Work Text:
╭──────────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ────────────╮
"Swear I feel you in my memory
I think I've seen you in my dreams
Maybe you and I have history
But I don't think you know me"
╰──────────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ────────────╯
Taehyung turned the tablet toward Namjoon with an expectant expression that was already bordering on desperation, though he was still trying to stay somewhat optimistic.
He had been working on the sketch for almost two straight hours, sitting on the living room's wooden floor and surrounded by cushions he had personally dragged over from the couch to create a sort of improvised creative space.
Though Namjoon, his roommate, had spent a while teasing him by saying he’d built a damn omega nest, Taehyung had defended his little safe spot by kicking him whenever he got too close.
At that moment, his legs were crossed and his hair was slightly messy from running a hand through it about twenty times while gripping the tablet with far too much tension for someone who was supposedly just asking for a second opinion.
Meanwhile, Namjoon seemed to exist on an entirely different plane of reality. The alpha was sprawled across the couch with an irritating level of calmness, one leg hanging over the edge while his phone rested in one hand as he lazily scrolled through the screen. He didn't even look up immediately when his attention was demanded.
Sharing an apartment with another alpha for so many years had completely erased the territorial discomfort that should normally exist; in fact, anyone walking in there for the first time would probably find the atmosphere overly saturated due to the natural blend of scents embedded into every corner of the apartment.
The wood carried traces of both of them, the couch blankets did too, and even the curtains seemed to have absorbed years of cohabitation.
Namjoon's scent was usually the first to stand out, damp pine mixed with freshly brewed black tea, the kind of presence that made someone seem dangerously intelligent because of how deep it felt. Taehyung's was different; it lingered in the air in a warmer, more vibrant way, green fig with sandalwood, something fresh yet elegant at the same time.
Strangely enough, they were compatible.
Namjoon finally looked up and narrowed his eyes to study the screen from a distance. He took a few silent seconds to analyze the drawing seriously before naturally lowering his phone again.
"No, it still looks the same."
Taehyung froze for a few seconds before muttering a curse under his breath and throwing himself backward onto the cushions with a heavy thud that made half the living room tremble.
The tablet slipped dangerously between his fingers and nearly crashed against the floor, but he caught it at the last second, which made it abundantly clear how much money it had cost him.
"I swear I actually changed it this time," he protested from the floor, staring indignantly at the ceiling. "I changed the angle of the face, the distance between the eyes, the nose, the chin... I even gave him a different expression. How the hell does it still look the same? It doesn't make any sense!"
The older man let out a quiet snort and placed his phone on his stomach before settling more comfortably into the couch.
"At this point, you don't have same-face syndrome. What you have is an obsession. That's different."
"I'm going to throw this tablet at your face." Taehyung slowly lifted his head from the floor and glared at him through narrowed eyes.
"Do it, then cry afterward because you'll have to buy another one."
That was, unfortunately, true.
Taehyung dropped back down with a frustrated groan, dragging both hands over his face as he tried to convince himself Namjoon was exaggerating. But he couldn't fool himself for very long; the bastard was right.
Once again, the face he had drawn looked suspiciously similar to all the others he had made throughout practically his entire life. He changed hairstyles, modified details, adjusted proportions, but in the end they all carried the same essence.
At a certain point, it was humiliating.
"I still don't understand how you managed to graduate with a Fine Arts degree," Namjoon commented with complete honesty while unlocking his phone again. "I mean, imagine if I designed the exact same house over and over again. How are people still hiring you?"
"Architecture doesn't matter because you only build 'functional' buildings and basically use the same techniques that you already know work, so if you repeat the infrastructure thousands of times, nothing happens."
"If that makes you feel better..."
Namjoon was an architect. Taehyung had met him through a notice on the campus bulletin board where Namjoon had been looking for a roommate.They had attended the same university, though obviously in different majors.
Four years had passed since then. Both had graduated and worked hard to keep the household afloat. Taehyung worked as a freelancer, while Namjoon was still fighting to secure a permanent position at a major firm. The good news was that it looked like his miracle might finally happen soon.
Taehyung's scent was gradually beginning to intensify, signaling his growing irritation. It wasn't unusual. Taehyung always reacted physically whenever he became too frustrated with himself and after living together for so many years, Namjoon had learned to recognize those changes before the other alpha even opened his mouth.
That was why, almost unconsciously, he released a small amount of his own pheromones into the air to stabilize him before the apartment became completely saturated.
Taehyung noticed immediately and turned toward him with annoyance.
"I don't need you regulating me."
"Five seconds ago you threatened to destroy a device that took you like four months to pay off because you drew the same guy for the fortieth time this month. So yes, you need regulation."
There was a brief silence, and then the younger alpha sighed so heavily that he practically confirmed the accusation by himself.
By now, it was almost automatic. When one of them started getting too wound up, the other stepped in. Namjoon didn't even think about it anymore, just like Taehyung made his coffee without asking how he wanted it because he already knew the answer.
Taehyung clicked his tongue irritably and pushed himself up onto his elbows, looking deeply offended.
"It's just..." he complained, pushing his hair back in frustration. "I can draw bodies, anatomy, backgrounds, lighting, composition, perspective... literally anything. The problem shows up when I have to invent a face from scratch."
"Uh-huh." Namjoon raised an eyebrow.
"If a client gives me an exact reference, I can copy it perfectly. I can draw a real person in any style they ask for, but when I have to imagine a completely new face..." Taehyung paused and released a sigh full of defeat before continuing. "I always end up drawing the same damn thing."
"And...?" Namjoon left the sentence hanging for him to finish.
"And the client wanted original characters for a romance story," he admitted, dragging out the words as though physically suffering. "I ended up making them look like siblings. I accidentally created incest. Fantastic. What an incredible artistic career I'm building. You said it yourself, how are people still hiring me?"
Namjoon burst out laughing so hard that he had to lower his phone for a moment while trying to recover.
"I can't believe you just said 'accidental incest' with a straight face."
"Because I'm serious," Taehyung grumbled before flopping back onto the floor again, completely flat on his back this time. "They're supposed to be in love! Not share a family tree!"
His right leg began lightly tapping against the wooden floor in nervous little movements as he continued venting. With every new display of frustration, his scent slowly spread farther through the living room. Namjoon took a slow breath and discreetly regulated the atmosphere once again.
"Honestly, I don't think it's that serious," he commented as he settled more comfortably into the couch.
Taehyung turned his head toward him so slowly that the expression on his face practically screamed: Are you high?
Without answering, he shoved the tablet across the floor toward the couch. The device slid rather violently over the wood before stopping near Namjoon's leg.
"Go into my gallery and look through any illustration where I drew faces without an external reference," he ordered tiredly. "Anything that came entirely from my own head."
Namjoon let out a resigned sigh, finally set his phone aside, and lazily sat up. He picked the tablet up from the floor and started scrolling through folders while Taehyung returned his gaze to the ceiling.
At first, Namjoon's expression remained neutral. He even looked entertained.
But the further he went through the illustrations, the more his face gradually twisted into something much more suspicious.
"You've noticed it now, haven't you?" Taehyung murmured from the floor.
Namjoon's eyebrows slowly drew together.
"...Oh."
"Exactly. Oh."
"Taehyung," he said with a disturbed expression. "They literally all have the same face."
"I know! That's what I've been telling you ever since we met! Ugh."
Namjoon raised the tablet a little closer to his face.
"This one has long hair."
"Yep."
"This one has freckles."
"Yep."
"This one looks divorced."
"Yep."
"But they still have the same face."
Taehyung let out a groan of suffering and covered his face with both hands.
"I don't understand why the hell it happens. It doesn't matter if I draw men, women, teenagers, elderly people, kids... I always end up in the exact same place. I try to change details and somehow everything goes back to that structure."
Namjoon kept studying the illustrations while Taehyung spoke, now genuinely intrigued.
"I start by drawing a balanced face," Taehyung explained, waving one hand through the air as he mentally walked through the process. "The structure always starts off soft, somewhere between oval and round, but then I unconsciously sharpen the jawline and it ends up more defined. The forehead is always proportional, the cheekbones visible but not too pronounced... and the chin always ends up firm. The eyebrows always come out the same too, kind of straight... and the eyes are the worst problem. I always make the eyes too big."
"I can tell, yeah," Namjoon muttered without looking away from the screen.
"Even when I try to change them, I go right back to the same shape. Rounded, expressive, slightly elongated horizontally..." Taehyung slowly lowered his hands and frowned faintly, lost in his own thoughts. "And I always spend more time on them than on the rest of the face. I just... I don't know, I've always thought they were pretty. I like them to look alive. Bright and full of stars. Extremely expressive."
Namjoon slowly looked up at him.
"The nose always ends up compact too," Taehyung continued. "Straight, with a slightly rounded tip. And the lips... well, those always come out defined, with the lower one fuller. Oh, and the smile..." He let out a short, embarrassed laugh. "I always end up drawing it the same way, with the front teeth just a little more noticeable. It's cute. Kind of bunny-like."
Once he finished describing the face, Namjoon spent a few seconds staring at him before looking back at the screen. Then he let out an incredulous laugh and slowly shook his head.
"I'm going to be completely honest with you, this is starting to scare me a little," he admitted. "The number of details you've memorized about that face isn't normal."
"After drawing it for so many years, it would be weird not to know it by heart." Taehyung let out a soft snort.
"Has it always been like this? I mean, you keep emphasizing that it's been your entire life... but has it really been your entire life?"
"Ever since I can remember," Taehyung confirmed. "Seriously, I still have old drawings in my room from when I was a kid, and even though they were obviously terrible, you can still see the resemblance."
"That does absolutely nothing to make this sound less disturbing."
"Thanks, you're making me feel so much better."
"I'm just saying that if you ever meet someone who actually looks exactly like this, you should marry them immediately. You've already invested way too many years into that face."
Taehyung laughed again, though this time it was quieter.
"Stop talking nonsense. That person doesn't even exist."
"You don't know that." Namjoon shrugged casually. "Maybe they're someone from your past life."
The younger alpha slowly turned his head to look at him from the floor.
"You actually believe in that stuff?"
Namjoon resumed scrolling through the screen while speaking with complete calmness.
"Look, we live in a world where instincts, bonds, mates, and all this weird biological bullshit exist, and nobody can fully control it or explain how it works. Honestly, why would reincarnation be such a ridiculous idea?"
"I don't know..." Taehyung said with a sigh. "Or maybe I'm just drawing whatever my brain finds visually attractive."
"Could be," Namjoon agreed without hesitation. "But if you ever get a partner, you'd better never describe that face in this much detail."
"And why's that?"
Namjoon pointed the tablet at him.
"Because anyone would become insecure immediately. I know I would. Damn, even I ended up doubting whether he exists and whether you already know him after hearing you speak. They'll think you have a secret lover."
Taehyung let out a short laugh and finally sat back up amid the disaster of cushions. His body cracked lightly after spending so much time sprawled on the floor, so he stretched backward with a grimace before extending his hand toward Namjoon.
"Give that back."
Namjoon slid the tablet across the wooden floor toward him, and Taehyung caught it before it could crash into any of the cushions.
"I guess I'll have to start the sketch all over again," he muttered while turning the tablet back into the correct orientation.
Namjoon was about to answer when his phone vibrated on the couch. The sound lasted barely a second, but it was enough for the alpha to immediately shift his attention toward the screen because it was a customized notification tone.
The moment he read the message, his eyebrows lifted and he slowly ran his tongue across his lips as an all-too-obvious smile appeared on his face.
Taehyung didn't even need to look.
He smelled it.
Namjoon's scent shifted almost instantly. His glands reacted completely involuntarily to whatever he had just read. Taehyung’s chest tightened, his nose wrinkling as his head dropped back against the cushions, letting out a groan of utter pain.
"No..." he complained tiredly, dropping his head forward. "No...!"
"I think it's time for you to take a break." Namjoon tried to hide his smile and failed miserably.
"Namjoon-hyung!" he whined. "I want to at least finish the sketch today."
"Taehyung."
"If you love me, you'll save whatever I know you're about to do for later."
Namjoon's smile only widened.
"That sounds really bad when you put it like that."
"Because it is bad. I can literally smell your horniness from here. You're contaminating my work environment."
Namjoon burst out laughing and finally got up from the couch, stretching his arms above his head before walking over to where the younger alpha was sprawled among the cushions.
"You've been trapped in here drawing the same face for hours. You need fresh air."
"I need to finish the commission."
"You need to touch grass."
Taehyung barely managed to let out a growl before Namjoon grabbed one of his arms and hauled him upright without listening to a single protest. The younger alpha immediately complained as he was practically ripped off the floor.
"Hey! Let me go!" he protested while trying to regain his balance. "You animal, you're going to dislocate my shoulder."
"Stop being dramatic. I barely lifted you."
"You're practically two meters tall. Any movement you make qualifies as attempted murder, especially considering you're an expert at breaking things 'by accident.'"
Namjoon laughed again and kept pulling him along. Taehyung eventually gave in because he already knew that expression on his roommate's face; arguing was a complete waste of energy.
"You need to get out," Namjoon declared as he continued slowly shoving him toward the front entrance with unbearable persistence. "Clear your head and stop obsessing over it for a few hours. And because I love you dearly and care deeply about your mental stability, I'm recommending a break."
Taehyung let out a dry laugh while trying to stop himself by digging his feet into the floor.
"How thoughtful. Then explain why you're not coming with me if you're so worried about me. What if I pass out halfway down the road? Huh?"
"Because my omega is on the way and I want the house empty."
Oh, of course. A horny omega outranked a best friend having a crisis.
Taehyung made a sound of absolute disgust as he watched Namjoon head toward one of the cabinets near the kitchen and start searching for the scent-neutralizing diffuser they always used whenever Yoongi came over. The older alpha rummaged around until he finally found the device, looking completely unbothered as he plugged it in.
It was something they had started doing after one particularly traumatic incident where Taehyung had nearly ended up sleeping on the balcony because the entire apartment had been saturated with Yoongi's scent for hours.
It wasn't exactly an unpleasant smell, but it was still a problem for him.
Yoongi smelled like mandarin and plum blossoms. Far too cloyingly sweet for Taehyung's taste.
"This house isn't a hotel where you can roll around with Min Yoongi whenever you feel like it."
"You're so dramatic." Namjoon laughed as he switched the diffuser on.
"Last time the apartment smelled like the two of you for half a day. I opened my closet and even my clothes smelled like an omega in heat. It was a horrible experience."
"Oh, please. That's a lie, he wasn't in heat. You're just ridiculously sensitive to scents." The older alpha walked back over and gave him two heavy pats on the shoulders. "We'll discuss that later. And if you're that jealous, get yourself an omega."
Taehyung rolled his eyes tiredly.
"Let me remind you that I don't like omegas."
He had said that sentence far too many times over the years. It wasn't said with contempt or anything like that; Taehyung had simply never felt the reaction that most alphas seemed to experience almost automatically. He had never really understood the collective obsession surrounding omegas.
Sure, he could recognize when one was attractive, and sometimes he admitted that some of them smelled nice.
But that intense biological urge to chase, protect, or lose his mind over one had never appeared in him. Honestly, the more he watched other alphas behave like hormonal idiots around their omegas, the less interested he became in experiencing anything similar.
"Yeah, yeah, I know your speech already. My apologies, it's just that you sounded so jealous that it slipped out," Namjoon muttered while grabbing Taehyung's motorcycle keys and helmet before tossing them at him. "Now go disappear for a few hours and do whatever the hell you want. Eat something, flirt with someone, punch a wall, I don't know. I'll let you know when you can come back."
Taehyung caught both the keys and the helmet with quick reflexes before shooting him a murderous glare.
"Fine, but what? You know you could go to a damn motel, right? There are thousands of them in this city. Some of them even have hourly discounts for degenerates like you."
"But none of them have my bed."
"I'm going to throw up."
"And besides," Namjoon continued, completely ignoring him, "this is also my house, which means I have constitutional rights to have sex here."
"Nobody wants to think about your constitutional sexual rights."
"Yoongi does. And I don't complain nearly as much when you're the one bringing alphas over, and holy shit do I hate it because my wolf gets territorial."
"Kim Namjoon! You son of a—!"
The older alpha burst into laughter, and before Taehyung could continue insulting him, he finally shoved him out of the house.
"Have fun!" Namjoon said with an unbearably satisfied smile before slamming the door in his face.
Taehyung stood motionless for a few seconds in front of the closed wood, holding his helmet under one arm while staring at the door with immense hatred.
"—Bitch," he finished through gritted teeth.
From the other side, he could still hear Namjoon's muffled laughter.
That only made his mood worse.
With an exhausted huff, he started walking toward his motorcycle, which was parked in the house's external garage. During the day he kept it there; at night he stored it inside alongside Namjoon's car.
Still mentally grumbling about how unfair it was to be kicked out of his own house just because his roommate had an excessively active sex life, he finally reached his vehicle.
Although, if he was being honest... Namjoon was probably right.
He wasn't going to make any progress whatsoever if he stayed locked inside staring at that damn face repeating itself over and over in his head. Besides, he still had plenty of time left before the commission deadline. It wasn't the end of the world.
Not yet.
He climbed onto the motorcycle, inserted the keys, and started it. The engine immediately vibrated beneath him. Without even bothering to choose a destination, he pulled out of the driveway and headed off toward nowhere in particular.
He just needed to stop thinking for a while.
━━━━━━━━╰☆╮━━━━━━━━
It wasn't the first time Jungkook had dreamed that story, and honestly, it probably wouldn't be the last either. At that point, waking up with entire scenes engraved into his memory didn't even feel strange anymore. The truly weird thing would have been not dreaming it.
Then again, he couldn't complain too much, since half of his novels existed because of it.
His readers probably thought Jungkook was an extremely creative writer, deep or emotionally complex, when the reality was far less impressive; he basically exploited his own dreams until they started generating income.
It worked, so they should be grateful.
For years, he had made a habit of writing everything down the moment he woke up. He always kept a notebook beside his bed because he had learned the hard way that the human brain was treacherous; a scene could feel unforgettable upon waking and vanish completely after breakfast.
Sometimes he dreamed simple things, disconnected fragments or random ideas that he never touched again.
But other times...
There were dreams that seemed to stretch across entire weeks, resuming nights later exactly where they had left off, progressing little by little with perfect continuity. Jungkook could fall asleep on a Monday, dream half of a conversation, and then return to the exact same place two days later to hear the ending.
And the dream that had been haunting him lately was exactly one of those.
Unfortunately for him, it hadn't been linear. Some scenes seemed to belong to the ending, others to the beginning, and several still didn't make any sense at all. But after months of collecting fragments, he finally felt like he had enough material to organize the entire story and figure out what the hell his subconscious was trying to tell him.
That had been the plan for the day.
The problem was that he had run out of coffee.
And Jungkook, exactly as his own scent suggested, was biologically incapable of functioning without caffeine.
His natural scent had always been warm, roasted coffee blended with cardamom, deep yet comforting, with that fresh, spicy note that softened the bitterness of everything else. More than once, people had told him that smelling him made them want to fall asleep on top of him, a comment he usually ignored because he never knew how to respond to things like that without sounding like an idiot.
With a notebook tucked under his arm and a denim jacket thrown on, he left the building and headed toward his usual café. He practically lived next door, so the walk only took a few minutes, and honestly, he really enjoyed working there. The atmosphere was calm, the coffee was delicious, and the pastries they sold were dangerously addictive.
Especially the butter rolls. Jungkook was convinced that one day those damned pastries would be the death of him.
He pushed open the rustic door and the moment he stepped inside, he noticed the place was busier than usual for that hour. A small grimace of disappointment crossed his face as his eyes automatically searched for his usual table by the window.
It was occupied.
"Damn it," he muttered to himself as he headed toward the line.
He ordered his usual without even looking at the menu because the omega at the register practically knew his order by heart at that point, and while he waited, he scanned the café again in the hope that a free seat would magically appear.
But no, nothing.
The only thing available was the long communal table that occupied most of the center of the café, where people sat regardless of whether they knew each other or not. Jungkook normally avoided that spot because he liked working in peace and quiet, but he didn't really feel like going back to his apartment yet, either.
So he accepted his fate with resignation.
When they finally handed him his coffee and the bag of pastries, he walked over to the table and chose one of the ends, strategically calculating that at least he'd only have one person sitting too close instead of two. He set everything down on the wooden surface, settled into the chair, and let out a short sigh before putting on the headphones that had been hanging around his neck.
Jungkook finally opened the notebook and rested the tip of his pen against the first blank page he found between several folded sheets covered in old notes.
Before starting, he lifted the cup and slowly inhaled the steam rising from the freshly brewed coffee. The heat lightly fogged his glasses for a second and made him close his eyes briefly as he enjoyed the smell.
That scent was different from his own. More bitter.
But he liked it.
Jungkook had always maintained fairly good control over his pheromones, probably because he had learned as a teenager that a distracted alpha could end up saturating entire rooms without realizing it. That was why, whenever he went to public places, he always wore mild suppressants on the back of his neck and wrists. It wasn't an obligation or anything like that; it simply seemed like basic courtesy considering how many scent-sensitive people shared enclosed spaces.
Several omegas were scattered throughout the café, along with some betas and a handful of alphas whose scents drifted lightly through the air without blending too heavily thanks to the ventilation system. Jungkook barely paid attention to any of them. He had long since become accustomed to automatically filtering out other people's scents.
