them.

‘You look so good baby.’ ‘Louder. Your moans are so hot…’ ‘I wish I could picture your pretty ass right now.’

Are the sentences that he said all of the time.

Meanwhile, he kept on making you feel so full and secured, his strong arms making sure you don’t fall off while he hits your sweet spot continuously, making your orgasm come fast to you.

‘I’m gonna- I’m gonna cum.’ You warned with a breathy voice.

‘Me too, I’m close.’ He answered.

Your legs started shaking around him, being completely vulnerable and putting your whole weight on him as he kept on carrying you easily.

Then you arched your back as he leaned back and pushed himself the deepest possible in you. Meanwhile, he kept a hand on your ass to keep you close and secured, and used his other to cup your face and make you look at him.

You scream of pleasure and once you felt his cum releasing in a rush inside you, you released yours, making both of your juices mix up in your one spot.

You kept eye contact the whole time, but once you came down from your high, you felt so exhausted your eyes closed alone.

He finally pulled out, and tried to make you stand up but it’s impossible for you in this state, so instead, he picked you back up, brought you to your bed and kissed you softly.

‘I’m sorry I can’t properly give you an aftercare or cuddle with you, but you know I’d love to. I have to go now… I’ll text you a lot, goodbye love.’

He said before kissing your forehead, then leaving silently.

When you woke up, you went to the kitchen and saw a paper on the table;

‘I love you♡ rest well and keep pictures of me close to you. I’ll be thinking of you and looking at your pictures before going to sleep every night, as always. I’ll be back soon. - yours (aka future husband)♡’

Thank you for reading! Likes, reblogs and comments are really really appreciated🫶🏻

Masterlist :)

#bts #army #fanfic #scenarios #imagine #one shot #smut #bts fanfic #hoseok #hoseok smut #bts smut #hoseok imagine #hoseok Drabble #Jhope smut #Jhope #hobi #hobi smut #drabble #bts Drabble #hoseok one shot

[dreamescapeswriting]

Fragile Promises ~ JHS

⤜WORD COUNT: 2.5K

⤜GENRE: established relationships, jealous girlfriend speaks up, toxic behaviour from Hoseok, 

⤜PAIRING: Hoseok x Fem!Reader

⤜Copyright: © DreamEscapesWriting - April 2024

⤜MASTERLIST

Large windows lined one side of the cafe that you and your best friend - Kat - were inside. It was a small place tucked away somewhere in the city, it was your "special place" as you guys called it. It was the one place the two of you could go to and fully relax - somewhere that wasn't your home - you'd come here at least twice a week to talk to one another, to catch up or to even just have some good food that the two of you could share and today was no different. 

You and Kat had been looking forward to this lunch date for days, you'd been in desperate need of your friend and you'd been missing her a lot lately. Lunch was the perfect time to catch up, share stories and just enjoy each other's company away from the hustle of daily life. 

"You should have seen Matt's face, it was incredible," Kat giggled, she'd just finished telling you about her boyfriend's reaction to her pregnancy news and you were over the moon for her, truly you were but there was something else that had grabbed your attention, commanding you to look away from Kat.

"What's up?" She whispered following your line of sight and landing on Hoseok with his arm wrapped around the shoulder of another girl. Your heart sunk at the sight of them together as you looked down at your hands, you knew who she was. Lisa was one of Hoseok's closest friends and had been for the longest time now.

"They seem...close," Kat said, her voice sounding almost as pissed off as you did but you bit down on your tongue. You knew that Lisa and Hoseok were close but it didn't make it easier for you to understand when they were together like this. Always so close, cuddling or laughing about inside jokes - which neither of them ever shared with you. Sometimes it just made you feel like they were joking about you or that you were being pushed out of the picture. L

You sighed, feeling a knot of jealousy tightening in your chest, you hated getting jealous over something like this but seeing them so close tore you up inside. 

"I know they've been friends for a long time, but seeing them like this... it's hard not to feel insecure." Kat knew of your past relationships, boyfriends with "best friends" who turned out to be more, it was only natural for you to be a little unsure of their relationship together. Kat reached out and squeezed your hand. 

"I understand, but you should talk to Hoseok about it. Communication is key in any relationship." You nodded reluctantly, you knew that talking to Hoseok would be the right thing to do but you weren't sure he was going to listen to you. Lisa had her claws in pretty deep with him and if she had it her way you wouldn't even be in the picture. 

"Yeah, I guess," You mumbled, no longer feeling hungry enough to eat the food in front of you but you did it anyway, trying to come up with a way to talk to Hoseok about everything later. 

As you stepped through the threshold of your shared home, you were met with an unexpected sight. Lisa was just leaving, giggling at something that Hoseok must have said before you walked through the door, but as she passed by you, you couldn't help but notice the smirk playing on Lisa's lips, a subtle hint of something more lurking beneath the surface. It sent a shiver down your spine, igniting a spark of unease within you.

As Lisa passed by, her gaze lingered on you for a moment too long, a silent challenge in her eyes. You felt a surge of discomfort, your suspicions about Lisa's intentions growing stronger with each passing second. While Hoseok might not have seen them you weren't as blind as he was to her, Lisa wanted Hoseok and would do anything to get him, at least she seemed to like that type.

Once she was gone you turned to Hoseok, your heart heavy with apprehension, you'd been coming up with something to say all afternoon and after seeing Lisa everything you'd thought about had washed from your mind completely. 

"Hobi, can we talk?" You ventured, trying to keep your voice steady to make it seem as though you had control of this and weren't acting like some clingy girlfriend. You wanted to do this peacefully and calmly, just tell him how you were feeling and hopefully get some reassurance that everything was just in your head. Hoseok's brows furrowed in irritation, a hint of impatience colouring his tone. 

"What is it now, Yn? Can't it wait? I have things to do," he snapped, his dismissive attitude cutting through you like a knife. He was under a lot of stress with work so you put it down to that, though he had seemed fine with Lisa earlier in the day which only pissed you off more. You couldn't let it go. The encounter with Lisa had stirred up a storm of emotions within you, and you needed answers. 

"It's about Lisa," You began tentatively, your words catching in your throat and it was as if all time had stood still. You watched as Hoseok - with his back to you - stood up straight and his whole body turned ridged. He must've known what you were going to talk to him about since it was something you'd bought up once or twice before. His eyes narrowed as he turned around to face you, his jaw clenched in frustration. 

"What about her? I've told you a hundred times, she's just a friend. Can't you trust me?" he retorted, his voice laced with accusation. It wasn't that you didn't trust him, it was her you couldn't trust. And the fact that he was refusing to even acknowledge how you were feeling in the situation fueled you with so much anger.

"It's not just about trust, Hoseok. It's about boundaries. I can't shake off this feeling that she wants more than just friendship with you," You confessed, your voice trembling with emotion as you waited for him to say something, anything, just some kind of reassurance that all of this was fine and he only wanted you but it wasn't what you got. 

"You're so fucking controlling, you know that," He spat out harshly, laughing dryly as he threw the take-out containers onto the table and shook his head at you. 

"This jealousy of yours is getting out of hand," He shook his head at you, you'd never seen him look so angry before and it scared you that this was how he was choosing to react instead of talking things through with you. 

"Hobi, please, can we just talk about what happened with Lisa?" He let out an exasperated sigh, 

"What more is there to talk about, YN? I've already told you countless times she's just a friend!" He yelled at you, finally losing his patience as he rubbed his face in frustration,

"I know, but... it's just... she looked at me like... like there's something more going on." Maybe it was all in your head, or maybe it was Lisa trying to mess with you but you needed confirmation from him.

"Oh, come on, Yn! Are you seriously going to let some look from Lisa drive you crazy? You're being so clingy and paranoid!" He scoffs at you, making you feel as though you were truly what he was calling you, but you knew Lisa and you knew she'd get everything she wanted.

"I'm not trying to be clingy or paranoid, Hobi. I just... I can't shake off this feeling. I'm scared..." Your voice trembled as you finally admitted it to him and he shook his head at you, staring at you with a darkness in his eyes you'd never seen before.

"Scared of what? That I'll leave you for Lisa? That's just absurd, Yn! You're letting your obsession with this whole situation ruin what we have!" He gestured between you both and you shook your head at him.

"I'm not obsessed! I'm just trying to express how I feel. Is it too much to ask for you to understand that?" The question hung in the air, it felt like an eternity had passed before he finally answered you.

"Yes, Yn, it is! You're always so damn controlling, trying to dictate who I can and can't be friends with. It's suffocating!" It was like a punch to the gut as you heard him admit this to you. You'd never once tried to tell him he couldn't see her or spend time with her, you just wanted him to let you know everything was okay.

"I'm not trying to control you. I just need to know that our relationship means something to you, that you care about how I feel." Tears streamed down your face as Hoseok shook his head at you, his resolve remaining unyielding,

"Well, if you can't trust me, maybe we shouldn't be together," he declared, his ultimatum hanging heavily in the air. You watched helplessly as Hoseok turned away, his words echoing in your mind like a cruel refrain. With a heavy heart, you realized that your once-solid foundation was crumbling beneath the weight of unspoken truths and unbridled resentment. And as you stood alone in the silence of their home, you knew that your relationship would never be the same again.

"N-No...No, you can't just walk away." You whimpered, rushing to stand in front of him, ready to beg him not to leave you if that was what it was going to take to get him to stay.

"H...Hobi, please... don't leave me. I can't imagine my life without you. I promise I'll be better, I'll change. Just give me a chance to make things right." You pleaded with him, tears streaming down your face but you didn't care how you looked or how desperate you sounded, you couldn't go without him in your life. Sighing Hoseok stepped away from you,

"Yn, I... I don't know if I can do this anymore. It's been so hard lately, and I don't feel like you understand me." Ironic since it was him who didn't understand your feelings but you weren't in the right stand of mind to process anything right now, so you shook your head, holding onto him tightly.

"I understand, I do. I know I've been too needy, too controlling. But I'm willing to work on it, I swear. Just please, don't give up on us." You stared up at him, he hesitated, staring down at you and biting his lip.

"I don't want to give up on us either, Yn. But something has to change. I can't keep feeling suffocated in this relationship.

"I hear you, Hobi. And I'm willing to do whatever it takes to fix things. Just tell me what you need from me."

"I need you to trust me, and Lisa because she's not going anywhere," He mumbled, you nodded at him before he walked away, cleaning up the living room as if he hadn't just threatened to leave you. Not even giving you so much as a kiss or an apology for the things he had said. 

Several months had passed since that tumultuous evening, yet the rift between you and Hoseok seemed wider than ever. Your once radiant smile had faded, replaced by a haunting sadness that lingered in your eyes. Unspoken words were written down in journals and never to your boyfriend who you had once told everything. But you were terrified that if you admitted you were still jealous he'd leave.

Hoseok, consumed by his own pursuits and blinded by his stubborn pride, had failed to mend the wounds he inflicted on your relationship, leaving you with a hole inside of you that desperately needed to be filled.

You found solace in the companionship of your male best friend from work, Jake. You shared laughs, inside jokes, and long conversations that lifted your spirits in ways Hoseok couldn't anymore. Jake's presence breathed new life into you, reminding you of the joy and warmth you had lost.

But as your friendship with Jake blossomed, Hoseok's jealousy reared its ugly head this time. He couldn't bear the thought of you finding happiness outside of your fractured relationship, just as you had struggled with his closeness to Lisa. 

One day, as you returned home from spending time with Jake, you walked through the door with a giant smile on your face, one you hadn't been able to wipe since Jake had dropped you off at him. 

"What's got you smiling so much?" The voice cut through the air and the smile was instantly wiped, you found Hoseok waiting for you, a solemn expression etched on his face. He had finally come to terms with the gravity of his mistakes, the weight of his regret heavy in his heart as he finally realised everything you must have been going through all those months ago.

"Jake said something pretty funny," You replied plainly, putting your bags down and taking off your jacket. The air was thick with tension as you slowly made your way through the living room and Hoseok sighed,

"Yn, we need to talk," He began, his voice tinged with remorse as he stared at you, he didn't expect you to forgive him after all this time but you were still together so there was at least a fighting chance. 

"I realize now how badly I've messed up. I should have listened to you and respected your feelings, but I was too blind to see the damage I was causing." Caught off guard you stared at him, your gaze softening with a mixture of pain and hope. Neither of you had spoken about that night, it was a dark spot in your relationship neither of you went near again. 

"Hoseok, I've been trying so hard to make things work between us, but it's been so difficult. I don't know if I can go through this again." You sniffled a little, you didn't want him to fight with you again, you were trying everything to move past what had happened. Hoseok reached out, gently taking your hand in his and it suddenly felt like the first time he had touched you in a long time. 

"I understand, Yn. And I don't expect you to forgive me right away. But I promise to do better, to be the partner you deserve. I'll make things right, no matter what it takes."  Tears streamed down your face as you searched Hoseok's face, seeking sincerity in his words. And though the scars of their past lingered, you couldn't ignore the flicker of hope igniting within you once more.

"Okay, Hobi," You whispered, the nickname slipping out of you with ease as you felt a weight lift from your shoulders. 

"Let's try to make things better... together." As you embraced, you felt a glimmer of optimism blooming within you, a fragile yet resilient seed of reconciliation taking root amidst the wreckage of your fractured love. And with each step forward, you embarked on a journey of healing, redemption, and the endless pursuit of second chances.

@chiisaiblog@sw33tnight@kaitieskidmore97@laylasbunbunny@tinyoonsblog@whitefoxgirl@katnisspeetaprim@acciocriativity@choisoorin@heyjiminnie@btsiguess-kpop@halesandy@gothic4under4lord@soulphoenix1618@aerastus@jin-from-the-block@lenfilms@elizaschuyler18@piratequeen-impact @Namgiswifey@delulu18@xyahrinx@katsukis1wife@anthropologymajorkpopmultistan@blairscott@4-chan-inpadella@swga-ficrecs@niktwazny303@armystay89@myyouthdonut@xakx@kittymaryam-thebrowniefairy@kpopmenace143@loveforred@b1nn1e-1s-cut3@elissasimp @royallyjjk @parkjennykim @piercedddriver

#bts #bts x reader #bts imagine #bts imagines #hoseok #hoseok x reader #hoseok imagine #hoseok imagines #jung hoseok #jung hoseok x reader #jung hoseok imagine #jung hoseok imagines #jhope #jhope x reader #jhope imagine #jhope imagines

[xjoonchildx]

kanalia | jhs x reader | chapter five: the king is a fool

banner by the amazing, incredible @kth1

⚜️summary: secrets and uncertainty plague a young queen in her arranged marriage to a kind but distant king. the farther she drifts from her husband, the closer she gets to one of his most trusted men.

⚜️pairing: queen!reader x royalguard!hoseok

⚜️rating: mature, 18+

⚜️genre: royal AU, historical AU, smut

⚜️warnings: infidelity (it’s complicated, y’all) mentions of pregnancy, fertility issues. OC struggles with depressive thoughts and episodes.

⚜️word count: 10K

⚜️notes: the queen is hot and bothered, literally & figuratively. the king puts several Ls in the disappointed but not surprised category, everyone gets drunk at some point. lord min is a terrible archer, yeona remains round and winning. the queen could melt steel with her sexual frustration, lord jung is not faring much better but at least he knows what he's doing, slightly awkward marital smut. the queen fights with everyone.

i could never have finished this chapter without these amazing authors & minds @miscelunaaa and @vyduan and one person who would probably level us all with her first fic if she decided to write one, @hobi-gif. please let me re-iterate how much it means to me that any one of you reads my stories, and it would make me endlessly happy to talk to you about it. you can talk to me here 💕

previous chapter final chapter

Hyeri is curious.

She examines the stains at the hem of your walking dress with narrowed eyes, pausing her thorough study of the red-brown splotches only to steal the occasional furtive glance your way.  

Her lips purse as she shakes dirt loose from the grooves of your walking boots. She watches the sediment fall to the floor with a raised brow, uncharacteristically quiet as she reaches for the broom to sweep the mess away.

But her bewilderment only grows as she draws closer.

The older woman’s posture stiffens as she regards you, lips pulling into a thin line as she takes in the state of your wind-swept hair and grimy fingernails. You must reek of the ill temper you’ve brought back from your ride, the smell of it as pungent as the sweat and horse on your clothes. She tests your temperament in much the same way as she tests your bathwater, query as feather-light as the fingertip she skims along the surface.

“Are you… well, this evening, Your Grace?”

“As well as I ever am,” you answer succinctly, accepting her hand and stepping carefully into the tub. Woven into the spaces between each of your clipped words is rebuke; a silent warning to proceed no further. Your handmaid, who is by no means a meek woman, has the good sense to heed it.

So Hyeri says nothing as she takes a comb to the tangles in your hair, working them apart with peach oil. She says nothing as she scrubs away the dirt embedded beneath your normally pristine fingernails. And she says nothing still when you wince at the ache in your thighs as she helps you from the bath.

When the heavy chamber door finally pulls behind her, shutting the stares and the questions safely out, you make your way to bed. You extinguish the lamp on your nightstand and welcome the shadows.

And then you succumb to the darkness that envelops you, inside and out.

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

Steamy heat has put an end to weeks of pleasant fall weather. 

You’ve sought refuge this afternoon beneath a tree at the edge of the castle’s sprawling open field. The oak, though grand, offers scant protection from the midday sun. A bead of sweat trickles down your neck and disappears into the linen at your décolletage. 

“Between you and me, I’ve always found hunting to be an appalling sport.”

Boram shakes her head at the scene in the distance. The King and his men claim to be training for an upcoming hunt, but by all appearances, there is little training taking place. Instead they look to be bandying about like mischievous little boys, scrambling for position in front of the straw targets with bows in hand. 

“I find it to be an exercise in vanity more than ability. Little more than male preening disguised as sport.” Boram dabs at her brow with a handkerchief and sighs. “What do you think?”

You don’t answer Boram’s question on account of your distraction. Try as you might to keep your eyes on the dashing elder Lord Kim or the charming young Lord Jeon or – heaven forbid, your husband – they wander to Lord Jung instead, over and over and over again. Your gaze pulled to his strong face as though drawn by a magnet.

He turns his head and his dark eyes find yours across the distance.

The butterflies you’ve felt in his presence before are not to blame for the unsettled feeling that comes over you now. The very sight of the man makes your stomach turn over, as though you can taste the vivid recollection of the last time you saw him. 

The memory of that wonderful ride – and of the horrible way it ended – are still bitter on your tongue. Like picking the most beautiful fruit in the orchard only to find it sour and decaying inside. 

“Your Grace?”

You blink.

“I say this to you as my friend and not my Queen,” Boram says, pausing to clear her throat. “You don’t seem yourself today. Is there anything you want to talk about?”

“Nothing at all,” you lie quickly, smoothing down the damp curls springing up around your ears. “I’m fine, truly. Though I suppose it is possible the heat is making me cross. I can barely think in such conditions.”

“Awful, isn’t it?” Boram laments, reaching over to give Yeona’s belly a tickle. The baby curls into herself like a starfish, giggling as she rolls around on the blanket. “Yoongi says it will take a rain to break it. But until then, we must all suffer.”

“And suffer we shall,” you echo under your breath, watching Lord Jung load his bow in the distance. He sets his lithe body in a precise stance then draws his arm back and releases his arrow. It flies in a tight arc and lands just below the bullseye on the target. The men erupt into raucous cheers. You resist the urge to scowl.

“As for the hunting,” you add, “I think men are just as guilty of the frivolity they so often accuse women of. Not that any one of them is likely to admit it.”

“No, I suppose not,” Boram laughs. “Men are not known to be skilled in the art of introspection.”

“They certainly are not.”

And why should they be? Men never have to stop and consider the consequences of their actions. They alone decide the rules of engagement. They are free to be as vain and as frivolous and as thoughtless as their hearts desire. Horrid, infuriating creatures.

Lord Min steps up to the target. His stance is uneven and his arrow is wild the very second he lets it loose. It flies yards from the target and lands off in the grass. The men jeer loudly.

“Poor Yoongi,” Boram winces as she watches the men tease him. “He’s never been much of an archer, I’m afraid.” But the good-natured Lord Min appears to take it all in stride, shrugging off their taunts as he trades his bow for a fresh tankard of ale.

The King takes his turn next – the lines of his body thicker and stronger than Lord Jung’s, but no less elegant. The men circle around your husband as he draws the bow back with one strong arm. He takes careful aim with his arrow and deftly plants it just above the target’s bullseye. The sound of the men’s whooping echoes across the field.

And so it goes for a while, with the men taking turns loosing their arrows to varying degrees of success.

Lords Park and Jeon both prove to be adequate archers, hitting the targets more often than not. The elder and younger Lord Kims are less skilled and spend the lion’s share of their time plucking arrows from the grass behind the targets. Lord Min quickly gives up on the endeavor entirely, opting instead to sit with his ale and heckle the others.

But the two best archers on the field refuse to be distracted by drink.

The King and Lord Jung set an arduous pace, loading and firing their arrows in quick succession. Even at a distance, even with your meager knowledge of archery, you can discern that both men are quite evenly matched in terms of skill. They load, fire, and strike their respective targets with precision.

On and on they persist – despite the brutal heat, despite the fact that the other men have begun to tire. One by one the other Guardsmen surrender, abandoning their bows and collapsing onto the grass to watch. 

“These two seem quite serious, don’t they?” Boram notes. 

They certainly do. The air of silly fun that’s sat over the group for much of the afternoon is all but gone now and what began as a diversion for all of the men has clearly become a challenge between just two. The other Guardsmen seem to sense the shift in atmosphere as well, their faces earnest as they watch the King and Lord Jung compete.

Physically, the two men are quite different. The King’s muscular arms and chest serve him well as he steadies his bow and fires. In contrast, Lord Jung’s body is lithe, sleek. He moves with an agility the King cannot. But both wear matching expressions of determination. And though this competition might have been amiable at the start, it’s now evident that neither man is willing to leave the field without a clear victor.

Lord Min calls out to them both – voice too distant for you to make out his words – and the men appear to nod in agreement. They both step back from the targets, increasing the difficulty of each shot. But it takes only a few more arrows to prove that the added distance is no hindrance to either man. Both set their stances again, both aim and fire, and both land their arrows with ease.

The Guardsmen sitting nearby fall silent, and in the absence of their racket the King’s answering growl of frustration echoes over the entire field. 

“Oh my,” Boram whispers. “I’d heard there was some tension between them, and it would certainly appear to be so.”

It certainly would. Right now, the King and Lord Jung look more like rivals seeking to settle a score than lifelong friends. 

The King’s agitation is apparent in every move he makes, in the way he jerks the arrows out of the straw targets and stalks back into position. Lord Jung’s agitation is equally apparent. He accepts a skin of water from Lord Min without so much as a thanks and hands it back once he’s drained it.

It’s a strange thing to see the handsome Guardsman challenge his King with the very same passion in which he’d defended him just days prior.

“Has the King spoken to you about it?”

“No,” you admit stiffly, “He has not. Are you determined to keep me in the dark, as well?”

“Heavens, no,” Boram protests, pulling Yeona into her lap. She hands the baby a rice cake and Yeona sets to gumming at it right away. “I would never want you to think that I’m speaking ill of the King, is all.” 

“I could never think that of you.”

There is hesitation in Boram’s face when she flicks her dark eyes back to meet yours. 

“Well, the details I have are few,” she starts slowly. “But what I know is that the King expressed a wish to see Lord Jung married again and Lord Jung, from my understanding was – ” she pauses, carefully considering her next words,“ – less than amenable to the idea.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Yoongi says they fought over the matter. Quite thoroughly, from what I’ve been told.”

“I see,” you say, taking great care to keep your expression impassive. “And did Lord Min explain why Lord Jung is so opposed to marriage? He’s still a young man. I can certainly see why the King would think it a logical proposition.”

Boram’s lips purse as she thinks.

“I do not know that I can say. Though I consider Lord Jung to be a dear friend, he can be terribly private about some matters.”

You cut your eyes towards the field to search for the man in question. 

Does she really know Lord Jung? Do you? Today there is no sign of the man who’d leveled you with a smile in the Great Hall, no trace of the man who’d teased you about riding clothes before helping you onto your mount. The man you see now wears a strained expression as he watches the King take aim, his energy volatile like a pot ready to boil over. 

Perhaps you’d been foolish to think him so different from the King. Perhaps they are as evenly matched in the art of duplicity as they are the skill of archery.

“So what will come of it?” you ask after a while. “Will the King – make him marry?”

“I don’t know,” Boram admits. “And therein, I suppose, is where much of the tension lies. Lord Jung has already taken a bride once in service to the Kingdom. I can’t imagine he’d be inclined to do it again.”

There’s a sudden commotion on the field then, an outburst that has Lords Park and Jeon on their feet. The younger men rush to meet the King and Lord Jung mid-field, nodding as the King speaks. Both take off running at once. 

“I’ve no clue what that is all about, but I do wish they’d end this already,” Boram grumbles, watching the young men disappear behind the tree line as they go off in search of whatever it is the King’s asked for. “I don’t know how much longer I can last in this heat.”

“Nor I,” you agree, watching the King and Lord Jung speak to one another. Both men look sober, the lines of their faces hard. “But it seems we’ll all have to endure it for just a bit longer in order to humor this contest of male prides.”

Some arduous minutes later, Lords Park and Jeon make their return to the field.

The dust kicked up by the horses they ride precedes them, the ground parched from weeks without rain. Both men arrive in a cloud of grime – Lord Jeon on the King’s mount and Lord Park on Lord Jung’s– and dismount without delay, handing the reins over to their elders.

So this is how they will decide the victor.

“Well, let’s hope they keep their wits about them,” Boram sighs. “Lest they both break their legs in the heat of competition.”

“Yes, let’s,” you mutter.

The King is first to take his turn, of course. 

He mounts Jeonsa with ease despite the horse’s grand height and takes his time warming the warhorse up. The King runs his mount in circles around the target until he’s satisfied with his plan and the timing of his shot. He steadies himself against the jostling with his strong thighs, pulling his bow back to fire. The arrow hits the target just below the bullseye. 

The men, who’ve spent hours now drinking in the hot sun, erupt into a chorus of ruffian cheers. 

Lord Jung wastes no time taking to his own mount. His horse is leaner and quicker than Jeonsa, and it’s clear that he commands complete control of the animal’s every step. Both horse and rider move as one as he urges his mount faster, straightening his back to fire. The arrow hits the target just above the bullseye.

The men are getting rowdy now, egging on both competitors as they circle on their horses. Their shouting is louder, more animated, and you would not at all be surprised if there were a few healthy wagers underway. You wonder which of the men they’ve bet on. 

You wonder which of the men you would bet on before pushing the thought away and reminding yourself that you’re not particularly fond of either at this moment. 

