You're In My Head...

you're in my head...

Today I have some free time so I’ll be organizing this blog a bit, possibly reposting fics from my previous blog. Don’t mind me, and sorry if your dash is temporarily full of my bullshit haha

Imaginary Games

▪️Pairing: Kim Taehyung x Fem. Reader

▫️Genre: Romantic, Smut, Exes to Lovers, Smidge of Hurt

▪️Warnings: 18+ Explicit language, sexual content (vanilla), pining idiots, past infidelity.

▫️Summary: The only thing that could make a destination wedding - in which you're the maid of honor, who has to give a speech in front of a crowd, who has to wear a dress that cost you a pretty penny that you'll never wear again - worse is the fact that your cheating ex is the best man.

▪️WC: 8k and some change

▫️AN: Repost from previous blog. Honestly I just really liked this fic. It wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea and I get that. Cheating is one of those things that we all have very strong opinions on, naturally, and that’s totally valid. For me, I just really enjoyed writing this and I liked how it turned out. The whole bit about Taehyungs ruined cashmere alone was enough for this to make the reposting cut 😂🧶

“He isn’t here yet, he won’t be here until dinner tonight so you can relax,” Fi, your best friend and blushing bride-to-be tries to comfort you as she shifts around on her beach chair. 

She’s talking about Taehyung, of course, you don’t need to ask. He’s your ex, that you haven’t laid eyes on in two years. Not since the night that he admitted to cheating on you with a co-worker. You’d felt so incredibly stupid. You’d been casually babbling about meal planning of all the mundane things (it’s more cost effective and healthy blah blah!), and he started crying and spilled the whole story out of guilt. You’d been too stunned to argue, or fight, so you did what you always do when someone hurts you: You said nothing, or at least nothing of value, and you walked away. He’d tried to run after you, begged you to just talk to him, tried to wipe the tears that fell from your face in a devastated shower, but you wouldn’t let him. You slapped his arm away so hard your fingers had tingled for an hour, and you told him never to speak to you or touch you again. 

A typical person might fight, scream, or try to have a discussion. A typical person would ask questions between bouts of screaming like “Do you love her?” “Did it mean anything?” “Do you still want me?” - the kind of questions that are natural when you’ve been fucked over like that. You definitely dwelled on those questions a lot, but you were too stubborn to ever ask them, because that would mean you’d have to speak to him, and you’d made it clear you were done speaking. If you spoke to him that might give him the impression that you were willing to listen to his side of things, and that might lead to him thinking you could forgive him. Can’t have that. 

You’re not a forgiving person, not when the offense is that deep and it was. You loved Kim Taehyung with your whole heart. You planned on doing ‘old and gray’ with him. You built future plans together, he was your best friend, he was your safe place and you were all those things for him as well. It was right, he was Mr. Right. 

You find it so unusual and infuriating that even after two years, you feel that pain like it was freshly served every time you think of him.

“I’m relaxed,” you tell her with a stiff shrug, “and this weekend is about you and Joon, not me, so I don’t care when he’s coming.” 

 In the two years you’d been broken up with Tae, you had found it quite challenging to keep up your friendship with Fi, considering her significant other - and now fiance - was Taehyungs older brother. In fact, they met because you and Tae had set them up on a blind double date. You managed, however, to avoid him at all costs. Until now, because who else would Namjoon choose to be his Best Man other than his brother? 

“Yeah you really look it,” Fi snorts, “you’re sitting beside the ocean underneath a warm sun and you look so uptight that I’m scared you’re going to start shitting diamonds.” 

“Well maybe I’ll shit a necklace, it can be your ‘something new’,” you tease and she laughs, maybe you’ve dodged the wrath of her observational skills. 

You try to go back to your book, you’ve made it all the way to page two, but just like every other time this morning you’ve attempted to read - the words start to blur together when your mind begins to think of the inevitable: He will be here. You will have to interact. You’ll have to play nice. 

“You know, Joon says he hasn’t gone out with anyone since you two split,” she offers casually as she flips onto her stomach. 

“Fi…” her name comes out as a warning. 

“Sue me, I’m just saying that it’s worth noting the man has been punishing himself the entire time you’ve-,” 

“Where’s your phone? I need to check the time,” you say quickly, digging in her tote until you feel the shape of the device that you don’t need whatsoever. You’ve got nowhere to be until dinner this evening. 

“You can change the subject all you want, but tonight at dinner you’ll have to face the problem you’ve been running from all this time head on,” she reminds you, painfully. 

“I’ve not been running Fi. I walked away, with the entire thing blowing up behind me and didn’t look back. There’s a difference,” you point out. 

“Fine. Avoiding is the better verb then. Semantics,” she eyes you from under the brim of her hat, “you never gave him the chance to explain what happened.” 

You scoff, “Unless his dick leapt off his body and kamikazed into her vagina I don’t really need to know what happened. Do you know what happened?” you ask out of curiosity, though you immediately regret the words, it gives the impression that you give a shit. 

“No, I don’t. I promised you I wouldn’t discuss you with him and I haven’t - though he’s tried many, many times - but I do think it’s a conversation you should have with him ___,” she props herself up on her arms, “People move on from affairs all the time, sometimes together, sometimes apart. The point is that they decide what’s best based on all the information, not just the pain it caused.” 

She’s making you angry. You bite down hard on your lower lip to ground yourself. You don’t want to yell or fight with her, not this weekend when it’s her big moment. Her wedding. 

“Hey, I’m starting to feel the sun,” you say, and it’s not a total lie, “I think I’m going to go in and cool off, get some water and lunch. Do you want anything?” you ask. 

You look up towards the hotel and see that Namjoon is on his way down with a towel draped over his shoulder. 

“Ah, nevermind,” you pat her on the back, “a buff Sea God approaches. He’ll take care of you.” 

You gather up your own things and start walking up the beach access where you cross paths with him. 

“Joon,” you greet him with a little nod. 

“Hey. So, how many mimosas has my bride had this morning?” he chuckles. 

“Four,” you answer, “but those last two had like the vapor of OJ in them, so I think it’s probably time for a dunk,” you wink. 

You don’t quite make it into the hotel before you hear Fi’s shrill scream and you smile as you watch Joon pluck her off the chair, toss her over his shoulder and head to the water. They splash and play and you can’t help but enjoy it - but then pain encroaches on the moment and your smile fades as it so often does, and you disappear into the hotel before anyone can see how bitter you are. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Namjoon and Fi had wanted you all to carpool to the restaurant together, but you’d insisted on driving yourself for a few reasons. 

For one, it gave you an immediate means of escape, should the sight of Kim Taehyung drive you to projectile vomiting. Also, it gave you some time alone to talk yourself up, to psych yourself into thinking you could navigate this evening without succumbing to any emotions. You’d done such a good job, for two long years, of not letting him know what he did to you. Not letting him see how he devastated your life. Most importantly though, not letting him in. 

“The Kim-Park wedding party?” you tell the hostess as you walk into the lobby. It must be freezing in here, the way your arms and legs erupt in chills. 

“Sure,” she smiles brightly and points across the dining area, “out on the patio, just through those glass doors.” 