He shifted his shoulders slightly to settle more comfortably into the chair and began flipping through previous pages until he found the first record of that specific dream.
The dates were written above each fragment, which made organizing everything easier.
Well, easier if the story had been linear from the beginning.
The first entry was nearly four months old.
So he had been dreaming the same story intermittently for all that time. It was insane even by his standards, especially considering that plenty of completely unrelated dreams had happened in between.
Yet this story kept returning repeatedly.
The worst part was that every new fragment left him with that strange feeling in his chest whenever he woke up, like nostalgia and anxiety.
Jungkook rested his elbow on the table and began rereading his own notes. Some pages featured neat, organized handwriting, probably written after washing his face and fully waking up. Others looked like the desperate work of a man fighting sleep at four in the morning.
As he moved through the pages, a sort of puzzle began to form.
There were enormous walls, traditional temples, fortresses built among mist-covered mountains. There were suits of armor, banners moving in the wind, the sound of steel colliding, thick smoke rising from somewhere in the distance, and dozens of soldiers crossing muddy roads.
It was during the era of the Three Kingdoms, Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla. He couldn't tell which one exactly, but it was somewhere around that period.
He slowly ran his tongue against the inside of his cheek while reorganizing several notes into chronological order, trying to connect the scenes.
In the story, he was always there.
Or at least some version of himself was.
He wasn't entirely sure, but he could feel it even though he never actually saw himself.
In that dream, he was an alpha general.
That much he knew because the constant pressure rested on his shoulders. It felt so vivid that some mornings he woke up physically exhausted, carrying the genuine sensation of having spent entire hours riding horseback or walking through military camps.
And then there was him.
He always appeared.
Sometimes he stood in front of a campfire while they discussed military strategies beneath the orange glow of the flames. Other times he rode beside him through damp mountain roads. Jungkook had also seen him training with a sword beneath the sun, sweat glistening along his neck while he smiled in that teasing way that managed to irritate him even inside the dream.
Then there were the quieter moments.
Those were the ones that lingered in his chest the longest after waking.
Sometimes he simply watched him walking a few steps ahead, long hair moving with the wind and a red cloak covering part of his body as he extended a hand for Jungkook to take. Other times he only felt his lips against his own while that deep voice whispered things he liked hearing when they were alone and no one could see them.
Always there.
He never saw more than disconnected fragments, but there was one thing that never changed.
The scent.
That was probably what unsettled him the most about the entire situation because even inside a dream, his biology reacted to him, to green fig and sandalwood.
More than once, he had opened his eyes with his heart racing, his glands sensitive, and small amounts of pheromones escaping involuntarily because his instincts were still stirred.
It was absurd that his body reacted to that person as though he truly existed, or as though Jungkook actually knew him.
Jungkook took a sip of coffee while reviewing the pages for the hundredth time, trying to arrange every detail.
The most frustrating part was that he never managed to see his face clearly, only isolated fragments that were impossible to piece together correctly.
He remembered intense, analytical eyes with that slightly feline shape. He remembered his nose too, his well-defined lips, even the particular shape of his square smile whenever he teased him during training sessions or made him melt.
But he could never manage to form the entire face, and it frustrated him immensely. He had tried recreating it on paper to see if he could finally view it as a whole, but it had been a complete failure because Jungkook couldn't draw. It had ended up looking like a character from Beavis and Butt-Head.
He was good at writing. He knew how to build complex characters using nothing but words, and he could describe emotions in ways that made complete strangers on the internet cry. But visualizing faces with precision was something entirely different.
All he had were memories.
The worst part was that this man wasn't simply another ‘character’ from his dreams.
It wasn't the first time Jungkook had seen him.
It wasn't even the tenth.
He had been dreaming about him for years under different forms.
He had seen him as an elegant nobleman walking through ancient hallways filled with silk and candlelight. Once, he had dreamed of a child running through enormous gardens while laughing. Another time, he had been a woman sitting beneath the rain, looking directly at him with those same impossible-to-forget eyes.
And yet...
It was still him.
Always.
There had even been a time when Jungkook woke up after dreaming of nothing but the profile of his neck beneath the light of dawn.
It didn't matter the face, the body, the gender, the age, or the era. Even when he possessed different physical characteristics, Jungkook always knew it was the same person.
It was difficult to explain without sounding completely unhinged.
Something like when someone says, "I dreamed about you yesterday, but you were a rock. Don't ask me how I knew, you were just you."
After so many years, Jungkook had stopped questioning it. Dreaming about that man no longer felt strange.
What would have been strange was not seeing him.
He pressed the tip of his pen against the page again and began linking dates, scenes, and small notes scribbled in the margins while organizing the dream's timeline.
‘This happens after the battle.’
‘Don't confuse this with the temple fragment.’
‘This can be placed between the trip to the southern base and the meeting with the King.’
The more he organized the scenes, the more uncomfortable he felt because, for the first time, he had something that looked very much like an ending.
Completing that story meant closing a door in some strange way.
It meant reaching the end of something that had accompanied him for months, and part of him wasn't sure he wanted to let it go yet.
It sounded absurd to become emotionally attached to a character who only existed in the world of dreams and whom he would eventually see again in another context, but Jungkook had accepted a long time ago that his brain didn't exactly function in a normal way.
Besides, he hated the ending.
Jungkook flipped back several pages and reread his most recent notes, mentally revisiting the scene he had dreamed the night before.
They had been fighting in the snow.
The sound of steel clashing echoed everywhere while several infiltrators attempted to force their way toward the King. Jungkook could remember perfectly the sensation of cold piercing through his hands and the adrenaline surging through his body as he fought alongside him.
And then...
He saw one of the enemy swords heading directly toward him.
The other man had stepped in front of him without hesitation.
He remembered blood spilling across the white snow.
After the attackers had been dealt with, he had run to him desperately, trying to hold him in his arms while uselessly pressing against the wound.
Despite dying, that idiot had smiled at him.
Jungkook could still hear his voice saying, "I love you," as his final words.
He saw himself crying while stroking his bloodstained face, his own hands smeared red from trying to stop the bleeding, promising that he would find him in the next life.
Yeah.
He didn't like that ending.
Not one bit.
His novels rarely ended badly because, honestly, he hated suffering for free, and so did his readers. People wanted to cry for a while, sure, but afterward they needed emotional payoff. Nobody wanted to invest five hundred pages into a couple only for one of them to die tragically in the snow.
Well...
Some people did.
But Jungkook wasn't sure he wanted to do that, or that his readers would want him to.
Maybe he could change it and rewrite the ending so they survived and escaped together.
Somewhere they could live peacefully and happily on a distant mountain far away from the palace.
Yes.
That sounded much better.
He continued working for several more minutes while drinking coffee and demolishing a second batch of pastries without realizing it. When he finally looked up, he had managed to organize enough information to begin a decent draft of the story.
That was progress.
For the first time in months, he felt like he genuinely understood the structure of the dream.
Jungkook stretched lightly in his chair before standing up, ready to return to his apartment.
And right then, the little bell above the café door rang. At first, he didn't pay attention. People were constantly coming and going.
But then his body reacted before his brain did.
Green fig and sandalwood.
Jungkook froze completely.
The scent hit his senses, and for a second the rest of the café seemed to disappear around him as his pulse slammed violently against his chest.
Slowly, very slowly, he turned toward the scent, his eyes wider than they should have been.
The first thing he saw was a pair of large hands with long, elegant fingers setting a red helmet down on the communal table. Thin bracelets circled the stranger's wrists.
Jungkook swallowed as his gaze slowly traveled up those strong honey-colored arms.
The stranger wore a simple red short-sleeved shirt that did very little to conceal the true size of his body beneath the fabric. Broad shoulders, a solid torso, and a relaxed posture that radiated confidence effortlessly.
His black hair was slightly messy, probably because of the helmet.
Then Jungkook noticed his face.
The alpha stood in profile while speaking with the cashier, completely unaware of what he had just caused a few meters away.
At first, Jungkook thought he might be exaggerating.
Because yes, he was attractive.
Ridiculously attractive.
And yes, he smelled exactly the same. But it could be a coincidence. It had to be a coincidence.
Until the stranger smiled.
That was when Jungkook felt dizzy, because it was the same square smile he had been seeing in his dreams for years.
As he stared, Jungkook began recognizing everything else too. Not as a complete face, but in pieces, the way he had always seen them individually. There it was.
The vivid reconstruction.
He felt his glands tighten beneath his skin and a wave of heat race down his spine while his heart pounded so hard it almost hurt.
The suppressants he had applied weren't enough to stop the scent that escaped him.
His fingers lost their grip on the notebook at the exact moment the stranger received a cup of hot chocolate to go.
The notebook slipped from his hands and hit the wooden floor with a sharp thud, falling open and causing several people to look up reflexively.
A couple of customers glanced over for a second before returning to their conversations. But he didn't.
The alpha in the red shirt immediately lowered his gaze toward the open notebook and, after a brief hesitation, walked over to pick it up.
Taehyung crouched down calmly, holding the cup of hot chocolate in one hand while picking up the notebook with the other. Several pages had fallen open at random, and before he even stopped to consider whether he should or shouldn't, his eyes skimmed over part of the contents.
He admitted he was a dangerously curious person.
And by curious, he meant nosy.
His eyes moved quickly through the notes until he identified that it was clearly the construction of a story.
"Are you a writer?" Taehyung asked, being exactly as reckless as always, as he held the notebook out to him.
The guy raised both hands shakily to take the notebook he was offering. Taehyung finally looked up because he couldn't understand why those fingers were trembling so much.
Maybe the guy had fallen for him at first sight, in which case Taehyung would happily count it as a victory and finally have someone to spend time with until Namjoon graciously decided to let him back into his own home.
The thing was, the moment he saw him, the flirtatious smile that had formed on his face vanished completely.
Because it was the same face he had been drawing for as long as he could remember.
The same one that appeared no matter how much he tried changing proportions, structures, or details.
The same one his hand seemed incapable of abandoning no matter how hard he tried. There was that nose, those lips and those huge eyes behind the glasses.
Taehyung felt his chest constrict all at once as he stared at him.
The guy's eyes were even bigger up close; expressive, intense, and filled with something Taehyung couldn't identify, yet it sent his entire body into turmoil the moment they looked directly at him.
Neither Taehyung let go of the notebook, nor did the other man try to take it.
They simply remained there, both holding it at the same time while staring at each other in complete silence.
The noise of the café slowly began fading around them.
Everything became distant and irrelevant in that moment.
"Have we met before...?" Taehyung asked awkwardly.
"In a dream," the guy replied so quietly that Taehyung barely managed to hear him.
Taehyung frowned slightly.
"What?"
Only then did the other seem to realize what he had just said.
He blinked several times in rapid succession and shook his head quickly while clearing his throat with obvious nervousness.
"Nothing. No, sorry, I... we don't know each other."
The moment he finished speaking, he practically snatched the notebook from Taehyung's hands.
Taehyung remained frozen for a second, completely bewildered by the sudden panic. He hadn't been the only one who reacted strangely. That guy had felt it too.
The way he had looked at him wasn't normal. Neither was the way he'd answered. Nobody said ‘in a dream’ like that for no reason.
The dark-haired alpha took a couple of steps back far too quickly, clutching the notebook against his chest while avoiding looking at him directly.
That only made Taehyung want to get closer.
"Wait," he called, taking a step toward him. "My name's Taehyung."
"..."
"And yours?"
No answer.
The guy circled the communal table and began walking toward the exit at a suspiciously fast pace for someone who supposedly wasn't running away.
Taehyung let out a small incredulous laugh before following him a few steps.
"Hey, that's terrible manners, you know?"
The guy stopped just before reaching the door.
Only then did he turn his head slightly over his shoulder.
"Jungkook."
And then he walked out of the café, making the bell above the entrance ring.
Taehyung stood there watching him leave.
His eyes automatically followed the other's figure through the large windows as Jungkook hurried down the street with quick, awkward steps.
He looked genuinely shaken.
Taehyung didn't understand a single thing except one.
He didn't want to let him go.
He quickly turned to grab his helmet from the table, ready to run after him, but then he noticed an object left behind where Jungkook had been sitting.
A pen.
So Taehyung picked it up along with his helmet and left the café almost immediately.
"Hey!"
The street was busier outside, but even so, it took him less than two seconds to realize something incredibly frustrating.
Jungkook wasn't there.
Not to the right, not to the left, he had simply disappeared. Taehyung frowned as he took a few steps forward, searching through the crowd.
It was ridiculous, a person couldn't just evaporate that fast.
He walked over to his motorcycle, annoyance slowly growing in his chest, and placed his helmet on the seat before running a hand through his hair in frustration.
"Fantastic."
He lowered his gaze to the cup of hot chocolate he was still holding and only then remembered the pen trapped between his fingers.
Absentmindedly switching it to his other hand, he examined it more closely.
It was elegant. One of those heavy pens with metallic details and an antique finish that were clearly expensive. The kind of object someone used because they genuinely cared about writing with it.
And also the kind of object someone would definitely miss.
Taehyung's frustration slowly began to fade, and a small smile appeared on his lips as he spun the pen between his fingers.
Then he took a leisurely sip of his hot chocolate.
Right then and there, he started thinking about how to run into Jungkook again.
━━━━━━━━╰☆╮━━━━━━━━
Taehyung had been sitting in the café for nearly forty minutes, and he was starting to understand perfectly why Jungkook had chosen that place to work.
It was comfortable.
Even when crowded, the atmosphere still felt calm. Taehyung rested his elbow on the table while slowly stirring the hot chocolate in front of him, completely distracted.
In front of him sat an empty plate where two butter croissants had once rested, along with another freshly served one that clearly wasn't going to survive much longer either.
He wasn't even truly hungry, he was eating out of anxiety.
His eyes drifted back toward the entrance once more when the bell rang again.
Nothing.
Again.
He let out a tired sigh and checked the time on his phone before setting it face down on the table.
After losing sight of Jungkook, Taehyung had remained outside leaning against his motorcycle for almost four entire hours, absentmindedly spinning the other alpha's pen between his fingers while occasionally glancing down the street, hoping he'd appear again.
He never did.
The more time passed, the more ridiculous he felt. At some point, Namjoon had finally sent him a message.
The Pain-in-the-Ass Alpha I Have to Live With
"Are you planning to sleep on the street or are you coming back?"
Taehyung had read the message with a frown while still sitting on his motorcycle.
The Pain-in-the-Ass Alpha I Have to Live With
"I texted you an hour ago saying you could come back. Normally you'd have smashed through walls to get inside by now."
That was true.
Usually, Taehyung took every opportunity to reclaim his apartment after Namjoon and Yoongi finished their romantic-hormonal rendezvous.
But this time he hadn't even cared.
The Pain-in-the-Ass Alpha I Have to Live With
"I'm busy, stop bothering me."
"Does 'busy' mean you finally slept with someone?"
Taehyung could still remember the annoyed look on his face as he typed a curt, ‘Shut up, you bastard’, before putting his phone away again.
Then he kept waiting like an idiot.
He looked like an abandoned dog waiting for its owner to come back.
Unfortunately for him, Jungkook never returned.
Eventually, he had to accept the humiliating reality that the other alpha probably wasn't coming back that day, so he finally started his motorcycle and headed home with his thoughts in complete disarray.
And the moment he opened the door...
"HYUNG!"
The shout echoed throughout the entire house.
Taehyung slammed the door shut behind him and headed straight inside, still carrying his helmet under one arm and Jungkook's pen tucked into the front pocket of his pants.
He was so mentally unsettled that he didn't even react to the atmosphere in the apartment, even though it was still saturated with Yoongi's lingering scent mixed with Namjoon's pheromones.
Normally, he would've immediately made a disgusted face or at least thrown out some offensive comment.
But he was far too busy having a crisis.
Namjoon appeared from the kitchen with a bottle of water in hand, and the moment he saw Taehyung's expression, he slowly raised an eyebrow.
"Why the fuck do you look like a maniac?"
Taehyung set his helmet on the dining table, dragged out a chair with a loud scrape against the floor, and dropped into it before dramatically pointing a finger at him.
Namjoon, of course, already looked mentally prepared to hear something idiotic.
The older alpha sat down across from him with complete calm.
"Go on, then."
Taehyung took a deep breath.
"I found my ideal man. Literally found him. Isn't that incredible? I think I fell in love at first sight."
The silence that followed was beautiful.
Namjoon stared at him completely motionless for several long seconds, processing the words.
Then he burst out laughing so hard he nearly choked on his water. He actually had to bend forward while coughing and laughing.
"What the fuck?" he wheezed between laughs. "Did a truck hit you? I can't find any other logical explanation for the bullshit coming out of your mouth."
"I'm serious." Taehyung immediately frowned.
That only made things worse because Namjoon started laughing even harder, resting an arm on the table while shaking his head in utter disbelief.
Honestly, it made sense that he reacted like that.
Taehyung had never been particularly interested in dating seriously. He only had casual relationships, constantly, just like many other alphas his age.
In fact, Namjoon was pretty sure Taehyung could go years without feeling even the slightest spark for someone beyond the tingling sensation he got whenever his dick decided to wake up.
So seeing him walk into the apartment talking about his ‘ideal man’ was probably one of the most absurd things he'd ever heard come out of his mouth.
His entire motto was basically that Kim Taehyung fucked, he didn't fall in love. How was Namjoon supposed to take that seriously?
"No, wait, wait," Namjoon said, trying to catch his breath while still laughing. "Let me make sure I understand this correctly. You? Kim Taehyung? The same guy who says love is a waste of time and romance is overrated?"
"I never said romance was overrated."
"You literally said, 'I'd rather die than listen to someone chewing near me every day.'"
"That is still true."
Namjoon laughed again.
Taehyung crossed his arms irritably, though honestly he couldn't even blame him. If someone had told him a few hours ago that he'd be saying something like this, he probably would've mocked himself too.
But then he remembered Jungkook's face, his scent, and everything he'd felt the moment he saw him.
His eyes softened. A fond smile appeared on his face.
"I'm completely serious," he repeated, this time more quietly.
Namjoon gradually stopped laughing because now he noticed something strange.
Taehyung wasn't acting.
"...What exactly happened?"
It was like someone had wound him up.
Taehyung immediately started talking without practically taking a breath.
The words tumbled over each other while he gestured wildly from the other side of the table.
He told him absolutely everything; the notebook falling to the floor, the strange moment when they both held it at the same time, Jungkook's face, and above all, that answer about the dream before the other alpha had practically fled the café.
The more he talked, the faster he sounded.
"I swear he reacted weird too!" he insisted, waving his arms. "It wasn't just me. He looked exactly as confused as I was, and then he ran off like he'd seen a ghost. That means he felt it too!"
He looked far too excited.
"He had that face," Taehyung continued without slowing down. "That face. The same one. Exactly the same damn face I've been drawing my entire life."
Namjoon slowly rested his elbows on the table while studying him more carefully.
"Are you absolutely sure?"
"Yes, for fuck's sake, of course I'm sure." Taehyung looked offended. "There was no way to mistake him. I'd recognize those eyes even if someone ripped mine out."
"Okay, that sounded a little disturbing. What did you say this individual was called?"
"Jungkook... even his name is cute, don't you think? Do you know anyone named that? I don't. That just proves how unique he is."
He kept talking about him.
His scent had become much stronger than usual, gradually spreading throughout the dining room as he spoke.
And somewhere in the middle of all Taehyung's shouting... they eventually woke Yoongi up.
First came the sound of slow footsteps upstairs. Then a barely intelligible curse.
Finally, the omega appeared at the top of the stairs with an expression that made it abundantly clear he hated all of humanity at that moment.
He was wearing one of Namjoon's oversized black shirts, which hung down to mid-thigh, and his brown hair was completely disheveled, flattened on one side from sleeping.
His eyes were barely open.
Honestly, he looked ridiculously small compared to the size of the clothes he was wearing. Like a cat that had just woken up and been violently forced to exist.
The sweet scent of mandarin and plum blossom followed him immediately as he descended the stairs, completely intertwined with Namjoon's fresh pine and black tea.
Taehyung automatically looked up at him, and the first thing he noticed were the reddish hickeys scattered across the pale skin of his legs and the part of his neck that the shirt failed to cover.
The younger alpha instantly made a face of absolute horror.
Only then did he seem to consciously process the state of the apartment. The atmosphere was ridiculously saturated.
"Why the fuck does it smell so strong?" he blurted out with genuine disgust, wrinkling his nose. Several hours had passed since they were supposedly done. It shouldn't have smelled like anything anymore.
Namjoon blinked once before his eyes widened slightly.
"...I forgot to turn on the neutralizer... after the third round when you said you were busy with something else and wouldn't be back soon," he admitted, looking somewhat embarrassed. "Sorry."
"How the fuck do you forget something like that when you live with another alpha?"
"I was busy."
Taehyung slowly lowered his gaze toward the marks covering Yoongi's legs.
"Yeah, I can see exactly how busy you were."
Yoongi, still half-asleep, let out a tired little huff as he continued toward the dining room.
"I focused there so I wouldn't get carried away with his neck," he explained calmly. "My wolf was already getting pretty insistent about giving him a real mark."
The other alpha closed his eyes for a full five seconds.
"That was information I never needed to hear."
