Chapter Text
idée fixe - an idea or desire that dominates the mind; an obsession.
Jeongguk’s thumb traced his beer bottle, lazily. He wasn’t even thirsty, just restless. Jin’s apartment smelled like day-old pizza and that vanilla candle Namjoon kept lighting, and the conversation was circling the same drain it always did: exams, shitty professors, the group chat nobody ever read.
“I’m telling you, he curved the grade on purpose,” Hoseok said, sprawled across the floor, legs kicked up on Jin’s couch. “I saw the spreadsheet. He moved the median by two points so half the class would panic.”
Namjoon, perched on a wooden stool by the kitchen counter,. “That’s not malice. That’s just bad pedagogy.”
“Nobody says pedagogy in real life,” Jin muttered from the open fridge. “We’re out of beef. Who ate the leftover bulgogi?”
Taehyung, who’d been suspiciously silent, lifted a single finger from his phone screen. His other hand was hidden under a cushion, and Jeongguk didn’t miss the way Yoongi who’s slouched in the armchair opposite shifted his leg to the left. It would look like nothing to anyone who wasn’t paying attention.
Jeongguk was always paying attention.
He set his bottle down with a soft clink and stretched his arms above his head, letting his sleeves ride up. He caught Yoongi glancing at Taehyung’s phone screen, then away.
Hoseok rolled onto his stomach. “Tae, you’ve been glued to that thing all night. Did you finally download Hinge?”
“Worse,” Taehyung said, and his voice had that particular lilt it got when he was holding onto a secret he wanted to be asked about. “I met someone.”
“Met someone like a date?” Hoseok asked.
Taehyung shook his head, grinning now, boxy and wide. “No, no. Like a new friend. He transferred here last week, seems stressed, keeps to himself. I found him eating lunch alone on a bench near the arts building. We’ve been hanging out a bit, and he’s… different.”
“Different how,” Yoongi said, flat.
Taehyung shrugged, but his eyes flicked toward Yoongi for a half-beat too long. “Sweet. Quiet. Gets flustered easily. I invited him tonight, actually.”
Jeongguk’s bottle paused halfway to his lips. He didn’t know why. There was no reason to care about some random transfer student Taehyung had adopted like a stray cat. But something in the way Taehyung said different snagged at the back of his brain.
“Another orphan for your collection,” Jin said, but his tone was fond. “What’s his name?”
“Jimin.”
The word landed in the room without weight. Nobody reacted because nobody knew it yet. Taehyung typed something on his phone, probably directions. Jin returned to lamenting the beef situation. Namjoon started explaining grade curves in unnecessary detail while Hoseok heckled him. The conversation drifted, and Jeongguk let it.
But he noticed when Yoongi stood up a few minutes later and walked toward the balcony, sliding the glass door open with more force than needed. He noticed Taehyung’s phone buzz and the way Taehyung excused himself thirty seconds later, slipping out the front door to “meet him downstairs.”
And he noticed, with a slow, spreading awareness that felt like waking up from a nap he hadn’t meant to take, that he was waiting for them to come back.
—
It took eleven minutes.
Jeongguk counted because he’d finished his beer and refused to start another without a reason, and Jin’s kitchen clock ticked loud enough to measure silences. When the door swung open, Taehyung’s deep voice filled the entryway first.
“—and Jin’s the one who cooks, so don’t even think about eating his leftovers unless you want a lecture.”
Then a laugh, breathy and small.
Jeongguk turned his head.
The boy standing beside Taehyung was shorter by maybe four inches, and the first thing Jeongguk registered was hair. Blonde, the kind that looked sun-bleached even in apartment light, falling across his forehead in soft uneven pieces. High cheekbones, a mouth that seemed perpetually on the verge of parting. He wore a pale yellow sweater that hung loose at the collar, slipping just off one shoulder, and jeans that hugged slim legs.
Jeongguk’s gaze dropped. A strip of bare skin between the sweater hem and the waistband, just enough to show a small silver ring threaded through his navel.
Interesting.
“Everyone, this is Jimin,” Taehyung announced, gesturing like a game show host. “Jimin, that’s Jin, Namjoon-hyung, Hoseok, and the tattooed one eyeing you from the couch is Jeongguk.”
Jeongguk didn’t flinch at the callout. He merely raised his empty bottle in a mock toast. “Welcome to the circus.”
Jimin’s eyes found him then, wide and dark. A shade of brown that looked almost amber where the lamp hit. He smiled nervously and dipped his head in a half-bow. “Hi. Thank you for having me.”
His voice was softer than Jeongguk expected. Like he tested every word before letting it leave his mouth.
Jin immediately launched into hospitality mode, offering drinks, snacks, a tour of an apartment that was three rooms total. Jimin accepted a water bottle and held it with both hands, standing near the door like he wasn’t sure where to put his body.
Hoseok, ever the social grease, patted the floor beside him. “Come sit. We were just debating whether Namjoon should drop out and become a philosophy YouTuber.”
“I would never,” Namjoon said, affronted.
“That’s what makes it a debate.”
Jimin lowered himself to the floor with a quiet laugh, crossing his legs. The movement pulled his sweater a little higher, and the navel ring winked at Jeongguk again. He made himself look away. Stared at the snake on his own arm instead. The scales were cold ink. They didn’t move. They never did.
But something under his skin had stirred to life, and he didn’t have a name for it yet.
The next hour unfolded in fragments. Jeongguk participated in the conversation enough to avoid questions—laughing when Jin made a joke, nodding at Namjoon’s tangents, but his attention kept drifting sideways. Jimin spoke rarely, and when he did, it was in short sentences that somehow made everyone lean in. He didn’t interrupt. He waited for silences and filled them gently.
Taehyung stayed close to him, an arm sometimes brushing his shoulder, and every touch made Yoongi’s jaw tighten. Jeongguk watched that too. Taehyung’s focus had shifted, and Yoongi was a live wire with nowhere to ground.
At one point, Jimin laughed at something Hoseok said—a real, unguarded sound that crinkled his eyes into crescents and Jeongguk felt his own mouth twitch.
“So, Jimin,” Jin said, leaning against the counter with a fresh beer, “what’s your major? You look like a dance kid.”
Jimin’s cheeks flushed. “I’m undeclared, actually. But I do dance. Ballet, mostly.”
“No shit,” Hoseok blurted. “Me too! Well not ballet, hip-hop mostly. But we should hit the studio sometime.”
“I’d like that.” Jimin ducked his head, and the blush deepened, creeping down his neck.
Jeongguk watched it spread. Wondered what it would look like in a darker room, without the audience of five other people. Wondered what sound Jimin would make if someone traced that blush with a fingertip.
He shook the thought off. He didn’t even know the guy. This was just curiosity. New faces always did this to him—temporarily fascinating until the novelty wore off. Jimin would be another acquaintance in a week, maybe a passing wave on campus, and Jeongguk would forget the navel ring and the careful voice and the way his pulse had dropped two beats when they made eye contact.
That’s what he told himself.
Around ten, the group decided to migrate to a bar near campus. Jin was already fishing for his keys, and Hoseok had pulled up the menu on his phone, debating the merits of various cocktails. Jimin rose from the floor with that same careful grace, brushing lint from his jeans, and glanced at Taehyung.
“I should probably head back,” he said. “I have an early studio booking tomorrow.”
Taehyung pouted. “Already? You just got here.”
“I know, I’m sorry.” Jimin’s hands curled around his water bottle. “But I’ll see you around, right?”
“You’ll see me everywhere,” Taehyung promised. “I’m unavoidable.”
Yoongi muttered something low—too low for anyone but Jeongguk to catch: “That’s not the word I’d use.” The bitterness in it was sharp enough to cut.
Jimin said quiet goodbyes to everyone. To Jin, a polite bow. To Namjoon, a comment about a book he’d seen on the shelf that made Namjoon light up. To Hoseok, a promise to text about the studio. And then he turned to Jeongguk.
Up close, the amber in his eyes was flecked with gold. Jeongguk hadn’t noticed that from the couch. He noticed it now.
“It was nice meeting you,” Jimin said, and his voice dropped a little.
Jeongguk’s reply came out lower than he intended. “Likewise.”
Their gazes held for a second longer than casual. Then Jimin blinked, and the spell snapped, and he was moving toward the door with Taehyung trailing to walk him out.
The door clicked shut and the apartment felt emptier than it should.
—
Jeongguk didn’t go to the bar. He said something about a headache, ignored Jin’s suspicious squint, and walked home through campus in air that was finally cooling toward something tolerable. The streetlights made pools of orange on the pavement, and his footsteps echoed off buildings he’d passed a thousand times without looking.
He thought about blonde hair. About a silver ring in a flat stomach. About the way Jimin had held his water bottle like it was something precious, or fragile, or both.
By the time he reached his apartment, he’d replayed the evening three times. Jimin’s bare shoulder. The way his blush had crept down his neck. The soft, careful syllable of his name.
Jeongguk unlocked his door and stepped inside without turning on the lights. The dark was better. He leaned against the wall and stared at the ceiling, breathing slowly, deliberately, like he was preparing for something.
He didn’t know what Jimin’s voice sounded like when it lost its carefulness. Didn’t know what his skin smelled like, or how he took his coffee, or whether he bit his lip when he was nervous. He didn’t know anything.
But he wanted to.
The thought settled into his chest and made a home there, quiet and certain. He could already feel the shape of what was coming: the slow orbit of group hangouts, the calculated proximity, the way he’d have to be patient because Jimin wasn’t the type to be rushed. He was a ballet dancer. He understood timing. Jeongguk would have to learn.
He pushed off the wall and walked to his bedroom. The window faced the arts building, and he wondered if Jimin’s studio had a view of this street. If maybe, tomorrow morning, Jimin would walk past and look up and see nothing but a dark window with a shadow behind it.
The shadow would be watching.
Just curiosity, he told himself again, and didn’t believe a word.
-
Jeongguk attended his lectures. He took notes. On the surface, everything was normal. Below it—a current, tugging.
Monday afternoon, crossing the quad toward the engineering building, he spotted a flash of blonde near the fountain. His stride slowed. Not Jimin. Just some girl with a pixie cut, laughing into her phone. Jeongguk’s jaw tightened and he kept walking, irritated at his own reflex.
Tuesday evening, Hoseok mentioned the dance studio in passing. “They’ve got the good sprung floors on the third floor now. The ballet kids are pretty territorial about it, though.” Jeongguk filed the information without knowing why. Third floor. Sprung floors. Ballet kids.
Wednesday, he saw Taehyung and Yoongi arguing outside the library. Taehyung’s hands were animated, slicing the air, while Yoongi stood with his arms crossed and his mouth a thin line. Jeongguk veered left before they noticed him.
By Thursday, he’d developed a new habit. He took the long route home. The one that curved past the arts building with its tall windows and the faint echo of piano music bleeding through the walls. He never stopped walking. Never even slowed. But his eyes dragged sideways every time, scanning the glass for a pale yellow sweater or a shape at the barre.
Nothing.
Friday arrived humid and heavy, the kind of weather that made the campus feel like a terrarium. Jeongguk was sprawled on Jin’s couch—his couch now, apparently, given how often he’d been here this week, when the group chat lit up.
Taehyung: movie night tomorrow. cinema on fourth street. 7pm showing of that horror thing.
Hoseok: which horror thing
Taehyung: the one with the nun
Namjoon: That's not descriptive. There are several films featuring nuns.
Jin: the scary one joon
Yoongi: I'll pass.
Jeongguk stared at Yoongi’s message. Taehyung’s typing indicator appeared, disappeared, appeared again.
Taehyung: okay
Hoseok: I'm in. jeongguk?
He typed back without thinking: sure.
Taehyung: nice. jimin's coming too btw
Jeongguk’s thumb hovered. He locked his phone and tossed it onto the cushion beside him. Jin, in the kitchen, was humming something off-key and stirring a pot that smelled like gochujang and pork belly. Normal domestic noise, comfortable. And yet Jeongguk’s pulse had kicked up, a drummer finding a faster tempo.
“You okay?” Jin asked, not turning around.
“Fine.”
“You’ve been ‘fine’ all week. Which usually means you’re scheming something.”
Jeongguk snorted. “I don’t scheme.”
“You absolutely scheme. Remember spring semester? When you ‘ran into’ that guy from the gym twelve times in two weeks until he asked for your number?”
“That was coincidental.”
“Coincidental my ass.” Jin ladled stew into a bowl and brought it over, setting it on the coffee table. “Whatever you’re doing, just don’t scare this one off. He seems gentle.”
Jeongguk picked up the bowl. “I’m not doing anything.”
“Mmhm.”
He ate in silence, burning his tongue on purpose.
—
Saturday crawled.
Jeongguk spent the morning at the gym, pushing weight until his arms shook, chasing the kind of exhaustion that would quiet his brain. It didn’t work. His mind kept circling back to the same image: Jimin’s bare shoulder, the silver ring, the two second look that had felt like a door cracking open.
He showered. Changed. Stared at his reflection and wondered when he’d become this person—the one who fixated, who calculated proximity, who turned a stranger into a problem to solve.
The answer didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that seven o’clock was still five hours away.
At five-fifteen, he gave up pretending he wasn’t counting. He pulled on black jeans and a plain t-shirt, studied his tattoos in the mirror, and decided against layering.
The cinema on Fourth Street was a relic from before streaming had killed the industry—red velvet ropes, a marquee with half its bulbs burned out, the perpetual scent of artificial butter. Jeongguk arrived early enough to be suspicious and found Hoseok already there, buying popcorn from a teenager who looked like she’d rather be anywhere else.
“You’re early,” Hoseok said, arching an eyebrow.
“So are you.”
“I wanted good seats. That’s rational.” Hoseok shook the popcorn bucket. “What’s your excuse?”
Jeongguk didn’t answer. He leaned against the wall and watched the door.
Namjoon arrived next, deep in conversation with Jin about something involving quantum mechanics and free will. Jeongguk caught fragments “observer effect” and “determinism is just” before tuning out. Taehyung walked in at six-fifty-two alone.
“He coming?” Hoseok asked, meaning Yoongi.
“Nope.” Taehyung’s voice was aggressively casual. “Said he wasn’t feeling it.”
“Shame.”
“Yeah. Shame.”
Taehyung moved past them toward the ticket counter, and Jeongguk noticed he kept checking his phone, pocketing it, checking again. Waiting for a message that wasn’t coming.
Then the door opened.
Jimin stepped through in a white t-shirt tucked into high-waisted shorts that stopped below his ass and a silk scarf wrapped around his neck. The outfit was simple, deliberately so, but Jeongguk’s gaze snagged on the hem of those shorts, the lean line of his legs, the black sandals with thin straps that wrapped around delicate ankles.
It’s just clothes.
“Hey,” Jimin said, breathless from the heat outside. A faint sheen of sweat glossed his collarbones. “Am I late?”
“Right on time,” Taehyung said, and pulled him into a side-hug that lingered a beat too long. Jeongguk noted how Jimin leaned into it.
“Jeongguk, right?” Jimin’s eyes found his. Amber with gold flecks. Just like he remembered.
“You remembered.”
“You’re hard to forget.” Jimin said it plainly, without flirtation, like he was commenting on the weather. Then he smiled—that nervous quick thing, and turned toward the concessions counter.
Jeongguk’s brain took the sentence apart and put it back together three times. Hard to forget. Did he mean the tattoos? The silence? The way he’d stared? Or was it just a polite nothing, the kind of phrase you tossed at acquaintances because it sounded nice?
“You’re doing it again,” Hoseok murmured, passing close.
“Doing what.”
“That thing where you watch people like they’re puzzles you want to solve.”
“I don’t do that.”
“You just did it for forty-five seconds without blinking.”
Jeongguk shoved his hands in his pockets. “Shut up.”
Hoseok grinned, unbothered. “Come on. Movie’s starting.”
The theater was mostly empty—a few clusters of students, a couple in the back row who were clearly not here for the nun. Their group claimed the middle section. Taehyung sat at the center with Jimin on his right and Jin on his left. Namjoon and Hoseok took the row behind, leaving Jeongguk with an aisle seat two spots away from Jimin.
The lights dimmed.
The previews played, a parade of jump scares and bad CGI. Jeongguk registered none of it. His attention was on peripheral vision, the way Jimin’s profile caught the flickering screen light. During a particularly loud trailer, Jimin flinched and laughed at himself, covering his mouth. The gesture was so unguarded that Jeongguk felt his chest tighten.
The first scare—a face in a mirror, made Hoseok yelp and Jin swear under his breath. Namjoon whispered something about Gothic architecture. Taehyung threw popcorn at all of them.
Jimin, surprisingly, didn’t flinch. He leaned forward in his seat, elbows on his knees, watching the screen with focused intensity.
Halfway through, during a scene where the protagonist crept down a corridor with only a candle for light, Jeongguk risked a direct glance. Jimin was gripping his armrest, knuckles white. His lips were parted. Not fear—something closer to thrill, the expression of someone who enjoyed being scared.
You like the adrenaline, Jeongguk thought. Interesting.
Jimin caught him looking. Their eyes met in the dark, and instead of glancing away, instead of doing the normal, social, I wasn’t staring thing—Jeongguk held it. Let Jimin see that he’d been seen.
Jimin’s brows twitched. A small furrow, confusion.Then the screen flared white with a scare, and the moment broke, and they both looked forward.
Jeongguk’s heart hammered against his ribs.
After the credits, the group spilled onto the sidewalk in an argumentative knot. Namjoon thought the ending was symbolic. Jin thought it was lazy writing. Hoseok was still recovering from the nun’s second appearance—“The teeth, why did they do that with the teeth” and Taehyung was laughing too hard to contribute.
Jimin hung at the edge of the conversation, sipping the dregs of a soda.
Jeongguk sidled closer. Not much, just a step.
“You weren’t scared,” he said.
Jimin looked up at him. The streetlight painted his hair in shades of honey. “Not really. I like horror. It’s… I don’t know. Controlled fear, I guess. You know it’s fake, so you can just enjoy the feeling.”
“Controlled fear. That’s a dancer thing?”
Jimin blinked, surprised. “Maybe. How’d you know I dance?”
“You mentioned it. At Jin’s place. Ballet.”
The surprise shifted into something softer. “You remembered that?”
“Yeah.” Jeongguk let the word hang. You’re not the only one who remembers things.
“Huh.” Jimin looked down at his sandals. The star charm swung gently. “Most people forget details like that.”
“I’m not most people.”
It came out heavier than intended. Jimin’s head tilted, and Jeongguk could see the question forming behind his eyes, something about tone, about intention, but Taehyung interrupted before it could surface.
“Pizza?” Taehyung called. “There’s a place two blocks over.”
General assent followed. The group began drifting down the sidewalk, and Jimin fell into step beside Taehyung. Jeongguk walked behind them, watching the way Jimin’s shorts shifted when he moved.
The pizza place was cramped, fluorescent, and perfect. They pushed two tables together near the window, and Jeongguk took his seat strategically. Across from Jimin.
Jimin ordered plain cheese and ate it with a fork and knife, sawing the slice into tidy squares. The methodicalness of it was endearing and strange, a little ritual that set him apart. Taehyung stole a pepperoni off Jin’s plate. Hoseok and Namjoon resumed their debate about the film’s subtext. The evening felt loose, easy, the kind of night that would become a fond memory.
Then Yoongi walked in.
He appeared in the doorway silent and heavy. His eyes found Taehyung first, lingered, then scanned the rest of the group and landed on Jimin. A muscle in his jaw twitched.
“Thought you weren’t coming,” Taehyung said. His voice had gone flat.
“Changed my mind.” Yoongi slid into the chair at the far end of the table, as far from Jimin as possible. “Movie good?”
“You’d know if you showed up.”
The table went quiet. Hoseok’s hand paused over the pizza box. Namjoon adjusted his glasses. Jin cleared his throat and opened his mouth to deploy some diplomatic comment—
“It was fun,” Jimin said, cutting through the tension with his gentle voice. “You should come next time.”
Yoongi looked at him. “Maybe.”
Jeongguk watched the exchange with academic interest. Yoongi wasn’t angry at Jimin—he was angry at what Jimin represented. A shift, a change in Taehyung’s attention.