The King circles Jeonsa around the target once again, taking his time about it. He seems to consider every circumstance surrounding his next shot – the angle, the speed, the light wind that blows east. After a great deal of circling and thought, he rears back to release his arrow.

It lands on the target, just above the arrow planted by Lord Jung. 

The shouting from the men becomes a low roar.

Lord Jung pointedly ignores the commotion, rolling his shoulders as he stares down the target, brow knit in concentration. Soon he’s urging his mount to move, the pair fluid as they circle the target. 

Just like the King, Lord Jung circles longer for this shot than he had for the first. Twice he draws back as though ready to fire and thinks better of it. But after painstaking deliberation, he finds his stride. He pulls his arm back and sets his stance. Then he releases his arrow. 

And it misses the target entirely.

It flies off the end of Lord Jung’s bow with astonishing speed, gliding just to the right of the straw and landing off in the distance. The men are on their feet now, jumping and yelling and slapping one another on their backs. Lord Jung shakes his head in disgust.

“Well,” Boram reaches for her basket, loading her things into it with haste. “That’s settled now. I certainly hope at least one of them feels better. Let’s move into more liveable conditions, shall we?”

You open your mouth to agree just as you spot the King barreling towards you atop Jeonsa, leaving the men celebrating his victory on the field behind. 

You nearly stumble over the hem of your dress in your rush to rise to your feet. Your husband is grinning widely when he reaches you, stopping his mount long enough to extend one large hand. You place your hand in his and he dips his head to plant a kiss on your fingers.

“Well done, You Grace,” you demur, resisting the urge to roll your eyes. “A hard-fought victory.”

“Thank you. I’m quite pleased with the outcome.”

The King acknowledges Boram with a smile before turning his mount to ride back to his men. You put a hand to your brow to shade your eyes and watch as they cheer for him – reward him with the adulation he’s clearly worked so hard for. 

But a thought occurs to you as you examine the scene in the distance. 

There is no sign of Lord Jung. 

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

The King comes to you that night – hair damp and smelling of fine soap, breath tinged faintly with ale. 

He coaxes you to your knees just as he’s done so many times before. His fingers slide against your most secret place, slippery just as they’ve been so many times before. And then he’s pushing inside you, hard and hot just as he’s been so many times before.

But there is something different about him tonight.

Your husband’s touch is rougher than you remember. His grip on your waist is harder than you remember, large hands moving from your waist to your backside to dig his blunt fingertips into the soft flesh. His thrusts are more forceful than you remember, more erratic, powerful enough to push you up the length of the bed. 

You fist your hands into the bedding and push back, refusing to allow your knees to buckle under the pressure. That earns you a low groan from the King – a sound that strikes a strange chord inside you; sends a shiver racing up your spine. You press your hot face into the sheets.

Perhaps Namjoon is still feeling the effects of an arduous afternoon in the hot sun. Perhaps he’s still in his cups after a night of drinking with his men. 

Or perhaps it is all just a trick of your mind.

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

Morning brings no improvement in your mood. Quite the opposite, in fact. 

You wake snappish, jarred from a fitful sleep by the sudden appearance of light in your chamber. Shafts of it – hot and harsh – stream through your windows, spill across your duvet, assault your eyes. You bury your face in the pillow in a futile attempt to avoid it, sweat beading at the nape of your neck until the uncomfortable warmth forces you to quit the bed.

But the rude manner of your awakening is only one reason for your irritation.

The other is the lingering tenderness between your legs, a dull ache you can feel with each careful step. The sensation is more an annoyance than a true discomfort, but it vexes you nonetheless. Each muted throb serves as an unwelcome reminder of your visit from the King, of the peculiar way he’d bedded you last night. 

Your face flames as you think of it.

What is he about, your husband? And what of the juvenile, chest-thumping nonsense you’d witnessed yesterday afternoon? The combative way he’d gone up against Lord Jung and the grand show he’d made of coming to you to fête his victory. Boorish, absurd behavior – all of it. 

You go about your morning ablutions in silence, unwilling to meet Hyeri’s eyes for even one moment. You are in no mood to withstand her meddling today – well-intentioned or otherwise – and so it is for the best that she helps you wash and dress in relative silence. 

If there is something the older woman means to say, she has the good sense to swallow it, murmuring only a quiet warning about the heat as you slip out the chamber door.

And heavens, how you are wholly unprepared for the heat.

It, too, has worsened overnight – the air around you nearly thick enough to drink. You hurry towards the aviary, spurred on by the promise of the shade beneath its trees, but by the time you are finally seated at your desk you are soggy and sticky all over. Slick with sweat between your thighs and beneath your arms and breasts. 

Perhaps you should have heeded Hyeri’s warning. 

The thought rankles you as you open your book and attempt to pick up your story where you’d left it. You start and stop the same sentence over and over again, the heat so tyrannical that you can barely breathe, much less think. Even the King’s prized birds refuse to fly under such conditions – opting instead to perch on the highest branches, wings lifted to cool themselves with the occasional passing breeze. 

The stillness unnerves you; makes your aggravation mount with each unbearable minute that ticks by and before long, you throw your novel down in frustration. This will not do.

Loathe as you are to spend another day confined to the castle’s thick stone walls, there is no avoiding it. You’ll not survive another half hour in this heat, which means you’ll certainly not be able to pass an entire afternoon in it. You huff as you throw your things back into your basket and stalk off towards the aviary’s entrance.

But perhaps you should have been more mindful.

Immersed as you are in this black mood, you don’t notice the brambles growing at the edge of the heavy gate. You brush past them in a hurry, only to be wrenched back by the thorns that take hold of your skirt. You tug at the material with your free hand, successful only at tearing a hole in the fine linen but unsuccessful at pulling yourself free. You drop your basket in the struggle and the contents spill out, an apple rolling to a stop at your feet.

It is then that you do something very unladylike, something that would have earned you an exaggerated gasp from your sister or a sharp rebuke from your mother. 

You swear. Loudly.

You summon all of your frustration and scream what is perhaps the most undignified word you know at the very top of your lungs, the vulgarity echoing in the aviary’s eerie quiet. And though it’s done nothing to solve your current predicament, there’s something truly satisfying about speaking the nasty word out loud, about shouting it into existence.

That is, until someone coughs.

“I take it you need some help, Your Grace?”

You clap a hand over your mouth as you whirl in the direction of the voice.

Lord Min approaches slowly, eyes sparkling with amusement as he takes in your sorry state. You’ve no idea where he came from, but at this very moment you’ve never been so horrified and grateful to see him, all at the very same time. 

“Yes, I – ” you start and stop, flustered by both your behavior. “ – I’m stuck. The brambles are caught in my skirt and – ”

“Oh yes, I see,” he says, leaning down to examine the mess you’ve gotten yourself into. He tugs at the bottom of your skirt and you wince at the sound of the fabric tearing. “You’ve got yourself quite tangled up here, haven’t you?” 

“I believe I have,” you admit with embarrassment. Lord Min gets down on his knees and begins plucking thorns and burs out of the fabric, brow knit with concentration as he attempts to extricate what remains of your fine linen dress.

You clear your throat.

“My Lord, I hope I didn’t – Well, rather, I hope you were not offended by that word you heard me say. It’s not a word that I usually use, not really. Well, not ever. What I mean to say is that I know of coarse language, of course, but I’m certainly not in the habit of using it.”

“What word?” Lord Min interrupts your rambling from his perch at your feet, eyes wide with feigned innocence. “Did you say something, Your Grace? I must not have heard it.”

The corners of his mouth curve into a cautious smile, which you return with a timid one of your own. His teasing is welcome. It brings badly-needed levity to your embarrassing situation and lightens the heaviness of this atrocious day.

“What’s this, Min?”

At once, the gesture dies on your lips.

Lord Jung comes into view by way of the same path taken by Lord Min, though his sudden appearance does not bring you the same kind of relief. Quite the opposite, in fact. 

The very moment he’s standing before you, critical gaze moving from you to Lord Min and back, you feel absolutely lightheaded with anxiety. You wonder what he must make of the scene he’s stumbled upon: Lord Min on his knees, at your feet, hands fisted in your skirts. 

“You Grace.” The lines of Lord Jung’s beautiful face are hard as he acknowledges you, his voice stiff and formal in a way that makes it foreign to your ears. He bows to you much in the same way, body rigid as he performs the required motion.

“My Lord,” you return with similar formality.

“Her Grace is stuck,” Lord Min explains, unaware or perhaps unbothered by the provocative position the two of you have been discovered in. “I’m trying to free her without ripping this linen to shreds. Could use your help, seeing as you’re standing there. Push that branch back for me?”

“Yes, of course.”

Oh, but now you feel a migraine coming on. Lord Jung squeezes into the space beside you, leaning over Lord Min to push the brambles back so that the older man may have both hands free to work. At this point, both men are too close, but he is far too close. Heat blazes a path up your neck and into your cheeks. 

Inhale, you twit. Exhale.

“Last few, Your Grace,” Lord Min announces, voice muffled by your skirts. “I think the linen will need a bit of mending, but not much more.”

“Thank you, My Lord.”

Lord Jung’s gaze connects with yours. His dark eyes, normally so warm and expressive, are flat as he regards you. In fact, everything about the handsome guardsman’s countenance is uncharacteristically severe today, from the deep knit of his brows to the way his bow-shaped mouth presses into a firm line. He looks away from you without so much as a smile.

Is he – is he angry with you?

Your mouth nearly falls open at the realization. What right would Lord Jung have to be angry with you? It was he who’d laid the trap with the promise of a perfect afternoon spent riding and he who’d sprung the trap by defending your husband’s dishonesty. 

If either one of you had a just claim to animosity, it would most certainly be you. 

The awful word you’d uttered at the very start of this ridiculous dilemma springs right to the tip of your tongue. If only you had the courage to spit it at him. Horrid, infuriating man.

“There now,” Lord Min announces. “I think we’ve got it. Hang on to that bramble for a bit longer while Her Grace steps away from the gate.”

You start forward slowly, steps mercifully unencumbered by gnarled plants. Though Lord Min has done his best to salvage the fine linen, your skirt is now covered in a fine dusting of grime, torn in places from your knees to your ankles. Hyeri will have a fit when she sees you, but you couldn’t care less about the state of your ruined dress. The only thing that matters now is quitting this place at once.

“Thank you so much, Lord Min,” you breathe, dropping to your knees to gather your scattered things. The elder guardsman helps you retrieve the wayward charcoals and papers, which you hurriedly stuff back into your basket. “I’ll be off now and won’t take up any more of your afternoon.”

With that, you rush to your feet and turn on your heels to leave. You try not to think about the scene you’re leaving behind – Lord Min puzzled by your sudden exit, Lord Jung affronted by the fact that you’d pointedly ignored him in your thanks. 

You make haste with those first few steps towards freedom, only to be pulled back once again. Only this time, not by jagged brambles.

“Your Grace.”

The hairs on the back of your neck stand at the sound of the gruff voice behind you. You turn around slowly, acutely aware of both men watching your every move. When Lord Jung steps forward, your eyes fall to the gently worn leather binding in his hands. 

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” 

You take great care to school your features, though the panic rising inside of you threatens to spill out. Your most private thoughts are inside that book. Fragments of poems and unsent letters and one horribly incriminating sketch of a man who is most certainly not your husband.

“Thank you, My Lord,” you mumble, resisting the urge to run to him and snatch the book right out of his grip. You can feel him watching your every move as you approach to accept it with unsteady hands.

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

A storm is coming. You can feel it.

Never mind that the sun is shining – or that the sky outside is a perfect, crystalline blue. The clouds dotted across the horizon hang in the air, unmoving. There is no wind to rustle the leaves in the trees. The calm is ominous. Foreboding.

“... think none of the people in this kingdom have ever seen this kind of display before. I imagine they’ll be quite awed by it. I’ve only ever seen it once myself, in a village far North. A strange lot, those people are. After all these years, they still dabble in the dark arts.”

At the other end of the long dining table before you sits the King. He’s been prattling on like this for the better part of ten minutes now; far too absorbed in his grand talk of the festival to note that his audience of one has yet to engage with a word that’s come out of his mouth.

“It’s strange though, to think of celebrating a Fall Festival in this heat. Though I generally prefer the heat to the cold, these conditions are quite beyond the pale. We’ll have to have just as much water on hand as we do ale.”

You make a sound under your breath that you hope will pass for discourse.

“Of course, there’s still much to be done. But the stewards assure me that everything will be ready in time. And there will be much to celebrate this year as I’m told the crops in all our holdings are faring well. The wheat has – ”

The King’s jabbering comes to an abrupt stop.

“You’ve barely eaten,” he notes, in a sudden fit of awareness. He regards you over the rim of his wine glass, curious. “Is the jajangmyeon not to your liking?”

“It is to my liking,” you insist, pushing the wheat noodles around your bowl in a half-hearted attempt to appease him. “As always. I suppose I’m just not very hungry tonight, is all.”

“I find that surprising,” the King says, as though you’d asked his opinion on the matter. “I understand you were brave enough to venture out into that awful heat this afternoon. I would have thought you’d be famished tonight.”

Every muscle in your body tenses at once.

“Oh?”

“I spoke with Hyeri this afternoon,” the King elaborates, oblivious to his misstep. “She said she’d warned you against leaving the castle under those conditions, but you’d off and done it anyway.” He chuckles under his breath as he recounts the conversation. “I think you surprise her at times with how strong-willed you can be.”

Beneath the table, your hands ball into fists.

The thought of Hyeri disclosing the details of your day to the King, no matter how trivial, incenses you. You imagine them together over tea, sharing a laugh as they trade observations about your shortcomings. Or worse – meeting with one another somber-faced as they commiserate over your inability to produce a child. 

That thought is the most insidious. Your nails dig savagely into your palms.

“Do you and Hyeri discuss my comings and goings often, then, Your Grace?” 

Your husband shrugs, helping himself to another generous serving of noodles.

“Often enough, I suppose.”

“So am I then to assume that when you ask me about my day, you are merely standing on ceremony? Surely you must be, given that you’ve already had a full report from my handmaid.”

The King sets down his chopsticks to look at you, perplexed by the contentious turn in this conversation. But he’s careful to school his features as he considers what to say next.

“Of course not,” he starts slowly. “I ask after you because I genuinely want to know about your day. It’s a consideration that I would think customary between husbands and wives.”

Is he – is he toying with you?

What on earth would His Grace know about what’s customary between husbands and wives? He is the one who’s made this marriage into a farce with his deceit and adultery. He is the one who’s held you at arm’s length from the very start in order to protect the woman he truly loves. Your husband’s hubris is as astonishing as it is aggravating. Horrid, infuriating man.

“Well I, for one, would genuinely like to know about your day, Your Grace,” you say, unable to keep venom from seeping into your every word. “So tell me then – as is customary between husband and wives – how did you pass the afternoon?”

The color drains from the King’s face. 

You should shut your mouth now and say no more, you know it – but by now you are far too consumed with anger to give much thought to the consequences of sharp words. You push the bowl of jajangmyeon away and get to your feet.

“Nothing of interest to share, then?” You raise a brow as you stare down at your husband, unwilling to look away for even one moment. “What a pity. Perhaps tomorrow.”

The King’s eyes narrow but his mouth stays shut. He says nothing in his own defense, says nothing to attempt to placate you. 

And he says nothing as you turn your back on him and walk out the door.

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

The first crack of thunder sounds just as you’re readying for bed. You stand at your window and watch the storm roll in. 

Black clouds build off in the distance, discernible only by the occasional flare of lightning. Each bright flash is followed by an earth-shaking rumble that satisfies you somehow, as though you’ve manifested this squall with your thoughts. The violent wind and rain it carries with it a mirror of the tempest inside you.

“Do you require anything else, Your Grace?”

Hyeri’s voice comes from behind, timid and small. She’s been tiptoeing around your chamber all evening, clearly disquieted by the cold reception you’d given her upon your return. The well-bred, well-behaved woman inside you whispers that you should turn to her, do something to reassure her, but you refuse. 

Fortified by your anger, you keep your back to Hyeri and go on staring at the storm clouds.

“No,” you say firmly. “You can retire for the night.”

“But I – ” Hyeri starts, stops, and then sighs. “Very well. As you wish, Your Grace.”

And you do wish. You wish for Hyeri to leave you – not just tonight, but every night. And you wish not just for Hyeri to leave you – but all of them. You’ve grown quite tired of humiliating yourself in this kingdom; of placing your trust in people who’ve made you into a fool time and time again. 

There is rustling as the older woman hurriedly gathers her things, then a brief pause before she slips out the door. The heavy thud that finally announces her departure brings you some small measure of peace, but it does not last.

Your bath-damp body is warm when you slip beneath the heavy duvet. Too warm. Though the storm raging nearby brings with it the promise of cool rain, it is still too far off to displace the humid air in your chamber. You toss and turn beneath the heavy covers for a while, your thin nightgown soaked through with sweat by the time you finally kick your bedding away.

So you lie there in the dark, close to feverish with heat and unable to settle down. Every time you close your eyes, you’re taunted by images – of Hyeri, of the King, of the child that never comes. What you would give to be able to quiet your mind, to have some respite from the reality of your circumstances.

But there will be no respite, not any time soon. The thunder outside is close enough now to shake the castle’s heavy walls with each new blast that rips through the sky. You feel the tremors right down to your bones, the sensation causing goosebumps to scatter across your skin. 

In spite of the heat, you shiver. 

There’s a prickling that starts at your scalp and goes right down to your toes. It makes you itch with the desire to drag your nails down your arms and legs. It makes you want to squeeze your thighs together, tight and tighter still until your agitation is gone. Perhaps that is the solution. 

You cup your breasts through the damp, thin material of your nightgown. They feel sensitive, tender — and the very moment you brush your fingertips over your nipples they come to life, pebbling against the gauzy fabric. 

You close your eyes and try to imagine that your hands are not your own. That the fingers that close around the aching buds, teasing and testing, are not your fingers. That the dormant pleasure the pressure rouses inside you has instead been roused by someone else. 

In your mind, the hand that steals between your thighs is not your own. It’s larger than yours, the fingers longer and rougher than yours. You imagine that hand parting your legs, coarse fingertips slippery against the wetness gathered at your entrance. And you imagine it caressing you there, expertly stroking the spot that makes the air leave your lungs. 

What would it be like to be touched like this? To have a lover’s lips at your neck and his hand between your thighs? To have the weight of him pressing down on you, the scent of him enveloping you – to feel his warm breath fan over your skin?

These thoughts only serve to make the ache between your legs more pronounced. But the more you attend to it, the sharper it becomes. Pleasure blooms with each inexpert pass of your fingers over that place, but in its wake your desperation grows, too. 

You whine under your breath as you touch yourself harder, faster – a heaviness building at your core that makes you feel full, overripe. There is relief on the other side of whatever this is, and you know it. 

But can you reach it? 

Your imaginary lover would know how to help you reach it. He would take you in his arms and in his mouth and leave no inch of your body untouched. He would fuse himself to you, skin-to-skin, and show you how to beckon your pleasure at will, help you realize its full potential. 

In your mind’s eye you can see him – legs and arms strong and lean, golden skin illuminated by firelight. The mouth he sets to your aching nipples would be soft, lips pretty and bow-shaped. And his hair would be dark and his eyes would be a rich chocolate and his face would be – 

A clap of thunder explodes in the sky. 

Your eyes fly open – unseeing – as you gasp from the shock of it. It leaves you trembling, body slick with sweat and limbs tingling from the sudden fear. You lie there in the dark, panting as you wait for your heart to stop racing. 

And just like that, the pleasure you’ve been chasing is gone. Quick as a rabbit. 

Outside your window the heavens weep, the rain beating against the ground like a hail of arrows. 

The dry earth enjoying a relief that always seems to elude you.

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

“Magnificent, Your Grace.” 

Hyeri passes a hand over the embellishments in your bodice, chest puffed with pride as she examines the dressmaker’s handiwork. Though her brown eyes have long gone dull and gray with age, they shine as she steps back to take you in from head to toe. “Just magnificent.”

It is magnificent – far and away the finest garment you have ever worn. 

Rich, plum-colored velvet embellished with gilt thread, the plunging neckline and bliaut sleeves lined with pressed bezants. You hardly recognize the woman looking back at you in the mirror, the one with her hair swept off her neck in an intricate braided bun, eyes darkened with kohl, ears and neck adorned with sparkling gold. Whoever that woman is, she is far bolder and far more sophisticated than you.

“There’s nothing like his work,” Hyeri muses, running a thumb over pattern pressed into the hem of one sleeve. “Frail as he is, it takes him ages to complete a dress. But he’s worth it. Worth the wait and worth every single won.”

You study the intertwining gold patterns stitched into the bustline. No doubt the King has paid dearly for this dress and all its fine accoutrements. The thought of your husband spending an obscene amount of money on it nearly puts a smile on your face. 

“You look remarkable in this dress,” Hyeri remarks quietly, wrinkled mouth lifting at the corners with a cautious smile. “Well, of course, you look remarkable everyday, but especially tonight.” 

Her expression is bittersweet as she reaches for you, gently tucking a strand of hair that’s fallen loose of your braid behind your ear. This newfound emotional distance has been hard on her, you know. It’s been hard on you, too. And though holding her at arm’s length has proven difficult at times, it feels somehow vital to your self-preservation.

“Don’t forget your shawl,” Hyeri says softly. “It’s gotten quite cold out there.”

It certainly has. The storm that ripped through the kingdom just days ago took the insufferable heat with it, leaving behind a pure, crystalline cold. The night sky is clear enough to see for miles. 

So you accept the shawl from Hyeri with a quiet thanks, avoiding her eyes as you slip out the chamber door.

By the time you make your way to the great hall, the revelry is already well underway. You can hear it pulsing through the slats of the heavy wooden doors, the music and commotion contained within powerful enough to stir the ground beneath your feet. The footmen posted at either side of the entrance bow deeply as you approach, then move to pull the doors open.

You raise a hand to still them, wanting a moment to steel yourself before entering the fray.

“I’m not – If you’ll just give me – ”

One of the guards steps forward to speak when your words falter.

“No need to explain, Your Grace,” he says earnestly. “Just let us know when you’re ready.”

“Thank you.” You take as deep a breath as your elaborate gown will allow. “Truly.”

You already know what awaits on the other side of those doors. Artificial smiles that hide whispers about your empty womb, honeyed and hollow words of praise from your exasperating husband. Pity too, perhaps, from those connected enough to be privy to the true state of your marriage. 

But you’ll bear it. You must. Because it’s what’s expected of you and because your political survival in this kingdom depends on it.

“Well then,” you say, smoothing down your velvet skirt with trembling hands. "I believe I've had time to collect myself."

The very same footman that had spoken to you just moments earlier gives you a sympathetic smile as he places one hand on the door’s ornate wrought iron handle. He pauses to look at you before signaling to the other footman, one brow raised as if to say are you sure?

You swallow thickly and nod your affirmation.

Slowly, the heavy doors are pulled open, creaking as they part. You step forward to enter, feeling a rush of cool air at your heels. The brief hush that falls over the great hall makes your heartbeat quicken.

But then the King stands. 

He rises to his feet and bows to you, and every person inside the great hall follows suit. You return his bow and then straighten, holding your head up high as you set off to fulfill your duty.

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

The King makes no mention of the tense meal you’d shared just a few nights prior. Not that you’d expected him to. If anything, your husband’s predilection for avoidance has been one of his most consistent traits. And if he’s harbored any ill feelings about the curt words you’d spoken that night, surely they’ve been washed away in a torrent of ale.

He’s already a bit drunk when you take your seat beside him – pleasantly so, if his ruddy cheeks and leisurely smile are any indication. His dark eyes are glassy as they sweep over your form, taking in the grandeur of your dress. But they linger at your bust for just a heartbeat too long and it takes all the self-control you can muster to not kick him beneath the table.

“You look fetching in that dress,” the King notes, reaching for his tankard. “The color suits you.”

“Oh? Then you’ll be pleased to know I’ve dozens more just like it on the way.”

You startle a laugh from the King just as he’s taken a drink and he splutters on it, coughing until tears gather at the corners of his eyes. “Very good of you to warn me before the bill comes due,” he wheezes.

“But of course, Your Grace.” You infuse your words with cloying, contrived sweetness, putting a hand over your heart for emphasis. “It is the very least I could do.”

The King chuckles as you turn to look out over the room. 

The tables below the raised platform on which you both dine are teeming with people, their long wooden benches bowing beneath the substantial weight. They are littered with food and drink, tankards and platters and goblets scattered for as far as the eye can see. 

You sip your wine and watch partygoers reach over one another for noodles and steal dumplings from their neighbors’ plates.

It takes a minute for you to spot Boram. She and Lord Min are tucked into a corner, cozy and close. Your dear friend is the very picture of contentment; resplendent in a royal blue gown, glowing in the torchlight when her husband presses a kiss to her temple. Your heart aches as you watch them. What you would give to have what they have – to know the fulfillment they’ve found in one another.

In fact, the Mins make for such a compelling tableau that you nearly overlook the one behind it. Lord Jung is dressed in an arresting black and gold tunic, dark hair styled away from his face and a tankard of ale in his hand. And he is not alone.

Seated close to him – so very close – is a woman. A beautiful woman, as best you can tell from a distance. Her dark red dress in perfect contrast to her shiny fall of dark hair, the garment cut to accentuate what can only be described as a generous bust. She leans in to Lord Jung as she says something, décolletage on full display when she throws her head back to laugh.

Your grip on the wine goblet in your hand tightens.

The woman is brazen, that much you can tell. Her proximity to the Guardsman is far too close to be proper, her scandalous –  if stunning – manner of dress far too self-indulgent to be benign. And though you cannot make out clearly how she’s been received by Lord Jung, the very fact that he has not sent her away is telling. Is this the woman he intends to marry, then? Or just a diversion for the night? 

You drain the wine that remains in your goblet and signal for the serving girl to bring you more.

Moments later Lord Jung, too, flags down a passing servant to fill his tankard. For a man who once took great pride in extolling his discipline with spirits, he seems to be exercising very little of it tonight. In fact, he looks to be indulging as much or perhaps even more than his fellow Guardsmen. Perhaps that is why he does not he does not move to distance himself when the alluring woman at his side places a hand on his arm.

You swallow another large sip of wine.

“It’s nearly time for the evening’s entertainment,” the King says. “I think you’ll be impressed by what’s in store.”

You cannot tear your gaze from the scene before you. You cannot stop staring at the comely woman at Lord Jung’s side – stiffening in your seat when she leans over to whisper in his ear.

“I’m looking forward to it,” you say absentmindedly, lifting your wine glass to your lips once again.

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

When you were a girl, barely ten years old, your father had come home from a long journey with a fantastic tale. 

He’d spoken of fire – in shades of red and green and gold – launched into the sky, embers raining down on the earth in a magnificent display. You’d been spellbound by the picture he’d painted for you, wishing desperately to see this phenomenon for yourself.