The omega didn't even bother responding verbally, he simply raised his middle finger without stopping.
Namjoon ended up laughing as he finally got up to turn on the scent neutralizer that he'd somehow forgotten in the corner of the apartment.
"You're being way too dramatic," he complained while switching it on. "You sound like a prudish virgin."
"The air has texture!" Taehyung shouted from the table, utterly outraged. "I feel like I'm inhaling hot syrup. I can literally taste the pheromones on my tongue."
"Oh please, you didn't even notice earlier because you were too busy being excited."
That earned a low, tired laugh from Yoongi.
The omega finally reached Namjoon and, without saying a single word, dropped directly onto his lap the moment the alpha sat back down at the table. Namjoon automatically wrapped an arm around his waist, settling him comfortably against his chest.
"You’re disgustingly domestic. Could you two behave like normal human beings in front of other people for five minutes?"
"That's called jealousy." Namjoon let out an immediate laugh while keeping an arm around Yoongi's waist.
Yoongi completely ignored the comment and looked back at Taehyung, his eyes still half-asleep, though he was more awake than a few minutes ago.
"Why exactly are you making such a huge fuss?"
Namjoon answered before Taehyung could open his mouth.
"Because he found the love of his life. It was love at first sight."
"Seriously?" Yoongi asked, turning slightly toward Taehyung. "Did you finally find your destined omega?"
Taehyung's reaction was immediate. He made a face of absolute disgust.
"No, no, wait," Namjoon said with a laugh. "Honey, remember the tiny detail that Taehyung isn't interested in omegas. That's literally the reason I allow him to be here when you're around or come home after the two of us have been together. Any other alpha could react instinctively to an omega's pheromones, and that can be dangerous."
"But that's exactly the best part," Taehyung said with a grin.
Yoongi narrowed his eyes slightly.
"What part?"
"That Jungkook is an alpha and smells amazing."
Even several hours later, he could still remember Jungkook's scent perfectly. Roasted coffee and cardamom. It was addictive. His wolf seemed to have become completely fixated on it.
Every time he closed his eyes, he could recall it exactly as it had been, and it was doing absolutely nothing to help him maintain his sanity.
"I need a lot more context," Yoongi said. "Who the hell is Jungkook, and why are you calling him the love of your life after a single interaction?"
Taehyung told the whole story again.
Again.
Though this time he gave Yoongi the shortened version, because the omega got bored easily. Unlike Namjoon, Yoongi didn't make fun of him very much. In fact, he listened quite attentively while absentmindedly playing with Namjoon's fingers.
When Taehyung finished speaking, the omega narrowed his eyes slightly.
"So what are you planning to do?"
The smile that slowly appeared on Taehyung's face was enough to immediately set off every alarm in Namjoon's head.
"Oh no," the older alpha said the moment he saw it.
Taehyung rested his arms on the table with a satisfied expression.
"I already have a plan."
That plan was exactly why he was now sitting once again in the same café, at the same communal table, patiently waiting for Jungkook to return.
Or well, ‘patiently’ might have been a very generous word. Because he had spent nearly an hour looking toward the door every thirty seconds.
Before leaving the apartment, Namjoon had tried to talk some sense into him.
"Why don't you just look him up on social media?" he had asked while making coffee in the kitchen. "You already know his name."
Taehyung had been putting on his shoes near the entrance and immediately looked offended.
"You're so unromantic."
"What do you know about being romantic when you've never even had an official partner or seriously courted anyone?" Namjoon had scolded. "What you're doing isn't romance. It's called stalking."
"I'm just persistent."
"That's what stalkers say too."
Taehyung had thrown him a murderous look before grabbing his motorcycle keys.
"I literally just want to return his pen."
"Uh-huh."
"And if he doesn't show up after a few days, then I'll do your boring plan and look him up."
Namjoon had stared at him in complete silence for several seconds before slowly shaking his head.
"I'm already waiting for the police station to call."
Sitting in the café now, Taehyung was beginning to seriously consider that maybe Namjoon had a point. Because spending nearly an hour obsessively watching the entrance definitely sounded a little concerning.
He was already on another hot chocolate and finishing his third batch of croissants while watching a show on his phone with white earbuds in, completely sprawled across his café chair.
Honestly, he was starting to seriously question his life choices.
He had been there so long that he already knew the employees' movement patterns, which barista made coffee the fastest, and which student couple argued passive-aggressively in the corner.
He had even given them names by now. The shorter one was Rachel even though he was a man, and the tall one was Ross. Yes, he was watching Friends.
He was officially entering worrying territory. Which was why, when the bell above the entrance rang again, he looked up more out of habit than actual hope.
But as if the Moon Goddess had finally decided to listen to him for the first time in a long while, he saw him.
If he'd had a physical tail, it probably would have been knocking over every chair around him like an excited puppy.
Because there was Jungkook.
He had just entered the café wearing an oversized black sweater that swallowed part of his hands and somehow made him look even more handsome than Taehyung remembered. His black hair was fluffier than the day before, falling over his forehead in a ridiculously attractive way, and he was still wearing those glasses that Taehyung had already mentally decided were dangerous for him.
Nobody should be allowed to look that good. It was illegal. On top of that, he still smelled incredible. Even from a distance, the scent of roasted coffee and cardamom reached him through the rest of the café's smells.
Taehyung's wolf immediately perked up, completely interested. Taehyung paused whatever he was watching without taking his eyes off Jungkook for even a second.
Jungkook walked straight to the counter, and Taehyung, utterly incapable of acting like a normal person, sat up slightly in his chair and tried to listen, even though it was completely impossible from that distance.
The younger alpha said something quietly to the cashier, and the cashier shook his head apologetically.
Taehyung smiled slowly.
Ah, he was definitely asking about the pen.
Meanwhile, Jungkook felt like he was living through the worst possible scenario, an absolute nightmare.
He had way too many problems.
After almost fleeing the place like a mentally unstable person, Jungkook had arrived at his apartment with his heart racing. The moment he closed the door behind him, he ended up standing there for several minutes with his back pressed against it while trying to regulate his own pheromones.
His wolf was far too active and agitated for someone who normally ignored other alphas entirely.
That was already bad enough, but then he discovered his pen was missing, and everything got even worse, because it wasn't just any pen.
It was the one his grandfather had given him years before he died, back when Jungkook had only just started seriously talking about studying literature and becoming a writer. He could still remember that conversation perfectly. The old man had handed him the pen and told him that a writer should always have something good to tell stories with.
He had been the first person to truly support him.
That was why Jungkook treasured it almost obsessively. The moment he realized it was gone, he had nearly gone back out immediately to look for it, but then he reached the building lobby and saw Taehyung outside through the windows, casually leaning against his motorcycle right in front of the café.
Jungkook had felt instant panic, because the real problem wasn't just that Taehyung was absurdly attractive.
The real problem was that his body reacted to him, and that wasn't supposed to happen. It had never happened before.
Alphas didn't react to each other like that.
Normally, he reacted to other alphas with territorial instincts or, at best, complete indifference. But with that square-smiled alpha carrying the scent of green fig and sandalwood... everything seemed different.
In theory, Jungkook was a public figure. Not a massive celebrity, but well-known enough that the internet had opinions about absolutely everything he did.
He had obsessive readers, interviews, book signings, publishing contracts, and entire forums dedicated to discussing every tiny detail of his novels.
Years ago, he had learned that people romanticized certain things and rejected others with alarming ease. A dominant alpha paired with a delicate, submissive omega was the kind of relationship that sold, the kind of fantasy society consumed happily because it fit neatly into what they expected to see. But two alphas? That still made far too many people uncomfortable.
Sure, legally it wasn't a problem anymore. Nobody was going to arrest him for dating another alpha. But the looks, the comments, the online arguments, and the disgusting theories disguised as ‘opinions’ still existed. Especially when both of them were dominant alphas.
People saw it as unnatural and wrong. Jungkook had spent too many years carefully building his career to destroy it because his heart had decided to become an idiot in front of an absurdly attractive alpha who seemed to have stepped straight out of the dreams he'd been having his entire life.
That was why he hadn't left the building the day before. The moment he reached the lobby and saw Taehyung, he had gone right back upstairs to his apartment and spent the rest of the afternoon convincing himself that the best course of action was to retrieve the pen from lost and found the next day like a normal person.
Spoiler: the Moon Goddess clearly hated him.
Because the second the cashier finished telling him, with genuine sympathy, that nobody had turned in any pen, Jungkook heard a voice behind him.
"Jungkook."
Just that.
It wasn't even loud. And yet he felt a shiver run down his spine immediately.
He turned around far too quickly, and there he was again.
Taehyung had approached without him noticing, and now he was standing right in front of him with a dangerously relaxed expression. He was wearing a sleeveless white shirt that left his strong, defined arms completely exposed; his black hair was slightly messy, and a pair of white earbuds rested around his neck. He also had a brown backpack hanging from his shoulders, and Jungkook needed a full second to remember how to breathe.
Because yes, he was still far too handsome and still smelled far too good. The scent of green fig and sandalwood made his wolf stir again with an interest that was beginning to feel downright humiliating.
Jungkook immediately felt the urge to run away for the second time.
"Jungkook," Taehyung repeated when the younger alpha looked away and pretended he hadn't heard him.
Unlike Jungkook, he seemed completely at ease, while Jungkook continued staring at literally anything that wasn't him.
"Jungkook."
Nothing.
Then Taehyung let out a small amused huff and crossed his arms.
"Okay, now I'm starting to take being ignored personally."
Jungkook closed his eyes for a second before finally giving up.
"Hello," he greeted flatly and without emotion, still avoiding eye contact.
"Wow, that's cold. I was expecting something warmer after the connection we had yesterday."
Jungkook nearly choked on his own saliva.
The cashier immediately looked up. He was listening with far too much interest, but he also had a job to do, so he discreetly pointed behind them.
"If you don't need anything else, could you step aside? There are customers waiting."
Jungkook reacted instantly, mortified.
"Sorry, sorry," he muttered, giving a small automatic bow as he quickly moved out of the line.
The problem was that when he moved, he ended up even closer to Taehyung, who didn't step back a single inch. If anything, he looked thoroughly entertained watching Jungkook avoid looking at him while trying to maintain a distance that simply no longer existed.
"What do you want?" Jungkook asked, frustrated.
To him, Taehyung had the kind of relaxed confidence he usually found irritating in other alphas, but somehow it was worse on him because it came packaged with an incredibly beautiful face and a deep voice that stirred uncomfortable things inside his chest.
"First, I'd like to point out something important," Taehyung said as he tilted his head slightly, shamelessly looking him up and down. "You look different today. Cuter."
Jungkook immediately felt heat rush up his neck, which only made his mood worse. Because Taehyung was an alpha.
An alpha was openly flirting with him in the middle of a crowded café. And the worst part, the truly humiliating part, was that his body was responding well to it. His wolf wasn't uncomfortable, aggressive, or offended by such disrespect.
No.
The traitorous thing was practically lying on its back waiting for a belly rub.
"I need you to tell me what you want, and quickly. Otherwise, I’m leaving,” he replied with noticeably less patience this time.
He could feel that gaze moving across his face with something dangerously close to devotion.
"Honestly," Taehyung admitted with a small laugh, "I'm still processing the fact that you're actually real and not a hallucination created by my brain."
Jungkook blinked once before answering seriously.
"You clearly need therapy."
Taehyung burst out laughing, and Jungkook suddenly wanted to slam his head into the nearest wall because even his laugh was attractive. Deep, warm, and infectious.
He needed to leave immediately.
Without saying another word, Jungkook started walking toward the exit, fully prepared to flee for the second time in two days, but Taehyung reacted quickly.
"Wait, wait," he called, following him a couple of steps before finally pulling the pen out of his back pocket. "Look what I've got."
Jungkook turned around heavily, expecting some kind of nonsense, but the moment he recognized it, his eyes widened and relief flooded through him instantly.
"My pen."
He let out a slow breath before extending his hand.
"Thank you," he said sincerely as he reached for it.
But just as his fingers were about to touch it, Taehyung pulled his hand back a few inches.
Jungkook slowly lifted his gaze and stared at him in disbelief. He couldn’t believe he had done that.
Taehyung smiled with astonishing audacity.
Yes, he was doing it on purpose, because he knew perfectly well that if he handed it back, Jungkook would disappear again, and then he wouldn't have any excuse left to see him.
"I'll give it back under one condition."
"Are you blackmailing me?" Jungkook narrowed his eyes immediately.
"'Blackmail' is a very aggressive word," Taehyung replied calmly, twirling the pen between his fingers. "I prefer to call it a negotiation."
"You definitely have issues."
Jungkook tried to snatch the pen quickly while Taehyung wasn't paying attention, but Taehyung reacted instantly and raised his arm even higher while stepping backward.
"Are you five years old?" Jungkook asked, completely outraged.
"No, but you have really cute reflexes when you're trying to reach me, let me tell you."
Jungkook felt a very real urge to punch him.
And another, far more concerning urge to keep listening to him talk.
Which was a terrible idea.
He tried once more to take the pen, but Taehyung simply stepped back again with a low laugh. He was only a little taller than Jungkook, maybe by a couple of centimeters, but he had absurdly long arms, and Jungkook was beginning to hate that detail. Though, to be fair, Jungkook was somewhat broader and could probably tackle him if he really wanted to.
The idea crossed his mind far too quickly, but before he could evaluate exactly how to do it, Taehyung seemed to take pity on him.
"I just want to take you out for something to eat and talk for a while," he said more softly this time, though the smile was still there. "That's all. Do that, and I'll give it back."
Nope, he was wrong. That wasn't mercy.
Jungkook watched him silently for several seconds.
"Why are you so interested in me?" he finally asked, unable to stop himself.
"Because you're gorgeous, you smell amazing, and I want to get to know you."
Jungkook's heart practically slammed into his ribs. He literally felt the impact.
His wolf... God, it was rolling around happily inside him after hearing such ridiculous nonsense.
He glanced around quickly to make sure no one was paying them too much attention before looking back at him. Taehyung was still playing with the pen with that confident, relaxed, unbearably handsome smile.
Jungkook hated admitting it, even to himself, that he wanted to keep looking at it a little longer.
He finally huffed in frustration and looked away.
"Fine."
Taehyung lit up the moment he heard that answer. Satisfaction spread across his entire face, but Jungkook immediately raised a finger and pointed it at him before he could get too excited.
"But if you start being weird, I'm leaving," he warned firmly, though the faint color on his cheeks took away a lot of authority from the threat.
"The important thing here is that you just agreed to go on a date with me."
"This is not a date."
"Of course," Taehyung replied with complete mock seriousness, nodding slowly. "Then we're just two alphas who are intensely attracted to each other sharing pastries in a completely platonic way."
Yeah, his wolf was still fascinated.
Taehyung seemed to notice the exact moment Jungkook ran out of arguments, because his smile became even more satisfied before he finally stopped torturing him and held the pen out.
Jungkook snatched it from his hand the second it was close enough and immediately tucked it into the front pocket of his oversized sweater, protecting it almost on instinct.
"What an incredibly unromantic way to treat the alpha who rescued something that was obviously important to you."
"A thief doesn't become a hero just because he returns what he stole." Jungkook narrowed his eyes. Taehyung let out a loud laugh that made his wolf roll around happily inside him. He wanted to die a little because of that; he desperately needed to recover some dignity. "And how did you know it was important?" he dared to ask.
Taehyung shrugged as they started walking toward the communal table.
"It looked like an expensive old pen. I wasn't sure it actually was, honestly I was just hoping because I needed an excuse to see you again," he admitted without the slightest bit of shame, making Jungkook look away once more. "But I confirmed it was important when you came looking for it. Nobody has a crisis over just any pen."
Jungkook didn't answer because, unfortunately, he was right.
The older alpha walked over to the communal table first to grab the red helmet he'd left leaning beside a chair. Jungkook watched him casually hook it over his forearm before returning to him.
Taehyung had a presence that felt far too comfortable for someone who had entered his life less than twenty-four hours ago.
Jungkook usually needed quite a bit of time before he could relax around other alphas. Even when there wasn't any direct hostility, that natural biological tension always lingered between them. Sometimes it was exhausting.
But Taehyung seemed to operate differently.
His scent filled the space without being aggressive. It felt dominant, but not invasive. It wasn't trying to overwhelm the atmosphere or impose itself on everyone around him. It simply... existed.
Maybe that was exactly what made Jungkook the most nervous, because he felt comfortable.
They got back in line, and much to Jungkook's mental misfortune, Taehyung kept talking the entire time as if they'd known each other for weeks. He jumped from one subject to another, commenting on anything he saw around them, asking random questions, and throwing out little jokes every time Jungkook answered with a single word.
Jungkook tried to maintain the same dry attitude as always, but it was becoming difficult because Taehyung seemed to treat every curt response as a personal challenge.
"Are you always this antisocial, or are you making a special effort for me?" Taehyung asked as they moved forward another step in line, adjusting the backpack on one shoulder.
"Most people know how to recognize social cues, so I don't have to try this hard."
"Ouch. That hurt a little."
"You'll survive."
Taehyung let out a low laugh while pretending to suffer in silence, tilting his head back dramatically. Jungkook had to look away because the idiot genuinely looked cute while doing stupid things, and that was starting to irritate him.
When it was finally their turn, Taehyung looked at the menu for a few seconds before sighing.
"I think if I keep eating, I'm going to explode right here."
"What, did you eat half the bakery or something?" Jungkook raised an eyebrow.
"I was waiting for you. I had to do something so they wouldn't kick me out."
The older alpha ended up ordering only an iced lemonade while leaning against the counter. Jungkook, on the other hand, ordered a large Americano and a serrano ham sandwich because the smell of freshly made food had made him hungry all over again.
The moment he finished ordering and reached for his wallet, Taehyung stepped in first.
"I'll pay."
"You don't have to." He frowned automatically.
"I want to."
"Why are you acting like this is actually a date?"
Taehyung didn't hesitate.
"Because to me, it is."
Jungkook felt himself blush and had to look toward the nearest window to collect himself for a second. He heard the cashier suppress a smile while ringing them up and wanted to disintegrate on the spot. Taehyung looked absurdly proud of himself.
They ended up sitting at a small table for two tucked away near one of the café's side windows. Outside, the sky was slowly filling with gray clouds that darkened the city even though it was still early.
He barely paid attention to the weather. He had much more urgent problems, such as the fact that Taehyung would not stop staring at him.
The older alpha was leaning back against his chair, relaxed, one arm crossed over his stomach and the other resting near his glass of lemonade while he watched him with almost offensive concentration, as if Jungkook were the most interesting thing he'd seen in weeks.
"What?" he asked after enduring it for several seconds.
"I was thinking you're even cuter up close." Taehyung smiled.
Jungkook let out a tired sigh while lightly massaging the bridge of his nose.
"Do you flirt like this with everyone?"
"No," he said calmly. "Only when I really want to eat someone up."
Jungkook had just taken a sip of coffee, so he choked so hard that he ended up coughing while quickly moving the cup away to avoid spilling it all over himself. Taehyung immediately burst into loud laughter as he watched him try to recover, leaning forward over the table completely entertained by his suffering.
"I'm joking, I'm joking!" he said between laughs while handing him a napkin that Jungkook quickly snatched away.
Jungkook stared at him in horror while wiping his mouth.
"That did not sound like a joke."
"Because it wasn't entirely one," he said, tilting his head.
Okay, Jungkook desperately needed to regain some control over the situation, so he took advantage of the first moment of silence to change the subject before Taehyung opened his mouth again and said some other outrageous thing capable of disturbing even his pheromones.
"So what exactly do you do?" he asked while adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose and pretending to be far more interested in his coffee than he actually was. "Because honestly, you seem to have way too much free time to go around bothering strangers in cafés."
Taehyung let out a low laugh and settled more comfortably into his chair while absentmindedly spinning his glass of lemonade between his fingers.
"First of all, I prefer the term socially persistent," he replied with complete ease. "And second... I studied Fine Arts. I mainly work as a freelance illustrator. I do book covers, concept design, private commissions, and sometimes small exhibitions when I'm not arguing with clients who think 'make it more commercial' means destroying anything with personality."
"That sounded way too specific." Jungkook raised an eyebrow.
"Because it happened to me," Taehyung said immediately. "A few months ago, some guy hired me for a huge campaign and, after three weeks of work, he asked me to make the art 'less artistic.' I swear, I just stared at him in silence trying to figure out whether he was insulting me or if he was simply stupid."
Jungkook let out a short laugh and lowered his gaze to his coffee to hide it, but Taehyung saw it anyway and smiled, pleased to notice that he was finally relaxing a little more around him.
"And what did you do?" Jungkook asked, sounding less tense.
"I quit," Taehyung replied without a trace of regret. "I gave him back the advance payment, grabbed my things, and left. Namjoon-hyung almost killed me when he found out because it was a lot of money, but I'd rather eat rice for three straight weeks than work for someone who talks about art like it's a supermarket label."
"Namjoon?"
"Oh, he's my roommate from college. We still live together because it's the most cost-effective arrangement here in Seoul." Taehyung shrugged. "I'll enjoy the privilege of splitting rent and utilities until he decides to move in with his omega."
That time Jungkook genuinely laughed, briefly resting his forehead against his hand as he slowly shook his head.
