➬ Summary | When your countdown appeared on your wrist right on the morning of your eighteenth birthday, you had thought that perhaps the universe was on your side, especially since the final seconds were already ticking so soon. You just never expected to have your first meeting with your soulmate to be the day when you had to let him go. But hope was not lost when you still found love without the bond, and Jungkook showed you that it was possible to find happiness beyond the system that was written for you. Except that the universe doesn’t seem to have enough of its game, when your past sacrifice comes back hitting you straight in the face, just when you had believed that you had written off the perfect ending to your bittersweet tale.
↳ Pairings | Jungkook x reader / Namjoon x reader
↳ Genre | Soulmate!au, Second Chances!au, Angst, Eventual Smut
There is nothing that Namjoon despises more than waking up to a warm morning with vicious throbbing happening inside his head.
The ache feels so potent that he can hear the sound of each throb echoing against his temple. He can even feel it all the way to his toes, feel how the world seems to move with it even when he is still lying in bed, unmoving. The kind of feeling that is completely unwelcome that he dreads opening his eyes.
He may not have always been a morning person, but Namjoon isn’t someone who would find himself in this predicament during a regular weekday, jeopardising what should have been a normally productive day for him. For years, Namjoon has maintained an image of himself where he is in complete control of his own self and need, always knows how to keep his composure in any given situation possible.
And yet, for the first time, he finds himself breaking all the rules and habits that he has created for himself. He can feel that contentment and control slipping out of his fingers only because he gave in to his sorrow. Even his body feels as if it is no longer his own, when every move he makes becomes a struggle and whatever he does only escalates it further.
Fucking hangover.
The entire room seems to tilt over whenever he tries to get up, while the spinning still doesn’t stop even when he closes his eyes to put everything to a halt, just like how he feels his world tilting and spinning in all directions. And it has been this way ever since the night he saw you at Bovine.
When his headache becomes too much, Namjoon gives up on trying and falls back on the bed. So far, his memory is a bit fuzzy and unclear. But as the pulsing headache slowly becomes numb, and just when he is not forcing himself to remember, they simply return to him, random bits and pieces of what had happened—starting from the night before to all day yesterday and then ending on the events unfolding just last night—come flooding back to him.
He remembers coming home late from the studio two nights ago, pissed at himself and feeling incredibly frustrated after his encounter with Jungkook that he decided to grab a bottle of liquor to soothe his uneasiness and wash down the aggravation that followed him home. Things didn’t turn better the next day, when he heard nothing from Jungkook and after he found out that his friend didn’t even make it to work.
Feeling lost, and distraught, thinking that Jungkook might have decided to spend the day with you to salvage and find some reassurance in his relationship with you, Namjoon spent the entire day being holed up inside his home, wallowing in his misery with the collection of liquors that he had kept in his home. He must have passed out or fallen asleep at some point because the next thing he realised, he had lost an entire day as it went past him. It was a miracle that he didn’t poison himself with all that alcohol, though he did remember stopping once in a while and the short naps he had in between helped him sober up each time. And yet even as time went by, even after all the effort that he had done to wash everything away with those liquors, the unsettling feeling inside his chest still lingered, as if it had been rooted so deeply inside him ever since the moment he had the talk with Jungkook.
It was sometime around sundown when he was awakened from another nap by the quick call that his assistant made to him from the lobby, notifying him about a guest who had come asking for him. The nap did so little to sober him up, and yet he made it to reach the front door, even with a few struggles as he tried not to stumble or fall over the coffee table on his way there.
The urgency of the phone call and how his assistant had stressed that he needed to hurry made him think that perhaps there was an emergency, something so urgent that he needed to deal with that nobody else could. He clearly was not expecting to find that the surprise guest that his assistant had sent to his door would be you.
It had taken him quite some time to process what he was seeing. At first, he had thought that he was dreaming when he saw you standing right outside of his home not too long after he was mulling over his situation with you. But then you charged at him, shoving him in anger and the pain he felt in his chest was enough to let him know that it was real. And he took every single thing you were throwing at him—every punch you gave to his chest and every word you screamed at him—so willingly. Because even in his haze, he still knew that he was responsible for everything that was happening.
That he was the reason why you were here.
And then you broke down right in front of him, and he nearly fell down with you when seeing you in that state had made him feel weak. Even now, as he is struggling to recover from his hangover, the dread that he felt from that moment still lingers inside him.
Once he feels steady enough to sit up, Namjoon leans back against the headrest, rubbing his palm across his bare chest as he can still feel the ghost of your touch that he had gotten from the moment you pushed him away and the fading warmth that he felt when he took you in his arms. The pain that you had inflicted on him was nothing compared to what he is feeling inside, though he knows now that he was also far too numb to feel anything last night compared to how raw he is feeling everything now.
But does he have a right to complain when he knows that you might be feeling more pain after what had happened? When what you had experienced had been too unbearable for you to deal with that not even his touch or his embrace had been enough to fix you.
That was why he had accepted everything that you gave him. Because he understood. And he took you in his arms because he understood how much you needed someone to hold you up and keep you from falling. Even if he couldn’t erase your pain, he knew that he had to offer you what he could give you then.
Although it doesn’t exactly justify what he did next.
It is the feeling of rage and disappointment that he has in himself that forces him to get up and leave his bed. He wastes no time and quickly freshens up, getting himself ready to face the repercussions as he marches out of his bedroom with the constant throbbing in his head accompanying every step he makes.
As he trots down his empty and silent home to reach the kitchen, Namjoon’s eyes linger on the locked door of the guest bedroom, the only other room in his penthouse that has rarely been used. Knowing what is waiting from the other side of the bedroom door gives him a sense of longing, even if he knows that he doesn’t deserve to even hope that something good may happen. Looking away from the room, his gaze falls on the foyer instead, right at the corner where he held you tight last night in his arms, holding you as an anchor that kept you from falling apart.
When he closes his eyes, he can still sense everything from that moment. Your warmth, the scent of your shampoo, the way you fit perfectly in his arms and how right it felt when you laid your head on his shoulder. That moment had been short, and yet it was still enough to make him feel complete. He felt as if his soul was awakened then, as if there had been a huge hole inside him that he kept carrying with him for years and you had managed to fill it so easily just by falling into his arms.
He had welcomed that feeling, just as he had welcomed his punishment from you. And he still remembers promising himself not to let you go, that he would always hold you up the same way, that he would never take any of it for granted just as long as he could keep you in his arms for as long as he could.
If only he didn’t royally fuck up right after, and let every chance of making it happen to slip away from his hands almost too soon.
Tormented by his guilt, Namjoon becomes determined to make things right. But first, he needs to make sure that he would do it while sober and that he would do everything the right way. While he has the coffee brewing on the kitchen counter, he picks up the phone and contacts the staff to take that first step of redeeming himself.
“Yes, sir?”
Namjoon clears his throat and keeps his voice low when he responds to his assistant. “Can you have the cook send out a complete breakfast set to my loft, please?”
“Anything specific, sir?”
Thinking and talking only worsen the ache lingering in his head. Closing his eyes, he presses his fingers on the bridge of his nose to try and stop his headache from rapidly increasing. “Nothing—just get me today’s special and some fresh fruit,” he says before quickly adding, “Make that two sets of everything.”
A movement catches his attention just as he ends the phone call, and he looks over to the guest bedroom and finds you standing in the doorway, looking like a deer caught in a headlight with your eyes looking around warily and your fingers fidgeting, as if you need to hold onto something to stop yourself from falling down again.
But what has his chest grow tight is the sight of you wearing his t-shirt, how it seems to be hanging loose on your body and its hem falling on your thighs. And he cannot deny how good it makes him feel to see you wearing something of his. The possessiveness that is building up inside him is driving him crazy, even more than how alcohol had driven his sanity to nothing but an intangible mess when he was supposed to be in control, even if it was only to offer support when you had most needed one.
His heartbeat starts pacing rapidly as he looks at your face and catches your eyes looking back at him, and more images from last night come rushing back to him. Not only for the comfortable warmth that he felt when he was holding you, but also for the cold realisation of how hurtful his actions had been to you last night.
“Perhaps it is a good thing that he is gone. Have you forgotten? You were supposed to be mine. Always have been.”
The dick comment that came out of his mouth makes him wince when he remembers ever voicing it out loud. He should have been consoling you instead of being a jackass about it and acted as if he was celebrating while you were in pain.
Namjoon would never be able to forget your reaction that came right after he said those things to you—the crestfallen look that took up your entire face, the pain in your eyes that became clear to him when they widened in shock after hearing his words, and how you pulled back so quickly, leaving Namjoon feeling mesmerised and too stunned to notice what you were about to do until it was too late. He didn’t realise what was happening until your palm landed right on his cheek and the sound of the loud slap you had landed on his face echoed through the foyer. He didn’t realise what had happened until his skin stung and the horrified gasp you made snapped him out of his shock.
Just as he recounts that very moment, his hand comes up to his cheek, touching the numbing pain on his skin. He is not entirely sure which one hurts the most—the slap of your palm that seems to linger or the constricting pain inside his chest that keeps rising and building when he tried to imagine what you were feeling then. But then everything comes to a halt once he looks at you again, the sight of you being engulfed in his oversized shirt and the knowledge that you had slept on his bed seems to calm his restless soul.
You clear your throat, looking flustered as you avoid his gaze while you remain standing there. “I think I should go…,” you murmur softly with a hoarse voice. “I know that I’ve overstayed my welcome. I shouldn’t have stayed anyway.”
“I was the one who offered. I couldn’t let you leave in the state that you were in last night,” Namjoon quickly says, wincing when he remembers how that night had ended. How right after you slapped him and while he was stunned into silence, you had somehow realised that he had been drunk when he opened the door for you, and how it pushed you to go around his kitchen and living room to find the missing bottle of liquor that he had left behind. His chest tightens when he recalls how you had then grabbed the bottle and started drinking your pain away, and how he couldn’t stop himself when—
Clearing his throat, Namjoon shakes the thoughts away and forces a smile. “And I don’t believe you are ready to go either. Why don’t you stay a bit longer and take your time until you settle down? At least stay for coffee and join me for breakfast. Maybe we can start all over and then later on, if you’d let me, I can lend my ear to listen or my shoulder to cry on if you want to.”
You open your mouth—ready to refuse him, no doubt—but stop yourself when you look conflicted. Knowing that you are at least considering it, Namjoon jumps at the chance and asks again,
“Please. It’s the least that I could do,” he says, quickly biting on his tongue to stop himself from saying, ’—after acting like such a schmuck to you last night.’
“We haven’t had a chance to talk either, have we? For us to talk properly, I mean, and without yelling at each other and while we are both sober,” he adds later on, drawing a smile to your face when you seem to realise that he is right. Namjoon’s lips turn to a wry smile when he realises that he had wasted the last few chances he had to talk to you before, how it had always ended with the both of you yelling hurtful things to each other instead of trying to figure out how to deal with the situation.
“Okay,” you whisper after a moment of silence, much to his relief, though he is still surprised that you would agree with him. Your gaze flickers toward the coffee machine as you sigh, before you meet his gaze again. “But I should probably freshen up real quick. Would you mind if I use the shower?” you ask him as you tilt your head towards the en-suite bathroom inside the room you had been sleeping in.
“By all means, help yourself,” Namjoon says with a genuine smile on his face, trying his best to hold back from adding—
Everything in this place will also be yours anyway. All of it.
It took you about 30 minutes to finish washing up.
Though it might have been more. You just know that you have lost track of time as you indulged in the luxury that the marvellous hot shower inside Namjoon’s en-suite bathroom had provided you.
It had not been your intention to stay that long in the shower, but after spending the first five minutes admiring his spacious guest bathroom and its entire fancy setup, it took you another five minutes filled with a lengthy pep talk about how much you deserved to enjoy this moment after what you have gone through before you could finally step into the shower. And you were soon filled with relief that you had talked yourself into taking it when you realised how good it felt as the hot water came running down your body. It almost felt like everything was being washed away—your fear, your pain, whatever was left from last night’s debacle—while the falling water felt more like magical fingers massaging your tense muscles until you could slowly relax. It had been too good and it felt like such a waste to step out early that you stayed longer than you should have, and you had only left when the hot water seemed to cool down and once your stomach began to protest, begging for breakfast.
After coming here completely on impulse and without carrying any personal belongings other than your small purse, you had worried about not having anything to change into. You can only sigh in defeat at the thought of the clothes that you were wearing yesterday turning into a complete mess after spilling some alcohol on yourself at some point following your impulsive act of barging into his home—hence why Namjoon had let you wear his t-shirt when it was somehow decided that you were staying for the night.
You had settled to the thought of wearing your dirty clothes again after your relaxing shower, telling yourself that you would only need to wear them on your way home anyway. But as you step out of the bathroom, wrapped in a fuzzy towel that you had found in the vanity earlier, you are surprised to find a pair of grey sweatpants and a fresh t-shirt left on the bed for you.
Taking no time to dress up, you bite down the smile that keeps trying to sneak its way to your face from thinking about how thoughtful he turns out to be. It feels like a complete turnaround after seeing the side of him that he had shown you last night, knowing that he cares enough to figure out about these things before you could.
The lavish breakfast setup and the scent of freshly brewed coffee welcome you when you walk out of the bedroom. For some reason, they bring some sense of warmth into Namjoon’s home, when all you had felt ever since you walked into this place has been nothing but hollowness. The place had seemed cold and so unfamiliar that it took you a lot of effort to feel comfortable when you laid to sleep last night. Seeing the vacant dining seats, you turn to find him standing all the way in the living room, looking out the massive window to watch over the city as it comes to life.