And now you have.

The King’s promise of a surprise well exceeds your expectations. Each new flare sent up over the open field is met with a hush from the crowd, followed by loud cheers and applause as it explodes into color.

“I brought them back from a village up North,” the King explains, preening at the crowd’s reception. “And though I wanted to show them right away, I made myself wait until the most advantageous time. What do you make of them?”

“They’re splendid,” you answer earnestly. “I’ve never seen anything so grand.”

The King hides a satisfied smile behind the rim of his tankard. By this point in the evening, he’s crossed the line from agreeably drunk to good and well soused – as have many of the others in attendance. You, too, are feeling the effects of your wine, experiencing that strange weightlessness that can only be brought on by drink.

And you are glad for the distraction of the fire display. 

It’s helped pull your focus away from Lord Jung and that woman. Though each time there is a brief break in the presentation, you cannot help but search the throng for any sign of them. You wonder where they are right now. What they might be doing. But then you drown the bitter thoughts with the wine in your goblet.    

The night wears on and the crowd around you becomes rowdier, louder – the ale barrels slowly disappearing one by one. Even the King is looking a bit worse for the wear. He’s sagged into the chair beside you, heavy-lidded as he watches the bright detonations that light up the sky.

You are not faring much better. A dull throb taps at your temples, no doubt the consequence of drinking too much wine, and you suspect that it will be far more pronounced come morning. You ought to retire for the evening now, while you still have some of your wits about you.

You open your mouth to say as much to the King at the very same time you catch sight of a slim man ambling away from the crowd. Though he’s hundreds of yards away and though there’s little light beyond the torches and the occasional embers in the sky, you recognize him right away. 

You would recognize him anywhere.

Impulsively, you get to your feet and utter a rushed goodbye to the King. He bids you farewell with a sluggish smile and not a moment later he’s gone back to gazing skyward, mesmerized by the lights. Just ahead, Lord Jung slinks off into the shadows, moving with an unsteady gait. 

And you follow him. To what end you cannot be sure.

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

Clearly, you’d given no real thought to this course of action. 

If you had, you’d not be scurrying across damp grass right now, struggling to keep your balance in your beautiful velvet dress. The heavy fabric weighs you down with each step, making each footfall precarious. In fact, if you’d stopped for even a moment to consider the implications of stealing away to pursue a man who is not your husband, you’d have ended this lunacy long before it even began.

But here you are in the dark, chasing after Lord Jung. With only the moon to light your way.

The slender man moves quickly, unburdened by the trappings of women’s formalwear and assisted by his long legs. You lift the hem of your dress off the ground and do your best to keep up on the shadowy path. Just a short distance ahead you can make out the lines of a thatched roof and wooden fence. 

It’s the stables, you realize, and the pieces start to fall into place.

He’s come here to meet that woman. The two of them must have agreed to leave the festival and come here for a secret tryst. Were you a woman in your right mind, that realization would stop you cold and send you running straight back to the castle. But you are absolutely not in your right mind. You are dangerous tonight; fearless from the wine flowing freely in your veins.

As such, the very thought of Lord Jung arranging for a passionate liaison with this woman has the opposite effect. It infuriates you. And you’ll not be satisfied until you can see the proof for yourself and then end this fixation once and for all.

Overhead, a flare of light illuminates the darkness just as you’re nearing the horse stalls. It’s followed by the sound of sizzling gunpowder, and it draws your attention skyward. You look up just in time to see wisps of fire tumble back to the earth. But when you fix your gaze forward again, Lord Jung is gone.

What on earth?

You’ve barely begun to consider your next move before your body is moving of its own volition, jerked right off the walking path by a hand that wraps around your arm like a band of steel. Lord Jung drags you behind the horse stall with one hand and claps the other over your mouth to smother the sound of hysteria that threatens to escape.

“What. Are. You. Doing?”

He hisses the words, one by one, his low vibrato thrumming with barely-contained anger. You’ve yet to recover from the shock of being accosted in the dark and so you stare at him, bewildered and mute.

He releases you, dropping the hand covering your mouth to walk to the edge of the stables. You watch as he ducks his head around the corner to check the walking path. Once he’s satisfied you’ve not been followed, he rounds on you.

“Anyone could have seen you.”

“No one saw me,” you scowl, finding your voice. You rub your forearm where his fingers dug painfully into your flesh. “They’re all far too drunk to see anything, I assure you.”

The Guardsman shoves a hand through his dark hair and exhales deeply.

“What are you about tonight, Your Grace?” 

A fair question, and one you ought to have considered before dashing off into the night. But you’d been so hellbent on hunting the man down that you’d given no real thought to what you’d do if you actually caught him. You hesitate for so long that he grows impatient, closing in on you.

“What,” he repeats slowly, “Are you about?”

“I don’t know,” you admit.

“Well, you ought to know,” he growls. “You ought to know damned well exactly what you’re about before you go off following men into the dark.”

But it’s not as though you’ve followed just any man into the dark, is it? You’d followed him. The admonishment riles you, bringing your temper back to a full boil. You straighten your spine and sear him with a withering look.

“That woman tonight. At the feast. She wants you to bed her.”

Lord Jung’s dark eyes go wide just before they narrow. He stalks towards you slowly, forcing you to retreat until your back is flush to the stable’s rough wooden slats. Slivers of moonlight play off his angular face, making the shadows in the hollows of his cheeks more pronounced.

He’s beautiful – even like this – even when he’s so irate that he can barely stand still.

“I know what she wants,” he murmurs, voice sinking to an octave that raises goosebumps on your arms. “What I do not know is what you want. What I do not know is why you are here.”

“So you intend to bed her,” you challenge.

Something dangerous flickers in the man's expression as he regards you, gaze potent enough to almost make you regret your sudden bout of daring. Almost.

“No.”

And so there is no tryst. No agreement between secret lovers. Adrenaline floods your veins, bringing with it a clarity that you’ve not had since you began drinking tonight. You’ve been reckless – so, so reckless – and now there is no undoing what you’ve done. 

“I’ve answered your question and now you will answer mine,” Lord Jung warns, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “What. Do. You. Want?”

All the fire has left you now. Whatever force possessed you to confront this man in this way has disappeared, leaving behind only a sickly taste in your mouth. You’ll feel more than just the wine in the morning, you know it. 

“Brave enough to follow me into the dark, brave enough to demand I explain my plans for bedsport,” he continues, brows knit as he stares you down. “But somehow, not brave enough to tell me what you’re doing here in the first place.”

“I – ” 

“Tell me then,” he goads, growing more agitated by the minute. “Open your mouth and speak. Tell me why you’re here. Tell me what you want.”

“I want you to kiss me.”

You ought to have slapped him across the face. At the very least, you would have earned the look he’s giving you right now – this frozen mask of incredulity that’s come over him. He backs away from you slowly, as though poised to run. But he doesn’t.

“You’re mad.”

“I am not mad,” you say evenly, with a poise you’d not thought yourself capable of. “You asked me what I want and I’ve told you. I want you to kiss me.”

Another burst of color explodes in the sky. A loud cheer goes up over the field nearby, a disquieting reminder of the hundreds of people milling about just a short walk away. The commotion seems to sober him.

“Go home, Your Grace.” His words are strangled, forced. “You are playing with fire. You have no idea what you’re doing here.”

You stiffen, lifting your nose in the air. 

“I know exactly what I’m doing,” you lie.

Your insistence only serves to make him even more agitated. He begins to pace back and forth, glowering at you as he moves.

“Go back to your castle, Your Grace. Go back to your fine life and your fine things and no one will ever be the wiser.”

“I will not,” you refuse, petulant.

Lord Jung delivers his last blow, the fatal one, in a voice so graveled it sounds as though the words are spoken by a stranger. And perhaps he is a stranger, this man you’ve been so infatuated with. Perhaps he’s nothing like what you’ve made him in your own mind.

“Go back to your husband,” he growls. “Your King.”

Your humiliation is instant and acute. You burn with it, the embarrassment so all-consuming that it nearly makes you see stars. You can hear the blood rushing in your ears, feel your heart pounding in your throat when you finally manage to speak.

“The King doesn’t want me,” you say stiffly. “Though I am certain you already know that.”

“The King is a fool!” he explodes, surging forward and slamming his hands down on either side of you. The outburst is violent enough to shake the horse stall and the venom in his countenance nearly makes you come out of your skin. His mouth hovers terrifyingly close to yours, so close that you can nearly taste the ale on his breath. You stop breathing altogether. 

Then he wrenches himself away from you, staggering backwards as though he’s been burned.

“And so am I.”

i’d love to hear from you about this chapter! you can talk to me here. otherwise, i hope you enjoyed it and only the final chapter is left 💕

#hoseok smut #j-hope smut #bts smut #hoseok x reader #j-hope x reader #bts x reader #hoseok #bts hoseok #bts x you #hoseok x you #bts scenarios #bts au #hoseok imagine #bangtanarmynet #thebtswritersclub #bangtan

[bangtanfanfiction]

support system → jhs (M)

Based on Hobi’s appearance at the 2022 MAMA awards bcs I’m missing him. 

M.List

♢ Pairing: Idol!Hoseok x Idol female!Reader

♢ Word count: 4.6k

♢ Genre: Idol AU, fluff, smut, comfort, established relationship     - Warnings: swearing, male oral sex, sub/dom tones, dirty talk 

⌲ Description: You’re the support system Hoseok needs in times of uncertainty without his members. And you make sure he knows it. 

not proof read. 

Hoseok felt out of place. 

He was alone where he would usually be surrounded by his six members, each with their own ways of comforting him and making it more bearable, and it was an awkward and anxious feeling alone. The only helpful part was that he wasn’t the only solo artist attending and had someone familiar to speak to.  

But other than being the 5%, the rest were all the hottest and youngest groups to grace the current K-pop industry. And where he knew most of them by name out of courtesy, it didn’t go any further than that. 

As his stomach continued to flutter, there was a moment he thought he would need to get off the stage and just take a moment to himself until he saw his saving grace. You. 

You were walking up the steps to the seating area, your tight sitting and sparkling dress with the exposed leg drawing all the attention as you were oblivious to it, concentrating on talking to a staff member explaining the seating plan as you nodded along. 

His eyes dragged down your body slowly and appreciatively, grateful for the glasses hiding his suddenly impure thoughts. 

There was no doubt you were beautiful. You always were to him. But it was the oozing confidence that you owned in your own skin. Hoseok met female idols on a daily, it came with the job, and as beautiful as all of them were with how the standards were set, you were a shining diamond among them all. 

You had always been outspoken and fearless against the restrictions of a patriarchal and man-dominated culture such as South Korea. You refused to bow down to the sneers of the general public when it came to your state of dress, body image, and the color of your natural skin without being assisted by whitening products. 

His butterflies calmed down as he straightened out his blazer and stood up, making his way surely towards you, ignoring the piercing stares of curiosity from his fellow idols, as they tried to act nonchalantly. 

It was adorable, Hoseok thought. Many of them were nearly ten years his junior either in age or as new rookies, and were rigidly reminded about the strict rules about idols of the different sex interacting. And here he was showcasing the absolute opposite with no shits to give to the higher-ups.

As if they could touch him anyway. 

Your fleeting, yet bright smile met his eyes in acknowledgment as he stopped beside you, hand finding its natural place low on your back as you turned your attention back to the conversation and he waited patiently. 

“Hey,” you finally turned to him, eyes crinkling in the corners as your attention was solely on him. 

“Hey,” Hoseok tried his best to not shut the rest of the world out as he looked down. “You look breathtaking.”

The way your nose scrunched up was the only indication you gave away of your shyness at the compliment. 

Wordlessly he led you towards the couch, as you greeted the rest of the artists already seated with polite bows along the way. With Hoseok seated on the end, you settled down beside him, thighs pressing against each other as you crossed your legs. 

His arm settled on the back of the hardened seat, close enough for his hand to brush against your bare skin on purpose. A habit he did often to simply touch you without crossing the line in public. 

You leaned into his side without fear nor shame, with your relationship public for quite a while now despite appearances together being rare, Hoseok had never been shy to showcase his love for you on Instagram with cute daily stories of your dates and dedicated posts of candid photos. 

“Babe.”

“Hm?” Hoseok’s hum was distracted as your smirk widened, eyes never straying away from watching the staff prepare last-minute details before the show started. 

“Stop staring at my boobs, there are minors here,” your words were only heard by the two of you. 

The way he huffed out a small laugh confirmed your suspicions. He couldn’t help the fact that your dress gave your bosom a generous cleavage which he had full advantage of admiring from his taller perspective with you leaning against him. 

“Minors who are old enough to understand the sight of a man admiring his significant other,” he shrugged shamelessly. “It’s not like I’m doing anything illegal.”

With those words, he took your hand in his own and lifted it to press a quick kiss against the back of it as proof. As much as you wanted to, there was no way you were able to ignore the gasps and shrieks of the audience that was watching the artist section with rapid attention. All you could do was pretend not to notice as you gave him a mock glare and light reprimanded slap against his chest. 

“You own no fear, Jung Hoseok,” you shook your head. 

“Says Miss Fuck-The-Patriarchy.”

The proud tug of your lips was poorly hidden as both of you shared a small laugh at the memories of one of your most well-known quotes from a live stream. 

“Hmm. They had it coming,” was your nonchalant answer. “When’s your performance scheduled for again?” 

“Near the end.”

“Biggest for last, huh.”

His nudge against your side made you both chuckle to yourselves. It was always your favorite pastime to tease him and the other members of their superstar status. You had done it when they first debuted in America when it still seemed like a farfetched joke. Now it had become a reality.

You had never expected anything to come out of your long-time friendship with each other. But then one day it just did. Neither of you had planned or initiated feelings first. It just naturally blossomed into something more and was readily accepted during your usual night walks together to escape the crazy life of entertainment. 

Both of you couldn’t be happier if you asked.

Fame and public scrutiny were already tiring to begin with. But with each other, there was understanding for things normal people might not have understood. So there was a comfort in being in the same industry together and not getting mad about the crazy work hours each had to endure.

“It feels weird,” Hoseok’s low mutter admitted to you as he glanced around.

“It does.” You easily agreed, a comforting hand placed on his thigh. “It’s a new era.”

“Who would have thought?” He chuckled, but you heard the sad bitterness in it. “It seemed like forever away not long ago.”

You knew his feelings didn’t come from jealousy or malicious intent. With Jin’s upcoming enlistment only days away and each of the members preparing for their own in different ways, Hoseok had felt like it was a certain goodbye. To you and his family and friends. 

You silently supported him through it. Because despite it all, this was a journey you couldn’t help him with, only being by his side whenever he needed you to. 

This is also why you made sure to attend all the same events together for extra measure. 

“At least we bring the fun,” Your lips tug up into a slight smirk.

“You mean the scandal?” He returned the look with a tilt of his brow.

“How can it be a scandal if everyone already knows, my love?” You stated, hand coming up to scrape a nail teasingly down his jaw before patting his chest as you felt him give a shiver.

“It might turn into one if you don’t stop teasing me,” He mutters as you giggle.

“Lighten up, okay?” You finally said, this time a genuine softness to your words to put him at ease. It worked, his tense shoulders easing a bit against you.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to bring down the mood today. I guess it’s just weird without the others here.”

“I get it,” Smiling you treaded your fingers through his, resting it on his lap. “They’re your family.”

“So are you.”

Although your heart swelled at his declaration, you only squeezed his hand in gratitude. “But I haven’t been with you since the beginning. That’s a deep bond you can never change.”

Hoseok sighed, nodding. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

With that, his need for intimacy and comforting touches clearly rose as the arm resting behind your shoulders tightened, pulling you even closer to him if possible. A little more and you would end up on his lap. Not that you doubted he would care. 

All the boys had come to a point in their career where they longer gave a fuck about what the public had to say about them. Fans and company included. Some of them were still strict on the privacy of their love lives, but Hoseok had caved in quite early on - his excuse being the need to show you off for everyone without shame. 

How could one say no after that?

It wasn’t until after his performance that you noticed his tension returned gradually, and you were well aware of why. The biggest awards were swept clean by BTS, with two of them being for just Hoseok himself. 

Award after award, you watched with a grin as he thanked the audience, fans, company and fellow artists for all the support. You both thought the last of it with the Artist of Year award usually closing up the show, but then were surprised yet again with a new award made just for your favorite seven boys. 

Your keen eyes noticed quickly during the last Daesang introduction that your boyfriend was getting emotional, or at least feeling the immense pressure of their status as BTS. 

That was why the moment BTS was called up as expected, you watched proudly as Hoseok took a second in his seat to take it all in before standing up. 

His eyes flickered to yours and before he chickened out from all the attention, he pulled you into an intimate hug in front of everyone, hands low on your waist as your own wrapped themselves around his neck for a short, loving moment. At the last moment, he leaned in to place a peck on the corner of your mouth before stepping away towards the main stage. 

Several eyes had widened, some squeals as well as hollers of encouragement from the younger artists. 

You continued to act as if nothing happened, trying to at least. But the flush that was spreading across your face was hardly hidden from anyone who paid attention. 

You thought that was the end of any attention on you. 

“I want to thank one more person.” 

You felt the stares burning into your skin, cameras turning as the blush came anew. 

“Where BTS and ARMY have been my mountain of support, this person has been my anchor. The one to keep me afloat whenever I felt like drowning. The one to love and support me through all my anger, stress, and sadness. But also the one to always keep me on my toes.” He added the last one with a teasing tilt as light laughter rang out. 

Your eyes were watering. Doing your damn best to keep the waterfall back as your listened to his heartfelt devotion to you. 

“Y/N, some might call us young and stupid no matter how old we are. But I know for certain you are the one for me, you have been since day 1. I love you so much, I don’t even have the right words to tell you right now. Thank you.”

Your face showed up on camera just as you blew a kiss with your hands in his direction, cheeks slightly blotchy and watering eyes, mouthing a soundless ‘I Love You’ as his grin widened. 

It felt like forever before you found yourself in Hoseok’s arms again, this behind the stage as both of you were ushered away while the encore was ongoing. You nearly bowled him over in your haste to simply touch him as he stumbled back a step before balancing himself with a low chuckle. 

“I love you so much, baby,” Your whisper was croaking with emotion just as he caught your lips into a slow, loving caress. 

“Come on, let’s get out of here.”

+

“Baby, are you hungry?” Hoseok welcomed the feeling of pure relief as he took off all his accessories and the heavy leather coat, organizing them carefully on the table and hanging up the clothing on a hanger to give it back to the styling team tomorrow. 

He had noticed your quick retreat into the bathroom, probably to scrub away all the makeup and grime which he knew was your favorite part to the end of a long day such as these.

“I can order some room service if you want to,” He continued talking, unbuckling his belt while carefully slipping off his designer shoes. “Maybe some pasta or dessert? I’m craving something sweet after that performance.”

“Yeah, I could do with some dessert.” Your reply came softly from behind him, although lacking the fervor you usually had when he suggested to get some sweets late at night.  

“Ugh, thank god, I think my body needs some sugar after today,” Hoseok laughed, turning around only to choke on it as he coughed.

Fuck. 

Shit. He must be in heaven. Or hell. 

Because you were looking like you were sent from the heavens to torture him.

A black lacy ensemble of lingerie encasing your curves must have been laced with the devil’s poison itself with how transfixed he was taking it all in.

A lace bralette softly covering your chest with a matching thong and garter belt encasing your waist. The stockings running up your legs and strapped firmly by your thighs making his throat dry as he took in the same heels you still wore from earlier. 

You were a wet dream come true. 

And you damn well knew it with the smirk on your face as you stepped towards him. “Cat got your tongue, baby?” 

“What?”

The smirk widened at his nonsense answer. His eyes never strayed from your body as he tried to imprint the image in his brain.

You were right in front of him now, fingers playing with the lapels of his now unbuttoned shirt and hanging loosely down his frame, the belt still hanging on his hips. 

“I’m still in the mood for some dessert, aren’t you?” 

“Whatever you say, baby,” His dazed muttering made you let out an airy laugh, giving him one firm push as he stumbled back a step only to meet the edge of the bed and stumbling down, elbows pushing him up to never lose sight of you. 

"Aren’t you gonna ask me what kind of dessert?” You damn well near purred, slowly creeping your way up along his body, hand teasing his expanse of exposed skin raising goosebumps along the way until your face was hovering inches above his.

“What kind of dessert?” He murmured, dark brown eyes locking with your own, flickering down to your lips. 

“My favorite kind.” 

With that you pressed a firm yet teasing kiss against his lips, leaving him to chase after you as you put a stern hand on his shoulder to push him back down before stepping off the bed and down on your knees between his spread legs. 

He had already done half the job by unbuckling the belt. Distracting him with the press of your lips against the soft surface of his stomach, his abs tensed along with the deep breaths he took before relaxing. 

Hoseok was already half hard as you palmed him, his silent groan vibrating through his whole body before pulling down his underwear for enough access to his whole cock. 

Without hesitation you started at the base, wrapping your hand around his length and rubbing him firmly as he sighed above you, fingers curling into fists by his sides. 

Keeping an eye on his face, you watched while leaning in, sucking the tip of his cock into your mouth, tongue swirling against the slit as Hoseok’s head fell back with a soft moan. Slim, large hands automatically found leverage on your head as you took him deeper, gently moving up and down as your own hands moved to palm his balls - causing his soft moans to turn into guttural groans, veins in his neck straining. 

Feeling the tenseness of his whole body you pulled away, as his eyes snapped open, neck craning to look at you, protest clear in his mouth. 

“Relax, baby” You grinned at him. “This is my gift for you, so enjoy it.”

“You’re gonna be death of me.” Hoseok huffed out a laugh, voice slightly choked as your hand never stopped moving on his length. 

“Wait,” his voice was deliciously hoarse, a darker rumble that went straight down to your own throbbing pussy. You watched fondly as he stretched backward to grab the closest hotel pillow and handed it to you. 

He had barely settled back on the bed before you gripped him tighter, tongue already making a path down his veins and swallowing him deeper without preparation. 

Hoseok nearly lurched up, fingers digging into your scalp with a hissed curse.  

“Jesus Fuck, Y/N.” His moan of your name did ridiculous to your body, eagerness to please your hardworking boyfriend increasing until his knees were shaking. 

Bobbing your head, you sucked enthusiastically, following the motions of his own hands whether he noticed it or not.

Hoseok had somehow managed to push himself up into a sitting position, the need to watch you closer as you pleased him controlling his body. 

Your intentions had been obvious to him early on. You wanted to spoil him to completion, but at the same time torturing his senses through the journey - just because he knew you could. He had learned fairly quick in the relationship that you had a thing for seeing him come apart beneath your touch, controlling his pleasure and seeing him beg you to let him come. 

His half-lidded gaze never left the perfect-picture vision of your pretty pink lips around his cock, swollen and drool dribbling down the corner of your mouth as you moaned softly to his harsh pants, eyes fluttering shut. The vibrations of it sent tingles down his legs and spine, coaxing another moan from him. 

“You’re so fucking good, baby.” Hoseok managed to breathe out. Praise only spurring you on if that was possible. 

The love of his life was sucking his cock like it was the best damn lollipop in town, and the sight of it would always be one of the most arousing scenes he would ever see. 

He was pretty certain he could die in this position without regrets. 

“That’s it.” Murmuring he eased his hold on your hair, the other supporting him on the bed, fingers curling into the sheet as he watched you spellbound. 

Shit, you were loving it between his legs. Sounding and looking like Hoseok was already pounding your brains out. He was basically yours to own at the moment.  

“Spell your fucking name on it.”

Your broken moans at his words caused a knowing smirk to play at his lips for a single moment until he nearly fell apart again the very next, eyes falling shut at the mindblowing sensations your tongue could give him. 

You hummed, deep in your throat, drawing the most panth-worthy moans from Hoseok’s lips, his usual decorum of trying to keep it down evaporating. His moans were some of your favorite sounds in the world - going from soft high pitches whenever he got close before falling back down to the low tones as he tried to catch his breath. 

His thighs tensed, fingers gripping the strands of your hair nearly frighteningly tight with a mutter. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, I’m-I’m gonna cum–”

Hoseok knew you had heard him. His moans turned desperate, breaking up into near frantic stutters as he got closer to his high, just for you to pull back slowly with a pop - a knowing, almost vindictive smile on your face. 

“Baby!” If you didn’t know better, you would almost say that was a sob coming from him as you left him high and dry. 

Your cunt was throbbing almost painfully at this point, craving any touch for relief, but you held it back for favoring your boyfriend’s pleasure. 

“Patience, my love,” You murmured as your rose up, gently pushing him back down on the bed as you pulled off his underwear and pants off, kicking them to the side, leaving only the open shirt on his otherwise sweating, naked body. 

And what a glorious body that was. 

Lean and tan with smooth expanses of skin you wanted to lick all over, the lines of a dancer’s firm muscles lining every part of him. 

Fuck, Jung Hoseok was fucking delicious, and all yours. 

Making sure that he was watching, you slipped off the thong down your legs, watching as his throat bobbed in anticipation. You left the bralette on and the strategically worn garter and stockings to not be in the way of your underwear. 

Easily taking off your heels too, you crawled over his body on all fours, settling just on his slim hips and giving a teasing roll of your own, his bare cock sliding against the evident arousal of your own as he gave a breathy curse. 

“You’re so wet, baby,” Hoseok said almost fascinated, despite your years together. And he supposed he wasn’t wrong. You were going a bit wild tonight compared to the usual sex the two of you had. 

“All because of you,” Leaning forward again, you kissed him softly, but Hoseok was done playing nice and giving into your demands.

His hand curled around the back of your neck, forcing you completely down against his chest, bodies lining up against each other, mouth licking into your own harshly, catching your breath with a sigh. 

Your hips had a mind of their own at this point, slowly grinding against his hard cock, covering his length with your wetness as Hoseok moaned, the sound caught by your lips as you gave a firmer roll. 

Wordlessly reaching down between your bodies, you gripped his length in your hand lining him up and slowly pushed down with a breathy moan, his fingers digging into your hips as you both shuddered when he bottomed out. His whole body trembled in near relief, and you knew he wasn’t going to last long with the amount of teasing you had already put him through. 

“Fuuuuck…”

Your nerves felt like they were on fire. Every single movement sending zips of bliss through you as you breathed in deeply to take control of your sanity. With a loving smile, you firmly placed both hands on Hoseok’s chest for support before lifting your hips only to slam them down with a shuddering moan. 

Hoseok was sure he was going to come within the next five seconds with the way you were moving your hips above him, obviously trying your damn best to send him into oblivion. 

The sound of your wet cunt was almost obnoxious, squelching for every single lift and drop of your thighs. Through his pleasure glazed haze, he could see the inside of your delicious thighs glistening with the evidence. 