"Okay, I get the traumatic client experience."
"Right?" Taehyung leaned forward slightly, excited that they agreed on something. "Thank you. Finally, someone with a brain. Namjoon-hyung should hear this. We're clearly very compatible."
"Don't exaggerate, we've barely had half a conversation."
"Half a conversation is enough."
Jungkook rolled his eyes, though he couldn't maintain a serious expression for very long anymore.
The conversation eventually shifted toward Jungkook when Taehyung asked him the same question. Jungkook mentioned that he had studied literature and worked as a writer, and the moment he said it, Taehyung's eyes widened with interest.
"Wait, are you that Jungkook?" he asked, pointing at him slightly. "I knew your name sounded familiar. I think I've seen your books in bookstores."
"Well... yeah, probably," he admitted, a little embarrassed.
"Holy shit, then you're famous."
"I'm not famous."
"If I can recognize your name, then you definitely are."
Jungkook let out an amused snort and tore off a small piece of his sandwich while trying to ignore the pleasant warmth rising in his chest again. Normally, he hated talking about his job with strangers because the conversation always ended the same way, with awkward questions, people pretending they'd read his books, or comments about sales and popularity.
But Taehyung didn't ask any of that, he genuinely seemed curious.
"So how do you write? I mean... how do you start a story? I've tried writing for graphic novels, but it feels like my brain turns into mashed potatoes."
For some reason, Jungkook was delighted to answer.
He told him about random scenes appearing in his head first, dialogues that emerged out of nowhere, and characters that seemed to exist long before he even understood who they were.
He explained how many of his stories were born from vivid dreams that he later tried to reconstruct while awake, piecing together timelines, connections, and details until everything finally made sense.
Taehyung was actually listening. He rested his cheek on one hand while watching him talk, asking questions at exactly the right moments and following the conversation so naturally that Jungkook ended up completely relaxed.
Because normally, when he started talking, people lost interest quickly. Some pretended to care out of politeness, while others changed the subject outright.
But Taehyung seemed fascinated watching him explain things that Jungkook usually kept to himself.
That... that felt dangerously good.
"So you basically live inside your own head," Taehyung commented with a soft smile. "That explains a lot."
"Like what?"
"Your eyes," he answered without hesitation. "They look like they're thinking about twenty different things at the same time. What's the weirdest dream you've ever had? Because considering everything you just told me, I need to know how strange your brain can get."
Jungkook let out a quiet laugh before answering.
"One time I dreamed something similar to The War of the Worlds, but from the aliens' perspective. I was one of them."
Taehyung stared at him for a second before bursting into laughter so loudly that two people turned around from another table.
"Wow!" he said between laughs. "You could literally sell that as a movie right now. You should write a screenplay. Lately everyone's obsessed with reinterpreting famous stories from 'the other side.'"
Jungkook ended up laughing too as he watched Taehyung gesture animatedly with his hands and exaggerate ideas for this hypothetical movie.
That was when he realized something he honestly didn't want to admit.
He was having a good time.
They kept talking for so long that Jungkook completely stopped checking the time. Outside, a light drizzle began tapping against the windows, covering the city in a muted gray haze.
Taehyung was talking about a terrible art exhibition where a guy had spent forty minutes explaining why a banana taped to a wall represented ‘the fragility of the modern ego’ when he suddenly reached a hand toward him.
Jungkook tensed automatically, but Taehyung merely brushed aside a dark strand of hair that had gotten caught between the frame of his glasses and his eyelid.
"That had been bothering you for a while," he murmured casually.
The touch lasted only a few seconds, but Jungkook felt the heat rise instantly.
His wolf reacted happily, and Taehyung clearly noticed.
The small smile that appeared on his lips was slow and satisfied, dangerously aware of the effect he was having as he withdrew his hand gradually, never taking his eyes off him for a single second.
Shameless flirt.
Jungkook cleared his throat and looked toward the window, pretending to be interested in the rain.
The conversation eventually drifted toward relationships and dynamics when Taehyung casually mentioned that Namjoon had spent years trying to introduce him to omegas who were supposedly ‘perfect for him’ before finally accepting that he was wasting his time.
"He was convinced I just hadn't met the right one yet," Taehyung commented while absentmindedly playing with a napkin between his fingers. "Then he realized the problem was that I simply wasn't interested."
"At all?" Jungkook asked as though he didn't believe a word of it.
"At all," Taehyung confirmed calmly before taking another sip of lemonade. "I've never reacted that way to omegas. Biologically, they just don't do anything for me. The truth is... I've always found other alphas a lot more interesting."
Hearing another alpha say something like that so openly, without discomfort or lowering his voice, was incredibly unusual.
Most people avoided the subject or spoke about it almost in secret, especially someone as dominant as Taehyung.
Jungkook was so surprised that Taehyung tilted his head slightly when he noticed the look on his face.
"What?" he asked, amused. "You looked at me like I just confessed to a crime."
Jungkook hesitated for a moment before speaking.
Honestly, he didn't even know why he was about to ask that, but curiosity won out over common sense.
"So... does that mean you like being a bottom?"
The smile that appeared on Taehyung's face was painfully slow and incredibly mischievous.
"I like it quite a lot, yeah," he answered without the slightest issue while holding his gaze. "But I also really enjoy being on top." Jungkook tried to stay neutral, but failed miserably when Taehyung kept talking. "Especially with alphas who act untouchable. Taming them is fun."
Jungkook's brain literally stopped working for a second.
"Have you actually done that before?"
"Why?" he asked in a dangerously soft voice. "Interested?"
Jungkook immediately grabbed his coffee cup just to have something else to look at besides that mouth. He urgently needed someone to throw cold water over him.
"No," he said while drinking his coffee far too quickly. "I was just asking."
Taehyung let out a low laugh, clearly aware that he had just completely short-circuited Jungkook's brain, but he had enough mercy not to keep pushing the subject.
So he changed the topic abruptly.
"What kind of motorcycle do you ride?"
The older alpha accepted the change without complaint.
As soon as they started talking about motorcycles, Jungkook got genuinely excited because Taehyung wasn't the typical idiot who bought an absurdly expensive sport bike just to post pictures looking attractive on it. He actually knew what he was talking about.
"No, listen to me," Taehyung said, leaning forward with a serious expression. "People seriously underestimate weight when they buy sport bikes. Then they wonder why it feels like they're wrestling the vehicle every time they take a tight corner."
"Because they buy based on aesthetics instead of comfort," Jungkook replied almost automatically.
"Exactly!" Taehyung pointed at him excitedly. "You're an intelligent person, I knew it."
Jungkook ended up laughing as they debated routes and overrated models. And the more they talked, the stranger everything felt, there was a closeness between them that felt both unfamiliar and dangerously natural.
"What are you riding these days?" Taehyung asked while absently stirring the straw around in his lemonade. "Because from the way you talk about motorcycles, I know you don't own some boring office scooter."
"A black Yamaha MT-09."
"Oh, shit."
"And someday I want a Ducati Panigale V4 S."
This time Taehyung let out a low whistle and leaned back in his chair while staring at him with complete judgment written across his face.
"Now I understand a lot of things about you."
"Like what?"
"Like the fact that you clearly have suicidal tendencies," he answered naturally. "You don't ride that bike, you negotiate with death."
Jungkook ended up letting out a short laugh and shook his head slightly.
"You're exaggerating."
"Look, I have tremendous respect for people who ride Ducatis, but I'm also terrified of them," Taehyung joked, and Jungkook rolled his eyes even though the small smile remained.
Then Taehyung started telling him about his own bike, a red Kawasaki Z500 that he adored with almost emotional devotion. He talked about modifications he wanted to make and everything he had done with it.
"The early morning completely changes the experience," Taehyung said while gesturing with his hands as he spoke. "There's no traffic, nobody's honking at you, the speed cameras aren't working... it's just you, the road, and the bike."
"And the risk of dying because some drunk idiot decided to run a red light."
"Well, yeah, that little detail too."
Taehyung laughed, and Jungkook laughed again as well.
In fact, he didn't even realize the exact moment when he stopped sitting so stiffly in his chair. Little by little he settled more comfortably against the backrest, crossing one leg over the other while talking, responding faster, asking questions on his own initiative, and holding eye contact without looking away every five seconds.
That seemed to make Taehyung incredibly happy.
At some point they stopped feeling like two strangers. It felt more like talking to someone they had known for a very long time, even though they rationally knew that wasn't possible.
As it turned out, their taste in music matched too. Jungkook nearly choked when Taehyung started mentioning old bands, indie artists, and albums he had spent years obsessively listening to.
Outside, the rain was now hammering against the windows with real force, forming irregular streams that distorted the streetlights beyond the glass. The sky had darkened completely, and the café seemed isolated from the rest of the city.
Jungkook was distracted listening to Taehyung talk about a particularly violent painting professor who had once thrown a wooden eraser directly at his head for falling asleep during a color theory class.
"And the worst part is that I wasn't even actually asleep," Taehyung was saying. "I was resting my eyes. Artists suffer too much, this can't be right."
The younger alpha shook his head slightly with a smile, but that was when he noticed something strange. Taehyung had suddenly gone quiet.
Until that moment, the other alpha had kept the conversation alive effortlessly, but now he was sitting still, looking at him differently.
"What happened?" Jungkook asked, confused.
Taehyung scratched the back of his neck slowly, glancing down at the table for a second before looking back at him.
"I want to ask you something, but I need you to promise you won't run out of the café when I do."
"That doesn't sound promising," Jungkook immediately arched an eyebrow, looking at him with judgment.
"I know, that's why I'm trying to sell it properly."
"Now you've actually made me worried."
The other alpha exhaled through his nose before finally asking.
"Do you believe in past lives?"
The question came so unexpectedly that Jungkook blinked several times before reacting.
"Past lives...? Like reincarnation?"
Taehyung nodded slowly, and Jungkook made a thoughtful little sound.
"I guess so," he answered after a few seconds. "Or at least I like to think something like that exists. I've always thought it was strange to believe that destined people just appear randomly because the Moon Goddess decided to pull names out of some giant raffle drum."
Taehyung let out a short laugh at that, and Jungkook found himself doing the same.
"I don't know... I'd rather think certain people find each other over and over again. That souls keep searching for one another across different lives until they finally meet at the right moment. Maybe sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but I like believing they keep trying anyway."
"That was very poetic," Taehyung said with a warm smile.
"There's a reason I'm a writer." Jungkook smiled back.
The alpha finally inhaled slowly and rested both arms on the table before speaking again.
"The reason I asked yesterday if we knew each other..." he began, pausing briefly. "Was because it wasn't the first time I'd seen you."
Jungkook frowned, and Taehyung immediately reacted by raising both hands in surrender because he knew exactly why.
"Wait, I know how that sounded. Please don't call the police yet."
The desperation in his voice made Jungkook let out an involuntary laugh before he could stop himself.
Taehyung visibly relaxed when he noticed that and continued, though he still looked slightly uncertain.
"In art, there's something called same-face syndrome."
"What the fuck does that mean?"
"Basically, an artist, even when they're trying to draw different characters, ends up making them resemble each other because subconsciously they keep returning to the same face. You can change the hairstyle, the clothes, the weight, even the gender, but your brain always comes back to the same facial structure because it gets used to it."
"Okay..." Jungkook nodded slowly, only half understanding.
"The problem is that I've been drawing your face for years without knowing who you were."
The silence that followed was immediate. Jungkook went completely still because Taehyung did not sound like he was joking.
Taehyung held his gaze while trying to explain himself better, clearly aware that he had just said one of the strangest things a person could possibly say on a first date. Because yes, Jungkook could keep pretending all he wanted, but they both knew this had been giving off date energy for quite a while now.
"I'm not a stalker, I swear on my motorcycle. Yesterday really was the first time I'd ever seen you in person," he said, sounding almost pleading. "But since I was a kid, every time I try to create a face from scratch... I end up drawing yours. When I use references, nothing happens. I can draw any face. But when I create characters completely from my imagination, it's always you. Always."
What Jungkook felt in that moment could only be described as a shiver.
"I know it sounds weird," Taehyung admitted with an awkward laugh. "Believe me, I thought I was losing my mind years ago too."
He quickly grabbed his phone and unlocked it with clumsy movements.
"I need to show you this or I'm going to sound like a psychopath." Jungkook didn't answer, and Taehyung opened an app before turning the phone toward him. "Look."
It was his Behance profile.
Jungkook took the phone slowly into his hands and began scrolling through the images in silence, clicking on the ones Taehyung pointed out with his finger.
The air caught in his chest almost immediately.
There he was, or rather, versions of him.
Some were hyperrealistic portraits; others looked like conceptual paintings filled with shadows and color. There were men, women, teenagers, children, even rough sketches barely defined by a handful of loose lines.
But they all had something identical. It was him.
Then one appeared that made him stop completely. It was an old illustration done in dark and golden tones. A man dressed in traditional clothing from another era stood beneath the light of an enormous moon, gazing off to one side.
It looked so much like his recurring dream that Jungkook felt a sudden hollowness open in his stomach. Because it wasn't merely similar. It looked as though it had been pulled directly from his mind.
Taehyung was watching him in absolute silence now, clearly nervous about his reaction. Jungkook had no idea what the hell he was supposed to say.
Because he had something strange with Taehyung too. The difference was that while Taehyung drew him... Jungkook dreamed about him.
Repeatedly.
"I know all of this sounds weird as hell," Taehyung murmured. "But honestly, I think we were meant to be or something like that."
Jungkook slowly raised his eyes to him and held his gaze.
"Because I can't find any other explanation for feeling like I've known you for a very long time when, technically, you only appeared in my life yesterday."
He understood exactly what Taehyung meant.
"Has anything similar happened to you?" Taehyung asked shyly.
Jungkook went still when he heard that.
"Yesterday, when I asked if we knew each other, I heard you mumble, 'in a dream.'"
Jungkook felt his entire body tense the second he heard that because he had assumed Taehyung hadn't heard him, and now he had no idea how to answer without feeling like they were both two minutes away from ending up admitted to the same psychiatric hospital.
He swallowed hard as he slowly set the phone down on the table, avoiding looking at Taehyung right away.
He knew that if he looked up and saw that hopeful expression again, he would probably end up saying something stupid but true.
He didn't want that. It wasn't the right thing to do.
"No, I didn't feel anything and you must have misunderstood because I didn't say that either. Fated mates only exist between alphas and omegas," he finally said, trying to make his voice sound steady even though he felt like he was falling apart inside. "This is probably just... a strange coincidence. We shouldn't read too much into something like this."
The words tasted bitter the moment they left his mouth because even before he finished the sentence, he saw the change in Taehyung.
He watched that warm light in his eyes dim a little.
Taehyung lowered his gaze to the empty lemonade glass and let out a short laugh through his nose. It was awkward and different from every other laugh Jungkook had heard during their date.
"Yeah... sure," he murmured, nodding slowly. "You're right. I'm probably overthinking it."
He tried to smile again, but it wasn't the same shameless smile that had been dismantling Jungkook for hours.
"Sorry," he added while absently scratching the back of his neck. "Sometimes I get excited and start talking too much."
Jungkook knew lying to him had hurt him, but the fear was still there.
Taehyung was an alpha and so was he.
His entire life, he had grown up hearing the same stories and expectations about what was normal. Alphas found omegas. Omegas found alphas. That was natural and correct, the thing people celebrated without question.
He had never imagined that the person who had spent years appearing in his dreams would turn out to be another alpha with a beautiful smile.
He had never imagined that his body and wolf would react like this.
Because his wolf was still restless inside him, frustrated and agitated from the moment Taehyung lowered his gaze. Everything within him hated how this conversation had ended.
Taehyung smiled again with effort and slowly started gathering his things from the table. He slipped his phone into his pocket, picked up his helmet, and stood without rushing.
"That's okay," he said, looking at him again. "It was nice to think about it for a while anyway."
That hurt more than it should have.
Jungkook parted his lips slightly, wanting to say something, but no words came out.
The silence seemed to answer for him because Taehyung nodded once, accepting that he had imagined everything on his own.
"I won't bother you anymore then," he continued as he adjusted the helmet against his hip. "And sorry if I made you uncomfortable."
Before Jungkook could react, a massive crack of thunder shook the sky. The sound was so loud that several people inside the café automatically turned toward the windows.
The rain was now pouring down violently, striking the glass diagonally under the force of the wind. Outside, the streets were completely drenched, and car lights reflected in blurred streaks across the flooded pavement.
"Shit..." Taehyung murmured while looking outside. "I forgot to bring a raincoat."
Jungkook stared at the storm for a few seconds before turning his eyes back to him.
"Oh..." That was all he managed to say.
"It's fine." Taehyung smiled resignedly. "I'll survive."
He started walking toward the exit. Jungkook watched him go while something inside him twisted painfully.
He didn't want him to leave like this. He didn't want the last image of Taehyung to be that faded smile pretending everything was fine.
He didn't want to close that door and go back to pretending none of this was happening to him.
And worse than that, he didn't want to return to his apartment knowing he would probably dream about him again that very night.
Because that was the most terrifying part of all.
Even after trying to deny it, he still felt that connection.
His wolf was practically desperate now, restless beneath his skin, pushing him to get up, follow him, and fix something that had clearly gone wrong.
Could anyone really blame him?
The problem was that Jungkook had always believed the person from his dreams would be an omega who fit perfectly into the idea of destiny he had spent years building in his head.
And yet, apparently, what he had been searching for all along had just been sitting across from him wearing a white sleeveless shirt, laughing too loudly and shamelessly flirting with him while holding a lemonade.
And Jungkook was terrified to admit how badly he wanted him back at that table.
The bell above the door rang again the moment Taehyung stepped out of the café, and the sound hit Jungkook directly in the chest.
He didn't even have time to think it through, he simply reacted. He stood up so quickly that the chair scraped loudly against the floor and his knee slammed into the table, making everything on it rattle.
A few people turned to look at him, but Jungkook barely noticed.
He pushed open the door and the cold, damp air of the storm immediately hit his face.
Taehyung was still there, standing beneath the small awning outside the café, adjusting his helmet while watching the rain fall onto the street.
"Wait," Jungkook blurted out before he lost his nerve.
The other alpha turned around immediately and looked at him in confusion.
Jungkook lowered his gaze to the wet pavement while trying to organize the words in his head, though he clearly wasn't doing a very good job.
"If you want..." he started, clearing his throat immediately afterward. "We could wait in my apartment until the rain lets up. I live in the building next door and... well, it doesn't make sense for you to get completely soaked."
When he finally lifted his eyes a little, he found Taehyung staring at him completely motionless.
Then he literally watched him light up, there was no other way to describe it.
The disappointment from a moment ago vanished so quickly that it was replaced by a dangerously happy expression. Taehyung let out an incredulous laugh while shaking his head slightly.
"No wonder I went looking for you yesterday and couldn't find you anywhere," he said, still smiling. "You, you little coward, just hid in the building next door."
Jungkook blushed in embarrassment.
"I wasn't hiding," he muttered.
"Jungkook, you literally ran away from me. But now that I think about it, that sounded way more stalker-ish than it actually was... so I'll shut up."
Jungkook let out a small laugh and looked away toward the rain, trying to hide the embarrassment still burning across his face. Honestly, he didn't think he'd be capable of repeating the invitation again. It had already been hard enough to say it once.
Luckily, he didn't have to.
Taehyung ended up taking his helmet off again while smiling.
"Alright," he finally replied. "I'd be delighted to accept."
Jungkook felt extremely nervous when he heard that. He had to clear his throat.
"Whatever."
The fondness that sparked in Taehyung nearly destroyed his heart. Jungkook was clearly trying to act indifferent while having just run after him to stop him from leaving upset.
"Just follow me," Jungkook said simply.
Taehyung obeyed automatically, smiling to himself like an idiot as he adjusted the brown backpack over one shoulder and held the helmet against his hip.
The two of them walked together beneath the café's awning until they reached the edge where the roof's protection ended and the heavy rain began.
"Wait a second," Taehyung said while opening his backpack. "If these get ruined, I'm going to cry for weeks."
Jungkook watched him absentmindedly as he carefully stored his white headphones inside the bag.
And without meaning to, his eyes drifted down to Taehyung's bare arms.
First, he noticed the obvious. They were strong, toned, and ridiculously attractive. His golden skin was beautiful, and the fine hairs gave them an irresistibly masculine touch.
Then he noticed the goosebumps.
Of course. Inside the café it had been warm and cozy, but outside was a different story. Thanks to the rain, it was freezing.
Jungkook barely felt it because of the oversized cardigan he was wearing, but Taehyung was practically standing in that storm wearing nothing but a sleeveless shirt.
And he'd still been planning to ride home like that?
He bit his lower lip while arguing with himself internally, because he was already doing far too many dangerous things that day and adding this definitely wasn't helping his crisis.
Even so, he eventually let out a quiet sigh before pulling the cardigan over his head. He first had to quickly remove the pen from the front pocket and tuck it into his pants so it wouldn't fall out.
That was the moment Taehyung stopped functioning mentally altogether.
Because Jungkook had just revealed his entire right arm in glorious high definition and... holy Moon Goddess.
Black tattoos covered nearly all the skin from his wrist to his shoulder, contrasting beautifully against his pale complexion. Since he'd only seen him wearing long sleeves until now, the sight clearly caught him off guard.