Did Jimin know? Probably not. He’d met Yoongi once. He probably assumed this was just Yoongi’s personality, quiet, sharp-edged, hard to warm up to. He didn’t have the context to read the jealousy beneath the surface.
But Jeongguk did.
—
They ate. They talked. The awkwardness dissipated like steam, though a residue remained—Taehyung not quite looking at Yoongi, Yoongi not quite looking at anyone. Eventually Hoseok told a story about his dance team’s last competition that made even Yoongi crack a smile, and the worst of the tension drained out.
Jimin listened more than he spoke, and when he spoke, he asked questions. About Namjoon’s thesis. About Jin’s cooking. About Hoseok’s choreography. He never turned the conversation toward himself, and at first Jeongguk read it as shyness. But watching more closely, he noticed the pattern: Jimin was deliberate. He asked because he was genuinely curious. Because he was cataloging people the same way Jeongguk did, just with softer methods.
You’re not as innocent as you look, Jeongguk thought. You’re just better at hiding it.
The realization made his pulse pick up.
At ten-thirty, Jin declared the evening concluded on account of his “elderly need for sleep.” The group spilled back onto the sidewalk.
“Same time next week?” Taehyung asked. “There’s that new restaurant near campus.”
“I’m in,” Hoseok said. Namjoon nodded. Jin gave a thumbs-up. Yoongi said nothing, which was as close to agreement as he’d get tonight.
“Jimin?”
“Sure.” Jimin was hugging his elbows again, a breeze lifting his hair. “Text me the details.”
“Obviously. You’re not getting rid of me.”
Next week. Another group hang. Another chance to study Jimin’s mannerisms, his tells, the architecture of his personality. The pace was glacial and maddening, but there was no alternative.
“I’ll walk you back,” Taehyung said to Jimin. “You’re campus dorms, right?”
“Yeah, but it’s fine, I know the way—”
“I’m offering. Accept.”
Jimin laughed, that breathless little sound. “Okay. Thanks.”
They headed east, toward the campus gates. Yoongi watched them go for exactly three seconds before turning sharply in the opposite direction and disappearing around a corner. Jin and Namjoon drifted off together, still debating film theory. Hoseok clapped Jeongguk on the shoulder.
“Good night,” he said. “You were less creepy than usual.”
“Thanks?”
“Don’t mention it.” And he was gone, jogging to catch up with Jin and Namjoon.
Jeongguk stood alone on the sidewalk, hands in his pockets, staring east. The street was quiet. Yellow windows glowed above shuttered shops. Somewhere ahead, Jimin was walking next to Taehyung, probably laughing at something, probably playing with that star charm without realizing it.
He shouldn’t follow. He knew he shouldn’t follow. There was no reason to follow, and a dozen reasons not to. Taehyung was with him. It was late. He was tired. His apartment was in the opposite direction.
Jeongguk’s feet started moving anyway.
He told himself he wasn’t following them, just taking the scenic route. If the scenic route happened to trace the same path toward the dorms, that was coincidence. If he caught up to them—no, he wouldn’t catch up. He’d stay far enough back. Just enough to see. Just enough to know.
The street curved. Ahead, under a streetlight, two figures paused at a crosswalk. Taehyung’s silhouette, and beside him, smaller, lighter on his feet. Jeongguk slowed to a stop, leaning against the wall of a closed bookshop.
Jimin laughed. Even from here, it carried.
Jeongguk listened to it fade as they crossed the street and walked on. He didn’t follow further. He stood in the shadow of the bookshop until their figures blurred into the darkness beyond the campus gates, and then he turned toward his apartment, hands still in his pockets, pulse still uneven, a single thought circling his skull like a looped tape.
Next week.
Next week.
Next week.
-
The night had hollowed out around him. Jeongguk walked the last block to his apartment with his pulse still riding that low, persistent thrum—the one that had been with him since Jimin’s laugh had echoed down Fourth Street. The streetlamps threw their orange pools across the pavement, and the campus beyond the gates had swallowed Jimin whole, tucked him into some dorm room with a bed and a lock on the door.
Jeongguk thought about that lock. Thought about keys and windows and sightlines. He shook his head once, and fished his keys from his pocket.
The stairwell smelled like dust and somebody’s burnt dinner. His apartment was second floor, end of the hall. Inside, the dark was familiar. He didn’t bother with lights. Just kicked off his sneakers, dropped his keys in the bowl by the entryway, and stood in the middle of the living room breathing through his mouth.
The movie. The pizza. The way Jimin had said you remembered that like it meant something. Like Jeongguk had handed him a small gift he hadn’t expected to receive.
“Fuck,” he said to the empty room.
He needed a shower. A cold one. Something to scrub the restlessness out of his skin before he did something stupid like check Instagram for Jimin’s profile or walk past the dance building at midnight just to see if any windows were lit on the third floor.
Instead, he noticed the thing on his couch.
It was draped over the armrest nearest the door—a pale pink hoodie, bunched and forgotten. The fabric was thin, worn soft at the cuffs, with a small embroidered cloud near the left shoulder. Not his. He didn’t own anything pink. Jin had been here earlier in the week, but Jin didn’t wear pastels. Hoseok might, but Hoseok hadn’t been to Jeongguk’s apartment in months.
Then the memory surfaced. Friday afternoon. Taehyung had stopped by to borrow a charger, and he’d brought Jimin. “Just for a minute,” Taehyung had said. “He wants to see your snake plant.” A joke about Jeongguk’s one attempt at keeping something alive. Jimin had stood in the doorway, hands tucked into the pocket of this exact hoodie, and said, “It’s pretty. The plant, I mean.”
They’d stayed maybe ten minutes. Long enough for Jimin to use the bathroom and compliment the weird ceramic mug Jeongguk kept his toothbrush in. Long enough for the hoodie to slip off the back of the couch where Jimin had draped it and go unnoticed when they left.
Jeongguk stared at it now like it might bite him.
Then he crossed the room, slow and deliberate, bare feet silent on the floorboards, and picked it up.
The cotton was cool against his palms. Lightweight. A little oversized for Jimin’s frame—the sleeves would have hung past his wrists, the hem brushing his thighs. Jeongguk could picture it. The pink against Jimin’s blonde hair. The cloud decal sitting just above his heart.
He brought the fabric closer. Just to fold it. Just because leaving it crumpled was disrespectful, and he’d return it next week, clean and neat, maybe with a comment about how Jimin should be more careful with his things.
The scent hit him before he could stop it.
Laundry detergent, something floral and clean. Under that, something warmer. Skin. Not perfume, not cologne—just the faint, unmistakable trace of a body. A sweetness that made Jeongguk’s nostrils flare and his grip tighten on the hoodie without his permission.
He should put it down.
Instead he raised it to his face.
The first inhale was shallow, almost experimental. The fabric pressed against his nose, his mouth, and the scent filled his sinuses—soap and salt and that particular warmth that belonged to someone else’s skin. Someone who didn’t know he was doing this. Someone who was probably in his dorm right now, maybe wearing a different hoodie, not this one, because this one was here, in Jeongguk’s hands, pressed to Jeongguk’s face.
A sound escaped him—something between a breath and a groan, and he let his eyes fall shut.
What are you doing.
The question surfaced from the rational part of his brain and sank just as fast. He didn’t have an answer. Didn’t want one. The hoodie smelled like Jimin, and that was enough. That was everything. He inhaled again, deeper, letting the fabric mold to the shape of his face, letting his mouth part against the cotton so he could taste the air that had touched it.
His free hand dropped to his thigh, palm flat, pressing down. A grounding gesture. It didn’t work.
The hoodie was soft. Jimin’s skin would be softer. The thought arrived uninvited and refused to leave—Jimin’s collarbones, Jimin’s stomach, the strip of skin between his t-shirt and those high-waisted shorts. The navel ring. Jeongguk’s cock stirred against the inside of his jeans, a dull pressure that was already building toward something sharper.
He stumbled backward into the couch and sat down hard. The hoodie stayed clamped to his face. His other hand moved without instruction, palming himself through denim, pressing where the ache was worst.
“Jimin,” he said, and the name came out muffled, swallowed by pink cotton.
The rational part of his brain tried again. This is crossing a line. You know this is crossing a line. But his body didn’t care about lines. His body cared about the smell of clean laundry and warm skin, the imagined weight of Jimin pressed beneath him, the way Jimin’s careful voice might crack if Jeongguk pushed just right.
He unbuttoned his jeans with one hand. The sound of the zipper was loud in the silent apartment, and he didn’t care. His cock was hard enough that pulling it free was a relief and a frustration, the relief of release, the frustration of his own hand when he wanted someone else’s. Someone smaller. Someone with amber eyes and a nervous laugh.
He arranged the hoodie across his chest, the collar near his face, one sleeve draped over his shoulder like a hand. Like Jimin was here, pressed against him, breathing the same air. The fantasy constructed itself in his mind with terrifying speed: Jimin on his lap, straddling him, those lean thighs bracketing his hips. Jimin’s mouth parting in confusion, then surprise, then something needier. Jimin’s hips grinding down, unsure at first, then more confident, chasing a feeling he didn’t have words for.
“Fuck,” Jeongguk breathed into the hoodie.
His hand moved. Slow at first. Lazy strokes that felt more like torture than pleasure, his thumb swiping over the head and spreading the wetness that had already gathered there. Precum slicked his palm. The sound was obscene in the quiet room—a wet, rhythmic shushing that matched the pace of his thoughts.
He imagined undressing Jimin slowly. Peeling back layers while Jimin watched him with those wide eyes, confused but not stopping him, maybe asking “what are you doing” in that breathy voice, and Jeongguk would say “nothing, just looking,” and keep going. The pink hoodie would come off first. Then the t-shirt. Then the shorts, and Jesus, Jimin probably wore panties. The thought struck him like a physical blow. Jimin in something lacy and impractical, something delicate, his pussy—Jeongguk’s brain cycled through terms and settled on wet, on tight—
His strokes quickened. His fist pumped harder, twisting at the tip with each upward pull, and the hoodie was still against his face, still filling his lungs with that scent. He spat into his palm for more slickness and the sound his cock made now was filthy, wet and fast and desperate.
He pictured bending Jimin over this very couch. Pictured those shorts pooled around his ankles. Pictured panties pulled aside—pink ones, maybe, with a little bow, and the sight of Jimin’s cunt, bare and glistening, untouched, waiting. Jeongguk would be the first. He’d push in slow, and Jimin would gasp, and that gasp would turn into a whimper, and that whimper would turn into—
Jeongguk’s breath shuddered out of him.
His rhythm broke. He was close. Too close. He didn’t want to come yet; he wanted to stay in this moment longer, here on the couch with the hoodie and the dark and the ghost of a boy who didn’t know he was being devoured. But his body wasn’t interested in patience. His thighs tensed. The hand on his cock was a blur now, slick with spit and precum, and the smell of Jimin was in his nose and his throat and his lungs.
“Jimin,” he said again, and the name came out like a prayer.
The orgasm hit him hard, harder than he’d expected, a full-body spasm that made his spine arch off the couch and his hand stutter and squeeze. Cum spilled over his knuckles, hot and thick, painting his stomach in uneven streaks. He kept stroking through it, milking every pulse, his hips bucking into his fist while the hoodie muffled the sounds he couldn’t keep down.
When it was over, he lay there panting. The hoodie had slipped down to his chest. His hand was a mess. His abdomen glistened in the dark. He stared at the ceiling and waited for the shame to arrive.
It didn’t.
Instead, something else settled into his chest—a quiet, certain hunger. This wasn’t curiosity anymore. This wasn’t a temporary fascination. This was a direction. A trajectory.
He cleaned himself with a towel from the bathroom, methodical about it. Rinsed his hands. Wiped down his stomach. The hoodie he didn’t wash. He brought it to his bedroom instead and draped it over his pillow, arranging it so the embroidered cloud faced up. Then he climbed into bed beside it.
The fabric was cool against his cheek. The scent was fainter now, but still there. Still enough.
He closed his eyes.
Tomorrow he’d message Taehyung. Something casual. Hey, Jimin left his hoodie at my place. Should I bring it to the next hang? Innocent. The kind of thing a normal friend would say. And Jimin would smile at him when he returned it, that quick, nervous smile, and he’d say thank you, and his fingers would brush Jeongguk’s when he took the hoodie back, and he’d never know where it had been. What it had witnessed.
Jeongguk pressed his face into the fabric and breathed deep.
Next week.
-
Two days after the hoodie, Jeongguk’s supply ran dry.
Not the hoodie itself—that was still draped across his pillow, still carrying the faint ghost of floral detergent and warm skin, though he’d pressed his face into it enough times that the scent had begun to fade into something generic. No, what ran dry was his tolerance for his own hand. Three nights of the same fantasy. Three nights of stroking himself to the memory of a boy he’d spoken to exactly twice. The routine had become a cage, and the hunger gnawing at the bars was getting louder.
He needed more.
The thought arrived on a Monday morning, while he was brushing his teeth and staring at his reflection with something between disgust and amusement. His lips curled around the toothbrush. Foam dripped down his chin. He looked unhinged. He felt unhinged. And somewhere on campus, Jimin was probably stretching at the barre or eating a sad dining-hall breakfast or wiping sleep from his eyes with the back of one delicate hand, completely unaware that he’d become the cause of a near-stranger’s sanity slipping.
Jeongguk spat into the sink, rinsed. Wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and walked into the living room where his phone sat face-up on the coffee table.
The group chat was active. Taehyung had sent a string of emojis—eggplant, peach, question mark, and Hoseok had replied with a GIF of a cat looking judgmental. Namjoon was typing and stopping, typing and stopping. Jin had said something about dinner plans. Yoongi was silent, as usual.
Jeongguk scrolled up through the noise and found what he was looking for: a photo Taehyung had sent late last night. The image was blurry, clearly taken in a dim room with no regard for composition. But the subject was unmistakable. Jimin, asleep on a couch, his cheek mashed against a throw pillow, his blonde hair fanned out like spun sugar. He was wearing an oversized white button-down—probably Taehyung’s, and his lips were parted just enough to see the edge of his teeth.
Jeongguk had stared at that photo for eleven minutes last night before forcing himself to put the phone down. This morning, he allowed himself four. Then he locked the screen and formulated a plan.
The scarf.
He remembered it from the cinema. A thin strip of pale blue silk, wrapped once around Jimin’s throat and knotted at the side. Completely impractical for the weather—September in this city was still thick with humidity, but Jimin had worn it anyway, a tiny flourish of vanity that made Jeongguk’s teeth ache. During the movie, Jimin had unwound it and bunched it in his lap, twisting the fabric between his fingers during the scary parts. After the pizza, when they’d all spilled onto the sidewalk, the scarf had been missing from Jimin’s neck.
Jeongguk hadn’t seen him put it back on.
Which meant it might still be in the theater. Or dropped on the sidewalk. Or tucked into the pocket of Taehyung’s jacket, forgotten. None of those possibilities were actionable. But the fourth possibility—that the scarf had fallen under the seat, that it was still there, waiting—was enough to get him out the door.
He told himself he was just going for a walk. The cinema was a thirty-minute route, round trip. Good exercise. The morning air would clear his head. He was absolutely not hunting for a piece of fabric that smelled like Jimin’s neck.
His feet carried him to Fourth Street anyway.
The cinema was closed at this hour, the marquee dark and the doors locked. Jeongguk stood on the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets and assessed the situation. There was a side entrance—he’d noticed it on movie night, a propped-open door near the dumpsters where employees took their smoke breaks. He walked around the building and found it closed but not locked, the latch resting loosely against the strike plate.
He pushed it open.
The hallway inside smelled like stale popcorn and industrial cleaner. His sneakers squeaked on the linoleum. Stupid, doing this. Reckless. The kind of thing that would get him arrested if anyone found out. But his heart was beating fast and the thrill of it only sharpened his focus, tightened his jaw, sent a pulse of heat straight to his groin.
Theater four. The one with the red velvet ropes and the half-burned marquee bulbs. He slipped through the doors into the darkness and stood at the top of the aisle, letting his eyes adjust. The screen was blank. The seats were empty. The floor, when he looked down, was a graveyard of popcorn kernels and abandoned napkins.
He walked the row where Jimin had sat. Middle section, aisle seat, the one with the armrest Jimin had gripped during the nun’s second appearance. Jeongguk crouched and swept his hand under the seat. His fingers met something soft.
Not the scarf. A crumpled receipt. He tossed it aside and kept searching.
Two seats over, tucked between the cushion and the armrest, his knuckles brushed against silk.
He pulled it out slow, like he was handling something fragile. The scarf was pale blue, exactly as he remembered, with a small embroidered crescent moon near one corner. It was lighter than he’d expected and when he brought it closer to his face, the scent was still there. Fainter than the hoodie. Older. But unmistakably Jimin. The warmth of his throat. The salt of his skin. Something faintly sweet, like the residue of lip balm.
Jeongguk pressed the scarf to his nose and inhaled.
His knees went weak.
He stayed crouched in the aisle for a long moment, eyes closed, fist clenched around blue silk. Then he stood, pocketed the scarf, and walked out of the theater with the deliberate stride of someone who had every right to be there. The side door clicked shut behind him. The morning sun was too bright. The sidewalk was too empty. He walked home with a hard-on pressing against his zipper and a single thought looping through his skull: more, more, more.
—
Back in his apartment, the door locked and the blinds drawn, Jeongguk spread the scarf across his bed like an offering.
He’d been careful. He’d been patient. He’d spent a week playing the long game, studying Jimin from a distance, filing away every detail—the way he tucked his hair behind his ear, the way he laughed with his whole face, the way his navel ring caught the light when he shifted in his seat. But patience had a limit, and somewhere between the cinema and his apartment, Jeongguk’s had snapped.
He undressed methodically. Shoes first, kicked off near the door. Then his shirt, pulled over his head and dropped to the floor. His jeans came next, the button popping loose with a practiced flick of his thumb, the zipper grinding down. He stepped out of them and stood beside the bed in his boxer briefs, staring at the scarf.
The silk was so pale it was almost white. Almost virginal. The crescent moon winked up at him like a dare.
Jeongguk picked it up. Wound it around his fist until the fabric pulled taut, testing the give. It was delicate, he could rip it if he wanted to, tear it in half with one sharp yank, and the thought made his cock jump. He could ruin this. Jeongguk could ruin all of it. Jimin’s things, Jimin’s trust, Jimin’s body. The line between wanting and destroying was thinner than this scarf, and Jeongguk had never been good at boundaries.
Jeongguk freed himself from his briefs. His cock was hard enough to curve upward, the head flushed dark and slick with the first bead of precum. He wrapped the scarf around his shaft—once, twice—and the silk was cool against his heated skin, smooth as water, soft as a secret. He closed his eyes.
And there he was.
Jimin.
Not the real Jimin—the fantasy Jimin, the one Jeongguk had been building in his head for a week. This Jimin was beneath him, spread across Jeongguk’s mattress like he belonged there, his blonde hair fanned out against the pillow where the hoodie still rested.
His lips were parted. His eyes were wide, amber with gold flecks, always the gold flecks, and they were looking up at Jeongguk with that same confused expression from the cinema, the one that said I know you’re looking at me but I don’t know why.
“You left your scarf,” Jeongguk said aloud, to the empty room, to the fantasy. His voice was hoarse.
Fantasy-Jimin blinked. “Oh. Thank you. That was careless of me.”
“It was.” Jeongguk’s hand moved, slow, the scarf dragging silk against his cock in a way that made his thighs tighten. “You’re careless with a lot of things.”
“Am I?”
“Your hoodie. Your scarf. Your—” He paused, picturing it. “Your panties. What color today?”
Fantasy-Jimin’s cheeks flushed pink. Pretty, pretty pink. “I don’t—why would you ask that?”
“Because I want to know.” Jeongguk’s strokes quickened. The scarf was damp now, soaked through with precum, clinging to his shaft like a second skin. “Tell me.”
“Blue,” Jimin whispered. “Light blue. Like the scarf.”
“Fuck.” Jeongguk’s hips bucked into his fist. The silk slipped, and he tightened his grip, imagining it was Jimin’s hand instead—small, hesitant, unsure of the rhythm but willing to learn. “You’re so—do you even know what you do to me?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t. That’s the whole point.” He was breathing harder now, his chest heaving. “Walking around with your navel ring and your pretty mouth and your little—your little cunt wrapped in blue silk. Do you know how long it’s been since someone touched you there? Since anyone touched you at all?”