He thought he already knew of the best feelings in the world; the adrenalin before getting on stage, hearing his fans scream his name or sing to their songs as he basked in their cheers. 

But his personal, and secret favorite would always be the complete bliss that spread through his entire body from your pussy clenching down on him.    

You were getting tired, Hoseok noticed. Your rhythm slowing and pleasure tenfolding as you started to grind down with airy moans, trying to find relief for your throbbing clit. 

Despite being rock hard and ready to burst, he couldn’t help but coo at you as he pulled you back down against his chest. “Is my princess getting tired?”

You whimpered, fingers traveling up to grip his hair, your grinding starting to loose its control. 

Tracing a hand down your sweating back, he gripped your ass with a rough tug, pushing his cock further against your walls as your breath hitched. 

“What do you want, baby?” He whispered into your ear, giving it a nip and soothing it with his tongue. “Use your words, princess.”

“Please fuck me, Hoseok,” It was your turn to beg now. “I need you to fuck me. Make me cum on your cock, please.”

Just your words were ready to end him. 

With an almost chaste kiss against your temple, an opposite action to what the two of you were doing, he granted your wish. Changing his position, he put both feet on the bed for support and then he truly fucked you. 

Nearly pistoning upwards to meet your shallow thrusts, with your high pitched moans and nails raking down his arms spurring him on like a madman chasing after gold. 

His moans mixed with your own, both craving release at this point, your skin slapping against each other without abandon. With half a mind, Hoseok managed to push his hand between your sweat slicked bodies, long fingers finding your soft, swollen clit as he circled the sensitive nub. 

You came with a silent scream, mouth open and body tensing like a log, the pleasure zipping through you like fucking lightning, toes curling as your pussy clenched down so hard, he followed you shortly with a muffled groan against the curve of your neck. 

His fingers didn’t stop, only slowing down and gently guiding you through your high. 

Just as the sensitivity was starting to kick in, his cock still firmly nestled inside you throughly emptied, you whined at him. 

“Too much,” Your voice was a hoarse whimper, trying to swat at his still moving hand. 

But his next stern words grunted out, made your throat dry. 

“I’m not done with you yet.”

“I-I can’t,” You whispered, but voice shaking in anticipation.

“Yes, you can. One more, sweetheart. Just for me.”

“Baby, I-” 

Whatever it was you wanted to say cut off with a sob as his fingers sped back up from their gentleness, pressing down more firmly on your clit as your hold on him turned damn near painful.

“Come on, just one more.”

What was supposed to be him falling apart had now turned - Hoseok having you at his mercy as his movements didn’t stop. 

Despite your begging, you could feel it again. That addicting pleasure building within you as your resistance turned into compliance, hips starting to move again, grinding against his touch. Your orgasm came slowly this time around, heat coating your senses like a caress - with you almost sobbing softly as your high came, body trembling and twitching as his fingers finally stopped. 

Neither knew how many minutes you simply lay in each others arms in silence. Soaking each other in, his soft cock still inside you as your skin cooled down to the point of goosebumps as the air was no longer stuffy. 

“We need to shower,” Hoseok whispered gently, hands slowly caressing up and down your spine lovingly. 

“Just a little longer…”

Chuckling at your drowsiness, you managed to lift your head up from his shoulder only to grin. “I love you.”

His eyes were sparkling. “I love you too.”

This has been in the drafts since last year. So yeah. 

#bts imagine #bts fanfic #jung hoseok #jhope #bts jhope #hoseok imagine #jhope onshot #bts idol au #jhope idol au #bts x reader #bts smut #jung hoseok smut #kpop smut #bts fluff #jhope fluff #jhope smut #kpop fanfic #kpop imagines #bangtanfanfiction

[youmyjhope]

More hoseok audios🥺🥺🥺

do not repost

this one reminds me the taehyung slow sex one with kisses and stuff 😣

#hoseok imagine #hoseok smut #hoseok x reader #hoseok x you #bts smut #hoseok x y/n

[violetsiren90]

Pairing: dom!Hoseok/sub/brat!f!Reader

Genre: Oneshot; hard smut (eventual fluff 😂); BDSM lifestyle; friends to fwb to?; canon-compliant (idolAU)

Summary: You've been friends with Hobi for years, and he's your comfort zone - but when he gets wind of a dark secret you drunkenly let slip, things between you take a sudden extreme change.

Warnings: 18+ (minors, dni); hardcore BDSM themes/relationships; full consent and safe-words ❤; Hobi is a hard dom; MC is a brat (mostly); dominance and submission; elements of primal play; sexual degradation (deg-play use of the word "b*tch"); mentions of MC's hair and hair pulling; rough physical contact in a sexual context (manhandling); mentions of drinking; kink-outing; Jimin is a menace lol; Hobi in the studio 👀 (The full oneshot will come with more specific warnings - a looooong list lol)

Mood board here! ⛓🖤

Release date: Christmas? 🎄

Author's note: Hey, y'all! I am catapulting out of my comfort zone with this one and, honestly, having the time of my life. I've been in my Hobi era lately and when the concept of dom!Hobi possessed my mind I knew I'd have to write it out or else. 😅😂 I hope to pop this under your trees around Christmas! Hope you enjoy the teaser, and as always, if no one has told you yet today, you are loved and worthy of love! 🧜‍♀️💜

Also, a big thank you to @orchidyoonkook for beta reading this - you are the real MVP! 💕

If you want to be alerted via the tag list for this when it drops, let me know!

_______________________________________________

  "What?" Hoseok's wide grin stretches further as he regards your flustered face with giddy anticipation.

    You groan into your hands, willing the cushions of your friend's leather couch to swallow you like quicksand.

    "Fucking Jimin - I'll kill him!" you whine, pressing your fingers to your temples, and keeping your eyes glued to the hardwood of the studio floor.

    The rapper laughs as he swivels his baseball cap to sit backwards on his fluffy brown mop of hair. 

    "Come on! Tell me!" he insists, sprawling back in his rolling chair, the tips of his fingers touching deviously together as he regards you with twinkling eyes. 

    You sneak a glance at him before sighing defeatedly, which only earns another chortle of laughter from across the room.

    Park fucking Jimin. You really were going to kill him. Too many bottles of soju the week prior saw you blacking out at the BTS member's pad, the one he shared with your mutual friend, Jung Hoseok. You woke up the next day, memories of the night before obscure concepts of debauchery merely alluded to by the taste of bile and the dull cranial throb of dehydration. When Jimin rather gleefully handed you, along with an iced americano, one of the booze-fueled revelations you had let slip, you begged and pleaded with him to erase the memory from his brain...or at the very least to take it to his grave. He made no such promises. And now, you are facing the man of the hour - the subject of your divulgement - who had apparently been informed that you harbored certain strong opinions in his regard. Humiliating.

    You flick mildly irritated eyes back up to your friend who waggles his brows in a way that makes you want to crack a smile and sock him at the same time.

    "Before I say anything, I want to know exactly what he told you," you demand, crossing your arms defensively, no cracked smile to be found.

    He rolls his eyes up to the corner of the ceiling in recollection.

    "He just said that you had gotten wasted and admitted something kinky...about me." 

    At the last two words he drops his voice dramatically low and pins you with a grin that is sickeningly predatory. Your pulse begins to hammer and you have to remind yourself that you are, in fact, capable of speech. Fuck, you think to yourself, it's happening. You can feel sweat starting to bead at your hairline. Maybe if you get it out there, just say it aloud, it will lose its power. Maybe the spell will be broken. Maybe he will laugh and you will laugh and you'll order lunch and keep irritating him while he's supposed to be working on a track. You're both adults, right? You whoosh out a breath. 

    Hobi is still looking at you, his bottom lip pushing up and the corners of his mouth tugging down in one of his little inverted smirks while his right leg bounces a little up and down. It is just Hobi, after all, you tell yourself. Just Hobi. You are roundly aware that it may be a lie, but it seems to allow you just enough courage to jump.

    "Okay, okay!" you practically shout, and he giggles and stomps his feet, which admittedly makes revealing this particular chestnut a bit easier.

    "I told him...I said..."

    "What?"

    "Oh, Christ! Fine!" And the rest comes out like water from a fire hose. "One time I came to drop off Jimin's charger and you were in dance practice and you were watching the guys and you had this look on your face - like you were pissed or something - and it was so unlike you and I got turned on and ended up having a fucking wet dream that you were stepping on my mother-fucking pussy, okay?! Are you satisfied now?!"

    You heave a sigh and throw yourself back against the cushions, hands over your face. How you just mustered the courage to form those actual words you haven't even the faintest notion - but it was going to be you or Jimin, and it might as well be you. After your heart has begun to return to its resting rate and you've heaved a few deep breaths you steel yourself against the certain impending onslaught of Hobi's laughter and general mockery...which doesn't come. You peek through your fingers to see that your friend has shifted in his chair, facing a bit away from you toward the inside of the room, leaning forward, his hands gripping the ends of the chair's armrests. His face looks a little troubled, or pensive, you can't tell which. You sit up and really look at him, suddenly worried. Did you just fuck things irrevocably up? That was an incredibly bizarre and intimate thing to admit. Shit.

    "Hobi?" you squeak, barely over a whisper, as you regard him.

    He tilts his head suddenly to look at you, quick like a bird, and when those dark eagle-eyes regard you in return, you feel like a small, helpless creature scurrying across the tundra. Nowhere to hide. A bead of sweat escapes its perch and slips down from your temple. As he utters his question of response, the air suddenly becomes as thick as the tropics.

    "Is that something that you'd want, Y/n? To be treated like that? To be...put in your place? Put down?"

    You don't answer him. You can't. Your words, your breath, your coherent thoughts are stuck, inert, useless as your chest begins to rapidly rise and fall in heavy swells. Your eyes are locked on his face as if by magnetic force. He stands, his baggy Louis Vuitton tee falling over his grey sweats. He shoves his hands in the pockets and takes a step toward where you sit. His posture is relaxed. His gaze is anything but.

    "Is it?"

    You want to say you don't know. That you'd never considered it again. Never once recalled the image of it - of him -  standing over you as the sole of his shoe punished your throbbing sex.

    "Fuck..." you breathe, and when he doesn't take his eyes from your squirming form, you relent. "...y-yeah."

    He takes another step toward you, slowly. He's crowding you now, as he looks down, and the proximity is almost more than you can bare.

    "You see," he remarks musingly, "I thought you were gonna say something funny - something ridiculous," he tilts his head to one side, the faintest hint of a smirk on his lips, "But that's not funny, Y/n. No, that's not funny at all. Because, as it turns out..."

    He leans down, his breath fanning over your face as he speaks. Mint and espresso. You shiver and close your eyes.

    "...that's something I can do."

...what? He can...h-he can....

    "Hoseok..." you whisper shakily, because it's all you can manage.

    You hear him laugh darkly and you don't look at him.

    "Hoseok?" he mimics, "Not, Hobi, huh? Hoseok when you're like this, is it?" 

    "When I'm like...what?" You practically whimper in complaint, eyes still pressed shut as your last line of defense.

    But any manner of defense is in vain as he answers your query, the words dripping from his lips slowly like honey, sickly like venom - 

    "When you're a filthy pathetic little slut."

    A whine escapes you at the complete and utter shock of his words. Suddenly you clamp your thighs together (to provide friction or obscurity to your quickly dampening cunt you are unsure), and that's when he takes your jaw between his fingers and roughly jerks your chin upwards, your eyes fluttering frantically open. 

    "Is this what you want?" he hisses, "For me to have my way with you like a needy whore?" Fuck, is this happening? This is really happening. Your mind reels, but that's alright - it stopped doing the thinking when he got up out of that chair. Something primal in you had taken over, something that's been starving for so long, something that longs to feed.

    You do your best to nod with your chin in his grip. He swallows thickly, his eyes darting to your lips, and then back up to yours. His pupils are blown, his eyes almost wholly black as they trace over your face. Suddenly his hand slips from your chin to the nape of your neck where his hand tangles in your hair and his head drops to the side, his gaze softening.

    "I need you to say it, Y/n, are you sure you want to do this?" he asks, his voice so, so low but without the edge that sends ice through your veins. His voice. He's asking you as someone who cares about you, cares what you want - your friend. Do you want this? No...you don't want it. You need it.

    "Yes - yes, Hobi - I want this," you find yourself stumbling over the words to get them out.

    So quickly and so assured. Have you ever been this certain of anything in your life? His fingers dance against the nape of your neck and you sigh as his eyes travel all over your body. You want to hide. You want to strip down. You want to run and you want him to chase you. You want him to punish you when he catches you. You are sick with want.  

    "A safe word, baby, we need a safe word," he nudges your racing mind back into the current moment with his words.

    You blink, your mind running up against the sudden saccharine pet name (which he has admittedly called you before) as it scrambles for something obvious and yet not ridiculous.     Something simple maybe...a flower...?

    "Foxglove," you say, and he raises his brows with a grin.

    "Foxglove it is," he acquiesces. "So if you ever want me to stop, ever - okay? You say that. Foxglove." 

    You nod.

    "Say it for me," he whispers, you shiver again. Fuck.

    "Foxglove." It's slow and thick leaving your mouth.

    "Good girl," he purrs. Butterflies erupt in your rib-cage and your eyelids flutter. "How hard do you want it?" He asks, "How rough?"

    You scramble to find your voice.

    "Pretty rough, I think," you posit, a bit unsure of what that means.

    He hums in response, his brows knitting in thought. You were going to have to give him something to go on, you could see that.

    "I..." you stammer, "I want you to...to punish me. I want you to...to hurt me a little."

    He raises a brow - looks at you, just stares as if considering. Then suddenly you know what to say.

    "See...I'm not a good girl," you insist tilting your head back a bit haughtily, a bit defiantly. Being a good girl had gotten you butterflies, but that's not what you wanted right now. That's not what every cell of your body was screaming for.

     He's grinning wickedly again - his other hand is slipping out of his pocket and the one in your hair is gripping at the roots.

    "Hm. You're not are you?" he asks, his voice as dark and cold as the Pacific once again.

    "No, Hobi," you whisper. And suddenly your world is tilted on its axis as he tightens his fingers against your scalp and yanks your head back, sending a searing pain shooting through your skin as he stoops to hiss in your ear.

    "That's Hoseok, you pretty little bitch."

    You let out a whimper so needy it's nearly a sob. Your heartbeat is pounding between your legs. He lets go of your hair as roughly as he grabbed it and goes to lock the door and your stomach flips - you are totally and completely at his mercy. It's a little bit terrifying and completely exhilarating. When he comes to loom over you again, you decide just exactly where you stand in all this. You know exactly what you want. You glare up at him. He narrows his eyes.

    "You gonna listen, hm?"

It's not a question, you know it's not - it's a command. But you have one, just one, of your own...

    "Make me."

#fic teaser #hoseok fic #hoseok smut #hoseok imagine #hobi x reader #hobi smut #hobi x y/n #jhope smut #jhope fanfic #jhope x reader #jhope x you #jhope x y/n #jhope imagine #bts imagines #bts smut #bts x reader #fic: make me

[holdinbacksecrets]

boyfriend things // the first date

namjoon: the first date happens on a park bench near your home. conversation twisting into new topics over cups of coffee that left him kissing your cheek upon meeting when he planned to go in for a warm hug

jin: the first date is a breath of fresh air, a crisp page at the beginning of a new chapter, a sunrise flooding through blinds left open because sleep embraced you suddenly and now the morning greets you beautifully

yoongi: the first date is cold and carries on through footsteps along a river’s path. he’s the most interesting person you’ve ever met. his voice is peaceful and melodious; you want it close enough to hear all the time

hoseok: the first date is the ease of a grocery store trip. the decision made quickly on your way home to run in for a couple things, but it becomes over an hour of exploring. over an hour of reading labels and walking through different aromas, leaving with far more than you planned to

jimin: the first date is laughter and sudden touches that represent your blossomed comfort, it happened so quickly, but he’s easy to exist around. he lingers in your doorway at the end of the night, even though a second date was decided in the lobby

taehyung: the first date is pancake batter and fresh orange juice blended with frozen mangoes. he completes the newspaper crossword puzzle and writes down a couple movies you should watch on the crinkly edge. he holds your gaze like your presence is fleeting. he washes the dishes and shares stories when you seek details, soap suds up his forearms

jungkook: the first date is a car repair and a drive to the countryside because he’s playing music. five more songs become ten then more and more and eventually losing count, getting lost in his voice, his smile, how many of his favorites are yours too. it becomes a night spent in a house he knows quite well- familiar architecture you fail to place. you fall asleep in the yard with your cheek on his chest, pretending to dream when he carries you inside

#bts scenarios #bts imagines #bts reactions #bts blurbs #bts fluff #namjoon imagine #namjoon fluff #jin imagine #jin fluff #yoongi imagine #yoongi blurbs #yoongi fluff #hoseok imagine #hoseok fluff #jimin imagine #jimin blurbs #jimin fluff #taehyung imagine #taehyung blurbs #taehyung fluff #jungkook imagine #jungkook blurbs #jungkook fluff

[euphoricfilter]

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• ° kinktober day 11

[day eleven: oral fixation]

pairing: hoseok x f. reader

tags/ warnings: pwp, fingers in mouth!!!! (lets gooo), oral (m. receiving), cum swallowing, subspace, condescending dom hoseok!!! (lets gooooooo!!!)

notes: sort of smut straight under the cut

kinktober masterlist

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆.

Your press your lips over Hoseok’s covered cock, mouth open, his underwear damp with your saliva.

“My poor thing” he coos, fingers slipping into your hair, pressing your face closer to his cock, nose mushed against the waistband of his boxers.

Your tongue presses over his cock. His head knocking against the back of the chair when you blink up at him through your lashes, lips saliva soaked shiny, pussy grinding against the heel of your foot, the mere thought of his cock in your mouth enough to have your cunt leaking.

“Want something in that pretty mouth of yours?” he murmurs, pulling you away from his cock by your hair, watching distress flicker behind your eyes, whine spilling off your lips. Your mouth hands open, eyebrows pinched together in displeasure as he smiles down at you.

“Answer me when I ask you a question, baby. Remember your manners” he tugs your head backwards.

“Yes” you whisper, breath caught in your throat.

“yes, what?” he urges, eyebrow raised, foot pressing against your pussy, barely toeing over your throbbing clit.

“Yes, I want something in my mouth” shame burns under your skin, flushing pink, climbing up your neck towards your ears.

He hums, tilting your head backwards. He presses a two of his fingers over your tongue. Your lips close around them, tongue laving over the pads of his fingers as he pushes further into your mouth.

You gag around his fingers, spit spilling at the corners of your lips as he thrusts his fingers into your mouth.

“So pretty” Hoseok hums, “Pretty little mouth always so greedy for anything I give you right?”

You nod, blinking away the tears that cling to your waterline when he makes you splutter around his fingers. He pushes another one into your mouth, faintest of smiles on his face when your cheeks hollow a little, sucking them like it were his cock.

“But surely my cock would be better?” he sits up a little straighter, fingers barely pulling back of your tongue.

A laugh bubbles up his throat when your teeth sink down on his bony fingers, zero shame within you as you gnaw at him.

“No teeth, sweetness” he slips his fingers out your mouth, wiping your spit across your bottom lip, smearing it down your chin.

You watch as he pulls his boxers down, just enough to tuck under his balls, hard cock springing free and slapping against his stomach.

“Hobi” your voice breathless, hips rutting forward to catch your clit on your foot as you eye his cock. Watching as a bead of precum slips down his shaft, hand quick to catch it, slicking himself up with his own heady arousal.

“Mmhmm?” he hums, “want it?” he angles the head of his cock your way, tip angry red, desperate for release.

You nod, tongue slipping out past your lips as you scoot further between his thighs. Your hands brace on his legs, fingers digging into the meat of his thighs.

He tugs at his length, thumbing under the head before pushing it towards you.

You lean forward that little bit more, hum vibrating against your throat when your tongue presses on the underside of his cockhead, quick to wrap your lips around him. Suckling at the tip, tongue pressing against his slit to try and coax more precum out of him.

“That’s it” Hoseok groans, “feel better now you have my cock in your mouth?”

You hum, watching his face as you suck a little harder.

His thumb tugs at the corner of your lips, hand still wrapped around his cock. He presses himself a little further into your mouth, angling his cock into your cheek, watching your skin bulge with his length. His other thumb stays hooked against the corner of your mouth, rumble of a groan in his chest as he pushes further into your cheek.

His cock slips out your mouth when he legs go, mix of your saliva and precum sticky against his stomach.

“Come on baby, sate that pretty little mouth of yours” his fingers tangle into your hair, pulling you closer to him.

You press a kiss to the underside of his cock, letting your spit dribble down to his balls before you lick up his length, quick to shove the tip in your mouth.

You press yourself further down, swallowing each inch. Hoseok moans, hips jerking upwards further into your mouth when your tongue prods against a prominent vein, rush of pleasure wracking down his body, cock jolting inside your mouth.

Your nose presses against his stomach, fingers digging into his thighs as you hold yourself there, deep breath through your nose, tickling his skin when you exhale.

You keep yourself there, eyes falling shut as your tongue rubs over the underside of his cock, hips barely rutting against your foot anymore as your mind slowly fizzles to nothing but a pile of mush.

The only indication you have of Hoseok cumming is the gentle tug at your hair, throat swallowing around his length rhythmically to help aid him towards his release.

You pull back ever so slightly, just enough for your tongue to press in that little spot under his cockhead that has his thighs shaking.

You hum when you feel his thick release coat your tongue, sinking that final inch of his cock down your throat as you milk him, spurts of cum shooting down your throat. Making no move to leave his cock even as he grows soft. Simply happy, mouth full, and mind nothing but a haze of gentle pleasure.

#bts fanfic #bts fluff #bts smut #bts kinktober #hoseok imagine #hoseok fanfic #hoseok smut #hoseok x reader #bts x reader #hoseok fluff #hoseok fic #bts imagines #bts drabble

[lillsisamarshmallow]

Jealous! Jealous! Jealous! (15)

Summary: Y/n wakes up surrounded by her hybrid companions who have become even more clingy since they started staying with Jisoo. Y/n searches for houses as she is unsure how to talk to the boys about it. With the two new hybrids in the house, just how clingy and touchy can the boys get?

Word count: 3.2k

Warnings: None? Let me know if I missed any!

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The sun was shining through the window and lighting up the room. I moved my hands up to rub at my eyes before breaking them open to look at my surroundings. The room was quiet, the only noise being the light breaths from myself and the others. I looked up at the weight that was pressing on my chest, already knowing what it was. The black cat was sleeping peacefully as he faced me directly, his paws tucked under him, causing him to resemble a loaf of bread. I cracked a smile at the thought. As I tried to move my head to see more of the room I felt something in my way. 

Reaching up to the left side of my neck, my finger sunk into some soft fur, knowing immediately what it was, I sighed slightly, remembering how the menace of a bunny hybrid had kept crawling onto my face, over my mouth and nose causing me to wake up from lack of air, I'm pretty sure at some point Yoongi had had wacked him in the head over it because everytime I woke up it woke the sleepy cat up too.

Sinking my fingers further into his fur I picked up the chocolate brown bunny and hauled him up until I was holding him above my chest. His little nose twitched but he remained asleep as I moved him back down and onto the other side of my body. I was doing my best to not wake anyone up as it was early in the morning, earlier than I would usually wake up but my body urged me to get out of bed.

I tried to wrap one arm around Yoongi and use the other one to push myself up, but as soon as I started to get up the cat hybrid also woke up, he stood up and stretched whilst still on my chest before looking at me quizzically. I gave him a half-lidded, tired smile as he seemed to understand what I was doing, he got off me and moved over to where I had put Jungkook down, and curled up beside him.

I fully sat up now that I didn't have to worry about the other 2 hybrids. I slowly swung my legs over the side of the bed, Jimin was sitting at the foot of the bed and I quickly gave him a pat on the head before I stood up fully. I only have a small amount of space on the floor as the rest was being used by the large wolf hybrid, the panther hybrid, and the fox hybrid.

Reaching up to my hair I reached for the smallest hybrid of the bunch, Jin, who had somehow managed to make a nest-like thing out of my hair. I scooped up his small form before bringing him in front of me. I leaned over the bed to put him down between Yoongi and Jungkook. I watched as he moved around before snuggling into the fur of the two younger hybrids.

I smiled at the sight as my heart melted at how cute they were together, I had to tip-toe my way out of the room being careful not to step on any of the hybrids on the floor, I finally made it over to the door and I opened it slowly before slipping outside.

I sighed through my tiredness as I trudged into the kitchen hoping to make some tea, I spotted Jisoo standing by the bench and staring out into her back yard. The sun was rising and you could see the light emerging from behind the trees and lighting up the yard, the grass was sparkling from the morning dew and I could see flocks of birds flying through the sky.

“Morning” I mumbled in my croaky voice, I pulled open her fridge in search of milk and honey and when I found it I pulled them both out, placing them onto the bench behind me. Jisoo turned to face me as she gave me a polite smile, she didn't look like she had been awake long either.

“Morning.” She started. “I just boiled the kettle so it should still be hot.”

I hummed as I began to make myself a cup of tea. We stood in the kitchen watching the sunrise for what felt like an hour. It was quiet, probably because all the hybrids were asleep, and the bright sun shone into the house, wrapping everything in a warm glow.

“So.” Jisoo started and I turned to face her. “You remember Jeonghan right?” She asked me out of nowhere.

“Yeah, of course I do.” I replied to her, confused as to why she would bring him up out of nowhere. Jeonghan was an old friend of ours, more Jisoo’s friend than mine but we still got along, he was a few years younger than us and honestly I hadn't spoken to him since high school.

“Well, his father owns a real estate company, I don't know if they have the type of place you're looking for. He mostly deals with large properties outside the city, like mine.” She beamed at me and giggled. “I could tell him that you're looking for a place if you want, I'm sure he’d help out.”

“Seriously? Jisoo, that would be great, thank you.” I said to her as I gave her a quick hug as we laughed together before I cleared my throat. “So… h-how is Jeonghan?”

“Well since you turned him down he’s been on a bit of a power trip.” She laughed as she seemed to be thinking. “He’s not bad or anything, he just has a lot of goals that he wants to accomplish, you know?”

I nodded as I understood what she meant, I remember back when we were younger how he would always follow us around, tagging along wherever we went. He had a crush on me, and at first I didn't mind, I thought it was cute, until he proposed. I shot him down and we haven't spoken since, it was awkward at first but after we got older it was just because we had our own things going on.

The calming silence of the morning didn't last long as soon enough I could hear the thundering of footsteps and tumbling down the stairs along with yelling.

“Y/n!”

