What? Were You Imagining Something A Little Bit More Formal?

《“What? Were you imagining something a little bit more formal?”》

*sighs*

Will there ever be a point where I am not impressed by you and your words, Willow?

I read this during the summer, and this was actually the story I hinted in my last reblog of yours. To be honest, I’m not sure why I thought that this might have put me in an even more coherent state because right now, my mind is fuzzy with the thoughts of this park scene and maybe what might’ve happened at the movie theatre👀. But I’m also not going to let my mind stray too far off because those are dangerous thoughts, and I’m trying to make it through the day in one piece, haha!

Amazing, beautiful, sultry, and funny are just a few words that have come across my mind while and after reading this, and it is with great pleasure (or maybe pain?) that I will be thinking about this for a while.

Thank you so much, Willow. You are such a talented person, and your mind is filled with the most beautiful constellations and creations. Sending you my love (for the billionth time)💕

"I just want to please you" + "this wasn't supposed to happen this way"

Namjoon and yn, at the park

incredible, nonnie

DATE NIGHT 

wc: 301 rating: explicit warnings: public sex, handjob

“This wasn’t—”

He chokes on the word. He chokes on it, his throat closing around the phrase, his head thrown back in pleasure, his eyes squeezed shut. He even bites his lip to keep the words — more like sounds at this point — from spilling out of his throat.

He always was a little too controlled, you think, and then you squeeze your grip a little tighter and he cries out. The groan is soft and delicious and you want to drink it up.

“Hm? What were you saying?” You tease, your words hardly above a whisper. “It wasn’t what?”

“This wasn’t supposed to happen this way,”  he spits out through gritted teeth.

“What? Were you imagining something a little bit more formal?”

“We’re in a fucking—ngh—park!”

Your hand is now twisting up and down his shaft and you can tell he’s close, his breath drawn shabbily through his throat, eyes clenched shut, knuckles turning white.

“You ought to be quieter,” you whisper. “In case anyone else notices.”

“It’s a little hard—  when you’re doing it like that.”

“I just wanted to please you,” you say softly.

It’s something about your voice that does it for him. With a hardly covered groan he cums, filling your hand with his seed. You give him a moment. Let his breath return to normal, his eyes blink open to the summer sun beating down on you both.

“Fuck,” he hisses, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t think I’ve ever cum that fast.”

“You’ve got a bit of an exhibitionist streak, huh?”

He just grins sheepishly at you.

“C’mon,” you say, grabbing a wipe from your bag and cleaning off your hand before offering it to him, helping him to his feet. “Let’s finish our date, shall we? What’s next? A movie?”

《"In this quiet moment, with his soft strands between your fingers it becomes impossibly clear to you that you love him and that you need to tell him, even though it scares you beyond anything. Because after uttering these three little words, there’s no going back for you. With these words out in the open, that’s it for you. You will have to haunt him until his dying day probably. You don’t see it playing out any other way."》

I feel as though I deserve a standing ovation or a gold medal for being the slowest reader at this moment because, my goodness! I’ve been sitting on my thoughts about this chapter for a month (cross out) a while now, and I feel like now I’m beginning to get myself out of a mental block, and I’m very glad that I’m able to write reviews again. Especially to you, my friend.

Experiencing this chapter, well, more specifically, Walpurgisnacht again from a different lens, brings a bit of light to this dark period. The relationship that had been building up since the beginning is now at a peak, and they are able to have each other in a way that didn’t feel possible before due to the fear of uncharted territory and what uncovering the unknown would mean for them later on. For lack of better words, everything seemed pretty intangible, but now you bring a sense of establishment that I really love.

In terms of Walpurgisnacht, as you wrote, Taehyung and the main character were more prepared for it this time, and I enjoyed its build-up. The bittersweetness of it all lingered throughout longing touches and caresses. Their love was never lost as they entangled themselves throughout the moments before in their anxiousness. Their intimacies were heightened through the knowledge that no matter what form the main character is in, they will meet each other again, and that in itself is so incredibly beautiful.

There is another level of assurance, trust, and conviction between these two as well that is so incredibly beautiful, and I really admire how you played into that with the flickering lights. It was a small touch, but something that held a lot of weight, and in addition to that, there was the image of Taehyung continuing to talk to the main character and carry on as if nothing had changed which was so evocative. It's easy, so easy, to fall into this world with them, so I can only imagine how it felt for them to realize how much they had fallen for each other throughout these moments you shared with us.

Another point that I enjoyed reading was the parallelism of their thoughts and the little moments where they were so close to saying those three little words, and the way it happened was incredibly soft and heartwarming. I've been seeing people online say that being in love feels warm and safe, and though I've never been in love, I know that they had fallen for each other way before this moment. Everything just snowballed perfectly, and the way you wrote these two characters and their story is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. It's exciting, heartwarming, emotional yet beautiful.

If I’m being honest, I am excited yet nervous to finally read the last chapter. Maybe that’s a part of the reason as well that I’ve been a bit quieter than usual. Nevertheless, I have really enjoyed this series, and I’m looking forward to reading everything else that I have on my list from you.

Thank you for sharing your talent with the world, August. You are incredible. See you soon!!!💕

my tears ricochet #11 | kth

#11 my tears ricochet

word count: 2064 words

series: my tears ricochet [masterlist]

summary: sometimes you’re a little afraid of the words stuck in your throat. also: what is up with yoongi?

pairing: ghost!reader x taehyung

genre: ghost!AU, roommate!AU, fluff / angst / crack

warnings for this series: (still kinda) sfw  // it’s a ghost story, so death will be touched upon // questionable ghost mythology //  language (curse words)

chapter warnings: curse words, some angst, they are stupidly in love, inappropriate comparisons to dough, there are tears in this, everyone is crying except for yoongi

beta read by the loveliest @snackhobi​ (thank you!!!)

A/N: WE’RE ALMOST THERE! A small announcement though: I lied: the last part is technically not really an epilogue, narratively speaking, but rather a “real” chapter. Also: It’ll be out Friday in two weeks and not next week, sorry. I hope you like this chapter, please let me know, if you do. With love, your insecure af writer.

#9 no, i’m not a snack at all – #epilogue: tell me how to live (tell me how to die)

Time passes, months fly. Walpurgisnacht comes and goes, and you vanish and you reappear. It fucks him up a little less.

Keep reading

Now or Never (Kim Namjoon x F!Reader)

Pairing: Surgeon!Namjoon x Surgeon!Reader

Genres: tooth-rotting fluff

AUs: Medical AU, Established Relationship AU

Word count: 1.2k

Tags/trigger warnings: mentions of blood and surgery, otherwise just cuteness and Trivia:Love being the most perfect song ever

Ratings: sfw, g

Summary: Move over McDreamy, Dr. NamSwoon is on the scene.

A/N: Happy birthday to the one, the only, my beloved Namjoon! I love this man so much, so I had to combine him being the most perfect and swoonworthy human along with one of the most romantic moments to air on network TV: MerDer’s Post-It wedding. Their vows to each other include a combination of MerDer’s vows from season 5 episode 24, Burke’s vows to Cristina in season 3 episode 25, and Trivia:Love lyrics to make the perfect heart-stopping combo. I wrote this while watching Grey’s in the car, all credits go to Shonda Rimes and Namjoon for being geniuses tho.

Banner was made by me (graphic design is my passion!) Crossposted to AO3 here.

The high pitched “ping” of your pager echoes through the empty break room. Letting out a groan, you sink to the floor. Would you ever be able to catch a break these days? Life as a surgeon seemed non-stop, limitless, and all-consuming. Every day brought on the thrill of exciting new cases and saving lives, but you found yourself missing those quiet moments that brought stability and security in your life. The moments that helped show you that you had a home and a life to go back to. Which is why today, of all days, was so important.

You hear the soft click of the door unlocking behind you as footsteps tap on the tile floor.

“Are you ready to go?” a deep voice asks. Turning around, you’re met with a sight for sore eyes: Namjoon in a perfectly pressed midnight blue suit and tie, hair gelled back, dimples popping as he greets you with a smile. He holds out your coat and dress towards you.

You look towards him listlessly, sadness filling your eyes.

“I just got a page right now, that patient we saw before needs to go back into surgery,” you sigh, showing him the blinking red light.

“I know,” Namjoon reaches out a hand to rest on your slumped shoulders. “The CT showed a re-bleed. I’ll page Yoongi and ask him to take care of it.”