“This is a lot. Were you trying to feed an army?” you comment loudly before you can stop it, gaining his attention as he turns away from the window to look at you. The moment you meet his gaze, the smile on your face just comes to rise so easily, much to your surprise. And his, judging from the way he blinks rapidly as if he cannot believe what he is seeing. “Thank you for the clothes, by the way. I was already preparing myself to get through the day with the same clothes I was wearing yesterday.”
Namjoon smiles and shakes his head. “I thought you’d want something more comfortable to wear to make you feel better after that shower,” he says while making his way to you. The movement seems so natural that it almost feels like he is used to doing this—that he is used to having you here in his home. But Namjoon is quick to catch himself before getting too close, swiftly stopping and going around the table, taking the seat across from the one you are standing close to and putting the necessary distance between the two of you. “Come sit and eat with me.”
For a moment, you still feel hesitant to take his offer. Sitting here at the dining table with him seems too intimate, too soon, and too confusing. But there is something in his presence and in his words that seem to compel you into moving, eliminating every excuse that you could think of to escape as you easily slip into the empty chair right across from him without so much of a word.
The breakfast starts with silence, and for some reason, it feels oddly comfortable rather than it is being awkward to share this moment with him even when you barely know him. Things continue this way until Namjoon clears his throat and speaks first. “I want to apologise,” he starts, stopping briefly until you pay attention to him so he can continue, “I shouldn’t have said what I said to you, that was wrong of me. I won’t even justify my condition as it happened. I was drunk and caught off guard with the situation, but none of those things should give me the excuse to be an asshole.”
Your lips curl up to a small smile before you can stop yourself. “So you do realise that you were being an asshole?”
Namjoon scoffs in response to your teasing, though his shoulders sag in relief somewhat when you merely joke about it instead of yelling at him like how he seemed to have expected you to. “It’s quite hard not to,” he says with a shrug while giving you a remorseful smile that seems genuine. “I shouldn’t have said such a thing when you were going through so much already. Your life had changed irrevocably in the span of, what—hours?—after years of living in the stability which you had built with Jungkook as a huge part of your life. While it sucks for me to think about it, I understood. And it was way out of line for me to say such a thing when what you needed was someone to hold you up while you were falling.”
Once again, you are stunned speechless. His apology was something that you had expected to hear, but you had initially thought that he would simply say “I’m sorry” and then be done with it. And yet here he is, giving you such a lengthy apology and looking so terribly sincere with every word he says that you feel warmth blooming in your chest. There is also something else tugging within you as he was speaking, something that has your heart pumping and coming alive.
“You’re forgiven. For now,” you whisper to him as you return his gaze. With a sigh, you shake your head and murmur softly, “It must’ve been a shock to you when I came here unannounced, and to top it all, I created a scene—” you stop for a moment and your gaze flicker towards the living room, where the ‘scene’ from last night had happened. You wince when you remember how unruly your behaviour had been and add, “—and made a whole mess at your home when you probably wanted to have some alone time. And for that, I owe you an apology too.”
Instead of taking it, Namjoon only shakes his head. “There is no need for that. You were frustrated and needed someone to yell at. Someone you could put the blame on for everything that had gone down and I had been the most eligible bastard who deserved it, so I’m not going to blame you to take that opportunity when you could,” he says with a smile, drawing a chuckle out of you. But then he lowers his gaze, and the look that he is giving you is filled with concern as he watches you from under his eyelids. “Not to mention—it wouldn’t be fair for you to deal with this on your own when I have just as much part in this as you are.”
With his words reminding you of what had happened, the pain returns inside your chest, and you swallow hard to stop it from becoming stronger before it takes away your calm just when you finally start feeling better. Saying nothing about it, you lower your head and nod. “I didn’t know where I should run to,” you whisper, admitting how lost you had felt when Jungkook left. “And you were right, the moment I found out that Jungkook had learned everything from you, I acted out of instinct and rushed out here to—”
You look up at him just then, finding him lifting his eyebrows when you fail to finish your sentence. “To do what?” he asks, speaking softly and teasingly at the same time. “To punish me? To punch my face and release your anger?”
“All of the above, I suppose,” you answer him, allowing a shy grin to take over your face when he simply does the same. Although the grin quickly fades when your gaze falls onto his cheek, seeing the slightly pinkish shade on his skin which seems to take its time to fade and feeling the tingle on your palm that returns when you remember what you had done.
“I’m sorry, though. For assaulting you last night,” you start to apologise. Your cheeks are beginning to feel warm when you think about how reckless you had been, but you disguise it when you lift your hand and point it at him. “You know, the uhm—” you say to him, stopping to wave a hand at his cheek. “I’m sorry for slapping you.”
Namjoon laughs. “I already told you, I deserved it,” he says with a dimpled smile that has your heartbeat going so fast it nearly takes your breath away with it.
Your gazes lock to one another for a brief moment, and the air around you seems to sizzle. It prickles on your skin and makes your cheeks grow hot that you instantly look away to cease whatever it is that seems to be building between you. It is the connection, your conscience continues to remind you, but you deny it by simply ignoring it, refusing to acknowledge it for the sake of keeping it from becoming real. Thankfully, Namjoon no longer pays attention to you since the moment you severed that connection, already has his eyes on his phone as he continues to finish his simple meal, unaware that you now have your eyes on him again.
Your eyes linger on his face for a moment, silently taking him in while you have the chance to. The memory you have had of him from college and the pictures you have seen over the past few years have done no justice to what you are seeing up close. If you had thought that Jungkook is a perfect specimen of a human being, then Namjoon is—well, a different kind of perfect. While you have no intention of comparing him with your missing fiancé, there is no helping it when you keep seeing Jungkook’s face inside your head while you have your gaze on this man.
The one thing that you love about Jungkook is the soft features he has on his face even when his body is all firm and strong, but with Namjoon, everything about him is all hard, and all male. From the sharp lines on his face to his hard chest—you still remember how he felt under your palms when he pressed you against him—and his strong arms that made you feel small when he held you in his embrace.
As much as you hate to admit it, there is simply no way that you could possibly deny the attraction that is slowly beginning to sink in before you ever had the chance to realise it. When did it happen? Was it an instant pull, right when the soulmate bond snapped into place the night Namjoon’s mark appeared on his wrist? Or did it happen last night, right after you unleashed your anger on him and then you—
Your gaze trails down to find his lips, and almost instinctively the tingles start appearing on your lips just as you are once again taken back to last night, when in the middle of your frenzy, right when your mind was still clouded in the thick haze of your heartbreak and while you were slowly losing all control against the soulmate pull that your body simply—gave in. Right at that moment, you close your eyes, hoping that it would be enough to erase the flashing image of what happened in your blunder, only to feel your stomach dip when you fail and the memory returns.
Why did I have to kiss him?
You reach up and press your fingers on your lips, hoping to wipe the sensation away. But even as you try to do it by brushing your fingers across your lips, you can still feel it coming back to you each time the memory returns, and every single time it happens, your chest tightens with guilt.
It wasn’t that the kiss had been intended. Your emotions had been completely out of control, and the strong alcohol that you had drunk in the desperate need of erasing your pain must have clouded your judgement. You faintly remember Namjoon rushing to stop you from finishing his bottle, yet it only caused your rage to rise further, and you pushed him away while calling him names and accusing him to be petty and selfish for not wanting to share his drink. And when he finally caught your arm and glared at you to reprimand you, when the shove you gave against his chest wasn’t strong enough to draw him away, you ended up grabbing him by his collars and pulled him down until you could press your lips on his.
The kiss was meant to be brief, just something to shut him up because half of your mind had been thinking of smacking his lips with your palm and it was almost as if your body simply decided that using your lips would be a better idea. Clearly, your mind had already short-circuited just then to react so impulsively before you even realised what you were doing.
Despite the numbness and everything about last night that had become nothing but blurry fragments of moments, you still remember everything about the kiss. You still remember how his body stiffened when you reached out and pulled him down and how he was unmoving for a moment when you pressed your lips on his. You still remember how soft and tender his lips had felt when he began to reciprocate and pressed them against yours instead of pulling away, how he took over and seized control until your head spun with delight.
And you cannot deny the fact that your body came alight upon contact and how the tingles kept rising in the heat of the kiss, how it felt just as intoxicating as the drinks that you stole from him that you kept leaning in when he started to deepen the kiss, allowing his tongue to slip in while his hands pulled you closer to him. But the worse part of it all is the fact that instead of pushing him away, you simply relished the way your whole body was burning from the inside and out.
Thinking about it now makes your cheeks burn and your body heats up once more, but you shake it away. You had tried to convince yourself that it would be better for you to forget that it ever happened and move on. But now that he had put everything out in the open, after both of you had been so willing to own up to your mistakes, that decision simply flies out the window and you give in to the guilt that you are feeling inside.
Lowering your head to hide your burning face, you murmur to him, “Then I’m sorry for kissing you. That was—for the lack of a better word, completely inappropriate.” Unsurprisingly, hearing this only makes his smile grow wider, the dimples on his cheeks deepen when he chuckles so pleasingly as if he enjoys seeing you so flustered.
“I’m honestly not too sorry about it,” he softly says, and you almost swear that your heart nearly jumps out of your chest, most specifically when he slowly lifts his intense gaze to yours. You try to act like his words have no effect on you, but you doubt that you can hide it well when a grin comes onto his face. “But all is forgiven. Neither of us had been in our right minds when it happened.”
His words should be giving you some sense of relief, and yet again, your body reacts differently, when a rush of warmth engulfs you. It makes it even harder to deny it when both his words and the way he is looking at you are making you feel—wanted,even if you know that it is only coming from the bond you have between you and nothing else.
Nothing like what you share with Jungkook.
You say nothing to respond to his words, then simply turn away to enjoy your coffee so you would stop getting drawn to his intense gaze. “I don’t remember seeing you cook and there is no traces left in the kitchen showing me that you prepared breakfast while I was in the shower. Except for the coffee. Do you have staff helping you with all of this?” you ask him once another moment of silence settles in, choosing to change the topic just so you can stop thinking about the kiss again, which happens whenever your mind is idle.
Namjoon smiles bashfully. “I do. The staff belongs to the exclusive floors in this building, though. My boss, the benefactor behind the recording company, owns this building, and the staff is always on standby just in case we need anything. They always send me breakfast in the morning. All I had to do was ask for some extra portions so I can have you join me this morning.”
“You must have done it often, haven’t you? Invite someone to stay the night, feed them with lavish breakfast in the morning to woo them—” You have no idea where this thought had come from or what you are trying to accomplish by saying them out loud. And you certainly have not expected to feel a pang of jealousy for picturing all those women he had taken photos with sitting on this very same table with him, possibly in a more intimate way. You clutch onto your cold glass of water to stop yourself from pressing your palm onto your chest, right where the sting is coming from, though the feeling is quick to be replaced with guilt.
Because if knowing that he had shared his life with others before hurts you, even knowing that all he had gone through had been nothing more but short term relationships or flings, then how had he felt when he had to watch you with Jungkook?
“You may not believe me,” Namjoon speaks after clearing his throat, and you lift your eyes to find him looking straight at you so intensely that it makes you shudder in your seat. “But I’ve never invited anyone to stay the night here, or have the staff cook for them. Except for my family, of course.”
“Really? Not even your past girlfriends?”
You immediately regret asking him this when a spark of mirth comes to his eyes. When he seems intrigued at the fact that you are asking him about his past love life.
“How did you know that I’ve been with anyone else before?”
Gritting your teeth, you bite back the response that might end up with you confessing to him that you have been keeping up with his life over the past few years. It didn’t happen often, and not always on purpose either, when his photos just basically appeared even when you were not searching for anything related to him. With a forced smile, you simply answer him with, “Lucky guess. After all, you have always had a date clinging to your arms on the two occasions we met. Surely, it wouldn’t be wrong of me to assume that there are others in between.”
Namjoon blinks. Whether or not he believes you is not really your problem, though you are surprised to see a mix of shock and guilt in his eyes for a brief moment—and maybe a semblance of shame—before everything fades in the next blink. However, he still keeps his eyes on you when he says, “There had been a few casual relationships that I’ve shared in the past, some casual flings, nothing truly serious. Some of the women that people may have seen with me as my date have also been a part of—” he grimaces, “Well, you may call it as special arrangements.”
“What do you mean?”
Namjoon shrugs and gives you a small smile. “It means it was nothing but that, a front to show the public that I had connections. It helped boost the business when I showed up on dates with people who mattered in the business and it mostly helped them at the same time as showing up with me in public put their name out there for people and the media to recognise,” he says, once again surprising you when instead of telling you this while wearing a sense of pride on his face, all that you see on his face is a hint of shame, before he puts on another mask, and he wears a determined look on his face when he says, “So, the answer is no. They’ve never spent the night here and I’ve never opened my home to them. While I can’t say that I’m a saint either, I have had flings, friends with benefits, women that I could call when I needed a company, and oftentimes the public date that people were seeing me in would continue for the rest of the night, if you know what I mean. I can’t tell you all the details, but—” he stops to look at you in the eyes to add, “The time I spent with them had never been spent here, not in my home.”
Clearly, you have no idea how to react to that, or how to respond when he is looking at you with some sort of a hopeful look in his eyes. How could you even say anything when he just opens up that part of his life so easily, to be so easily honest instead of putting up a front just to amuse you? Unable to find anything to say, you look away, nodding at him as you tell him, “I see. Well, what you do at your personal time isn’t truly my business, is it?”
“Did. What I did in my personal time—” he quickly says with a firm voice, drawing you to find his eyes again. “Things have changed. It has to be.”
“You don’t have to change anything just because—” you begin to speak, hating the way your heart is giving some happy little flops in your chest just for hearing him say those things. Because it doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter. And you shouldn’t be jumping up and down in joy when his life doesn’t concern you. “We don’t even know each other to be saying things like this.”