Fantasy-Jimin shook his head, lips trembling. “No one’s ever—”
“I know.” Jeongguk’s voice broke on the words. “I know, and I’m going to be the first. I’m going to—I’m going to spread you open and taste you and you’re going to cry, you’re going to cry so pretty for me, and I’m not going to stop, I’m not going to fuck you until you’re sobbing—”
The fantasy fractured. Splintered into images: Jimin’s face streaked with tears, Jimin’s voice cracking on a moan, Jimin’s cunt stretched around Jeongguk’s cock, so tight, so wet, the blue panties pushed aside and the navel ring swinging with every thrust. Jeongguk’s hand was a blur now, the scarf soaked and clinging, the sound of his fist on his cock loud and obscene in the quiet room.
He could see it. He could feel it—the heat of Jimin’s body beneath him, the way Jimin’s hips would jerk when Jeongguk hit that spot, the way his breath would catch and stutter and break. Jimin would try to be quiet at first, would bite his lip and screw his eyes shut like he was embarrassed to feel good. But Jeongguk wouldn’t let him hide. He’d wrap one of those big hands around Jimin’s jaw tilting his face up, and he’d say, “Let me hear you baby. Don’t hold back. I want to hear every sound you make.”
And Jimin would let go. Would moan like he’d never moaned before, high and breathy and desperate, his voice climbing with every stroke until it cracked and shattered and he was screaming—
Jeongguk’s orgasm hit like a punch to the gut.
“Jimin— fuck —” He doubled over, one hand braced on the mattress, the other still working his cock through the slick mess of silk and cum. The first spurt painted the scarf white. The second dripped over his knuckles and onto the bedsheets. His hips kept jerking, kept pumping into his own grip, and the scarf was ruined now, completely ruined, soaked through with his release.
He dropped it onto the bed and stared at the mess.
The silk was no longer pale blue. It was translucent in places, streaked with white, crumpled and wet. The crescent moon was barely visible beneath the stain. He’d defiled it. He’d defiled Jimin’s property the same way he’d defiled Jimin’s hoodie, and the thought should have filled him with shame.
Instead, he laughed. A low, breathless sound that bubbled up from somewhere dark.
“You’re a sick fuck,” he told himself.
He cleaned up with the same methodical ritual as before: towel from the bathroom, rinse the hands, wipe down the skin. The scarf he handled differently. He couldn’t wash it, washing would remove the scent, and the scent was the whole point. But he couldn’t leave it crusted with cum either. That was evidence.
He settled on a compromise. He ran the scarf under cold water in the bathroom sink, gently, working out the stains with his thumbs until the silk was pale blue again. Then he hung it over the shower rod to dry, where it dripped onto the tile in slow, rhythmic plinks.
The hoodie was still on his pillow. The scarf was in his bathroom. He was building a collection, a small archive of Jimin’s abandoned things. The thought was disturbing. The thought was thrilling. The thought was exactly what he wanted.
—
That evening, he messaged Taehyung.
Jeongguk: hey. jimin left his hoodie at my place last week. should I bring it to the next hang?
Taehyung’s reply came almost immediately, as if he’d been waiting by the phone.
Taehyung: oh shit really? yeah bring it. he was looking for it the other day
Taehyung: wait how did he leave it at your place
Jeongguk: you guys stopped by friday. he must've taken it off and forgot.
Taehyung: oh right the snake plant visit lmao
Taehyung: yeah bring it saturday. we're doing that restaurant near campus. the one with the dumplings
Jeongguk typed okay and locked his phone.
Saturday. Five days away. Five days to prepare. Five days to figure out how to look Jimin in the eye while handing him a hoodie that had been pressed against Jeongguk’s face while he came.
He lay back on his bed and stared at the ceiling. The scarf dripped in the bathroom, a steady metronome. The hoodie smelled faintly of detergent and obsession. Somewhere across campus, Jimin was probably brushing his teeth or texting Taehyung or doing any of the hundred mundane things that normal people did, unaware that a predator was circling closer with every passing hour.
Next week, Jeongguk had thought after the cinema.
But next week was almost here. And this time, he wasn’t just watching.
This time, he was hunting.
-
The five-day countdown began with a lie.
Jeongguk told himself he was just going for coffee. The campus café near the arts building served a passable Americano, and he had a free hour between his morning lecture and the library shift he’d picked up for extra cash. There was no reason—none at all, that his route should take him past the dance department. It was out of the way. It added fifteen minutes to his walk. The coffee would be cold by the time he got to the library.
He went anyway.
The arts building was a squat, ugly structure from the seventies, all beige brick and narrow windows. But the second floor had floor-to-ceiling glass panels that faced the courtyard, and through those panels, if you stood at just the right angle near the bike racks, you could see into the smaller practice studios. Jeongguk had discovered this by accident two semesters ago, back when he'd dated a music major who liked to practice in the soundproofed rooms next door. The music major was long gone. The sightline remained.
He positioned himself near the bike racks, coffee in hand, phone in the other, the picture of a distracted student checking messages. His pulse was a steady, insistent drum. But he wasn’t nervous, he was alert. The way he'd felt before matches back in high school, when he'd crouched at the starting line and waited for the gun.
The studio was empty for the first twelve minutes. Then the door swung open, and Jimin walked in.
He was alone. No Taehyung. No classmates. Just Jimin in black leggings and an oversized t-shirt cut to expose one shoulder, his blonde hair tied back in a small knot at the nape of his neck. The leggings clung to his thighs—lean but defined, and the t-shirt shifted as he moved, revealing flashes of his stomach.
Jeongguk's coffee cooled in his hand. He didn't drink it. He didn't check his phone. He watched Jimin set down a water bottle, roll his shoulders, and begin a stretching routine that seemed designed to break Jeongguk's will to live.
Bend forward. Palms flat on the floor. Legs straight. The leggings pulled taut across his ass, and Jeongguk's jaw clenched so hard his teeth creaked. Jimin held the stretch for thirty seconds, then shifted into a lunge, then a split. His body folded and unfolded with a grace that made Jeongguk's chest ache. This wasn't just flexibility. This was control. Every movement deliberate, practiced, precise.
He knows exactly what his body can do, Jeongguk thought. He just doesn't know what I want to do to it.
The practice lasted forty-five minutes. Jeongguk stayed for all of it. By the end, his coffee was cold and his phone had died and he'd memorized the shape of Jimin's spine as it curved through a series of pirouettes. When Jimin finally gathered his things and disappeared through the studio door, Jeongguk waited a full three minutes before walking away. The thrill of it—the near-miss, the secrecy, coiled low in his stomach and stayed there for the rest of the day.
—
Day two was riskier.
He told himself he needed groceries. The convenience store near his place was closer, but the better market was on the other side of the residential blocks, past the cluster of campus apartments where Jimin apparently lived. Jeongguk had found the address through a combination of Taehyung's Instagram tags and the campus directory. It wasn't hard. Almost nothing was hard if you paid attention.
He walked past the apartment building at 7:14 p.m., a bag of apples in one hand and a loaf of bread in the other. The building was a three-story walk-up with a cracked stucco facade and a dead potted plant near the entrance. Jimin's unit, according to a tagged photo Taehyung had posted a week ago, was on the second floor, the one with the window that faced the street.
The window was lit. The curtains were open. And Jimin was there.
Jeongguk slowed his pace. He didn’t stop—stopping was too obvious, but slowing enough to look. Jimin was standing in front of a mirror, his back to the window, his head tilted as he examined his reflection. He was wearing a pale yellow sweater—the same one from Jin's apartment, the first night Jeongguk had seen him, and a pair of jeans that sat low on his hips. As Jeongguk watched, Jimin lifted the hem of the sweater and touched his stomach, right where the navel ring would be.
The gesture was casual, thoughtless. Maybe the piercing was irritated, or maybe Jimin just liked the way it felt. But Jeongguk's grip on the grocery bag went white-knuckled. He imagined walking up those stairs. Knocking on the door. Jimin opening it with that same confused expression, the one that said oh, it's you, why are you here? And Jeongguk would say—
What? What would he say?
Just in the neighborhood. Thought I'd stop by. Saw your light on.
The fantasy unspooled in his mind: Jimin inviting him in, offering tea, sitting cross-legged on a too-small couch while Jeongguk catalogued every detail of the apartment. The books on the shelf. The photos on the wall. The bed in the corner, neatly made, pillows arranged just so. Jimin's bed. Jimin's pillows. Jimin's scent on the sheets, stronger here than it had ever been on the hoodie, and Jeongguk would—
A car horn blared. Jeongguk flinched. He was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, blocking a stroller, and the mother pushing it was glaring at him with open hostility.
"Sorry," he muttered, and kept walking.
He didn't look back at the window. He didn't need to. The image was burned into his retinas: Jimin touching his own stomach, unaware of the eyes on him. The apples in the bag felt like stones.
—
Day three was the closest he came to getting caught.
He'd started mapping Jimin's schedule. It wasn't systematic, not at first—just fragments of information that assembled themselves into patterns. Jimin had morning classes on Mondays and Thursdays. He practiced in the dance studio on Tuesday and Wednesday. He ate lunch at the dining hall near the arts building, usually alone, always at the same table by the window. Jeongguk knew this because he'd walked past that dining hall three times in two days, each time coinciding with Jimin's lunch hour.
Tonight, though, Jimin was at the library.
Jeongguk found him in the periodicals section, tucked into a carrel near the back wall, surrounded by stacks of books on dance theory and anatomy. His brow was furrowed in concentration, his lower lip caught between his teeth, a highlighter in one hand and a pencil in the other. He was wearing glasses. Small wire-rimmed glasses that made him look younger, softer, more breakable.
Jeongguk's knees nearly buckled.
He took a seat three carrels away, behind a row of reference books that gave him a clear sightline without being obvious. He'd brought a textbook of his own—something about architectural history, borrowed from Namjoon, and he opened it to a random page and pretended to read. For forty minutes, he sat there, not reading. Watching Jimin highlight passages and scribble notes. Watching Jimin stretch his neck and roll his shoulders. Watching Jimin yawn, his mouth opening wide and his jaw cracking and his tongue—pink and wet, curling against his teeth.
Jeongguk's cock stirred against his thigh. He ignored it. He was getting good at that.
At 9:22, Jimin packed up his things. Jeongguk waited until he was almost at the stairwell before gathering his own book. He followed at a distance, keeping one floor between them, and watched from the second-floor landing as Jimin pushed through the library's main doors and disappeared into the night.
The walk home was a blur. In his apartment, the scarf was still hanging in the bathroom, fully dry now. The hoodie was still on his pillow. He pressed his face into it and breathed deep, and this time the scent was almost nothing—just a memory of a smell, but that was fine. He had new images to fuel him now. Jimin in his glasses. Jimin biting his lip. Jimin's tongue, pink and wet, curling—
Tomorrow was Saturday. Tomorrow was the restaurant. Tomorrow, he'd hand Jimin the hoodie and say something casual and watch Jimin's fingers brush the fabric, and Jimin would never know that the fabric had been pressed against Jeongguk's face while he fucked his own fist and groaned Jimin's name into the dark.
Jeongguk smiled against the pillow. The smile felt foreign on his face—too wide, too sharp. He didn't care.
Tomorrow.
—
On the fourth day, the day before Saturday, he pushed it too far.
The evening was warm, the kind of September warmth that felt like summer refusing to die. Jimin had posted a story on Instagram—a photo of the sunset from the rooftop of his apartment building, caption: study break with a moon emoji, and Jeongguk had seen it within two minutes of it going up. Two minutes. He'd been refreshing Jimin's profile at the time, waiting for it.
The rooftop was accessible from the fire escape. Jeongguk knew this because he'd walked past the building twice more since day two, cataloguing entry points out of habit. He didn't plan to go up. He told himself he was just going to walk by, just to see if the light was still on, just to—
Jimin was on the roof. Alone. Cross-legged on a blanket near the edge, a textbook open in his lap and a pair of earbuds in his ears. The setting sun caught his hair and turned it gold, and the breeze lifted the hem of his t-shirt—a pale blue one tonight. Jeongguk ducked into the alley beside the building.
His heart was pounding. His palms were sweating. He was standing in the shadow of a dumpster, looking up at a fire escape ladder, and the ladder wasn't even pulled up. It was lowered. It was ready. All he had to do was climb.
I shouldn't.
His hand closed around the rung.
I shouldn't.
He climbed.
The fire escape groaned under his weight, a low metallic complaint that made him freeze on the second landing. Jimin didn't look up. The earbuds were in. He was humming something, a melody that drifted down to Jeongguk in fragments. His voice was thin but sweet, untrained, the kind of voice that would crack under pressure.
Jeongguk climbed higher.
The third landing put him level with the rooftop, maybe fifteen feet from where Jimin sat. He crouched behind the fire escape railing, hidden in shadow, and watched. Jimin's head was bobbing to the music. His pencil tapped against the textbook. His bare feet were crossed at the ankles, his toes painted a pale lavender that matched the evening sky.
This was too close. This was beyond stalking, this was intrusion, violation, the kind of proximity that would be impossible to explain. If Jimin turned his head, if he pulled out one earbud, if he heard the fire escape creak one more time—Jeongguk would be caught. There was no excuse for being here. No plausible reason. Just hunger, and the hunger was writing checks his sanity couldn't cash.
Go down. Go down now.
He stayed.
For eleven minutes, he stayed. Eleven minutes of Jimin's humming and the sunset and the breeze, eleven minutes of memorizing the way Jimin's shoulders moved when he breathed. Then Jimin stretched—arms overhead, spine arching, and his t-shirt rode up to his ribs, and Jeongguk could see the full length of his torso, the narrow waist, the soft curve of his belly.
Jeongguk's breath left him in a rush. He didn't make a sound. But something must have shifted—a shadow, a movement, some predator's instinct that Jimin's body recognized before his mind did, because Jimin's head turned. His brow furrowed. He pulled out one earbud and peered toward the fire escape, toward the shadows where Jeongguk was crouched.
"Hello?"
The word drifted across the rooftop like a leaf on water.
Jeongguk didn't move. Didn't breathe. His muscles locked, his jaw clenched, his whole body one tight-wound spring of adrenaline. Jimin was looking right at him. Right at the shadows. Right through him.
"Is someone there?"
A pause. A long, stretched moment where the world narrowed to Jimin's confused expression and the sound of Jeongguk's heartbeat in his own ears.
Then Jimin shook his head— just the wind —and put the earbud back in. Turned back to his textbook. Resumed his humming.
Jeongguk descended the fire escape with shaking hands. When his feet hit the alley pavement, his knees nearly buckled. He pressed his forehead against the brick wall and breathed through his mouth, in and out, until the trembling stopped.
That night, he didn't touch the hoodie. He didn't look at the scarf. He lay in bed with his eyes open and stared at the ceiling and replayed the moment over and over: Jimin's head turning. Jimin's voice, small and uncertain. Hello? Is someone there?
He'd almost been seen. The danger of it should have been a warning. Instead, it felt like fuel.
Tomorrow was the restaurant. Tomorrow, he'd be in the same room as Jimin. Sitting across from him, maybe. Handing him the hoodie. Watching his fingers close around the fabric. Smiling at him. Talking to him. Pretending he was normal.
The wait was almost over.
Next week, he'd thought after the cinema. Then five days. Now tomorrow.
The clock on his nightstand ticked toward midnight. Jeongguk closed his eyes. Behind his eyelids, Jimin was looking at him from across a restaurant table, candlelight caught in the gold of his navel ring, lips parted on a question he hadn't asked yet.
"See you soon," Jeongguk whispered to the empty room.
And somewhere across campus, Jimin slept, unaware that the shadows had been watching him for days.
-
The restaurant was called Golden Dumpling, and it was the kind of place that pretended to be humble while charging seventeen dollars for pan-fried pork buns. String lights sagged between exposed ceiling beams. The tables were scarred wood, the napkins cloth, the chopsticks reusable. It smelled like sesame oil and ginger and the faint, sweet burn of rice wine reduction. Jeongguk arrived twelve minutes early and chose a seat with its back to the wall.
Hoseok was already there, scrolling through his phone with the leisurely confidence of someone who'd never been anxious in his life. He looked up when Jeongguk's shadow fell across the table and grinned.
"You're early. That's new."
"I'm turning over a new leaf." Jeongguk pulled out a chair and sat. The backpack slung over his shoulder held a single item: Jimin's hoodie, folded into a neat square, wrapped in tissue paper he'd stolen from Jin's apartment last month. "Where is everyone?"
"Jin's parking. Namjoon's walking from the library. Taehyung said he'd be here at seven, which means seven-fifteen." Hoseok set his phone face-down and leaned forward on his elbows. "You seem different lately."
"Do I."
"More distracted. Quieter." Hoseok's eyes were sharp despite his easy smile. "You seeing someone?"
Jeongguk kept his face neutral. "No."
"Thinking about seeing someone?"
"Drop it, Hoseok."
"Fine, fine." Hoseok raised both hands in surrender. "Touchy. I'll just sit here and speculate silently."
Jeongguk didn't dignify that with a response. His gaze drifted to the door, and stayed there.
Jin arrived next, flushed from the parking garage elevator and carrying a tote bag full of Tupperware. "Leftovers," he announced, sliding into the bench across from Hoseok. "I made too much japchae last night and if someone doesn't eat it I'll be forced to consume noodles for every meal until Tuesday."
"Give it to Namjoon," Hoseok said. "He forgot to eat yesterday. Again."
"He forgot to eat?" Jin's face contorted with the particular horror of someone who considered missed meals a personal failure. "That's it. I'm setting alarms on his phone. Dinner alarms. Lunch alarms. He'll hate it."
"He'll disable them."
"Then I'll set more."
Jeongguk let the conversation wash over him without participation. His knee bounced under the table.
Namjoon arrived at 6:58, glasses askew and hair windswept, clutching a book on post-structuralist architecture that he immediately began explaining to no one in particular. Jin interrupted him with Tupperware. Hoseok asked about the book's thesis and then immediately regretted it. The table filled with the comfortable chaos of old friends who'd long since stopped performing for each other.
At 7:09, the door swung open, and Taehyung walked in.
Behind him, golden-haired and pink-cheeked from the evening chill, came Jimin.
Jeongguk's knee stopped bouncing.
Jimin was wearing a cream-colored sweater with a neckline wide enough to slip off one shoulder, revealing the strap of something delicate underneath—a tank top, maybe, or something lacier. His jeans were high-waisted and tight through the thigh, and his sandals had been traded for canvas sneakers dotted with tiny hand-drawn stars. The navel ring wasn't visible under the sweater, but Jeongguk knew it was there. He could picture it with his eyes closed. He'd pictured it with his eyes closed every night for a week.
"There they are," Taehyung announced, steering Jimin toward the table with a hand on the small of his back. "Sorry we're late. Someone couldn't decide which sweater to wear."
"Someone has excellent taste," Jimin said, though his cheeks went pinker. He slid into the chair directly across from Jeongguk, so that every time Jeongguk looked up he'd be looking straight at Jimin. "Hi. Thanks for inviting me."
"You don't have to thank us every time," Hoseok said.
"I know. It's a habit."
"It's a good habit," Jin said. "Politeness is underrated. My mother would love you."
"Jin's mother loves everyone who says thank you for the meal before the meal arrives," Namjoon added, without looking up from his book.
The waiter appeared, a tired-looking grad student with a notepad and a pen that kept running out of ink. Drink orders went around the table. Beer for Jeongguk and Yoongi (who still hadn't arrived), soju for Taehyung, sparkling water for Namjoon, some elaborate cocktail for Jin that involved yuzu and honey, and for Jimin—
"Just water, please. With lemon if you have it."
"You sure?" Taehyung nudged him with an elbow. "Their lychee martinis are good."
"I'm sure." Jimin smiled, small and private. "I'm a lightweight. One drink and I'd be asleep under the table."
Jeongguk filed that away. Lightweight. Low tolerance.
The waiter departed. The table settled into conversation. Hoseok was telling a story about a dance workshop that had gone sideways when the instructor's pants split mid-demonstration. Jin was laughing so hard he had to cover his mouth with both hands. Namjoon had finally put the book down and was interjecting with technical questions about choreography that Hoseok answered with increasingly elaborate hand gestures.