“Oh no, really? You should go back in and check then,” you respond, gently pushing him towards the door.

“I would, but then I have to go check in on Jungkook’s mother after she had that terrible fall. He says he doesn’t trust anyone but me to take care of her. Maybe we can both do that together and then go to city hall,” he explains softly.

“No,” you groan. “Because then we have the board meeting afterwards for the hospital. You know Taehyung is going to chew our heads off if we’re not there to protect him from the wrath of his parents and the entire board of trustees.”

Running through the various ways to tackle the situation at hand, you resign yourself to another chaotic day on the job.

“How about,” you respond, thoughts running at the speed of light, “we tell the nurses and the team to prep the patient, we’ll run to city hall and do it once we come back.”

“___,” Namjoon begins, but you press a finger to his lips to cut him off.

“There’s no time, Namjoon,” you shush. “We have to get moving. We’ll go to city hall, come back, you’ll check on Jungkook’s mom, I’ll go hype up Taehyung and tell him that he’s going to be the next head of pediatric surgery, no matter what his parents say, and then we’ll tackle the patient-“

“___,” Namjoon grips you by the shoulders. “We can always do this some other day.”

“There is no other day!” you yell exasperatedly, waving your hands in the air. “Every day is like this. I love you, and I do want to marry you today, but there is no time.”

Namjoon catches your wrist in the air, enclosing his large palm over your own. He takes a step towards you, bringing his other hand to rest on your cheek.

“___,” he says, his deep voice rumbling gently. “Can you find me a piece of paper?”

“Namjoon,” you groan, frustrated that he’s not taking this as seriously as you are. There’s no time for these antics, the two of you had countless surgeries and follow-ups waiting on your schedule. “For what?”

“We made a promise that we wanted to commit the rest of our lives to each other. To do that, we need to makes vows to each other. Marriage is a commitment, and it’s a contract. Who says we need to be somewhere specific to sign it together?”

You roll your eyes at how stark and serious he seems to be in this moment. This is far from even the modest city hall wedding the two of you had managed to squeeze into your busy schedules. Reaching into the pocket of your white coat, you rustle around the pens and highlighters and gum wrappers to find a stack of Post-It notes. The soft, happy glint in his eyes manages to bring a small smile to your face.

Namjoon lets out an exhausted groan as he slumps back into one of the plastic chairs, dragging you into his lap with him.

“Ok,” he breathes softly, taking the Post-Its from your hand. “Now let’s make our promises.”

Taking the pen from your pocket, your messy scrawl adorns the Post-It as you read aloud your words.

“Promise that we’ll always love each other, even when we hate each other. No running, no walking out on each other. That we’ll take care of each other, even if one of us becomes old and senile, and has to spend their life on a hospital bed.”

Namjoon’s eyes fill with tears as he listens to you speak the words aloud, smiling as you don’t even notice that your voice begins to crack when you make this covenant. Reaching out, he brushes the frizzy strands of hair that have fallen loose from your hairstyle out of your face.

“My turn,” he whispers, taking the pen from your hands, and turning over to a new Post-It as he hands you yours.

He quickly scrawls two words on the Post-It, the black Hangul lettering causing you to raise your eyebrows at what he could possibly mean.

“___,” he chokes out, eyes becoming misty. “You make I to an O, you make live to a love. In Korean, 사람 (saram) is the word for person, and 사랑 (sarang), is the word for love. You were the person that taught me how to love. I live so I can love you today, and every day we’ve had before, and every day we’ll have after. I’m a surgeon: I stitch bodies together and take them apart, I hold people’s heart in my hands. And today, I promise to give you my heart, and lay it in your palms. You’re my person.”

“This is forever,” he finishes, signing his name at the bottom the post it and holding it out to you.

“This is it then, huh?” you smile, scribbling your name next to his. “A wedding on a Post-It?”

“And now, I can kiss the bride,” Namjoon’s palms cup your jaw, leaning in as your lips meet, and pure euphoria floods your veins at the thought that this brilliant man is finally yours.

Namjoon lovingly sticks both Post-Its into your respective cubbies, just in time for the loud knocking on the door of the break room to cause the both of you to jolt.

“Namjoon! ___!” Yoongi’s gruff voice calls out. “Where have the two of you been?”

Namjoon creaks open the door, slipping on his white coat over his suit as he ushers you outside.

Yoongi’s face is stern, but his eyes sparkle with mirth at the discovery of catching you both alone in there.

Giving Yoongi a wink, Namjoon slips an arm around your waist and leads you away, making sure to turn back and tell his older colleague:

“That’s Dr. and Dr. Kim to you now, Dr. Min.”

A/N pt. 2: Happy birthday again to Namjoon - I'm so thankful for his existence and leadership in Bangtan everyday, he's absolutely wonderful. Thanks for reading! As always, any feedback or comments are much appreciated, but I appreciate you all anyway. Lots of love, Isi 💜

I Don’t Like A Gold Rush || Jungkook

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Summary: Jungkook is the golden boy, an excellent student, the star of you college’s football team. Rumor has it, there’s simply nothing he can’t do. The same cannot be said about you, but you’ve never had an issue with that. You’re happy with your small group of friends and your lack of talent in sports. And then, Jin befriends Jungkook, and you find yourself spending a lot of time with him. Before you know it, you’ve taken an interest in him — and you’re sure you shouldn’t. There’s no way this can end well for you… right?

Also available on Ao3.

Word count: 17.3k

Genre: College AU, strangers to lovers, slice of life, mostly fluff

Warnings & Tags: discussed insecurities, alcohol consumption, reader almost has a panic attack at some point, shy jungkook, jungkook is bad at Feelings, Reader is bad at feelings too, mutual pining kinda, Jungkook has long hair, sfw, New Year’s Day themed.

A/N: I don’t know how I would name my stories without Taylor Swift. Anyway, this is more or less centered around the New Year (it was supposed to be more and then… it didn’t happen), and I hope you’ll enjoy it! Happy New Year everyone!

The first time you hear Jungkook’s name, it’s in the sentence “Man, is there anything Jungkook can’t do?”. You look up at your friend Jin from the book you’re studying. You have no idea who Jungkook is, but that doesn’t mean anything. Jin is always complaining about how you don’t know anyone on the campus, which you think is quite unfair.

…but then you really don’t know that many people on the campus.

“What’s going on?” you ask him, because he sounds extremely annoyed, and he shows you his phone. On it, there is a score for a basketball game. You think.

Your college is famous for its basketball team… Right?

“Uh-uh,” you still say with a nod, trying to make it look like you have any idea what you’re talking about.

“This kid is crushing it at school, the girls love him, and now this!” Jin complains, a little too loud, and shushing noises come from a spot behind you. You turn around to give the group an apologetic look. “I really shouldn’t have bet against him.”

Ah, there you know what to say.

“You really need to stop making bets. You never win them.”

Jin glares at you.

“And you are a terrible friend. You’re supposed to comfort me!”

“I’ll comfort you when you stop making the worst choices imaginable,” you mutter, going back to your work. Jungkook’s name, his supposed excellence, and that basketball match — if it even is basketball — leave your mind as fast as they entered it, without leaving a trace behind.

Keep reading

sh. | ot7 | chapter nine

PAIRING ot7 x reader

RATING Explicit. 18+.

GENRE smut. fluff. angst. nonidol au. wildnerness au. roommates au. friends to lovers.

SUMMARY Six months of quarantine have kept you apart. Somehow the distance sparks something new in each of you: questions, unfinished conversations, threads once chased now left cold. So when your roommate invites you to come with him to a mysterious house in the mountains with your friends, how could you even think of saying no?

WC 4.5k

WARNINGS AND TAGS nudity. exhibitionism. angst. no use of pronouns for reader. untimely erection. cuddling. sexual dreams.

← || series m.list || →

AN Lyrics from "Boy Meets Evil." Big thanks to M @madseok for this beautiful image used in today's banner. and of course to the ever-incredible betas: @thatlongspringnight and @calixwrites. i literally cannot conceptualize how my brain would function without you. thank you for helping me realize this story.

Also, HAPPY ONE YEAR OF SH.! I can't believe it. Thank you for coming along for the ride. I appreciate all of you so, so much. anyways, lets get this bread. If you enjoy this chapter, I'd love to hear what you think <3

CHAPTER NINE

Light spills out from beneath the door before you. Tonight, even the abyss below the glass-floored hallway doesn’t raise the hair on the back of your neck. Instead, it’s the light, it’s the door—no,—it’s the man waiting on the other side that sends a shiver down your spine. With a shaky breath you press the door open, walking straight into the unknown.