“Then perhaps we can change that.”
“What?”
With a sigh, Namjoon leans forward to get closer to you, his eyes never waver from your face as he speaks, bringing back everything that had once been said between you the last time you met.
Before Jungkook left to give you space.
“Perhaps we can take this chance to get to know each other better. Past the memory of me being the douchebag who talked shit about the soulmate system and ignored you while you were waiting to see me, past the knowledge of me being Jungkook’s friend or the man who put up a front as if I have had a glorious love life in the past,” he says, and you can swear that there is a fire in his eyes, a look that tells you that he is not backing down. Not from this one.
“There is a reason why the universe had put the both of us together and matched us since birth. There is a reason why fate still insisted that we met, regardless of what had happened to us in the past that had kept us apart. Don’t you want to know what reason that might be?”
The weight of Namjoon’s offer sits with you all through breakfast. While it doesn’t do much to ruin the serene moment that you have been sharing with Namjoon right until the moment he said the words, it still has you growing weary and uneasy for the rest of the morning you spend with him.
It becomes a wonder for you when you manage to walk away from the dining table completely unscathed, even if your mind continues reeling over it without even being able to give him a sold answer. As if he can sense it, Namjoon merely smiles when you fall silent after hearing his offer and suggests that you would take your time to consider it.
“You don’t have to give me an answer or agree with it right away. Try to think about it, don’t let me force or affect any decision you make,” he says, before changing the topic just when you come close to start thinking of ways to escape and flee out of his home.
By noon, you are back at your apartment, sitting on the sofa right in front of the television, its empty screen looking back at you. Namjoon had sent his driver to take you home merely an hour ago, right around the same time he had suddenly acquired some motivation to get back to work and had decided that the driver would be of better use to drive you home while he did his duty from his fancy penthouse.
Feeling drained and sensing no other emotions but the emptiness that had followed you since the day before, you had fallen onto this sofa moments after you walked in and you have yet to move away from it since. You should be mulling over his offer, or perhaps plan out what to do to get Jungkook back and have him talk to you. But you are too numb to do anything, much less to function when you can barely think clearly, as if both your body and mind have shut down ever since you returned to your empty home.
Home.
Looking around, you take in your surroundings, gazing at the space that you had built together with Jungkook as a place where you would be—should have been—building your future together. You look at the beige-coloured walls around you which have been adorned with various framed pictures of the two of you and posters of everything that you both enjoy in life, at the room that is filled with all the mementoes that you have collected together with Jungkook through all the years you spent together.
Your mind takes you back to Namjoon’s home, which had appeared a complete contrast to your own. Despite calling it his personal space, Namjoon’s penthouse seemed scarce of intimate touches. It had felt too impersonal for you, with only essential things filling his home instead of the things that would make his personal space homely, with monochrome colours painting all the walls, spaces, and furnitures which seemed to be the opposite of the vibrant colours that you could find in yourhome.
And yet, as you are sitting here on your own, this apartment suddenly feels colder, hollow, as if the warmth that has been a huge part of it has been sucked dry the moment Jungkook stepped out of the door, the moment every bit of hope that you have built simply shattered when he turned away from you, taking all of that hope and your joy away while taking away your right to choose.
With a sharp inhale of breath, you finally snap out of it, and you soon fall in motion to start picking your life back up as much as possible.
You start by contacting your workplace, while you had informed your co-workers of your absence for the past two days, you decide to make it clear that the ‘family emergency’ you are currently dealing with will take some more time to fix and that you will need to take an early vacation leave before you can return to work. Then you start making more phone calls, sending out texts, doing the best you can to trace Jungkook’s whereabouts and confirm that he is okay, that perhaps you can find him and drag him back home to you.
Your stomach dips when Jungkook’s brother contacts you back only to let you know that your fiancé has yet to appear back at their hometown—not at their parents’ house, not at the brother’s house, and nowhere near their other relatives or old friends. Another call confirms what Namjoon had told you that Jungkook has yet to step foot at the company either, while none of your close friends claims to have been contacted by Jungkook since the day he was gone.
It takes a lot of convincing and pleading to Jungkook’s brother to make him believe that nothing is wrong and to make him promise that he wouldn’t let the news reach their parents. And it takes you a lot of vague explanations to answer all the questions that your friends throw at you with each call or text to keep them from finding out what is actually happening.
Your sister is the last person you call, and her voice immediately feels like a warm hug. Even before you start explaining to her all the details, Gahee seems to have sensed it, as if she had been expecting to receive this call for a long time.
“Gosh, I’m so sorry, _____, I have no idea what to say. Do you want to stay here with us until he comes back? Youngjae has a conference to attend out of town this weekend and I was just about to ask you to stay here to keep me company and help out with Gyeoul anyway,” she softly says.
“I don’t know,” you whisper into the call. “I want to be here if—when he comes back.” Your throat feels constricted that you can barely say those words, and you realise just how unconvincing you sounded even to yourself. Your eyes begin to prickle and burn with tears for the lost hope, but you suck a deep breath and hold everything in. Only for your effort to turn futile when your sister offers,
“I know that you want to wait for him. But would it be a good idea to wait on your own? At least when you’re here, you have Gyeoul and me to distract you. You wouldn’t have everything that reminds you of him suffocating and torturing you in your wait.”
Suffocating? Is that what this place is making me feel?
You begin to wonder about this just when your chest grows even tighter the moment your eyes fall on one of the photos that Jungkook had put on display. An old photo of you taken on your birthday two years ago.
You close your eyes briefly before taking another look around you just as you end the phone call. Not a moment too soon, the silence sinks in, as if it has been waiting in the shadows, lurking around you until the moment you are no longer busy with calls and texts to finally notice it and it would finally engulf you, wrapping itself around you until you find it hard to simply breathe.
Right at that moment, you know that you would never be able to survive sitting here in your silence and in the not knowing only to wait helplessly for Jungkook’s return. Determined to not let yourself drown in sorrow, you finally make your move.
By dusk, you have your personal things packed up. Essential things that you would need to get through the upcoming days and only enough spare clothes to get through the week. By nightfall, you are sitting inside an Uber ride taking you across the city. The hollowness follows you even after you are kilometres away from your apartment, though you can slowly feel it fading, chipped in with every added distance. You try not to think too much about where you are heading to, keeping your eyes looking out the window and watching closely at the city that still thrives while your entire world seems to be falling apart.
By the time you reach your destination, your chest no longer feels tight, though you still feel completely numb. And it doesn’t help eliminate your spiking nerves as you stand right in front of the doorway, your heart stammering in your chest as you are waiting for it to be opened.
The sound of the keys and the door clicking open feels like a gavel coming down to seal your fate. A sense of uncertainty plagues you as you are standing there, though it all fades so quickly when you lift your face and meet Namjoon’s eyes.
“I—I don’t know why I’m here, but—”
Once again, you feel as if your throat is clogged when you are not even completely sure how to explain yourself. The last thing you remember was feeling the dread of loneliness while being alone inside your home. That intense feeling had pulled you right out of it to find solace, only to lead you all the way here, back to his door.
While you are busy questioning yourself, Namjoon simply smiles at you and steps aside, widening the door behind him so you could step right past him. There is no question in his eyes, no doubt in his smile, and there is nothing but pure warmth engulfing you when he says,
“Come in. You’re always welcome here, _____.”
➥ Author’s note | Forgive me for the wait, but this one took a bit of time to finish. As you may have noticed, I have added another chapter on the masterpost. I have decided to split the original chapter into two, with chapter 8 as the filler chapter, while more intriguing stuff will happen later on chapter 9. I hope you enjoyed reading this one. Thank you for joining this emotional ride. Any feedback is welcome!
➬ Summary | When your countdown appeared on your wrist right on the morning of your eighteenth birthday, you had thought that perhaps the universe was on your side, especially since the final seconds were already ticking so soon. You just never expected to have your first meeting with your soulmate to be the day when you had to let him go. But hope was not lost when you still found love without the bond, and Jungkook showed you that it was possible to find happiness beyond the system that was written for you. Except that the universe doesn’t seem to have enough of its game, when your past sacrifice comes back hitting you straight in the face, just when you had believed that you had written off the perfect ending to your bittersweet tale.
↳ Pairings | Jungkook x reader / Namjoon x reader
↳ Genre | Soulmate!au, Second Chances!au, Angst, Eventual Smut
➥ Ratings & Warnings | +18 / M for Mature; mentions of alcohol consumptions/hangover, implied/depiction of a one-night-stand, possible infidelity, implied smut, sexual tension.
Jungkook can sense it even before he opens his eyes. Even the fog that seems to fill the crevices in his head can do nothing to stop him from noticing how foreign everything around him feels.
The warmth enveloping him.
The soft touch of sheets under his palms.
The thick, plushy pillows where his head seems to be resting on.
The feminine scent of perfume that seems to be wafting through the air around him, gently breezing past him like delicate hands teasing on his skin.
As he slowly finds the strength to open his eyes and force himself to wake up, Jungkook’s eyes flutter open to the warm morning sun greeting him from the open windows. As he stretches out his sore limbs, little by little, the remaining haze of his sleep is lifted, and he stops moving as he is immediately met with an astounding sight of his surroundings. His eyes grow wide the moment he realises that he has indeed fallen asleep in a completely different bedroom, lying on a different bed, with windows on the opposite side of the walls that are nearly twice as big as the ones that he has been looking out of since he had gotten on this island. He looks around, and everything that he is seeing officially confirms that he had not been sleeping in Yugyeom’s room.
His heartbeat begins to race in a state of panic, not knowing where he is. And while he rarely ever had any experience of waking up with a hangover or having any piece of his memory missing after spending the night out drinking, Jungkook quickly finds that he has no clear idea of what had truly happened last night. The last thing he remembers is sitting at the bar with Tasha, the one person he would have never expected to meet in such a place.
They haven’t met each other even once after their first and last encounter at Bovine months ago, yet it certainly felt as if they had been old friends the moment they started to talk to each other. Last night, they spent hours sharing drinks, exchanging stories, and laughing at the things they found astounding from any topic that they brought up while admiring the serenity that they found from spilling their thoughts about the universe and the lives of all human beings who are living in it.
Sitting up on the bed, Jungkook finds himself still wearing last night’s clothes. The faint headache that has come up when he was trying to move easily fades as he leans back against the headrest, though he still feels as if his entire energy has been depleted after all that drinking last night that he refuses to make any other move despite the urge to investigate further to find out where he is.
Letting his head fall back, he closes his eyes, trying to regain his memory and figure out just how he had gotten here. It is then when he hears someone knocking at the door. He barely has the chance to open his eyes or to even respond when the door opens and the slow movement happening at the door catches his attention.
“Knock, knock.”
Jungkook quickly turns to the doorway, blinking rapidly when he finds Tasha standing there while leaning against the door frame. Wearing simple clothing—a plain white T-shirt over a pair of pastel-coloured leggings, which is a complete contrast to the dress that she had worn last night—she looks refreshed, ready to start the day. And she also looks completely unaffected by the drinks that she had last night.
Jungkook’s eyes fall on her exposed wrist. The sight of the purple hydrangea tattoo appearing on her skin reminds him of the conversation that they both had last night. His eyes are still on her wrist when she raises her hand, lifting the mug that she has been carrying with her to cover the bright smile showing on her face. Her eyes seem to glint under the sunlight, clearly looking amused at what she is seeing, and her eyebrows are raised as she watches Jungkook silently trying to piece everything together. The frown he is wearing on his face clearly shows just how much he is struggling to do so.
“Wake up, sleepyhead. Don’t you even think about going back to sleep now,” Tasha greets him, finally snapping him out of it.
“What—” Jungkook straightens up further and glances around. “What happened last night? Is this your place? How did I get here?”
Instead of answering him, Tasha merely smiles at him. “Why don’t you freshen up first and then we’ll talk over breakfast? Or coffee? Do you drink coffee?” Jungkook absently nods while still looking like a lost puppy, so Tasha simply continues to talk. “Go take a shower. The bathroom is over there,” she says, pointing at the door on the other side of the room which seems to be leading to the ensuite bathroom. “I’ll have everything ready and have someone fetch you some fresh clothes to change into once you’re done.”
Jungkook opens his mouth to respond, but misses his chance to say anything when Tasha has already slipped away from the door when he turns to find her again. Deciding that he wouldn’t be getting any answers by staying put on the bed that feels almost too comfortable for him to lie on, he rushes towards the bathroom to freshen up, taking his time with it until he can finally find some clarity.
Even if he still can’t remember a few things from last night which had led him to end up in Tasha’s place. And in her bed, nonetheless.
He finds the clothes just as promised when he finally steps out of the bathroom, all prepared for him on the bed. The dark-coloured shirt and pants seem to fit him suspiciously well, but he chooses not to think much about it as he walks out of the bedroom. On his way to find Tasha, Jungkook looks around and soon finds that he is in a loft that looks like a part of the resort where he had been spending his night, judging from the familiar view of the beach and the ocean that he can see through the windows. He follows the scent of brewing coffee to find Tasha getting busy in the kitchen, surprising him as he sees her cooking on the stove herself instead of having her staff do it for her.
“Go take a seat. I’ll be ready in a minute,” she calls out to him while moving fluently around the kitchen, fetching him the coffee that she had made like a pro. “I have no idea what kind of coffee you’re into so I made a light one. I’ve put some extra cream on the side if you want some more.”
Jungkook takes the mug filled with coffee and turns away, deciding to take a look around rather than sitting idly by as he feels too restless to do so when he has a ton of questions running inside his head. He finds the living room looking homey and comfortable, a sign that she has been using this place quite often as her personal living space. He walks past the large-sized television hanging on one wall before stopping in front of a drawer nearby where he finds a few framed pictures being placed on display.