And Jimin was watching Jeongguk.
Little flickers of attention that darted across the table and away again. Jeongguk catalogued everything. The way Jimin's eyes dropped to his tattoos when he thought Jeongguk wasn't looking. The way his teeth found his lower lip—the same lip he'd bitten in the library, the same lip Jeongguk had fantasized about biting for him. The way his fingers played with the edge of his napkin, folding and unfolding.
"You're quiet tonight," Jimin said.
The words were directed at Jeongguk. Only at Jeongguk. The rest of the table kept talking, oblivious to the sudden tightening in Jeongguk's chest.
"Am I?" He kept his voice casual. The voice of someone who hadn't spent the last five days stalking this boy across campus.
"You usually talk more. At Jin's apartment, you and Namjoon were debating something about—what was it—"
"Concrete," Jeongguk said. "The environmental impact of different aggregate materials."
"Right." Jimin's smile flickered, confused but game. "You seemed really passionate about it."
"I was showing off." The admission came out before Jeongguk could stop it. "New people make me performative."
It was a lie wrapped in truth. Jimin didn't make him performative. Jimin made him hungry. But hungry wasn't something you said to a boy you'd officially met three times.
"That's funny," Jimin said. "You don't seem like the performing type."
"What type do I seem like?"
Jimin paused and his fingers stilled on the napkin. "The observing type. You watch things. It's like you're always a little bit apart from whatever's happening."
Jeongguk's pulse skidded. He'd been spotted. Not fully, Jimin's expression was open, curious, without a trace of suspicion, but the instinct was there. Jimin had noticed him watching. Had noticed the distance. Had filed it away in whatever mental catalogue he kept.
"I'm an architecture student," Jeongguk said. "We're trained to observe."
"Is that what you're doing now? Observing?"
"I'm participating."
"Barely."
The word landed like a challenge. Jeongguk leaned back in his chair and let himself look—really look at the boy across the table. The cream-colored sweater. The exposed collarbone. The lips, slightly chapped, slightly parted. The eyes, amber and gold-flecked, watching him back.
"I brought your hoodie," he said.
Jimin blinked. "My—oh. The pink one. Taehyung mentioned you had it."
"It's in my bag. I'll give it to you before we leave."
"Thank you. I was looking everywhere for that. I thought I'd left it at the dance studio."
Jeongguk's stomach clenched. The dance studio. The leggings. The pirouettes. He forced his face to stay pleasant. "It's been on my couch this whole time. You must have taken it off when you and Tae stopped by."
"I do that. Take things off without thinking, I mean." Jimin's cheeks went pink again—a richer shade this time, creeping down his neck. "Sweaters, scarves, whatever. My roommate says I shed belongings like a cat sheds fur."
"Your scarf." The words slipped out before Jeongguk could catch them.
"What?"
"You were wearing a blue scarf. At the cinema." He was walking a tightrope now, and the drop on either side was confession. "You didn't have it when we left for pizza. I noticed."
Jimin's brow furrowed. His lips parted. For one terrible, suspended moment, Jeongguk was sure he'd pushed too far, too specific, too observant, too much. Then Jimin laughed, a small breathy sound, and shook his head.
"I lost it. Somewhere between the movie and the pizza place. Taehyung said I probably dropped it on the sidewalk." He shrugged, the sweater slipping further down his shoulder. "It was my favorite, too. Pale blue, with a little moon embroidered on the corner."
"That's a shame."
"Mmm." Jimin's eyes met his. "You're very observant."
"You're very losable. Your belongings, I mean."
The word hung between them. Losable. As if Jimin were something that could be misplaced, picked up, pocketed. Jeongguk watched Jimin's face for a reaction. Confusion. A flicker of something else, uncertainty, maybe, or the first stirring of awareness. Then the sweater slipped again, and Jimin tugged it back up, and the moment broke.
Taehyung leaned across the table, inserting himself into the conversation with the force of a wrecking ball. "Are you two bonding? Without me? Betrayal."
"We were talking about clothes," Jimin said.
"Groundbreaking. Riveting. Tell me everything."
"My hoodie. My lost scarf. Riveting enough for you?"
"Honestly?" Taehyung tilted his head, considering. "Yes. I love boring conversations. They're my favorite kind."
"That explains so much about your personality," Hoseok said from across the table.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
The conversation fractured into overlapping cross-talk. Jin was asking the waiter about the dumpling specials. Namjoon had reopened his book. Taehyung and Hoseok were bickering about the definition of boring. And Jimin—Jimin was still looking at Jeongguk, a small crease between his brows, like he was working through a problem he hadn't quite identified yet.
Jeongguk let him look.
At 7:32, the door opened one more time. Yoongi walked in, hands shoved in his jacket pockets, shoulders hunched against a wind that wasn't blowing. His gaze swept the table, skipped over Taehyung like a stone across water, and landed on the empty chair at the far end.
"Sorry I'm late."
"You're always late," Jin said.
"I'm consistently late. There's a difference." Yoongi pulled out the chair and dropped into it with the boneless collapse of someone who hadn't slept well. "What did I miss?"
"Hoseok's pants story," Namjoon said.
"Ah. The highlight of my week."
"We're ordering food now. You want the usual?"
"Yeah."
The exchange was mundane, but Jeongguk caught the undercurrent. Taehyung had gone very still beside Jimin. His hands, which had been gesturing wildly a moment ago, were now folded in his lap. His eyes were fixed on the table, on his napkin, on anything but Yoongi's face. And Yoongi, for his part, was doing the same thing in reverse—pointedly not looking at Taehyung, pointedly not reacting to the fact that Taehyung was sitting closer to Jimin than strictly necessary.
The tension between them was a third presence at the table. Jeongguk had noticed it at Jin's apartment, at the cinema, and now here—the way Yoongi's jaw tightened whenever Taehyung laughed, the way Taehyung angled his body toward Jimin like a shield. Something had happened between them, or was happening, or was about to happen. Jeongguk filed that away too, alongside Jimin's low tolerance and the way Jimin's sweater kept slipping off his shoulder.
Food arrived in waves. Steamer baskets of dumplings—pork and chive, shrimp and ginger, mushroom and cabbage. Plates of scallion pancakes, crispy at the edges and chewy in the center. Cold noodles in sesame sauce, the strands slick and nutty. Jin distributed portions with the authority of a field general, ignoring protests and piling extra food onto everyone's plates.
"Eat," he commanded. "All of you. Especially you." This last was directed at Namjoon, who had set his book aside but was still staring at it with the longing of a parent separated from a child.
The table settled into the rhythm of shared food. Chopsticks clicked. Glasses were refilled. Conversation fragmented into smaller channels—Hoseok and Namjoon debating something choreographic, Jin lecturing Yoongi about sleep hygiene, Taehyung telling Jimin a story about a disastrous camping trip that involved a raccoon and a bag of marshmallows.
Jeongguk ate his dumplings and watched Jimin eat his.
Jimin was a careful eater. He bit dumplings in half before eating them, steam escaping from the exposed filling, and he chewed with his mouth closed and his eyes slightly squinted in concentration. Every few bites he dabbed his lips with his napkin. Every few minutes he glanced up, caught Jeongguk's eye, and looked away again.
The glances were coming faster now. More frequently. As if Jimin was testing something—the weight of Jeongguk's attention, the texture of being watched. He didn't seem uncomfortable. He seemed curious, the way a cat is curious about a closed door.
Go ahead, Jeongguk thought. Open it.
"You're staring," Jimin said.
The words were quiet, almost swallowed by the noise of the restaurant. But Jeongguk heard them.
"So are you."
"I'm trying to figure you out." Jimin set his chopsticks down and folded his hands in his lap. The gesture was prim, almost schoolboyish. "You're not like the others."
"How so?"
"Taehyung is easy. He says whatever he's thinking. Hoseok is easy. Namjoon is easy once you get him talking about books. Jin is an open book. Yoongi is hard to read, but he's hard in a way that makes sense. He's guarded. You're—" He paused, searching for the word. "You're different."
"Different how?"
"You watch people, but you don't let them watch you back. You're generous with your attention and stingy with your—" Another pause. "I don't know. Yourself, I guess."
Jeongguk's chopsticks creaked in his grip. The observation was too accurate, too precise, the kind of thing that came from genuine attention rather than casual small talk. Jimin had been watching him back. Had been cataloguing him the same way Jeongguk catalogued Jimin. The realization was intoxicating.
"Maybe I'm just private," Jeongguk said.
"Maybe." Jimin picked up a dumpling, examined it, set it down again. "Or maybe you're waiting for something."
"Like what?"
"I haven't figured that part out yet." He smiled, the same small, private smile from before. "But I'm patient."
The word landed like a promise. Jeongguk felt it settle somewhere deep in his chest, next to the hunger and the obsession and the scarf on his shower rod. Jimin was patient. Jimin was curious. Jimin was paying attention.
The hunt, it turned out, went both ways.
Dinner stretched on. The restaurant emptied around them. Jin's Tupperware was distributed. Namjoon promised to eat the japchae. Yoongi and Taehyung still weren't looking at each other. Hoseok was telling another story, this one about a dance competition and a costume malfunction involving feathers.
"Your hoodie," Jeongguk said, when the meal was winding down and the check was being split eight ways. He pulled the tissue-wrapped bundle from his backpack and slid it across the table.
Jimin's fingers brushed his as he took it. A brief contact—knuckle against knuckle, skin against skin, and then it was gone. But Jeongguk felt it linger like a brand.
"Thank you." Jimin unwrapped the tissue paper and pressed the hoodie to his face, inhaling. "It smells nice, like-"
"Just my couch," Jeongguk said. "Nothing else."
Lying had never felt so easy.
-
Jimin
Jimin hadn't meant to walk past Jeongguk's apartment.
That's what he told himself, anyway, standing on the cracked sidewalk with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans and his breath fogging the air. He'd been walking home from the dance studio, the late practice, and his usual route was three blocks west. Not this street. Not this building. Not this particular stretch of brick and ivy that he'd only visited once before, with Taehyung, when they'd stopped by to borrow a charger.
But his feet had carried him here anyway. Past the corner store with the flickering neon sign. Past the row of gingko trees shedding yellow leaves onto parked cars. Past the wrought-iron gate that led to Jeongguk's courtyard. And now here he was, motionless, staring up at a second-floor window with the blinds half-drawn and a orange light burning behind them.
You're being weird, he told himself. Go home.
His feet didn't move.
The thing was, Jimin had noticed Jeongguk noticing him. He wasn't stupid. He wasn't oblivious, no matter what Taehyung sometimes implied with his protective arm-slings and his careful steering of Jimin away from certain conversations. Jimin had spent his whole life being looked at, in dance studios, in locker rooms, in the quiet judgement of relatives who thought his shoulders were too narrow and his waist too slim for a boy. He knew the difference between a casual glance and something hungrier. Something that lingered.
Jeongguk's glances lingered.
They lingered at Jin's apartment, when Jimin had first walked through the door and felt those dark eyes settle on him like a weight. They lingered at the cinema, when the horror movie had jolted Jimin sideways in his seat and he'd caught Jeongguk watching him instead of the screen. They lingered at the restaurant, over plates of pork buns and scallion pancakes, in the space between one question and the next, in the way Jeongguk said I brought your hoodie like it meant something else entirely.
And Jimin had looked back. That was the part that kept him awake at night, staring at the ceiling of his dorm room while his roommate snored softly across the room. He'd looked back. He'd catalogued the tattoos curling up Jeongguk's forearm. He'd noticed the lip piercing, a silver stud that caught the light whenever Jeongguk smiled. He'd noticed the hands most of all—long fingers, broad palms, knuckles that looked capable of violence but moved with extraordinary precision over chopsticks and beer bottles.
Jimin swallowed. His throat was dry.
The window. The yellow light. The blinds, half-drawn.
Go home.
He crossed the courtyard instead.
The gate swung open without protest, the latch was broken, he remembered from the last time, Taehyung had complained about it, and the cobblestones were uneven under his sneakers. A bicycle was chained to the stairwell railing. Someone's recycling bin had tipped over in the wind, spilling crushed cans across the path. Jimin stepped around them carefully, quietly, the way he'd learned to move in dance studios where the floor was sacred and noise was a form of disrespect.
The stairs were concrete, narrow, a fire-escape afterthought tacked onto the building's side. Jimin climbed them slowly. His pulse was doing something strange—not racing, exactly, but beating in a way that felt too loud, too present, as if his heart had relocated to his throat and was trying to escape through his mouth.
What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing?
He reached the landing. The door to Jeongguk's apartment was to his left, a slab of peeling wood with a brass number 2B screwed slightly askew. But the window was to his right, facing the landing, its blinds angled downward in a way that suggested the occupant had tried to close them and given up halfway.
Jimin told himself he would just glance. One look, to confirm that Jeongguk was home, that this whole detour had been pointless and he could go back to his dorm and fall asleep like a normal person.
He stepped toward the window.
And stopped.
The angle was wrong. From here, he could see the corner of a couch—the same beige monstrosity he'd sat on during his previous visit, the one with the suspicious stain on the armrest and the cushions that swallowed you whole—but not much else. The lamp was visible, its shade casting that orange glow. A coffee table littered with textbooks.
And then a sound.
Jimin's entire body went still.
It was a low sound, barely audible through the glass, but unmistakably human. A groan, maybe, or a sigh, the kind of noise that could mean frustration or exhaustion or pain. Or something else entirely. Jimin's ears strained, his hearing sharpening the way it did when he was alone in the practice room and the air conditioner kicked on and he had to listen past the mechanical hum to find the beat.
Another sound. This one longer. A moan, definitely a moan, stretching into something almost vocal before cutting off abruptly.
The blinds.
If he crouched, if he pressed himself against the brick wall and tilted his head just so—the gap between the blinds and the window frame widened to a sliver. A finger's width of visibility. A keyhole view of the apartment beyond.
Jimin crouched.
His knees pressed into the cold concrete of the landing. His breath fogged the glass. His fingers, braced against the sill, were trembling slightly, from cold, he told himself, only cold, the wind and the late hour and not the adrenaline that was currently turning his bloodstream into something carbonated.
Through the gap, he could see the couch.
And on the couch, he could see Jeongguk.
Jeongguk was sitting with his head tipped back against the cushions, his eyes closed, his mouth slightly open. His jeans were undone. Not pulled down—just open, the fly unzipped, the waistband gaping to reveal the elastic of his underwear and the trail of dark hair that disappeared beneath it. One of his hands was braced against the armrest, knuckles white with tension. The other hand—
Jimin's breath caught.
The other hand was buried in something pale blue. Something soft. Something silk-wool blend with a little moon embroidered on the corner.
His scarf. His lost scarf, the one he'd dropped somewhere between the cinema and the pizza place, the one he'd assumed was gone forever, trampled on a sidewalk or swept into a gutter by the autumn rain. Jeongguk had found it. Jeongguk had kept it. And now Jeongguk was pressing it to his face, inhaling deeply, his chest expanding with the force of the breath and then releasing, shuddering, as if the scent of Jimin's shampoo and Jimin's perfume and Jimin's skin was something he could get drunk on.
Oh god.
Jimin's hand flew to his mouth. To stop what—a gasp, a curse, a sound that would give him away, he wasn't sure. His palm pressed hard against his lips, and his eyes, traitors that they were, refused to look away.
Jeongguk's hips lifted off the couch. Just slightly, a reflexive jerk of motion that pushed his open jeans further down his thighs. His hand, the one not holding the scarf—slid into his underwear. Jimin couldn't see exactly what he was doing, the angle was wrong, the gap too narrow, but he could see the movement. The rhythm. The way Jeongguk's forearm tensed and relaxed, tensed and relaxed, in time with his breathing.
Another moan. Louder this time. Less guarded. Jeongguk's head rolled forward, chin dropping to his chest, and he looked down at his own hand with an expression that Jimin had never seen on anyone's face before. Hunger. Pure, undiluted hunger, the kind that stripped away every layer of social performance and left only the wanting beneath.
He's thinking about me.
The realization hit Jimin like a wave of vertigo. His fingers dug into the brick wall, rough mortar scraping his knuckles. The cold from the concrete was seeping through his jeans, numbing his knees, but he couldn't feel it. He couldn't feel anything except the thunder of his pulse and the strange, terrible heat blooming low in his stomach.
Jeongguk was stroking himself now—Jimin could tell from the motion, from the way his arm moved, from the slick sounds that were just barely audible through the glass. His head was still bent forward, his shoulders curved inward, his whole body folded around the scarf like it was something precious. Something sacred. He pressed the blue fabric to his nose again, breathed in, and let out a sound that was half-groan and half-name.
"Jimin."
Jimin's knees nearly buckled. He was already crouching—thank god he was already crouching, but his body swayed forward, toward the window, toward the voice that had wrapped around his name like a fist closing. Jeongguk had said it before, in Jin's apartment and at the restaurant and at the cinema. But never like this. Never with that particular fracture in his voice. Never with his hand moving faster under his waistband and his shoulders trembling like a leaf in a storm.
"Fuck. Jimin."
The scarf was pressed against his mouth now. Jeongguk was kissing it—actually kissing it, lips parted against the fabric, tongue visible for a split second as he licked the place where Jimin's cheek might have brushed. His hips bucked upward, uncontrolled, and his free hand abandoned the armrest to grip the cushion instead, fingers sinking into the beige fabric with desperate force.
Jimin watched. He watched and he didn't look away and he didn't move, frozen in place by something that felt less like fear and more like fascination. The same curiosity that had made him prod at Jeongguk's composure in the restaurant. The same instinct that had made him notice the tattoos and the hands and the dark eyes that always seemed to find him across crowded rooms.
This is wrong, a voice whispered in the back of his mind. This is private. You should leave. You should run.
But another voice, louder and more insistent, was asking different questions. Questions like: Why did he keep the scarf?and When did he start thinking about me like this? and Why does watching him feel like standing too close to a flame—dangerous, dizzying, impossible to step away from?
Jeongguk's pace was quickening. His whole body was moving now, a rolling motion that started in his hips and traveled upward through his spine, pulling his shoulders back and his head with them. His mouth fell open, the scarf falling away, and his eyes squeezed shut so tightly that lines appeared at their corners. His jaw was clenched. His free hand, the one on the cushion, had torn through the fabric—there was a rip now, a small one, foam yellowing beneath, and his knuckles were bloodless.
"Please," he said. To no one. To Jimin's ghost, maybe, conjured by scent and fantasy and the blue scrap of fabric that should have been abandoned in the cinema. "Please, Jimin, please—"
Jimin's breathing had gone shallow. His fingers, still pressed to his mouth, were damp with condensation from his own trapped exhalations. The heat in his stomach had spread lower, settling between his thighs in a way that made him shift uncomfortably on the concrete. He didn't want to name it. Didn't want to acknowledge what his body was doing in response to the scene on the other side of the glass.
But his body didn't care about what he wanted to name.
Jeongguk was close. Jimin could tell from the urgency of his movements, the frantic pump of his arm, the way his thighs had started to shake, the curses spilling from his lips in a broken litany. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, Jimin, I'm—"
His back arched. His hips snapped upward one final time. And then he was cumming—Jimin could see it in the way his whole body seized and released, seized and released, the tension draining from his shoulders even as his hand kept moving, slower now, gentler, coaxing the last shudders from his own flesh. The scarf was crushed in his grip, pressed flat against his chest like a talisman.
A long, slow exhale. Then silence.
Jimin realized he'd been holding his breath. He let it out in a gust that fogged the glass even further, and he watched through the condensation as Jeongguk slumped back against the couch, boneless and spent. His eyes were still closed. His lips were still parted. The scarf was still clutched to his heart, rising and falling with the slowing rhythm of his breath.
He looked—beautiful. That was the word that surfaced in Jimin's mind, unbidden and unwelcome. Beautiful in the way that dangerous things were beautiful. Beautiful in the way that fire was beautiful, or a cliff's edge, or the moment before a storm broke.
He kept my scarf. He kept my scarf and he—
Jimin's knees screamed as he straightened up. He'd been crouching too long; pins and needles prickled through his calves, and his fingers were stiff with cold. He stumbled backward, away from the window, away from the orange light and the beige couch and the boy who had said his name like a prayer.