I was sitting on the couch, balled up in a fluffy blanket with a mug of hot chocolate and my laptop as I scrolled through the website the Jisoo had told me to, Jeonghan’s dad’s company, two cats curled up on my lap, Lisa and Jennie, they had been extra clingy recently but I guess it’s because I haven't seen them in a while. Come to think of it, the boys had been very clingy recently too, weird…

I clicked on a house that looked interesting, it was far out from town, a little further than I wanted, but not so far that it couldn't be an option. The house was large and the land included the forest surrounding it, so far it was checking all the boxes, taking a closer look I saw that it said 5 bedrooms. I bit my lip as I thought about the amount of bedrooms we needed, there was 8 of us, but pack mates often shared sleeping areas I had learnt from a quick google search, but I also wanted the boys to have their own areas where they could do whatever they wanted by themselves, I groaned out loud as I threw my head against the back of the couch, waking up the 2 hybrids in my lap.

I hadn't said much about a new house to the boys. Did I have to re-invite them to live with me? Or do I just assume that they will? My thoughts were interrupted as Lisa had stood up on my chest and was now nudging her head into my neck, I huffed and snickered at her behaviour as I sat up straighter.

The house was surprisingly quiet at the moment, Jisoo had gone out to do something and the boys were around. Suddenly a black cat jumped down beside me causing the other two to jump away. I was surprised at the sudden appearance of the jet black cat, but welcomed his presence. He sat down on my lap as he glared down at the other felines, Jennie and Lisa growled at him but he hissed back and they jumped from the couch and left.

Their interaction confused me but I shrugged it off since nothing bad had happened. I began petting Yoongi as he turned to face me, he closed his eyes and flattened his ears as I pushed my hands over his head and down his back. He stretched out his back before circling on my lap and finally curling up, his back pressed against my stomach and his head tucked under his paw, facing towards himself.

I cooed at how cute he was before trying to get back to looking at houses, I clicked the small ‘save’ icon so that I could come back to it before I started looking at other houses, I kept scrolling through and a few more caught my eye so I took a look at them, saving some and going past ones the would absolutely not work. I finally closed the lid of my laptop and took a slow breath in and out as I lifted myself to adjust how I was sitting before leaning back into the coach and throwing a hand back with my head, keeping the other one patting Yoongi.

We sat in the silence for a while as I sipped on the cooling hot chocolate before Hoseok came into the lounge to join us along with Jimin, Jimin sat down next to me and I pulled the blanket to make room for him to share too, Hobi sat to the other side of me but he didn't want any of the blanket.

“Hey, guys.” I spoke tiredly. Because I had woken up earlier than normal, I was starting to get tired. Hobi reached out so he could also pet Yoongi and I moved my hand for him. “Everything alright?”

They both hummed in hello then again letting me know that they were fine. I sighed as I relaxed into the couch more, wiggling my legs slightly, making me slump down some more. I felt a weight on my shoulder and I glanced to the side to see Jimin was resting his head on my shoulder as he played with Yoongi. I smiled softly at him, but as soon as he had put his head down, he sat back up abruptly and looked at me confused, before I could return the look he leaned in again towards my neck for just a few seconds before pulling away again.

He looked stunned at whatever was going on and peered around to Hoseok who looked up at him questioningly. It seemed as though they were having a whole conversation with their eyes, a conversation I could not understand, but before I could ask, Hobi learned towards my neck as well.

He pulled away after a few seconds, I was starting to become embarrassed at how they both seemed to know what was happening yet I knew nothing, and they kept getting closer to my neck. They both seemed to just keep looking at each other, almost like they were unsure what to do in the situation, I could feel my face heating up at how they both turned towards me.

It was when they both leaned in at the same time that I finally said something.

“What is going on?” I asked them hastily, incredibly confused and not understanding any of what had happened. Neither of them seemed to know how to explain what was happening so they just looked at me weirdly. I huffed, hoping it was just a one time thing as I moved Yoongi from my lap and over to Hoseok. “I…I think I’m going to go take a nap.”

I crawled out of the blanket and off the couch before telling the boys that I would be in the room if they needed me. I dropped my now empty mug into the sink before trudging upstairs trying not to think of the weird interaction I just had. I could feel the sleep pulling at me so I hurried up my pace to the room.

I pushed open the door to see that it was in fact empty, which meant I could have a nice quiet nap. I peeled off my top and discarded it on the floor, making a mental reminder to pick it up after I woke up, that I most definitely would forget. I picked up a random hoodie from the floor and slipped it over my head. It was over sized and clearly not mine but I didn't mind. I shimmied out of my pants before finally crawling into bed and pulling the covers over me and up to my ears to keep me warm and comfy.

“Y/n?” I heard a voice speak out, followed by footsteps that seemed to get closer to me. I recognised Jungkook's voice as I felt his presence standing near the bed. I opened up one eye to look at him. Judging by how I didn't hear the door open or any knocking I figured he must have already been in the room and I had just missed him, he was probably in the bathroom or the closet.

I hummed back at him tiredly, wondering what he needed. He didn't say anything but he pulled back the blankets half way down before stopping. I nodded my head as I moved back in the bed towards the wall to make room for him. He pulled the rest of the blankets back as he slipped himself in beside me.

I moved myself back towards him on auto pilot, maybe it was a hybrid thing but I had learnt that they liked to embrace people when they slept, Hobi did it, Yoongi did it too. I wrapped my arms over his shoulders and he wrapped his under mine, snaking them around my waist and holding me tight before he nuzzled his head into my neck. I could feel his heart beating in his chest and his hot breath fanning over my neck.

His breath hitched for a second before returning to normal, he nuzzled his face further into the crook of my neck, so much so that I could feel his nose and his lips pressed against the base of my neck. I didn't pay much attention to what he was doing. I was trying to sleep but all these thoughts kept flooding into my mind. I tried to calm myself by reaching up and stretching my fingers into Jungkook's long hair as I started to play with it and twist a strand around my finger.

I could feel something moving on my neck, almost like Jungkook was mumbling something against the skin, where his face touched my neck it felt hot but it wasn't from his breathing. The sensation was oddly calming so I continued to play with his hair as I could feel my mind calming down once again and sleep was ready to take over. I moved my fingers upwards towards the base of his bunny ears, my finger came into contact with the soft fur but I quickly pulled them away as I felt Jungkook bite down onmy neck.

I hissed out in pain as I tried to push myself away from him, but he wouldn't let go and he kept his head buried in my neck, his lips still pressed to the spot that he had bit. He pulled me closer to him by my waist, making our bodies flush against each other. My neck tingled on the spot where his teeth had pressed into my soft skin, my breath was caught in my throat as I didnt know how to process what had happened.

“J-Jungkook!” I stuttered out as I kept trying to wiggling my way out of his grasp, but he wasn't having it as he squeezed me harder, refusing to move. I grunted out loudly as I let my body go limp, knowing that there was no way I'd be able to escape the surprisingly strong bunny.

“Bite me again, and you're out of the bed, and I'll start screaming.” I said threateningly as I had completely given up on trying to escape, I did my best to wriggle back under the blanket and get comfortable again. I could feel his lips pull into a smirk as they dragged across my skin, he seemed to slightly loosen his grip so I could get comfortable before holding me tight again.

It didn't take long for sleep to consume me, I could still feel the tingle and the dull throb of pain in my neck as I drifted in and out, but it didn't bother me. Jungkook’s warm honey and earthy scent smelt stronger than ever from our close proximity, it was invading my system, it smelt so strong that I could almost taste it on my tongue.

I woke up around 2 hours after we fell asleep, the room was much darker now, meaning it was later in the evening, maybe almost time for dinner. I looked around with my tired eyes trying to focus around me. I sighed and rubbed my eyes as I decided to get up, I lifted Jungkook's arm off of me as I sat up and then put it back down on the bed.

I had to climb over him since I was boxed in between both him and the wall. I swung one leg over before pressing my hands into his chest and pushing down to lift me the rest of the way over. He stirred in his sleep as I smirked at him, it was payback for biting into my neck earlier.

I reached my hand up to rub the spot, it didn't hurt so much anymore but when I touched it a dull pain surged through the area. I grumbled about how annoyed I was and dropped my arm down letting it swing back and forth before wrapping it around my stomach and pushing my hand up under my shirt to rest on the warm skin as I opened the bathroom door and made my way inside.

I flicked on the light and had to blink a few times to get used to it. I turned to face the mirror as I dragged my hands down my face before lifting them up to my hair and attempting to tidy it up. As I was playing a round with the ends of my hair I spotted a darker patch of skin on my neck. Curious, I leaned in closer to the mirror to be sure of what I was seeing, I reach to pull the hoodie down slightly as I touched the dark spot with the weird marks around it, my breath stalled in my throat as I pushed myself to stand up straight again as I looked at myself in the mirror, the alarm clear in my eyes as I was taken aback by what I saw seeing.

“Jungkook!"

A/n: Late night chapter! This chapter feels like everything and nothing at the same time to me. Jungkook is an uncontrollable menace to Y/n and I live for it! I hope you all have a lovely day or night and thankyou all for reading! 💜

#bts x reader #bts imagines #jungkook x reader #jungkook imagine #lillsisamarshmallow #hybrid!bts x reader #lills bts #lills kpop #lillswrites #lills 7 hybrids moved in with me #hoseok imagine #7hmiwm #hoseok x reader #jimin x reader #namjoon x reader #seokjin x reader #taehyung x reader #bts ff #yoongi x reader #bts fic #bts hybrid au #namjoon imagine #seokjin imagine #yoongi imagine #jimin imagine #taehyung imagine

[ugh-yoongi]

the retreat | jhs

(or, the one where namjoon just wants hoseok to take care of himself, but then there's a fake relationship, only one bed, a guy who doesn't talk, and maybe a weird cult.)

✤ pairing: hoseok x f. reader ✤ genre: childhood bf2l, fake dating-ish au; crack, fluff, smut ✤ rating: explicit. minors do not interact. ✤ warnings: there is a lot of talk about food and eating in here, so i would not suggest reading this if you are sensitive to those kinds of triggers. tropes galore! side taegi. 5th muster jimin from that one vcr. hobi is pansexual and i do not wanna hear from the weirdos during pride month, or ever. he is a millionaire tho so he's not off the hook. a slight astrological dragging. a strained mother-daughter relationship. the smut is not super explicit or detailed but warnings are as follows: kissing, oral sex (f. receiving), biting, hair pulling, hobi may or may not rip a pair of underwear, fingering, protected vaginal sex. a brief but canonical breaking-the-fourth-wall appearance by park bogum. beta'd by me, so any mistakes are my own. ✤ wordcount: 19.6k ✤ thank you: @the-boy-meets-evil, as always, for the encouragement and reading every draft of this. @hot-soop for both the astrological advice and advice in general. @effortandmore for reading this over recently and telling me it was worth finishing. i would get absolutely nothing done without the three of you. ✤ author's note: i was supposed to have this posted for jess's birthday two years ago. we're not gonna talk about that, because this just means i'm a month early for this year. happy early birthday, jess! anyway~ this is basically a 20k love letter to jung hoseok bc i miss him. i hope you enjoy it.

Jung Hoseok is overworked.

(He’s also filthy rich, the proud owner of not one but two Lamborghinis [that he doesn’t even drive], and smiling on the cover of Forbes. He has a top floor penthouse in the most expensive high-rise in the city and a vacation home along the Italian coast. When he needs to go on a business trip, his driver takes him straight to the tarmac where he boards a private plane. His tailor just sends him clothes now, the cost of dressing Jung Hoseok far outweighed by the dozens of other filthy rich men who flock to his store to buy whatever he’s wearing.)

Jung Hoseok is also going to have a stroke and die before the age of 30, because what’s a little money at the expense of his mental well-being and cardiac health?

“All things considered, it wouldn’t be the worst way to go out,” he argues, clammy palms flat on his expensive desk. Rosewood, because not only is he a millionaire, he’s a millionaire with taste. None of that monochromatic minimalist bullshit for him, thank you.

In front of him, Kim Namjoon also looks to be on the verge of a stroke. Not of the same variety. Namjoon is paid well because he works for Hoseok and Hoseok insists on it. None of that heartless, dickhead-to-everyone, impossible-to-work-for CEO reputation for him, either, thank you.

Namjoon is also a militant vegan and has twenty-six plants and one bonsai on his desk named Bonnie. He insists on spending his lunch breaks in Hoseok’s office, lecturing him on the benefits of plant-based diets and exercise and meditation. Despite his perpetual smile and sunny demeanor, no one else speaks to Hoseok this way, but Namjoon does. Absolutely doesn’t give a shit.

“It absolutely would be the worst way to go out. Have you even been listening to me?”

Hoseok sighs and closes the symptoms of a stroke tab in his browser. “I always listen to you, Namjoon, I just don’t always listen.” A smart choice, too, judging by the swamp-colored sludge Namjoon has in a glass container, because he doesn’t use plastics.

Following his boss’s line of sight, Namjoon frowns. “It’s a pitaya bowl. Don’t look at it like that.”

“It looks radioactive,” Hoseok says, face contorted in a wince. “Like it’s going to become sentient and sprout six arms.”

Namjoon scoffs. “If it does, I hope it uses all six of them to slap the shit out of you.”

“I could pay it to spare me,” Hoseok insists, chin jutting out indignantly.

One of the reasons Hoseok had all but demanded HR hire Namjoon—despite there being a plethora of other candidates who were just as qualified and nowhere near as hell-bent on him taking care of himself—was his grit and determination. He’d showed up two hours early to his interview and steamed his suit jacket in the employee bathroom. It was completely insane and even more neurotic, but Hoseok had been taken with him immediately.

Now, it seems that determination and hard-headed nature is coming back to bite Hoseok in the ass.

“Oh, yeah? You’re gonna pay your blood to not get cut off from your brain and your heart, too? Well, good for you, Hobi. I heard blood has even started taking American Express. You’re in luck—”

Unable to take anymore, Hoseok groans and waves his arms to cut him off. “Okay, I get it! God, why did I hire you? Your desk alone has to be violating at least fourteen different health codes. Your office is humid. Do you know how impossible that is to achieve outside of a greenhouse?”

“You hired me because I’m good at my job and I’m not afraid of you, so I have no issue slapping your fourth double bacon cheeseburger of the day out of your greasy, on-the-brink-of-dying hands. Christ, you act like it’d actually kill you to eat a vegetable for once.”

Hoseok squawks. “Hey! That definitely didn’t come up in the interview, and I have never eaten four cheeseburgers in a day. Stop being hyperbolic.”

“Speaking of things that start with hyper- and have a Bin them, hyperbaric therapy is great for people with infections from oxygen-starved tissue—”

“Is this what you do all day? You just sit on the internet and search for diseases I could potentially die from and then you come in here and harass me about them?”

Namjoon’s face, which had previously been scrunched up in righteous indignation, smooths over into something far more serious. (He doesn’t even have wrinkles. Namjoon’s skincare routine must be immaculate.)“Someone has a stroke every forty seconds in this country, Hoseok. I wouldn’t joke about this.”

Well, okay. Every forty seconds is far more often than Hoseok had been expecting. Not that he thinks about stroke statistics often, and definitely not outside of Namjoon’s overbearing presence—but, in his defense, it’s not like he’s had much of a reason. He gets a physical and routine blood work done every year and his doctor has never rung any alarm bells, so why would he?

But the resolution with which Namjoon is hammering away at this is definitely giving him pause.

It doesn’t go unnoticed by him, either. “See, you are concerned! Look, you’re far more likely to stick with something if you don’t overwhelm yourself, so let’s start small, okay? One salad per day. And a real salad, Hoseok—not one of those ones loaded with cheese and bacon and drenched in ranch dressing.”

Hoseok’s jaw snaps closed. “Then what’s the point of eating a salad?”

“To prevent you from dying before your thirtieth birthday. We’ve already established this.”

“Okay,” Hoseok drawls, “but it’s not the salad’s fault if that happens. You shouldn’t take it out on him.”

Namjoon gags. “Leave it to me to work for a man who thinks salads are male.” He casts his gaze skyward. “Please, Lord, if you’re listening, please put me out—”

“Please put me out of my misery first,” Hoseok interjects, also staring at the ceiling. Then, with a leveled glare, he says to Namjoon, “Fine. State your terms.”

“Really?” Namjoon asks, having the audacity to look shocked.

“Yeah, if it’ll get you off my back. I can’t spend one more lunch break in here with you.”

Namjoon smiles. Nothing friendly, either—it’s purely sinister and mocking. Then he says, “Great success!” in a horrible impersonation of Borat and the moment’s gone, lost to the stagnant air conditioning of Hoseok’s office.

Unsurprisingly, Namjoon’s terms include a lot of vegetables.

Hoseok has a private chef, of course, so it’s not like he has to really do much other than smile through the pain. But, really, would it actually kill him to be allowed a steak or some lamb skewers? What had started off as salads for lunch has turned into a full-blown war between the two of them. Hoseok had shown up with cheese and bacon on his salad one time and Namjoon nearly went off the rails, performing a very enthusiastic speech about how Hoseok cannot be trusted when left to his own devices, so here they are.

Namjoon’s trying his hardest to crack Hoseok, and Hoseok wouldn’t have become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company by the age of twenty-eight if he were so easily cracked.

So, yeah, here they are. Locked in a stalemate like two idiot deer with their antlers tangled together, except instead of feuding over territory or a mate, they’re ready to spear one another over vegetables.

Darwin would have a lot to say about this.

On Friday, at exactly one-o’clock on the dot, Namjoon barges into Hoseok’s office and slaps a stapled-together pile of papers onto his desk. “New terms.”

“Oh, no thank you,” Hoseok replies airily. “I’m not much of a Dua Lipa fan.”

“Wha—that’s ‘New Rules.’”

“Is it?” Hoseok’s smiling, eyebrows raised in that way that makes him look super charming and innocent.

Namjoon isn’t fooled, though. “Cut it out. I saw you eating ribs under your desk the other day. You owe me this.”

Not much shocks Hoseok, but being outed like this so brazenly sure does. “How did you know about that?”

“Uh, did you forget your office walls are made out of glass?” Namjoon twirls a finger in a circle, as if to say look at your four glass walls, you fucking idiot. Isn’t it great to be rich and have no privacy? “Not to mention you had a glob of barbeque sauce on your shirt that I could smell from a mile away.”

“I could’ve put it on my salad,” Hoseok reasons.

“Oh, please.” Namjoon rolls his eyes. “Six ribs and a side of potato salad does not a salad make.”

“What do you mean? It’s literally called potato salad, isn’t it? God, you’re uptight.”

Namjoon sucks in a deep breath, most likely reciting meditation mantras in his head while he thinks about his plants. “I didn’t come in here for this,” he eventually says, and Hoseok is honestly impressed at how collected he sounds. “The point is you can’t be trusted, so there’s new terms.”

Grabbing the stack of papers, Hoseok flips through them casually. “And if I don’t agree? Don’t forget I’m your boss.”

“If you don’t agree, I’m posting the security footage of you eating those ribs on Twitter.” Hoseok’s looking positively scandalized now. He wouldn’t. Namjoon wouldn’t do that to him. “Honestly, Hoseok. You should be ashamed of yourself. You looked like that video of that oversized baby covered in peanut butter.”

“Are you blackmailing me?” Hoseok asks, eyes narrowed. “Seriously, who are you? Because the man standing across from me is not my sweet baby Namjoon. Sweet, sweet Namjoon, who always checks the toilet bowl before he uses it because he saw one of those videos from Australia of a snake being in there and he’d feel too guilty to even piss on a snake—”

Namjoon plants his palms on Hoseok’s desk and puffs out his chest a little. It’s a great chest, Hoseok must admit. Namjoon had mentioned in passing he’d started going to the gym, so he’s not—“I’m not afraid of you,” Namjoon reminds him. “Try me.”

“I have thirty-two lawyers.”

All Namjoon does is quirk an eyebrow. “I have thirty-thousand Twitter followers.”

“I can fire you.”

“Please do. Capitalism is a scourge on this earth and I no longer wish to participate in it.”

“I can fire you and make sure you never find employment in this city ever again.”

Namjoon shrugs. “Fine by me. I’ve been thinking about moving out of the city, anyway. Too much air pollution and I have no space to garden.”

Two things become clear very quickly: 1. Namjoon is far more cut-throat than Hoseok ever anticipated him being; and 2. Hoseok is woefully underprepared for this particular battle. No matter. He’s business-savvy. There’s no shame in conceding an unwinnable battle if he can still win the war, and that’s exactly what he’s going to do.

“Fine,” he relents after an awkward staring contest that lasts two minutes too long. “What are your new terms, then?”

“You have to go to a wellness retreat.”

Hoseok can’t stop the giggle that bubbles out of his mouth. “Sorry, did you say a retreat? How is that a punishment?”

“It isn’t,” Namjoon says. “It’s meant to reset your body and mind. No phones allowed. Just you and your partner in the refreshing, reinvigorating air of the rainfor—”

“What was that?” Hoseok interjects.

“What, the rainforest part? Don’t worry, it’s safe. You’re not, like, sleeping outside with tarantulas and shi—”

“No, not that. Me and my who?”

“Oh!” Namjoon grins. “Your partner. See, I did a lot of research and found the absolute best and most effective wellness retreat for people of your… uh, standard. And the man who runs this retreat is incredible. Like, world-renowned. But the catch is it’s a couple’s retreat, so you’ll have to find someone to play pretend with you for a month.”

Hoseok is a great businessman. He’s good at negotiations and managing relationships and making smart, anticipatory decisions. He has the bank account and name plate with accompanying title on his desk to prove it. But, as he takes in Namjoon’s words, the only thing his brain can come up with is the Windows shutdown sound and a glaring blue screen alerting him to danger.

Nevertheless, one of Hoseok’s rules for business is to never let the opposition see him frazzled. “Why don’t you just come with me?” he offers casually, his tone completely at odds with the pained, panicked expression on his face.

“Two reasons,” Namjoon says quickly and without hesitation, as if he expected this and had all the time in the world to prepare a rebuttal. “First, you couldn’t pay me enough to act like we’re a couple. No offense, but you’re kind of insufferable and I would never date a carnivore—”

Hoseok clicks his tongue. “Wow. Some offense taken.”

“—Second, someone has to stay behind and hold down the fort if you’re going to be gone for a month.”

“Why can’t Brad do it?” Hoseok asks. This time his strained tone completely gives him away.

“You don’t trust Brad.”

Hoseok’s brows furrow. “I never said that.”

“You absolutely did say that,” Namjoon responds immediately, pulling out his phone. “On April nineteenth at approximately ten-twenty in the morning, you said, and I quote, ‘Namjoon, why do you think I hired you? If I had to suffer through having one more Ivy League white guy who played lacrosse and got grandfathered into a fraternity as my assistant, I was going to throw myself down this elevator shaft.’ To which I replied, ‘Oh, you don’t like Brad?’ And you said, ‘Brad’s fine, I guess. I just don’t trust him.’ So, I asked you why, and you said, ‘I wouldn’t trust Brad to order a box of staples, let alone to know the difference between tteokbokki and hotteok—’”

“That doesn’t sound like something I’d say at all,” Hoseok lies. It absolutely sounds like something he’d say at ten-twenty in the morning on the nineteenth of April. “Also, did you really make a note of that? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Of course I didn’t,” Namjoon fires back. “I obviously took a voice recording of it first and transcribed it later. Sometimes I listen to it on repeat when I really want to strangle you and it calms me, because it serves as a reminder that if I go to prison for attempted murder, Brad will take my job. And we can’t have that, because you might simply distrust Brad, but I fucking hate him.”

Hoseok gapes a little. “We sure can’t,” he agrees. Tense air settles between the two of them as they both wait for the other to make the first move. Namjoon’s patient, having already played his hand knowing Hoseok has nothing to trump him, but Hoseok’s stubborn. He’ll drag this out as long as humanly possible. He’ll be ninety years old, on his fourth heart transplant, and still waiting to go on this trip. He’ll—

He’ll have to step down as CEO, because he has, once again, severely underestimated Kim Namjoon.

“Stop thinking so hard. It’s already booked and paid for.”

“With whose money?”

“Company card.”

“Which has my name on it. I’ll just cancel it.”

“It’s non-refundable, but go ahead. You’re still out all that money, though, so you might as well go.”

“I can’t just take a month off,” Hoseok says. He’s grasping at straws now. No one would dare tell him no, even if he wanted to take the next six years off. Human Resources would simply say of course, sir, have a great vacation, sir, see you in six years, sir, and off he’d go.

“Sure you can.” Namjoon stands, wipes his hands on the dress pants stretched to their limit across his thighs, and looks entirely too smug. “Better start looking for a date. Maybe you’ll have some luck on Tinder.”

Bile rises in Hoseok’s throat. “Tinder? Are you joking? I’m too rich to go on there. What if I find a nice date, take them home, and wake up in a bathtub full of ice because they found out who I was and decided to sell my organs?”

“No one would want them,” Namjoon deadpans. “I see the absolute filth you funnel into that body of yours and I can say, with one-hundred percent certainty, that your organs are worthless. Mine, on the other hand. Pristine—”

“Get the hell out of my office. I can’t even look at you right now.”

Good thing, too, because Namjoon’s still wearing that stupid little smirk. The really smug one that infuriates Hoseok to no end because it brings out his dimples, makes him look innocent and cute even though he’s not. The one that gloats Namjoon’s victory, like he’d known all along it was going to end this way. He’d hid those cards so far up his sleeve, Hoseok’s surprised they hadn’t started sprouting from his ears. God, he’s really insufferable. Makes Hoseok’s blood pressure spike something fierce.

“Did you ever stop to consider you’re the problem?” Hoseok calls to Namjoon’s retreating frame. When had he gotten so broad? “That maybe, if my heart does give out, it’ll be because I have to deal with you, the most stressful person on earth?”

“Nah, it’ll definitely be because two of your desk drawers are full of those disgusting oatmeal creme pies.” Somehow, Namjoon looks even more smug as Hoseok tries to discreetly glance at the aforementioned drawers. How does he find out all these things? “Anyway, you leave in two weeks! Good luck in your search. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon, sir.”

Just as he’d assumed would be the case, Hoseok has no luck on Tinder.

See, he’d fucked up from the beginning, deciding to be honest and truthful and explain his plight to any sympathetic pair of eyes that may have gazed upon it. He’d also decided to use his real name, and anyone familiar with those List of Billionaires We Should Eat listicles had snuffed him out immediately. Long gone were the days of genuine conversation and playful flirting. Now, Hoseok’s inbox is full of more genitalia than he’s ever seen in his life. He’s literally drowning in it and can’t even take time to appreciate the situation in which he’s accidentally found himself.

He’s absolutely going to kill Kim Namjoon once this is all over.

After getting over the embarrassment of the next day’s MULTIMILLIONAIRE CEO JUNG HOSEOK SPOTTED ON TINDERheadline, because he hadn’t even had the good sense to use Raya, Hoseok resigns himself to scrolling through the contacts list in his phone. He’s not desperate or stupid enough to invite his ex, or any of the myriad of names he can’t put to faces because, despite what Namjoon says, he’s still concerned about his organs, so he also resigns himself to calling you.