“Thanks.” 

No less than sixty seconds ago, getting out of your car, you’d felt confident. However, as you close in on the patio doors you realize that despite knowing this moment was coming, despite going over it in your head every night for the past few months - you have no idea what to say to him. You’d not practiced the conversation even once in your head, which is unprecedented for you. 

You pull your hand off the door like it burned you and slip to the side before anyone from the party can see you through the glass. You press your back up against the cold wall and take a deep breath. 

“I think we’re both doing the same thing.” 

His voice, so deep and familiar, daggers you. You look over and sure enough, on the other side of the doors he stands there, tall and lean, pressed up against the wall with his fists shoved into his pockets. 

He crosses over to you, and you take an instinctual step back, he notices but doesn’t remark on it. 

“I’m hiding from you and you’re hiding from me,” he continues. 

At some point, you’ll have to speak. Eventually he’s going to think you’ve either lost your voice or worse, that his presence has rendered you speechless and you refuse to let that happen. 

“Why would I hide from you?” you ask, correcting your posture and steeling your nerves. 

“Because you don’t know what to say, and you hate not knowing what to say,” he answers and your blood boils at the fact that he’s right. You hate that he knows you, inside and out, knows your personality, your faults, your strengths, your comforts. He knows what you look like naked, what you love in bed and how to - STOP. There is absolutely no way you’re letting your mind go there. 

“Why would you be hiding from me?” you ask instead of admitting he was spot on with you. 

“Because I was afraid at how much it would hurt to see you,” he says, “turns out it was worse than I’d thought.” 

He looks at you then, really looks, from your face all the way down to your heels. 

“You look so pretty,” he whispers with the saddest smile you think you’ve ever seen on a human being. You think you also see the glint of tears dusting his lids. 

“Thanks,” you say in a cold, disinterested cadence, “We should get in there before they start wondering where we are.”

“Listen, __, I’d really like to sit down and talk to you this weekend,” he stops you by placing his palm gently on your shoulder. It may as well have shocked you, the way you stiffen up and shimmy away from it. 

“Taehyung,” you say sternly, “We’re here this weekend because your brother and my best friend are getting married. It’s their weekend, and you and I are responsible for making sure everything is memorable and good. That is the beginning and end of my obligations. So I really couldn’t give a flying fuck about what you want.” 

Then you push through the doors without giving him a chance to reply. 

You hate yourself. You didn’t have to be that cruel, not after two years of giving him the silent treatment. The look on his face tells you that you may have taken it too far. 

However, by the time you’ve sat down you’ve already switched gears. You angrily set your clutch on the table. The look on his face? On his face? It’s nothing compared to the look that was on yours. The look you wore for months in the wake of what he’d done. So he can look however the fuck he wants. To Hell with him. 

A waiter brings you a glass of champagne and you fight the urge to chug it down and ask for another. That won’t do any good though. The last thing Fi and Namjoon need is for you to get hammered at their party and ruin it. Besides, champagne hangovers are the worst. It’s not worth upsetting Fi. 

When you look up to see Fi storming towards you, you think that ship may have already sailed. 

“What?” you ask like a child about to get yelled at. 

“What did you do to him?” she hisses, taking the seat next to you. You don’t dare ask who she means, else she might smack you out of your chair. 

“Nothing?” 

“That’s weird,” she scrunches her face, “because Joon is in the mens room convincing Taehyung not to leave! He’s crying ___.” 

“Oh for God’s sake,” you roll your eyes. 

Her hand squeezes your arm, more violent than comforting, “Go fix this. For two years I have been on Team ___ one hundred percent. I have cried with you, screamed with you, drank with you, wallowed with you and hated on him with you. It’s my turn. Please go be on my team.” 

Her words hurt, and you suddenly feel like a villain. 

“Okay, okay,” you stand and finish off your champagne, “I’m going right now.” 

When you swing open the mens room door you catch sight of Taehyungs disheveled face in the reflection of the mirror. You have to look away because he’s so devastatingly handsome, but also because it turns your stomach in knots to see him hurt, even after everything that happened. 

“I’ll just,” Namjoon mumbles, side stepping you towards the door, “yeah.” 

You both stand there silent for a long time, the only noise in the space are his sniffles, which echo against the metal stalls. Eventually someone is going to come in so you need to move it along. 

“I won’t apologize to you,” you begin with, because you feel like it’s important to outline that boundary. You owe him nothing, least of all an apology. “There are no words that I could use against you that will hurt you more than you hurt me.” 

“I’m sorry,” his apology comes out in a hoarse rasp that grates on your deepest heartstrings. “___, I’m so fucking sorry. You have to know that by now. I’ve not dated another person, I’ve not even fucking touched anyone since you walked out of my apartment - two years!” 

You don’t believe for a second that he’s been touch starved for two entire years, and you add that on to his pile of lies. 

“I love you, still, I’ve loved you every second,” he blurts it all out in a rush, and you expect he assumes you’re going to walk out or slap his mouth shut any second. The words still effect you, the notion that he still loves, after all that’s happened, and you feel your throat tighten with the threat of tears. 

“Don’t,” you hold up your hand, “Just don’t. We need to get it together. Namjoon and Fi expect us to be there for them this weekend and that’s what we need to do. So we’re going to walk back in there together like we’re best fucking friends, go on, do what you need to do,” you wave toward the sink. 

He sighs, resigning to you, and turns away. 

When he’s splashed his face and dried off the two of you end up where you started at the patio doors. He offers you his arm. 

“Pretending to be friendly doesn’t require you touching me Taehyung,” you point out. 

“Can I at least open the door for you?” he asks, pushing the door ajar before you can answer. The palm of his hand ends up resting against the small of your back. You stiffen and shoot him a look. 

“Sorry,” he pulls it away rapidly, “old habits.” 

“Break them,” you seethe, then transition back into the party, trying to look pleasant. 

Your back tingles in the wake of his touch, or maybe tingle isn’t the right word, but you feel it. Like a phantom pain. You hate that it felt good, natural, and like a comfort. 

You try not to think about it. You try not to think about how different this weekend would be had he not ruined everything. You try not to think about how happy and fun it would be to celebrate Namjoon and Fi together, as a couple. Would he have proposed by now? Would he have done it this weekend? After Fi and Joon ride off into the sunset together, would he have taken your hand and walked you down the beach and given you a ring? 

You push it down, pretending that you’re not hurting. You smile through a dance with Taehyung and Joons father, and brush it off when he mentions how disappointed he was how things ended between you and his youngest son. You smile through a photo of the wedding party, which just consists of you, Tae, and the bride and groom - thankfully you stand on the opposite end of Taehyung. 