The stairs were behind him. The courtyard was below. The street was waiting, dark and empty, ready to swallow him whole and carry him back to his dorm and his textbooks and his oblivious roommate.
But Jimin didn't move.
He stood on the landing, one hand braced against the brick wall, and stared at the crack of light spilling through the half-drawn blinds. His heart was beating so hard he could feel it in his teeth. His stomach was still tight with that terrible, nameless heat. And his mind—his mind was spinning like a compass needle hunting north, directionless and desperate, trying to reconcile the Jeongguk he knew with the Jeongguk he had just watched.
The polite one. The observant one. The one who had said I brought your hoodie like it was an afterthought and not an excuse to touch Jimin's fingers across a restaurant table.
That Jeongguk had been a mask. This Jeongguk—the one with the scarf and the shaking hands and the broken prayers—this Jeongguk was something else entirely. Something raw. Something hungry. Something that had been looking at Jimin since the moment they met and seeing not a new friend, not Taehyung's shy transfer student, but something he wanted to devour.
And Jimin—Jimin, who had never been looked at like that before, who had never been wanted like that before, who had spent his whole life being small and soft and unthreatening, felt something crack open inside his chest.
Fear. It should have been fear. A normal person would have been afraid. A normal person would have backed away from the window and run down the stairs and never walked past this building again.
But what Jimin felt, standing on the cold concrete landing with his breath still fogging the air and his pulse still hammering in his throat, was not fear.
It was curiosity. The same curiosity that had made him prod at Jeongguk's composure. The same curiosity that had made him notice the tattooed hands and the lip piercing and the way Jeongguk's voice dropped when he said You're very losable. The same curiosity that had driven his feet to this street, this building, this window, as if some part of him had known all along what he would find.
What do I do now?
The question hung in the cold air, unanswered. Inside the apartment, the orange light clicked off. The window went dark. Somewhere in the distance, a car alarm blared and then silenced. The gingko trees rustled in the wind.
Jimin finally moved. He descended the stairs one at a time, carefully, the way he'd learned to walk in dance studios where the floor was sacred. His sneakers made no sound on the concrete. His breathing had steadied, but his hands were still trembling, and the heat in his stomach had not faded.
He reached the courtyard. He crossed the uneven cobblestones. He passed through the broken gate and onto the sidewalk and turned—not toward his dorm, not yet, but toward the corner store with the flickering neon sign, where he could buy a bottle of water and sit on the curb and try to remember how to think like a person who had not just watched his new acquaintance use his lost scarf for something unspeakable.
The store's fluorescent lights were harsh after the darkness of the courtyard. Jimin bought his water with coins that clattered across the counter because his fingers wouldn't stop shaking. The clerk, a bored-looking woman with purple hair and septum piercing, didn't look up from her phone.
Outside, on the curb, Jimin unscrewed the cap and drank. The water was cold. It tasted like nothing. It didn't wash away the image of Jeongguk's back arching, or the sound of his own name fracturing in Jeongguk's throat, or the way the blue scarf had looked pressed against Jeongguk's mouth.
He's going to return it, Jimin thought. He'll bring it to the next hangout, wrapped in tissue paper, and he'll say "I found this on the sidewalk" and I'll have to pretend I don't know what he did with it.
Or maybe he wouldn't return it. Maybe he'd keep it, hidden in some drawer or under his pillow, a secret relic of a secret obsession. Maybe the next time Jimin lost something—a sweater, a hair tie, a sock—it would end up in Jeongguk's apartment too, pressed to Jeongguk's face, kissed by Jeongguk's lips.
The thought should have been terrifying.
Instead, Jimin felt his mouth curve into something that was almost a smile.
He screwed the cap back onto the water bottle. He stood up from the curb. He started walking toward his dorm, hands in his pockets, scarf somewhere on Jeongguk's couch, and when he passed under a streetlight his shadow stretched long and thin across the pavement, a shape that looked braver than he felt, or maybe just hungrier.
I should tell someone, he thought. Taehyung. Or Jin. Or—
But even as the thought formed, he knew he wouldn't. Couldn't. The secret was his now. And some part of him, the part that had made him walk past Jeongguk's apartment in the first place, the part that had made him crouch on the cold concrete and press his face to the glass—that part wanted to keep it.
Wanted to see what happened next.
Wanted to watch Jeongguk watch him, now that he knew what lay beneath the surface of those dark eyes.
Tomorrow, he would see Jeongguk again. And Jeongguk wouldn't know that he knew.
The thought sent a shiver down Jimin's spine.
He walked home through the cold, and behind him, in the darkened window of apartment 2B, a blue scarf lay crumpled on a beige couch, still warm from the hands that had held it.
-
The day after the scarf incident—Jimin had started calling it the incident in his head, because calling it anything else felt too dangerous—he left his hair tie on Jeongguk's desk.
But it wasn't an accident.
He'd been in Jeongguk's apartment for exactly twelve minutes. Taehyung had organized a study group for their shared music theory elective, and somehow the only available space with enough outlets and seating was Jeongguk's living room. Jimin had volunteered his dorm, but Taehyung had wrinkled his nose and said something about Jimin's roommate's microwave ramen habit and the smell that never quite dissipated. So here they were. Six boys, three textbooks, one laptop that kept disconnecting from the wifi, and a coffee table covered in empty Red Bull cans.
Jimin had positioned himself at Jeongguk's desk. The desk was cluttered—papers, highlighters, a laptop covered in stickers from bands Jimin didn't recognize, but there was just enough space for his notebook if he pushed a few things aside. Jeongguk was on the couch, three feet away, close enough that Jimin could smell his detergent. Something woodsy. Something expensive. Something that made Jimin's stomach tighten every time he inhaled.
The hair tie was black elastic, unremarkable, the kind you could buy in packs of twenty at any drugstore. Jimin wore one on his wrist constantly, a habit from dance classes and long practice sessions. When he slipped it off and tucked it behind Jeongguk's laptop—a deliberate motion, hidden by the angle of his body and the distraction of Namjoon explaining something about chromatic scales, his fingers trembled.
He didn't know why he was doing it. No, that was a lie. He knew exactly why he was doing it. He wanted to see what happened. He wanted to leave something of himself in Jeongguk's space and watch what Jeongguk did with it. He wanted to test the obsession, prod at its edges, see how deep it went.
The hair tie disappeared from his wrist.
Two hours later, when the study group disbanded and everyone was gathering their things, Jimin watched Jeongguk's hands. Those hands—the ones he'd seen moving under a waistband, the ones that had crushed his blue scarf like a lifeline, swept across the desk, gathering stray papers, closing the laptop. The fingers paused. Just for a moment. Just long enough for the thumb to brush against the black elastic, for the knuckles to tense, for the dark eyes to flick toward Jimin and then away.
Jeongguk didn’t say anything.
But the hair tie didn't end up in the trash. Jimin noticed. Noticed the way Jeongguk's palm closed around it, casual, natural, a movement that looked like tidying but felt like theft. The elastic vanished into a pocket. The one closest to Jeongguk's hip.
Jimin's mouth went dry.
"You coming?" Taehyung was at the door, scarf already wound around his neck, phone in hand. "Yoongi's being weird again. I need food."
"Define weird," Namjoon said.
"Define Yoongi," Hoseok countered, and Jin snorted.
Jimin stood. His legs felt unsteady, but he crossed the room without stumbling, and he didn't look back at Jeongguk, didn't need to, because he could feel those eyes on his spine, a weight he was learning to recognize, a pressure he was learning to crave.
At the door, he paused. "Thanks for hosting," he said, and his voice came out steady and innocent. The voice of someone who had definitely not left a piece of himself behind on purpose.
Jeongguk’s jaw was tight, and his right hand was still buried in his pocket. The pocket with the hair tie. "Anytime," he said. The word stretched out, longer than necessary.
Jimin smiled sweetly.
Then he followed Taehyung down the stairs and into the evening, and he didn't let himself exhale until he was three blocks away.
-
The next thing he left was his chapstick.
This one was harder. The chapstick was a specific brand—Burt's Bees, pomegranate, the one with the slightly pink tint that Jeongguk had definitely noticed because Jeongguk noticed everything, and Jimin used it constantly. Losing it would be noticeable. Taehyung would ask questions. "Didn't you just have that?" "Aren't you always putting that on?" "Why do your lips look so dry all of a sudden?"
But the opportunity presented itself, and Jimin had never been good at resisting opportunities.
They were at a coffee shop near campus, the one with the mismatched chairs and the barista who drew latte art of famous composers. Beethoven was currently dissolving into the foam of Namjoon's cappuccino. Jimin was wedged between Taehyung and the window, and Jeongguk was across the table, and their knees kept bumping under the narrow surface.
"You're doing it again," Jimin said.
Jeongguk's eyebrow lifted. The lip piercing caught the light. "Doing what?"
"Staring."
A beat of silence. Hoseok was mid-sentence about something, a dance showcase, maybe, or a party happening that weekend, but Jimin had stopped listening. The whole coffee shop had faded to background noise, the hiss of the espresso machine and the murmur of other students dissolving into static.
"I'm not staring," Jeongguk said.
"You're definitely staring."
"Im observing, that’s different."
"Is it?"
Jeongguk's mouth curved. "Observing is academic. Staring is rude."
"And what are you observing?"
"Your chapstick," Jeongguk said, and the word dropped between them like a stone into still water. "You keep putting it on. Every eight minutes, roughly. It's a pattern."
Jimin's hand froze halfway to his pocket. The chapstick was right there, a familiar cylinder against his fingers. He hadn't realized he'd been reaching for it. He hadn't realized Jeongguk had been counting.
"Observing," Jimin repeated. His voice came out thinner than he wanted. "Right."
"It's pomegranate," Jeongguk said. "I can smell it from here."
Jimin's lips parted. He didn't have a response for that, couldn't find one, not with those dark eyes fixed on his mouth like they were reading something written there. The chapstick felt suddenly heavy in his pocket, heavy and significant and dangerous.
He left it on the table when they stood up to leave.
Just tucked it between the salt shaker and the napkin dispenser, a small tube that caught the overhead light. He didn't look back as he walked out the door. He didn't need to. He knew, with the same certainty he knew his own heartbeat, that Jeongguk would see it. Would pocket it. Would add it to whatever collection was growing in that apartment, alongside the scarf and the hair tie and god knew what else.
Taehyung was talking about dinner plans. Jin was suggesting the Thai place on Fifth. Hoseok was already pulling up the menu on his phone. Jimin nodded along, made approving sounds, let the conversation flow around him like water around a stone.
His pocket was empty. His lips were dry. His pulse was a drumbeat in his ears.
-
The third thing was the earring.
This one felt cruel. Jimin knew it was cruel as soon as the idea surfaced, but the knowledge didn't stop him from doing it. The earring was small—a silver stud with a tiny moon charm, a gift from his grandmother, something he'd worn every day since he was sixteen. Losing it would be a real loss. The kind of thing that warranted tears, or at least a convincing performance of them.
But the earring cost money, and money could be replaced. What couldn't be replaced was the look on Jeongguk's face when Jimin "accidentally" dropped it into his jacket pocket.
They were at Jin's apartment again, the familiar space with its mismatched furniture and its perpetually bubbling rice cooker and its balcony that overlooked the campus quad. A movie was playing, something with explosions, Jimin wasn't paying attention, and the lights were off, and Jeongguk's jacket was draped over the back of a chair near the door.
Jimin had excused himself to use the bathroom. On the way back, in the darkness, he'd paused by the chair. His fingers had found the jacket's pocket. The earring had slipped from his earlobe with a tiny pinch of pain, and then it was gone, swallowed by denim and shadow.
Back on the couch, Jimin touched his ear and gasped.
"What?" Taehyung was immediately alert, phone already in hand, ready to solve whatever crisis had arisen. "What happened?"
"My earring." Jimin's voice wobbled—not entirely fake. The empty place where the stud should be felt wrong, a phantom pressure that made him want to keep touching it. "It's gone. The moon one."
The movie was paused, and the lights came up. The boys turned to look at him with varying degrees of concern.
"Where did you lose it?" Jin asked, already standing. "We can check the bathroom. The hallway. When did you last—"
"I don't know." Jimin's fingers were still pressed to his earlobe. "I had it during the movie. I touched it during the car chase, I remember, because the sound was so loud and my ear was—" He cut himself off, let his shoulders slump. "It's probably gone."
"We'll find it," Taehyung said firmly. "Everyone, check the floor. Check the couch cushions. Check—"
Jeongguk was already moving. Jimin watched him circle the room, bending to examine the carpet, running his palms over the couch cushions with methodical care. The other boys were searching too, but Jimin only had eyes for Jeongguk. Watched him check the bathroom. Watched him check the kitchen. Watched him drift toward the front door, toward the chair, toward the jacket.
Jeongguk's hand went into the pocket.
And stopped.
Jimin counted his heartbeats. One. Two. Three. Four—
Jeongguk's hand emerged. His fingers were closed around something small, something silver, something that glinted when he turned toward the light.
"Found it," he said. His voice was flat. But his eyes—his eyes were burning.
"Oh, thank god." Taehyung surged forward, but Jeongguk was already crossing the room, already standing in front of Jimin, already extending his hand. The earring lay in his palm, the moon charm catching the lamplight and throwing it back in fractured pieces.
"Your jacket pocket," Jimin said. His voice was soft and curious. "How did it get there?"
"I don't know." Jeongguk's jaw was tight. "Maybe it fell. When you walked past."
"Maybe." Jimin reached for the earring. His fingers brushed Jeongguk's palm, deliberate and lingering, a touch that lasted longer than necessary. The skin was warm. The pulse beneath it was racing. "Thank you."
Jeongguk didn't answer. Couldn't, maybe. His throat was working, a swallow that looked painful, and his free hand was clenched at his side. Jimin looked up at him through his lashes the way he'd practiced in the mirror, the way that made his eyes look bigger, softer, more innocent and smiled.
"Lucky you found it," Jimin said. "You're always finding my things."
The room went quiet. Too quiet. Jimin could feel the others watching, could feel Taehyung's confusion and Hoseok's curiosity and something sharper from Yoongi's direction. But he didn't look away from Jeongguk. Didn't break the connection that stretched between them like a wire pulled tight.
"Lucky," Jeongguk echoed. The word cracked in the middle.
Jimin put the earring back in. Pressed the stud through the hole with practiced fingers, screwed the backing into place, adjusted the moon until it hung just right. "There," he said. "All better."
The movie resumed. The lights dimmed. The explosions continued. But Jimin felt Jeongguk's eyes on him for the rest of the night, and when he was finally walking home at two in the morning, his phone buzzed in his pocket.
A text. From a number he hadn't saved, but recognized anyway.
You're doing this on purpose.
Jimin stared at the screen. The streetlight above him flickered, casting shadows that jumped and skittered across the sidewalk. His breath fogged the air. His heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his fingertips.
He typed back: I don't know what you're talking about.
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again. Then:
Yes you do.
Jimin didn't respond. He pocketed his phone and walked home through the cold, and when he undressed for bed that night, he noticed something in the pocket of his own jacket. Something that hadn't been there before. Something small and cylindrical and faintly pink.
His chapstick. Returned.
There was a sticky note wrapped around it, the handwriting cramped and urgent and unmistakable:
You left this. I didn't want to keep it. That would be weird.
Jimin pressed the note to his lips, the same lips that the chapstick had touched, the same lips that Jeongguk had watched and catalogued and smelled from across a coffee shop table and laughed. A quiet sound, muffled by paper and pomegranate wax and the three AM darkness of his dorm room.
That would be weird.
As if the scarf didn't exist. As if the hair tie hadn't disappeared into a front pocket. As if Jimin hadn't watched through a window and seen exactly what Jeongguk did with the things he claimed not to keep.
He tucked the chapstick into his nightstand drawer, the note went under his pillow, where he could reach it in the dark, where his fingers could trace the indentations of Jeongguk's handwriting and imagine the hand that had pressed the pen to the paper.
Somewhere across campus, in apartment 2B, a black hair tie was sitting on Jeongguk's nightstand. A blue scarf was folded beneath his pillow. And a boy with dark eyes and shaking hands was lying awake, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out when the hunter had become the hunted.
Jimin fell asleep smiling.
-
Jeongguk
The moon had followed him home.
Jeongguk noticed it the way he noticed everything these days—with the hyperawareness of someone who'd stopped sleeping properly three weeks ago. The moon was a sliver, a thumbnail clipping of light, and it hung above the campus clocktower like it was waiting for something. Like it was watching.
He was walking back from the library, though he hadn't been studying. He'd been sitting at a table near the window, the same table Jimin had occupied days ago, running his thumb over the edge of the wood where Jimin's elbow had rested. The library had closed at midnight. Jeongguk had watched the lights flicker off in the stacks, had listened to the librarian's keys jangle, had waited until the last possible moment before gathering his empty notebook and his unopened textbook and heading out into the cold.
The hair tie was in his pocket. He'd taken to carrying it everywhere, a black elastic circle that had no practical purpose in his life, his own hair was too short to tie back, but that had become essential anyway. His fingers found it now, tucked into the front pocket of his jeans, and traced its circumference. Once. Twice. A third time. The repetition was grounding, or at least it was supposed to be. What it actually did was make him think about Jimin's wrist, the delicate bones, the way the elastic had stretched there, the way it had looked abandoned on his desk like a deliberate offering.
You're doing this on purpose.
He'd sent that text four days ago. Jimin's response had been infuriating. I don't know what you're talking about. And then, when Jeongguk had pushed: Yes you do. Three words that had cost him something—some pretense of cool detachment, some carefully maintained fiction that he was merely curious, merely observant, merely academic in his interest.
The hair tie. The chapstick. The earring.
It wasn't the objects themselves that were driving him insane. It was the deliberation. The intention. The way Jimin had looked up at him through those lashes and said, You're always finding my things, with that smile. That smile that said I know and you know and we're both pretending we don't.
Jeongguk's apartment was dark when he pushed open the door. The scarf was still under his pillow, the blue one, the one that still held a ghost of Jimin's scent if he pressed his face into it hard enough.
He didn't turn on the lights. He knew the geography of his apartment too well—the coffee table three steps from the couch, the bookshelf leaning slightly to the left, the kitchen chair that squeaked when you sat on it. He moved through the darkness and he ended up where he always ended up: at his bedroom window, looking out toward campus, toward the dormitory that housed Park Jimin.
The window was cold against his forehead. His breath fogged the glass.
"What are you doing," he said aloud. His voice was a rasp, unused for hours. "What the fuck are you doing to me."
The moon didn't answer. The campus clocktower chimed one in the morning. And Jeongguk's fingers, still tucked into his pocket, tightened around the hair tie until the elastic bit into his skin.
-
He'd tried to understand it. That was the worst part. He'd sat down, rationally and tried to diagram the problem. Tried to trace the progression from new transfer student to person I cannot stop thinking about to person whose discarded belongings I have arranged on my nightstand like offerings to a god I don't believe in.
Step one: Taehyung had brought Jimin to Jin's apartment. Jeongguk had noticed the blonde hair, the delicate features, the silver glint at the navel. Nothing unusual. He noticed attractive people all the time.
Step two: The horror movie. Jimin had been so reactive—immersed at the jump scares, pressing closer to Taehyung in the dark. Jeongguk had watched him more than he'd watched the screen. Had catalogued every gasp, every moment when Jimin's lips parted in genuine interest. Something had shifted that night. Something in Jeongguk's chest had unbolted itself and opened like a door.
Step three: The hoodie. The scarf. The objects left behind, or maybe not left behind—maybe left on purpose, maybe left as tests, maybe left because Jimin wanted Jeongguk to have them. The possibility was the thing that undid him. The uncertainty.
Step four: Jimin had started acting strange. Well, stranger. Jimin had always been strange in a way that made Jeongguk's teeth ache, too pretty, too soft, too oblivious to the effect he had. But lately, lately there was something else. A flicker in the eyes when they met Jeongguk's across a room. A pause before answering questions. A deliberateness to the way he moved, like every gesture was being chosen, considered, deployed.
Like he knew.
Like he wanted Jeongguk to know he knew.
And then the coffee shop. The chapstick. I can smell it from here. Jeongguk had said that out loud. Had admitted, in front of witnesses, that he'd been cataloguing the frequency with which Jimin applied lip balm. Had essentially confessed to being the kind of person who noticed those things, who counted those minutes, who filed away that information for later use.