Enter: silence.

You’re not sure what you expected. Hoseok, waiting eagerly for you?

Instead, just the homey scene before you: Hoseok, wrapped up in a blanket before the fire, one arm poking out of the comfy mess and balancing a heavy book. He’s got a pen gripped between his teeth.

“Hey you, where were you?” he mumbles around the pen, not even looking up.

“The library.”

“Find anything interesting?”

“Ah, um—” You can’t help but think of the erotic image you saw earlier. Your face flushes with heat at the thought of those eight tangled bodies, pleasure drawn across their faces, hands gripping onto anything and everything in reach. The hands, oh, the hands, everywhere. “Picture books. And Jin.”

“Excellent pairing,” he says, a chuckle in his voice.

He keeps looking at his book.

You sigh. It’s been a long day. Maybe now’s not the time for this. Maybe now’s the time to crawl into bed and wrap yourself up with a nice warm man, an untethered voice in your head calls out. But the so-called warm man is currently busy with what must be the most engaging book in the whole world.

With a sigh, you make your way over to the wardrobe, opening it and begin to get undressed, combing through your thoughts, picking through the day.

What a day.

First the conversation with Yoongi, then Jungkook in the kitchen, Namjoon in the library, and finally that creepy fucking bear. All at once you feel the exhaustion hit you. It feels like it’s been five years since you got out of bed this morning.

Your mind, body, and heart all feel heavy and tired.

“Oh, shit, sorry, I—”

Hobi’s voice breaks through the grey reverie.

It’s then that you realize the door to the wardrobe barely covers your form and that you’re in direct view of Hoseok as you undress.

“I can leave and give you privacy,” he says quickly.

“No—”

“No?”

The two of you stop and stare at one another for a moment. You reach to pull your pajamas out of the wardrobe, searching for the right words.

Hoseok begins tapping a rhythm on the arm of the chair, a soft, nervous padpadpad. Your heart rate is rioting through your body, but when you listen, it matches the same tapping as Hoseok’s tic.

“I told you it’s okay to look, right?”

“Right, um. You did say that.”

Expressing that, god, it feels so awkward, you wish you could swallow your words right back up into silence, but you can’t, you won’t, and then, then he’s looking at you like that, not at your body, but at you, eyes burning like the fire that’s smoking behind him.

His fingers still.

And suddenly you are shy, wishing you didn’t have half a tit peeking out of your shirt. Your cheeks warm, and he notices, coughs, and looks away.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” you say. “I—” Deep breath. “I like it.”

It surprises you when it spills out, the truth of it.

“Oh.” Hobi glances up at your eyes one more time and there’s a secret smile dancing on his lips, one that you want to pocket for later, one that warms your chest. And then he returns to his book.

Jesus, now what the fuck was that?

You keep your eyes locked on the floor as you adjust your sleep clothes and pad barefoot to the bathroom. Your nightly routine disappears in a blur of mental fog and half-formed daydreams of bodies pressed closely against one another like the secrets might slip out if they were to allow themselves any space.

Somehow, you get everything done and wake up from the fog, staring at yourself in the mirror. It’s the same face that you stared back into every morning of quarantine. It’s the same face you know.

But now there’s something new flickering beneath the surface: fear. Hope. Desire. Exhaustion. You look older, in the way that experience can carve a person out of a body. You look sharper, the depth of everything you’ve experienced, swimming beneath your skin, bringing you to the surface.

After everything, you’re tired.

So tired. You just want to crawl into bed and scootch close to Hobi’s warmth. Maybe let him wrap an arm around you. So that, you decide, is what you’ll do.

Arms wrapped tightly across your chest, you return to the bedroom, only to find that Hobi hasn’t moved.

“Hobi?”

He doesn’t turn around, just hums.

“Hoseok.”

“Yeah?” He’s still engaged in his book.

“Aren’t you coming to bed?”

He doesn’t look up from his book.

“Yeah, soon.”

You move closer. He’s got a book, but he’s also scribbling in it. You peek over his shoulder and before he can notice, rest your head on his shoulder. He jumps at the touch, like you’ve shocked him, and then relaxes, leaning his head into yours. In the margins, his scrawling handwriting flows. Heavy-handed, but more words than you think he should be writing for simple marginalia. And lines, line breaks.

“What, are you some sort of poet now?” It’s a joke, but his ears redden. “Oh! You are!”

“Not a poet, I guess. But I’m writing. Writing lines.” He closes the book before you can read anything of significance.

“A poet!” you sing and pluck the book from his hands.

“Hey!” Hoseok laughs.

You spin away from him, holding the book over your head, and sprint to the bed, giggling. For a moment this level of comfort, it feels like comfort, it feels like no time has passed between you.

You flop on your back onto the mattress and open to a random page, prepared to read some old-timey poet of years gone by in a dramatic retelling. But instead, you find Hoseok’s handwriting and the words lift off the page.

“Hey give it!”

You ignore him and instead focus on the book. His handwriting sprawls across the page:

“Surrounded by people’s stares that can’t be touched I am getting out of breath at the twisted reality, I close my eyes every night, the music box of tragedy echoes

But to be free from this crime, it’s impossible to forget it, to give up.

Because those lips were too sweet.”

“Oh.” You breathe. “You are a poet. What’s that all about?”

You’re about to spin into a rant about just how beautiful the words on the page are when hands wrap around your ankles and you’re tugged down the bed.

“Hey!” You giggle as Hoseok crawls over you. His face is well warmed with embarrassment but there’s something darker, more meaningful swirling in his gaze. Your breath freezes in your throat when he settles above you, hands on either side of your head, looking down at you. The words of Yoongi’s proposal spring to the forefront of your mind then—suddenly—

It’s hard not to imagine him in the same position but in a different context. His shirt, loose from years of wearing it, swings low, revealing his chest. His face, pressed in concentration, his body,wrung tight in devotion, focus, oh. Your heart is racing too quickly. You set the words aside. Later, you tell yourself. This isn’t the right time.

You clutch the book tight to your chest.

“Give it back.” There’s a kind of nervous stillness, like a doe, unsure if she should bolt or stare straight into danger, in him that inspires the same in you.

Still, you push. “Say please,” you insist.

Silence hangs for a long moment before he speaks.

“Please.” He rolls his eyes, but there’s a quirk of a shy smile in the corner of his mouth.

“Alright, but only because you asked so nicely.”

When you offer, Hoseok snatches the book out of your grasp and retreats to his chair again.

You’re left sitting on the bed.

Something like a tense silence settles over the room, electric, the air between you and Hoseok full of unspoken words. Unspoken want?

The day before you has been so long, so full, and yet you can’t help but think on the half answered questions and begun-but-not-finished conversations. They ring in your head like eager bells, yearning for answers, for closures, for the silence of a period at the end of a sentence. Hoseok, the ultimate question mark.

Staring at the ceiling, you lie there for a long while before it becomes too much.

“Hoseok.” The word splits the silence. “Come to bed.”

He looks up at you. Really looks. His gaze lingers perhaps a moment too long, and then he nods.

It’s a slow process, Hoseok getting ready for bed, and it feels like he takes his time. Like he’s shy or hesitant or— you dare not think what else. When he does finally climb into bed, he reaches over to shut off the light immediately. The room plunges into darkness.

“Goodnight,” he says quickly.

You ignore it.

You’re going to tell him. You’re going to repunctuate one of the hundreds of questions from the day with a period and you’re going to tell him that this whole proposal isn’t so wild, it isn’t so crazy, because it’s already there. That connection. That experience. That electricity. And you’re going to tell him that the only mistake back in January was not holding onto him tighter and longer right before the world ended.

“I don’t think it’s so wild, you know,” you blurt out.

“What?”

“Yoongi’s proposal.”

Hobi is silent for a long minute. “I know.”

“You know?” You’re a little shocked by his answer.

“Yeah, I mean, he’s not wrong. There is chemistry there. Yoongi’s never been one to incorrectly read a room.”

Your heart skips in your throat.

“What do you mean?”

“Like, I can’t deny it. I’m not the only one who feels it.” He says it so assuredly.

You don’t want to say anything, dare you let the whole moment collapse around you.

“You didn’t fall asleep on me, did you,” he asks, playfully mocking your pause. Still, there’s a genuine, nervous question in his prompt.