Looking at them makes his chest grow tight. He sucks a deep breath to ease the pain, though it seems too hard for him to do so when he only remembers how this setup reminds him too much of what he has back home—how you have decorated his living room in a similar way, with a low drawer full of trinkets holding various framed pictures on top that documented his entire life together with you.
Shaking his head, Jungkook focuses back on the pictures in front of him and starts to look closer into them. Most of them seem to have been taken while Tasha was travelling to different places as they are showing Tasha posing in various locations—either somewhere in South Korea or abroad—while some others are showing images of her with her family and friends. Then he stops as he finds a wedding photo placed near the center. The picture is showing a man wearing his wedding suit while smiling broadly with his arm wrapped around a younger woman who appears to be his bride pressed onto his left side. On his right, held under his other arm is Tasha, who is smiling warmly into the frame while she keeps her hand on the man’s chest as she stands politely close to him.
“Is this your family? I don’t recall you ever telling me that you have a brother,” he starts asking before he can stop himself. For a moment, he gets nothing but silence, until Tasha’s voice comes startling him once she has moved to stand next to him.
“That’s because I don’t. I’m an only child,” she says.
“Then, who are these people?”
Reaching out to pick up the photo, Tasha releases a soft sigh. “Oh, he’s my soulmate. But he’s married to someone else,” she easily says to him, catching him by surprise that he snaps his head to look at her with wide eyes, only to see her smiling back. “That’s his wife on his left. The photo was taken on their wedding day.”
Seeing that Jungkook is left too stunned to speak, Tasha softly laughs and places the framed photo back in its previous place before wrapping her hands around his arm to pull him away. “You’re in shock. I get it. Why don’t we sit down, have some breakfast and coffee so we can get rid of that hangover of yours while we talk? I’ll tell you everything about them.”
“You’re being too quiet.”
Jungkook looks up from his second cup of coffee—light, a bit sweeter and with extra cream, just like how she had suggested for him to take since she only makes strong ones—and returns Tasha’s gaze.
“You can probably see that I’m still trying to wrap my head around everything,” he says to her after a beat of silence and once he realises that he had barely touched his meal despite feeling the hunger ever since he woke up earlier. With a sigh, Jungkook decides to be honest and share what he has been thinking. “I have so many questions that I don’t know just where to start.”
Tasha nods and places her own mug of coffee down on the table. “Well, I can begin by telling you that nothing happened between us after we finished our last drink. You were drunk, not to the point that you blacked out because of it, but enough to make it hard for me to drag you home. I had Hyuk, the bartender, helping me to carry you out of the place safely, but then you refused to go home. You kept telling me that your friend wouldn’t be home and you refused to tell me his address, so I figured it would have been easier for me to drag you here instead since we’re only a few floors down.”
Jungkook has suspected this but still grimaces as he imagines the chaos that he had created. “I’m sorry for causing you so much trouble.”
Tasha waves her hand. “Oh, it’s fine. I already got something good out of it, at least. Consider us even,” she says to him with a wink and an elated smile taking over her face, while Jungkook’s face feels warm when he remembers seeing the aforementioned bartender from last night walking out of another bedroom merely moments before Jungkook sat down at the dining table. The man looked freshly showered and was refusing to join breakfast, saying that he needed to get back to work before his boss would scold him for slacking off. Though the man didn’t leave before kissing Tasha right on the lips one last time and promising to return for the night once he is off the clock and if she ever needs his company.
Jungkook has no idea how to feel about knowing that his new female friend was having a fling coming by while he was passed out right next door. But the bartender didn’t seem to mind it, nor did he seem to care about Jungkook’s presence in the room at all, and Tasha did apologise for taking the chance to have fun while he was out of it. At least the revelation had allowed him to breathe a sigh of relief, as it had confirmed everything that Tasha had just told him, that he truly hadn’t done anything stupid while he was crazy drunk.
Jungkook turns his gaze around the room to find the photo that he had found earlier, placed right at the spot where it would be visible even from the distance. “You and your soulmate—” he begins to question her. “What happened between you?”
Tasha raises her pretty eyebrows before her eyes find the very same photo that had caught Jungkook’s attention. A deep sigh slips out of her, though there is nothing more but affection and longing in her eyes when she thinks about the past. “I met Wooyoung in freshman year. He’s much older than I am and was already graduating then. We met during a joint event held between the university that I was studying in and the neighbouring university he was still enrolled in. It was a huge shock for us both when we met, to say the least, one that I had expected, with my timer running out before I stumbled into his path. I don’t really think either of us had been fully prepared for it either, so neither of us knew how to react. And then I found out that he had fallen in love with his childhood best friend who was also present at the time. They had been dating for years already.”
Tasha stops for a moment, taking a deep breath as she recalls the past. There is a faraway look in her eyes. Though, to Jungkook’s surprise, she looks more amused than hurt as she remembers what happened.
“Things were rough right after. Wooyoung and I tried to work things out and figure out how to handle things. You have probably guessed it, but the soulmate bond came to us so strong that it was hard for us to ignore it. But then, soon enough, we both realised that the only reason we were both attracted to each other was onlybecause of the soulmate bond while his first love would always remain to have a special place in his heart,” she slowly adds, smiling softly as the memory returns to her. “We sat down together after we figured it out—the three of us—and had a long talk about our future. They told me about her soulmate, how she had found out on her eighteenth birthday that she had lost him before ever meeting him the moment she saw that her mark appeared immediately after her timer ran out and once the cursive letter showed up on her skin, writing in red ink—”
Jungkook flinches and starts to brush his fingers absentmindedly on his own wrist as he remembers his own experience with his soulmate mark. He still remembers that morning as if it had only happened a short while ago. How he witnessed the numbers appearing on his skin, how his breath stilled when he saw how fast the timer had counted down to zero, and how the purple petals bloomed right after, before his soulmate’s initials began to write themselves in red cursive letters. He clenches his hands when he imagines that traumatic event happening to someone else. Someone like the bride in the photo that Tasha has kept between the other memorabilia gracing her home, who he had seen smiling so prettily and kindly to the camera with her eyes glowing in unshed tears of happiness.
When he looks up again, he finds Tasha staring back at him with a knowing look in her eyes, as if she knows exactly where his mind has been wandering to. “Yes, just like yours,” she whispers, nodding at his wrist. “At first, Wooyoung only wanted to stay beside her to support her, to help her deal with her heartbreak and help her get through until she could learn to love someone else. But love bloomed between them during that time. Before they even knew it, they were slowly building their future together. Until the day I came barrelling into their lives. Literally.”
Tasha softly laughs as she describes how she had crossed Wooyoung’s path at the campus festival, how she had tripped and nearly fall before he caught her, the perfect portrayal of how she came into their lives without any warning. Jungkook smiles as he listens to her story before a frown comes to his face. “It must have been rough on you to witness that.”
Smiling softly at him, Tasha simply lifts her shoulders. “It was, at first. But I got over it when I saw how much they were completely in love with each other,” she says, surprising Jungkook further when he sees the deep love in her eyes as she talks about her soulmate and his wife together. “There was never a place for me in their lives, other than what I’ve earned for helping them.”
“I don’t understand,” Jungkook murmurs, tilting his head.
With a sly grin on her face, Tasha leans closer to whisper as if she is sharing a big secret and someone else would be listening in. “You see, I helped them get married,” she says, and her grin grows wider as Jungkook’s eyes widen in shock. “They wanted to elope when their families were against them getting together. Especially when Wooyoung’s family found out by chance that I was his actual soulmate. So I pretended to steal him away from his lover, when in reality, I was flying them both off to one of the resorts that my Dad’s company was partnered with in Fiji so they could get married there. Of course, I had to come with them as an alibi for my absence and to act as their witness.”
“Why?” Jungkook gasps. “Why would you do that?” he questions her, though deep down, he can already guess what her reasoning might be.
Tasha leans back with a low chuckle. “I already told you once, didn’t I? I’m a sucker for romance. I love the whole idea of love, and to the idea of shoving your middle finger to the universe to show them that they are not always right and they don’t always get to decide who we fall in love with,” she says, laughing softly as if she is picturing herself doing it, to put her hand up and show her middle finger to the sky and to the universe that had tried to play around with her fate. “It also helped that Wooyoung was a complete stranger to me at the time and the bond only made me look at him more like an older brother than a possible lover once we got close to each other.”
Jungkook falls silent for a moment. “What did your family think? Your father?”
As he mentions her father, Tasha releases a deep sigh. “My Dad was a tough one to crack, but he was the first person to understand. I’ve always been a Daddy’s girl, being the only child he had ever gotten from his marriage with my Mom. He had wanted to have a son for a long time, but had initially come to love me just the same. As I was his only baby, he did get worried, at first. But I managed to convince him that it was my choice, and by choosing to help the one I was intended to be with to be together with the love of his life, I had somehow proven to him that I was someone who knew my priorities well and that I would know how to take care of the people I came to care about. Just exactly the kind of person he needed to inherit his entire business empire.”
Tasha smiles to herself as she recalls the events happening then, when she remembers how she had defied her own family. “He gave in after I promised that I would make it up by working my ass off to help him with the family business and to never shut away from any possibilities of finding my own life partner who would be good to me in the future once I’m ready for it.”
Once again, Jungkook is silent as he slowly lets everything that Tasha had just shared with him to sink in. Slowly sipping on his coffee, he begins to compare Tasha’s past to his current life. “Is that why you’ve been helping me? The reason why you took me home? Have you been planning to tell me all of this all along?”
Tasha smiles at him. “I took you home because it was what friends do to make sure the person they’re with is safe for the night. But yes, I did have a purpose for taking you with me and I have a reason for telling you all of this. I just want you to see that there is always another way. Another path to choose. We always have that choice, no matter what the world is making us believe when it comes to the silly soulmate system. It’s only a matter of whether or not we are brave enough to take it,” she slowly explains, before leaning closer once again. “I know what you’re doing. You’re giving them space to figure things out, aren’t you? That’s why you’re here instead of staying back there with her while she’s figuring things out.”
Swallowing hard, Jungkook admits how on point her words are and he can only nod to answer, earning a warm, knowing look from Tasha before she explains further, “That’s exactly what Wooyoung’s wife did for us too. She took a step back after she found out that I was his true soulmate, giving him the chance to embrace the universe’s gift—her own words.” Tasha lifts her hands and makes a gesture to depict quotation marks while laughing.
”But, instead of pushing us to be together, the time we had spent together had only helped open our eyes to see just how deep the love that they had truly was when he couldn’t find himself feeling the same deep love for me as what he had already felt for her.”
Leaning back, Jungkook takes a deep breath while taking it all in. Once again, he compares his own situation with hers, placing himself in the shoes of Wooyoung’s wife and thinking back to the reason why he is hiding all the way in Jeju, realising that he is doing the same thing as she did while you are experiencing what Tasha had gone through in the past. He was sure that taking himself out of the equation would help you figure things out and decide what would be best for you without him getting in the way. Except he is no longer sure if staying away for this long had been the best decision for himself and for everyone involved, when no matter how much he had wanted to make sure that you would be able to find your happiness, there is also a bigger part inside him that still insists to fight for you, to believe the words that you had told him about proving just how strong the bond between the two of you would be compared to what the universe keeps forcing on you.
If he wants to be honest, he has been feeling this way for quite a while. Maybe even since day one, when he was standing in Yugyeom’s studio apartment and feeling out of place and lost without you. But he just kept refusing to admit it, denying what his heart had wanted, all because he had also known that he wouldn’t be able to take his words and actions back after what he had done to you on the day he left.
Shaking his head, he accepts his fault for making such rash decisions and he regrets ever ignoring the voice inside his head that had kept telling him to stay and fight with you. Drawing a deep breath, he looks at Tasha and questions her, “How are you so open to this? How can you be so—”
“Amenable? Flexible? Carefree? Wild?” Tasha begins to fill in when he is unable to find the right word to describe her and her actions.
Jungkook grins. “Bold. Forward-thinking. And yes, easygoing, and also for being so open-minded and daring, even when it comes to believing in something that no other people had the courage to put their faith into.”
Tasha laughs softly before looking at him with a sharp look in her gaze. “Because I believe that there are far more important things out there beyond the silly soulmate system that had been created for us,” Tasha says as she pours more coffee into her empty mug, then does the same to fill Jungkook’s while she keeps talking. “It’s not like I don’t truly respect the soulmate system. But, I mean—sure, it sounds promising and completely hard to resist to have the entire universe making sure that we won’t have any problem finding someone to build our entire lives with. It truly is a gift that fates have it in them to make sure that we wouldn’t be alone in this world. It sounds like the perfect way to live knowing that there is someone out there made for us to love and to have our happiness written down for us since we were born into this world, don’t you think?”
“But—?”
“But—” Tasha grins. “Would it really be better and more real compared to the kind of love that we find for ourselves, the one that we would be willing to sacrifice everything for? If the universe can have a choice to play around with our fate—” she stops to give a pointed look on Jungkook’s wrist before continuing, “—then why can’t we have our choice to decide who to fall in love with?”
Jungkook blinks rapidly. All of a sudden, his chest feels tight and heavy when her words seem to strike him deep in his chest.
Because she is right.
And he feels like a fool for forgetting the fact that he had once believed the same thing as well.
All this time, he had always known that he has everything that anyone could have asked for and that he had found it with you. The kind of love that runs so deep that he feels his chest flutter each time he thinks about you. The love that has grown so deep that it becomes the reason why his heart is still beating at this very moment and why he has been hurting ever since the day he walked away. At first, he had truly believed that it would be best for him to step aside, just so you could embrace the gift that the universe is giving you. The gift that he had lost.