And Jimin had just looked at him. Had just smiled that small, knowing smile and said, Right.
The chapstick was now in Jimin's possession again. Jeongguk had returned it. He'd been proud of himself for that—a small act of restraint, a tiny victory over the impulse that wanted to hoard every atom of Jimin's existence. He'd wrapped it in a sticky note and left it in Jimin's pocket, and then he'd spent the next four hours regretting it so intensely that he'd had to leave the library before he screamed.
That would be weird, he'd written on the note.
As if everything about this wasn't already weird. As if he hadn't masturbated into a stolen scarf. As if he hadn't followed Jimin across campus, catalogued his schedule, memorized the route he took from the dance studio to the library to the dormitory. As if he hadn't climbed a fire escape just to watch Jimin study on a rooftop, just to be close to him, just to breathe the same air for eleven stolen minutes.
The hair tie came out of his pocket. Jeongguk held it up to the moonlight, studied the way the elastic had stretched in one spot, the spot that had rested against Jimin's pulse point. He pressed it to his nose. It smelled like nothing. Like everything. Like the inside of a pocket and the ghost of shampoo and something that was probably just his imagination but felt real, felt like Jimin, felt like the warmth of skin and the salt of sweat and the sweet, soft scent of a person he wanted to consume whole.
"Fuck," he whispered.
The word hung in the dark apartment like smoke.
-
Here was the problem: Jeongguk didn't know what Jimin wanted.
If Jimin was messing with him—if this was some elaborate joke, some test designed to make Jeongguk expose himself, some way of saying I see you, I see what you're doing, and I'm going to make you admit it—then every item left behind was a trap. A way of drawing Jeongguk further into obsession while Jimin sat back and watched, amused, detached, safe in the knowledge that he was the one in control.
But if Jimin wasn't messing with him—if the items were genuine accidents, if the smiles were just smiles, if the lingering glances were just Jeongguk's imagination projecting desire onto neutrality—then Jeongguk was a monster. A predator. A stalker who had stolen a boy's belongings and used them for purposes Jimin would never consent to, never dream of, never forgive.
The third possibility was the most dangerous. The third possibility was that Jimin knew exactly what he was doing. That he was leaving these objects on purpose, that he was testing Jeongguk's restraint, that he was curious—genuinely curious about the shape of Jeongguk's obsession. That maybe, on some level, Jimin wanted to be watched. Wanted to be wanted. Wanted the hunger that Jeongguk had been trying so hard to hide.
This third possibility was the one that kept Jeongguk awake at night. The one that sent him to the window at one in the morning. The one that made his cock stir against his thigh and his breath come faster and his hands shake with the effort of not touching himself, not yet, not until he had more information, not until he understood.
The clocktower chimed two.
Jeongguk made a decision.
-
Jimin's dormitory was on the east side of campus, a five-story brick building with ivy crawling up the northern wall and a fire escape that Jeongguk had mapped three weeks ago. The walk took seven minutes at a normal pace. Jeongguk did it in five, his strides long and urgent, his jacket insufficient against the cold.
He wasn't thinking. That was the trick. If he thought about what he was doing, if he let himself consider the implications, the violations, the thousand ways this could go wrong, he would stop. Would turn around. Would go home and bury his face in Jimin's scarf and try to convince himself that imagination was enough.
But imagination wasn't enough anymore. Hadn't been enough since Jimin had looked at him and said, You're always finding my things, with that voice. That voice that was soft around the edges but sharp at the center, that voice that belonged to someone who was either entirely innocent or entirely not.
The dormitory loomed ahead. Jeongguk slowed, scanning the building with practiced eyes. The main entrance was locked at midnight, student ID required, and his ID would log his entry, would leave a record, would be evidence if anyone ever came looking. But the fire escape on the south side was accessible from the ground if you stood on the dumpster beneath it. The dumpster smelled like wet cardboard, but it held his weight, and the ladder groaned but didn't give, and within thirty seconds he was climbing, metal cold beneath his palms, breath pluming white in the night air.
Jimin's room was on the third floor. Jeongguk knew this because he'd followed Jimin home once—okay, three times and had watched the light switch on in the corner window. The window faced the fire escape. The curtains were usually drawn, but not always. Not tonight.
Not tonight.
Jeongguk's heart was a fist pounding against his sternum. His cock was half-hard already, just from the anticipation, just from the risk, just from the knowledge that he was about to cross a line he couldn't uncross. He pressed himself against the brick wall beside the window, listening. No voices. No music. The only sound was the distant hum of the campus heating system and the rush of his own blood in his ears.
He looked.
The gap in the curtains was narrow—six inches, maybe less, but it was enough. The room was small, bed against the left wall, desk beneath the window, wardrobe in the corner. The walls were covered in photographs, polaroids of people Jeongguk recognized from campus, from dance showcases, from Jimin's Instagram. Fairy lights were strung above the bed, their soft glow casting everything in warm amber.
And Jimin was asleep.
The breath left Jeongguk's lungs in a rush that fogged the window glass. Jimin was lying on his side, facing the window—facing him, though his eyes were closed, though he was unaware, though he had no idea that three feet of brick and glass and October air were the only things separating his sleeping body from the boy who had been obsessing over him for weeks.
The blanket was pale blue. It was pulled up to Jimin's shoulders, but one arm had escaped, flung out across the mattress, the hand relaxed and open. The blonde hair was mussed against the pillow. The lips were slightly parted—those lips, the ones Jeongguk had watched apply chapstick every eight minutes, the ones that curved into knowing smiles, the ones that had called him out without ever saying a direct word.
Jeongguk's hand was on his belt before he'd made the conscious decision to touch himself.
"Fuck," he breathed. The word was barely a whisper, swallowed by the wind and the night and the sound of his own zipper coming down. His cock sprang free, already leaking, the head slick with pre-cum that glistened in the moonlight. He wrapped his hand around the shaft—rough, desperate, the way he couldn't help himself and squeezed.
Jimin didn't move. Didn't stir. The soft rise and fall of his chest continued, steady, oblivious.
He doesn't know, Jeongguk thought, and the thought sent a spike of heat through his gut. He has no idea I'm here.
His hand started moving. Slow at first, because slow was what Jimin deserved. Jimin deserved worship, deserved reverence, deserved to be touched like he was something precious. But slow wasn't what Jeongguk's body wanted. His body wanted fast and hard and now, wanted to chase the release that had been building for weeks, wanted to paint the brick wall with cum and then slink home and pretend this had never happened.
He compromised. Medium pace. Long strokes from base to tip, his thumb swiping over the head on every upstroke, gathering the pre-cum and spreading it down the shaft. The wet sounds were obscene in the quiet night, but he couldn't stop them, couldn't stop any of it, couldn't stop looking at Jimin's sleeping face and imagining those lips wrapped around his cock, those eyes looking up at him, that voice saying his name in that soft, devastating way.
"Jimin," he whispered. The name was a confession. A crime. "Jimin, Jimin, Jimin—"
His pace increased. The fire escape creaked once, a low groan of metal, and Jeongguk froze, hand still wrapped around his cock, eyes fixed on the window. Jimin shifted. Just a small movement—a rustle of blankets, a murmur that might have been a word or might have been a dream. Then stillness again.
Jeongguk's breath came out ragged. He waited ten seconds. Twenty. When Jimin didn't move again, he resumed stroking, faster now, the edge approaching like a wave he could feel in his teeth.
The hair tie was still in his pocket. He fumbled for it with his free hand, pulled it out, pressed it to his nose as he jerked himself harder. The scent—or the idea of the scent, or the memory of the scent, or the desperate, pathetic hope of the scent, sent him spiraling toward the edge.
I'm going to cum, he thought. I'm going to cum on the fire escape outside his window like the fucking degenerate I am.
His hand was a blur. His hips were thrusting into his grip. The sounds he was making were barely human—grunts, whines, bitten-off moans that he tried to muffle with his own shoulder. Jimin's arm stretched across the mattress. Jimin's lips parted a little more. Jimin's chest rose and fell, rose and fell, rose and—
Jeongguk came with a strangled cry.
The first spurt hit the brick wall, thick and white. The second painted the fire escape railing. The third, fourth, fifth—his cock kept pulsing, kept pumping, kept emptying itself onto the cold metal while he bit down on his lip hard enough to taste blood. The orgasm was violent. It ripped through him like something with claws, left him shaking, left him weak-kneed, left him clutching the fire escape railing with one hand while the other milked the last drops from his spent cock.
In front of him, through the window, Jimin slept on, peaceful, unknowing, the fairy lights casting amber shadows across his delicate face.
Jeongguk stayed there for a long moment. Breathing. Trembling. Watching the evidence of his shame drip slowly down the brick wall.
Then he tucked himself back into his jeans, climbed down the fire escape, and walked home through the sleeping campus with the taste of blood in his mouth and the smell of Jimin's hair tie still clinging to his fingers.
He didn't sleep that night.
-
The lock on Jimin's apartment door was embarrassingly easy to pick.
Jeongguk had watched a tutorial on YouTube at three in the morning, his phone screen the only light in his dark bedroom, Jimin's blue scarf draped across his lap like a benediction. The video had been seventeen minutes long. He'd rewatched it four times. The tools he needed—a tension wrench, a rake pick had arrived two days later in an unmarked Amazon package, and he'd practiced on his own deadbolt until his fingers knew the movements by heart.
Now, standing in the fluorescent-lit hallway of Jimin's apartment building at one forty-seven in the morning, the tools felt like extensions of his own hands. The lock surrendered after eleven seconds. The door swung inward with a whisper of hinges, and Jeongguk stepped inside.
The apartment was small. A kitchenette to the left, a bathroom straight ahead, and a bedroom to the right, the bedroom whose window he'd stared at from a fire escape, whose curtains he'd memorized the pattern of, whose occupant had been sleeping peacefully three nights ago while Jeongguk painted the brick wall with his cum.
The air smelled like vanilla and something floral. Laundry detergent, maybe. Or shampoo. Or Jimin.
Jeongguk locked the door behind him. The click was loud in the silence.
He moved through the darkness with the ease of someone who'd already mapped this space in his fantasies, past the kitchenette with its single coffee mug drying on the rack, past the bathroom with its door half-open, toward the bedroom door that was already ajar. A sliver of amber light spilled through the gap. The fairy lights. They were still on, still glowing, still casting their warm glow over the bed where Jimin slept.
Except Jimin wasn't sleeping.
Jeongguk pushed the door open and stopped breathing.
The fairy lights traced the contours of the room—the polaroids on the walls, the desk beneath the window, the pale blue blanket rumpled at the foot of the mattress. And there, in the center of the bed, propped against a mountain of pillows with his legs spread and his eyes open and waiting, was Jimin.
"You're late," Jimin said. His voice was soft. Not surprised.
He was wearing a white t-shirt, oversized, slipping off one shoulder to reveal the elegant line of his collarbone. Below that—nothing. His legs were bare, pale against the dark sheets, and between them, between those soft thighs that Jeongguk had fantasized about for weeks, was the unmistakable shine of wetness.
"Late," Jeongguk repeated. The word came out strangled. His throat wasn't working properly. His brain wasn't working properly. Every drop of blood in his body had migrated south, leaving him light-headed and stupid and hard enough to pound nails.
"I expected you days ago." Jimin tilted his head, the blonde hair falling across his forehead in disarray. The expression on his face was one Jeongguk had never seen before—not the innocent smile, not the knowing smirk, not the wide-eyed curiosity. This was something else. Something hungry. "The window was getting cold."
The window.
Jeongguk's eyes flicked to it involuntarily, the same window he'd crouched beside three nights ago, the same curtains he'd peered through while he jerked himself raw. The glass was dark now, reflective, showing him his own face: eyes wide, jaw slack, a predator who'd walked into a trap and found himself caught.
"You knew," Jeongguk said.
"I left the curtain open for you." Jimin's hand drifted down his own stomach—over the white t-shirt, over the dip of his navel where the silver ring glinted in the amber light, lower. His fingers brushed the inside of his thigh, a feather touch that made his muscles twitch. "That night on the fire escape. I wasn't asleep."
The confession hit Jeongguk like a physical blow. His hand gripped the doorframe. His knuckles went white. "You were—"
"Watching you watch me." Jimin's fingers found their destination. The movement was hidden by the angle of his body, by the shadow between his legs, but Jeongguk didn't need to see it to know what was happening. The soft, wet sound was unmistakable. "Listening to you. The sounds you made. The way you said my name." His lips curved. His eyes were half-lidded, dark, focused entirely on Jeongguk's face. "You said it four times. I counted."
Jeongguk crossed the room in three strides. His knees hit the edge of the mattress. His hands found Jimin's thighs, those pale, warm, impossibly soft thighs and spread them wider. The fairy lights threw shadows across Jimin's body, across the lean stomach and the sharp hipbones and the place where his fingers were still moving, still circling, still making that wet, obscene sound.
"Show me," Jeongguk said in a broken voice. "Show me what you did while you listened."
Jimin's fingers parted his folds. The fairy lights illuminated everything—the delicate inner lips, pink and swollen and glistening with arousal, the tight entrance that clenched visibly at the exposure, the small, hooded clit that Jimin's middle finger was now circling with practiced slowness. The scent of him rose from the mattress, something sweet and musky, something that made Jeongguk's mouth fill with saliva.
"I thought about you," Jimin said. His voice had changed. Still soft, but breathier now. Unsteady at the edges. "When you were out there, making those desperate little noises, stroking yourself like you couldn't help it—I had my hand between my legs the whole time. I had to bite the pillow to keep quiet." His finger slipped inside himself, just the tip, and he made a sound that wasn't a moan, but a whimper. "I came when you did. I watched you spill all over the brick and I—nngh—"
His hips bucked. His finger had pushed deeper, and Jeongguk could see it now, the way the digit disappeared into that tight heat, the way the inner walls clenched around it, the way Jimin's thighs trembled with the effort of staying open.
"How many fingers," Jeongguk said. It wasn't a question.
"Just—one. Just one." Jimin's head fell back against the pillows. The column of his throat was exposed, pale and unmarked, and Jeongguk wanted to bite it. Wanted to suck bruises into that skin. Wanted to mark him so thoroughly that everyone would know. "I'm—I've never—"
"Never?" The confession jolted through Jeongguk like electricity. His hand found Jimin's wrist, stilling the movement. "You've never been fucked?"
Jimin's eyes met his. The innocence was back—not the mask, but something real, something vulnerable. "I've never wanted anyone to. Before you."
The words hung in the amber-lit air. Jeongguk's cock was straining against his jeans, leaking enough that he could feel the dampness spreading through the denim. But he didn't move to free himself. Didn't hurry. This moment—this first moment of honesty between them was too fragile to crush with his own need.
"Show me what you like," he said. His hand still circled Jimin's wrist, but he loosened his grip. "Show me how you touch yourself when you think about me."
Jimin's breath shuddered out of him. His finger still inside himself curled. The movement made his back arch, made the silver ring in his navel catch the light, made a fresh wave of slickness coat his fingers and drip onto the sheets. "I think about your hands," he said. Voice breaking on the last word. "Your fingers. They're so much bigger than mine. I think about how they would feel inside me, stretching me, and I—ah—"
His hips were moving now, grinding down against his own hand, the rhythm faltering and desperate. Jeongguk watched the finger slide in and out, watched the way the tight hole gripped and released, watched the slickness pool on the sheets beneath Jimin's ass. The scent was overwhelming. The sight was surreal. Jimin—innocent, blushing, oblivious Jimin was finger-fucking himself in the fairy-light glow, looking up at Jeongguk with eyes that were starting to glaze over.
"Let me," Jeongguk said. Not asking. The time for asking was over. He pulled Jimin's wrist away, watched the finger slide free with a wet pop, watched the empty hole clench around nothing. "I need to taste you. I've been thinking about it for weeks. The way you'd taste. The sounds you'd make. Let me."
Jimin's mouth opened and closed. His chest was heaving beneath the oversized t-shirt, nipples visibly hard through the thin cotton. "Yes," he said. The word was barely audible. "Yes, please, yes—"
Jeongguk lowered himself between Jimin's thighs like a man kneeling at an altar.
The first touch of his tongue was experimental—a flat, broad stroke that parted the folds and dragged from entrance to clit. The taste was exactly what he'd imagined and nothing like it. Salty and sweet and clean, with a musk that was uniquely Jimin, that had haunted his dreams, that he wanted to bury his face in and never come up for air.
"Oh—" Jimin's hips jerked. His hands found Jeongguk's hair, fingers threading through the dark strands and gripping tight. "Oh, oh—"
Jeongguk did it again. Slower this time, more deliberate. His tongue traced the outline of the inner lips, the delicate architecture of flesh that bloomed under his attention. The clit was a small pink pearl, hidden beneath its hood, and when Jeongguk closed his lips around it and sucked gently, Jimin made a sound that was closer to a sob than a moan.
"Jeongguk—Jeongguk, that's—I can't—"
"You can." The words vibrated against Jimin's cunt. Jeongguk lifted his head just enough to meet those desperate eyes. His chin was already slicked with wetness. "You've been teasing me for weeks. Leaving your things. Watching me lose my mind. You knew exactly what you were doing." His thumb found Jimin's clit, pressed down, circled. "Now you're going to take what you asked for."
Jimin's response was lost in a cry as Jeongguk's mouth returned to his cunt with renewed intensity.
The tongue that traced his folds was relentless. It probed at his entrance, dipping shallowly and pulling back, teasing with the promise of penetration but never quite delivering. When it finally pushed inside—when the muscle breached the tight ring of his opening and curled against his inner walls Jimin's entire body convulsed.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck—" Jimin's voice was climbing higher, louder, the syllables blurring together. "Your tongue, oh god, your tongue—"
Jeongguk fucked him with it. In and out, slow and deep, savoring the way Jimin's walls clenched and fluttered around the intrusion. His nose pressed against Jimin's clit with every thrust, and the friction made Jimin's thighs clamp around his head, to trap him in the heat and wet and scent of the body he'd been dreaming about for so long.
Finally.
The word pulsed through Jeongguk's mind like a heartbeat. He pulled his tongue out, replaced it with one finger—just the tip, then more, watching the knuckle disappear inside that tight, glistening hole. Jimin's back arched off the mattress. A high, keening whine escaped his throat.
"Is this what you wanted?" Jeongguk's voice was rough. His finger curled, searching, finding the spot that made Jimin's eyes roll back. "When you left your hair tie on my desk? When you dropped your earring in my pocket?"
"Yes—yes, I wanted—I wanted you to notice—"
"I noticed." A second finger joined the first. The stretch was visible, the delicate skin around Jimin's entrance turning pale with the pressure. "I noticed everything. The way you smell. The way you walk. The way you bite your lip when you're nervous. I've memorized you, Jimin."
The words were a confession, a release, a dam breaking. His fingers pumped faster. The wet sounds filled the room, obscene and rhythmic, accompanied by Jimin's broken cries and the creak of the mattress.
"I'm going to—I'm going to—" Jimin's warning dissolved into a wail as Jeongguk's fingers found his G-spot and pressed. Hard.
"No you're not." Jeongguk's thumb pressed down on Jimin's clit while his fingers stayed buried deep, motionless, holding him on the edge. "Not yet. Not until I say."
Jimin's sob was the most beautiful sound Jeongguk had ever heard. Tears were gathering in his eyes, spilling over the lashes and tracking down his cheeks. His whole body was trembling, caught between the pleasure and the denial, his cunt clenching rhythmically around Jeongguk's unmoving fingers.
"Please," Jimin whispered. The word cracked in the middle. "Please, I need—I've been waiting—weeks, I've been waiting weeks—"
"I know." Jeongguk's voice was almost gentle. He withdrew his fingers slowly, watching the way Jimin's hole clung to them, watching the slickness stretch into gossamer threads that broke and fell onto the sheets. "But I've been waiting too. And I'm going to take my time with you."
He rose up on his knees, unbuttoned his jeans, and freed his cock.
Jimin's eyes widened. The tears were still falling, but the fear or was it awe? that crossed his face was something else entirely. "That's—that's not going to—"
"It will." Jeongguk's hand wrapped around his shaft. The head was purple, swollen, leaking a steady stream of pre-cum that dripped onto Jimin's stomach and pooled in the hollow of his navel. The lip piercing glinted as he smirked. "And you're going to take every inch."