You wait until you get back in your hotel room to fall apart. 

~~~~~~~

“No rest for the wicked?” 

Namjoons voice startles you. You’ve been sitting in an outdoor area of the hotel that overlooks the ocean. 

“I don’t get to come to the beach often, just soaking it in,” you tell him and look out over the seemingly infinite darkness of the water against the night sky. 

He hands you a beer and sits down in the seat next to you. 

“Thanks.” 

“Thank you,” he says, “for talking to Tae so he wasn’t a sniveling mess all night.” 

“I didn’t,” you reply honestly, “I have no interest in talking, but I did tell him we needed to keep it together for you and Fi.” 

Namjoon nods and sips his beer. 

“You’re still angry with him?” the question sounds more like a statement, but either way it irks the shit out of you. 

“Wouldn’t you be?” you snap a little. 

“I don’t know,” he shrugs, “Maybe. I’d think I’d at least want some closure though. So I could move on with life without being so angry all the time.” 

“I’m not angry all the time,” you argue. 

“Aren’t you?” again, it sounds more like a statement. 

“You know, since it’s such a monumental event I’ve been trying really hard not to knock your heads together, but if you and Fi don’t stop dredging up my relationship with your brother I make no promises,” you half joke, half warn. 

Namjoon laughs a little, but his smile fades after a few moments. 

“Maybe we just see something you don’t.” 

“Yeah? What do you see?” you challenge. 

Namjoon raises an eyebrow, “Do you want me to be brutally honest?” he asks permission. 

“Sure,” you lie and take a difficult swig of beer. 

“I see my little brother, who made a mistake. A terrible, awful, stupid mistake - but a mistake no less,” he begins but you cut him off already. 

“Namjoon, a mistake is filing your taxes wrong. A mistake is forgetting to pull the roast out of the oven. A mistake is something you didn’t mean to do. Fucking someone else is a very long string of choices in which multiple opportunities to stop occur and the person chooses to continue anyway,” you explain. 

“Okay, fair enough,” he sighs, “I see my little brother who made a very awful and stupid choice. I’ve watched him rot in it for the last two years. I’ve watched him punish himself to torture. He won’t let himself enjoy anything, he won’t let himself be happy. He doesn’t smile, doesn’t laugh. I’ve never seen him in such a dark place.” 

“You’re breakin’ my heart,” you mutter darkly, taking a long sip. 

Namjoon tenses, but he doesn’t scold you. 

“Then I see you,” he points the tip of his bottle towards you, “who’s writhed in your own misery for two years. You never even had a conversation with him, you just stamped a period down before the sentence was even over. You love him,” he holds his finger up to shush you when you start to deny this, “Don’t deny it. Just shut up and listen. You love him, because if you didn’t it wouldn’t still effect you so much. He loves you too, by the way. I’m not saying you need to get back together with him, I know it seems like that’s where I’m going with this but I’m not. What I mean is that you need to talk, and I’m sure it will be a very uncomfortable conversation, but you both need that closure. This misery has to end.” 

“He cheated on me Joon,” you say pathetically, chin wobbling. 

“I know, I know he did and it was so disappointing to all of us. We were all pissed at him, but I also know how uncharacteristic it was. He’s never done anything like that before, and I doubt he’d ever do it again. You’ve got to stop acting that even entertaining the idea of forgiving him or even speaking to him would make you lose this imaginary game that no one is playing,” he says. 

An imaginary game that no one is playing. 

The words play over and over in your head long after you finish your conversation with Namjoon. They plague you all night, and most of the next day. 

Are you playing a game in your head? The more you allow yourself to think about it, the more you realize that you’re no different than you were that night. You haven’t changed or grown or moved forward in any direction in two years. You’re still the same wounded, humiliated, hurt woman who was sitting in his apartment while he told you he fucked someone else. Maybe you should have had a discussion - no maybe - you should have. Probably not that same evening, God knows you were in no condition to have a stable, adult conversation. 

In the aftermath though, that’s when people start to rebuild, and you did nothing of the sort. Not with Taehyung by any means, but not with yourself either. You’d chosen to stay miserable, chosen to hold that hate so strong in your heart that no one, not him or anyone, could penetrate it. You’d done it all because you thought it would punish him, but all you’ve truly done is punish yourself. 

~~~~~~~~

Rehearsing the ceremony, and going to the dinner that followed was non-negotiable as Maid of Honor. Obviously. This is the part you’d been dreading, because as Best Man, Taehyung was practically your escort for the duration of the wedding. 

So far you’ve managed to remain civil, if being completely silent is civility. Thankfully Taehyung has read the vibe and hasn’t tried starting up any type of conversation with you. Eventually the minister pulls Namjoon and Fi off and you and Taehyung are left completely alone. 

“Think we’re done?” he asks. 

You’ve rehearsed the ceremony no less than seven times, and aside from the bumpy first take, the rest went off without a hitch. The music is on point, you and Taehyung know your cues, Fi’s youngest cousin had a blast tossing her pretend flowers. Everything went according to plan. 

“Probably,” you offer him three syllables and no more. 

“Good. I’m starving,” he says, resting his elbows on his knees. He starts playing with the sand beneath him, and you watch him. Like this, with his attention elsewhere, you can observe. His hair is much longer, his frame a little thinner and you wonder if that’s got something to do with an emotional issue or if he’s been dieting or something. It bothers you, that he might not be eating properly, and you get angry with yourself. Then Namjoons words echo, “an imaginary game that no one is playing.” Being concerned about a man that you spent loving for so long won’t make you lose anything. 

“You’ve lost weight,” you tell him, attempting to keep any emotion from your voice. You pull your arms around you. 

“I guess,” he shrugs, looking at himself as if he’s never seen his own body. 

“You should eat more, you look thin,” you say, then before you can add anything else, you stand up and walk away toward the banquet room. That’s where the rehearsal dinner will be, and that’s where they can find you if they need you. You can feel Taehyung staring at you as you go. 

Everyone is so enamored with the bride and groom that you scrape by without being noticed much. You fill a plate that you poke with your fork, and smile when it’s appropriate. You look happy whenever Fi starts talking to you about anything, and you smile and participate in pictures. 

You’re sat next to Taehyung for most of the dinner, but thanks to the chaos of the event with so many conversations going and attention on Fi and Joon, you don’t have to interact with him much. 

“These noodles are fucking good,” he says as he slurps some into his mouth. 

“Here, take mine, I’m full,” you use the back of your hand to scoot the bowl over to his area. 

“Thank you,” he says politely, though you can feel his eyes boring into you as if to ask ‘why are you being nice to me?’ 

“You’re welcome.” 

“Wine sir?” a waiter asks Taehyung and gestures to his empty glass that’s remained as such the entire time you’ve been eating. 

“No, some more water would be nice though, thanks,” he says and the waiter nods and trots off. 

“It’s good, not too sweet,” you tell him, picking up your own glass and taking a sip. This is your attempt at a conversation, the sweetness of wine. 

“I don’t drink anymore,” he says in a way that makes you feel like you shouldn’t ask why. Something in your stomach twists and you think you can probably guess. 

He was probably drunk, when it happened, when he decided to bed somebody else. It puts a sour taste in your mouth as you swish the wine around. You force it down your throat and set the glass back down on the table, wiping your mouth with a napkin and standing up. 

“I’m going to go lay down, not feeling good,” you tell Fi, and you can see in the way that she looks at you she knows you’re lying. You don’t care. The rehearsal went fine. No one cried. No one yelled. You’re still on her fucking team, but dinners over, and you don’t have to do this anymore, at least until tomorrow afternoon. 