“No, I’m awake,” you whisper into the darkness. “I’m just...processing. I don’t know what the right thing to say here is.”

“Well, maybe there’s just not a right thing to say,” Hoseok says sagely. “What is it?”

“I mean. I’ve thought about it.”

“You have?”

“Same as you,” you add, cheeks warming in embarrassment as you think of what you’ve revealed.

The next thing Hobi says makes you suck in a quick breath:

“And have you thought about me?”

When a million thoughts flutter like falling leaves in your mind, rather than to sort through them, your impulse is to say no, hum a goodnight, and turn your back to him. But the ache in your chest wants to reach for him, wants to take his hand and thread your fingers through his, but maybe that’s too much maybe it’s always too much, so instead you whisper: “Yes.”

He doesn’t hesitate. “And what have you thought?”

“That words don’t work for you,” you say.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” There’s a laugh in his voice, but an ache in his eyes.

“I don’t know.”

“Try.”

You look at him for a long time, like you might find your answer within his features. And then you roll on your back. Look up at the ceiling instead.

“Well. I suppose. You’re so many things at once — in the most beautiful way possible — but it can make it so that… that— I don’t know where to look. Where to begin.”

He looks back at you confused.

“That doesn’t make any sense, does it,” you say.

“Then begin at the start. Look at me. Tell me the first thing that pops into your head.”

“Hoseok…” you sigh.

“Seriously. If it’s a lot of things, start with just one thing. Start with my eyes.”

He turns towards you, rolling on his side. You’re still staring up at the ceiling, hands balled into fists, acid coursing through your veins. He reaches for you. His fingers wrap gently around your wrist and he tugs, softly, a gesture for you to roll on your side and face him.

You do as he bids. Your body feels too warm, hot even, for such a cool night. You can imagine the coolness swirling outside the window behind Hoseok, but here, here, it’s like a bubble of inescapable heat, your heart pounding, your breath coming quickly.

He’s so close too.

But you make yourself look him in the eye and look.

“Your eyes, wellthey'rebeautiful,” you begin, speaking too quickly. You take a deep breath. Start again. “But what I love about them is that when you’re laughing, it feels like they hold all your joy. And when you’re so serious or focused, it’s like, like, looking right into your mind. Like windows.” You can tell Hoseok’s face is warming, even in the dark, but you continue. “And when you want something, really want something, they shine in a kind of way that I don’t really have words for. But it makes me think that I don’t want the world to deny you a single thing.”

It’s then that you realize that Hoseok’s hand never left your wrist, and even though he’s struggling to meet your gaze, his fingers are tracing patterns along your veins. And you think he draws a sun there, right where your pulse is thrumming rapidly.

“Thank you.” He says it so softly you’re barely able to catch it. But then he brings his hand up to his eyes, his index finger gently running beneath one of them like he is experiencing them for the first time.

“And tomorrow,” you whisper. “We’ll do your beautiful nose.” You get a laugh from that, but silence quickly swims between you. Tense, full of questions, full of half said statements and half-sung songs. So you lean into it.

“Hoseok?”

“Yeah?”

“What was it that you were trying to tell me earlier?” you ask softly. The dark swallows your words. Doesn’t return anything.

And then it does.

“Earlier?” There’s a wave of unsureness in his voice. Like he doesn’t want to remember what you’re mentioning. But you push further.

“Earlier. Yes. Remember? You sent Jin to find me. You wanted to talk to me.” The words come strained. A ball in your throat. “You wanted to tell me something.”

“So did you?” Hoseok says softly.

Even though he lies just three feet apart from you, he feels impossibly far away.

“Hoseok.”

The moonlight is stark against him, illuminating half of his face. The way the light falls makes it seem like a mask has been drawn atop his familiar features. You have to remind yourself that he’s there, beneath the moon, beneath time, beneath all of the complications and fumbled words and silence.

“I feel like I’ve messed everything up,” he finally whispers. His voice cracks on the last word.

“Messed up—? how? What?”

He shakes his head.

“Sometimes it’s so hard to bring myself up to the surface.”

There’s a shocking kind of truth in his words and it shocks through your body like ice on a sunny day.

“Oh.” You know it’s not enough — not nearly enough of a response to someone trying to reach you through the fog. And yet even the single, simple syllable sticks.

Why does this feel like there’s a stopper in your chest? With all of the others, it felt as if there wasn’t a question in the world, though you do wonder if that might be an over-eager remembrance of the past couple of days.

Hoseok, before you, feels like the largest question of them all. And in the space of a millisecond, you finally understand. And in the understanding, the thing within you breaks open.

Hoseok is two sides of a precious coin: everything you have and everything you could lose.

But I am over it. I’m over it all.

The separation with Tae. That fateful January night. Everything that has come with the horrors of the pandemic, of isolation. I should be over it. But instead, where all of those things live in your chest, instead, you find ache. You’ve been floating through it all with blinders on and your eyes to the ground, never giving yourself a single moment to feel the deep cuttings of loss. It has been easier to power through, to keep your head down, to shift all of the pain residing in your chest up to the thinking parts of your mind.

There, within your mind, you turn pain to story. It’s the only way you’ve been able to survive it. Once it’s been molded and sculpted into pretty words that are easy to swallow, you wait until the stirrings in your heart quiet down. Though, now that you realize it, they’ve never really quieted down at all, have they? They’re still there within you, singing with the same sharp tremolo as they always have.

I never let myself feel it.

“Oh, Hoseok—” it breaks through the silence as a sob. He winds his hand up your back, tangling his fingers in your hair, and pulls you closer to his chest. You nestle your nose into the crook of his arm.

“Sh, sh. It’s okay. It’s okay. I promise it’s going to be okay. Just let it out.”

And you do. It’s like opening a damn, and your whole chest spills into the small space between you and your friend. At first, it’s just salt water, spilling onto your cheeks, but soon the mess comes. Globs of sorrow force their way out of your throat. Sobs wrack through your body, desperate, dying sounds.

You didn’t even know all of it was in you.

But it keeps coming, pouring out like the tide into bottomless sand and you realize Hoseok’s shirt beneath your face is soaked all the way through and so too is your hair except—

“Hobi?” you stutter through your tears.

“Yeah?” His voice is just as cracked and wet as your own.

“Why are you crying?”

He sniffles. Pulls you closer.

“I’m not.”

You look up at him then, arching your back so that you can see his face. As you take a shaky inhale, wetness still streaking down your face, you see it. It’s there. The grief. Sprinkled on his cheeks like stardust. You reach up and with your thumb, wipe them away.

With a sniffle, you say, “Tell me what’s going on in there.”

“I just—” It’s a long moment before he speaks. The silence weighs heavy.

“I feel overwhelmed.”

“What are you feeling overwhelmed by?”

He spits out the word: “me.” Then a pause. “You. Everything.”

“That makes sense,” you sniffle, drawing a smile onto your face. “Who wouldn’t be overwhelmed by J-Hope’s hot body?”

You instantly chide yourself for making light of his sorrow, but you get a wet chuckle in response. Unfortunately it’s followed by another sniffle and some silence.

“Sorry,” you say softly. “Bad joke.”

“It happens to the best of us. But with all that time spent away from everyone, alone, in my little apartment… I feel like I went a little off the rails. Like all that silence, all that alone time. I don’t know. It did something to me.”

You nod into his chest, encouraging him to go on.

“And I thought being back here that I would just feel the same way I felt about everything—about everyone—as I did before. But it’s not that. It’s so much more.”

“More?”

“I thought the missing you, the others too, would stop. But it hasn’t, even when I'm here, it’s like the distance doesn’t get any smaller like there is a gulf between us. Like a gulf between who I was and who I am and now, except now, I have no idea who this brand new me even is.”

Long pause. You hum, and that seems to spur him on.

“Do you feel like you need to know who that person is?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, then you will. With time.” You let your fingers drum against his chest. “Whoever you are, in there. I love you, you know that right?”

He gives a shuddering, tear-ridden laugh. But he doesn’t say “I know,” back. So instead, you just tighten your grip around him. He responds by doing the same.

You lay like that for a long, long moment.

It feels like the moon could have swung through all of her seasons in that time, and yet the two of you stay, interlocked, clutching onto one another like the other is the only lifeboat for miles, in a deep, dark, stormy ocean.

But at some point the ocean quiets. As if the storm within has been heard, she stills. The clouds roll back, but don’t vanish entirely. The waters, once rioting, still.

Your breath shudders to life.