Jeongguk's cock hung heavy between them, the flushed head beading another drop of pre-cum that splashed onto Jimin's stomach and slid down into the silver ring's small hollow. The fairy lights caught the slick mess, turning it gold. Jimin stared at the length of him—the thick shaft crossed with veins, the curve that angled slightly upward, the way Jeongguk's hand couldn't fully close around the base and his lips parted on a sound that never made it past his throat.
"Breathe," Jeongguk said. His voice had dropped into something low and rough, a register that vibrated in Jimin's chest. "You stopped breathing."
Jimin sucked in air. The exhale shuddered out of him. "I didn't—I didn't know they came that big."
"They don't." The smile that curved Jeongguk's mouth was dark and satisfied. He leaned forward, planting one hand beside Jimin's shoulder, the other still wrapped around his shaft. The position caged Jimin in, hips pressed open by Jeongguk's knees, the oversized t-shirt rucked up to his armpits. "Just me."
His free hand moved to Jimin's cunt. Two fingers parted the slick folds, spreading him open to the amber light. The inner lips were puffy now, deep rose against the pale of his thighs, and the hole at the center clenched on nothing, a tiny frantic flutter that made Jeongguk's cock jerk in his grip.
"Look at yourself. Such a mess for me, hm? You're dripping," Jeongguk observed. He gathered the wetness on his fingers, smeared it across Jimin's clit in a slow circle. The nub was swollen enough to peek from its hood. "The sheets are soaked. You're going to ruin this mattress."
"I don't—ah—care." Jimin's hips rolled upward, chasing the pressure. "Please. Please. I need something inside me. Your fingers, your tongue, your—your—"
"My cock."
Jimin's eyes, still glazed with unshed tears, met his. The desperation in them was a physical force. "Yes. That. Please."
Jeongguk pulled his fingers away. The slick strings that stretched between them snapped and fell. He brought the wet digits to his mouth, sucked them clean with a sound that was half-groan, and then repositioned himself between Jimin's thighs. The head of his cock nudged against the slippery folds, parting them, sliding through the mess without entering. Just a tease.
"I'm not going to be gentle," Jeongguk said. "You're tight. You've never taken anything bigger than your own fingers. And I'm going to push inside you raw, nothing between us—and you're going to feel every inch split you open."
Jimin's answer was a whimper that broke into a sob. His hands, which had been fisted in the sheets, flew up to grip Jeongguk's shoulders. The nails bit in. "I want that. I want to feel you. I've been touching myself for weeks thinking about it, and I—I don't want gentle. I want you."
"Then hold still."
Jeongguk's left hand clamped down on Jimin's hip, pressing him into the mattress. The bones were sharp under the skin, delicate and breakable. His right hand guided his cock, notching the thick head against the entrance that fluttered and leaked and waited.
The first push was a blunt, unforgiving pressure.
Jimin's mouth opened on a silent scream. His eyes went wide, the tears spilling over, tracking sideways into his hair. The head stretched him wider than his own two fingers ever had—wider than he'd imagined, wider than should be possible and the ring of muscle at his entrance fought the intrusion with a fierce, involuntary resistance.
"Fuck," Jeongguk hissed. The sensation was overwhelming. Tight, wet, scorching heat gripping the tip of him like a fist. He held himself there, just the head buried in that clutching cunt, and watched Jimin's face contort through the initial shock. "Look at me."
Jimin's eyes, swimming with tears, found his. The innocence was still there, still blinking through the overwhelm, but something else had joined it. Hunger. A desperate, frantic need that wouldn't let him look away.
"You're taking it," Jeongguk said. His thumb stroked the jut of Jimin's hipbone. "The hardest part. The first stretch. You're doing so well."
A sob broke from Jimin's chest. "It's—it's so much—"
"I know." Jeongguk's hips inched forward. Another centimeter. Then another. The shaft disappeared into that impossible tightness, the inner walls parting reluctantly, clinging to every ridge and vein. "But you wanted this. You left your things for me. You watched me from the window. You've been begging for this without saying the words."
"I—I was—nnh—" Jimin's head thrashed on the pillow. The blonde hair was dark with sweat at the temples. The fairy lights caught the tears on his cheeks and made them glitter. "I was scared. I didn't know how to—how to ask—"
"You don't have to ask anymore." Jeongguk's hips kept moving. The pressure was maddening, the way Jimin's cunt gripped him, the way the slickness eased the passage but couldn't eliminate the burn. Halfway in now. Then more. The bulge of his cock was visible in Jimin's lower belly, a subtle distension that made Jeongguk groan. "You're going to take all of it. Every inch. And you're going to look at me while you do."
Jimin's sob cracked into a moan. His inner walls fluttered, a spasm that milked Jeongguk's shaft and made them both gasp. The nails on Jeongguk's shoulders dug deeper, leaving crescents that would bruise by morning.
"Please," Jimin whispered. The word was shredded. "Please, I need—I need—"
"Need what?" Jeongguk's voice was strained now. The control he'd been clinging to was fraying at the edges. "Tell me. Use your words."
"I need you to—to just—" Jimin's hips bucked upward, a mindless, desperate movement that forced another inch of cock into his straining cunt. The sound he made was animal. Wild. "Fuck me. Please just fuck me. I can't—I can't wait anymore—"
Jeongguk's restraint snapped.
He shoved in to the hilt.
The single thrust buried his entire length in one brutal movement. The slap of skin on skin was loud in the small room, drowned out only by Jimin's raw scream. Jeongguk's balls pressed tight against Jimin's ass, the coarse hair scratching sensitive skin, and his cock was so deep he could feel the firm nudge of Jimin's cervix against the tip.
Jimin's body locked up. His back arched off the mattress, the silver ring catching the light, his eyes rolling back until only the whites showed. The cunt around Jeongguk's cock convulsed, a series of rhythmic, squeezing contractions that signaled an orgasm crashing through him without warning.
"That's it," Jeongguk growled. His hips stayed flush against Jimin, not moving, letting him ride it out. "Cum on my cock. First time I'm inside you and you're already falling apart."
Jimin's scream dissolved into choked sobs. His thighs, clamped around Jeongguk's waist, trembled violently. The wetness gushed around Jeongguk's shaft, soaking his pubic hair, dripping down his balls, pooling on the already ruined sheets. The scent of sex—musk and salt and something sweet thickened the air.
When the spasms finally eased, Jimin collapsed back onto the mattress. His chest heaved. His eyes, when they opened, were glassy and unfocused. "I—I didn't mean to—"
"Didn't mean to cum the second I got my cock inside you?" Jeongguk's lips curved. He still hadn't moved, still buried to the root in that fluttering heat. "I'll take it as a compliment."
Jimin's laugh was a watery, broken thing. "It's—you're just—so deep. I can feel you in my stomach."
"Good." Jeongguk's hips drew back. The withdrawal was slow, deliberate, letting Jimin feel every ridge and vein dragging against his inner walls. When only the head remained, he paused. "Now I'm going to fuck you properly."
The first real thrust slammed home.
Jimin's cry was muffled by his own hand clapping over his mouth. Jeongguk reached up and pulled it away, pinning both wrists above Jimin's head with one large hand. The other hand stayed on his hip, fingers digging into the flesh hard enough to leave bruises.
"No," Jeongguk said. "I want to hear every sound. The whole building can hear for all I care. You're not hiding from me."
"Jeongguk—ah—ah—ah—" The rhythm cut Jimin's voice into staccato fragments. Each thrust drove the air from his lungs, replaced it with a high, keening whine. The angle was punishing, Jeongguk’s hips pistoning into him with a force that scooted his body up the mattress inch by inch. The headboard knocked against the wall. The fairy lights swayed.
The stretch was still there, the burn of being filled beyond what his body was built for, but underneath it, pleasure was building. A deep, resonant ache that radiated outward from his core. The G-spot that Jeongguk's cock dragged across on every downstroke sent jolts of electricity through his nerves.
"Look at you," Jeongguk breathed. His eyes were fixed on the place where their bodies joined, where his thick cock disappeared into Jimin's puffy, glistening cunt with wet, obscene squelches. "Taking it so well. Such a tight little hole, and you're swallowing me whole."
Jimin's only response was a sob. The tears were flowing freely now, mixing with the sweat on his cheeks, dripping onto the pillow. His bound hands flexed uselessly above his head. His legs, still wrapped around Jeongguk's waist, squeezed with every thrust.
Jeongguk's pace increased. The bed frame groaned. The wet sounds grew louder, slicker, punctuated by the slap of his balls against the curve of Jimin's ass. He could feel another orgasm building in the way Jimin's walls started to flutter—irregular, frantic clenches that signaled he was close again.
"Not yet." Jeongguk's hand left Jimin's hip and pressed down on his lower belly, right over the slight bulge of his own cock. The added pressure made Jimin wail. "You're going to wait. You're going to hold it until I tell you."
"I can't—I can't, I can't, I can't—" Jimin's voice had gone high and desperate, the words running together into a single, sobbing plea. "It's too much, Jeongguk, please—"
"Open your mouth."
Jimin's tear-streaked face contorted with confusion. His lips, swollen and red, parted on a question he didn't voice.
Jeongguk leaned down. The movement pressed his chest against Jimin's, the t-shirt fabric sticking to sweat. His hips stopped moving, buried deep, holding still, and his free hand came up to grip Jimin's jaw. His thumb pressed into the soft hollow beneath the bone, forcing his mouth wider.
"Tongue out," Jeongguk said.
The command was quiet. Jimin's tongue extended past his lips—pink, wet and trembling.
Jeongguk gathered saliva in his mouth and let it drip.
The first glob landed on Jimin's tongue and slid down his throat. The second splashed onto his lips, dripped down his chin. The third, a thick string that stretched from Jeongguk's lip ring before breaking, fell directly into the waiting cavern of Jimin's open mouth.
"Swallow," Jeongguk said.
Jimin's throat bobbed. The taste of Jeongguk flooded his senses. The obscenity of it, the degradation, the ownership, sent a fresh wave of slickness gushing around the cock still buried in his cunt.
"Good boy." Jeongguk's thumb stroked Jimin's jaw once before releasing it. His hips drew back. "Now I'm going to make you cum again. And this time, you're going to scream so loud the neighbors call the police."
The thrust that followed was brutal.
Not the controlled, rhythmic pounding from before, this was something feral. Jeongguk's hips snapped forward with the full force of his athletic body, driving his cock into Jimin's cervix with every stroke. The hand pinning Jimin's wrists tightened. The hand on his belly pressed down harder, adding pressure to the place where the thick head battered his deepest point.
Jimin's screams were wordless now. Just sounds, high and broken, sobbing and keening, a symphony of overwhelm that bounced off the walls. His cunt was a vice, squeezing and releasing in arrhythmic spasms, the slickness so copious it splattered with every thrust.
"Who does this pussy belong to?" Jeongguk's voice was a growl. His lip ring caught the light as he spoke. "Who's been thinking about ruining you for weeks?"
"You—you—it's yours—it's always been yours—" Jimin's answer dissolved into a wail as his second orgasm hit. This one was violent. His entire body seized, back arching so sharply that only his shoulders and hips stayed on the mattress. The cunt around Jeongguk's cock snapped—a series of deep, rhythmic convulsions that milked his shaft with brutal efficiency.
Jeongguk didn't stop. He fucked through the climax, hips never faltering, driving into the fluttering heat with relentless precision. Jimin's screams ratcheted higher, the overstimulation pushing him past pleasure into something raw and electric.
"Too much—too much—I can't—" The sobs were genuine now, tears and sweat and saliva mixing into a mess that smeared across his cheeks.
"You can." Jeongguk's pace increased. "You're going to give me one more. One more and then I'll fill you up. You want that? Want me to pump you full of cum?"
Jimin's nod was frantic. His voice, when it came, was a wrecked, desperate rasp. "Yes. Yes, please, fill me up, I need it, I need your cum, please—"
The begging shattered what was left of Jeongguk's control. His hips stuttered. The rhythm broke into something wild and erratic—deep, grinding thrusts that buried him to the hilt and held there, grinding against the cervix that had softened and started to open. The sensation of that inner gate beginning to yield was what pushed him over the edge.
"I'm going to cum," Jeongguk gritted out. His hand left Jimin's belly and clamped onto his hip, pulling him impossibly closer. "I'm going to cum so deep inside you that you taste it."
Jimin's third orgasm hit at the same moment Jeongguk's cock erupted.
The first spurt of cum was a hot, thick flood that painted Jimin's inner walls white. The second and third followed in rapid pulses, filling the tight channel until it overflowed, the excess leaking around Jeongguk's still pumping shaft and dripping onto the sheets. Jimin's scream was silent, mouth wide, eyes rolled back, body suspended in a trembling arch.
Jeongguk buried his face in Jimin's neck and groaned through the rest of his release. The pulses went on and on, each one weaker than the last, until his cock was twitching with hypersensitivity and his balls felt empty. His hand finally released Jimin's wrists, and the smaller boy's arms dropped limp to the mattress, fingers curled inward like dead spiders.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. The only sounds were their ragged breathing. The fairy lights, somehow still glowing, cast their light over the wreckage of the bed: the soaked sheets, the trembling body, the cock still buried inside its tight heat.
Then Jeongguk lifted his head. Looked down at Jimin's face—the tear tracks, the swollen lips, the glassy, blissed-out eyes. A string of saliva still connected the corner of his mouth to the pillow.
"You're leaking," Jeongguk observed. He shifted his hips just enough to see the white fluid seeping out around his still-hard cock. "I came so much you can't hold it all."
Jimin's laugh was weak, dazed. "You—you're still hard."
"I'm not finished with you yet." Jeongguk's hips rolled—a slow, shallow grind that made Jimin whimper. "But first, I want to taste myself inside you."
He pulled out. The sound was obscene—a wet, sucking pop followed by a gush of cum that dripped down Jimin's thighs. Before Jimin could protest the emptiness, Jeongguk was already lowering his mouth to that messy, used cunt, tongue lapping through the mixture of their fluids with obscene, hungry sounds.
Jimin's broken moan was his only reply.
The taste of their combined release coated Jeongguk's tongue as he lapped through the mess between Jimin's thighs. The cum had begun to cool, turning from hot and thick to lukewarm and slick, but the flavor—salty, musky, tinged with the sweetness of Jimin's own arousal was addictive. He dragged the flat of his tongue from the perineum up through the swollen folds, gathering every drop he could reach, and pressed a kiss to the oversensitive clit that made Jimin jerk and keen.
"Sensitive," Jimin whimpered. His hands, finally free, had found Jeongguk's hair again. The grip was weak, exhausted fingers threading through dark strands without the strength to pull. "I can't—I don't think I can take any more—"
Jeongguk lifted his mouth from the dripping cunt. His chin glistened. "You don't have a choice."
He rose onto his knees, towering over Jimin's wrecked body. The smaller boy looked destroyed—blonde hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, cheeks tracked with dried tears, lips swollen from crying out. The oversized t-shirt had twisted around his torso. His cunt was a mess of pink flesh and white fluid, still leaking onto the ruined sheets.
"Get on your stomach," Jeongguk said.
Jimin's glassy eyes blinked up at him. "What?"
"Stomach. Now." The command left no room for hesitation.
Jimin's limbs moved slowly, uncoordinated, the aftermath of three orgasms making his muscles soft and uncooperative. He rolled onto his belly with a grunt, the motion pressing his spent cunt into the wet spot on the mattress. The position put his ass on display— round cheeks, pale and unmarked, still trembling from the exertion of being fucked open.
Jeongguk's cock throbbed at the sight. Still hard. Still leaking. The head was slick with a mixture of his own cum and Jimin's juices, and a fresh bead of pre-cum welled at the slit as he stared at the untouched hole between those cheeks. Tight. Pink. Winking at him with each shallow breath Jimin took.
"I'm going to eat your ass now," Jeongguk said casually. As if he were announcing what he'd had for lunch.
Jimin's head lifted from the pillow. His expression was somewhere between shock and exhausted acceptance. "You're—my what?"
"This." Jeongguk's thumb pressed against the tight furl of Jimin's asshole. The ring of muscle clenched reflexively, trying to reject the intrusion, but the pad of his thumb stayed firm—claiming the space. "This little hole. I'm going to put my tongue inside it."
"I've never—no one's ever—" Jimin's protest dissolved into a shaky exhale as Jeongguk's thumb began to circle.
"I know." The circling continued. "That's why I'm doing it. Everything I take from you tonight is something no one else has ever had." He leaned down, his mouth hovering over the swell of Jimin's left cheek, and bit just hard enough to make the muscle jump. "You're mine. Every part of you. Even the parts you didn't know existed."
He released the cheek and shifted lower. His hands gripped the meat of Jimin's ass, thumbs digging into the crease where thigh met cheek, and spread him open. The position was obscene—Jimin face-down, legs splayed, the most intimate part of his body exposed to the amber light and Jeongguk's hungry gaze.
The smell here was different. Muskier, deeper. It filled Jeongguk's nostrils and made his mouth flood with saliva. He lowered his face between the parted cheeks and exhaled—a hot, deliberate breath that ghosted over the sensitive skin and made Jimin's entire body shudder.
"Jeongguk—" Jimin's voice was muffled by the pillow.
The first lick was a broad, flat stroke that started at Jimin's perineum and dragged upward over the tight hole. The taste was clean—salt and skin and something uniquely Jimin that Jeongguk had been craving without knowing it. The texture was different from his cunt. Rougher. The ridges of the sphincter caught against Jeongguk's tongue as he traced them.
"Oh," Jimin breathed. The word was small, surprised. "Oh, that's—that's—"
Jeongguk did it again. Slower this time. The tip of his tongue pointed pressing into the center of the furl with gentle, insistent pressure. The muscle resisted for a heartbeat, then softened. Allowing the exploration.
"That's what?" Jeongguk's voice vibrated against the sensitive skin. His tongue circled the rim, tracing the puckered edge, flicking over the tiny ridges that contracted with every beat of Jimin's heart. "Weird? Dirty?"
"Yes—no—I don't—" Jimin's hips squirmed. The movement pressed his cunt harder into the mattress, and the friction made him gasp. "It feels—I can feel your tongue—"
"That's the point." Jeongguk sealed his mouth over the hole and sucked.
The sound Jimin made was unlike anything he'd produced before—a high, reedy keen that cracked in the middle. His hands scrabbled at the sheets, finding no purchase, and his thighs tried to close. Jeongguk's grip on his ass held him open, kept him exposed, kept him available.
"You're going to cum from this," Jeongguk said between licks. The words were punctuated by the wet sounds of his mouth working—sucking, lapping, tracing patterns into the sensitized skin. "Just from my tongue in your ass. You're going to soak these sheets again, and then you're going to suck my cock."
Jimin's response was incoherent—a string of syllables that might have been "please" or "no" or "more." The pillow had stolen his voice, muffling everything into soft, desperate sounds.
Jeongguk's tongue breached him.
The entry was shallow, just the tip pushing past the tight ring of muscle, but the sensation was electric. Jimin's entire body seized. His ass clenched around the intrusion, the muscles fluttering in a series of rapid, involuntary spasms that milked Jeongguk's tongue. The taste intensified—musk and salt and the faintest hint of something alkaline and Jeongguk groaned into the tight heat.
"Fuck," he breathed, pulling back just enough to speak. The word was thick with saliva and arousal. "You're so tight here. Tighter than your pussy. I'm going to have to work to get my cock in this hole."
Jimin's reply was a sob. His hips were grinding now, a helpless unconscious rhythm that rubbed his clit against the wet sheets and pushed his ass back against Jeongguk's mouth. Conflicting desires, competing sensations, all of it overwhelming his exhausted nervous system.
Jeongguk's tongue plunged deeper. The ring of muscle stretched to accommodate the intrusion, then clenched down as if trying to trap it inside. He fucked the tight hole with shallow, rapid thrusts, in and out, while his nose pressed against Jimin's tailbone and his chin dripped saliva onto the already-soaked mattress.
"Turn over," Jeongguk commanded, pulling away. His lips were slick. "On your back. Head hanging off the edge of the bed."