As you’re heading out you notice the table where they’re keeping the bottles of wine and champagne being served. With a quick look around to make sure no one’s watching you pluck a bottle off the table, they can consider it your fee for having to make a speech in front of a crowd tomorrow. Small price to pay for gushing about love and happily ever afters when you’d rather eat dirt. 

~~~~~~~~

The hotel pool closes at 10PM, and it’s well after midnight as you sit on the edge, skirt bunched up around your thighs, legs dangling in the water. 

Fi had come to check on you, and you’d continued the charade of a headache, explaining that you’d taken something and you’d see her in the morning to help her get ready for her big day. She was apprehensive, but left you alone. 

Too overwhelmed by the silence of your room, you decided to take your stolen booze and sit by the empty pool. The sound of the nearby ocean should be enough to drown out your thoughts. 

Except it wasn’t. 

You were still thinking about everything Namjoon had said. You were still thinking about what you wanted to say to Tae. And each time you took a sip of wine, you were thinking about him hovering over his coworker, the scent of alcohol on his breath, as he pushed into her and made her feel good the way he did with you. You felt like vomiting, but kept drinking anyway, call it self-flagellation. A punishment for being a bitter hag who can’t let anything go. 

When the pool gate creaks open, you turn, expecting to explain to a staff member that you were just about to leave. It’s not an employee though. It’s Taehyung. 

Your gut reaction is to tell him to fuck off, but you stop yourself. He seems to expect it, in the cautious way he approaches, he looks as if you’re about to send him away any second. Instead you turn back to the water, watching the reflection of hotel windows ripple on the waters surface as he rolls his pants up and sits next to you. 

“It’s warm,” he says after several moments, when it’s clear you’re not going to snap him in half. 

Silence. You sit next to one another for what feels like forever, though only about ten minutes probably pass. You take languid sips from the bottle occasionally, but you don’t look at him or offer any words. You’re just procrastinating, sitting stagnant as you’ve been doing for two years.

“Go ahead,” you finally say. 

“What?” he croaks, seemingly shocked that you’ve spoken at all.

“I want to know,” you take a big gulp from the bottle, “I want to know why you did it.” 

He takes a long time to answer and you wonder why. After two years, after all the five thousand word essays he tried to send you, shouldn’t he have all this outlined already? 

“The entire PR department was at that conference,” he starts. You remember. He’d gone to a week-long conference with the other people in his department, which you’d not really given much thought to, but that’s where it happened. While he was away. 

“The group had never been out together, in all the years we’d worked with each other, so on the last night we decided to go out drinking at some bar. It was all just good fun, until it wasn’t,” he says darkly and you waiver, but let him continue. 

“We got so drunk, God I was wasted,” he says with a shake of his head, “the kind of drunk where anything sounds like a good idea. Someone could suggest jumping off a bridge and you’d be like ‘fuck yeah, that’s the best idea I’ve ever heard’ because you’re just so out of your mind. Eventually we all had to go back to the hotel we were staying at, but I honestly can’t remember if it was because one of us suggested it, or because the bar staff wanted us out, but somehow I ended up in an Uber with Lia.” 

Lia. You’d met her several times at his office Christmas parties, and you knew she was the one he’d fucked without ever having to say her name. You choke down the whimper that wants to escape and wipe your tears away with the back of your hand. 

“She randomly admitted to me that I was her work crush, but I could barely comprehend what she was saying. The car was spinning. I kept looking out the window, but then she’d start talking again. She was telling me that her marriage was ending and she was depressed. She felt alone and hopeless - it was all so heavy - and then she started touching my leg, and scooting closer-,”

“Okay stop, stop,” you suck in a ragged breath. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, “I thought maybe being transparent was best, but the whole truth - without the gory details - is that there was no reason ___. I was drunk. She was drunk. I think I felt bad for her, but I don’t remember feeling anything. I don’t remember what we said, I don’t remember how it felt,” he drags a hand down his face, “I threw it away for nothing. I ruined us, everything we built, everything I loved, everything I wanted for absolutely fucking nothing.” 

You look away from him and hide your face so you can sob quietly. He places his hand on top of yours, and you stiffen, but don’t pull it away. 

“Please say something,” he urges. 

“I don’t know how to feel,” you sniff, “I don’t know if I should feel better because it was nothing or feel worse because you threw me away for nothing.” 

“I’m so sorry,” he repeats and you’re not sure how many times you’ve heard the words, a thousand - millions? Suddenly though, it doesn’t disgust you when he says he’s sorry.

“I hated you,” you say.

“I know,” he cries, “I deserve it.” 

“I hated you because it was your fault, you’re the one who ruined everything, you’re the one who should’ve suffered but instead I spent six months balled up in my apartment sobbing, screaming for you, screaming at you, I was a fucking mess Tae,” you sob. 

“I know, God I know that I hurt you so bad, and I know you may not want to hear it, and I know it was a different kind of pain but I swear to you I have been in agony for the past two years,” he sniffs. 

“I will never be the same,” you admit, to him and to yourself, “I will always feel like I’m not good enough, I will never be able to trust like I used to, and I will always wonder when someone is going to choose someone else over me and it’s all your fault!” 

“I’m so sorry ___,” he says. He scoots over close and starts to wrap his arm around you. God damn it you want him to. You want him to comfort you, you want to cry into his shoulder. You want it so bad. 

So you shove him into the pool, naturally. 

You watch him flail for a few seconds before he realizes the water is only waist deep, then he stands up, flinging his wet mop of hair from his face and sputtering water. 

“Are you kidding?” he squeaks, he looks like a drowned mouse. 

The look of utter shock on his face has you biting down hard on your lips trying to hold it together, but it comes out anyway. 

You laugh. You laugh so hard you can’t breathe, so hard that you snort, so hard that you feel like your chest is going to burst but you can’t stop. 

“Sorry, I gave in to my intrusive thoughts,” you tell him between gasps of air. 

“Intrusive…fuck,” he mutters, trying poorly to pull himself back onto the edge of the pool. You use your foot to shove him back in. 

“___!” he scream-laughs. 

“I couldn’t stop myself,” you shrug, still giggling. 

“Yeah?” he gives you a look as he pushes his wet hair out of his face. 

“No…” you warn, but before you can even get the whole word out he drags you in by your arms. 

“Bastard!” you squeal, wiping the water from your eyes. 

“Sorry, I gave into my intrusive thoughts,” he parrots and then splashes you for good measure. 

You shove him backward and he disappears under the waters surface, until you feel him grab you by the ankles. He pulls hard and you lose your footing, joining him under the water. You fight the sting of chlorine as you open your eyes, finding your target, and you reach out and pinch one of his nipples beneath his ruined sweater before pushing off the bottom to get air. 

“Oh that does it!” he jeers, dramatically rubbing his chest and leaping over to where you try to scramble out of the pool. He grabs you by the waist and drags you back down, pinning your arms with one of his and using his other hand to tickle you. 

“Stop! Please stop!” you plead between fits of laughter. 

You manage to loosen his grip and twist yourself until your chest is pressed against his. Suddenly playtime is over, and it’s just you looking up at him, his arms still around you, unrelenting. 

“What are we doing right now?” he whispers, pushing a wet piece of your hair off your cheek. 