But walking away had only made him feel the pain that he has never felt before. Being away from you had only been complete torture. It makes him feel like he is dying inside, how the distance has slowly been chopping up his soul, taking it piece by broken piece that he no longer knows if he would have anything left of himself once the whole ordeal is over.
Once again, as if knowing where his mind is wandering off to, Tasha reaches out to grab his hand and gently says, “What you have with your girlfriend is real. Never doubt that part. I saw it with my own two eyes and I know exactly what I saw then when you were together. Why did you think I made all the effort of helping you with your surprise proposal if not because I believed in the love you had for each other?”
Shaking his head, Jungkook chuckles softly. “You’re right. You really did help me—a lot. And you didn’t even know what my situation was like back then, did you?”
Letting his hand go, she shrugs lightly and confesses, “I may not have seen it back then to know that you were not each other’s true soulmate, but I could sense something special going on between you. Something that was stronger than the soulmate connection that the entire world has been selling us. Call it a hunch from someone who had been there once.”
Jungkook bites his lips as he takes his time to think things over, before curiosity gets the best of him when he wonders how Tasha could be so strong and brave while he has been feeling so powerless against his own ordeal. “Have you ever felt—afraid, for defying fate? You’ve fought against them when you let your soulmate go so he could be with the one he loves, and now you’re trying to help me be together with the only person I’ve ever loved.”
With a light chuckle, Tasha gently shakes her head. “Have I been afraid of doing something so out of the ordinary and to defy the force that would be strong enough to ruin our entire lives under its will? Absolutely,” she admits to him before giving him a smug grin. “But it’s still not enough to make me stop doing it. I’ve always loved watching people chase the love that they choose, to fight for their happiness and get what they deserve. If I have the will and power to do something to help make it happen, I would do so with everything I have, knowing that it makes me feel happy by helping others feel the same thing. It gives me a sense of freedom that could heal my soul. And if that means that I’d be forever fighting against Fate to allow myself to feel this way, then I’ll do it over and over again.”
Jungkook looks down as he thinks deeply about her words, silently wondering if he would ever be able to be just as strong as she does. For the first time, after the day he came to find out that Namjoon was your soulmate, crushing every hope he had ever kept in his mind about having you in his life, he begins to find that missing sparks of hope blooming in his chest. Suddenly, the good faith that he had about his love for you returns full force after he had kept it dormant for the sake of giving you the chance to have what you had once wanted.
Now that the feeling has come back to him, the determination to fight against the universe and to get you back grows stronger. Though it doesn’t stop him from questioning himself—
Can he actually do it?
He keeps asking himself this as he thinks about fighting for his love and rebuilding the life that he has with you once again, no matter what it would cost him. But then he remembers how he had walked out and stepped away from you when you had insisted to make him stay so that you could fight alongside him to prove your love. He thinks about the past week that he was gone, knowing that the soulmate bond would have pulled you to Namjoon in his absence, leaving him to wonder—
Would it be too late for him to return home now and claim you back?
That same morning, you wake up in the same guest bedroom that you have been staying in, feeling so tired and broken.
You had kept the room dark, choosing to keep the lights off and keeping the curtains closed even when the dawn has long broken and the warm sunlight is forcing itself to come in. You cannot remember when you had fallen asleep, as you had found it hard to do so with your mind wandering all over the place while waves of emotions kept rushing through you all night to make you feel restless. The mixture of guilt, sadness, and hope, all collided into one before they all turned into despair before you were finally dragged into the darkness of your slumber only in your exhaustion.
Whatever glint of hope that you felt last night after receiving the call from Jungkook’s brother has now been replaced by self-condemnation and trepidation which keep intensifying each time the events from last night return to you. With a long exhale of sigh, you close your eyes, letting the memory replay itself in your head despite your wish to erase them and forget that they ever happened at all.
“It’s okay. Just give in. I’ll be here to hold you.”
Those were the words that Namjoon had whispered to you after he laid you down on his bed. It was obvious that he could see your fear when you were second-guessing yourself and while you were still trying to make sense of what was going on, and it was clear that he had noticed it as well when the bond between you took its form, as it gave its final effort of putting you both together.
But it was you who had pulled him down to you, and you had been the one giving him the kiss that should have sealed the deal.
You had come so close, just a step away from cementing your bond for eternity and severing the bond that you had built in your old life. You had already crossed the line merely seconds before, the remaining waves of your pleasure were still surging through you to remind you of it and your body was still calling for him. Yet, the moment you took in his scent, breathing in the warmth that was engulfing you in his embrace, something else inside you was shifting, and it was slowly winning, taking control to pull you out of the blinding haze.
And just then, the moment you closed your eyes, you realised that it was not his face that came into your mind. It wasn’t his voice nor his touch that your soul was searching for, and it snapped something inside you which slowly took away the fog that had clouded your sanity.
“Let it in. Let me in, baby. I know that deep down, you already know that this is so right.”
Those were the words that had compelled you into giving in to the bond and the sparks that had been building up between you all night. But right at that moment, as your soul began to cry out for another and started breaking apart inside you, everything about it felt so wrong.
With a sharp gasp, you gently pushed him away, breaking the kiss before it could have the chance to go further. Your heartbeat was still pacing rapidly in your chest, though each thrum was meant for a different reason, and the ache that came barrelling over you had nothing to do with him nor his presence. You had refused to open your eyes just then, unwilling to see the pain of your rejection reflecting in his eyes, something that you had no doubt would find after giving him such hope with what you had allowed to transpire.
And you simply refused to see reality, to know that the person holding you was not the one who you had truly wanted to be there and to have your heart broken once again knowing that he was not there.
But then a gentle brush of a finger on your cheek urged you to open your eyes, and you were surprised that instead of looking at you with disappointment and rage, Namjoon was staring at you with a warm, knowing smile plastered on his gorgeous face. It had taken you a moment and another wipe of his fingers on your face to realise that you had been crying, and that had been the reason he knew what was going on.
That your heart and soul had finally found their resolve to fight against the invisible force that had been taking control over you, and not even the soulmate bond could drown what your heart had truly desired.
And the one that your heart had been calling for was not him.
“I’m so sorry,” you had pleaded with him once reality hit you until your chest grew so tight you could barely breathe. You felt mortified, lost, and disgusted with yourself for allowing things to continue, and for ever giving him hope. And for coming so close to doing something more to severe what you had been trying to protect.
“Sshh—” Namjoon whispered to you, and you blinked your eyes to find him still smiling warmly, his gaze still filled with an understanding look instead of despair or disgust. “It’s okay, baby. I know.”
His gentle words had only made you cry louder, sending you into a sobbing mess as you fell apart beneath him. “I want him back.”
With a sigh, Namjoon continued to brush away your tears. “I know, baby. And he will come back to you. Even if he won’t, I’ll be the one dragging his ass back for making you cry every single night that he was gone.”
“This is—” you choked between your sobs and in the realisation that he had known how often you had cried yourself to sleep for missing Jungkook. You looked away from him, blinking away your tears so that you would be able to speak to him more clearly. Realising how vulnerable and exposed you were the moment the blissful fog faded from your mind, you pulled back and wrapped your arms around yourself, trying your best to cover your body from his eyes. “This shouldn’t have happened. None of this. I’m so sorry for allowing this to—”
“It had to happen,” Namjoon said, tipping your chin up just when you tried to hide from him. He made you look into his eyes, to be able to see that the same fog that had muddled his conscience had also faded from him and that he was able to think more logically now so he could calm you down. “We have both been focusing on the bond—with me who was feeling it for the first time and with you who kept fighting it—until it became the only thing we both felt above everything else. We had to let it happen so that we could open our eyes and see beyond that pull once it fades.”
Despite knowing that his words had been right, the way he said it to you still drew a bitter chuckle to come out of you. “Are you going to talk me out into believing that this was just one of those ‘getting it out of our system’ moments?”
“No, it’s nothing like that.” Namjoon gave you a sad smile before shrugging. “Maybe a little, but more like—” he stopped with a sigh, then reached out to grab a blanket from the other side of the bed which he then used to cover your bareness, wrapping it tightly around your body as if he wanted to keep your warm while protecting you from his roaming gaze. And he did it while he kept on talking, “—allowing yourself to see what your heart is asking for instead of what your body and mind is telling you to do.”
Keeping the blanket wrapped tightly around you, you kept your eyes low as Namjoon shifted away to find his pants and started putting them back on. “I’m so confused,” you whispered weakly to yourself, though it didn’t stop Namjoon from hearing them.
Lying beside you, Namjoon pulled you up until you were resting on his pillows, tucked nicely right next to him where he made you feel safe. “It’s okay to be confused. I know that you are. Honestly, I am too,” he gently said to you with a reassuring smile, one that didn’t truly reach his eyes. “But we’ll figure it out in the morning. I don’t think it would be wise to try and solve everything tonight, after what had just happened.”
You had taken that moment to ponder over his words, to wonder if you could truly believe everything that he was telling you. There was hope for a change simmering within you. Hope for a chance to reclaim the life that you had with the man that you truly loved. And yet the feeling fell short when you remembered how powerless you had been to stop things from carrying on, and how you had put yourself in this position despite your determination to wait for Jungkook’s return.
Namjoon must have felt your worries when he gently pulled you to him. His touch bared no lust when he held you to him, and his smile only offered to give you comfort as he laid down next to you, staying close to offer you his warmth and his company while you were shivering in your uncertainty.
“Stay with me tonight. I promised to hold you, didn’t I? Let me take care of you, _______,”
For the last time.
Those were the words that had been left unspoken, the words that had only made you feel even more guilty, knowing that you had been the one to cause the pain reflecting in his eyes when he pulled you into his arms for one last time, only to keep you safe in his hold until he was supposed to let you go.
Your chest still feels heavy when you take a look around the room. You try to ignore the feeling, however, and focus on making sure that you have everything packed with you and that you wouldn’t be leaving anything behind as you make your leave.
Once you are sure that you are completely ready to step away from this room once and for all, holding your travel bag in one hand and your purse in the other, you realise that you have never felt more resolved than ever, when you finally know what to do next.
Just a week ago, you had walked into this penthouse while feeling lost, dazed and confused from having two strong forces pulling you in two different directions. If only you had known then where to look, perhaps you wouldn’t have found your way here and things might have ended differently.
Much, much different than how things have turned out to be so far.
But you also know that you might have ended up living without knowing the answers to a lot of questions, haunted by the need to wonder about all the what-ifs and what could have been without ever knowing the truth. Without truly knowing what your soul has been searching for.
“You’re ready to leave?”
Namjoon appears in your path just as you walk out the door of your former bedroom. Looking just as weary as you are, he stares at you silently, not looking too shocked to see you packed and ready to go. His eyes fall on the bag you are carrying and his gaze softens for realising what is currently happening.
“I think it’s time. I’ve overstayed my welcome,” is the only thing you can say to him. You look at him a while longer, even if you have no clear idea what you are trying to find. To your reprieve, the pain that you had briefly seen in his eyes last night is no longer present, though you can also feel him putting up a wall when he straightens his shoulders and pushes his hands into his pocket.
Namjoon lowers his head as he smiles, and it is then when you can see a glimpse of remorse and pain flickering on his face, though you see no trace of them when he looks up at you again, all of his emotions are masked underneath the warm smile that he is giving you. Taking a deep inhale of breath, you realise how much it pains you to know that he is hiding his true feelings from you. The fact that he is masking his pain for your sake feels so wrong, but you also know that there is nothing that you can do about it. Not anymore, as you have made your choice and it had been some of the choices that you had made which had put the invisible strain that he is carrying and fighting so hard to hide. Once again, your guilt pinches at your heart, and you want nothing more than to fix things for him.
If only you know how to do it without sacrificing your soul.
Knowing that you no longer have the right to mess with his emotions, you do the only next best thing you know what to do.
“For what it’s worth, I did enjoy my time here with you and I’m grateful that we had a chance to see things clearly before moving on. I guess this way, at least, we’ll be leaving no place for all the questions and the what-ifs,” you calmly say to him, silently hoping that your words will not only be holding some truth in them for yous, but for him as well.
For years, despite thinking and believing that you had somehow moved on from his rejection, you have always known that deep down, you still had questions about what had happened. There had been times when you were up at night wondering about all the possibilities that had come from all the unknowing, while having no answers to help you find some peace in your heart to could actually heal you from your heartbreak.
You only realise now that have never once had the chance to find closure after his past rejection. Until now.
“Thank you for opening your doors for me and for allowing me to stay here. It’s been—” you softly laugh as you try to think of the perfect way to truly illustrate what you feel. “—quite a ride,” you finally say with a low chuckle, and you are pleased that it draws a smile from him too. With a sigh, you carefully add, “But I certainly won’t forget everything that we have shared for the past week, how much you have helped me and the friendship that we have built together. Thank you for your patience and for being so kind to me despite everything.”
Nodding his head, Namjoon seems to come to terms with the situation. Because the moment you find his gaze again, there is a glimpse of relief showing from his eyes. “You know that you’ll always be welcome here. My door will always be open for you whenever you need a place to run to,” he says with a smile, before quickly adding while jokingly, “But I truly hope that you won’t be needing it again so soon.”
Both of you smile and laugh at what he just said, and then his expression changes when he asks you, “I take it you’ve found out where he is?”
“Yes, his brother called me. He’s trying to see if he can help me get to Jungkook,” you reveal to him with a sigh, and you suddenly feel your chest grow tight as you recall the phone call that you had last night with Jungkook’s brother, how he had told you that a friend of his had informed him that she had met Jungkook and was watching over him for the time being.