Jimin's movements were sluggish, drunk on sensation. He flopped onto his back with none of his usual grace, the t-shirt now completely rucked around his armpits. His eyes half-lidded, pupils blown so wide the brown was nearly black found Jeongguk's face. The question in them was unspoken but clear: What now?
"Scoot up. Head over the edge." Jeongguk guided him with hands on his hips, positioning him until his head hung off the side of the mattress, throat exposed, mouth naturally open from the angle. The fairy lights illuminated the column of his neck, the delicate Adam's apple, the soft underside of his jaw.
Jeongguk stood beside the bed. His cock jutted out from his body, thick and flushed and still slick with the evidence of their earlier activities. From this angle—looking down at Jimin's inverted face, at the parted lips and the waiting tongue the size difference was obscene. His shaft was nearly as long as Jimin's entire face.
"Open wider," Jeongguk said.
Jimin's jaw dropped. The inside of his mouth was pink and wet and welcoming, the uvula visible at the back of his throat. Jeongguk traced the head of his cock across Jimin's lips—a slow, deliberate smear that left a trail of pre-cum and residual slickness. The taste made Jimin's tongue dart out, chasing the flavor.
"That's it. Taste yourself on my cock. Taste your cunt and your ass and my cum all mixed together." Jeongguk's voice had dropped into that low register again, the one that vibrated in Jimin's chest and made his cunt clench despite its exhaustion. "Now I'm going to fuck your throat. And you're going to take every inch."
He fed the head past Jimin's lips.
The warmth of that mouth, the soft palate, the wet tongue, the hard ridge of teeth that Jimin was careful to cover enveloped him. Jeongguk's hips inched forward, and his cock slid deeper, past the tongue and into the tight channel of Jimin's throat. The reverse angle did exactly what it was designed to do: it aligned mouth and esophagus into a single, straight passage.
Jimin gagged.
The sound was wet and strangled, his throat convulsing around the intrusion. Saliva flooded his mouth, spilling over his lips and dripping up his cheeks—or down, from Jeongguk's perspective toward his eyes. His hands flew up and gripped Jeongguk's thighs, nails digging into the muscle.
"Breathe through your nose," Jeongguk instructed. His hand found Jimin's throat, pressing lightly on the outside where he could feel the bulge of his own cock distorting the slender column. "You're going to learn to take it. I'm going to teach you."
He withdrew slightly just enough to let Jimin gasp a wet, desperate breath, then thrust back in. Deeper this time. The head of his cock nudged the back of Jimin's throat and pushed past, entering the esophagus with a tight, slick pop. Jimin's gag reflex triggered again, the muscles spasming around the shaft, but Jeongguk held steady.
"Good boy," Jeongguk groaned. The sensation was overwhelming—wet heat and tight pressure and the obscene visual of his cock disappearing into that angelic face. "You're taking it so well. Such a good little throat for me to fuck."
He began to move. Not the brutal, punishing rhythm he'd used on Jimin's cunt—this was slower, more controlled, each thrust measured and deliberate. He watched Jimin's throat distend with every downstroke, watched the tears stream from those glassy eyes and pool in the hollows of his eye sockets, watched the saliva bubble and froth around his lips.
"When I asked you to suck my cock," Jeongguk said, his voice strained with the effort of restraint, "I didn't mean with your mouth." His hips snapped forward, burying himself to the hilt. "I meant with your throat."
He held there fully sheathed, every inch buried in that clutching passage, and reached down with one hand. His fingers found Jimin's cunt, still messy and wet and oversensitive, and pressed two inside without warning.
The dual sensation made Jimin's body convulse. His throat constricted around Jeongguk's cock, and his cunt clamped down on Jeongguk's fingers, and the scream he tried to produce was completely silenced by the shaft filling his airway. The only sound that escaped was a wet, muffled gurgle.
"That's it," Jeongguk breathed. His fingers pumped in time with his thrusts—slow, then faster, then erratic. "Choke on it. Choke on my cock while I finger this used little pussy. You're so full. Both holes stuffed. Can't even scream, can you?"
Jimin's nails raked down Jeongguk's thighs, leaving red lines that would sting for days. His hips bucked against the fingers inside him, the overstimulation tipping past pain into something that made his vision white out. The lack of air, the heavy weight of Jeongguk's balls on his face, the relentless pounding in his throat—all of it blurred together into a single, overwhelming sensation that had no name.
Jeongguk pulled out. A string of saliva connected his cock to Jimin's swollen lips, stretching thin before it snapped. Jimin gasped, sucked in air, coughed a wet, ragged sound that shook his entire frame.
"Turn over," Jeongguk said. "Ass up. Face down."
Jimin couldn't speak. His voice was gone—wrecked by screaming and choking and the brutal intrusion of Jeongguk's cock. But his body understood. He rolled onto his stomach, dragged his knees up, pressed his cheek into the wet pillow and lifted his ass into the air.
The position was submission itself. Face down, ass up, every hole exposed and waiting.
Jeongguk mounted the bed behind him. His cock still hard, still leaking, still insatiable slid between Jimin's ass cheeks, the shaft nestling into the crease. He didn't enter yet. Just rocked there, letting Jimin feel the weight and heat and threat of him.
"Touch yourself," Jeongguk commanded. "Finger your cunt while I eat your ass again. I want you dripping before I decide which hole to fuck next."
Jimin's hand snaked between his legs. Two fingers, his own this time, smaller and less demanding than Jeongguk's pushed into his soaked entrance with a wet squelch. The movement was clumsy, his coordination shot from exhaustion, but the intent was clear.
Jeongguk spread his cheeks and buried his face between them. His tongue found the still-soft hole and pushed inside, deeper than before, bolder, the taste now tinged with the salt of Jimin's sweat and the faint traces of his own pre-cum. Below, he could hear the wet sounds of Jimin's fingers working in and out of his cunt, the rhythm faltering and desperate.
"You're going to cum like this," Jeongguk said against the sensitive skin. His tongue thrust deeper. "With my tongue in your ass and your fingers in your pussy. And after you come, I'm going to flip you over and fuck your throat again until I fill your stomach with cum."
Jimin's sob was muffled by the pillow. His fingers moved faster. His hips rocked backward, chasing Jeongguk's tongue, and forward, chasing his own hand. The dual stimulation—the wet muscle probing his ass, the slender fingers stretching his cunt built with terrifying speed.
"Jeongguk—" The name was barely a whisper, shredded and raw. "I'm—I can't—"
"Cum." Jeongguk's tongue curled inside him, pressing against the thin wall of muscle that separated ass from cunt. "Cum now. Soak your hand. Soak the bed. Let me feel you fall apart on my tongue."
Jimin's fourth orgasm was silent. His mouth opened on a scream that had no voice left to give, his eyes rolled back, and his cunt clamped down on his own fingers with brutal, rhythmic contractions. The wetness gushed—a clear fluid that splattered his hand and dripped onto the already-ruined sheets. His ass clenched around Jeongguk's tongue with the same frantic rhythm, the muscles fluttering and squeezing and releasing in waves.
Jeongguk didn't stop. His tongue kept working through the climax, pressing deeper, licking wider, drawing out every last spasm until Jimin's body went limp. The smaller boy collapsed onto the mattress, chest heaving, limbs trembling, completely and utterly wrecked.
Jeongguk rose onto his knees. His cock was purple now, angry and neglected, pre-cum dripping in a steady stream onto Jimin's lower back. He fisted the shaft and stroked once, twice, his eyes fixed on the body beneath him.
"Not finished," he said. His voice was rough. "Get on your back again. Head over the edge. I'm going to use your throat until I cum, and you're going to swallow every drop."
Jimin's response was a weak, trembling nod. His body moved on autopilot—rolling, positioning, hanging his head off the mattress with his mouth already open and waiting. The tears were still falling, silent and steady, tracking into his hairline.
Jeongguk stood beside the bed. Gripped his cock. Fed it past those swollen lips and into the waiting heat of Jimin's throat.
"Good boy," he breathed. And began to fuck.
The wet heat of Jimin's throat gripped Jeongguk's cock like a second cunt—tighter in some ways, smoother in others, the muscles of the esophagus rippling in involuntary swallows that massaged the shaft from root to tip. He stood beside the bed, feet planted on the hardwood floor, one hand braced against the mattress and the other wrapped around Jimin's slender throat. Through the skin, through the delicate cartilage and the straining tendons, he could feel the bulge of his own cock moving. Claiming it from the inside out.
"Look at that," Jeongguk growled. His hips rolled forward, slow, a lazy grind that buried another inch into the waiting channel. Jimin's throat stretched to accommodate him, the skin distending with obscene clarity. "You can see me in your throat. Right there." He pressed his thumb against the bulge. "That's my cock. That's how deep I am inside you."
Jimin's response was a wet, strangled gurgle. Saliva frothed around his lips, spilling over his cheeks and pooling in the hollows of his eye sockets. The reverse angle turned his face into a basin—tears and spit and pre-cum collecting in the delicate architecture of his features. His hands, limp at his sides a moment before, lifted and gripped Jeongguk's thighs. The nails left crescent moons in the muscle. Not pushing. Just anchoring.
"Breathe through your nose," Jeongguk reminded him. The command was almost gentle. Almost. "You're doing so well. Taking me so deep. I knew this throat was made for fucking."
He withdrew—a long, slow drag that let Jimin's airway open and his lungs suck in a desperate, whistling breath, then thrust back in. Faster. The head of his cock punched past the epiglottis and into the esophagus with a slick pop that he felt more than heard. Jimin's gag reflex triggered, the muscles convulsing around the shaft, but there was nowhere for the intrusion to go. Just deeper. Always deeper.
From this angle—standing above him, looking down at the upside-down features Jeongguk could catalog every detail. The swollen lips stretched around his girth, the corners of his mouth shiny with split saliva. The flutter of his eyelashes, wet and clumped from crying. The delicate flare of his nostrils, working overtime to pull in oxygen between thrusts.
"You know what I'm going to do?" Jeongguk's voice had dropped into that register—the one that rumbled in his chest and vibrated through his cock into Jimin's throat. "I'm going to cum down here. Past your gag reflex. Past your swallowing reflex. Straight into your stomach. And you're going to feel it. You're going to feel my cum filling you up from the inside, and there's nothing you can do except take it."
Jimin's only answer was a choked whimper. The sound traveled up through Jeongguk's shaft, a vibration that made his balls tighten and his rhythm stutter. He was close. The visual—Jimin's wrecked face, his own cock disappearing into that angelic throat, the bulge moving under his thumb had him teetering on the edge. But he wasn't finished. Not yet.
He pulled out completely. Jimin gasped, coughed, sucked in air with a sound like ripping fabric. A bridge of saliva connected the head of Jeongguk's cock to Jimin's bottom lip, thick and cloudy, stretching thin before it snapped and dripped onto his cheek.
"Don't move," Jeongguk said.
He walked around the bed, his erection bobbing with each step, the shaft slick and shiny. The view from this side was different. Jimin's body sprawled across the mattress, head hanging off one edge, legs splayed toward the other. His chest rose and fell with ragged breaths. His belly—flat and soft, the navel ring glinting trembled with exhaustion. Lower, between his spread thighs, his cunt was a disaster. Swollen lips, pink and puffy, still leaking the combined fluids of their earlier encounters. His ass, visible in the gap between his thighs, was wet with saliva, the tight hole still soft and slightly open from Jeongguk's tongue.
"Beautiful," Jeongguk murmured. The word wasn't for Jimin. It was for himself—an acknowledgment of the destruction he'd wrought. "You look absolutely fucking ruined."
He climbed onto the bed, positioning himself above Jimin's body. His knees bracketed Jimin's hips. His cock, thick and flushed and dripping hovered over Jimin's belly. From this angle, the size difference was absurd. The head of his cock reached past Jimin's navel, the shaft casting a shadow across the silver ring. If he pushed in, if he fucked the way he wanted to fuck, he'd rearrange organs. He'd leave a permanent impression.
But not yet. That was for another night. Tonight, he had other plans.
"Keep your head where it is," Jeongguk said. "Mouth open. Tongue out."
Jimin's jaw dropped. His tongue—pink and soft and trembling extended past his lips. The position was obscene: an offering, a receptacle, a hole waiting to be filled.
Jeongguk shuffled forward on his knees. His cock dragged across Jimin's chest, leaving a trail of pre-cum on the sweat-damp skin. He positioned himself so that the head of his cock rested on Jimin's waiting tongue, the shaft extending backward over his face, the base of it nestled between his own thighs.
Then he began to fuck down into Jimin's mouth.
The angle was different from before. Shallower in some ways, he couldn't reach the throat from this position, but more intimate. He could watch Jimin's eyes as he thrust. Could see the way his pupils dilated with each downstroke. Could catalog the micro-expressions that flickered across his ruined features: the flutter of surrender, the spark of overwhelmed pleasure, the brief, fleeting moments where his eyes rolled back and his consciousness seemed to flicker.
"Suck," Jeongguk commanded. "Suck the head. Use your tongue."
Jimin's lips closed around the glans. His tongue, that soft, wet muscle that had teased and tempted Jeongguk for weeks, curled around the ridge and flicked at the frenulum. The sensation was electric. Jeongguk's hips jerked, driving another inch into the wet heat, and Jimin's throat opened with practiced surrender.
"That's it. That's— fuck —that's good." Jeongguk's voice cracked. The control he'd maintained through three of Jimin's orgasms was fraying. The sight of his cock pumping between those swollen lips, the feel of that clever tongue tracing the veins on his shaft, the sounds—wet and sloppy and obscene, all of it was pushing him toward the edge.
His rhythm increased. Faster. Harder. The headboard knocked against the wall with each thrust. Jimin's throat opened and closed around him, the muscles learning, adapting, accepting.
"I'm going to cum," Jeongguk groaned. The words were strained, ripped from somewhere deep in his chest. "I'm going to fill your mouth. And you're going to swallow. Every. Last. Drop."
He pulled out, not all the way, just enough to rest the head on Jimin's tongue and fisted the shaft with one hand. Two strokes. Three. His balls tightened. His vision narrowed to a single point of focus: Jimin's open mouth, Jimin's waiting tongue, Jimin's glassy eyes staring up at him with an expression that was equal parts exhaustion and adoration.
The orgasm hit like a fist to the spine.
The first pulse of cum shot across Jimin's tongue in a thick, white rope. Jeongguk groaned and watched as the second rope painted Jimin's soft palate. The third was thinner, splashing across his lips and dripping down his chin. The fourth and fifth were weaker, dribbling onto his tongue in a slow, steady stream.
"Swallow," Jeongguk commanded.
Jimin's throat worked. The cum disappeared, pulled down into his esophagus with a wet, audible gulp. His tongue darted out and collected the spill from his lips, chasing the taste, cleaning himself with an eagerness that made Jeongguk's spent cock twitch.
"More," Jeongguk said. He was still cumming—weaker now, thin spurts that welled at the slit and dripped onto Jimin's waiting tongue. "Take it all. Every drop. Don't waste a thing."
Jimin's mouth stayed open. His tongue stayed extended. His eyes—still glassy, still wrecked held Jeongguk's gaze with an intensity that was almost challenging. See? See how good I am for you? See how well I take what you give me?
Jeongguk's cock finally stilled. The last drops of cum had been swallowed, and Jimin's tongue was already cleaning the head—soft, kitten licks that made Jeongguk's over-sensitive nerves spark and jolt. He pulled back, hissing at the sensation, and collapsed onto the mattress beside Jimin's body.
For a long moment, the only sound in the room was breathing. Ragged and desperate. Two sets of lungs struggling to find equilibrium.
Then Jimin spoke.
"My throat hurts."
The words were barely audible, a shredded whisper that cracked on every syllable. His voice, usually sweet and melodic, was now a ruin of what it had been. Jeongguk's cum had done that. Jeongguk's cock had done that. A surge of satisfaction—dark and possessive curled through his chest.
"Good," Jeongguk said. He rolled onto his side and propped himself on one elbow, looking down at Jimin's wrecked face. "Now every time you swallow, every time you speak, every time you try to sing along to whatever pop song Taehyung's blasting—you're going to remember this. You're going to remember my cock in your throat. You're going to remember choking on it."
Jimin's lips curved into something that might have been a smile. His eyes, still glassy, tracked Jeongguk's face with a focus that seemed to cost him tremendous effort. "You're a monster."
"Mm." Jeongguk leaned down and pressed a kiss to Jimin's forehead. The gesture was almost tender—a stark contrast to the brutality of moments before. "But I'm your monster now."
Jimin's hand found Jeongguk's. His fingers—smaller, slimmer, still trembling from exhaustion interlaced with Jeongguk's and squeezed. The grip was weak. Barely there. But the intent was clear.
"Stay," Jimin whispered. "Don't go. Not yet."
Jeongguk looked at the ruined bed—sheets soaked with sweat and cum and squirt, pillows damp with tears and saliva. He looked at Jimin's body—marked with the evidence of everything they'd done, bruises already forming on his hips where Jeongguk's grip had been too tight. He looked at the fairy lights, still casting their amber glow, still turning this wreckage into something almost beautiful.
"I'm not going anywhere," Jeongguk said. "But we need to get you cleaned up."
He slid off the bed and walked to the bathroom. His legs were unsteady, the aftermath of his own orgasm making his muscles soft and uncooperative, but he forced himself to move with purpose. He wet a washcloth with warm water, found a clean towel in the cabinet, and returned to the bedroom.
Jimin hadn't moved. His head was still hanging off the edge of the bed, his neck bent at an angle that would ache tomorrow. Jeongguk lifted him, one arm under his shoulders, the other under his knees and repositioned him on the mattress. Properly this time. Head on a pillow. Limbs arranged in something approximating comfort.
"This is going to be cold," Jeongguk warned, and pressed the warm washcloth between Jimin's thighs.
Jimin hissed at the contact. His oversensitive cunt clenched, a reflexive spasm that pushed out another trickle of fluid, but he didn't pull away. His eyes stayed fixed on Jeongguk's face, watching with an expression that was difficult to read. Gratitude? Bewilderment? Love? Jeongguk didn't know. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.
"You broke into my apartment," Jimin said. His voice was still wrecked, still barely above a whisper. "You watched me sleep. You—" He paused, swallowing painfully. "You've been following me."
"Yes." No point in denying it. Not now. Not after everything.
"I should be scared." Jimin's brow furrowed. The washcloth moved higher, cleaning the mess from his belly, and he shivered at the sensation. "I should be—I should call someone. The police. Taehyung. Someone. "
"But you won't."
"No." The word was soft and certain. "I won't."
Jeongguk finished cleaning him in silence. The washcloth moved over his chest, his neck, his face, wiping away the tears and the saliva and the last traces of cum. When he was done, he tossed the soiled cloth toward the bathroom.
"Why?" Jeongguk asked. The question surprised him. He hadn't meant to voice it.
Jimin's eyes still glassy, still exhausted met his. "Because I wanted it. All of it. The watching. The following. The—" He gestured vaguely at his own body, at the bed, at the room. "This. I wanted you to want me that much. I wanted someone to want me that much."
Jeongguk's chest tightened. Something unfamiliar, something that felt dangerously close to tenderness unfurled behind his ribs. He crushed it down.
"Get some sleep," he said. "You're going to need it."
"For what?"
The smile that spread across Jeongguk's face was slow and deliberate. The lip ring caught the fairy lights as he leaned down, his mouth hovering just above Jimin's ear. His voice, when he spoke, was barely a whisper, a promise and a threat wrapped in the same breath.
"For tomorrow. When I do it all again."
Jimin's eyes widened. His lips parted. But before he could respond, before he could protest or agree or beg, Jeongguk pulled back and settled onto the mattress beside him. One arm draped over Jimin's waist.
"Sleep," Jeongguk repeated. "I'll be here when you wake up."
He meant it as a comfort. He realized, with a jolt of something that might have been horror, that it was probably a threat.
Jimin's breathing slowed. His eyes fluttered closed. His body—exhausted, wrecked, pushed past every boundary he'd ever had surrendered to unconsciousness with the trust of someone who had no other choice.
Jeongguk stayed awake. He watched the fairy lights flicker. He watched the rise and fall of Jimin's chest. He watched the shadows play across the silver ring in his navel, the one he'd dreamed about touching, the one that now belonged to him.
Because Jimin belonged to him now. Every part. Every hole. Every breath.
And tomorrow, he would remind him.