“I think I’m forgiving you,” you say, and you rest your forehead against his chest as he holds you tighter. It feels so good that you continue to stand there, despite the absurdity of standing in a pool fully clothed. 

“This pool is closed, and those clothes are not appropriate swim attire to be wearing in the facilities,” a stern voice intrudes and you both spin around to see a very annoyed looking employee drumming her fingers on the top of the fence. 

“Sorry!” you yelp, jumping towards the pool stairs. 

“We were just going, we’re very sorry,” Taehyung echoes as he follows suit. 

“Yes, well, the pool rules are posted right here,” she taps a sign hanging on the fence aggressively, “for future reference. Have a good evening,” she grumbles, though she looks like she hopes the two of you have anything but. 

Taehyung grabs a few towels off a nearby caddy and you pour out the wine, then toss the bottle into a waste basket. 

Only a few people stare as the two of you walk towards the elevators, clothes drenched, but then again, there’s only a few people around at this hour anyway. You both grin like cheshire cats as the doors shut in front of you. 

Without giving it much thought, you reach over and lace your fingers into his, and when the elevator opens on the floor that’s been rented for the wedding, you lead him out and down the hallway to your room. 

“Wait,” he stops short, though he doesn’t let go of your hand as you slide the card into the door lock. 

“What?” 

“Are you sure you want me in there? I don’t want to wake up tomorrow morning and have you regret all of this,” he says, holding your hand to his chest. 

“I’m not going to, at least that’s not my plan,” you assure him as you cross the threshold - though if you’re being completely honest, you have no plan. You have no idea what you’re doing, or if it’s a good idea or a bad idea. 

“Then… what?” he wonders, looking like if he breathes the wrong way or says one wrong word you’ll smite him. 

“Take your wet clothes off and just lay down with me,” you shrug. 

“You want me to get naked, then get in your bed?” to say he looks stunned is an understatement. 

“Yes, if it will make you less uncomfortable I’ll sleep naked too,” you tell him with a shrug, pulling your skirt off. 

His eyes darken just a bit, “Is this some kind of torture? You want me to press my body against yours and try not to touch you?” he laughs, but his mouth sounds dry as a desert. 

“It’s not meant to be a punishment, but yes, that’s what I want. I want to lay here with you, in a very vulnerable state, because I want to know what it feels like. I want to know if it makes my skin crawl or if it makes me want you to fuck me and hold me against you the rest of the night. I’m testing the water, so to speak,” you say. You continue peeling wet layers of clothes off until you’re completely nude, then you pull down the sheets and get in. 

Taehyung stands there for about three seconds before he starts fighting his wet clothes off. You watch the lean muscles of his stomach ripple as he tugs the, very expensive looking, ruined cashmere off, and you lock eyes with him as he pushes his jeans and boxers off in one go. 

He’s hard, which isn’t very surprising, not that you’re just so incredibly irresistible that he can’t help it, but you understand what he’s going through because you are too. You’re wet, you can feel the slickness with every movement of your lower body. It’s been two years. You weren’t completely chaste in that time, though it was never anything that lasted more than a weekend, and the number of encounters were very few. You also aren’t sure if he was being honest about his two year celibacy streak, you’re not ready to accept that or not, but if it is true he’ll probably combust. You only take a tiny bit of inappropriate satisfaction from that. 

When he crawls in as well the two of you just lay on your backs, a whole other person could fit in the space between you, and you stay like that for a little while. 

“Skin crawling yet?” he asks timidly. 

“Not yet,” you sigh, and turn the lamp off, then roll over next to him, draping your bare thighs across his. You’re a little embarrassed that your slick slides against his leg. 

“Jesus christ,” he groans in a whisper as your hand slides up to find purchase on his chest, his arm coming around to pull you in close. 

“What about now?” he asks in a strain. 

“Nope. Not yet.” 

You’re being honest. It doesn’t make you sick, or angry, and it doesn’t make you feel like you’ve lost. There is no imaginary game. No imaginary score. Not anymore, and you breathe the first easy breath you’ve taken in two years. 

You take his hand that rests on top of yours and pull it down your torso, his fingertips brush over one of your nipples and your lips part against his shoulder. 

“Fuck,” he breathes out, and you continue pulling his hand lower and lower until his fingers rest above your cunt. 

“What do you want?” he asks, twisting over so you’re more under him than beside him. His fingers play idly in your soft tuft of hair, but he doesn’t try dipping them any lower. 

You take a deep breath, your pussy aching, “I think you owe me one, wouldn’t you say?” 

He nods, licking his lips, “I’d say I owe you a lot more than one, tell me, I’ll give you anything you want. Just tell me,” he urges you, his lips ghosting the side of your face. 

“I want you to touch me, and then I want you to go down on me like your fucking life depends on it,” you take his mouth with yours, sliding your fingers into his still damp hair to anchor him. 

You both let out involuntary moans when his fingers come in contact with your slit. He drags the wetness up from your entrance to your clit, circling around in a way that has you pushing back, spreading your thighs further for him. 

He toys with you as you kiss him, tongues teasing, teeth bumping, but his fingers persist. Then he pushes one in, followed by another and you groan. 

“Tae,” your voice is soft and pleading, and he delivers, thrusting his fingers into you hard and deep, the way you love. The way he knows you love. He pauses every so often to work your clit, and each time you have to hold yourself back, have to control your body so you don’t cum so soon, so you can enjoy it longer. 

“Does it feel good?” his voice is deep and scratchy in your ear and you nod, eyes closed, hips moving in time with his fingers, “Are you close?” 

You can’t help the breathy laugh that escapes, “Yes. So fucking close, fuck,” you curse as his fingers go back to your clit, this might be it, but he slows down. 

“Do you want me to finish you like this, or do you want me to eat you out? Because I really, really want to eat you out,” he smiles, taking your ear between his teeth gently. 

“Tongue,” you manage, “Definitely tongue but please keep using your fingers for the love of God.” 

“Absolutely,” he kisses you deeply once more before disappearing under the sheets. 

“Oh my god.” 

When his tongue drags up your slit, your back arches so far off the bed you’re pretty sure you’ll feel it tomorrow. Your mouth drops open as he fights your hips back down on the bed, tongue snaking and sliding over every centimeter of you. When you finally manage to settle down, he pushes his fingers back into you, lips wrapped around your sensitive bud in a gentle suck. 

Your eyes water at the sensation as you gasp and shake, then he switches to soft, wide licks and it finishes you. 

“Ohfuckohfuck,” your hands land on the sides of his head and you hold him in position as you cum, contracting rhythmically around his fingers, still buried inside you. 

When he resurfaces you immediately drag his wet mouth onto yours and wrap your arms around his neck. 

“More,” you tell him, reaching between your bodies to guide his cock to you. 

“I won’t last long enough for you to go again,” he warns. 

You shake your head, “I don’t care, just keep going, please,” you beg and it sounds so desperate but you don’t care anymore. 

“I missed you,” he whispers, and he pushes into your still throbbing cunt. “Oh fuck.” 

It feels like forever before he starts moving, thrusting in and pulling out agonizingly slow. You meet him with every push, grinding into him, connecting yourselves. 

“I can’t,” he whines, “I can’t hold it.” 

“Then don’t,” you tell him, dragging your nails down his back. 

“Shit,” he freezes on a particularly deep thrust and you feel him twitch, spilling himself inside. 

He collapses beside you, damp from sweat and breathless. He’s beautiful.

You scoot over and wrap yourself around him, like before, and he pulls you in, kissing the side of your head. 

“I missed you too,” you whisper, then close your eyes and let yourself rest against his chest. 