His best friend.

Who’s going to spend the rest of her life roasting him over this.

“What a pleasant surprise,” you greet him. “Haven’t heard from you in weeks. Let me guess, you need me to make another burner account and explain to Rose Emoji and Hammer and Sickle Twitter why they shouldn’t eat you?”

“No—”

You tsk. “That’s a shame. I think I missed my calling in life.”

“Being a Twitter troll?”

“Yeah, obviously,” you agree. “Do you remember that time I set up the fake Gofundme to pay for my conservative cousin’s cephalanalectomy surgery because the liberal snowflake surgeon refused to perform it and he was going to die if they literally did not remove his head from his ass? That was fucking gold, Hobi. I’m a natural.”

“You’re definitely something,” he acquiesces. Then he has an idea. “Hey, do you wanna help me troll Namjoon?”

Your silence is deafening. “Uh, that depends.” Oh, Hoseok does not like your hesitation at all. “He has, like, a lot of Twitter followers, so I’m not trying to beef with him publicly, even if it is on a burner account.”

“Don’t tell me you’re afr—what the fuck kind of Twitter following does this guy have?”

“It’s probably better if you don’t know,” you say, voice laced with faux-concern. “I like Namjoon and I’d like him to remain employed by you simply so he can annoy the absolute fuck out of you until the day you either retire or die. So, yeah, let’s keep that between him and I.”

Hoseok feels dizzy. Probably because he’s been eating all these goddamn salads and now he’s nutritionally deficient. “Whatever. I do actually need your help with something, though.”

“You know my rates.”

“Why do I have to pay to hang out with you?” Hoseok whines. “Isn’t my life-long friendship enough?”

You snort. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Why is everyone bullying me lately? Can’t you spare a crumb of empathy for your best friend?”

“Empathy machine broke,” you deadpan. “Come on, ask me what my terms are. I already know what I want this time.”

Hoseok sighs. He wouldn’t relent this quickly for anyone else. He has a reputation to uphold, after all. “Fine. What are your—”

“I want a Birkin bag and dinner from that new Brazilian place by your office.”

“That’s a definite no on the bag,” Hoseok says. “I’m not spending that much money on anyone who isn’t my future spouse. We can have dinner, though.”

“I think you misheard me, sunshine. I said I want to go to dinner there. I’m going to gorge myself on expensive all-you-can-eat meats and I do not want to taint my experience watching you shovel a miserable, wilted salad into that pretty little heart-shaped mouth of yours. I’ll get agita.”

“Agi—I can’t believe this,” Hoseok whines, feeling the apples of his cheeks tinge red. “Have you and Namjoon been getting together to conspire against me? Is that why the two of you are bullying me?”

Hoseok expects you to say no. He expects you to say that you and Namjoon don’t even speak, you’d only met him once at that Christmas party a year ago, during which Namjoon spent the entire time waxing poetic about conifers and that time he dropped acid at Yosemite and cried for a week straight. But no. No, you don’t say anything at all, and if Hoseok was feeling bullied and just a little scandalized before, he’s absolutely feeling tortured now.

Namjoon, on his own, is bad.

You, on your own, are worse.

The two of you, together? No. Hoseok simply can’t—and won’t—allow it.

You suck in a breath. “In my defense—”

“You absolute traitor,” Hoseok seethes. “You, of all people, have betrayed me?”

There’s a tiny gasp on the other end of the line. “Oh, come off it, Hobi!” you snap. “Have you ever seen yourself eat? It’s foul. Like something straight out of Animal Planet.”

“It is not!”

“It is, and you know it,” you fire back. “I once watched you eat an entire personal-sized pizza in forty-two seconds. I don’t even think you chewed it. You just detached your jaw like some kind of creepy snake and inhaled. Something needed to be done.”

It’s Hoseok’s turn to gasp. “And that something was going full Judas Iscariot and selling me out to the Romans for thirty pieces of silver?”

There’s a pause on your end. “Is Namjoon the Romans in this scenario? Because, if so, I’ve got to say—”

“Who cares!” Hoseok snaps. “Who fucking cares who the Romans are—”

“The Romans, probably,” you chime in unhelpfully.

“—because the two of you have officially given me agita. How’s that? Huh? First I have to sit through all of Namjoon’s lunch lectures—”

“He should trademark that. Has a nice ring to it. Namjoon’s Lunch Lectures.”

“—then, I had to start eating salads. Salads. Then he signs me up for some stupid wellness retreat in the goddamn rainforest and tells me I have to find a fucking date, so off I go to Tinder, but everyone on there only wanted me for my harvestable organs, so I was like, ‘You know what, Hoseok? You know who you can always count on? Your best friend of twenty years. She’s never let you down. She’ll go with you, and the two of you will have a good time, because she’s your best friend and you enjoy her company.’ But no, come to find out—”

There’s a very loud shriek of laughter. “Oh my god. Holy shit, Hobi, is that really why you called? Namjoon actually signed you up for that couple’s retreat?”

Now, there’s a very loud shriek of disbelief. “You fucking knew about that?” You try to contain your snort. Really, you do, but it’s no match for Hoseok’s palpable ire. “You knew, and you didn’t tell me?”

“Oh, come on! It’ll be good for you, sunshine. You’re clearly overworked. You had visible stress lines in the last selfie you posted on Instagram.”

“I did not, I use hyaluronic acid!” he insists, but if Hoseok swipes out of your call to pull up his Instagram account, no one has to know.

You groan. “Why do you keep arguing with me? I’m never wrong.”

“Yes you are.” There’s a very pointed pause during which Hoseok can very clearly, in his head, hear you say see?

“Listen,” you say, voice strong with all the conviction of a person who hadn’t spent the last five minutes being a menace to society—and Hoseok. “I’ll go with you. I have some time off from my program and there’s nothing I’d rather do than spend a whole month in the rainforest with you.”

“I feel like that was sarcastic.”

You tut. “Honestly, Hobi, it’s like you don’t even know me at all. You know number three on my bucket list is going to Costa Rica to hang out with sloths.”

His phone pings a second later with a text from you. An article about a sloth sanctuary greets him, and he swallows the immediate ew that’s on the tip of his tongue. Sloths are cute, sure, but they also have bugs. “Great,” he chokes out. “Are you gonna meet a sloth and turn into Kristen Bell? Because I’m not signing up for that. You look like Kim Kardashian when you cry.”

“Fuck you.” Hoseok is a millionaire, he doesn’t deserve this treatment. “Now, what are your plans for tomorrow night? Let’s do dinner. We need to take a bunch of selfies during sunsets so we look like a plausible couple.”

When he was eight and you were seven, Hoseok witnessed his first act of violence.

A kid on the school bus had been giving him a hard time. Nothing totally awful, just being a bit of a dick the way kids are wont to do, and Hoseok was a pushover back then. Just wanted everyone to like him so he never really stuck up for himself. Just smiled and laughed off the teasing and cried about it later.

Apparently this was unacceptable to you.

You tossed your bookbag in Hoseok’s lap, pushed up your sleeves, made your way to the back of the bus, and told that kid you’d slam his head into the window if he didn’t stop picking on Hoseok.

He’d gotten his head slammed into the window approximately fourteen seconds later.

(Never messed with Hoseok again, though.)

Since then, the two of you have been nearly inseparable. Sure, there had been petty arguments here and there, and Hoseok had gone to an Ivy League across the country, but it was rare for the two of you to go more than a few days without talking. Even now, when Hoseok works eighty hour weeks and is busy being a Very Important Person, he still makes time for you. Sometimes that time is just exchanging stupid memes over text, but he always makes the effort.

Which is why, even though you don’t see the point in crafting some elaborate backstory and had only said the thing about the sunset selfies to con him into coming over, he stays quiet and shows up to your apartment for dinner and worldbuilding anyway, because it’s been too long since he’s last been here and he misses you.

“Are you taking notes?” Hoseok asks, pointing at you with his fork. “This is important.”

You groan into your wine glass. “Fake dating is so hard,” you whine. “Why can’t we just tell the truth?”

He levels you with a stare. “Because! Don’t you think it’s a bit…”

“What, you think it’s totally unbelievable that I could be in love with you?”

Oh. Hoseok doesn’t like this at all, either. Doesn’t like the way the words sound in your mouth. Doesn’t like the way his stomach drops as he digests them. Doesn’t like how nice they sound, like you’d just waded through all the extracurricular bullshit to get straight to the point and arrive at the inevitable conclusion, which is the two of you riding off together into that sunset you’d mentioned before.

He doesn’t like feeling like he might want that.

It’s not like he’s never thought about it. You’re his best friend and he has 20/20 vision, so of course he has. It's always just been one of those things: didn’t want to ruin your friendship, moved across the country, got too busy, didn’t think you’d want him like that in return.

“I—no,” he says unconvincingly. “I just… it’d totally be weird, right? Us pretending to be a couple?” He throws in a chuckle for good measure, as if the thought of dating you is so preposterous it simply has to be a joke.

You just shrug. Where Hoseok is all nervous jitters, you’re solid and unshaken, always. “Not really. We’ve been friends forever. We’re obviously comfortable with each other. You showing up to my place in those disgusting crochet shoes is proof enough of that.”

Hoseok looks down at his feet and frowns. “They’re Valentino.”

“More like Valenti-no.”

He rolls his eyes. “See, that right there is why we can’t wing this. I can’t pretend to like your awful jokes. I’ll out myself immediately.”

You roll yours right back. “Nah, I think it works. You’re obviously the high-strung CEO who doesn’t appreciate good humor when he sees it and I’m the sad housewife who just wants you to laugh at my jokes.” You jut out your bottom lip and pretend to cry. “Why won’t you just laugh at my jokes, Hobi?”

He flicks a green bean at you. “How’d we go from fake dating to fake marriage? Stop trying to swindle me.”

Once again, you pout dramatically. “God, first you refuse to laugh at my jokes, now you refuse to marry me? You’re breaking my heart here.”

“I’m not buying you a ring,” Hoseok scoffs. “I know for a fact you’ll just turn around and sell it for triple the price to some poor, unsuspecting bastard.”

“Not my fault there’s a lot of poor, unsuspecting bastards in the world. All of this just proves, for the billionth time, that I’m the better businessperson between the two of us.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Hoseok sighs. “Just because your lemonade stand outsold mine once doesn’t mean—”

“I also outsold you during that candle fundraiser in the fifth grade. And the candybars during Little League. And that bullshit one in high school with the pineapple pizzas—”

“Fine!” Hoseok throws his hands up. Then, with as little of a grimace as he can muster, he says, “Let’s go to Costa Rica, Mrs. Jung.”

It doesn’t land.

Your jaw drops immediately, an exaggerated gag spilling from your lips. “I changed my mind,” you deadpan. “No marriage for us unless you take my last name.”

“What’s wrong with mine?”

“Feels bad in my mouth. What’s wrong with mine?”

Hoseok rolls his lips together. “Nothing, really. Just—”

“Is this some kind of male pride thing? You refuse to take your wife’s last name for fear of public ridicule and castration jokes?”

“No.” Hoseok glares at you. “It’s just—the reservation’s in my name. Besides, if someone made shitty jokes about you, I’d slam their head into a window, too.”

“Oh.” As soon as your jaw snaps shut, a brilliant smile splits your face. “That was unexpectedly wholesome, Seok. You’re getting soft in your old age.”

Only for you, he wants to say. Instead, he shoves another forkful of rice in his mouth and a copy of the itinerary in your direction.

(For all your bravado and willingness to slam the heads of elementary school bullies into windows, you hate flying. So, if you squeeze Hoseok’s hand too tight and he snaps a photo of it under the guise of how comically purple-red it’s turning, and not at all because it’s the first time you’re holding his hand and some weird, sentimental part of him wants to commemorate it, that’s his business.

If his heart is so full it nearly bursts out of his chest at the sight of you crying over a sloth, and if he memorizes the stars in your eyes as you hold one—not caring about the bugs or the giant claws or the fact that sloth fur kind of looks like a bird nest, algae included—that’s his business.

If he posts the photo of you crying to his Instagram, knowing damn well you’re going to yell at him for it later, and he cackles wildly over Namjoon’s comment:

[namjooning commented: why does she cry like that kim kardashian meme? junghoseok replied: Right? That’s what I said]

—that’s his business. It’s only because he’d said you look like Kim Kardashian when you cry and, if nothing else, Hoseok loves to be proven right. It has nothing to do with wanting to remember you that happy forever. Not at all.

If he feels like he’s going into cardiac arrest when you hug him tightly, murmuring a quiet thank you in his ear on the last night of your stay at the sanctuary, it’s simply because you’re not very tactile. Hugs—and outward affection—from you are rare. That’s all. His skin absolutely does not break out in goosebumps. Doesn’t feel tingly all over. His breathing continues as normal.

If he finally comes to the startling realization that he’s in way too deep when you fall asleep on his shoulder during the drive to the resort, well…

Hoseok may be deadly smart, but he’s always been a complete fool when it comes to you.

If he sends a panicked text to Namjoon asking how he’s supposed to survive the next month, and if Namjoon misinterprets it as an ambitious, live-to-work type-A personality freaking out over not knowing how to unwind and tells him to just take it easy, and Hoseok misinterprets that as go for it, well…

The next four weeks sure are going to be interesting, aren’t they?)

See, the thing about Hoseok is he has all the money and prestige a man of his status could want.

He’s filthy rich, he’s well-respected, he’s kind. People love him. He loves people in return. He’s been called the living embodiment of actual sunshine more times than you or he could possibly count. There’s truly nothing he wants for in this world.

Hoseok is also the type of person who gets anxious at the thought of calling the Malaysian restaurant you two frequent to place a delivery order. Namjoon has to force him to make his own personal appointments under threat of death. He changed doctors because his new one lets him schedule appointments online. He won’t go to a fast food drive-thru unless they have mobile ordering.

It’s just the way Hoseok is. He’s been that way as long as you’ve known him—at least since that time in the fifth grade when his mother once gave him twenty bucks and told him to call the pizza place and order dinner for the two of you and he totally balked, resigning the two of you to toaster oven Ellio’s that tasted way too similar to skating rink pizza to be a coincidence.

Which is why he balks again as soon as the two of you reach the front desk of the resort, shoving you in front of him to talk to the man behind it.

Maybe it’s the raging pansexual inside Hobi rather than his uncharacteristic fear of talking to literally anyone, but you totally get it. You don’t really want to talk to this man, either. He’s ash blond and bathed in golden light, highlighting his already golden skin to look completely ethereal, and he’s got a smug look on his face that tells you he knows exactly how intimidatingly good-looking he is.

Still, you’re not easily shaken. Jung Hoseok is your best friend—and fake boyfriend, lest you’ve forgotten—for fuck’s sake. You’ve committed violence for him. Golden Desk Boy is going to have to try a whole lot harder than this. “Hiii,” you say, lips painted in a saccharine smile. God, you’re so fake. “We’re checking in under Jung.”

The man—whose name badge says Jimin—returns your fake smile. “Great! Thank you so much for joining us for your stay.”

You take a moment to look around while Jimin pulls up your reservation, purposefully skipping over Hoseok’s form. He’s not doing anything, just sitting in a plush armchair as he pretends to read the newspaper, but you feel the flames of annoyance licking at your heels nonetheless, because you wouldn’t be here to begin with if it weren’t for Hoseok and his subordinate micromanager, and what kind of weird place has he brought you to?

Everything is white. Not in the sterile kind of way, because the monotony is broken up with lush greenery and the occasional piece of teak furniture, but there’s enough white for you to wonder if it’s some sort of statement. The floors and walls are white. All the non-wooden furniture is white. Jimin’s silk uniform and teeth are both blindingly white. Not that you’d seen many people since you stepped into the lobby, but the ones you had seen had been wearing white, too.

Jimin looks up from the computer screen and you’re almost surprised to find his irises aren’t white, too. Maybe it’s rude, but he seriously gives you the creeps. “Everything is ready for your stay, Mr. and Mrs. Jung. I’ve requested someone come to retrieve your luggage.”

You gawk. “Oh, we’re not—we’re not married.”

“Oh?” Jimin asks, one perfect eyebrow arched as his eyes twinkle with intrigue.

“Yeah,” you insist. “Not that I need to explain my morals and ethics to a stranger, but I don’t believe in the patriarchy.”

“Really? That’s great,” Jimin lies. This man is overflowing with shithead energy. “Neither do I.”

You scoff. “Oh, sure. That’s why you just assumed my bes—my partner and I were married.”

“That’s what the reservation says.” He looks very amused now. Kim Namjoon is going to receive a very lengthy text message in approximately ten minutes. “I do apologize for this mistake. I’ll make sure to correct it right away.” Amusement slowly morphs into a challenge. “Is there a new last name I can put on the reservation for you instead?”

Call it a hunch, but you think it best to not give this person any of your identifying information. “No.”

“Shall I leave it as Jung, then?”

It physically pains you to say this, but you manage to choke out a very strained, “Yes.”

“Fantastic,” Jimin sing-songs. “I’m very glad we were able to sort out this issue for you, Mr. and Mrs. Jung.”

Choke on a dick and die is what you want to say (for no reason, really; it isn’t like Jimin’s been outright cruel to you), but as much as Hoseok avoids people—and avoids confrontation even more—he appears at your side, looking every bit the sunshine after a storm he always is. “Everything okay?” he asks, placing a gentle hand at the small of your back. “…Dear,” he tacks on as Jimin’s eyes study the two of you.

“Everything’s great!” you chirp, determined to cast away Jimin’s obvious suspicions. “Jimin here says someone’s coming to get our bags.” Another fake, saccharine smile. Like sweet’n low. “He’s been very helpful.”

Everything’s great, in you-speak, translates to I once, foolishly, thought Kim Namjoon was on my side. I now see the errors of my ways and I demand justice and revenge. Fool you once (getting roped into being Hoseok’s fake partner to come to a weird wellness retreat), shame on Namjoon. Fool you twice (allowing him to book the reservation and label you a married couple), shame on you. There won’t be a third time, because Kim Namjoon’s days are numbered once you’re both in the same country again.

“Will you be needing a tour?” Jimin asks, voice tinkling like expensive crystal.

You grasp Hoseok’s hand far too tight to be believable and wave off the receptionist. “No, thank you! Just a map will do. That’s how we met, you know—at a… map… class.”

“A map class?” Jimin parrots. “Riveting.” He smiles. Sweet’n low.

“It sure was!” You turn to Hobi. “Wasn’t it? …Babe,” you choke out. The word tastes so gross on your tongue.

When you look up at him, Hoseok’s wearing that trademark expression of his: the one where his eyes are too wide, tight-lipped smile stretched too thin. Hoseok’s convinced it’s convincing. It isn’t. It’s terrifying and makes your skin feel itchy from the inside. “Mmm, yep,” he agrees easily. “Love a good map. Some good… cartography.” He pinches three fingers together because he’d seen it on The Sopranos and it’s just a thing he does now.

Sometimes you forget Hoseok is rich-rich.

Of course Namjoon had mentioned booking the trip on the company card and of course you know what someone like him having access to a company card implies. It’d implied you were going on an all-expenses-paid trip on some massive company’s dime. But, perhaps naively, you’d just envisioned a fancy hotel room at some resort near a beach. Shoreline bonfires, tiny portions of food on massive plates when you order room service, colorful drinks with tiny umbrellas and a skewer of fruit stuck inside, three-digit price tag.

Instead, the two of you follow the map to a secluded, private house. There’s a balcony. The shower is made entirely of glass and surrounded by the lush greenery outside. The exterior wall in the bedroom is also made of glass and affords you panoramic views of the beach and forest and everything in between. The thread count of the Egyptian cotton sheets is disgustingly low.

(Which, speaking of Hoseok and all his money—he’d been the one to teach you about thread counts to begin with. You’d wrongfully assumed the higher the number the better, but Hoseok had gently grabbed the scratchy 1500 count sheets out of your hands with a pained grimace and handed you a set of Supima cotton sheets with a startlingly low thread count instead.

Rich people have everything backwards.)

Truth be told, it’s exactly the kind of place you’d see on some influencer’s Instagram account. The kind of place they’d delude you into thinking you could afford, too, because having your influencer boyfriend take a picture of you sinking into the lush white duvet and plastering a $10 filter on it is more important than affording your student loan payments.

But you digress.

Either way, you’ll have to send a thank you card to the board of directors.

Hoseok, on the other hand, balks for the second time. Takes one look at the singular bed and completely shuts down, Windows sound effects practically blaring over an invisible loudspeaker above his head once again. “Where’s the other bed?” he asks stupidly.

You snort. Stash your suitcase in the corner. You’ll unpack it later… or next week. Whenever you get around to it, really. “What other bed?”

“You know, like. The other one.”

“There’s only one, Seok. Why would there be two? This is a couple’s retreat.”

He pouts. “Not every couple sleeps together, you know. My grandparents have separate bedrooms.”

“No offense, bud, but your grandfather also wears diapers.”

“So?”

“So there might be a correlation, is what I’m saying.”

“Are you saying you wouldn’t sleep in the same bed as your husband of seventy years just because he might pee the bed sometimes?”

You level him with a look. Unpacking doesn’t sound like such a bad idea anymore. “I’m well past the age where I could conceivably be married to someone for seventy years, so it doesn’t matter.”

“You’re not even thirty yet.”

You click your tongue. “Hoseok, you of all people know I never expected to live past the age of thirteen. There’s no way I’m making it to ninety-seven.”

“You only thought you were gonna die when you were thirteen because you had your appendix removed.” You give him another look. “And you got your tonsils removed that same year.” Another one. “What?” he huffs. “What’d I forget?”

“That time we were playing volleyball in gym class and you spiked the ball right in my face and broke my nose.”

“Not a life-threatening injury.”

“Thirteen was a really hard year for me,” you retort, overdramatic as always. “It’s a miracle I survived.”

“Oh my god—”

“A miracle, Hobi.”

With a disapproving shake of his head, he’s off to unpack his luggage, because Hoseok is filthy rich and has expensive clothes that, according to him, cannot, under any circumstances, go hours without being hung up properly. You’ve never seen a silk shirt with a wrinkle in it, let alone a wrinkle on any article of Hoseok’s clothing, but you learned a long time ago it’s much less stressful to just let him be neurotic about his wardrobe.

You, on the other hand, are going to do no such thing. You’ll live out of your suitcase for as long as you can get away with it, so you flop face-first onto the bed, careful to leave your shoes dangling off the edge. Hoseok’s already going to give you shit about—

“Yah!” he wails, his fifteenth white button-down shirt draped haphazardly off a hanger. “No street clothes in the bed!”

You roll your eyes. “Street clothes? Who says shit like that? Most people just have clothes.”

“You’ve been wearing them all day,” Hoseok argues, because there’s very little he loves more than an argument. “They’re dirty, and now they’ve made the bed dirty, too.”

However, to the detriment of Hoseok’s well-being, you love arguing, too. You look down at both your clothes and the pristine duvet and vaguely gesture at both. “Ah, yes. So filthy. The bed—which you’d nearly had an aneurysm over sharing with me not even ten minutes ago, might I add—is so dirty. How will we ever be able to sleep in it?”

Watching Hoseok mentally tabulate through the Seven Stages of Grief is the most entertainment you’ve had in hours. Jaw clenched, he simply stares at you for a few seconds before leveling his voice and repeating, “No street clothes in the bed.” Then he tacks on a please that’s clearly an afterthought. “Didn’t you bring loungewear? Can’t you just wear that instead?”

You did, in fact, bring loungewear. It would’ve been irresponsible not to, considering the length of your stay and proximity to paradise, but stubbornness seems to be the flavor of the day so you just shrug and toe your shoes off. “I’m not going to change. We don’t have long before we have that welcome dinner, anyway. I’m not going to put on loungewear only to change into dinner-wear and then come back, shower, and change again into pajamas.”

Hoseok’s nose scrunches in distaste. “What welcome dinner?”

“Do you not read?” you tease. “There was a whole itinerary attached to the map. We have a welcome dinner tonight with that guy Namjoon’s in love with.”

“Which one?”

You click your tongue. “The guy who runs this place.” Then you furrow your brow. “What do you mean ‘which one’?”

“Nothing. Just—you know how Namjoon is. He falls in love at least eight separate times whenever he goes to the gardening store.”

“Guess he doesn’t herb his enthusiasm.” Hoseok groans loudly as you point finger guns at him.

He lobs a mated pair of socks at your head that bounce off your ass instead. “Please just get ready for dinner. I can’t do this.”

To put it mildly, Kim Seokjin is fucking weird.

Hoseok hadn’t noticed. He’d taken one look at him and his mischievous eyes and welcoming smile and dove right in, engaging him in endless conversation about god-knows-what. That’s just how Hoseok is. Aside from his justifiable distrust of Tinder dates, he makes and keeps friends effortlessly. It’s the sunshine in him, your mother always used to say, because Hoseok was always the sun and everyone else were sunflowers, desperate to bask in him and reflect his light.

(Namjoon has always said it’s because he’s an Aquarius. You don’t know what that means, but you assume it’ll click once you buy a few crystals and start exclusively listening to Fleetwood Mac.)

And that has always been okay—good, even. He’s never lost that innate goodness, even when he’d been placed at the head of a billion-dollar corporation where ruthlessness is encouraged. Hoseok’s edges remain rounded and soft; he emphasizes a need for kindness, shows it has a place amongst the cold, calculated world of business. Really, it’s great. You can’t be more proud to call him your best friend.

However.

It doesn’t mean Hoseok isn’t a fucking idiot sometimes.

Because he’s good, his first assumption is always that others are good, too. No matter how many times you’ve grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him away from a fire, his first instinct is still to reach out and touch it.

His first serious girlfriend, back in high school? Yeah, you’d warned him about her. Told him she was messing around with a kid on the soccer team on the side, but Hoseok had insisted she’d never do that. “She’s into embroidery,” he’d said, as if that excused someone from being a two-timing cheat.

That guy he’d been partnered with for a serious project in business school? You’d listened to Hoseok talk about him over Skype once and suggested he find a new one. Kept silent as he unloaded on you a few weeks later after the guy had fucked him over.

You’d even advised him against hiring Namjoon. Couldn’t fathom why Hoseok would even be considering hiring someone who showed up to an interview hours early. Obviously he hadn’t listened, and look where it’s gotten the two of you.

It isn’t that you’ve got a sixth sense for assholes or anything. It’s just that Hoseok’s such a terrible judge of character that it makes you look like Sherlock Holmes in comparison.

So it comes as no surprise to you when Seokjin excuses himself for a moment and Hoseok turns to you with hearts in his eyes only to be greeted by your Hoseok you’re doing that thing again where you put people on a pedestal who are not to be trusted look.

“No,” he dismisses immediately. “Him? No way.”