There’s a certain kind of clarity to your mind, like it’s been dunked in ice water. But around it, a heavy weariness.

“Hobi, you know I love you, right?”

A long quiet. And then: “I know.”

“Good.”

“I love you too.” He whispers it into your hair.

“Good.”

Silence settles around you like a heavy blanket. Your eyelids feel weighted down, and when you peek them open towards the window, everything, the stars included, are blurred.

“Hobi, I’m so tired.”

Hoseok’s hand trails down your arm. His fingers wrap first around your wrist, lifting it up and towards him, and finally, they intertwine with yours.

“Then rest. Don’t worry, I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

It’s as easy as that.

When you finally say yes, yes, to sleep, you know. Your body relaxes, and so does Hobi’s around you. And you know, if there was anything to be done, it was this: tangled up in one another, language falling silent, finally, finally breathing easy.

Most of the time, it’s hard to know if your dreams have colors.

But tonight, there’s no question. Dreamworld is alight with late autumn, leave flurrying down in rainbow hues.

That night you dream of not one, but all seven of your boys. They linger at the edge of your dream though, constantly out of sight. You wander through a dense forest. It grows darker and thicker the further into it you clamber, bushes and branches gripping onto your clothes like hands.

You can hear them calling out your name, and even as you keep on moving, it seems as if a question remains: Are you running towards them or away?

At some point the dream shifts. It’s winter, and you stand above the forest on some steep cliff. The height takes your breath away, makes your lungs tighten on the inhale.

You call out their names, and six voices answer from the forest beneath you. You can see them now, figures frolicking in the snow, laughing, throwing snowballs, but where’s—?

A hand snakes around you from the back as a body presses close behind you.

Your name, whispered in your ear, strung through with devotion, desire—

“Hoseok, is that you?”

Your question is answered when he spins you around and into him. He is leaning against the tall, black stone wall, looking down at you through full lashes. But there's a look in his gaze that you haven’t known before. Hunger, deep hunger, ravenous hunger, directed straight at you. And at the edges of it, sunshine peeks through.

Hands wash down your back, taking their time to reach your hips. Warmth swallows you, a pinkish, springtime glow you could bathe in for ages.

It’s snowing and when the flakes hit your skin, they immediately melt. But you’re not paying attention to the darkening sky, you’re paying attention to the way the man pressed against your body feels. You want to memorize it.

There’s a moment when you understand it’s a dream.

Knowing it, you grin. You lean into him, lips searching for lips—

But he stops you. Takes your chin between his fingers and tilts your head up. Looking at you. Examining you. And when he bends down, eyes fluttering shut, it’s not your lips he meets but the flushed and summer warmed skin of your neck, just below your ear.

You gasp, tangling your hands in his hair, back arching into him until there’s no space left between you.

Body, pressed to body.

This dream is so vivid it feels real. Feels so real that when your eyes blink open to find Hoseok’s skin pressed against you, it makes sense, and you lift his head from your neck to return the favor: like a gift pressed between secretive hands, you press a fluttering kiss to the sensitive skin beneath his ear. Letting your teeth graze against his warmth, you drink in the breath he sucks in so shakily with relish. Hands still tangled in his hair, you wonder when and how you moved to the ground. You’re tangled up in one another against the soft ground, and you can feel the winter air against your skin.

He moves a thigh between your legs, and as he tucks himself against you, it feels like puzzling yourself together.

Your eyes flutter open as you pull away from his neck. His eyes are still pressed shut, but your name quivers on his lips as he tries to pull you closer again. It’s dark out, and the moon leans in close to the window—

The window?

Breath stills in your chest as Hoseok’s eyes open too. Pupils blown wide, he reaches for you, trying to pull you back to him when the dream slips from his gaze too.

When breath returns, it comes quickly, like a river rushing. Hoseok’s gasps match the pace of yours. Your gaze flicks down to see that his neck is reddening quickly. His fingers trail to the spot you’re looking at and the both of you gasp. And that’s when you notice.

Against your leg. Something hard. Hot. Very much in the shape of—

Both of you move at the same time, detangling your leg from between his thighs, him pulling his hand from yours, and flipping to the opposite side at the same time.

Back to back, your breathing matches one another. Wide awake, you can’t calm the racing in your chest.

Fuck.

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sh. | ot7 | chapter eight

PAIRING ot7 x reader

RATING Explicit. 18+.

GENRE smut. fluff. angst. nonidol au. wildnerness au. roommates au. friends to lovers.

SUMMARY Six months of quarantine have kept you apart. Somehow the distance sparks something new in each of you: questions, unfinished conversations, threads once chased now left cold. So when your roommate invites you to come with him to a mysterious house in the mountains with your friends, how could you even think of saying no?

WC 6k

WARNINGS AND TAGS explicit conversation about sexual acts. animal encounter.

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©️ wwilloww do not repost, translate, or use my stories without my permission.

AN: i must gift my entire heart to the two lovelist beta readers @thatlongspringnight and @calixwrites . working with you allows me to get to the root of the story, and i feel like the whole creative process comes to life when i get to talk with you and learn from you. ugh. i can't say it enough: you are the best.

in other news, i cut this chapter in half because i couldn't keep track of everything that was happening. a new chapter should be polished and finished soon :)

it's almost been a year since we started on this wacky journey together. and so to everyone who's stuck around with me: thank you.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Namjoon’s voice rumbles softly in your ear, pointing out the bedrooms of your friends, the passageways, the art on the walls.

The details, though, are drowned out by the hammering of your heart in your ears. It’s a strange sensation, this moment, arm captured by your beautiful roommate while everything stews inside. It’s like the library: two sides of the world smushed into a space too small to hold it all. On one side, the outside, you have the warmth that radiates from him, especially when he pauses his good natured lecture for a moment to pull you just a little tighter against his side and smile a little crookedly down at you. But then inside, the acid that’s started to pool in your chest burns in the heat of anxiety.

“…I mean, you remember seeing Kim Chong-Haks piece, right? When you really think about it, it’s just like this amalgamation—” Namjoon pauses, voice dying as he looks down at you. “You’re distracted.”

“Huh?” You snap out of the spiral of your thoughts to smile sheepishly up at your tall roommate. “Sorry. Can you blame me? A, uh, lot has happened today.”

“No. I can’t.” He nods, ever the one to understand. “I can stop talking. If you want.”

“No, no, don’t. It’s nice.”

“Oh.” It’s that slow smile that takes over his face that pulls you a little closer to the warmth. A little closer to courage. “Okay. I can do that.”

You continue on through the house, and this time you really do listen to him. Hearing about everything—art, philosophy, life—through his eyes does what it always does: it brings you back to the world. And for a moment, the anxiety in your stomach settles.

It’s not until you come across a familiar hallway that you interrupt his stream of thought.

“What’s behind that door?”

“Hm? Oh.” Namjoon drops your arm and wanders down the hallway. You follow him. “I’m not sure, really.” He grins at you. “Let’s find out?”

The excitement of it all adds a skip to your step and soon you both are standing at the large door.

Namjoon reaches to turn the doorknob, but it doesn’t budge.

“Earlier,” you say, “There was a key here.”

“A key?” Namjoon looks at you skeptically.

“A key.”

“Huh, strange.” He steps back for a moment, eyeing the door like he can think it open, before giving it one last rattle. No luck. “Well, I’ll find the key later. There’s a drawer here somewhere with all the missing keys and lightbulbs and instruction manuals. There’s always a drawer.”

“There’s always a drawer,” you echo.

Namjoon turns on his heel to stride back down the hallways, but you’re stuck there, staring at the door, wondering what this large house is keeping hidden securly behind her walls. How many more missing keys and locked doors are hiding around another corner you haven’t turned?

“You coming?” Namjoon calls, already at the end of the hallway.

“Yeah, yeah.” You hurry to catch up. The rest of the walk to the back door disappears in a blur.

When you bend down to tie your shoe, Namjoon stoops down, earning a little squeal of excitement from you as he snatches the shoe from you and holds it out of your reach.

“Let me.” His voice reverberates deep and low.

“What?”

“Let me,” he insists a second time. Taking your shoe, he lifts your leg onto his knee, slips the shoe onto your foot, and ties it tight and sturdy before looking up at you. “There you go.”

The two of you stare at each other for a long moment, half smiles teasing your lips, the recollection of tension — of his hands in your hair, his lips against yours, body pressing you into the books as if he could keep you as a memory — the history of the library strung between you like spider silk. And then, eyes still locked on you, he leans down and presses a kiss to your knee.