~~~~~~~~

You wake up to frantic knocking on your hotel door. 

“___! Hi, it’s me, Fi, I’m getting married today, in case you forgot - just mentioning it because you and I have an 8:30 appointment for massages and it is now,” a brief pause, “8:27 and I’ve not heard from you!” 

“Shit!” you scramble out of bed, grabbing the blanket as you go to wrap it around you.

“Ahh!” Taehyung whines, “Cold!” 

You open the door and greet her. 

“Oh my God,” she says, looking at your naked, disheveled state wrapped up in a hotel duvet. 

“Uhhhh…” 

“I’m cold!” Taehyung shouts from the darkness of the hotel room and you squeeze your eyes shut, bracing for her reaction. 

“Oh my GOD,” she screams. 

“I’ll meet you at the spa, I swear, just…go…just…I’m so happy and this is your special day…but go,” you stumble over the words. 

“I…” she points to the hall, “I’ll go. Meet me down there,” she says then jerks you close, “and be prepared to tell me fucking everything.” 

You pad back into the room, flipping on the light switch. Taehyung sits up and rubs his eyes. 

“Hi.” 

You slide into your bra and grab a shirt, “Hi,” you say back. “You have to go.” 

“Do I have to go because you’ve got somewhere to be? Or do I have to go because I make you nauseous and you don’t want to look at me anymore?” 

You press your lips together trying not to laugh, “You have to go because my best friend and your brother are getting married today, and we both have places we need to be - with them. After everything is over, we can figure all this out,” you say pointing between the two of you. 

“Promise?” 

“I swear.” 

He nods, then gets up grabbing his discarded clothes from the night before. 

“This is still wet,” he frowns, showing you his sweater. 

“Sorry about your fancy sweater,” you laugh. 

You’re not entirely sure what to say or do, so you stand on your toes and kiss his cheek. 

“I’ll see you later,” you tell him. 

He nods, “Later.” 

~~~~~~~~

When you check in at the spas front desk they send you to the waiting area, where Fi awaits you, looking very smug. 

“Don’t,” you tell her, taking the seat next to her. 

“Don’t what?” she says innocently, “Don’t bring up the fact that I just caught you red handed from spending the night with my brother-in-law?” 

“Technically he won’t be your brother-in-law until after 1 o’clock,” you point out. 

“Deflecting. Interesting. What does that mean I wonder?” she raises a brow. 

“Weren’t you and Namjoon both hounding me, telling me I needed to talk to him?” you ask. 

“Talk?” she snorts, “Boy, when you have a talk you sure go all out.” 

“We did talk!” you defend, “Before - we had a conversation at the pool.” 

“How did that go?” 

You think about it for a second and sigh, “Well, it definitely made me sad. It reminded me of everything I felt in those months after everything. I ugly cried clutching a bottle of wine,” you say with a half laugh. 

“I can tell, your eyes are grotesque - no offense - we’ll have to fix that for the photography later, but go on,” she compels. 

“So yeah, I cried, I told him how much I’d hated him and how miserable I’d been, he apologized for like the trillionth time and I don’t know, I felt different all of a sudden, I actually believed him. So I pushed him in the pool and ruined his cashmere,” you explain. 

“The cable knit Celine?” she gasps. 

“Jesus Christ,” you mutter, walking over to the coffee bar, praying it’s strong. 

“Sorry,” she says, “but that shit is easily more than two G’s. But yes, we’re talking about you, sorry. What made it feel different? And why did you push a grown man in cashmere into a pool?” 

“Something Namjoon said, the first night Taehyung was here after the bathroom incident, he kind of put things in perspective for me,” you tell her. 

She smiles dreamily, “Yeah, he kind of has a way of doing that huh? What was it he said?” 

“Imaginary games,” you say. 

“I don’t follow?” 

“Would you say I’m a forgiving person? That I handle offenses well?” 

“Abso-fucking-lutely not,” Fi says resolutely. 

“Agreed. I get in my head and keep score. If they hurt me, I have to hurt them worse and if I can’t, then I act like letting it go is losing, so I hang on to it and stay angry because in my sick little toxic mind, that means I’m still winning,” you sit back down and slurp the coffee. 

“Tired of winning now?” she says softly, taking your hand in hers with a squeeze. 

“Yes,” you sigh, lay your head on her shoulder, “I’m tired of winning now.” 

“Good.” 

~~~~~~~~~

Fi was stunning. No, more than that - she was traffic stopping, literally. In her custom wedding gown, guests and even strangers literally stopped in their tracks to stare at her. You cried all day at how beautiful and happy she looked. She glowed. You only looked away from her once really, to see Namjoons reaction when she cornered the aisle and came into view - worth it. 

At the reception Fi leans over to you, “I think someone has been itching to get you alone all day,” she whispers, nodding over to Taehyung who’s in the middle of a conversation with a cousin, but you see him side eyeing you every couple of seconds. 

“I’m your maid of honor Fi, it’s my job to be in your ass all day in case you need me,” you tell her, resisting the urge to run to him. 

“Okay. I appreciate that and everything, but I’m letting you go. Your job is complete, you married me off. Now go,” she nudges you out of your seat. 

You walk over to him as the cousin disappears back into the throng of people and he turns to you. 

“Dance with me?” he asks, and you nod as he takes your waist on the floor. 

You sway back and forth to some romantic jazzy number, resting your head on his shoulder, drinking in his scent and his warmth. You smile. 

“So what happens now?” he whispers, “What happens when we leave this paradise and have to go back to the dreary, gray city?” 

You look up at him, and he kisses you gently on the lips. 

“I think…” 

“Yes?” 

You tilt your head and smile, “I think we should start meal planning.” 

“Meal planning…” he looks perplexed, but then recognition reaches his eyes and his face softens. “Meal planning.” 

“Yes. It’s more cost effective, and it’ll be easier to eat healthy if we only buy what we plan for.” 

“Sounds like a good plan,” he grins, then pulls your head back onto his shoulder and the two of you continue dancing, even when the music changes to a more upbeat song, you just sway back and forth, pressed together tightly to make up for the distance you held for too long.

Imaginary Games

▪️Pairing: Kim Taehyung x Fem. Reader

▫️Genre: Romantic, Smut, Exes to Lovers, Smidge of Hurt

▪️Warnings: 18+ Explicit language, sexual content (vanilla), pining idiots, past infidelity.