The call had left you feeling restless, when your relief of finally getting some news of Jungkook’s whereabouts was trampled by your guilt. Though it didn’t stop you from feeling determined to get to him as fast as you can once you had slept on your raw emotions and after you woke up with a clear mind. You still have no idea how Jungkook would react if he ever finds out what you had done with Namjoon, but you would do everything to earn another chance to win him back, and you would do anything to be with the man that you love. You are even ready to spend your entire life making it up to him, as long as he gives you the chance to.
“I can help you with that. Just say the word,” Namjoon offers you, and it almost makes you laugh at the bitter fact that despite the disappointment that he must have been feeling because of you, Namjoon still wants to give a hand to help. Knowing him, there is no doubt that he is genuine with his offer.
With a wry smile, you shake your head. “You’ve done a lot for me already. But thanks for the offer,” you tell him then, looking straight into his eyes right after as you say to him, “I hope everything will go well with you in the future.”
Sighing in defeat, Namjoon gives you a smile and nods. “And for you too.”
Nodding at him, you give him one last smile before walking around him to make your way to the front door. You try your best not to tense up and to keep your chin up as you walk past him, but then he turns and calls your name gently when you are merely a few steps away from the door, his voice stopping you in your tracks.
“Would it have been possible for us to be together back then without feeling like crap?” he suddenly asks you before you even turn around to see what he is up to. Once you look over your shoulder, Namjoon lifts his shoulder in a simple shrug.
“I’m only asking before that’s what I’m feeling right now. It feels like crap because it made me happy that you were here, that I had a chance to spend time with you, to get to know you better, and for me to—” he stops and swallows hard, taking his time to find his words as he looks at you. “I loved being with you, and I know now that we would’ve been good together. But it makes me feel bad that we would have to sacrifice someone else to do so, if we ever choose to go down that route. But I also can’t help to wonder if things would have been the same as what we had this past week if I hadn’t acted like a coward and we had gotten together the way we were supposed to.”
Turning in your heels to get a better look at him, you can only shake your head. “I honestly have no good answer for that since I don’t know what would have happened if things had gone differently between us,” you regretful tell him then, stopping a moment to ponder the thought before speaking again.
“But, you know what? We could have. Maybe we would have fallen madly in love with each other once we gave each other a chance, or maybe we would have grown apart because we haven’t become the people we were meant to be if we had met then,” you say to him with a smile. “And yes, we would have been perfect for each other to the point that we’d make everyone else around us sick at how perfect we are together. But then again, sometimes things just don’t work that way. Not even if the universe had designed it to be.”
You turn to face him completely. If you are going to be absolutely honest with him, then perhaps it would be best to give him the honest truth, giving both of you the final closure that you have both needed to have for years. “That night, when I saw you in that room, I immediately fell for you so hard that it felt like my heart was trampled into pieces for believing that you wouldn’t be mine.”
Your confession seems to surprise him. Namjoon’s eyes grow wide for a brief moment before he smiles and nods at you. “I guess that’s the answer to everything,” he says, confusing you further when he suddenly seems like he has found his own resolve.
“What do you mean?”
When your gaze meets his once again, you find nothing more but clarity glowing in his eyes. “You loved me. You might even still love me now,” he says, giving you the kind of smile that no longer carries his remorse or the pain of having to let go of a huge part of his life that had been written for him. The only thing he shows you when he looks at you is relief, a sense of contentment and acceptance when he says, “But you are not in love with me.”
You flinch a little at this, and he must have caught it, because he immediately adds before you can speak in return, “And that is okay, because what you have is bigger than what we would have ever had since it is something that you have chosen for yourself, not something that had been chosen for you. You and I both know that you have always deserved to have more than that.”
Keeping your eyes on him, you know without any further explanation that he was talking about the soulmate bond, how he can see that you can have something more, just as long as you reach out for it.
For some reason, his words give you comfort. And then your mind wanders briefly to the past, to the younger version of his who had once held so much confidence and belief that he would be more superior than the soulmate bond and whatever fate was planning for him. “You said so then too, remember?” you question him while picturing the image of him standing in the kitchen area in some random fraternity house that you had never once walked into, drunkenly talking about his big dreams in front of his friends and his pretty girlfriend. “Somewhere between your words of rejection and your defiance against the soulmate bond, you had believed in it too. You had said then, in your own words, that there had to be something else beyond this soulmate system that had been designed for us. Something bigger, stronger, and perhaps it would matter more than what the universe wants us to find.”
There is a glint of something new in his eyes—is it pride? Acknowledgement? Or perhaps an understanding that he shares the same idea—when he nods. “And you have found it,” he says with a calm voice.
“I’m sorry,” you start to apologise, only to have him shaking his head.
“You don’t apologise for love,” he says, once again sighing in defeat, before he lifts his chin up. “I do, apologise, however, for not being worthy enough to hold on to you and to fight for us.”
You smile at him. “You are worthy, Namjoon,” you gently tell him.
And you mean it.
But you have given your heart and soul to another, and you are willing to fight to be with that person to the very end of your long journey.
Mr Choi-PA: Mr. Jeon has departed. We got him on the last flight of the day departing for Seoul
Tasha: Good. Thank you, Mr. Choi.
Tasha: You’re free for the night. I have nowhere else to go so I might just return to the loft once I’m done here
Mr Choi-PA: Yes, Ma’am.
Mr Choi-PA: I will be on standby at 7.30 AM to pick you up tomorrow for the meeting with Mr. Lee
With a smile on her face, Tasha types down a few more words of gratitude to send out to her driver and personal assistant before slipping the cellphone back into her purse. The elevator ride ends just then and the door opens to the rooftop bar. The same bar where she had spent hours drinking and sharing life stories with Jungkook just the night before.
After spending most of the day helping Jungkook plan out his return to Seoul, Tasha had joined her father who had come to supervise the resort while she sent Jungkook away with her driver taking care of business for her as he went back to his friend’s place to pack up his things and say goodbye. She is exhausted, drained from being a martyr as she helped a friend defy the century-old system that had been controlling all human beings in their chances of love and from spending the rest of the day going around the resort to deal with its management issues until late.
She feels so drained that there is nothing she wants to do more than to simply return to her loft and lie down in bed. Perhaps she could catch up with some sleep, taking back all the hours that she had lost from having her impulsive runt with Hyuk yesterday night.
But on her way back, she felt the sudden urge to have a nightcap before bed. Only that the idea of having one back in her loft while she is alone at home had sounded so sad. She felt the need to be in the crowd for some reason, even if it is only for the sake of drowning her thoughts with the loud sounds of people chattering and live music playing on the stage, which had been the reason why she made her way back up here before she would retreat for the night.
The bar counter doesn’t seem as crowded as the night before, and she finds no problem in finding an empty seat where she could settle herself into. She looks around, finding Hyuk being too busy tending the VIP guests on the other side of the floor to notice her, so she turns to call out the new bartender servicing the guests tonight to get her fill.
“Martini. Dry,” she immediately orders her usual.
“Do you want to open a tab tonight, Ms. Lee?”
She quickly shakes her head. “No, I’m just having this one before I go.”
One drink to celebrate yet another love story being written in history.
As she takes slow sips of her drink, savouring it instead of downing it so she could find a moment to relax, Tasha pulls out her phone, scrolling down the messages that she had been receiving all afternoon. A smile comes to her face when she comes across the last message that she had exchanged with Wooyoung, when he had let her know that he would be flying in with his wife next weekend for a short vacation while asking if they could meet. She feels excited as she imagines telling Wooyoung and his wife the story of Jungkook and his quest to find love, as the three of them had grown close after their saga that many years ago.
She suddenly feels the urge to laugh when she thinks about how her relationship with her soulmate had evolved over the years. How they have grown to have a sibling-like relationship since then. Even his wife has become a part of it, all because they still care about each other despite everything that had transpired between them.
She continues scrolling, stopping on the message that she had sent to Jungkook’s brother last night after watching Hyuk drop Jungkook in the guest bedroom back at her loft. It had been a relief that she had taken her time to exchange numbers with some of the family members who had attended the dinner party at Bovine that night a few months back, making it possible for her to send the news to Jungkook’s family before she would make sure to convince him to return.
Placing the phone back in her purse, Tasha tries to enjoy the moment, though she cannot help but let her mind wander off to Jungkook one last time. She is not the kind of person who enjoys meddling in someone else’s business. She had almost ignored the voice in her head that kept telling her to make an exception this time when she saw Jungkook last night at the bar.
Just like what she had told Jungkook this morning, Tasha has always been someone who adores romance. She may have never once truly experienced true love, yet she still loves the concept of love itself, and she still yearns for it just like how everyone else would wait for their own happy endings. That was the reason why she had taken it a stride when Wooyoung confessed to her for having someone that he had already loved before they met and how she agreed to stay with them as they tried to figure things out until the day they officially wed.
It was also the reason why she had felt such a strong pull in her soul to help Jungkook. And now that she had done what was needed, she cannot help but feel pleased with herself for listening to that inner voice of hers, to know that despite whatever the outcome might be, it was truly worth it when she saw the determination in Jungkook’s eyes when he told her that he was ready to return to Seoul to get back to you.
Lifting her glass of drink, she looks closely at the glowing liquid as she murmurs softly to no one in particular, “Isn’t love such a funny thing?”
“I’m sorry?”
A deep voice suddenly speaks to her. She snaps up and looks over to the man sitting beside her, who had, no doubt, heard what she had just said and is now looking at her curiously.
Tasha falls silent for a moment, astounded by the sight of the gorgeous man and the fact that he is looking straight into her eyes. Already well trained to regain her composure, she covers her stumble and shock with an easy laugh. “Oh, it’s nothing. I was just thinking out loud.”
The man laughs with her. “I do that all the time too, mostly when the music is loud like this and you can’t hear your own thoughts,” he says, pointing at the live band playing on the stage across the room. Tasha follows his gaze before turning back to him.
“You’re not enjoying the band?”
“Oh, I’m enjoying the music. It’s just…loud,” he says, chuckling at himself. And Tasha is surprised to find just how comforting his voice is when he does that. “But I honestly don’t mind it. I just got out of a different kind of party and this is the scene that I needed.”
“Another party?” she asks, raising her pretty eyebrows curiously. She finally takes a look closer at him then, scanning his looks—from the folded tuxedo jacket that he has hung on the back of his seat, the folded sleeves of his shirt, the bowtie that has been left hanging loose on his collar—
“Let’s see…Nice tux, sleek hair, must have been a fancy one. And something proper. I’m guessing it was a wedding?”
He raises his eyebrows, looking surprised. Judging from the way he laughs while looking astonished, she knows that she has hit the jackpot even before she confirms it himself. “You’re mighty observant. How did you know?”
Acting coy about it, Tasha lightly shrugs. “I work with people. I manage things to make sure that I can keep people entertained, so I’ve learned to read them to know how I could please them and fulfil their needs,” she says, stopping when she sees him making a curious face at her comment. It takes her a moment to realise that he might have taken it the wrong way.
With a chuckle, she waves her hand at him. “Oh no, darling. Not that kind of work. No offence to the ladies who work in that field, though,” she says, still giggling at his reaction, thinking of how adorable he looks whenever he is confused or lost. “I work in management, and I manage places where people would go to when they need to wind down and have fun. This bar, for example, is just one of them.”
The man nods, exhaling a soft chuckle as he says, “Ah, gotcha,” before he finally introduces himself as Matthew. Matthew Kim, a freelance developer who has been staying at a different resort on the island for the past couple of nights for the wedding he attended. She keeps repeating his name in her head for some reason, even as she gives him hers.
“So, what’s with the drinks?” she asks him curiously once she remembers that the resort did host a simple wedding reception at one of its open courts which isn’t supposed to end yet. “Did they not serve you enough alcohol at the party?” Even if she had called it a night and had vowed to not spare her mind in anything related to work, she cannot help but to start compartmentalising, trying to take notes to see if there is something that her staff might be missing out on.
Tossing his drink down his throat, Matthew laughs and shakes his head in return. “No, no, I’m just here to celebrate. I couldn’t do it properly earlier when I had too many eyes on me,” he says while raising his glass to her. “It was my soulmate’s wedding, after all.”
Her world immediately stops. “Your…soulmate?”
Matthew orders another round of drinks for the two of them while any plan that she has made about ending the night short simply vanishes into the back of her mind when he begins sharing his story. How he met his soulmate during high school reunion—she was an old schoolmate of his who had moved out to the States back in high school, before they ever had the chance to realise they were soulmates—and how their reunion had happened too late—for she had fallen in love with someone else while he had claimed himself married to his job and current lifestyle—and how he had found that there was no need for them to change everything when the bond between them could never change their feelings for each other, since they had only considered each other as friends. Unlike Tasha’s or Jungkook’s case, Matthew simply stepped aside to let his soulmate continue on with her life, without him, and he had chosen to accept her invitat
(I know the boys haven’t performed in China… I just wanted a Disneyland date next chapter and I know more about the Chinese one)
There is a whirlwind of movement as soon as the plane lands in Shanghai airport. The flight had been delayed due to problems on the runway. You had been in the air for two hours longer than planned, meaning everyone was now two hours behind on concert prep. You are rushed through immigration. A confusing blur of Mandarin and Korean being yelled around you as people try to figure out the best way to get you all through in time. In the confusion you lose Namjoon. You jump to the next nearest familiarity. Jungkook looks very surprised as you grab onto his arm, immediately searching around for your missing man.
When he comes up empty, he links his arm through yours and signals for you to use your hood to cover your face as best as possible.