“Oh,” you breathe.

He grins. Stands. Offers you a hand.

“Thanks,” you say, not really sure how to translate that stirring beast inside you. “For today. For everything. For—” You motion to the room around you. “For this.”

He just nods and opens the door to the backyard to follow you out.

The air that meets you on the other side tastes like the color gold. Like leaves falling, like the sun shattering through the foliage, and like life getting ready for slumber beneath the rich topsoil. You breathe in deep.

“I could get high on this,” you murmur, and Namjoon chuckles. He leads you down the hill behind the house to where a naturally shaped pool glistens down below and a familiar figure is lounging on a large boulder.

“Hobi!” you call, and the sound that emerges is eager and excited and — it surprises you. Joy, reaching for joy. You warm a little inside, and the edge of anxiety cools down to a manageable simmer. The dark haired main perks up immediately, turning to greet you. “Hi, you were looking for me?”

“Babe.” A grin spreads as sweet as the pet name sounds. This time you don’t fight it. You give in.

“Hi.”

He expected a fight. You always did fight him, that signature sizable grin spreading across your features as you did. And he always did like the contest of it, the game of it all, but now — the lack of resistance? But something more than that, something like eagerness. It has a strange kind of warmth to it. He thinks he likes it.

As Hoseok sits up, he glances between you and Namjoon, and you do the same and it’s then that he notices. It feels like a secret. It’s passed between you and Namjoon like a small, carefully folded note, clear to Hoseok or anyone that might look upon the two of you. The contents, though, are a little harder to make out.

Namjoon bends down and plants a hesitant kiss on your cheek and Hoseok watches as you freeze up beneath the touch. You’re hyper-aware of what Hobi must be thinking: Namjoon wasn’t usually all that touchy, right?

But then you’re cackling in embarrassment and smacking Namjoon on the shoulder and saying “See ya, bud, thanks for the tour.” The look Joon shoots back is a little confused and he laughs nervously before walking back to the house. But suddenly the look on Hobi’s face isn’t so nervous after all as he takes in the overwhelmingly “dad vibes” of the whole situation. This is normal. This is all normal.

None of this is normal. Normal was left behind in January.

The two of you stand there a little awkwardly, sizing one another up, silence settling uncomfortably between you before you both blurt at the same time:

“I was thinking—”

“I wanted to say—”

It rushes out of the both of you like a stream undammed, toppling, churning, so it’s hard to see to the root of it. And as quickly as it pours out, both of you are shoving it back in.

“Oh.”

“God, sorry.”

The two of you stare at each other for a moment before bursting out into soft laughter.

“Want to go for a walk?” Hoseok asks.

You eye the steep slopes that border the house on every side. Nothing here is simply a walk. Everything is a hike.

“Oh. Yeah. Sure!” The words feel stilted and awkward as they leave your lips. Even after it’s agreed, the two of you stare at each other for a horribly long moment, sentences unstrung and unsung humming behind your gazes, chilling you more than the mild autumn air could. Neither of you sure how to speak them into the world, and both of you determined that the silence is reproach in the other. At this point, the silence has become an unspoken agreement. The long drawl of emptiness has been safer than the promise of hope.

You take the first step, desperate to break the tension. Hoseok lets out an audible breath of relief when you do and matches your pace.

When you start walking, like it's an impulse, the tension shared becomes each your own again, stuffed back into your chests alongside everything unsaid.  There’s something about moving though, especially through a beauty this dense, that shakes the frozen sounds within you both. As you walk it becomes easier. A joke that nears Jin’s dastardly level of dad joke slips out—why did the tree worry that he would never get his leaves back after autumn? He didn’t be-leaf in himself!—and suddenly he’s laughing, cackling, breaking through the silence of the forest.

It’s like the forest comes alive, too. You know it was there before and yet the birdsong is stronger, the valley warmer, the trees more golden. You beam up at him.

“You know, this is the first time we’ve actually spent time alone together since we got here,” he says.

“Well, you know, except every night that we spend in the same bed.”

“That doesn’t count,” he laughs, but its a strained kind of sound, like a memory gentle but with a pinpoint of pain beneath the softness. “We’re sleeping! And it especially doesn’t count when you’re always slipping in late, coming from who knows where, doing who knows what.”

Doing who knows who, your mind corrects. Warmth flushes through you as you recall it all. The whirlwind of bodies, gasps, pleasure that the last week has been — and guilt. Guilt tinges the edge of the memory as you glance at Hoseok. He looks at you a moment too long, like he is trying to gage what exactly you have been up to, and then moves on.

“No time for bedtime stories or a healthy gossip session or—” His eye lights with something and a flush overcomes his face.

“Or what?” You prod him with your elbow, grinning. “Or what!”

“Nothing!”

“Oh, come on,” you urge. “You can tell me anything! We don’t have secrets here!”

He looks at you. At all the unspoken things beneath your tongue. He can see that they’re there, but not what they are. “We don’t?”

You want to swallow your words. “Well,” you begin slowly, no idea what to say, trying to navigate the internal maze that is a horrible mix of hope, guilt, excitement, fear, longing, and, well, something else that doesn’t quite have a name. “Maybe we shouldn’t have secrets.”

The trail, once broad, has now tapered into a narrow switchback. It’s harder to breathe at an elevation this high.

Around you, the trees stand tall in their age. The deeper you go, the older the growth seems to be, young and thin aspens turning into swarths of the entangled tree, and heavy evergreens with thick bellies, stretching so high into the sky you’re not sure where the tree ends and the world begins. Beneath you, carpets of pine needles soften all sounds so that even the life, humming around you, feels like it has softened.

When you breathe in, it’s like swallowing nature. It’s the kind of air that makes your lungs ache with the edge of a light chill; there’s comfort there, despite the ache of a new season. Everything your relationship with him is supposed to feel like.

“Well, what do you think about it?” Hobi’s voice shatters through the stillness, just a little too quiet for him, for his body, and you watch him shift, awkward, listening as the forest swallows the sounds.

“Hm?”

“Yoongi’s proposal.”

“I don’t know,” you lie quickly. A flash of guilt spikes through you. You just told him there shouldn’t be any secrets between the two of you. And yet here you are, digging the distance of another secret.

“Don’t you think that seven penises is a lot of penises?” Hoseok cocks a curious eyebrow.

“Dicks,” you correct, grimacing. “Cocks, whatever — not penises. I — I hate that word. It’s icky.”

“Peni, then,” Hobi laughs.

“No!” you laugh, falling into him. “That’s worse!” His hands come out to steady you, and you lean into the touch like it’s magnetized.

When you look at him, there it is again. That freezing thing, that moment of extension, that sweetness singing between the two of you. That history — that January night — balled up and tossed in the corner to gather cobwebs, now resummoned to the surface. You think he might even want to lean into it too. He holds your gaze just a little too long, delight creeping across his features. Until he blinks and turns away, and the moment becomes lost to time. Just another sketch scribbled quickly, only to be crumpled and tossed away.

“It’s not really how I expected things to go,” Hoseok chuckles, running a hand through his hair. You can’t help but watch the way his fingers part the now long strands like ships in a darkened sea. You blink. Shake your head.

“Wh—oh, yeah. Me neither.”

“No?” When he looks at you it’s like he sees right through you. Like he knows what you’ve been thinking about him. About all of your friends.

“N-no,” you laugh nervously. “What? It’s not like I’m out here, mind in the gutter, imagining fucking my friends all the time.”

He laughs now, really laughs. “I gotta stop you there, I know for a fact that your mind is always in the gutter.”

“Nuh-uh! ’S’not!”

“Oh really? So never? You’ve never thought about it?” He’s stopped walking and turned to face you.

“No!”

“C’mon.” He levels his gaze with yours. “Give ‘em to me. Your tequila thoughts.”

The phrase brings back January, the sharp perfume of Patron on your breath. The things you had spilled into that night. The taste of it on his tongue. Is he? Is that what he’s referring to?

“I don’t really know what you mean by that.”

“I just mean. Tequila loosens your tongue. Ridiculously. But I know you. I know those thoughts are hanging out up here—” He brings his hand to tap lightly at your temple, “no matter what. Sober or tipsy or whatever. So c’mon. Give ‘em to me.”

“What do you want me to say? That I wanna dom Jin in the bedroom? Tie him up and make him call me daddy?”

“You wouldn’t.”

“What?”