Your nostrils flare. “Hoseok. Don’t be an idiot about this. He’s weird.”

“He’s just eccentric. Aren’t all these New Age hippie types like that? The guy runs a wellness retreat for fuck’s sake—of course he’s weird.”

“His vibes are off,” you retort, which admittedly sounds like a New Age hippie thing to say, but the longer Hoseok insists you’re wrong, the more you begin to wonder if you are. The two of you had been sent here by Namjoon, and he’s easily one of the weirdest people you’ve ever met. Maybe Hoseok’s right.

You allow yourself two minutes of self-doubt. Then you’re shaking your head and poking your tongue into the fat of your cheek because you know bad vibes when you feel them and Kim Seokjin has them in spades.

The man in question returns a few moments later, two new men in tow: a taller one with a boxy smile and a tan and a shorter one with a scowl that looks permanent but not on purpose, like it’d just shown up on his face one day and forgot to leave. The grumpy-looking one sits across from Hoseok, looking every bit as unsure as you, while the other one takes the empty seat to his left, right in front of you.

“I’m Taehyung,” he says, ass barely in the chair before he’s leaning over the table to shake your hand. His feels like a hand that’s shaken many others—firm, warm, soft. Feels a lot like shaking Hoseok’s hand might feel, an importance simmering beneath the surface, but you’ve never had a reason to do so. “This is Yoongi.” Taehyung gestures to the man beside him. “He doesn’t talk much but you get used to him, I think.”

“You think?” Hoseok laughs, an eyebrow quirked, fully in his element. Words soft, edges softer. Hoseok was born for these types of moments. Meeting strangers, knowing what to say.

Yoongi stays quiet. Barely looks around the room, which is a feat in itself. Seokjin had invited all of you to dinner in a grand dining hall, walls tall and floors gleaming, both stark white like the rest of the resort. Immediately sat at the head of the table like some sort of king, and you would’ve thought something of it, maybe looked at Hoseok and mouthed what’s this guy’s deal? But then he placed his napkin neatly across his lap, looked at the two of you, smiled dazzlingly, and said, “Is cereal soup?”

It had all gone downhill from there, really.

Now Taehyung and Yoongi are seated across from you and Hoseok and Yoongi still hasn’t said a word and you’re hoping maybe, just maybe, he’s also picking up on how weird all of this is. Taehyung has that exuberant optimism that reminds you a lot of Hoseok so you disregard him as a comrade immediately. Just the kind of guy to love any and everyone, oblivious to bad vibes. No, Yoongi’s the one you need on your side and it’s glaringly obvious.

One small hiccup, though: he really doesn’t talk.

Like, at all.

Taehyung talks enough for the both of them, endearing everyone with a smile and an endless supply of stories told in that deep baritone voice of his. Every now and then he’ll turn to Yoongi and say isn’t that right, dumpling? and Yoongi just hums an acknowledgment. Doesn’t seem put off by the pet name at all, despite looking like someone that’d be put off by pet names.

They’re cute. You mouth as much to Hoseok and he just smiles at you in return, a soft little thing. Yoongi and Taehyung are the kind of couple who give off we’ve been together for decades energy even though they don’t look much older than you. Just two people completely at ease with one another, and it does something to your stomach. All small, hidden touches and words communicated through looks alone. Best friends and lovers. Partners both in crime and in life.

It’s a sweet moment.

It’s a moment completely negated by Seokjin’s booming voice at the head of the table. “Well, this was fun, wasn’t it? Let’s move to the lounge.”

Yoongi doesn’t look to Taehyung. Yoongi looks to you, and it’s only because you’d looked at him instead of Hoseok that you notice the subtle downturn of the corners of his mouth, the slight pinch between his brows. He doesn’t outright ask it, but there’s a question in his body language: What’s this guy’s deal?

It’s one you’d also like an answer to.

Yoongi keeps his eyes on you the entire time the five of you talk in the lounge. Well, Taehyung’s once again speaking for both of them, hands and arms gesturing wildly all around him, and Yoongi seems more than content to sit in silence. Seokjin and Hoseok chime in where they should, asking questions and emphasizing words and generally being agreeable. You, on the other hand, sit next to Hoseok and try to exude the same energy Taehyung and Yoongi do. The we’re so in love and comfortable with each other we don’t even need to touch type. The we only post selfies together three times a year because we don’t need to flaunt our relationship variety.

But, as all inevitable things inevitably do, the conversation moves to relationships. Seokjin sneaks it in under the guise of getting to know everyone, and Taehyung takes the bait immediately, seemingly always looking for a reason to show off Yoongi and talk him up. You hate that it’s endearing. You hate that you want something like it—someone enamored with you without preamble. A just because kind of love. Something solid and bone-deep.

“It was totally by accident,” Taehyung’s saying as your attention drifts back to him. Not soon enough, because he’s clearly halfway through a story and you have no idea what the plot is. “We’d both been backpacking through Europe, and I was trying to check in at this tiny hostel in Thessaloniki but my Greek is terrible, understandably, so I was really struggling. Trying to tell the poor woman behind the desk my name and that I’d booked a private room, and she just kept shrugging and looking at me like I was crazy. It was, like, midnight, so I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep, and then out of nowhere this guy”—He jerks his thumb at Yoongi, who remains silent and still—“just comes up behind me and starts speaking fluent Greek.”

Hoseok’s eyes widen. “Fluent Greek? Wow,” he says, eyebrows disappearing beneath his fringe, “that’s really impressive.”

“You have no idea,” Taehyung continues to gush. “He speaks, like, fifteen languages fluently, I swear to god. Anyway, turns out the hostel never received my reservation, which makes sense because I’d tried booking it from the top of a mountain. Yoongi took pity on me and let me share his room since they were fully booked.”

Seokjin smiles and touches a hand to his heart. It’s completely performative but it works—Taehyung looks like he’s just passed some silent test and won the lottery. “Adorable. And so noble, Yoongi. Not many people would do that for a stranger.”

Yoongi shrugs.

Undeterred, Seokjin turns his attention to you and Hoseok. “How about the two of you? Set up by friends? Blind date?” His beady eyes are studying you both diligently, eyes raking over your face for the tiniest tell. “Childhood friends turned lovers?”

Hoseok coughs.

“We met at a cartography class,” you explain, voice even despite Seokjin’s prolonged eye contact making you want to lock yourself in the nearest bathroom. Hoseok had nearly given the two of you away, and it was all you could do to recall whatever bullshit you had tried selling Jimin to cover your asses.

Yoongi’s fighting off a smile. Taehyung looks enthralled. “Cartography? Whoa, now that’s something you definitely don’t hear everyday.”

“A lost art, if you ask me,” Seokjin says. “Are either of you geographists, then?”

Hoseok tenses, fidgeting ceasing immediately. The two of you hadn’t talked about this—about how honest you wanted to be, how much would be fabricated—so while this is typically the kind of environment he’d thrive in, you pluck the reins from his hands and take over. “Double majored back in undergrad. Geography and psych.”

“Interesting combo.”

You nod. Not the first time you’d heard that. “Well, there are things you want to do and things you should do, so I did both.”

“And what was it you wanted to do?”

You wave your hand, gesturing vaguely. “Ah, you know. You go into university with all these aspirations, have all these starry-eyed ideas. You’re gonna be someone, you’re gonna help people, you’re gonna make an impact and travel all over and be super important. People are gonna pay to hear you speak and all that bullshit.” Hoseok’s looking at you—you can feel it, but you can also see the blurred outline of his profile. “What did I want to do? Something in human geography, maybe cultural or political geography.”

“The psych degree?” Seokjin continues prodding, and you find you don’t mind it. Hoseok certainly never had. Was always far too busy doing important business things on the opposite side of the country.

“Picked it up about halfway through. Figured I should have a back-up plan in case I wound up being the only geopolitician working at Starbucks.” Your fingers start picking at your pants even though there’s nothing to grab onto. You’d only packed your best, keenly aware of the standards required to be in Jung Hoseok’s inner circle. “A lot of the research and analysis courses overlapped, so I just… did it.”

“That’s very ambitious.” Seokjin’s compliment feels like some weird kind of approval, like another unspoken test Taehyung would grin over passing. “And now? You’d mentioned undergrad.”

“Started a post-bacc in GIS since I liked doing research. Hence the cartography class.”

Hence the cartography class, as if that’s the end of it and there’s nothing else to say. Like you hadn’t dropped out of that to pursue a Master’s in psychology and maybe med school or a PhD to follow, because your mother would be proud of someone with a doctorate, right? You could finally stop hearing—

Did you hear Hoseokie got an internship at Google? They pay $8,000 a month!

Did you hear Hoseokie graduated at the top of his class? His mother said he didn’t even have to apply to any MBA programs, they recruited him! He’s torn between Stanford and the University of Penn. Isn’t that a nice problem to have?

Did you hear that Hoseokie finished his program early? He’s so smart. His parents must be so proud of him.

Did you hear Hoseokie’s moving back? Just an associate vice president position for now, but his mother says there’s already talks of him being promoted to CEO within the next few years.

That’s not to say you weren’t proud of him or that you were resentful. You’ve always been Hoseok’s biggest fan, but Hoseok had moved across the country and still casted a shadow so large it was impossible to not be swallowed up by it, and it’s hard to have all the things you want to hear be said about someone else.

So, yeah, hence the cartography class.

“What about you, Hoseok? You’ve been quiet.”

Hoseok’s never quiet. When you turn to look at him, he’s already staring back. There’s no perpetual million-dollar smile, no wrinkles at the corner of his eyes from laughing too much, smiling too much, enjoying life too much. There’s just a concerned look that you don’t really know what to do with, because you’ve spent so much of your life worrying over Hoseok—over his concerning judge of character, his inability to cook, those kids on the schoolbus, his diet and now his organs—that things feel out of sorts now that the script is flipped.

It takes him a while to come back down to earth, realize someone has asked him a question. “Business,” is all he says.

He’s still staring.

Things are tense.

Weird-tense, because things are never tense between you and Hoseok. Not even back in high school when you’d threatened his then-girlfriend, the one who was cheating on him, and she ratted you out. Hoseok had shown up all red in the face, talked a lot about what would happen if you ruined things for him, but you’d just said alright, Hobi, whatever you say and things had gone back to normal.

But back in your overpriced rental house, things are definitely weird-tense.

“You never told me any of that.”

Ah. You shrug, toweling off your hair after your shower, and rifle through your suitcase for suitable pajamas. “You never asked.”

“I thought the map story was bullshit. You never—you double majored?”

Isn’t this so typical, you think. You could write a biography on Hoseok, all his accomplishments and dreams and all those silly little subplots that connect at the end, and he didn’t even know your college major. Majors. “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

In the bathroom, you go through your skincare routine on autopilot and floss and brush your teeth. Try to rid yourself of the taste of disappointment. Smear cold cream under your eyes and try to pretend the sting is from the scent and not welling tears, because this is not something to cry over. This is stupid and unimportant, and you now have two and a half degrees in psychology that tell you how to deal with it.

But Hoseok’s reluctant to let it go. Wants to talk it to death when you’re more than happy to never discuss it again. You’re twenty-seven, meaning you’ve had at least five years to accept the fact that your mother had given all her pride to Hoseok instead. You’re not really keen on spending another five years feeling inadequate. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He appears in the doorway of the bathroom looking positively distressed. “Mom had only told me about the psych degree and that you were trying to get into UCLA for your Master’s. She never said anything about the geography degree.”

You just shrug. “Things you want to do and things you should, right?”

Hoseok doesn’t buy it. “Was telling me what was going on in your life not something you wanted to do, then?” He looks stung.

You’re tired, still a little fucked up from the jet lag and sitting through a bizarre dinner and serving yourself up on a silver platter to an even more bizarre man that now knew something about you that not even Hoseok had known. “I’m going to sleep,” you say, because you’re even more loose-lipped than usual when tired and prone to irritability, and provoking an argument on the first night of a month-long vacation is not something you’re going to do.

And Hoseok—

Hoseok must get it, you think, because he seems to deflate. Just sighs, shoulders hunched, before he steps aside to let you out of the bathroom. No argument, no thinly-veiled threats, no guilt-trips. Resignation: the same kind Namjoon had spoken about when he’d relayed the story of how the wellness retreat came to be.

A resigned Hoseok is probably a dangerous Hoseok, but you’re too exhausted to give a shit. You’ll strategize in the morning, come up with a new plan.

Except the morning comes and Hoseok doesn’t mention it at all.

He doesn’t say anything about it for the next three days, actually, which are all the same and go like this:

On the morning of day two, Hoseok reluctantly wakes you up just after six. There’s a small offering of fruit and coffee waiting for you on a tray that you promptly ignore in lieu of going back to sleep, which lasts until approximately 6:06am when Hoseok wakes you again. The two of you are scheduled for a morning yoga session at seven-o’clock, which is supposedly mandatory and can’t be canceled.

Taehyung takes the mat next to you, leaning over to ask, “Have you ever done this before?” with a slightly panicked expression on this face.

“Every Saturday morning back home,” you answer. Taehyung chuckles nervously, and your experience becomes painfully clear when you’re nailing your Sugarcane pose and everyone else topples over sideways. Yoongi doesn’t make a sound as he hits the floor, and he’s so quiet that your instructor misses him completely when they fret around the room helping everyone else.

You’re so distracted by helping Yoongi yourself that you miss the deep furrow of Hoseok’s brow. And the crestfallen look on his face. Just another thing he hadn’t known.

After you survive yoga, the two of you sit through an awkward breakfast with Taehyung, Certified Chatterbox, and Yoongi, Not One. Taehyung doesn’t comment on Hoseok’s newfound quietude, which is a little surprising, but Yoongi quirks an eyebrow at you that makes your coffee suddenly taste stale.

Between the hours of nine and one, Hoseok disappears to go to the spa or the gym or the gift shop, because he is literally incapable of not spending money. You’re waiting for him to realize how weird it is for a wellness retreat to sell souvenirs but he never brings it up, just strolls back into the room each time and dumps a concerning amount of magnets into his suitcase.

(You wonder if any of them are for your mother. You wonder what she’ll think about this—you and Hoseok going to a couple’s retreat together, playing pretend. You wonder if bagging someone like Hoseok would finally make her proud of you and how shallow that is.)

After lunch, which is barely less awkward than breakfast, the four of you are ushered into a so-called Meditation Clinic, hosted by a very muscular guy with a baby face and a lot of tattoos. His name is Jungkook, and he nearly sends Hoseok into Sexuality Crisis Episode No. 2. Hoseok doesn’t do a damn second of meditating for three days, just stares at the wall looking like a baby who’d just been tricked into sucking on a lemon. Taehyung chatters away at you the entire time, completely oblivious to Jungkook’s annoyed stare. You share an exasperated look with Yoongi on your way out.

Hoseok returns to your rental home on the evening of day three looking scandalized. Apparently, this is the result of him running into Jimin, who’d offered to read and analyze his birth chart for him. Apparently, this is Jimin’s second job when there’s no new check-ins to harass. Apparently, Hoseok has been “read for filth” by “the stars” and “doesn’t wish to discuss it further.”

(Interestingly, Jimin corners you not long after. There’s a dangerous twinkle in his eye as he says, “Curious?” and gestures to a small room just off the lounge.

“The curtain’s kind of corny, isn’t it?” you say, scoffing as one strand of beads smacks you in the side of the head. “Like, this all feels very mysterious carnival tent and not billion-dollar resort, y’know?”

Jimin takes a seat behind a large desk, completely void of decoration. You’re not sure what you expected—some tarot cards, maybe a crystal ball to sell the illusion—but it’s empty. “You must have Leo placements,” he mutters.

“Moon and Mars, actually. Lucky guess.”

He gestures for you to take the seat in front of him. “Mm, not really luck, they’re just really good at lying.”

“And what am I lying about?”

Jimin ignores your question. Instead, he cocks his head to the side and says, “When’s your birthday?”

“Aren’t you the astrologer? Take a guess.” Jimin just stares, looking endlessly amused. Eventually you huff and answer. “March 15th.”

Overdramatic as always, Jimin fake-gags. “A Pisces sun with a Leo moon? Horrendous, truly. How do you function?”

“Stunted, clearly.”

He actually laughs at this, rewarding you with a brilliant smile and an endearingly crooked front tooth. “No matter.” He shakes his head, blond locks falling elegantly around his face as if arranged by the gods themselves. “You may have a truly tragic sun-moon pairing, but it bodes well for you and that neurotic mess of a best friend you’re fake-dating.”

You choke so hard Jimin actually offers you a glass of water.)

Dinners are spent as a five-piece. Seokjin asks more idiotic questions, such as are eyebrows considered facial hair, which prompts a very deep exhale from Yoongi, and did Adam and Eve have bellybuttons, which sends Taehyung into an existential crisis he’s yet to recover from.

Sometimes there are bonfires on the beach at night during which Jungkook plays an acoustic guitar and sings like an angel. Hoseok is conspicuously absent during these.

He’s also absent during your nightly routine. You shower, smear your skincare all over your face, and brush your teeth alone. You change into your pajamas and crawl into your side of the bed alone. By night three, you’re so annoyed you build a pillow wall between the two of you that you instruct Hoseok, under threat of bodily harm, not to demolish.

On the morning of day five, you’re awake before the sun. You sit in the darkness for a while, listening to Hoseok’s soft breaths on the other side of the pillow wall. He hasn’t gone five days without talking to you in twenty years. Even when he’d threatened you over his high school girlfriend, you were back in his good graces within 48 hours, and all of this for what? Because your mother is kind of an asshole and you’re kind of jealous and Hoseok is kind of self-centered sometimes?

“Hobi,” you say, leaning over the wall to nudge his shoulder. “Hobi, wake up.”

He doesn’t budge, mouth hanging open as he continues snoring quietly, these little hiccups of breath every now and then. All you can do is sigh. “Hoseok.” Nothing. “Jung Hoseok,” you try again, voice hardened into a baseless threat. He keeps snoring.

You groan, run your hands over your face in exasperation. Stupidly, you’d assumed that Hoseok would be easier to wake up now that he’s a Very Important Person worth millions of dollars. Clearly he’s not. So you throw the duvet off your legs and stumble to the bathroom in the dark. Brush your teeth and wash your face and throw on a loose long-sleeved shirt and a pair of yoga pants. It’s the weekend, so you’re free to do as you please, no mandated schedule, and you know exactly who you’re going to see.

Unsurprisingly, Taehyung is on the beach, cross-legged in the center of a large blanket close to the water but far enough away that the tide isn’t a concern. His curls are blowing gently in the breeze and every now and then he lets out a huff as he tries to flick them out of his eyes. No wonder Yoongi took pity on him back in that hostel in Thessaloniki. You’ve barely known him a week and are already hopelessly endeared by him.

“Good morning,” he says, eyes closed. Even the sun is barely awake this early, but it spills across Taehyung’s cheeks in dusky, golden rays nonetheless. “The beach is beautiful at this hour, isn’t it?”

Ah, so Taehyung’s one of those. Chatty at all hours, just like Hoseok. You groan. “Yeah, sure.”

“I have a thermos of coffee if you want some.”

“You just carry around thermoses of coffee?”

Taehyung laughs. “No. I don’t drink it, but I always make some in the morning and put it in a thermos in case today’s the day Yoongi decides to wake up before noon and join me.”

You eye the empty space next to him. “I’m guessing today’s not the day.”

He quirks an eyebrow. “After forcing him to wake up at 6am to do yoga the last few days? I might never see him again.”

“It’d be deserved, in his defense.”

Taehyung seems to think on this. Has a laugh just as airy as the gentle ocean wind, one that makes you feel like you’re the funniest person in the world. So much like Hoseok. You wonder if you’re like Yoongi. If you’re just as closed off but more talkative. You wonder if there’s a reason Yoongi holds his cards so close to his chest or if he simply sees no reason for anyone to know him. He’s got Taehyung and fifteen languages and a lifetime’s worth of stories, what more could he need? “You’re probably right. Where’s your other half?”

“Also asleep.”

“Wow,” Taehyung deadpans, “there are parallels everywhere.”

You don’t know him well enough to know how he means it. If it’s sardonic and taking the piss out of that sort of thing the way Yoongi would mean it, or if he’s genuine how Hoseok would be. So you just hum a maybe-agreement and stare out at the ocean.

Truth be told, you’re not sure why Taehyung was the one you wanted to find. He just seems like the type to know a lot about relationships, people. Seems like someone who’d meet and befriend more people in a day than you would in five years, so someone like that’s gotta have some sort of answers.

“How long have you and Yoongi been together?”

“Oh. A long time. I was nineteen when I went to Greece and Yoongi was twenty-one, but it was such bad timing, you know? Like, I was only two months into a year-long trip, and Yoongi has to be dragged into everything kicking and screaming, so we didn’t reconnect for over a year after we met.”

“That must’ve been hard.”

Taehyung smiles: small, tender, fond. “A little, yeah, but I think that sort of stuff is inconsequential in the long run. What’s a year’s worth of distance when you’ve got the rest of your lives?” He shifts on the blanket, a frown dragging down the corners of his mouth. “Although I went to Australia a month later and got bit by this huge fucking spider, so I guess the rest of my life was questionable for a while. In that case, yeah, it would’ve been really hard.”

You hum again, and in a need to fill the silence, Taehyung asks, “What about you and Hoseok?”

“What about us?”

“How long have you been together?”

We’re not, really, sits on the tip of your tongue. Jimin has already seen straight through the bullshit, so why not Taehyung, too? What’s the worst that can happen—they kick you out because you’re not a proper couple? What does that even mean? You’ve known Hoseok for twenty years. You watched him grow into a successful, kind, intelligent adult from a stupid-as-fuck eight-year-old. You’ve watched him fall in love and get his heart broken and piece it back together again. You know his takeout orders and his favorite color and the movies he still cries over but lies and says he doesn’t. You know the smell of his mother’s perfume when she squeals and hugs you like you’re her own. You’re one of two-hundred followers on Hoseok’s private Instagram account—the one you and Namjoon and Hoseok’s sister always join forces to bully him on when he tries posting a thirst trap.

You know what Hoseok looks like when he cries. You know what he’s like when he’s vulnerable and insecure and you know how to be a pillar for him when he’s like that, and he knows the same about you.

Some couples don’t have half of that, so what does it mean or even matter if your coupling is proper? Isn’t what you have enough?

You sigh. “We grew up together. I’ve known him for twenty years.”

“Oh.” Taehyung sucks in a breath. “I thought you’d said—”

“Yeah,” you interject. “We’re not, like, romantically involved.” Another sigh. “It’s a long story.”

Taehyung just smiles, looks at you with those butter-soft eyes, and you’re diving into twenty years of history and backstory. You tell him about punching the kid on the bus. You tell him about Hoseok’s first serious girlfriend in high school and how it made your stomach hurt—

(“Because you had a crush on him?”

“What? No.”

“Hm. Okay.”)

—and you tell him about your mother and all her misplaced pride. He laughs at every story you tell him about Namjoon and how you and Hoseok wound up at this weird wellness retreat. He stops laughing when you tell him that you and Hoseok haven’t spoken properly in days, and his eyebrows get very serious when you admit it’s the reason you came to find him.

“You just look like someone who might know how to help me fix it,” you finish.

Taehyung tries—and fails—to not look pleased as punch at this. “I’m generally very unhelpful. Well, Yoongi says I’m not-not helpful, but sometimes I try to help too much and wind up making things worse.” You shoot him a dubious look. “I won’t do that this time, though, I promise! Please consider me your official relationship fixer.”

“I’m not sure this is a good idea anymore.”

“It probably isn’t, if I’m being totally honest, but if I can manage to make Min Yoongi fall in love with me, I’m extremely overconfident I can do just about anything.”

“Yeah, that’s fair.”

He claps his hands together. “Great! We can start with you apologizing and telling him you’ve been acting out due to temporary insanity on the basis of being in love with him for years and never saying anything.”

“Excuse me—”

“It’s best to be extremely honest about these sorts of things as to leave no room for misinterpretation or misunderstandings,” Taehyung says, tone condescending like you’re a child though it’s working overtime to not sound that way. At your slack jaw, Taehyung’s eyes grow wide. “Have you seriously never thought about it?”

“Me and Hoseok?”

Of course you’ve thought about it, it was just dismissed immediately each time. You love Hoseok; he’s the most important person in your life, and that’s exactly why you shooed those intrusive thoughts away every time they crept up. You’re not generally one to overthink on consequences, but Hoseok is always an idea you’ve treated with kiddie gloves. Something delicate. Something placed in an enclosure with 21mm glass walls and eighteen security alarms. So, sure, you’ve thought about it in the same way you’ve thought about winning the lottery or telling your PhD advisor to fuck off and moving to some remote island paradise where there’s always someone to wait on you hand and foot.

Of course you’ve thought about you and Hoseok, in the same way you think about all inevitable things (like the heat death of the universe) and also impossibilities, both wistful and staunch.

“Yeah,” you eventually answer. “Of course I have.”

Taehyung blinks owlishly. “I thought for sure you were gonna deny it.” Then the smile is back and it makes his eyes glitter like tiny stars. “But that’s great! The first step is admitting you have a problem, or whatever. Anyway! Do you still have feelings? Yoongi thinks I’m bad at reading people”—Yoongi is right, you think—“but I’ve seen the way he looks at me a million times, and sometimes that’s the same way Hoseok looks at you. So I think you should tell him.”

Snorting, you turn your gaze to the ocean. Even the water seems to still be sleepy at this hour, the waves small and gentle as they lap against the shore. “Maybe later on. Getting rejected a few days into a month-long trip doesn’t really sound like my idea of fun.”

Face scrunched up in disgust, Taehyung whines, “You wouldn’t! You’re gonna waste all this time because you think you’d get rejected when in actuality all you’re doing is wasting some really great glass walls to fuck against.”

You blanch. You can say, with one hundred percent conviction, that you’ve never thought about sleeping with Hoseok. Okay, so that’s not entirely true. There was the one time you had to defend him from Rose Emoji and Hammer and Sickle Twitter when they threatened to eat him and one person suggested sparing him because, excessive wealth aside, he had big dick energy. That’d given you pause. Did Hoseok have a big dick?

“No way,” you retort, “Hoseok is like a Ken doll. Completely smooth from the waist down. Dickless.”

Taehyung heaves a long-suffering sigh. “Another L for the gay community.”

Hoseok sleeps until noon.

You’ve already washed the sea salt from your hair and returned to the rental house with your own small haul of gift shop magnets by the time he stirs awake, groggy and looking worse for wear. “Wha’ time s’it?” he slurs, voice far too deep for you to remain unaffected.

“Just after twelve,” you answer. “I can make you some coffee if you want.”

All you get in response is a muffled groan, Hoseok’s dandelion bed-head disappearing under the fluffy duvet once again. You’ve known him long enough to know that means yes, to know he takes his coffee with far too much cream and sugar, the liquid something close to bone white by the time he’s done adding and mixing.