And fuck.
His forearms were strong, defined, and absurdly attractive.
Taehyung felt every single thought in his head shut down for several seconds as he stared. Honestly, if someone had asked him his own name at that moment, he probably wouldn't have known how to answer.
His eyes practically turned into hearts.
Jungkook clearly noticed the stare because he frowned slightly.
"What?" he asked with immediate suspicion.
"Wow."
Jungkook tried to ignore him as best he could, although the warmth was already climbing back up to his ears. He ended up lifting the cardigan over both of them, improvising a sort of miniature tent to cross to the building. Then he wrapped an arm behind Taehyung to cover him too.
Instantly, they were very close.
Their faces ended up only inches apart, and Taehyung felt Jungkook's body heat envelop him immediately. The scent of roasted coffee and cardamom became much stronger now that they were practically trapped together beneath the same piece of fabric.
Both of them blushed at the same time.
Jungkook looked away first and cleared his throat before murmuring a quiet:
"Go ahead."
Then he gestured toward the building with his head, trying to sound indifferent even though he was clearly just as affected.
The two of them practically jogged through the rain.
The cardigan barely worked as protection because the wind kept throwing droplets at them anyway, and both ended up getting their shoulders, legs, and part of their hair wet. Even so, they stayed far too close together while crossing the soaked street toward the neighboring building.
Taehyung was so focused on trying not to grin like an idiot that he barely paid attention to the storm, because Jungkook was literally shielding him from the rain with an arm partially around his back and honestly, he found that adorable.
When they finally stepped into the building lobby, Jungkook quickly removed the cardigan from over both of them and started shaking it several times to get rid of the excess water. Taehyung watched him with a smile he couldn't possibly hide.
"So you do know how to be romantic after all," he commented teasingly while running a hand through his hair.
Jungkook nearly dropped the cardigan from sheer shock.
"That wasn't romantic!" he immediately replied, staring at him in horror. "I was just preventing you from getting sick and filling my apartment with viruses."
Taehyung had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing harder.
"Of course," he said, nodding with absolute seriousness. "The protective rain cuddle was completely professional."
That sentence made Jungkook turn even redder. Damn it, Taehyung was starting to realize that this was probably one of his favorite things in the world.
He was ridiculously cute. Taehyung felt something warm slowly spreading through his chest as he watched him awkwardly fold the wet cardigan.
Honestly, even if his theory about them being destined mates turned out to be wrong... he thought he could still end up liking Jungkook a lot.
Not just because he was gorgeous—though he definitely was, one hundred percent his ideal type—nor because his scent had had Taehyung's brain completely fried since yesterday. There was something else, a strange feeling of finding pieces he hadn't even known were missing.
The elevator ride passed in silence. Jungkook stared fixedly at the glowing floor numbers above the doors, far too aware of Taehyung's presence beside him, and that was precisely the problem—Taehyung felt too present.
Fortunately, the doors eventually opened before his brain could start panicking again.
Jungkook stepped out first and walked down the carpeted hallway until he reached a black door at the very end. He pulled out his keys and tried to act normal, although the nerves still bouncing beneath his skin clearly weren't helping. Taehyung stayed behind him, watching him fight with the keyring for several seconds, seeing Jungkook huff quietly every time he picked the wrong key again.
"Do you need support, or just patience?" he finally asked, leaning casually against the wall with a smile.
"I need you to stop talking for five seconds," Jungkook let out an indignant sound through his nose without looking at him.
"Impossible. I was born far too charming for that."
Jungkook finally managed to unlock the door and shot him a dry look over his shoulder before stepping into the apartment first, with Taehyung following behind him.
The moment Jungkook turned on the lights, Taehyung felt like he understood so much more about him just from seeing the place where he lived.
"Sorry about the mess," Jungkook muttered automatically while taking off his shoes by the entrance.
Taehyung looked around the apartment and had to suppress a smile because mess clearly meant something completely different in Jungkook's language.
Everything was impeccably organized. The space was large, elegant, and understated, filled with dark tones, wood, and black accents that made the place feel modern without losing its warmth.
Then he saw the books. So many books. Far too many books. There were literally books everywhere.
The main bookshelf occupied almost an entire wall of the living room, completely full, and even then there were additional stacks on side tables, the coffee table, and even near the couch.
Taehyung set his backpack and helmet down beside another black helmet that belonged to Jungkook and looked significantly more expensive.
"Of course..." he said, crouching slightly to get a better look. "Mr. 'I Want a Ducati Panigale' obviously owns a helmet that probably costs more than I could make in six months."
Jungkook let out a small laugh while hanging his damp cardigan near the entrance.
"You're exaggerating."
"No, Jungkook, literally if that thing falls on the floor, I'm going into debt."
Then he slowly looked around again. It was exactly the kind of place he expected Jungkook to live in and, at the same time, not entirely what he'd imagined.
There was a certain elegant coldness to the décor, but there were also small details that broke up the image of perfection, like a blanket folded badly on the couch or several forgotten mugs scattered across different tables.
The apartment felt lived in. Taehyung ended up walking directly into the living room with an expression of genuine wonder.
"Are you planning to open a public library or something?"
This time Jungkook laughed for real.
"I could," he replied as he approached more slowly. "There are more in the study. These are the normal ones, I keep what I consider light reading out here. The work-related ones and the books I've written are in there."
Taehyung slowly turned his head toward him with complete disbelief.
"All of this is light reading? Jungkook, I think you and I have very different definitions of light. How many books are you supposed to own?"
"I'd rather not know exactly how many I have," Jungkook admitted, crossing his arms. "Because that would require me to confront my financial problems."
The other alpha let out a soft laugh before scanning a few titles.
"Would you lend me one?"
"Which one?"
"One of yours."
The answer came so quickly and confidently that Jungkook blinked in surprise.
"You seriously want to read something I wrote?"
Taehyung looked at him as though the question were ridiculous.
"Obviously. You've spent hours talking about weird dreams, I need to know what kind of things you write."
Jungkook looked away, trying to hide the faint flush that had returned to his face. He didn't answer directly, but Taehyung noticed that tiny hesitation perfectly, which practically amounted to a yes.
God, he was adorable when he tried to pretend he didn't care.
Taehyung continued wandering slowly around the living room while studying the decorations.
"Honestly," he commented, slipping his hands into his pockets, "this apartment looks exactly like the kind of place someone would live in if they wrote psychological novels where everybody ends up dead."
"Besides offering you shelter, do I also have to tolerate insults directed at my decorating choices?" Jungkook shot back. "This arrangement is becoming unacceptable."
Taehyung turned toward him with a crooked smile as he walked back in his direction.
"You didn't say anything to deny it. Does that mean I was right?"
"I'm not going to spoil the books before I lend them to you."
He was about to say something in response, but Taehyung had already become distracted by the enormous painting that occupied part of the main wall of the living room.
The alpha stopped moving.
The piece was large, abstract, and incredibly elegant, blending dark tones with subtle brushstrokes that shifted depending on how the light hit them.
Taehyung studied the details attentively, and Jungkook slowly approached until he was standing beside him.
"Not everything is criticism," he said almost under his breath while looking at the painting. "I really like this one."
He lifted his chin slightly as he observed it. Jungkook had always found the painting hypnotic, but seeing Taehyung look at it that way suddenly made it feel even more special.
"The composition is really well balanced," he commented, tilting his head slightly as he studied the details. "Look at this... the strongest contrast is here, but it doesn't steal all the attention because the lighting guides your eye back toward the center. And the textures help a lot too. The artist made certain areas feel heavy and others lighter without needing to overload everything with details."
As he spoke, he gestured absentmindedly toward different sections of the canvas, and Jungkook ended up paying more attention to him than to the painting. There was something dangerously attractive about listening to someone become so passionate about what they loved.
Taehyung didn't sound pretentious or like he was trying to appear intelligent; he simply spoke because he genuinely loved art. His eyes shone differently, his voice became warmer, and every explanation was accompanied by small unconscious gestures that made him seem even more alive.
And Jungkook, honestly, was screwed.
Normally, that kind of technical conversation bored him quickly when it came from other people. But listening to Taehyung talk was easy. It felt exactly the same way he did whenever someone asked about his stories and he could spend hours getting lost in explanations.
Taehyung was still talking about the use of shadows when he noticed Jungkook had been quiet for far too long. He turned his head slightly toward him and frowned a little when he found him staring directly at him instead of at the painting.
"What happened?" he asked with a small crooked smile. "You look like you're thinking too much."
Jungkook took several seconds to answer because, indeed, he was thinking far too much.
The problem was that his mind felt split in two.
On one side was the fear he'd carried his entire life. Things worked a certain way for a reason; feeling like this about another alpha could only bring trouble and scandal that he honestly didn't want. He was afraid of disappointing people who would never understand something like this, including those he loved most.
And on the other side was his intuition and instinct. His wolf was completely fed up with him continuing to run away. Because he had felt the connection from the very beginning, from that first moment he'd seen him. Even from those damned dreams, because somehow Jungkook knew the person he kept seeing there meant something enormous in his life.
Jungkook felt an uncomfortable ache in his chest when he remembered the older alpha's expression after he'd practically rejected him at the café. The way the light in his eyes had dimmed, even if only slightly, despite his attempt to hide it behind a smile.
His wolf growled at him for being an idiot all over again.
He took a deep breath, trying to organize his thoughts, but it was impossible with Taehyung standing so close, smelling like that, and looking at him with such calm eyes.
Finally, he looked away and spoke quietly.
"Sit down on the couch for a second... I'll be right back."
Taehyung blinked, confused by the abrupt change in tone.
"Is everything okay?" he asked immediately, and this time he didn't sound teasing. He sounded genuinely concerned.
"Yeah, I just... need to show you something."
The answer came out rushed and obviously nervous. Before Taehyung could ask another question, Jungkook escaped down the hallway with quick steps.
Having no other choice after watching him disappear, Taehyung listened and sat down on the black couch.
Meanwhile, Jungkook reached the study while trying to ignore the way his heart hammered against his ribs. He switched on the light quickly and walked straight to the desk. The first thing he did was place his grandfather's pen back in the wooden display stand where he always kept it.
Then he looked at the black notebook resting beside the monitor.
He hesitated a lot. But even so, he eventually grabbed it tightly in both hands.
When he returned to the living room, he found Taehyung sitting comfortably on the couch while flipping through one of the books Jungkook had left on the coffee table. The older alpha lifted his head the moment Jungkook reappeared; he had probably detected him through scent before even seeing him.
Immediately, he closed the book and gave Jungkook his full attention.
Jungkook walked over to the couch and sat beside him, though he still left a careful distance between them.
Taehyung lowered his gaze to the notebook and then slowly looked back at Jungkook.
"First of all... I'm sorry."
Taehyung blinked in immediate confusion.
"Why are you apologizing?"
Jungkook found it incredibly difficult to put his thoughts into words because the moment he started speaking, it felt like his entire life could change depending on how Taehyung reacted.
"Because I lied to you at the café," he admitted quietly. "I did feel something when I saw you for the first time."
Jungkook inhaled slowly, trying to control his nerves, and opened the notebook to the first page before holding it out to him. Taehyung took it, still not entirely understanding what was happening.
First he looked at Jungkook, then he started reading the handwritten notes.
"I write down my dreams in there," Jungkook explained softly, unable to hold his gaze for very long.
"You already told me that," Taehyung lifted his eyes from the notebook for a moment and nodded slowly. "You said a lot of your stories come from them."
Jungkook's chest immediately felt warm when he realized Taehyung actually remembered that, he'd paid attention. He hadn't been one of those people who only waited for their turn to talk.
He nodded slowly.
"Yeah, but I forgot to mention an important detail." He wet his lips before continuing. "I dream about you almost all the time."
Taehyung went completely still.
His eyes slowly lifted from the notebook to Jungkook's face, and Jungkook felt the nerves explode inside his stomach all over again.
"I never see your whole face, okay? It's weird. Sometimes I only see fragments, like hands, a smile, eyes, a back... things like that. But somehow I always know it's the same person. Even when everything else changes. Sometimes you aren't even... well, you, exactly. There were dreams where you were a woman, an old man, or a child. But I still knew it was you. I can't explain it. I could just feel it. And they all had the same scent. Green fig and sandalwood."
That was when Taehyung looked genuinely shocked. Jungkook could see it clearly in his expression. His pupils dilated slightly, and the hand holding the notebook tightened a little.
"I could never fully recognize you because I never got a good look at your face in the dreams," Jungkook continued, desperately trying not to turn even redder. "Besides, I draw terribly. I tried recreating you several times and every attempt looked awful. I'm serious. It looked like I'd drawn it with my foot."
That earned another smile from Taehyung as he rolled his eyes, and Jungkook felt relieved seeing him smile because he'd hated that dimmed expression from earlier at the café.
"That's why I didn't recognize you right away yesterday," he continued more calmly. "But the moment I smelled your scent and saw your smile, I just knew."
The hairs on Taehyung's arms stood on end as he continued staring at him with an almost unreal intensity.
"Just yesterday I was working on a timeline," Jungkook explained while pointing at the notebook. "I've been dreaming the same story for about four months. Different fragments always appear, and never in order, so I was trying to organize everything into a coherent narrative before I started writing."
Taehyung lowered his gaze back to the pages, his fingers trembling slightly, and Jungkook leaned a little closer to point out several notes near the end of the notebook.
"I think this is where it all started because chronologically it's the oldest dream. I'd estimate around fourteen or thirteen hundred years ago. It's the oldest one I've ever had, so it might be the first."
Taehyung swallowed hard as he read. He'd reached one of the final entries, the dream ended with him sacrificing himself for that version of Jungkook, dying in front of him while Jungkook promised he would find him again in the next life.
"I really did think those dreams might somehow be my past lives," Jungkook confessed quietly. "I just always assumed the person in them would turn out to be my destined mate or something. You know... the omega the Moon Goddess supposedly had prepared for me. But now that I think about it, looking at the dreams more carefully... a lot of things stopped making sense under that idea. In the Silla Kingdom, for example... an omega never would've been able to hold the position you had. You were an army general, or something very close to it. I was too. We held the same rank."
Jungkook took a deep breath before continuing, becoming more and more tangled in his own thoughts. Because of course, he'd never really considered it before. He was only connecting the dots now that Taehyung was sitting right in front of him.
"The more I think about it, the more I believe we were never different. Sometimes we were two alphas, sometimes two omegas. But always the same. I don't have enough proof to say it for certain, but there are details I overlooked before that might point to it. I don't think we were ever what people expected us to be in any lifetime."
Finally, Jungkook looked up at him again.
"If what I'm saying is true, then it means we keep finding each other even though there's supposedly someone else out there who was chosen for us. And I don't know... this feels more real."
Taehyung was looking at him intensely. There was something in his eyes that completely unraveled him.
"I really wanted to apologize for earlier," Jungkook said quickly as he looked away again. "I didn't want you to feel rejected. I just panicked because I've spent my entire life being taught certain things and honestly, I'd never been attracted to another alpha before. I know things are different nowadays, but not that different. People still talk, they still judge, and I have a certain public image and..."
"Jungkook," Taehyung called softly, but Jungkook kept talking anyway, completely tripping over his own nerves.
"And I'm scared because if all of this is real, then it means I've maybe been looking for you for a very long time and..."
"Jungkook."
This time Taehyung said it more firmly. Jungkook finally looked up, confused by the interruption, and the air practically got stuck in his lungs.
Because Taehyung was looking at him as though he were falling in love with him in real time.
There was no other way to describe it. Taehyung smiled in the sweetest way Jungkook had ever seen.
"I'm going to kiss you now."
"What...?" Jungkook let out a small sound of complete confusion the moment he heard that, but he didn't even get to finish the question.
Taehyung simply set the notebook aside on the couch without taking his eyes off him for even a second and leaned forward to capture his lips in a kiss.
The kiss came without hesitation, direct and certain, and Jungkook felt the impact all the way to his chest.
Taehyung held his jaw firmly as he tilted his head slightly and moved his lips against his with a confidence that instantly shut Jungkook's brain off. The scent of green fig and sandalwood wrapped around him much more strongly now, warm, dominant, and dangerously addictive.
For once, Jungkook finally stopped overthinking. His hands reacted before he did, automatically gripping Taehyung's waist and pulling him closer.
He needed him closer.
Taehyung let out a low, satisfied sound against his mouth the moment he felt that and deepened the kiss immediately. The pressure of his lips became even more intense and hungry, and Jungkook responded just as fiercely almost on instinct.
Jungkook only pulled away for a few seconds, breathing hard, just long enough to rip his glasses off and toss them heavily onto the coffee table before kissing him again immediately.
That definitely did not help contain the situation.
The low sound Taehyung made when Jungkook pulled him closer by the waist again was something Jungkook absolutely loved.
The kiss grew even more intense after that. Neither of them seemed interested in taking things slow. Their mouths crashed together hard enough to leave them breathless while the couch creaked softly beneath them as Taehyung ended up leaning further over him.
They were two alphas. Of course there would be strength in everything they did.
From the very beginning there had been friction, pride, and a need to answer every move the other made. Their teeth bumped once when they both tried to deepen the kiss at the same time, and the accident only earned them amused reactions before they found each other again with the same intensity.
Taehyung tried to set the pace at first. He pulled Jungkook toward him confidently, kissing him slowly, keeping one hand firm against his jaw while tilting his head slightly.
However, Jungkook had spent far too long holding himself back. The moment he felt that shameless confidence, he responded by gently biting Taehyung's lower lip and stealing control immediately.
"Fuck..." Taehyung murmured against his mouth, letting out a low laugh that vibrated between them as he looked at him with obvious satisfaction. "Ah, so you're one of those."
That only made things worse.
Jungkook kissed him again before he could keep talking and ended up pushing him backward onto the couch. One of his hands tightened around Taehyung's waist while the other slid up to his neck, keeping him close. His heart was pounding so hard that it was impossible to tell whether he was nervous, excited, or completely out of control.
Taehyung responded immediately. His hands found the hem of Jungkook's black shirt and slipped beneath the fabric, tracing the warm skin of his abdomen.
The contact was enough to pull an involuntary shiver from him. The smile that appeared at the corner of Taehyung's lips was so satisfied that Jungkook felt an irrational urge to kiss it right off his face.
Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, Taehyung suddenly reversed their positions. The world spun briefly and, a second later, Jungkook was half-sunk into the cushions while the other alpha leaned over him.
"You get distracted easily," Taehyung whispered near his mouth before kissing him again.
The worst part was that neither of them seemed willing to surrender.
Every time Jungkook managed to regain some control, Taehyung found a way to steal it back. If Jungkook cornered him against the backrest, Taehyung would somehow twist around and reverse the situation. If he managed to keep him still for a few seconds, Taehyung would find some way to dismantle him and switch their roles again.
It was almost competitive.
There was playful struggling and kisses that only broke apart long enough for them to catch their breath. In the middle of it all, they brushed against each other enough to draw gasps that died against the other's lips.
They kept moving across the couch, neither appearing willing to admit defeat. At some point Taehyung ended up sitting on one of Jungkook's legs while Jungkook held him by the waist. Minutes later their positions had changed again, and now Jungkook was trapped against the backrest while Taehyung held his wrists simply to annoy him.
The closeness was beginning to affect them for real. The entire world had shrunk down to the space they shared on that couch.
Taehyung's hands wandered absentmindedly across his chest over and beneath the shirt while they continued kissing. Jungkook held onto his thigh to keep him close, and Taehyung responded by squeezing both of his pectorals with his hands.
That was enough for something inside Jungkook to finally trigger an alarm. Not because he wanted to stop, and that was precisely the problem.
He pulled his mouth away slightly, breathing with difficulty. For a second he needed to close his eyes to recover something resembling a coherent thought.
"Wait," he finally murmured, still holding him by the waist. "Wait a second."
He had to stop things there, or at least try.
However, Taehyung seemed to interpret that request rather flexibly, because he did leave his lips... only to lean directly toward his neck.
Jungkook shivered involuntarily the moment he felt the warmth of his breath against the skin beneath his jaw. Taehyung took his time there, pressing small damp kisses against his skin while breathing near him. His entire body reacted immediately.
He tried pushing him away slightly with his right arm, but made the mistake of bringing his tattooed arm too close to Taehyung, who clearly remembered the fascination those tattoos had sparked in him the moment he'd discovered them in the rain.
Without wasting any time, Taehyung caught his wrist with both hands and began tracing the black lines covering his skin with his eyes before leaning down to place kisses on them.
"What are you doing?" Jungkook asked, although the complete lack of firmness in his voice robbed the question of any authority.
Taehyung didn't even try to hide his smile.
"Appreciating art."
Jungkook let out a nervous laugh through his nose, but he didn't pull his arm away.
Taehyung continued kissing his forearm, leaving traces of saliva on his skin. His fingers followed some of the lines while his feline eyes closed for a few seconds in concentration, only to open again and give him a completely lustful look.
That was affecting Jungkook far more than it should have. He felt an immediate pull low in his stomach.
"I really like them," Taehyung admitted against his skin. "I don't think I told you enough how fascinated I am by them."
The shamelessly satisfied expression on Taehyung's face made Jungkook look away, unable to hold his gaze for too long.
He needed to focus and remember that he'd tried to stop him because he wanted to say something important.
"I've never been with another alpha."