“You wouldn’t want to dom him, I don’t think. Maybe for a little while. To feel what it’s like, for a moment. But at the end of the day, I think you…” He trails off, gaze flicking between your eyes and your lips. Then he shrugs. “But who am I to say.”

You sputter. “Who are you to say, indeed.”

He laughs. “I don’t know, maybe you are.”

The two of you stare at each other for what feels like the longest minute on earth, measuring the other one up, testing the next step.

Finally you say, “I don’t know, it seems like you might be projecting.” You turn and continue walking.

“What?”

“Seems like you might be the one who wants to fuck and dominate all our friends in the bedroom.”

Hobi laughs. “Where on earth did you ever get that opinion?”

“Well I don’t know. You’re very difficult to read. Maybe you are projecting. Maybe you’re the one daydreaming about finally getting Joonie on his knees for you.”

“I’m difficult to read?”

“Absolutely.”

“Oh.” Hobi is silent for a long minute, and you’re surprised, shocked by the look of grief on his face. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for?”

“I never meant to be hard to read.”

“That’s not something to apologize for. It’s okay.”

“Well, not really, not when I’ve been trying to say. Say. Things.”

“Say what?”

The two of you stop. The trail you took was supposed to be the one you had done that fateful day with Jimin, leading you to an outlook over the sprawling valleys of the mountain range. But instead, you’ve found yourself at the entrance to a ravine, the steep walls of rock rising before you to reveal a narrow passageway that snakes up the mountain. While usually the elevation precludes a lot of humidity, the ecosystem before you is one bursting with the last strains of summered life: moss and lichen clinging to the rock, a small waterfall trickling down the slippery rock.

Behind you, the forest hums with afternoon business, the trees blanketed in reds and golds. In stark contrast, silence spills out from the ravine.

Hoseok doesn’t answer your question. Instead, his jaw has dropped, a slow smile spreading across his features as he takes in the sight before him. “Oh. How… beautiful.”

He is.

“I miss you,” you blurt out. “I miss you a lot.”

Hoseok takes a long look at you.

“You say it like you’re unsure if I missed you back.”

“I mean, I don’t know—”

He cuts you off. “Goddamnit, of course I missed you.” He reaches out for you, taking your wrists into his hands and pulling you closer. “Of course it felt so strange to have to basically start a whole new way of life and not have you there. I missed you so goddamn much. I missed getting to be close to you, getting to hear your stupid ideas and daydream with you.”

You can’t help the smile that spreads across your face.

“I missed getting to be close to you,” you echo and it comes out a whisper but it’s the truth, and it’s easy on your tongue once you get past the horrible knot of fear. “And it’s not just that. It’s more.”

Hoseok nods. Not in the way of understanding, but like he’s saying me too, me too. Like he too has something big and burning and without words emerge from his chest everytime he sees you too. Encouraged, you go on.

“I feel like I’ve been holding back from you. Like, afraid to tell you.” You have to force the words out of your body.

“Afraid? Why would you be afraid…of me?”

“I really didn’t want you to think badly of me. Sometimes I worry that if I were to share everything with everyone, that what they think would change, like — you know, never mind. It’s not as important.”

“It is as important. It is.” He looks at you so genuinely, you think you might snap.

You take a deep breath. “I just, I wanted to tell you, to talk to you—”

“No—”

The word thuds through you like a boulder, shock splayed across your face.

“No?”

“Stop. Stop talking.”

“No, Hobi, no.” You stomp your foot. “I’ve been — I’ve been trying to gather the courage to talk to you, to say this for what feels like forever and I finally have the nerve to say it and here you are telling me to stop?! No, no, I don’t think—”

Hobi grabs you by the shoulders, eyes burning with a light you can’t quite name and covers your mouth with a large hand. “Stop. Talking.” He’s deady calm and his words come out as a growl.

Coming from him, and coming from behind you.

Hobi spins you around and presses your back to his chest, his hands gripping your shoulders. Just behind where you stood a moment ago, a short distance up the ravine, a large, adolescent bear stands. Head lowered, black eyes staring furiously at the two of you, haunches raised. A growl rumbles viciously in his throat.

“What the—”

“Fuck.”

The bear stomps the ground once, huffing.

“What do we do?” you whisper.

“I think we’re supposed to play dead,” Hobi breathes. “I think he’ll leave us alone.”

“No, I think we’re supposed to run. Or climb a tree.”

“Bears can climb trees. And run.”

“Oh.”

Just as Hobi moves to pull you behind him, so that he’s the one standing between you and the huffing, snorting bear, you rip out of his hold, pressing in front of him.

“Stop that,” Hoseok hisses, trying to pull you backwards, trying to pull you away, behind him. But you stand firm, pushing him back behind you. He only manages to wrap his arms tightly around you, a human exoskeleton of sorts, his whole body trying to absorb you away from the grunting, large animal before you.

But all struggle between you ceases as the bear steps towards you and you freeze, Hoseok’s limbs locking around yours.

Saplings snap beneath the bear’s paws as he steps closer, a low growl reverberating in his throat. The forest is eerily quiet, all noise absorbed into fear, the whole world seems to be watching this very moment.

And the bear is before you, paws stomping on the loamy soil. A deadened sound.

“Oh god. Oh, Hoseok.”

His limbs tighten around yours and when he takes a step back, you come with him. But so does the bear.

When the bear leans in, you smell something rotten. The process of the forest reabsorbing itself. And you wonder, if you too, will become a part of that timeless dance today. His eyes are empty. Dark. Like the sky of a new moon lives behind them, waiting for the sun to shine once more, but stuck in the inalienable darkness of great space.

The bear sniffs you, lifting its lips to reveal thick, sharp teeth. The smell, repugnant.

Those eyes stare into you. The fear of the afternoon wallows in comparison to this feeling. But then, in a split second, it too is gone. Replaced by that kind of empty drive that feels essentially human. Ice, through your veins.

It sniffs you once. Twice. And then takes a step back. You’re sure that he’s going to lunge then, his haunches rearing up as he looks, unendingly, at you.

A single crow caws from the ravine. The sound splits the air, like a call that comes from beneath the soil and the topmost canopy at the same time. And the bear turns. Looks. As if he finally realizes he’s not alone, he takes one last look at you and with a little huff, takes another step back, turns, and ambles back up the ravine and deeper into the mountains.

Your breath is the only thing that exists. Sight, gone, though you do still see the wilderness before you. It’s just this. Shaken stutters of air through your lungs.

A second sense pierces through and you feel Hoseok’s grip on you tighten and suddenly you can’t breathe. You need to get out of here. Something isn’t right. Something’s not like what you know. You peel away from his still frozen form. A shattered breath shakes through you as your hands drop down to your side. Hobi’s still staring in the direction of the disappearing bear and you reach out to him and tug on his sweater urgently.

“C’mon. Let’s get out of here.”

He doesn’t take his eyes off the trail behind you as he follows your lead. Your hand slips into his and you tug him down the mountain.

“Hobi, let’s go. Before we run into something else.” You tug once more. “Hoseok. Please.”

It’s like he finally hears you and turns away from the ravine.

Then you’re skittering down the rocks together, and when you finally reach the well trodden trail again, you break out in a sprint. You hadn’t really realized just how deep into the forest you had traveled, but everytime the trail seems to be nearing its end, it continues. The trees keep speeding by. Hobi runs beside you, clutching at your hand like if he were to let you go the whole world would spin out of control.

In this moment all there is is the next step, breath, coming heavy, and his fingers squeezed tight around your own.

The house emerges from the thick foliage, late afternoon light spilling down around it all, mountains framing the large structure like the masterpiece it is. It’s not until the trees have parted and your feet have landed on the lawn that your pace slows. But the world doesn’t really feel like it slows down around you. It keeps spinning by.

“What the fuck was that?” Hobi breathes heavily, his hands on his knees. You crouch before him, looking up at him, eyes scanning his face as if you’re checking to make sure all still in one piece. Your hand reaches to wrap tightly around his wrist, as if it’s your turn to hold on for stability, and he doesn’t pull away. His pulse leaps wildly beneath your fingers.

“I remembered that you’re supposed to make yourself really big and really loud to scare it away.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me? I was getting ready to go out in a blaze of glory right alongside you.”

“That would have been a sight to see.”

“You would have gone out in a fiery death right alongside me, you know that right?”

You’re joking but your lungs are still frozen. Your limbs are still ready for something fiery and dangerous, but you’re here. You’re safe again. You’re okay. You’re alive. Hobi is too. And so you force a smile and go along, as if it’s the next step on the path out of the forest.