▫️Summary: The only thing that could make a destination wedding - in which you're the maid of honor, who has to give a speech in front of a crowd, who has to wear a dress that cost you a pretty penny that you'll never wear again - worse is the fact that your cheating ex is the best man.

▪️WC: 8k and some change

▫️AN: Repost from previous blog. Honestly I just really liked this fic. It wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea and I get that. Cheating is one of those things that we all have very strong opinions on, naturally, and that’s totally valid. For me, I just really enjoyed writing this and I liked how it turned out. The whole bit about Taehyungs ruined cashmere alone was enough for this to make the reposting cut 😂🧶

“He isn’t here yet, he won’t be here until dinner tonight so you can relax,” Fi, your best friend and blushing bride-to-be tries to comfort you as she shifts around on her beach chair. 

She’s talking about Taehyung, of course, you don’t need to ask. He’s your ex, that you haven’t laid eyes on in two years. Not since the night that he admitted to cheating on you with a co-worker. You’d felt so incredibly stupid. You’d been casually babbling about meal planning of all the mundane things (it’s more cost effective and healthy blah blah!), and he started crying and spilled the whole story out of guilt. You’d been too stunned to argue, or fight, so you did what you always do when someone hurts you: You said nothing, or at least nothing of value, and you walked away. He’d tried to run after you, begged you to just talk to him, tried to wipe the tears that fell from your face in a devastated shower, but you wouldn’t let him. You slapped his arm away so hard your fingers had tingled for an hour, and you told him never to speak to you or touch you again. 

A typical person might fight, scream, or try to have a discussion. A typical person would ask questions between bouts of screaming like “Do you love her?” “Did it mean anything?” “Do you still want me?” - the kind of questions that are natural when you’ve been fucked over like that. You definitely dwelled on those questions a lot, but you were too stubborn to ever ask them, because that would mean you’d have to speak to him, and you’d made it clear you were done speaking. If you spoke to him that might give him the impression that you were willing to listen to his side of things, and that might lead to him thinking you could forgive him. Can’t have that. 

You’re not a forgiving person, not when the offense is that deep and it was. You loved Kim Taehyung with your whole heart. You planned on doing ‘old and gray’ with him. You built future plans together, he was your best friend, he was your safe place and you were all those things for him as well. It was right, he was Mr. Right. 

You find it so unusual and infuriating that even after two years, you feel that pain like it was freshly served every time you think of him.

“I’m relaxed,” you tell her with a stiff shrug, “and this weekend is about you and Joon, not me, so I don’t care when he’s coming.” 

 In the two years you’d been broken up with Tae, you had found it quite challenging to keep up your friendship with Fi, considering her significant other - and now fiance - was Taehyungs older brother. In fact, they met because you and Tae had set them up on a blind double date. You managed, however, to avoid him at all costs. Until now, because who else would Namjoon choose to be his Best Man other than his brother? 

“Yeah you really look it,” Fi snorts, “you’re sitting beside the ocean underneath a warm sun and you look so uptight that I’m scared you’re going to start shitting diamonds.” 

“Well maybe I’ll shit a necklace, it can be your ‘something new’,” you tease and she laughs, maybe you’ve dodged the wrath of her observational skills. 

You try to go back to your book, you’ve made it all the way to page two, but just like every other time this morning you’ve attempted to read - the words start to blur together when your mind begins to think of the inevitable: He will be here. You will have to interact. You’ll have to play nice. 

“You know, Joon says he hasn’t gone out with anyone since you two split,” she offers casually as she flips onto her stomach. 

“Fi…” her name comes out as a warning. 

“Sue me, I’m just saying that it’s worth noting the man has been punishing himself the entire time you’ve-,” 

“Where’s your phone? I need to check the time,” you say quickly, digging in her tote until you feel the shape of the device that you don’t need whatsoever. You’ve got nowhere to be until dinner this evening. 

“You can change the subject all you want, but tonight at dinner you’ll have to face the problem you’ve been running from all this time head on,” she reminds you, painfully. 

“I’ve not been running Fi. I walked away, with the entire thing blowing up behind me and didn’t look back. There’s a difference,” you point out. 

“Fine. Avoiding is the better verb then. Semantics,” she eyes you from under the brim of her hat, “you never gave him the chance to explain what happened.” 

You scoff, “Unless his dick leapt off his body and kamikazed into her vagina I don’t really need to know what happened. Do you know what happened?” you ask out of curiosity, though you immediately regret the words, it gives the impression that you give a shit. 

“No, I don’t. I promised you I wouldn’t discuss you with him and I haven’t - though he’s tried many, many times - but I do think it’s a conversation you should have with him ___,” she props herself up on her arms, “People move on from affairs all the time, sometimes together, sometimes apart. The point is that they decide what’s best based on all the information, not just the pain it caused.” 

She’s making you angry. You bite down hard on your lower lip to ground yourself. You don’t want to yell or fight with her, not this weekend when it’s her big moment. Her wedding. 

“Hey, I’m starting to feel the sun,” you say, and it’s not a total lie, “I think I’m going to go in and cool off, get some water and lunch. Do you want anything?” you ask. 

You look up towards the hotel and see that Namjoon is on his way down with a towel draped over his shoulder. 

“Ah, nevermind,” you pat her on the back, “a buff Sea God approaches. He’ll take care of you.” 

You gather up your own things and start walking up the beach access where you cross paths with him. 

“Joon,” you greet him with a little nod. 

“Hey. So, how many mimosas has my bride had this morning?” he chuckles. 

“Four,” you answer, “but those last two had like the vapor of OJ in them, so I think it’s probably time for a dunk,” you wink. 

You don’t quite make it into the hotel before you hear Fi’s shrill scream and you smile as you watch Joon pluck her off the chair, toss her over his shoulder and head to the water. They splash and play and you can’t help but enjoy it - but then pain encroaches on the moment and your smile fades as it so often does, and you disappear into the hotel before anyone can see how bitter you are. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Namjoon and Fi had wanted you all to carpool to the restaurant together, but you’d insisted on driving yourself for a few reasons. 

For one, it gave you an immediate means of escape, should the sight of Kim Taehyung drive you to projectile vomiting. Also, it gave you some time alone to talk yourself up, to psych yourself into thinking you could navigate this evening without succumbing to any emotions. You’d done such a good job, for two long years, of not letting him know what he did to you. Not letting him see how he devastated your life. Most importantly though, not letting him in. 

“The Kim-Park wedding party?” you tell the hostess as you walk into the lobby. It must be freezing in here, the way your arms and legs erupt in chills. 

“Sure,” she smiles brightly and points across the dining area, “out on the patio, just through those glass doors.” 

“Thanks.” 

No less than sixty seconds ago, getting out of your car, you’d felt confident. However, as you close in on the patio doors you realize that despite knowing this moment was coming, despite going over it in your head every night for the past few months - you have no idea what to say to him. You’d not practiced the conversation even once in your head, which is unprecedented for you. 

You pull your hand off the door like it burned you and slip to the side before anyone from the party can see you through the glass. You press your back up against the cold wall and take a deep breath. 

“I think we’re both doing the same thing.” 