“Okay… uh how..? hold on to me.” You do as you are told, better securing your facemask with your free hand. He pulls you through the throng of people. Trying to avoid sasaeng fans and paparazzi as you made your way to the front of the building. You almost make it through without incident. Jungkook tried coaching you to make it seem like maybe you were a stylist. You might’ve gotten away with it, if it weren’t for the girl who managed to run through the security team. She wasn’t passed the barrier for long, but it was enough time to rip the hood from your head exposing you as a foreigner to all the prying eyes around.
Mutters start to rumble through the onlookers. Rumours already spreading amongst them as they try to work out the identity of the mystery girl clinging to the youngest member like her life depended on it. You pull the hood back up, knowing its useless but not wanting them to take any more photos. You keep your eyes on the floor and keep moving forward. You’ve loosened your grip on JK knowing it’s futile but still wanting to come away without too much speculation. He doesn’t let go of you though. His grip tightens as he keeps moving, unwilling to lose you.
As soon as you are out of the main doors Namjoon is at your side. He puts an arm around your waist, peeling you away from your previous protector and ushers you straight into a waiting car. You don’t see the look he gives Jungkook. A look that suggests he is lucky to still be alive. You don’t get a chance to thank your protector as Joon slams the door in his face.
“Are you okay? Did she hurt you? I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to leave you, they dragged me away. I’ll never let that happen again.” He cradles you into his chest, not giving you a moment to reassure him. “I’m going to get you your own security team. Maybe it would be best if for Shanghai you didn’t start working. No one else is ever going to lay a hand on you.” He keeps rambling on petting your hair as if you are the one that needs calming down. You let him. It’s clear he fills guilty for disappearing but there is nothing you can do to assuage that guilt when he won’t even take a breath.
You barely get to see any of the city rushing past the window on the way to the hotel. Its not a long journey, 30 minutes at most from Pudong airport. You are let out of the cars in an underground parking lot, far away from anyone that might’ve been waiting for the band’s arrival. There isn’t a lot of time between now and when everyone had to be at soundcheck. Luckily the tour manager had collected all the boy’s passports in order to check them in and the hotel staff had allowed them to head straight to their rooms to set up. You follow Namjoon into the ornate elevator and he presses the button for the right floor. All this time your hand has been firmly clasped in his. You glance down at where you are joined to see his knuckles turning white.
“Joon, it’s okay, I’m okay. You need to calm down.” He refuses, holding firm. “Namjoon look at me.” He reluctantly meets your gaze. “If you are going to be this worried about me, maybe I shouldn’t have come, after this concert… I should just go home.”
“NO!” the sudden volume scares you a little, he sees you flinch and immediately his usual cheery demeaner is back. “Come one it’s been one day, it’ll be okay. I was just scared because I didn’t want to leave you and I didn’t want you to be afraid. You’ll be alright, I’m just being protective. Please stay, you have to stay.” The elevator dings before you get a chance to address the sudden shift in personality. It’s a short walk down the hallway to your room. Another gorgeous five-star accommodation. The bed was huge, the view spectacular, and there was even a balcony complete with a small garden. There was only one problem.
“Joon, there isn’t a door on the bathroom…” he places his backpack on the bed and looks in your direction.
“Oh yeah… I completely forgot about that. It’s a common feature in Chinese hotels unfortunately. It’s alright though, I’m going to be so busy for the next 48 hours you won’t have to worry about privacy.” He comes back to kiss you on the forehead and slide your own carryon off your shoulder onto his. “Let’s relax for a little while. I have some time before we need to go.” He sets your stuff down and slides on to the bed, patting the empty space next to him. For the next hour you sit in near silence, catching up on social media with a movie playing in the background. Just being able to sit with him is so oddly comforting. For someone you idolised for so long, it feels like it should have been harder to slip into routine, but he made it so easy. It was almost like he thought of you in the same light, something unobtainable.
The band’s deadline came around all too quick. Namjoon packed all of his concert necessities into a bag and kissed you goodbye. It had been decided it was best for you to distance from the band for tonight. Start fresh the next day. This left you with over 9 hours to yourself. First you skimmed through films on the TV, but it was hard to tell which were in English. Next you read through a book on your kindle, it kept you busy for a little while, but it was getting harder and harder to focus. You kept thinking about the stern voice Namjoon had used when you suggested leaving. So deep. So authoritative. Just the memory was proving a very powerful aphrodisiac.
Running a bath and taking care of yourself seemed like the best option, especially if Namjoon wasn’t going to be back for a long time. It’s not like you could ask him to help you anyway, not yet. You fill the large tub with scalding water and find some bath salts amongst the toiletries. You swirl them in before carefully dipping your feet into the water. The bath could easily be big enough for two. The heat and space help you to unwind from the long flight, helping to soothe all of the post flight ick.
Its not long before your finger trail in between your legs working on the other tension you had been feeling. Luckily for Namjoon, this is when he decided to check the room’s cameras.
Y'all ever dream about how hot and bothered it would make you feel to listen to Namjoon roast your existence and then you begging him to let you lick his sweat off his neck and chest ✋
Pairing:leopard hybrid parfumerie boss!Namjoon x female reader!employee
Genre: Hybrid AU. Romance. Smut. Pining. Slow burn. Angst. strong father themes. NOT DADDY-type themes. EXPLICIT
Warnings: super super eemootiionaaal sex- is that a warning? No breed-you-with-my-pups here. Leopard-style sex, which just means, really, he comes in from the back ( I watched Nat Geo to make sure). Mirror sex (so that they can look at each other @ralypenny this is part of your ask that I finally fulfilled).
Summary: In this hybrid AU, hybrids are rich and powerful. You are fully human in form and in weakness. Too bad you’re falling for your hybrid boss. And mayhaps he’s falling for you.
Word count: 10k
Special thanks: @hobi-gif for being a kick-ass beta reader with 56 edits that I never knew I needed. You read this while you were so tired, and took the time to encourage me. I’m so grateful.
Even now, more than twenty years later, the tune, the cadence, the leering faces that surrounded you are hauntingly familiar.
One glance at your comparably smaller build, your simple clothes, your plain, singular-species face was obvious enough to announce to anyone that you’re fully human.
The hybrids of your time are often part of the super-rich. It’s no surprise considering their survival instincts for attracting the richest, biggest, smartest, and fastest mates are well-honed from centuries of evolution.
Imbued with stronger genes than full-blooded humans, the hybrids live longer, look prettier, work faster, breed better, and probably fuck harder too.
So you were expected to count yourself lucky your mother worked as a live-in housekeeper for a rich hybrid family. And you were expected to count yourself lucky that their residential address allowed you to benefit from the most exclusive school districts in the country full of wealthy hybrids.
But you weren’t lucky.
Everyone knew you as the housekeeper’s daughter, as if that were more dignified than your name. Everyone made fun of you for being smaller, slower, shorter. More human.
And every day, you trudged to school, walking down the halls feeling like prey waiting to be fed to a room full of predators.
So you suffered alone through elementary, middle, and high school, always as the housekeeper’s daughter, always the butt of their jokes, always ready with fingers curled into hard fists to fend for yourself.
With each passing year, three things became clear to you:
This is not a simple love story with smut, coz nothing is simple when it comes to your story. There will always be an issue to address, a conflict to resolve. The female character in your stories are some of the strongest i have met. The way you portray the smut scene is so beautiful - there is only one word that comes to my mind - reverence. I feel like Namjoon is treating the reader with so much reverence in the smut scene (i see the same in Unbroken and in Of Boogers and Tteokbokki).
- Sometimes, walking away is the best thing we can do our selves. Oh, how true! Choosing to walk away (no matter how hard and how hurtful it is) will always to be a good choice to keep your sanity, protect your head and heart, and to be able to start anew. This is what Namjoon did when he left his family. No matter how much you love someone, you have to realize when someone or a relationship is too toxic and choose to walk away. After all love is a choice. You choose them but they have to choose you too, otherwise it will never work.
- You’re not him. 3 words but the most impactful of them all. You have to remind yourself that the situation or that person you walked away from will never define who you are. What will define you is what you do after. Namjoon is making a name for himself, might not be as grand as what his father’s, but its his. Namjoon is lucky he has the Reader who will remind him of this every day.
Yes, we need to be reminded that we are worthy of love and we have what it takes. How we were loved or treated is not a reflection of who we are and what we are capable of. We will heal and we will mend, we just need the right people around us to be remindee of this and to help us is the process.
Tag warnings: the smallest mention of drug use, smut, swearing, some mention of parental abuse, some religious references, criminal activity, single mom. Probably some wrong use of legal terms in the Korean context. To my Korean friends, please correct me, I’m here to learn from you. I tried to research as much as I can, and also consulted someone living in SK for this fic. But I’m sure there are mistakes. I ask for your forgiveness.
Willow, Max, Bunny, Jie, Madz, Ana, Em, Mina, Hopie, Rei, if not for you, this fic would not be fucking possible. At all. Dedicated to you all. Because you walk with me.
Banner made by the beautiful and stunning Mina @bangtanmademedoit. She’s pure genius.
Tag warnings: the smallest mention of drug use, smut, swearing, some mention of parental abuse, some religious references, criminal activity, single mom. Probably some wrong use of legal terms in the Korean context. To my Korean friends, please correct me, I’m here to learn from you. I tried to research as much as I can, and also consulted someone living in SK for this fic. But I’m sure there are mistakes. I ask for your forgiveness.
Willow, Max, Bunny, Jie, Madz, Ana, Em, Mina, Hopie, Rei, if not for you, this fic would not be fucking possible. At all. Dedicated to you all. Because you walk with me.
Banner made by the beautiful and stunning Mina @bangtanmademedoit. She’s pure genius.
Every Time. You get me every time with your loving on my fics .
I’m so moved that you took the time to write this. I know how busy you are, and that it’s a tough time right now for you. Im so so so touched.
Thank you for lifting my heart. I was doubting myself today about a lot of things. But reading your affirmations about what I was trying to say in this fic about love and family and sacrifice made my heart burst with gratitude.
@everyone, Isi has an amazing masterlist. You are going to be well fed. Trust me. Come to her table with me and we will feast.
pairing: scientist!Namjoon x f!reader genre(s): smut, angst, drama, mystery, slight horror au(s): based on Frankenstein word count: 460 words for the teaser warnings (teaser only): mentions minor character death rating:18+
summary:Kim Namjoon had always been a curious child, with a strong desire to understand the world. After a tragedy strikes his family Namjoon is left heartbroken. Grieving, he seeks to create a companion in the most unorthodox way. But what happens when the very life he created turns against the master whom she was supposed to love?
a/n: i’m still working on the hyung line classic lit stories! this one is quickly spiraling out of control, so I’m just sharing this to keep myself accountable bc I need to finish this damn fic. I’ve already written and deleted so much from it T_T this also very unedited
The rain pummeled against the window, striking the glass panes with such brazen force that Namjoon thought his whole studio would shudder and splinter underneath the weight of tonight’s storm. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he lets out a deep breath, one he did not even know he’d been holding for the past few years. It was done.
A crack followed his sigh, like a bone being set into place, and then a great groan, and his creation sprung to life. Namjoon stood there, paralyzed, the awe beginning to melt away, and shock and horror setting in as he took in the sight of this new being. It was a woman, and yet it was not. For every feature he’d selected, eyes, lips, nose, and everything that was beautiful in its own right, fit together in the most grotesque of ways, and instantly his heart plummets. This was no human. This was nothing worthy of his love, or the labor he’d undertaken for the past two years. The empty void that had settled in his chest after his mother’s passing grew wider and wider, and Namjoon watches all his hopes and dreams become swallowed by the gaping vortex.
A bead of sweat trickles down his neck, escaping underneath his shirt, and Namjoon turns on his heel, running out of the room.
Panicked, he closes the door behind him, rushing across the hall to his own bed, drawing the scratchy covers over his head. His eyes flutter, willing for sleep to claim his restless frame, but it never comes. Instead, he lies awake, the pounding of his heart melding with the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner, creating a haunting rhythm to represent the doom that has begun to loom over the house.
A loud crack jolts Namjoon awake from his miserable sleep - the lightning illuminating the room in a silvery glow, and there, at the foot of his bed -– the figure of the being he’d created! Round eyes, if they could even be called so, staring at him curiously, like a lost child. Mouth moving as though it was trying to speak, but no sounds escaped.
Namjoon softens at the sight of the poor creature, looking lost and confused. He reaches out towards it, hands shaking, and nearly jumps when he feels two leathery palms take his hand in between them. His heart thrums at the gentle display, amazed at how soft-natured the creature was, despite its extraordinary appearance.
Tightening his hand in the creature’s, he realizes that he cannot give up now. This dream, this vision, it must be worth something. For the beauty of creation lied not in the dazzling appearance of things themselves, but their ability to provide hope.
I started this story a while ago when the reader is cursed and must repeat the same day over and over again. In the story Hoseok is madly in love with her but she just uses him for sex. I think Namjoon is her personal assistant and Taehyung is her friend. If anyone finds a story similar please tag me.
“I have a challenge for you”, he broke the silence. “Hm?” You hummed from your place on his hold. “I think you already know it”, he said. You lifted your head to look at him in the eyes. Was this boy serious? He had to make it into a game, all because he was too shy to ask you to kiss him. It was cute. Min Yoongi was cute. His eyes looked back at you in anticipation. He was waiting for a reaction, challenge was a challenge so you still had the possibility to not do it. But you were no damn quitter.
sorry i had to use this after all that talk about this gif lolol
His hands were trailing down the sides of your body and he enjoyed the way you were squirming under him. He placed wet kisses down your neck to your collarbone and sucked at your sensitive spot. “Does it feel good?” he asked in a hushed voice and you nodded without opening your eyes. “Yes,” you answered while brushing your fingers through his hair to tuck lightly at his roots which drew a low groan from his throat. You arched your back at that sound and you felt him smile against your bare skin.