"Relax," Taehyung told him without stopping the provocative touches on his arm.
"No, I'm serious. I don't know how it works."
That seemed to make Taehyung lower the intensity a little, although he didn't stop touching him. He merely abandoned the kisses and switched to giving him light massages instead.
"You really don't know?"
"No."
"I don't believe you," Taehyung said teasingly.
"Why not?"
"Because you're a writer, Jungkook."
"What does that have to do with anything?" Jungkook made an indignant sound.
"Writers are usually curious."
"I'm curious about other, more important things."
Taehyung shook his head and settled beside him again. Although he toned the situation down slightly, he still kept one hand resting casually on Jungkook's waist.
"Let me get this straight," he said. "You've never seen porn involving two alphas?"
Jungkook immediately made a face that bordered on disgust.
"No! Why would I watch that?"
"Not even by accident?"
"Taehyung!"
The laugh Taehyung let out echoed through the entire living room.
"Of course you've never seen any. You have the face of someone who was properly traumatized by conservative parents."
Jungkook looked offended.
"That has absolutely nothing to do with it."
Taehyung laughed and simply answered by continuing the caresses beneath Jungkook's shirt. His nails barely grazed his waist and back, giving Jungkook a delicious, subtle sense of pleasure.
"Anyway," Taehyung continued. "It's really not that complicated."
Jungkook paid attention again.
"Basically it works normally, one person tops and the other bottoms." He shrugged without stopping the caresses, and the voice he used to explain it sounded dangerously seductive to Jungkook's ears. "The main difference is that an omega lubricates naturally and opens up much more easily and automatically, whereas with an alpha you absolutely need lubricant and proper preparation first, otherwise someone's going to suffer horribly."
Jungkook listened with his ears burning red. He couldn't believe he was having this conversation.
And the worst part was that Taehyung kept talking with complete ease for someone who currently had his hand under his shirt.
It was driving him completely insane.
"The upside is that if both alphas are clean, there's no need to use a condom, since there's no risk of pregnancy unless it's with a female alpha, but they're the exception to everything I just said because they also self-lubricate due to their anatomy," Taehyung said. "The downside is the knot."
"The knot? What's wrong with the knot?"
Taehyung grimaced slightly and looked away.
"If the active alpha doesn't pull out before it forms completely, it hurts like hell because our bodies aren't naturally designed to take it."
That seemed to hit Jungkook hard, making his eyes widen a little too much.
"Has that ever happened to you?"
In response, Taehyung let out a laugh full of disbelief, shaking his head with amusement as he remembered less glamorous times.
"I couldn't sit down for a week. Namjoon-hyung had never bullied me as much as he did that time. So you'd better learn from other people's mistakes."
Jungkook let out a short laugh before looking at him with an expression that mixed amusement and challenge.
"Then obviously you'd be the bottom."
The older alpha abruptly stopped moving the hand resting on Jungkook's waist. The silence lasted exactly two seconds before a mocking smile spread across his face.
"Ah, of course, that was your conclusion after this entire conversation. Don't get confused, sweetheart," Taehyung said with a calmness that bordered on dangerous as his dark eyes locked onto Jungkook's. "Just because I enjoy bottoming doesn't mean I plan on making things easy for you or handing it to you on a silver platter. I told you from the beginning, I love taming untouchable alphas, and you, no matter how hard you try to hide it, fit perfectly into that category."
Jungkook let out an incredulous laugh and shook his head.
"How exactly do you expect to make me submit during my first experience with another alpha when you already have a master's degree in the subject?" Jungkook shot back with a half-smile. "At the very least, you're supposed to have some basic human empathy, or at least a tiny bit of consideration for my lack of experience."
"Empathy?"
"Yes, empathy."
"What an interesting word to use in this discussion."
Taehyung slowly moved closer again, invading his personal space once more. The distance between them disappeared little by little until he was only inches from Jungkook's mouth.
"It's just that I don't want to be considerate, I want to fuck you," Taehyung whispered in a low, deep voice loaded with enough intent to make Jungkook's brain shut down for half a second, leaving him completely disoriented. "I want to see those big eyes all hazy with absolute pleasure."
Jungkook reacted purely on instinct, shoving him by the shoulder with a rough motion while feeling the heat rush all the way to the tips of his ears, painting them a vivid red he couldn't hide.
"You're completely sick," Jungkook snapped, trying to regain control of his composure.
"And you're way too cute when you get this embarrassed, even when you're trying your hardest to deny it," Taehyung replied with a predatory smile, pointing toward his ears with a quick gesture. "Don't bother hiding it, your ears are burning."
"Shut up already," Jungkook muttered, which only made Taehyung burst into another laugh.
"Someone has to knock you off that pedestal every now and then. You're way too naive for your own good," Taehyung declared.
"Excuse me?" Jungkook looked offended. "You've been stalking me since yesterday."
"But it worked."
"It did not work."
"I had you underneath me on this very couch less than five minutes ago."
Jungkook opened his mouth to protest and then closed it again.
Because technically, that had happened.
"That proves nothing."
And from that point on, the conversation became completely ridiculous.
"You look like a bottom," Jungkook declared with absolute conviction. "You're way too dramatic."
"Me, dramatic?" Taehyung straightened slightly, pointing at him in disbelief. "You write novels about past lives, destined souls, and eternal promises spanning centuries. Don't ever call me dramatic while you exist."
"That's different." Jungkook crossed his arms. "Besides, you seem like the kind of person who'd ask for hugs and cuddles after sex."
The horrified expression on Taehyung's face was immediate.
"And what kind of soulless monster wouldn't ask for cuddles after sex?"
That time, Jungkook completely lost his composure.
The laugh escaped before he could stop it, and Taehyung took advantage of that exact moment to grab him by the waist again and pull him closer. Before Jungkook could react, he pressed several short kisses against his lips, slow and shamelessly opportunistic.
"You're also way too pretty to be a top."
"What kind of stupid logic is that?"
"What's wrong with it?"
"Everything!"
"Seems perfect to me."
"Your logic is garbage."
"And yet you're still making out with me."
Jungkook wanted to come up with something clever, he really did.
But the bastard leaned down to his neck again and placed another slow kiss right beneath his jaw.
Every argumentative ability abandoned his brain.
Because yes, Taehyung knew exactly what he was doing.
For several more minutes, they continued mixing the dumbest argument in the world with shoves, teasing, stolen kisses, and constant attacks on each other's pride. Neither was willing to give up even an inch, and the more they argued, the more they seemed to enjoy themselves.
Eventually, Taehyung let out a tired huff and rested his head against the back of the couch.
"Alright, fine," the older alpha sighed. "Clearly we're not going to solve this by talking."
"That concerns me immensely."
Taehyung smiled, and that smile was dangerous.
"Then let's settle it like alphas."
Jungkook narrowed his eyes.
"You mean exactly what I think you mean?" he asked suspiciously, and Taehyung nodded without losing his smile. "I really don't like that look on your face."
"Correct. I mean we settle it with a dominance duel in bed."
Taehyung curved his lips into a crooked smile when he noticed how quickly Jungkook accepted the deal. Honestly, he'd expected more resistance. He thought there would be a fight, but no, that wasn't what happened.
Instead, Jungkook looked at him with those huge eyes still hazy from the lingering effects of their kisses, accepting the challenge with high expectations.
And it wasn't hard to understand why; dominance duels existed precisely to resolve situations like this, where two equally stubborn, dominant, and exasperatingly aroused alphas needed a way to decide who would yield first. It wasn't simply about sex, even if that was the inevitable final destination, but about physical hierarchy and pure pride.
It was the art of proving who had the ability to completely subdue the other.
That excited him immensely.
The idea was that both of them would fight hand-to-hand, naked and with their wolves close to the surface. Their eyes would turn red and their fangs would be on display. The objective was to completely immobilize and dominate the other, and once there was a winner, they would symbolically mark their victory with a small superficial bite on the other's neck. That determined who would have control that night and what would happen if the loser rebelled.
Everything was consensual from the start, and although there would obviously be blows, grappling, and growls, it couldn't really be considered violence.
Both of them thought it was fair, if they were being honest.
If Taehyung lost, it wouldn't be a tragedy either. He knew exactly what he liked and had no problem with it. He didn't mind bottoming at all, but he wanted to earn it.
As for Jungkook, although he was still terrified by the idea of bottoming during his first time with another alpha, the simple fact of fighting until exhaustion gave him the peace of mind he needed to accept the outcome; if he lost after giving absolutely everything he had, then he'd know he hadn't yielded out of weakness, but because of a fair fight.
Besides... both of them shared the belief that this wasn't a permanent sentence for the future, but simply a way to decide the course of the night. They would switch afterward; they weren't going to stay in the same dynamic forever.
As soon as they finished reaching an agreement, they gravitated toward each other again without thinking too much about it. Taehyung managed to grab him by the black T-shirt, but Jungkook beat him to it and kissed him before he could add another provocative comment.
Taehyung let out a deep laugh against his lips while Jungkook practically tried to drag him off the couch.
"Wow, someone's eager. Are you really going to start like this, that desperate?" Taehyung mocked as Jungkook pushed him backward.
"Shut up." Jungkook rolled his eyes.
Jungkook nearly tripped over the edge of the rug in his rush to move forward, which only made Taehyung burst into even louder laughter.
"What kind of dominant alpha trips before the duel even starts?"
"The next time you open your mouth, I'm going to regret inviting you upstairs."
"Liar, because you—"
Without wasting time, Jungkook bit his lower lip hard enough to shut that bratty mouth up. The action drew a muffled growl from Taehyung, somewhere between an insult and a pleased moan, as he kissed him harder than before.
They moved down the hallway almost blindly, bumping into the walls while their hands explored their surroundings. Jungkook clung to Taehyung's waist and neck, pulling him back every time he tried to pull away just to tease him, while Taehyung traced every inch of his skin, from his abdomen to his back and tattooed arm, enjoying the feel of Jungkook's firm chest beneath the fabric.
By the time they reached the bedroom, both of them were completely disheveled, hair messy and breathing heavily, but they only managed to separate long enough to recover some oxygen. Taehyung, trying to regain a shred of composure, raised a hand like a referee who had just stepped into the ring.
"Hold it right there."
"What now?" Jungkook narrowed his eyes immediately.
"First, we're setting rules."
"Rules?"
"Of course rules. What kind of savages do you think we are?"
Jungkook was still trying to catch his breath when he let out an incredulous laugh and shook his head.
"You really are bossy," he muttered, looking at Taehyung with a mix of amusement and exasperation.
"How disrespectful," Taehyung protested. "Before we continue this public defamation campaign, I need to know something. What year were you born?"
"What?"
"Answer me."
"Ninety-seven."
Taehyung's eyes lit up instantly.
"I knew it. I'm older than you. Ninety-five."
"So you're my hyung?" Jungkook asked, eyes ridiculously wide as a shiver of horror ran through him at the revelation, prompting Taehyung to move closer with a smugness that bordered on unbearable.
"That's right, and not only that," Taehyung murmured, lowering his voice into something more sensual. "I want to hear you call me 'hyung' right when I'm pushing you to your limit. Understood?"
"Can we please get back to the important topic now?" Jungkook said, trying to recover some seriousness.
"Sure, sure." Even though he answered immediately, the smile remained firmly in place. They both walked over to Jungkook's large bed and sat down beside each other. "During the duel, penetration isn't allowed, not with fingers or anything else. The goal is to physically immobilize and dominate your opponent first; only after we've decided who's taking control do we move on to the technical side of intimacy."
"I agree," Jungkook said. "Also, no real marks, neither temporary nor obviously permanent ones. Any use of teeth has to stay superficial."
Taehyung nodded without any issue.
"Can I talk during the duel, or is this supposed to be silent?" Taehyung asked seriously, making Jungkook raise an eyebrow. "I need to know if I can verbally provoke you while I kick your pride's ass."
That drew a small laugh from Jungkook.
"Yeah, that's fine. I'll do exactly the same thing."
"Perfect, then."
"One more thing," Jungkook hurried to add. "No actual punches like a street fight or a bar fight, only tactical moves to take the other down or pin them."
"Obviously." Taehyung rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to break the nose of the love of my past lives."
Those words left Jungkook sitting in absolute silence, his face burning. Taehyung smiled softly when he noticed the alpha's reaction, finding it incredibly adorable.
"Oh, I think we also need a safeword," Taehyung continued. "It's normal that during the fight we'll say things like 'no,' 'wait,' or 'not like that,' so we need a specific word in case one of us actually wants to stop for real. So, what's the signal?"
Jungkook seemed to think it over for a few seconds, making a slight pout while his big eyes wandered around the room.
"Uh... how about 'battery'?"
"'Battery'? Seriously, that's the word you picked?" Taehyung burst into an affectionate fit of laughter while Jungkook shrugged awkwardly.
"It's the only thing that came to mind," he admitted quietly.
Taehyung found it so unbelievably cute that he had to restrain himself from biting him right then and there.
Once everything had been agreed upon, the atmosphere in the room changed dramatically, becoming dense and tangible under the looming reality that they were about to begin.
Without another word, Taehyung moved closer, erasing what little distance remained and kissing him deeply while his hands closed firmly around Jungkook's waist. Giving in to the momentum of desire, Jungkook automatically pulled him against his own body, eliminating every trace of space between them.
The kiss became an electric collision of intensity; their tongues met with an urgency that bordered on desperation, while their heavy breathing filled the room and the faint scrape of teeth against lips promised far more than reason allowed.
The duel was officially meant to begin once they were both naked, but the urgency of two alphas perfectly in sync was pushing them toward the edge of the abyss long before expected.
Taehyung was already pushing the fabric of Jungkook's black T-shirt upward when Jungkook pulled away a few inches, lowering his gaze with an embarrassed expression.
"Wait, stop for a second," Jungkook said, his voice strained as he moved back slightly. "There's a problem."
"What problem?"
"I don't have any lube," Jungkook admitted after a brief pause, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. "I've never needed it."
Complete silence reigned for two full seconds.
"Don't worry about that," Taehyung replied with absolute calm. "I've got everything under control. I have some, I brought my own supply in my bag," he explained as he stood up with an ease that irritated and excited Jungkook in equal measure.
"You're unbelievable."
Taehyung's laughter echoed throughout the room.
"And how is it my fault for being optimistic?" he shot back between laughs as he moved away from the bed.
"You came prepared from the start. You fully intended for this to happen."
"And?" Taehyung shrugged without the slightest trace of shame. "It worked."
Before Jungkook could answer anything else, Taehyung ran out toward the living room.
Jungkook remained seated on the bed, staring at the doorway through which he had disappeared. His cheeks felt warm, his ears were probably just as red, and despite everything, he couldn't stop himself from smiling.
He had spent years building a serious and rational image for himself, and now he was sitting in his own bedroom smiling like an idiot because an alpha had shown up at his apartment carrying lube in his backpack.
When Taehyung returned a few moments later, he had the bottle in one hand, holding it up with a triumphant expression.
"Mission accomplished."
"You're incredibly proud of yourself," Jungkook let out a small laugh through his nose.
"Very."
Taehyung set the bottle down on the bed and then seemed to remember something.
"Important question," he said, pointing at him with a finger. "Do you have condoms or do I need to go back for my bag again?"
"I have those."
"Perfect."
Satisfied with the answer, he slowly moved closer again.
The playful smile hadn't left his face when he placed one knee on the mattress between Jungkook's legs. From that position, he gently tilted Jungkook's head back with both hands and kissed him again.
Jungkook let out a broken sigh when he felt Taehyung's mouth on his once more, and with a possessive impulse, he grabbed his waist and lifted the edge of the older alpha's white shirt, sliding his hands underneath to feel the warmth of his skin.
The direct contact drew small growls from both of them against the kiss. Taehyung pressed himself closer, taking advantage of the dominant position above him, but Jungkook responded with equal force, gripping his sides and forcing him completely into his personal space.
"I'm clean," Jungkook murmured against his lips, his voice barely audible.
Taehyung pulled back a few inches and looked directly into his eyes with a gaze that could melt anyone.
"Does that mean you want me to fill your ass without a condom?"
"You really are impossible." Jungkook closed his eyes for a second.
"You didn't answer the question."
"What it means," he replied, holding his gaze, "is that I want to fill your ass with my cum."
Taehyung's expression changed so fast it was impossible not to enjoy it.
"Holy shit!" he exclaimed between laughs. "Since when do you answer like that?"
"Since someone won't stop provoking me."
"I love it."
He didn't get to say much more.
Jungkook grabbed his waist and pulled him forward firmly, making him fall onto the mattress. Taehyung barely had time to react before ending up lying down. Jungkook settled partially on top of him and kissed him again immediately.
The older alpha's arms wrapped around his neck as he returned the kiss without the slightest resistance, letting out small pleased sounds that only made everything worse.
"By the way, just so you know," Taehyung murmured between kisses, "I'm clean too."
The smile appeared on Jungkook's face before he could even stop it, and Taehyung smiled as well.
For a moment they simply stared at each other, but then no more words were exchanged; they lost themselves in the kiss again, acting like two alphas completely obsessed with each other, two souls who, after waiting however long it took across several lifetimes, had finally found each other again.
Jungkook wrapped his arms around his bare waist, hiding his hands beneath the white fabric and slowly moving them up Taehyung's firm back, enjoying the way the muscles beneath his skin tensed with an almost electric response to every touch.
In a possessive gesture, Taehyung slid his own hands beneath Jungkook's black shirt, dragging it upward until his abdomen was exposed.
His fingers explored every defined line with shameless attention, and when his nails lightly scraped over sensitive skin, Jungkook let out a muffled gasp against his lips.
The older alpha smiled the moment he noticed the reaction.
"It's ridiculous how well built you are."
"Talk less if you don't want to lose before we even start," Jungkook tried to maintain his composure, though he could feel it slipping away quickly.
"What a terrifying threat." Taehyung's low laugh vibrated against his mouth.
Immediately afterward, he kissed him again, clearly using it as punishment for talking back.
The temperature in the room climbed rapidly; Jungkook ended up pressing him against the mattress while scattering hungry kisses across his jaw and neck, slipping one hand beneath the white fabric to press his palm against Taehyung's firm chest.
The older alpha let out a short, sharp gasp when Jungkook subtly pinched one of his nipples between his fingers, a sensation strong enough to make Taehyung try to roll over on the mattress, refusing to stay still for even a second.
They ended up rolling across the huge bed until Taehyung managed to sit on Jungkook's legs for a few moments, teasing him from above while gently biting his lower lip.
"You're absurdly competitive, you know that?" Taehyung said between breaths while Jungkook wrapped an arm firmly around his waist to push him back, trying to regain control of the position.
"You started all of this, don't look at me," Jungkook replied, keeping his heated gaze locked on Taehyung's. The older alpha only shrugged with a look of pure mischief.
"I'm not complaining," Taehyung admitted before sealing their mouths together in a deep kiss, silencing any further protest.
Jungkook's black shirt ended up being the first obstacle to disappear; Taehyung practically tore it off in the middle of the frenzy, pulling back just enough to admire the result. His eyes traveled over every detail with shameless lust.
Jungkook felt the blush spread across his entire face beneath the intensity of that gaze, and when he saw Taehyung bite his lip in approval, he knew he was doomed.
Not letting the moment pass, Jungkook grabbed the hem of Taehyung's white shirt and started lifting it while continuing to kiss him, forcing Taehyung to raise his arms so the garment could be removed. When the fabric finally hit the floor, Jungkook froze for a second, stunned by the sight in front of him.
Because he had pushed him against the mattress, Taehyung had ended up lying face down, exposing a part of his body Jungkook hadn't noticed before. Right at the small of his back, dangerously close to his waist, stood out a tattoo in black tribal-style lettering that contrasted beautifully against his golden skin.
The phrase ‘all eyes on me’ felt like a declaration of intent that struck him directly on instinct. Jungkook felt suffocating heat rush through his entire body, a wave of desire and possessiveness that made him curse.
Taehyung noticed immediately the way Jungkook had become captivated by his back, and with deliberate slowness, he turned his head slightly over his shoulder to give him a smile loaded with absolutely unbearable arrogance.
"Like what you see?" Taehyung asked in a husky voice, enjoying the way Jungkook's gaze traveled over every curve of his skin with almost tangible intensity.
Jungkook ran his tongue over his lips, feeling his mouth go dry despite everything.
"How long have you had it?"
"Years," Taehyung replied without looking away from him. "Honestly, I got it done specifically to provoke reactions exactly like that. Besides," he continued with complete calm, "it's positioned exactly where I want people looking."
That completely destroyed whatever self-control Jungkook had left.
Jungkook didn't answer.
Instead, he leaned forward and pressed a kiss against the tattoo. It was born more from fascination than anything else, making Taehyung let out a small victorious laugh.
"I knew you liked it."
The younger alpha huffed, wrapped an arm firmly around his waist, and turned him over before kissing him again.
The intensity returned immediately.
It didn't seem to matter how many times they kissed. Every time their lips met, it was just as bad—or worse—than the time before.
Jungkook ended up pushing him back against the mattress once more while absentmindedly tracing his lips along Taehyung's neck. One of his hands slid down the other's back until it stopped right at his waist, near the tattoo that continued to obsess him far more than he was willing to admit.
Taehyung let out a low sound when he felt the grip, and that didn't help either.