You set the mug on his nightstand and sit on the edge of the bed, leaning over to peel down the duvet and scratch at his scalp. “Coffee’s ready, sunshine.” Eyes still sealed shut, you move your fingers lower to tickle at his neck. “C’mon, Hobi, you’re pissing away another beautiful day in paradise.” You don’t bother telling him it’s overcast and drizzling; not like it matters, because Hoseok groans again and swats your hand away before shoving his head under his pillow.

He says something you can’t catch, words unintelligible beneath layers of down. “What’d you say?” you ask. When his head pops up, expression frustrated and cheeks flushed red, you poke the dimple in his left cheek. He has to fight off a smile.

“I asked why you’re being so nice to me.”

You frown. “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t I be nice to you?”

Hoseok sighs. Adjusts until he’s sitting up, long, skinny legs tangled in the comforter. Something about his hands is so interesting he’s unable to focus on anything else. “Because I’ve been a dick to you.” When you move to protest, he tacks on, “And not just on this trip, either. For a while.” For a second, you think he might cry. Hoseok used to cry a lot as a kid—had too much empathy for such a small body to know what to do with so all the excess tended to leak out. “God, there was so much I didn’t know? Like your majors? And the yoga? I just…” He trails off, looks lost. Picks up the coffee mug just to do something with his hands. “It feels bad. It just feels really bad.”

You return his sigh, wishing Hoseok was a little less honest. Always the first to put himself out there, be vulnerable, and sometimes it’s nice and sometimes it makes you feel guilty. “It’s okay.”

“It isn’t,” he argues.

You hold up a hand. “I know where you’re coming from, and I get it. I would probably feel bad, too, if I were in your position.” He whimpers, earning a soft laugh from you. “But I’m telling you it’s okay. I don’t blame you, all right? I never have. I don’t lay in bed at night agonizing over it. This isn’t like that for me.”

“Then what’s it like?”

You hum, knowing this is a moment to handle with care. You can’t be reckless here. So you think it over, and you say, “It’s… I don’t think this happened because you don’t care, because I know you do. I know I’m your best friend in every way someone can be your best friend, and you’re my best friend in all the ways someone can be mine. It’s just that those two things look different, is what I’m saying. And I think that’s okay.”

“It’s unbalanced.”

You nod. “Yeah, maybe it is, but sometimes that happens. It hasn’t always been unbalanced.”

This seems to calm him, and his smile is slow, reluctant, but it’s there nonetheless. “Okay.” He exhales the weight of the world. “Okay. I’d still like to be better, though.”

“We have all the time in the world, Seok.”

You normally eat most of your meals with Taehyung and Yoongi anyway, but since your conversation on the beach, Taehyung attaches to you like a limpet.

The first time had been unnerving. He’d cornered you outside the dining hall, stomach rumbling even as he demanded to know everything, please spare nothing, no detail is too small. There hadn’t been much to report, just that the two of you had talked and things were better.

“Did you tell him you’re in lo—” had earned him an elbow to the ribs.

He hasn’t asked again.

But he’s still hard to shake during mealtime, especially breakfast, because he wakes up ready to talk, conversation locked and loaded on his tongue. Yoongi, of course, doesn’t talk at all, so he offloads onto you and Hoseok, who’s too good-natured to ask for some peace and quiet.

“Seokjin asked me last night if water was wet,” he says, spearing a long piece of pineapple on his fork. “Like, obviously it’s wet? It’s water.”

“It isn’t, though,” you argue. “Water is just water. Wet is a state—”

Taehyung, cheeks bulging around the fruit like a hamster, frowns. “Huh? No. California is a state.”

Yoongi faceplants onto the table.

“No, Tae.” You shake your head. “Like, a state of being. Water makes other things wet, but it’s not wet itself.”

His frown deepens. Looks to Yoongi for help, clarification, but he’s still face-down, so he looks to Hoseok instead. He, very steadfastly, says, “She’s weirdly smart, man. I dunno. I’m not arguing with her.”

“Why? Because you’re also—” Another elbow to the ribs. He coughs, makes a very valiant attempt to look cool, calm, and collected. “You’re also very smart, Hoseok,” he amends. “I am very interested in hearing what you have to say.”

“In business, though. I’m not really smart in science stuff.”

“Interesting,” Taehyung muses. “Would you say you’re smart in love?”

Hoseok is good-natured enough to look genuinely confused. “Huh?”

Yoongi finally picks his head up. Sends Taehyung some kind of look that must mean something to only the two of them, because Taehyung just sighs, put-upon, and shoves a piece of cantaloupe in his mouth. He doesn’t talk to Hoseok for the rest of the day.

Two weeks pass in a blur.

The schedule remains the same. Yoga, shared meals, weird quasi-therapy sessions which you have come to realize are just minor cult recruiting, bonfires on the beach. You and Hoseok stay up late talking and barely make it on time to whatever activity you have first thing in the morning. Jimin corners you at least once a week to talk about your “fucked up and frankly demonic” birth chart because he refuses to believe it’s real. Jungkook offers to teach the four of you how to surf but abandons that five minutes into the first session after Yoongi refuses to touch sand and Hoseok nearly passes out from seeing Jungkook shirtless.

…Which Taehyung catches, of course, because he just sidles up alongside you. Says, “Ooh, interesting,” again, in a really smug way, before intercepting Jungkook and leading him far, far away from the beach. You think he winks at you over his shoulder.

Bastard.

But it works, much to your surprise. Of course the two of you have talked it to death, but part of Hoseok’s bid to be better also seems to include being more tactile. Which… is nice, you’ll admit. Hoseok’s fingers are long and slender and perfectly manicured, his hands soft, so it feels nice when they play with your hair or scratch gently at your back or hold your hand, but it also fills you with an anxious kind of dread.

Uncertainty, maybe.

You know how these things work. Forced proximity, only one bed. You’re two-thirds of a psychologist, after all, so you wouldn’t be surprised if Hoseok is just caught up in the moment, at the relief of overcoming an obstacle and making it to the other side. (God knows the bender he’d gone on after graduating business school attests to that.)

Curiously, none of that stops you from leaning into it.

It doesn’t feel weird. It doesn’t feel awkward or strange or anything besides natural. Hoseok’s bare face is the last thing you see before you fall asleep and the first thing you know you’ll see when you wake up, and just having that certainty, that security, makes the early mornings bearable. It makes them something worth looking forward to. It makes all the tension in your body unwind. Makes you pliable, has you laughing freely and leaning into Hoseok’s side during all those meals Taehyung spends talking. Except he’s not talking so much anymore—now, he’s studying. Smiling. Sending little glances only you and Yoongi catch.

Everything comes to a head at another of Seokjin’s weird dinners.

“A question for your discussion,” he begins, and you swear you hear Yoongi groan under his breath. When you look over at him, he’s nonchalantly chewing his food, no indication at all that he made a sound for the first time in two and a half weeks, so you convince yourself you’re hallucinating. “If no one ever sneezed again, how long do you think it’d take you to notice?”

Yoongi must feel you looking this time, because he offers up a dead stare in return. While Taehyung and Hoseok debate their answers—

(“Well, I work in an office, so probably not long.”

“Ah. I work from home, but I think it’d be pretty obvious? Especially during allergy season.”

“Yeah, for sure. It’s one of those things you’d definitely notice. It’s like—you know when you’re cooking and finally turn off the vent hood and the quiet is a little disorienting? It’d be like that, I think. Like, you definitely—”

“You notice something’s absence more than you notice its presence.”

“Yeah! Yes, exactly.”)

—that dead stare of Yoongi’s morphs into something more mischievous, slow like molasses. He catches your eye, winks, and fakes a yawn.

Taehyung startles, like he forgot Yoongi had been sitting next to him the entire time. “Oh, you’ll have to excuse him,” he says, cheeks dusting pink. “Someone told him once he’d been a rock in a past life and it catches up with him every now and then.”

Seokjin lets out a high-pitched giggle, looking absolutely delighted at this. “A rock, huh? Fascinating. Please tell me all about it.”

“Well, I think a lot of people would assume igneous, but that’s always seemed a little shallow to me, you know? I think he’s more metamorphic—”

As Taehyung rambles on, Seokjin turns his attention to you and Hoseok. “What about you two? What do you think you were like in a past life?”

“He had to have been a monk or something,” you declare, poking the crater of one of Hoseok’s dimples. “He’s been hoarding good karma for centuries and cashed it all in for this lifetime.”

“Aish,” Hoseok replies, cheeks matching Taehyung’s as he scratches at the back of his neck. “I don’t know about all that. It’s just luck, isn’t it?”

You look at Hoseok. Really look at him—at the way his lips curl around his teeth as he tries not to laugh at the way Taehyung’s still going on about rocks; at the way he pouts and gags a little whenever he takes a sip of champagne; at the way the stars in his eyes turn to glitter when Seokjin gives him an opening to talk about his dog. You look at Hoseok and you think yeah, it could be luck, but it feels more monumental.

It feels predestined.

And you’re not sure what that means. Of course friendships can feel predestined; you’re not one to discount the importance of platonic relationships. You’re not sure what it means in the context of yours and Hoseok’s friendship. You’re not sure if your stomach hurt back when Hoseok got a girlfriend back in high school because it was predestined to be platonic.

You frown as you swirl the wine around your glass.

Truth be told, you’re not sure about much of anything right now.

“Hey,” Hoseok says, patting your thigh to get your attention. You’re in a dress. A nice one: silk, a slit up the side, drapes perfectly over the lines of your body and clings where it should. Does absolutely nothing to spare you from the heat of Hoseok’s skin through the fabric. “You okay?”

You’re fucked, is what you are.

“Yeah,” you reply, offering what you can only hope is a convincing smile. “Think I drank this a little too fast.”

“Do you want to go back to the house? We don’t have to stay. Taehyung’s still talking about the difference between limestone and sandstone, so I don’t think we’ll miss anything.”

You nod, dropping your voice to a hushed whisper. “Yeah, that might be a good idea. They look like they’re about ten seconds away from mixing up geography and geology and being really offended when I don’t know anything about rocks.”

The two of you stand, and Hoseok’s hand immediately moves to the small of your back. Warm, warm, warm, and you can’t convince yourself it’s the wine that’s making you lightheaded.

“Oh-ho-ho,” Taehyung chimes, looking pleased as punch at the sight of Hoseok’s hand at your back. Throws an elbow into Yoongi’s ribs. He doesn’t even flinch. “And where are the two of you going?”

“Uh, home?” Hoseok answers at the same time you say, “Fuck off, Taehyung,” because your face feels like it’s on fire and you’ve had enough of his ribbing.

Except, as it turns out, some amalgamation of home and fuck off sounds a whole lot like home, to fuck, and Taehyung might’ve been serious about the matchmaking thing, but even this kind of misunderstood forwardness has him choking on his sip of wine. Yoongi slaps at his back in the most patronizing way you’ve ever seen someone try to save another person from choking.

“Is he okay?” Hoseok asks, completely oblivious.

You shrug. “No. In so many ways.”

Through his choking, Taehyung manages a glare. “Takes one to know one,” he childishly responds, and you roll your eyes at the exact moment Seokjin grins and does a little wiggle, starts up a very enthusiastic fight, fight, fight! chant.

The thing is—Taehyung is drunk. You know he’s drunk, so him overriding Seokjin’s chant with one of his own—kiss, kiss, kiss!—certainly excuses and explains his behavior, it does absolutely nothingto extinguish the wildfire that’s sparked in your belly.

It’s a bad idea.

You and Hoseok have kissed before, when you were twelve and he was thirteen and he landed on you during a game of Spin the Bottle. Everyone around you had erupted into excited jeering, but the two of you shared a mortified look before he shuffled over on his hands and knees looking less like he was about to have his first kiss and more like he was being dragged to his death.

Looking back, that had been offensive, but he’d still puckered his lips and kissed the pout off your face all the same.

So it’s a bad idea, and you should tell Taehyung that the two of you have already kissed and to knock it off, because the second time you kiss shouldn’t only be to shut him up, but you’re both a little drunk in general and a lot drunk on the thought of redemption. If you pursed your lips the way he had fifteen years ago, leaned in close enough for him to smell your perfume, would he wear another mortified look? Or would he—

Fuck it, you think.

Because, once he realizes you’re serious, that you’re actually considering kissing him, the look he wears is not mortified. He looks a little awestruck—slightly dumb, if you’re being honest; definitely dazed—and it takes all that wildfire raging in your gut and unleashes it. Inspires just enough confidence to step closer, lean in; close enough to feel the warmth emanating from Hoseok’s skin, but still far enough for him to pull away if he wanted to.

Hoseok doesn’t want to.

And his hands are already at the small of your back, so it’s so easy to pull you closer. So easy to move them to your hips, grip a little tighter just in case you start to drift away. So easy to press his lips to yours and kiss the absolute life out of you.

You've kissed a lot of people over the span of fifteen years. None of them had lips as soft as Hoseok’s.

He must’ve done a lot of kissing, too, because the way he moves his mouth is sinful. Precise and confident, just a tease of his tongue. You can feel his smile against your lips and it nearly makes your knees buckle. Reminds you, more than the taste and smell of him, that it’s Hoseok you’re kissing, and the thought alone has you gripping at his dress shirt.

Any other time he’d complain about the wrinkles.

Not this one, though.

“Are you nervous?”

The question finds you halfway out of your dress. “Not really,” you answer. “I think my strap is stuck.”

A nervous laugh is punched out of him, but he moves to help you nonetheless. Gently touches your arm and spins you around, fingers ghosting along your skin as he untangles the strap and pushes it off your shoulder. The fabric pools on the floor, emerald and glittering, as you step out of it, and you laugh. It’s been three days since you and Hoseok kissed. The two of you have done a lot of kissing since then, and he’s still so hesitant; eyes still widen every time you lean in close, like he can’t believe it.

Hoseok is still so shy.

“Why would I be nervous?” you ask, because keeping him talking is the best way to keep him out of his head. “It’s you.”

He whimpers, like that’s the worst possible reasoning you could’ve given him. “Yeah, that’s exactly why I’m nervous.”

“It’s okay if you are,” you say, turning around to fully face him, and Hoseok looks struck. Torn between the way his nerves are eating him alive and the sight of you in just a pair of lacy panties. “We can do whatever you want, Seok.”

“I—no.” He swallows hard. “No, no, I think—we should definitely… you know.” You quirk an eyebrow. “My dick is fighting for its life right now.”

You dare a glimpse downward. Hoseok’s dick doesn’t look like it’s fighting for its life, outlined and half-hard in his expensive trousers, but what do you know? “Taehyung asked me about your dick once.”

“What.”

“Well, not exactly. He’d asked me if I ever thought about having sex with you—”

Hoseok whimpers again. “Please do not tell me what your answer was.”

“—and I told him you were like a Ken doll.” At his questioning look, you clarify, “You know. Dickless. Smooth from the waist down.”

“Wow. Why would you tell me that? Not gonna lie, it’s a little emasc—”

“I might need to see it. For science.”

Hoseok startles. “M-my dick?”

“Yeah. For science,” you repeat. “Taehyung is gonna be thrilled. He called your dicklessness, and I quote, an L for the gay community.”

Your best friend seems to ponder this. His hands hover uselessly in the air, and it’s ten seconds, twenty—you think he might call the whole thing off, but then he shrugs and undoes his belt, the metal clanky in his haste. “For the gays,” he explains as he pushes his pants down his thighs.

“Of course,” you agree, nodding seriously. “They deserve it.”

“What else did Taehyung say?”

“Nothing much. Just that we need to get our shit together because we’re wasting some really good windows to fuck against.”

Hoseok doesn’t fuck you against the windows the first time.

The first time is slow and unhurried. Because it’s Hoseok, he lights a candle and the two of you take your time touching, learning, shaking off the dregs of apprehension. He flushes crimson and nearly does a runner anytime something goes less than perfectly, and it’s so endearing you have to stop yourself from sinking through the mattress under the weight of all your affection.

The second time is all raw, desperate need. After a day of sly smiles reserved only for you, Hoseok meets you in the bathroom at the end of another night. There’s a spot of toothpaste on your sleep shirt that he disregards at the sight of your bare legs. His eyes meet yours in the mirror and then there’s only enough time for anticipation to start simmering beneath your skin before he’s moving.

(Technically, the third time is only a few hours later. Just like it has everyday since you arrived, your alarm goes off at six sharp, time for yoga, but instead of ushering you out of bed, Hoseok hits the snooze button and pulls you closer. Fits himself to your back and slides your panties to the side, speaks an is this okay? in his impossibly deep morning voice, and then you’re nodding your head and he’s pushing inside.)

Now, though—

Nerves have been shaken off. Another weird dinner has been sat through to which you’d worn a two-piece outfit, the top cropped just enough to show off a strip of skin—modest enough for the motley crew you share your evenings with, but apparently scandalous enough to drive Hoseok insane. He’s all barely-contained energy beside you, hand gripping your thigh, not paying a lick of attention to the conversation.

You lean over, speak the question just below his ear. “You okay?” Goosebumps erupt all over his skin.

“We need to leave right now.”

“Really? Why? You aren’t having a good time?”

Hoseok makes you pay for your smart mouth. Has you pressed against the expanse of windows in your bedroom, stripped down to just your underwear and the top he insisted you keep on, only your shoulders pressed against the glass. Presses wet, open-mouth kisses along your calves, the sensitive skin of your inner thighs, and then he’s canting your hips forward to nip at you over your underwear. More silk and lace—thin enough to feel the warmth of his breath, then nothing but warmth when he licks a stripe up your folds, spit seeping through the fabric.

“Fuck.”

He does it once, twice more before he leans back, refuses to meet your gaze. Your brows furrow because your hands are tangled in his hair, tugging as you try to get him to look up at you, wanting to see the evidence of your arousal on his face, but then he’s smirking out of the side of his mouth, hands reaching for your underwear.

You register the cold air of the room on your skin before the sound of fabric ripping.

Then you’re saying, “What the fuck, Hobi, did you just—” and he’s laughing as he nods, not a care in the world except getting his mouth back on you. He licks and sucks until you’re nearly trembling with the need to come, begging him to let you, and you think if you were anyone else he’d drag it out longer. Make you beg a little more. But regardless of whatever he’s told himself over the years in order to cope, Hoseok can’t deny you anything, so he presses two fingers inside, right on the spot that whites out your vision.

He touches himself to the sight of your orgasm.

Rolls the condom on. Runs his cock through your folds, tells you to slick him up. As he presses inside again, crowding close, breath fogging the glass behind you, he tells you to thank Taehyung for the idea.

You’re gonna have to thank him for a whole lot more than that.

In hindsight, you should’ve known Namjoon was nothing more than a dirty little schemer.

There’s three days left of your stay, and the question had been nagging at you ever since you cut through the reception area to get to the meditation class you were running late for. Jimin, of course, gave you shit for it: wordlessly, because he was busy checking in a man with far too much luggage. A man who was checking in alone, and that was not a thing, so far as you were aware, so your curiosity was to be expected.

“Can I just ask,” you say, once again in Jimin’s strange little room behind the beaded curtain. “Why a couple’s retreat?”

“Huh?”

“Isn’t it less effective for Seokjin’s weird cult? Like, statistically speaking, you’ve got to be more likely to recruit single people, right?”

“Huh?”

You blink. “What part is confusing you? And don’t say the cult, because I had that pegged on, like, day three.”

“No,” Jimin agrees quickly, “Seokjin is definitely officiating a cult. I just—why do you think this is a couple’s retreat?”

“Uh, because Namjoon said it was? That’s why me and Hoseok are faking being a couple—”

“Were. Were faking.”

“—and it just sort of made sense, considering the people who showed up after us were literally a couple.”

Jimin sighs, schools his expression to the one he always uses when he has to be condescending and speak to you as if you’re a woefully stupid child. “I don’t know who Namjoon is, but I’m assuming he lied in order to get you two to do… exactly what you’ve done.”

“What.”

“This isn’t a couple’s retreat, buttercup, just a regular ol’ wellness one.”

“That Seokjin also uses as his cult recruitment headquarters.”

“Yep.”

“I feel betrayed.”

“Pisces usually do.”

“Excuse me—”

“You’re excused,” he dismisses, shooing you out of his closet.

Despite his innocent nature, Hoseok isn’t nearly as shocked as you to learn Namjoon deceived him.

That’s life, I guess, was all he’d said, the picture of comfort and nonchalance as he lounged in bed, wrapped in a fluffy robe, arm behind his head like a king. You had been shocked—no longer at the betrayal, but at Hoseok’s quick acceptance of it. Hoseok from a month ago would’ve been flustered and on the brink of a meltdown. Hoseok today just shrugs it off.

“I’m just saying.” He dangles a stem of grapes over his mouth like an asshole. “Jimin called it a wellness retreat, right? I didn’t get roped into Seokjin’s cult and we’re… well, whatever we are, so a win is a win. Seems like wellness to me.”

“Whatever we are,” you mimic, pitching Hoseok’s voice up a dozen octaves. “Wow, how romantic.”

Hoseok rolls his eyes, pats the spot next to him on the bed. “If you’d like to come over here, we can have the highly-anticipated ‘what are we’ discussion that no one in the history of human relationships has ever once dreaded having.”

You wave him off. “No need. It’s you, and I trust you, so I don’t think we’re going to go back home and you’re going to write this off as a weird forced proximity thing and ghost me.” You finish the application of your facemask, laughing to yourself at Hoseok’s offended scoff. “Besides, constantly having to defend you from Rose Emoji and Hammer and Sickle Twitter is the pinnacle of devotion and love. That’s the kinda shit that forms a trauma bond.”

“For my peace of mind, then.”

“Fine. Hoseok, I love you dearly as my best friend and I’m probably halfway in love with you as a romantic partner, and even though this vacation has been incredible and rewarding and you are very good at sex, I am also very much looking forward to having my own space again because you are almost impossible to live with.” You roll your lips at the sour expression marring his face. “That said: you still owe me dinner at the Brazilian spot near your office, so I would like it very much if you took me there as a date. You can tell Namjoon I’m your girlfriend if you wish.”

“And are you?”

“Ugh. Of course I am, Hobi. What do you take me for? You think I’m the kind of woman who agrees to spend a month in the rainforest and almost get roped into some sketchy cult with anyone who asks?”

“Well, I don’t know! Maybe!”

“You’re impossible. Do you want to be my boyfriend or not?”

At this, Hoseok’s face lights up so bright it puts the sun to shame. Smiles so big you can hardly believe it. “I would love nothing more.”

During your last group meal, Seokjin invites the new guy to join you.

Taehyung is enthralled immediately, gesturing for him to take the empty seat to his left. “Hello, nice to meet you! I’m Kim Taehyung and this is Min Yoongi. Are you here for the wellness retreat part or the cult part?”

Seokjin chokes on a slice of mango.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kim Taehyung. I’m Park Bogum,” the man responds. “I’m here for the cult part.”

Seokjin promptly stops choking.

Saying goodbye to this place, these people, is bittersweet.

The last four weeks have undoubtedly been the weirdest of your life, but they’ve more than made up for it with what you’ve been given in return: a blossoming relationship with Hoseok, Taehyung and Yoongi’s friendship. Even Jimin and Jungkook come to see you off, and Jimin surprises you by wrapping you in a tight hug, assuring you that you’ll still be his second-favorite Pisces long after you’re gone.

“Wow, rude. Who’s the first?”

“Yoongi.”

“Yoongi? How is he your favorite? He doesn’t talk!”

Jimin smirks, smug and patronizing. “Exactly. Have a safe trip, buttercup.”

Jungkook, on the other hand, doesn’t say much at all. You suspect he showed up only to look hot and catapult Hoseok into his final sexuality crisis, and that suspicion is confirmed when he leans against the wall and pushes his hair away from his forehead. The sound that comes out of Hoseok is part whimper, part pain and suffering, and truly catastrophic for his ego.

“Get it together,” you plead, but it falls on deaf ears. Hoseok is in a Jungkook-induced haze until you’re halfway to the airport, Taehyung chattering the entire way.

And then—

And then.

“Well, that was fucking weird, huh?” Yoongi asks.

Hoseok is running late.

He’s gotten better at equalizing his work-life balance since returning from your trip, but he still gets held up sometimes. A lot to catch up on, he’d said, and you can understand that. He’d spent his first week back doing nothing but haranguing Namjoon, so that surely ate up a lot of time.

Still, he’s never been quite this late.

The waitstaff are looking at you with concern. They used to look at you only to see if your water needed topping up, so this is an unfortunate development, especially for someone who looks as you currently do. Any person in this overpriced Brazilian steakhouse would be honored to even sit at the same table as you, let alone be able to call you their date, so Hoseok really has a lot of nerve.

You’re halfway to telling him as much over a very angry text message when he appears in front of you, face flushed, chest heaving, hairline dotted with sweat. “Sorry I’m late,” he apologizes, leaning down to press a kiss to your cheek. “Got a little caught up.”

“No shit,” you whisper-yell, “that waiter over there looked like he was about ready to call the cops on me. I probably can’t even afford the water in this place.”

Hoseok grimaces. “In my defense, I have a very good reason.”

“Oh yeah?” you retort, crossing your arms over your chest. “And what is that?”

Wordlessly, Hoseok hands over a garishly orange shopping bag emblazoned with a very familiar logo and brand name. Suddenly, it feels impossible to breathe. “You didn’t. Hobi, tell me you didn’t—”

“You know how much bullshit you have to go through for one of those things? God, I had to put in a request. Not to mention it was like fourteenseparate credit checks…”

You tune him out. Instead, you peek inside the bag with what you can only describe as pure dread. Not at the implication, because that has you thrumming with joy and affection, but at the cost of—

“You got me a Birkin.”

Hoseok looks at you like you’ve sprouted a second head. “Um. That’s what you said you wanted, right?”

“You said you weren’t spending that much money on anyone who isn’t your future spouse.”

The look doesn’t budge. “Yeah? I’m clearly not following.”

“When did you put in the request?” If your voice is audibly waterlogged, Hoseok doesn’t mention it, but you can feel the tears pooling at your lash line nonetheless.

The confusion finally clears and gives way to another brilliant smile. A little bashful, too, because he hides behind the menu and refuses to look at you. Says something you don’t catch, can’t hear over the dim chatter of this restaurant, and he groans in pleased faux-annoyance when you tell him to repeat himself.

“I said… I put it in the night you kissed me.”

It feels like you’ve been punched in the chest. “You’ve known that long?”

And Hoseok—Hoseok ducks behind the menu again, but this time you can hear him loud and clear: “I’ve known a lot longer than that.”

author's note pt. 2: if you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading! i really hope you enjoyed this. as always, any reblogs are greatly appreciated and my inbox is always open for feedback. ♡

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