You opened your eyes in panic when you heard something crash and found yourself in your dark empty bedroom. You were breathing heavily and sighed while tugging at your own hair. “Fuck…” you cursed under your breath and turned to switch the light next to your bed on. As soon as you did that you saw your cat looking at you with big eyes sitting next to a broken plant. “I’m not even allowed to dream about him, huh?” you asked your cat and she meowed as a response. “I’ll clean that up in the morning. Just don’t step in it,” you said frustrated and switched the light back off and threw yourself back into bed. The next day would be interesting.
***
You hadn’t seen him the whole day because you kept postponing his appointment with you. You thought the later the better since you would maybe forget about the dream. Which was nonsense honestly, because as soon as you saw him all the feelings from the dream came rushing back and you could literally feel his touch against your skin. “Hi!” he greeted you and embraced you in a tight hug as always but today it was unbearable for you. “Let´s go.” you said and pulled away and turned your back on him to walk into the dressing room.
Trying on new outfits has been a hassle since what happened. One of you always started teasing and both of you were too stubborn to stop. So you would end up teasing each other the whole session and it was eating away at your desires and needs. It’s been two hours since you started dressing him and you were on your sixth outfit when he reached his limit. You were fixing his fixing the waist of his pants and had your index and middle finger tucked in at the front while applying the needle at the right point so you could stitch it later. He suddenly became really quiet and made you look up.
“What? Is something bothering you?” you said while giving his pants a closer look and brushing your hands down his sides of his leg. “Is it too snug? I can rearrange…” you were saying while checking the waist and he suddenly grabbed both of your hands and made you look back up. “Shit, did I pick you with the needle? Sorry.” you apologized and tried to free your hands to pull out the last needle you had placed but he didn’t let go and pulled you up on your feet. He was holding your wrists close to his chest so that your faces were only inches apart. “Namjoon…” you said trying to free yourself but he was not having it. “I’m really trying hard to respect your choice but you’re making it really hard…no pun intended,” he said and your eyes widened as you realized what he was joking about so you pushed him away while the blood rushed to your cheeks. “I’m just doing my job,” you said grabbing a jacket and reaching it out to him. “Put it on,” you said and he took it from you with a tiny smile on his face. After he put it on you crossed your arms in front of your chest and glared at him. It was unfair that he was allowed to look this good. “Are you going to behave or do we have to take a break?” you said, your cheeks still rosy. “Did these past three months really not change your mind?” he asked you and you could hear the desperation in his voice. “No.” you answered quickly and went back to work. If only he knew what you were dreaming about.
***
The situation became unbearable when you two got stuck on a shoot waiting for the artists in front of you to finish. You’d been in the dressing room for two hours now - Namjoon all glammed up waiting for his turn. He kept stealing glances of you while roaming around the dressing room. You were wearing snug jeans and a simple blouse on top but your simplicity made you even more attractive to him. He was trying to restrain himself but since the day he learned about your divorce, he felt like there was nothing holding him back anymore, besides your job. And he respected that but he kept stealing little ‘accidental’ touches which was the only thing that kept him going. But right now was just torture. You’ve never been alone in one room with nothing to do for this long. You two always came together to work and never had time to act on the tension in the room. But right now was different. Something inside of him snapped when you started putting your hair in a ponytail, exposing your neck and shoulders to him.
That’s when he stood up and took you by surprise. He turned you around by your shoulder placed his hand against the crook of your neck and started kissing you passionately. Instinctively you let out an audible sigh because your body was aching for this for months now. He smiled against your lips as soon as you heard that. You came to your senses fast enough and tried to push him away but he had locked you in place. “Just this once.” he breathed against your lips when you both parted to take in some air and your heart and desires took over your ability to think straight. You wrapped your arms around his neck and he placed his hands on your bottom to pick you up. You wrapped your legs around his waist in one swift motion and he carried you over to the desk while plastering your neck and collarbone with kisses. “Joon…” you sighed and you could feel him tense up under you. “I dreamed about this so many times,” he whispered against you between a kiss and a shiver of arousal went down your spine which made you press yourself closer to him. You brushed your fingers through his hair and tucked at his roots to make him look up at you, ruining his styled hair but none of you cared. He smiled wholeheartedly and you leaned in to kiss him. Both of you were fighting for dominance while he let his hands glide under your blouse to explore your soft skin. You had goosebumps as soon as he touched sensitive places and you sighed once more into the kiss. You bit his lip gently and tucked at it in order to get a reaction from him and with success. He let out a low groan and made you smile triumphantly. You were about to grind on him teasingly to double his reaction when a knock echoed through the room and both of you jumped apart. He fixed his hair immediately while you hid behind the curtain which was for changing clothes.
“We’re ready for you in five!” the staff member said through the door when she didn’t get an answer to come in. “I’ll be there!” Namjoon called back playing it off as if he wasn’t going down your throat seconds ago. Footsteps that were getting further away told you that she left. When he pulled away the curtain he found you staring at your feet. “Nothing happened. She didn’t see,” he said trying to calm you but you felt horrible. Horrible for having to hide like a rat. “You have to go.” you said while pushing past him,” I’ll call the visagist to fix your hair and makeup.”
“Y/N, please…” he tried to talk to you but you already went out the door.
***
You didn’t show up to work for two weeks and Namjoon was getting frustrated. No one knew where you were or no one would tell him. He tried calling and texting you but that was also a dead end. So you can imagine his surprise when you appeared on his doorstep on the weekend. His doorbell rang and he was confused as in who was at the door because he wasn’t expecting anyone. He was even more confused when he opened the door and you jumped at him to wrap your legs around his waist and your arms around his neck. He caught you with his large hands and stumbled a few steps back before regaining a steady position. “Y/N, what…” he started to ask but stopped when you pulled away to look at him. Your hands were on his neck, your thumbs brushing over his earlobes gently. “I’m back.” you beamed at him and his lips tucked upwards seeing how happy you were. “I can see that.” he smiled back at you and you loosened your legs to signalize him to let you down. He got it immediately and you stood in front of him and took out a stack of paper out of your bag and held it in front of his face. “I quit!” you told him with beaming eyes and his mood changed immediately. “You did what?” he asked and furrowed his brows, quilt creeping up in his stomach.
“I quit. I’m not your stylist anymore,” you explained and he shook his head while taking the papers out of your hand. “Why would you do that?” he asked while examining the papers. “Nothing´s holding me back anymore,” you said freely and he wanted to yell some sense into you. “No. I’m not allowing this. This is stupid. I’m talking to the manager.” he riled himself up and tried to walk past you but you grabbed his arm to stop him. “Calm down lover boy. I also got a new job,” you said pulling the cond stack of papers out of your bag and held it up. “I’m now part of the management team in the styling department. I’m playing with the big dogs now.” you smiled at him and he looked dumbfounded. “I’ve been thinking about applying for this job over two years now but I was always too scared thinking that I won’t make it. I’m qualified for the job for years now but you know…now that someone was pushing me to my limits I gathered my shit together and applied. And I got it!” you said jumping up and down celebrating it. He took a look at the new papers in your hands and you smiled sheepishly. “And there is no part in that saying I can’t date anyone in the company,” you said leaning into his ear while he flipped through the contract. His head snapped up and he looked into your eyes, his gaze totally changed.
“So I think about dating one of the boys or maybe staff. What do you…” you wanted to tease him but he interrupted you. “Shut up,” he growled and kissed you right then and there. You took it to the bedroom rather quickly. You were lying underneath him and his hands were trailing down the sides of your body and he enjoyed the way you were squirming under him. He placed wet kisses down your neck to your collarbone and sucked at your sensitive spot. “Does it feel good?” he asked in a hushed voice and you froze and covered your mouth to stop yourself from nervously laughing. “What? Did I do something?” he asked and looked for any type of discomfort in your eyes but only found amusement and…embarrassment? “What?” he asked again now doubting himself. You cupped his face to stop him from overthinking. “You’re literally the man of my dreams,” you said with a big smile on your face thinking back to your dream and kissed him. When he got what you were saying he pulled away and looked at you with raised eyebrows. “Wait you dreamt of me?” he asked and your cheeks flushed immediately. You nodded and avoided looking into his eyes. “Joon…?” you asked and made him lookup. “Are you sure about this?… I mean, I was married once,” you said now really insecure about this. “I don´t care. Just don´t mention him to me,” he assured you and changed the subject to lift the mood. “What was I doing in your dream exactly?” he asked while pulling down your pants and throwing it in a corner. He started kissing your belly down to your panty line. “Joon..” you moaned and he smiled against you. You arched your back the sensation and showed him how eager you were for his touch. He slipped his fingers in between your thighs and moved them up slowly just stopping close to your core, not touching it. You growled at his teasing and pulled him up just to flip him over and sit on top of him. “I´m not in the mood for teasing Namjoon.” you warned him while grinding against his hardening member. He placed his hands on your hips and guided you along. He closed his eyes end leaned his head back giving you full access to his throat. You leaned down and placed kisses along his neck leaving marks at places you knew the make up artist had to cover. You started grinding harder against him and the friction made him moan lustfully while digging his fingers deeper into your flesh. “Ugh…I-..” he started but he couldn´t finish because your movements made it hard for him to concentrate. The sight of him yearning for your touch, bucking his hips up to meet your core, making your need to feel him grow inside of your lower stomach. “I need you.”, you moaned into his ear,”buried deep inside of me.”
As soon as you said that he let out a guttural moan and flipped you so you were lying under him again. He took off his pants along with his boxers and was in front of you in his full glory. He leaned back down and placed his lips on yours. The kiss was passionate yet so loving that it made your heart swell. He traced his tongue along your bottom lip and your lips parted allowing him entrance to explore. While he was distracted you wrapped your hands around his length and started stroking him up and down. As expected you caught him by surprise and he broke the kiss to bury his face in the crook of your neck. You kissed his shoulder while starting to apply light pressure and he moaned out your name. He started thrusting slowly into your hand and when you felt him shiver in need you stopped to take off your panties. You were dripping wet when he aligned himself at your core. He looked into your eyes and pushed back a few strands of hair. He kissed your forehead, the tip of your nose, and finally your lips while pushing the tip of his cock in. Your grip on his shoulders tightened as you felt him stretch you and you moaned in pleasure while furrowing your brows. “You good?” he asked, moving carefully and left butterfly kisses on your closed eyes. You nodded in consent and he pushed in deeper filling you up completely. Both of you were moaning in pleasure and it was almost unbearable. Namjoon was breathing heavily while trying to restrain himself from pounding into you, trying to give you time to adjust. When you felt the light stinging turn into absolute pleasure you wrapped your legs around his waist and lift your head up to his ear. “Fuck me, Namjoon.” you plead your lips brushing over his ear which turned him on even more. He didn´t need to hear that twice so he started pounding into you at a steady pace. You gasp at the sensation and hold onto his arms which feel so good under your touch. You move one hand up to his ear and stroke it gently. Which makes him close his eyes and his breath catches in his throat. You realized that his ear was a soft spot earlier and you were happy to get a reaction out of him.
“You feel so good.” he moaned in between breaths and you arched your back to give him better access at your sweet spot. He hit it a couple of times and suddenly you were really close to the edge. “Right there Namu. Right there,” you begged and moved your hips up to meet his. When he slipped his hand between your folds to rub your clit, it didn´t take long for you to clench around him and cum from all the sensations added together. You desperately moaned his name loud and clear while riding out your high and his pounds started getting sloppy when he heard his name fall from your lips in such a beautiful way. “I´m so close.” he moaned and buried his face in your neck again and you held him while caressing his back. “Come for me baby.” you cooed and he let out a guttural moan while releasing inside of you. His lower abdomen twitching and his arm muscles tensing up. You left soft kisses here and there while he rode out his high and was panting your name.
After both of you came down from your highs you snuggled into his side and he wrapped an arm around you. He placed a loving kiss on top of your head and breathed in your scent. He still couldn´t believe you were finally his. “Uh..Y/N?” he asked sounding very shy suddenly as if he wasn´t fucking you senseless minutes ago. “Yeah?” you answered while tracing your fingers along his abs. “I know we just…did that, but…are you in for a relationship with me?” he asked while holding a hand up and sounded like a little kid asking for a lollypop. You chuckled at his question and gave him a high five which left him baffled. “Of course. I wouldn´t have done this if I weren´t” you smiled up at him but he was looking at his hand opening and closing it constantly trying to understand why you gave him a high-five. “I was trying to hold your hand but I guess that works too,” he said sounding totally confused and made you laugh. You held his hand with one hand and cupped his face with the other smiling at him broadly. “You´re one of a kind Kim Namjoon.” you said affectionately and he smiled back lovingly.
***
It´s been a week since that night and you invited the guys over to dinner to let them know, which kind of backfired.
“So you left us just to start a relationship with Namjoon?” Jin asked and looked at you in disbelief. “You stole her from us?!” Taehyung said and looked unbelievably hurt. “I hate the new stylist, he’s really rough.” Hobi pouted and made you chuckle. “Oh come on. You didn’t like me in the beginning either. Give him some time to adjust.” you suggested and they shook their heads like little kids. “You need to come back. You’ll find someone better than Namjoon. I swear I will never complain about the weight of the jackets!” Taehyung begged and earned a glare from Namjoon.
“That’s sweet of you Tae. I’m still working at the company, just not directly with you guys. I deal with the brands directly now.” you tried to explain but Yoongi had another interpretation of that. “So you earn more money now. You left us for money?”
“Hyung.” Namjoon warned him but you put your hand on his thigh to calm him down. “No, as Namjoon also knows: My carrier is my most valued thing and this was just the right step,” you explained and Jungkook looked at you like a puppy. “I still don’t like the new guy.”