In fact, nothing helped. Absolutely nothing.
"I'm seriously considering telling this duel to go to hell," Jungkook admitted against his skin.
"That sounded way more tempting than you think," Taehyung let out a dangerously pleased sound that finally lit the fuse.
From that moment on, their clothes began disappearing quickly; between kisses, shoving, and an endless stream of provocations, they got rid of their jeans and underwear in a whirlwind of desperate hands.
The constant struggle to see who could get on top became increasingly physical until they were finally completely naked.
By the time the last piece of fabric hit the floor, both of them were breathing hard; their bodies burned with arousal, their hard erections aching to be attended to.
The atmosphere in the room changed drastically. One's roasted coffee and cardamom intertwined with the other's fresh green fig and sandalwood, wrapping them in an intoxicating haze.
Taehyung was the first to smile, a predatory grin that widened when he noticed Jungkook's eyes turning a vivid, intense red. Jungkook responded with the same expression the moment he saw Taehyung's irises ignite with the color of his wolf as well.
The tension that had kept them hanging over the edge for so long exploded all at once in a burst of testosterone and pure physical urgency. Without waiting another second, the duel began. Taehyung moved first.
He lunged forward with every intention of taking Jungkook down onto the mattress, but the other reacted almost instinctively. His hands found Taehyung's hips before he could complete the movement and, using the initial momentum, he twisted him forcefully. Both of them crashed onto the bed.
Jungkook immediately tried to pin his wrists, taking advantage of the difference in raw strength he had in his favor, but Taehyung was too fast. He lifted one leg and delivered a strategic kick exactly where he knew it would throw him off balance.
In doing so, he reversed their positions once again and let out a challenging laugh as he regained the advantage.
"I expected more resistance," he mocked, breathing unevenly as he tried to seize one of Jungkook's arms.
The younger alpha practically growled in his face, his fangs already fully visible.
The pressure pouring off both of them made the air in the room feel heavier with every passing second. Their chests collided constantly as they wrestled across the enormous mattress, neither willing to give the other even a single inch.
Taehyung tried to pin both of his arms above his head, but Jungkook answered with pure strength. With one rough movement, he managed to lift him just enough to roll him over again. Taehyung let out a surprised gasp that quickly turned into an incredulous laugh as he landed back on the sheets.
Jungkook seized the opportunity immediately and managed to keep him pinned for several seconds, pressing part of his weight onto him while holding one of his wrists down.
"Who's the bottom now?" he asked with an arrogant grin that lit up his entire face.
"You talk too much for someone who's still losing."
And before Jungkook could answer, Taehyung lifted a leg, used the force of his hips, and threw him off again.
"Hey!"
"See?" Taehyung replied through laughter. "You're still losing."
Their muscles tightened beneath sweat-slick skin with every movement. Everything felt like a violent choreography of rough shoves, tangled legs, and hands gripping wrists or necks in a constant effort to overpower the other.
The mattress creaked beneath the rhythmic impact of their bodies, protesting under the force of two alphas who refused to surrender. The real problem, and what made everything dangerously addictive, was how aroused they both were.
Every time their bodies ended up pressed too closely together, the friction of their erections drew involuntary gasps from them that only fed the fire. When Jungkook finally managed to trap his wrists and pin his weight over Taehyung's body, a deep, guttural growl escaped the older alpha's throat.
"Looks like you're finally starting to get tired, Taehyung," Jungkook murmured, flashing him an arrogant smile while enjoying the dominant position.
Far from giving up, Taehyung sank his teeth into his shoulder in a deliciously pleasurable bite without breaking the skin, making Jungkook hiss out a "shit" through clenched teeth as his concentration slipped.
That second was all Taehyung needed to turn their bodies smoothly. He ended up on top, sliding a knee between Jungkook's legs and lowering his hips with enough pressure to completely immobilize the younger alpha's lower body.
"Thanks for your cooperation," he said through laughter.
When Jungkook tried to break free, he discovered that his wrists were already pinned against the mattress. Their bodies collided in brutal friction that tore muffled sounds of pleasure from both of them.
"Oh, this I like," Taehyung murmured with obvious satisfaction.
"Don't celebrate yet."
"Oh? Really?"
Jungkook growled, tensing every fiber of his arms and abdomen as he tried to twist free, but it was useless. Taehyung was using his weight, his position, and the constant pressure of his hips to keep him pinned to the bed.
His red eyes burned intensely as he watched Jungkook struggle beneath him, still trying to find a way out even though both of them were beginning to understand how this would end.
"It's over, Jungkook," Taehyung whispered hoarsely, and it sounded like a final verdict that allowed no argument.
Jungkook shook his head in a rough, desperate motion as he tried once again to escape.
He tensed his arms and attempted to free himself one more time, but only managed to move him a few centimeters. Taehyung had already found the perfect balance to keep him down and, no matter how much strength the younger alpha used, he couldn't regain control.
Then Taehyung leaned down slowly, and Jungkook felt the movement before he even understood what he was about to do.
The older alpha buried his face against his neck, and Jungkook's entire body reacted with an involuntary shiver. The warmth of his breath spread across the sensitive skin beneath his jaw while his fangs barely brushed that vulnerable spot.
Taehyung parted his lips slightly, letting his fangs graze the most sensitive area of the other's neck before sinking them in barely a millimeter, nicking the epidermis with the elegance of a predator marking its prey. The symbolic message was instantaneous, like a language both of them understood at the deepest level of their instincts.
It clearly told him to stay still and submit, that he was his.
Jungkook released the air from his lungs in a long, trembling exhale, feeling the tension leave his muscles involuntarily. His eyes, still stained red with the presence of his wolf, closed as he finally stopped resisting.
Reality settled over him with crushing clarity.
He had lost. Taehyung had won fair and square, and the defeat didn't feel bitter at all.
Taehyung slowly licked the small mark to clean away the thin line of blood that had appeared on the skin, smiling in satisfaction against the younger alpha's warm body.
Purely on instinct, he rolled his hips a couple of times, drawing low moans from both of them that echoed through the room. The friction was so electric that Jungkook's legs trembled, giving in to the rush of sensation.
The older alpha lifted his head shortly afterward, staying firmly positioned between Jungkook's legs without releasing his wrists.
"Looks like the great untouchable alpha can be tamed after all," Taehyung murmured with an arrogance that, instead of irritating him, only made Jungkook even hotter.
Jungkook remained still, watching him from beneath with uneven breaths, before a small crooked smile appeared on his face.
Little by little, the red glow in his eyes began to fade, returning them to their natural color, and his fangs retracted until they disappeared. Jungkook made no further attempt to move; he simply surrendered, allowing his wolf to bow before Taehyung's authority.
It was a strange feeling. Yielding to Taehyung wasn't like making a decision or resigning himself to something. It was genuinely instinctive. His wolf itself lowered its head. It felt as though Taehyung's wolf had his by the scruff of the neck, keeping him still, calm, and receptive.
The most unsettling part was that he didn't dislike it at all. Quite the opposite.
Taehyung seemed to notice the exact moment the last traces of resistance left his body. A small smile appeared on his lips as he brushed a few strands of hair away from Jungkook's forehead with a surprisingly gentle touch.
"It's okay," he murmured.
Those words did something inside Jungkook. They relaxed him even further. But before he could analyze it too much, Taehyung kissed him again.
The difference was obvious.
The kiss was still intense, full of emotion and desire, but that constant struggle for control that had defined every interaction between them over the past hour was gone. There were no more shoves or attempts to dictate the pace. It no longer felt like a competition. Jungkook simply responded naturally, parting his lips for him and letting himself be carried away by the rhythm Taehyung set.
Jungkook let out a low sound when Taehyung wrapped an arm around his waist and adjusted him more comfortably beneath him. He didn't even try to resist. His body responded on its own, adapting to the movement while remaining focused solely on the sensation of those lips against his.
Taehyung kissed him slowly and deeply until he was left breathing hard, and then he began to move lower. His lips traced the line of Jungkook's jaw before stopping at his neck.
He stayed there for quite a while. Jungkook shivered as soon as he felt the damp kisses against the sensitive skin where his scent glands were, and without thinking, he tilted his head slightly to give him better access.
A sound of satisfaction escaped Taehyung's throat when he caught the scent of roasted coffee and cardamom. He began kissing the area with a voracious slowness, leaving small reddish marks while inhaling deeply, as though he were genuinely getting intoxicated on the younger alpha's scent.
Every time his teeth lightly brushed that skin, Jungkook let out an involuntary gasp, a reaction that seemed to have a devastating effect on Taehyung.
"You smell too good," Taehyung admitted quietly.
Taehyung continued downward at an unhurried pace, drawing a trail of kisses across his warm chest, pausing right at the center of his pectorals before capturing one of his nipples between his lips with just the right amount of pressure.
At the same moment, one of his hands moved lower with purpose. He wrapped it around Jungkook's erection in a firm grip that made him part his lips in a sharp exhale. The older alpha began stroking him at a leisurely pace, watching every twitch and every change in the younger man's expression with careful attention.
Jungkook reacted to every small movement, his abdomen stretched taut with tension and his legs trembling with uncontrollable spasms as he fought to contain the sounds escaping him. Taehyung, meanwhile, found himself genuinely fascinated. Jungkook projected an image of complete control over every aspect of his life, and having him here now, reduced to this state, shuddering beneath the command of his hands, was becoming a dangerously addictive vice that he had no intention of giving up.
Taehyung left another crimson mark near his ribs and continued downward, savoring every little reaction he managed to draw from him along the way.
His lips traveled across Jungkook's heated skin while his free hand remained firmly on one of his thighs, keeping him open for him.
When he finally settled between his legs, he lifted his head slightly and held Jungkook's gaze for a moment that seemed to last far too long.
Jungkook pushed himself up on his elbows to look at him and nearly forgot how to breathe. There was something dangerously intoxicating about the way Taehyung looked at him from down there, with slightly messy hair, reddened lips, and that confident expression that seemed to say he knew exactly the effect he was having.
Right then, Taehyung's warm mouth slowly closed around him.
The younger alpha shuddered from head to toe and arched against the mattress before he could stop himself. His thighs tensed immediately, trying to close on instinct alone, but Taehyung remained between them, holding him firmly while beginning to move his head. The muffled sound that escaped Jungkook's throat was so embarrassingly needy that he wanted to swallow it back down.
Taehyung let out a small moan against him, and the vibration traveled through Jungkook's entire body in a way that robbed him of any coherent thought for several seconds.
Fuck, this was too much.
The worst part was that Taehyung seemed to be enjoying it immensely. Jungkook's hands ended up buried in the older alpha's dark hair as he tried to regulate his breathing, gripping him firmly, threading his fingers through the soft strands.
Every time he managed to catch his breath, Taehyung did something that ruined him all over again. And when the older alpha lifted his eyes to look at him without stopping, Jungkook felt his brain short-circuit once more because the sight was unbearably hot.
They remained like that for quite some time until Jungkook finally let out a shaky gasp and, gathering every scrap of dignity he still possessed, managed to speak.
"I want to touch you too," he murmured, his voice rough.
Taehyung pulled back just enough to answer, though he remained far too close, wearing a dangerously satisfied expression.
"Why?" he asked, tilting his head slightly and feigning innocence.
"Because I want to make you feel good too, it's only fair," he said, looking at him with something close to a pleading expression. "Hyung."
The older alpha froze for half a second before such an openly smug and absolute smile spread across his face that, had he not been so aroused, Jungkook would have searched for a hole to crawl into.
"Anything for my little pup," Taehyung replied in a velvety voice.
"Don't call me that," Jungkook protested immediately, covering part of his face with one hand as he felt his cheeks burning.
Taehyung's laugh was low and amused.
Still smiling, he slowly straightened up and rose from between Jungkook's legs. Jungkook followed him automatically with his eyes, watching as he walked to the edge of the bed.
Seeing him from that angle sent another wave of heat straight to his face. Taehyung stood beside him and let his gaze drop briefly before looking back at Jungkook, who immediately understood the unspoken message and crawled toward the edge of the mattress, parting his lips as he looked at him with clear anticipation.
However, he never got the chance to touch him. Before his lips could make contact, Taehyung stopped him by taking hold of his hair and gently pulling him back.
Jungkook looked up at him in confusion, only to find dark eyes overflowing with desire.
"Turn around, lie on your back, and move closer to the edge."
It took Jungkook two seconds to process the order, but he obeyed without hesitation. He settled onto the bed, letting his head hang over the edge of the mattress. Taehyung, moving closer again, began stroking his face tenderly.
"Open wide, sweetheart," Taehyung ordered in a voice that, though low, carried unmistakable authority.
The younger alpha opened his mouth without hesitation, allowing the older man to position himself precisely. Taehyung let out a deep, rough groan when he aligned himself with Jungkook's lips and began entering slowly, inch by inch. Jungkook released a small muffled sound as he felt the weight and size.
Taehyung was especially gentle because he knew perfectly well that Jungkook was inexperienced. An alpha's cock could not be compared in size to an omega's; alpha cocks were often nearly ten centimeters larger, which meant Jungkook had never had anything that big in his mouth before.
"Easy, breathe..." Taehyung murmured in a soft, encouraging tone. "You're doing amazing, you've got it perfectly."
That praise gave Jungkook a confidence he hadn't realized he needed, allowing him to relax his jaw and let the older alpha move deeper with greater ease.
To Taehyung's eyes, the scene was an erotic spectacle. Jungkook's athletic body stretched out across the bed, his pale skin marked by Taehyung himself, and the trail of saliva and precome glistening across his abdomen where the younger alpha's large cock rested, hard and flushed red.
The best part was that every time Taehyung fucked his mouth, he could see the movement in the alpha's throat because of the position.
To maximize the connection, Taehyung gently placed a hand against the younger man's throat, circling his trachea with his thumb, index finger, and middle finger. As he did, he felt beneath his fingertips the sensation of his own cock being swallowed by Jungkook's mouth.
The feeling was so pure and fascinating that a breathless gasp escaped him.
"Fuck, you're way too good at this for it to be your first time," Taehyung admitted, his voice slightly rough from the effort of holding himself back.
Jungkook let out an embarrassed sound. It might have been a protest or a complaint, but even he wasn't sure. The only thing he knew was that he really liked it whenever Taehyung praised him.
Lying on his back with his head hanging over the edge gave him a strange sense of anonymity that allowed him to hide the fierce blush covering his face, focusing solely on the sensation of Taehyung filling his mouth.
The pace gradually increased. Taehyung had started patiently, paying close attention to every reaction, but little by little Jungkook adapted and responded with growing confidence.
With a restrained groan, Taehyung eventually pulled away before things progressed too quickly and he reached orgasm. He ran a hand through his hair, trying to recover some composure while regulating his breathing.
Jungkook lifted his head from the edge of the bed and looked at him in confusion. His cheeks were completely flushed and his lips were swollen and glossy in a way that sent another wave of heat through Taehyung.
"Why did you stop?" he asked, still panting.
"Because if I'd kept going, I would've come."
The alpha frowned slightly.
"But that's exactly what I wanted."
The answer came out so sincerely that Taehyung couldn't help smiling.
"Oh?" he asked, watching him with obvious amusement. "How badly do you want it, and exactly where?"
Jungkook opened his mouth to answer and immediately closed it again when he realized what he'd just said. Taehyung seemed to be enjoying every second of his discomfort.
The younger man climbed back onto the bed and sat close to him, looking at him with devotion while Jungkook blushed furiously.
"A lot... and I want it in my mouth," Jungkook whispered, his voice barely audible.
"Then I'll grant your wish," Taehyung replied, leaning back against the headboard in a half-reclined position. "But you're going to have to work for it."
Jungkook looked at him in confusion, and Taehyung realized he needed to be clearer, so he pointed downward.
"There it is. Make me come, Jungkook."
He swore Jungkook's eyes changed, going from innocent to filled with desire, and he didn't need to be told twice. He crawled forward until he was beside Taehyung, with the older alpha positioned directly in front of him.
After spending a few seconds stroking the base with one hand, he wrapped his lips around him and began moving up and down on his own in a hypnotic rhythm, taking as much as his anatomy allowed while his tongue traced over the head with a precision that forced Taehyung to close his eyes and gasp.
Not satisfied with that alone, his left hand drifted up to the older alpha's chest, circling one of his nipples and stimulating it with his fingertips, a detail that drew a deep groan from Taehyung.
Meanwhile, the older alpha wasn't idle either. Watching Jungkook in that position, he noticed that the lower half of his body was within easy reach because Jungkook was positioned beside him rather than between his legs. He began stroking the younger alpha's thighs with his right hand, squeezing firmly enough to leave pink marks on the pale skin, even delivering sharp smacks that made Jungkook moan against his own erection, losing any remaining trace of decorum.
The symphony of moans and the wet sound of his mouth around him filled the room until Taehyung felt that this time, orgasm was truly inevitable.
"J-Jungkook," he moaned, his voice breaking. "I'm gonna come, keep going... that's it, you're doing so well, you make me feel so good."
The younger alpha increased the pace, forcing himself to take more of him while both hands worked as well, one wrapped around what he couldn't fit into his mouth and the other still on Taehyung's chest. He was determined to take every last drop.
Taehyung gripped the hand that was still stimulating his chest and buried his other hand in Jungkook's hair, pulling him down at the exact moment orgasm hit him with overwhelming force.
A moan escaped his throat as he came, releasing Jungkook's hair so he could pull back when the knot began to swell. Jungkook held the tip against his tongue while his right hand maintained a steady rhythm, making sure every drop of that thick fluid ended up exactly where he wanted it.
When the final pulses subsided, Jungkook closed his lips firmly around the tip, cleaning it delicately before swallowing everything, an act Taehyung watched with absolute fascination.
"You're such a good boy," Taehyung murmured, his voice still rough from the lingering ecstasy as he stroked the younger alpha's cheek. "You did amazing, really."
Jungkook gave him a proud smile, that bunny-like expression that always managed to completely destroy Taehyung's defenses, but the night was far from over.
"Come on, lie down properly on your stomach so I can get you ready."
Although a flash of natural fear crossed Jungkook's mind at those words, it only took one look into Taehyung's calm and reassuring eyes for his shoulders to relax. He settled onto the bed, gripping the sheets tightly, and Taehyung crawled into position directly behind him, reaching for the bottle of lubricant resting on the mattress.
The sound of the cap opening echoed through the room, making Jungkook tense up instantly, overcome by pure nervousness that crawled beneath his skin. Aware of it, Taehyung placed a broad hand between his shoulder blades, slowly sliding it downward, caressing every defined muscle along Jungkook's back until the trembling began to fade beneath his touch.
"I still think you're ridiculously attractive, you know that?" Taehyung said in a murmur.
Taehyung kept stroking his back as he spoke, letting his hands leisurely trace every line of firm muscle beneath his skin. It helped the tension still lingering in Jungkook's body begin to loosen little by little.
"It's impressive," he murmured with an amused smile as he leaned down to place a kiss between his shoulder blades. "You literally check every single box of my ideal type."
Jungkook buried his face deeper into the pillow, completely red.
"Stop saying things like that."
"Why?" Taehyung asked. "They're true."
He let out an embarrassed growl that only made the older alpha laugh. He hated that Taehyung had that absurd ability to say such embarrassing things with complete ease.
Taehyung's hands slid down along the sides of Jungkook's body, tracing the contours of his muscles until they stopped at the curve of his waist. Taehyung squeezed his fingers there before continuing his exploration lower.
"I love your shoulders, they have a perfect structure," Taehyung said without stopping his caresses. "Your back, your arms, the way your thighs are defined... everything about you is simply flawless."
"You talk too much," Jungkook protested, though the lack of conviction in his voice only made Taehyung's smile widen even further.
"That's not my fault," he shot back immediately. "It's your fault for looking like that."
That answer made Jungkook close his eyes in resignation.
The constant compliments acted like a balm; Jungkook had feared that taking the passive role would diminish his alpha essence, but the way Taehyung highlighted his masculinity restored his confidence.
As he spoke, Taehyung's free hand wandered with shameless fascination over the curve of his hips and ass. The younger alpha felt strange about being touched in such intimate places, a new and unsettling sensation, but with Taehyung, the fear simply dissolved.
Suddenly, a stab of self-awareness hit him. He felt dirty and almost unworthy. They had met only a day ago; a stranger had sweet-talked him and, barely twenty-four hours later, he had him there in his bed, where he was surrendering to a submission that three days earlier he would have answered with a punch if anyone had dared question him about it.
The thread of his thoughts snapped when Taehyung gave him a firm smack on one cheek; the gasp that escaped Jungkook's lips was loud and, instantly, Taehyung let out a victorious smile.
"There it is," Taehyung said with satisfaction in his voice. "I knew that cute sound would come back."
Jungkook immediately closed his eyes.
"I hate you."
"No, you don't, Jungkook," Taehyung replied, his hand returning to draw slow circles over the skin of his ass. "You're far too comfortable with me to hate me, and we both know exactly why."
He was right, and Jungkook couldn't argue with it.
The alpha felt a shiver run all the way down his spine the moment the cool sensation of lubricant touched the sensitive skin of his body. The contrast with the heat that had been building inside him for so long was so sudden that his fingers instinctively clenched around the sheets.
Behind him, Taehyung must have noticed immediately, because he instantly leaned over his back to place several slow kisses against the nape of his neck while one of his hands continued touching him patiently, spreading the lubricant properly over his entrance.