“What? You weren’t planning on playing Prince Charming and sacrificing yourself for me?”

“Never.” And he smiles, and you know it’s the biggest lie he’s told.

His eyes crinkle up in the corner when he grins like this and your breath freezes in your throat before warming through your whole body. When you breathe out again, you relax. Your limbs stutter back to sense, your sight clears, your mind quiets. How is his joy so antidotal? It radiates through you in a way you don’t quite have words for. Even when you know he’s putting on his favorite show of happiness for the sake of his friends, you know he embeds it with a genuine warmth, taken from some deep well within him.

How am I so lucky? It feels impossible. This moment, your best friend smiling at you with the relief and laughter of a near-death moment. It feels good to be like this with him. It’s been nine months since the last time things were truly like this, but it feels like it could have been years. In reality, it has been a thousand small eternities.

As a thousand questions sing in you, all you can manage to do is to reach out for him again and take the hand that you had released and squeeze it. He looks down at it, a brow raised.

“You’re okay?” It’s a question, a hope, uttered by him.

“Yeah.” You take one more deep breath. When you breath out, you imagine the kind of forest light leaving your body. You feel safe. And you turn away from the lingering fear left in your body, turn it towards something else. “It’s too bad we were interrupted.” The adrenaline of the danger finally feels like it's serving a purpose.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Yes.” You shake your head, gathering your thoughts, and stand. The distance between you feels suffocating. Like it’s too much and not enough at the same time.

He’s looking at you with all the earnesty in the world and you swear it’s true, you know that the words you need to put into the air, into his hands, into his trust, will find safety and understanding where they land. And he’s opening his mouth, tongue darting out to lick his lips, and finally an unsure hum, dancing on his mouth—

“Jin is just never going to believe what just happened.” He laughs.

That same icy feeling that burned in your belly with coldness in January returns. Rejection,

“What?”

“That we go on a walk to chat and we get interrupted by a bear. Jin will never believe it.”

Oh. And still you smile. Nod. Go along with his cues. “Jungkook would.”

He grins. Pulls your hand against his chest—though the action feels emptier now—and begins walking towards the house. Your confidence shatters. As the forest looms farther and father over your shoulder, so does the promise of your unspoken intention.

“Yeah, course,” Hoseok chuckles, as if he is completely unaware of the tension brewing within your chest. “But don’t tell him because he’ll fucking take off barefoot into the woods to try to wrestle the bear down and either put him in his place or try to befriend him. We can’t let that happen.”

You laugh. “I promise I won’t.”

“You promise?”

The intensity in his eyes make it clear that he’s not just asking you to not tell a scary story to your friend. He’s asking you something else. Asking for your word. But even as you know you have absolutely no clue what he’s speaking of, you trust him endlessly. And so without even knowing what exactly you are binding yourself to within his promise, you offer your pinky up.

“Promise.”

Hoseok grins and wraps an arm around your shoulders.

“I need to find Jin, something about dinner tonight. But I’ll see you later? We should do this more.” He’s speaking too quickly and his gaze keeps flickering between you and the house.

“Yeah. ‘Course.”

In a quick motion he leans down, presses a quick peck to your forehead and disappears into the house.

When he’s gone it feels like the weight of the entire day washes over you.

Jungkook. Then Namjoon. Now Hoseok.

How the hell has this all been one day?

The rest of the day washes together like watercolors spritzed by rain. You wander through it, a little dazed. Every moment, every word spins like a movie reel through your brain.

It’s okay for you to want like this.

What if something’s missing?

And finally, most resolutely, Hobi’s voice speaking firmly and assuredly: I missed getting to be close to you. It feels like a promise, wrapped tight and warm around your heart. But you don’t want to dare to give yourself that kind of hope. So you shove it down and wander through the rest of the day.

Dinner comes, but you can’t find the energy to face Jungkook’s grinning face, or the meaning strung in Namjoon’s gaze. You can’t even bear to think of what will be on Hoseok’s face. What today means to him. If it means anything. But you wonder. If they notice your absence, what they’re laughing about when you’re not there, what things they might say differently without your presence at the table.

You feel grateful that the day is speeding by in such a manner. At least, that is, until the sun is long gone beyond the wall of mountains and the house has quieted down as your friends drift off to bed.

It’s not long before you’re yawning, yearning for the warm, thick covers of your bed and the radiating heat of the body that sleeps next to you. But when you find yourself at the door to your bedroom you pause.

It looms.

You can’t help yourself. Instead of walking through the door to your bedroom, and the swirling question that lays on the other side, you turn on your heel and go back in the opposite direction. Your socked feet pad as silently as the night sky across the darkened floorboards. You pass closed doors, the hallway, and the sounds of chatter and warm light spilling from underneath bedroom doors. It feels like sneaking, but you’re not entirely sure what you’re hiding from.

The doors to the library open without a single squeak and you slip inside silently. A light chill passes through you. The library should be entirely obscured by darkness. But instead, the large windows open wide to the night sky and a full moon peers down at you. It feels like she’s looking at you.

Her silvery drapes spill into the library, and unlike your afternoon in the room, where the world felt split in two, the space is unified beneath the new color. Darkness, knowledge, the clarity of the moon — it all swirls together before you.

It’s like blinking awake. A strange clarity sifts through you and it’s frightening. Defenses rise within you and you’re on the move again, quick to release whatever it was the moon granted you back to the shadows of the unknown. You don’t want this understanding.

After fighting the urge to draw finger guns and James Bond lunge across the carpet, you quickly pinpoint the spot where the book had fallen. It lays closed — thank god, imagine if it had fallen open and crumpled the aging pages.

Careful not to damage it, you lift it from the floor. It’s heavier than you imagined, the beautiful book shining with age between your hands. With a quick, gentle movement, you let the book fall open in your palms and suck in a gasp as the delicate ink drawing sprawls before you.

This is not what you thought antique collectors were up to all these years.

Before you, a beautiful painting. Careful lines and graceful curves. Unfortunately, it’s not the pure beauty of the piece that makes you cry out. It’s the image itself, its contents.

A naked body, one that looks very much like yours — same stature, same valley of curves, same constellation of birthmarks and landmarks flecking your skin. Ancient, other, you, bared and put on display. And then that which has your breath stuttering in your throat: Several men, cocks hanging free and large and very very erect, all looking down on the beautiful figure like they could devour it entirely.

As you quickly learn, it turns out the human race has always been one kinky, desperate-for-fuck species.

Hoseok’s question rings in your ear: don’t you think it’s too much?

“It’s a fucking penis buffet in here,” you whisper. No one is around to laugh at your cleverness.

Except a snort and a chortle echoes from behind you. You spin around, and in the process drop the book on the table.

“That’s a good one.”

There’s a shadow emerging from the walls, peeling away like it belonged to the rock itself.

Jin steps out of the darkness, his flannel pajamas hugging his body tightly, a book held in one hand.

“Jesus, Jin, you were about to give me a heart attack,” you curse.

He raises an eyebrow, approaching. “What are you doing sneaking around this late at night?”

“I’m not sneaking,” you say. It feels like a lie once it's out in the open air. More and more feels like a lie these days. Even when it’s half truth.

“Mmm,” Jin hums.

“You scared me,” you repeat.

“I’m sorry,” he says. But he doesn’t sound sorry at all. Amusement sparks in his eye, and he reaches out to tip your chin up, to capture your flickering gaze. “What kind of mischief are you up to?”

You glance at the book and Jin’s eyes follow.

“Oh,” he says. He takes in the scene before him, but unlike you, he’s unphased. “You know there’s internet here. You don’t have to go rifling through books to find your porn anymore.”

“I know.” You say it too quickly.

Jin catches on. His gaze roves over your face, taking it in, reading you like the book you had snuck in here to page through. He sees it all.

“But maybe you don’t need the internet for that kind of thing anyways.”

“I’ve no idea what you mean.”

“You’ve had a kind of… glow since you arrived here. And not any old quarantine glow.”

You swallow.

“Still don’t know what you mean.”

“Go to bed,” Jin says, his voice low. “Do what you’re supposed to do for once.” It’s a command, but it’s said softly. With consideration.

“Alright, Jin,” you respond.

He drops his hand from your chin and steps back, his brow raised and curious. Like he’s seen everything that’s going on behind your eyes. Like he knows exactly what’s about to happen.

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