"Relax your body," he murmured near his ear. "You're doing well."
It was absurd how a few words could calm him so much.
"You don't have to rush," Taehyung continued. "If something bothers you, tell me. Okay?" Jungkook swallowed and gave the slightest nod against the pillow. "I'm with you."
That sent a strange warmth through his chest. After taking several deep breaths, he ended up nodding lightly against the pillow.
"I'm going to start, alright?" Taehyung said softly after placing another kiss on the back of his neck.
With precise care, he inserted the first finger, moving it slowly back and forth while gently stroking his inner walls. Taehyung pulled back only a few inches, sitting on his heels so he could watch with delight as Jungkook's pink entrance adapted to his touch, swallowing the finger.
Jungkook, meanwhile, clutched the sheet. It was an absolutely unprecedented sensation, unfamiliar territory that he had no way of comparing to anything he had ever experienced before.
When Taehyung noticed the initial tension had eased a little, he slipped in another finger with the same patience he had shown from the beginning. One hand remained firmly on Jungkook's hip while the other continued preparing him carefully, attentive to every change in his breathing and every small movement of his body.
Taehyung then leaned down to place a soft kiss on one of his cheeks, an unexpectedly tender gesture that stirred something inside Jungkook. His lips remained there for a few seconds while he continued touching him patiently, trying to help Jungkook's body relax little by little.
"You're way too pretty," he murmured against his skin with complete sincerity. "So pretty I could die."
Jungkook let out an embarrassed complaint and buried his face deeper between his arms.
"Seriously, you should stop saying things like that. I'm the one who's going to die, from embarrassment," he protested with a pout on his lips. "And you'd better prepare yourself for when you're in this position."
"Sure, whatever you say." Taehyung let out an amused laugh.
That response only made Jungkook blush even harder.
Taehyung shook his head while continuing his work for several more minutes. He stretched his inner walls with precise, slow scissoring motions. When he finally inserted the third finger, Jungkook felt overwhelmed by pleasure and desperation; if it felt like this with mere fingers, the thought of the older alpha's cock made his blood rush through him with uncontrollable intensity.
Desperate from the contrast between the stimulation and the lack of something more substantial, Jungkook shifted on the mattress, rolling his hips in an attempt to force Taehyung to withdraw his fingers.
"What's wrong? Are you okay?" Taehyung asked, stopping abruptly.
"That's enough, Taehyung," Jungkook replied, his voice strained with urgency. "Stop playing around and fuck me already."
The older alpha let out a soft scoff, enjoying the other's impatience. Abandoning any remaining trace of doubt, Jungkook turned to look him directly in the eyes; there, Taehyung found a determination that momentarily left him breathless.
"Bunny..." Taehyung called him, his tone almost possessive.
The nickname made Jungkook want to disappear beneath the sheets, but instead of responding, he simply adjusted himself more comfortably on the mattress because there was no turning back now.
He spread his legs and lifted his arms slightly toward him, inviting him closer with an expression that was completely flushed. That gesture finally melted away any restraint Taehyung had left. He crawled toward him, settled between his thighs, and before claiming what belonged to him, he leaned down to seal the pact with a brief kiss.
"Alright," he murmured as he brushed a strand of hair away from Jungkook's forehead. "I'm going to grant your wish, again."
Jungkook swallowed hard, unable to look away.
Then Taehyung leaned down and kissed him again.
The kiss was slow at first. Jungkook responded immediately, clinging to him as the world seemed to narrow down to nothing but the pressure of their lips and the shared warmth between them.
As he kissed him, Taehyung couldn't help but think that he had never seen anything so attractive. He absolutely loved how submissive and receptive Jungkook was being. Even if he tried to keep up appearances, he had truly yielded to him; for Taehyung, there was nothing more exciting than seeing an alpha like that, and from now on, he only wanted to see Jungkook.
The fact that they weren't destined mates, yet their stubborn, lovestruck souls refused to follow what the Moon Goddess had ordained and insisted on being together no matter what, was the most romantic thing he had ever heard.
The moment he saw him yesterday in the café, he had genuinely felt as though a missing piece had clicked into place in his life. How was it possible that they had known each other for only a damn day and he already felt like he wanted to spend the rest of his life with him? Obviously, it was too early to say something like that, but maybe he should listen to Namjoon, who had said that if he ever found that face, he should marry him.
He simply wanted to keep getting to know Jungkook, because if they found each other in every lifetime even when their red thread pulled elsewhere, then there had to be something deeper behind it. They always managed to tangle it up so that they were the ones making their own choice instead. And they always chose each other.
Of course, it could all be a simple coincidence, but then how could that instant connection be explained? There had to be a reason he was in that bed sharing that moment with him.
Taehyung kissed him with a tenderness that contrasted with how dominant he felt, moving his hips in a slow, precise rhythm, allowing the friction between their erections to make them both feel good.
"Are you ready?" Taehyung whispered against his lips, pausing the movement for a moment to watch the younger alpha's response.
Jungkook's gaze was hazy, but he nodded, spreading his legs farther apart on his own and lifting them slightly to give him more room. Taehyung straightened his back because he wanted to take in every detail of Jungkook's face.
That contrast between the delicacy of his features and the power of his athletic body had him completely hypnotized.
He took hold of his cock—which was already hard again—and guided it with extreme care toward the younger alpha. The moment he felt that initial contact against Jungkook's pink, receptive skin, Taehyung clenched his teeth, restraining the urge to thrust forward hard.
He knew what was coming. He knew the tightness waiting for him and the inevitable discomfort the other would feel, so with his free hand, he wrapped it around Jungkook's cock and began pumping it in a steady rhythm as he slowly eased forward.
The impact was electric, a union that felt like the collision of two worlds that had spent eons searching for one another.
As Taehyung felt Jungkook's body opening to receive him, wrapping around him in searing heat, the younger alpha let out a sharp gasp that was swallowed by the older alpha's mouth.
Taehyung continued stroking him, using the friction and pleasure to keep Jungkook from focusing solely on the pain of the intrusion.
From his position, he could watch intently as the younger alpha began to open up to accommodate his size, claiming him as his own little by little. Taehyung bit his lower lip, fighting the instinct urging him to drive forward with all his strength.
He had to hold back, be patient, and allow Jungkook to adapt to the length of him inside. Jungkook, his hands dug into the sheets, let out a strangled cry while holding the older alpha's gaze.
His eyes were glassy, searching Taehyung for some kind of refuge. The moment he noticed the pained grimace on his face, Taehyung stopped completely, keeping his hips motionless while his free hand began stimulating Jungkook's cock faster, trying to distract his nerve endings.
"Hyung..." Jungkook's voice came out shaky as he struggled to control his breathing. "It hurts."
That simple confession immediately drew all of Taehyung's attention to him.
"I know, bunny," he replied softly. "You're okay. You're doing amazing."
The younger alpha swallowed hard as he tried to keep breathing normally.
"Kiss me."
Taehyung didn't even consider refusing.
He immediately leaned down and captured his lips in a slow, warm, deeply reassuring kiss. One of his hands continued stroking Jungkook's cock while the other remained firm on his hip, grounding him.
Jungkook, trying to control the storm of sensations, muffled his moans by biting his lips. As the lubricant did its job and the friction became steady, the initial tension began to transform.
Minutes later, the sharp pain that had clouded Jungkook's mind faded away, replaced by pleasure. With every thrust, his moans shifted from pained complaints into long, delicious exhalations that echoed off the walls of the room.
Recognizing that change in the younger alpha's response, Taehyung pulled away from his lips and straightened his back, watching as Jungkook wrapped his hands around his own thighs to open himself wider, inviting him deeper.
"How does it feel now, sweetheart?" Taehyung asked.
"It... it feels really good now. I like it, hyung," Jungkook replied, completely losing his composure and letting his hips move in time with the older alpha's.
Those words immediately brought a smile to Taehyung's face because he had been waiting to hear exactly that.
"Yeah?" he asked with obvious pride.
Jungkook nodded, and Taehyung's smile widened.
"Well then, I think we can stop worrying so much now. It's time to turn up the intensity," he declared before letting the weight of his body fall forward.
His hips began striking with a firm, merciless rhythm, finding an angle that made every thrust a direct hit to the very center of Jungkook's pleasure.
The younger alpha answered with a loud moan, digging his fingers into the flesh of his own thighs until his nails left marks tattooed across his skin, completely surrendered to the relentless pace Taehyung was imposing on him.
Taehyung's thrusts became a steady, powerful rhythm that shook Jungkook's body, and he no longer made any attempt to hide his surrender.
His own cock, swollen, large, and throbbing from the previous stimulation, bounced freely in time with the impacts, leaving a shining trail of pre-cum that smeared everything it touched as it moved.
Seeking a depth that would push them both to their limits, Taehyung planted his hands firmly on Jungkook's thighs and pushed them upward, forcing him to fold his legs against his chest.
That change in angle struck directly at the core of his being. The older alpha found that sweet spot that made Jungkook's vision blur, forcing him to cling to his own legs while pleasure exploded through his nervous system.
Taehyung took advantage of the new position to leave marks on his skin with rhythmic smacks across his thighs.
"Fuck, Jungkook," he said in a strained voice. "Being inside you is fucking paradise. Does it feel good being so full?" Taehyung asked, while every thrust turned Jungkook's moans into incoherent babbling.
"Yes... hyung, it feels so good... so full..." the younger alpha managed to articulate, completely gone, floating in that haze where reality was defined only by the older alpha's presence inside him.
Noticing the fatigue in Jungkook’s muscles from keeping his legs raised, Taehyung adjusted their position by bringing his legs together and angling them toward the right side, which allowed him to thrust with even greater firmness.
He intertwined his fingers with Jungkook’s, first using their hands as leverage, pulling them toward himself with every thrust to ensure deeper and firmer penetration, and then, after capturing both of the younger alpha’s wrists with a single hand, he guided them above his head.
Taking advantage of the closeness that position gave him, Taehyung leaned down and sealed their lips in a passionate, desperate kiss. In that position, the friction became much tighter and more enveloping. Taehyung could feel the way Jungkook’s interior squeezed him with a force that made him growl in satisfaction.
They were so connected, so compact and surrendered to each other, that every movement felt like an extension of the other’s soul. Jungkook’s vulnerability, with his arms immobilized above his head and his mouth occupied by the older alpha’s kiss, only fed Taehyung’s voracity, who completely lost himself in the sensation of being a part of him.
After a few minutes, Taehyung released his wrists, and Jungkook automatically clung to the alpha’s shoulders with his right arm. The muscles of his tattooed arm tensed as he kept him close, and with his other hand he held Taehyung’s face, refusing to allow him to move away even a few inches.
He didn’t want to lose the contact.
Jungkook was barely capable of thinking clearly when he felt that growing pressure accumulating deep inside his body. The tingling that had been building little by little finally became impossible to ignore.
He pulled away just enough to breathe.
“Hyung... I’m close,” he murmured between kisses, his voice strained and his breathing completely uneven.
Upon hearing the confession, Taehyung adjusted the angle of his hips and raised the stakes. His thrusts became deeper, faster, and more violent, tearing a muffled cry from Jungkook that disappeared against his mouth.
“That’s it, Bunny,” he murmured as he pulled back slightly. “Don’t hold back.”
That finally broke something inside him. Jungkook let out a choked moan and buried his face in Taehyung’s neck for a second, though he sought his gaze again almost immediately. He wanted to see him. He needed to see him.
And when pleasure finally reached him, it came with an intensity he was not prepared to endure. Jungkook felt it race through every inch of his nervous system, forcing his back to arch while his toes curled from the spasm and his nails left marks on the skin of Taehyung’s shoulders.
Jungkook’s moans became a chorus of surrender against the older alpha’s lips, and at the same time, his cock released streams of semen across his abdomen. It was a climax that made his inner walls tighten around Taehyung with delicious, convulsive force, inevitably dragging him toward his own end.
“Fuck, Jungkook...”
Taehyung, feeling the knot of his own body threatening to trap him inside the younger alpha—a risk he was unwilling to take so as not to hurt him—forced himself out with a superhuman effort of will.
Panting and with eyes darkened by desire, he pulled away to finish jerking himself off in front of him, never taking his eyes off Jungkook for even a second; he wanted Jungkook to be the only thing he saw. With a groan that echoed through the room, Taehyung reached his own orgasm, spilling himself across Jungkook’s chest and stomach in a warm, thick shower.
After several final spasms that stole his breath away, Taehyung’s strength faltered slightly, and he collapsed onto Jungkook’s body. Jungkook welcomed him with open arms in a firm embrace, holding and protecting him while they both tried to regain the ability to breathe normally.
The air in the room was dense, heavy with their intense scents.
Taehyung lifted his head and met Jungkook’s gaze, and both of them laughed the moment their eyes met. The older alpha leaned down and gave him a brief, tender kiss.
“That was incredible.”
Jungkook let out another small laugh, his cheeks still flushed.
“I can’t believe I did all that.”
“And?”
“And I really liked it.”
The smile that appeared on Taehyung’s face was so warm that Jungkook felt his chest tighten in a way completely different from anything he had experienced throughout the night.
Taehyung brushed the damp hair that had fallen across his forehead aside and caressed his cheek tenderly.
“That’s what matters,” he replied softly. “That you liked it.”
Jungkook shifted a little more comfortably on the mattress, forcing Taehyung to move away enough for them to lie side by side.
They spent several seconds looking at each other without saying a word, tracing each other’s features with fascination as though they wanted to memorize every detail before the moment came to an end.
Maybe that was exactly it.
Neither of them wanted it to end.
Jungkook was the first to break the silence. His expression softened as he looked at him, and for the first time all night, he seemed genuinely vulnerable.
“Please, now that you’ve fucked me, don’t leave my life. Don’t be one of those guys.”
“That’s impossible,” he replied with a warm smile. “I’m not going anywhere. Especially not now that we know everything our souls had to go through to find each other again.”
Jungkook let out a small laugh at how seriously he said it, but he never took his eyes off him.
“Yeah, I know,” he admitted. “But I don’t want to pretend all of that means nothing either. I’d already met you before. You’re the boy from my dreams,” Jungkook continued, feeling his cheeks warm slightly as he said it out loud. “And I’m not going to let you slip away that easily.”
That accomplished something extraordinary.
It left Taehyung speechless.
The older alpha let out a soft laugh and eventually moved closer to wrap his arms around him. Jungkook immediately responded, settling against him naturally.
They remained in each other’s embrace for several seconds. Or perhaps minutes. Neither of them was counting.
When they finally pulled apart, Taehyung stroked his cheek with his thumb.
“Don’t worry about anything. I’ll take care of cleaning up, I’ll prepare a hot bath for you, and something to eat in case you’re hungry,” Taehyung said as he calmly sat up.
Jungkook followed him with his eyes, surprised by the older alpha’s attentiveness.
“Are you always this considerate?”
“I’m a good alpha, Jungkook. Even more so when it comes to someone like you.”
He gave him a quick kiss on the lips and prepared to keep his word, but the moment he was on his feet, Jungkook’s voice stopped him in his tracks.
“Hyung.”
Taehyung turned on his heels, meeting a gaze overflowing with a new kind of determination.
“You’d better get ready.”
“For what exactly?”
“Because next time it’ll be my turn. Next time, I’ll be the one fucking you.”
Taehyung stared at him for several seconds before letting out an incredulous laugh. There it was again, that competitive pride that seemed impossible to extinguish.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“What an adorable threat.”
“Don’t underestimate me.”
“I’m not,” Taehyung replied, approaching the bed again and leaning down to press a quick kiss to his forehead. “Actually, that sounds pretty tempting.”
“Then you’d better start preparing,” Jungkook said with a smile.
“I will,” Taehyung answered with amusement. “But you’ll have to earn it. I’m not easy, Bunny.”
“I accept the challenge.”
“I knew you’d say that.”
And while Taehyung finally walked away to do everything he had promised, Jungkook remained there watching him with a smile that was impossible to hide.
━━━━━━━━╰☆╮━━━━━━━━
Several weeks had passed since Taehyung and Jungkook had entered each other’s lives, and if anyone had asked them exactly when that transition between meeting and becoming nearly inseparable had happened, neither of them would have known how to answer. It had happened naturally and quickly.
Just like they never quite knew what to say when people asked how they had met. People were not particularly willing to believe the whole idea of two ‘destined’ alphas.
They had even already witnessed the first act of intolerance directed at them, when some of Jungkook’s ‘friends’ told him to stop being ridiculous and go find his destined omega instead of rolling around with another alpha.
Needless to say, he cut contact with those people after defending his alpha.
Because yes, they had already started calling each other that as well. They also had plenty of nicknames for one another. They were so disgustingly affectionate that Namjoon was finally receiving his daily karma for spending years being lovey-dovey with Yoongi right in front of Taehyung. Just as Jungkook was Bunny, Taehyung had become Teddy Bear.
They were ridiculously cheesy, and they had only known each other for a few weeks.
There wasn’t a single day when they didn’t see each other. If they weren’t together physically, they were texting. If they couldn’t talk, they found some excuse to call. And whenever they had to spend a few hours apart for any reason, they both ended up realizing that something felt off, a small discomfort that was difficult to name and disappeared the moment they saw each other again.
It was as if a part of them had been waiting for this for far too long. As if, in some impossible-to-explain way, they were trying to make up for years they had never actually shared.
Ever since they got together, things had changed for both of them individually.
Jungkook was the first to notice changes he hadn’t expected.
For his entire life, dreams had been fragmented things. Disconnected images of incomplete scenes that forced him to spend entire days trying to figure out what the hell they meant before turning them into stories.
It was exhausting, but it was all he had ever known.
That was why the first time he woke up after spending the night wrapped in Taehyung’s arms and remembered absolutely everything about his dream, he sat on the edge of the bed staring at the wall for several minutes.
Not because the dream had been particularly strange, but because it had made sense from beginning to end. And the face that appeared before him was no longer a collection of blurred features he had to reconstruct.
It was Taehyung.
Whole and unmistakable. At last, the people in his dreams were clear, and it was always Taehyung, or versions of him.
From that point onward, everything became easier. Ideas flowed better, plots practically built themselves, stories seemed to develop inside his head with an ease he had never experienced before, and the most curious thing was that it happened especially when he slept beside Taehyung.
Jungkook tried several times to convince himself it was a coincidence, but it never worked because the difference was too obvious.
The nights he spent with him always turned into the most productive mornings of the week.
Of course, Taehyung teased him relentlessly when he told him.
“So I’m officially your muse,” he announced one afternoon, completely proud of himself as he stirred an iced tea he was making for lunch.
“Don’t get too excited.”
“I’m your dream inspiration.”
“You’re not.”
“Jungkook, you’re literally admitting that your brain works better when you sleep with me.”
Jungkook managed to keep a straight face for about three seconds before snorting.
“You’re unbearable.”
“And handsome.”
“That’s absolutely true. Now come here and give me a kiss.”
However, the changes didn’t happen only in Jungkook’s life. Taehyung discovered something that left him far more shocked.
It happened on an ordinary day.
They were working together in Jungkook’s studio, sharing the space in comfortable silence. Jungkook was writing at his laptop while Taehyung worked on an important commission for a client.
Everything seemed normal.
Until he set down his stylus and looked at what he had created.
“Jungkook?”
“Mhm?”
“Jungkook.”
The tone of his voice was so strange that the younger man looked up immediately.
“What happened?”
Taehyung turned the tablet toward him with an expression hovering somewhere between astonishment and an existential crisis.
“Look at this.”
Jungkook examined the drawing and it took him exactly five seconds to understand.
“Is that a different person?”
“It’s a different person!” Taehyung practically jumped out of his chair. “Look at his face! He doesn’t look like the others!”
“Are you celebrating because you drew a different face?” Jungkook laughed.
“You don’t understand the magnitude of this! I did it from scratch without references!”
Honestly, he did understand.
Same-face syndrome had haunted Taehyung for years. It was a constant frustration.
No matter how many details he changed, he always ended up repeating the same structures, expressions, and features over and over again. More specifically, he kept drawing Jungkook.
But not anymore. Now the character in front of him was different.
“I did it,” Taehyung said, still staring at the screen as though he were looking at a masterpiece. “Holy shit, I did it. I got over it.”
Jungkook couldn’t help smiling. Taehyung’s excitement was so genuine that it was impossible not to be affected by it.
“I knew you’d get there eventually.”
“No, you don’t understand.” Taehyung walked over to him, spun Jungkook’s desk chair around, and made him face him. “I think it happened because I found you.”
“That was incredibly cheesy, Teddy Bear.” Jungkook raised an eyebrow.
“I know, Bunny.”
Jungkook smiled before he could stop himself. Because deep down, he understood exactly what Taehyung meant.
For years, Taehyung’s subconscious had been trying to recreate something it didn’t even know it was searching for, and now that he had it right in front of him, now that he could see him, touch him, and hear him every day, perhaps his mind no longer needed to chase that impossible image.
It could finally rest because it had found him.
The truth was that both of them had changed since finding each other. They seemed calmer, more complete. As though an invisible tension had disappeared from their lives.
Because at the end of the day, the only thing that truly mattered was that they were together.
And for the first time in a very long time, both of them felt as though all the pieces fit exactly where they were meant to be.