His voice, so deep and familiar, daggers you. You look over and sure enough, on the other side of the doors he stands there, tall and lean, pressed up against the wall with his fists shoved into his pockets. 

He crosses over to you, and you take an instinctual step back, he notices but doesn’t remark on it. 

“I’m hiding from you and you’re hiding from me,” he continues. 

At some point, you’ll have to speak. Eventually he’s going to think you’ve either lost your voice or worse, that his presence has rendered you speechless and you refuse to let that happen. 

“Why would I hide from you?” you ask, correcting your posture and steeling your nerves. 

“Because you don’t know what to say, and you hate not knowing what to say,” he answers and your blood boils at the fact that he’s right. You hate that he knows you, inside and out, knows your personality, your faults, your strengths, your comforts. He knows what you look like naked, what you love in bed and how to - STOP. There is absolutely no way you’re letting your mind go there. 

“Why would you be hiding from me?” you ask instead of admitting he was spot on with you. 

“Because I was afraid at how much it would hurt to see you,” he says, “turns out it was worse than I’d thought.” 

He looks at you then, really looks, from your face all the way down to your heels. 

“You look so pretty,” he whispers with the saddest smile you think you’ve ever seen on a human being. You think you also see the glint of tears dusting his lids. 

“Thanks,” you say in a cold, disinterested cadence, “We should get in there before they start wondering where we are.”

“Listen, __, I’d really like to sit down and talk to you this weekend,” he stops you by placing his palm gently on your shoulder. It may as well have shocked you, the way you stiffen up and shimmy away from it. 

“Taehyung,” you say sternly, “We’re here this weekend because your brother and my best friend are getting married. It’s their weekend, and you and I are responsible for making sure everything is memorable and good. That is the beginning and end of my obligations. So I really couldn’t give a flying fuck about what you want.” 

Then you push through the doors without giving him a chance to reply. 

You hate yourself. You didn’t have to be that cruel, not after two years of giving him the silent treatment. The look on his face tells you that you may have taken it too far. 

However, by the time you’ve sat down you’ve already switched gears. You angrily set your clutch on the table. The look on his face? On his face? It’s nothing compared to the look that was on yours. The look you wore for months in the wake of what he’d done. So he can look however the fuck he wants. To Hell with him. 

A waiter brings you a glass of champagne and you fight the urge to chug it down and ask for another. That won’t do any good though. The last thing Fi and Namjoon need is for you to get hammered at their party and ruin it. Besides, champagne hangovers are the worst. It’s not worth upsetting Fi. 

When you look up to see Fi storming towards you, you think that ship may have already sailed. 

“What?” you ask like a child about to get yelled at. 

“What did you do to him?” she hisses, taking the seat next to you. You don’t dare ask who she means, else she might smack you out of your chair. 

“Nothing?” 

“That’s weird,” she scrunches her face, “because Joon is in the mens room convincing Taehyung not to leave! He’s crying ___.” 

“Oh for God’s sake,” you roll your eyes. 

Her hand squeezes your arm, more violent than comforting, “Go fix this. For two years I have been on Team ___ one hundred percent. I have cried with you, screamed with you, drank with you, wallowed with you and hated on him with you. It’s my turn. Please go be on my team.” 

Her words hurt, and you suddenly feel like a villain. 

“Okay, okay,” you stand and finish off your champagne, “I’m going right now.” 

When you swing open the mens room door you catch sight of Taehyungs disheveled face in the reflection of the mirror. You have to look away because he’s so devastatingly handsome, but also because it turns your stomach in knots to see him hurt, even after everything that happened. 

“I’ll just,” Namjoon mumbles, side stepping you towards the door, “yeah.” 

You both stand there silent for a long time, the only noise in the space are his sniffles, which echo against the metal stalls. Eventually someone is going to come in so you need to move it along. 

“I won’t apologize to you,” you begin with, because you feel like it’s important to outline that boundary. You owe him nothing, least of all an apology. “There are no words that I could use against you that will hurt you more than you hurt me.” 

“I’m sorry,” his apology comes out in a hoarse rasp that grates on your deepest heartstrings. “___, I’m so fucking sorry. You have to know that by now. I’ve not dated another person, I’ve not even fucking touched anyone since you walked out of my apartment - two years!” 

You don’t believe for a second that he’s been touch starved for two entire years, and you add that on to his pile of lies. 

“I love you, still, I’ve loved you every second,” he blurts it all out in a rush, and you expect he assumes you’re going to walk out or slap his mouth shut any second. The words still effect you, the notion that he still loves, after all that’s happened, and you feel your throat tighten with the threat of tears. 

“Don’t,” you hold up your hand, “Just don’t. We need to get it together. Namjoon and Fi expect us to be there for them this weekend and that’s what we need to do. So we’re going to walk back in there together like we’re best fucking friends, go on, do what you need to do,” you wave toward the sink. 

He sighs, resigning to you, and turns away. 

When he’s splashed his face and dried off the two of you end up where you started at the patio doors. He offers you his arm. 

“Pretending to be friendly doesn’t require you touching me Taehyung,” you point out. 

“Can I at least open the door for you?” he asks, pushing the door ajar before you can answer. The palm of his hand ends up resting against the small of your back. You stiffen and shoot him a look. 

“Sorry,” he pulls it away rapidly, “old habits.” 

“Break them,” you seethe, then transition back into the party, trying to look pleasant. 

Your back tingles in the wake of his touch, or maybe tingle isn’t the right word, but you feel it. Like a phantom pain. You hate that it felt good, natural, and like a comfort. 

You try not to think about it. You try not to think about how different this weekend would be had he not ruined everything. You try not to think about how happy and fun it would be to celebrate Namjoon and Fi together, as a couple. Would he have proposed by now? Would he have done it this weekend? After Fi and Joon ride off into the sunset together, would he have taken your hand and walked you down the beach and given you a ring? 

You push it down, pretending that you’re not hurting. You smile through a dance with Taehyung and Joons father, and brush it off when he mentions how disappointed he was how things ended between you and his youngest son. You smile through a photo of the wedding party, which just consists of you, Tae, and the bride and groom - thankfully you stand on the opposite end of Taehyung. 

You wait until you get back in your hotel room to fall apart. 

~~~~~~~

“No rest for the wicked?” 

Namjoons voice startles you. You’ve been sitting in an outdoor area of the hotel that overlooks the ocean. 

“I don’t get to come to the beach often, just soaking it in,” you tell him and look out over the seemingly infinite darkness of the water against the night sky. 

He hands you a beer and sits down in the seat next to you. 

“Thanks.” 

“Thank you,” he says, “for talking to Tae so he wasn’t a sniveling mess all night.” 

“I didn’t,” you reply honestly, “I have no interest in talking, but I did tell him we needed to keep it together for you and Fi.” 

Namjoon nods and sips his beer. 

“You’re still angry with him?” the question sounds more like a statement, but either way it irks the shit out of you. 

“Wouldn’t you be?” you snap a little. 

“I don’t know,” he shrugs, “Maybe. I’d think I’d at least want some closure though. So I could move on with life without being so angry all the time.” 

“I’m not angry all the time,” you argue. 

“Aren’t you?” again, it sounds more like a statement. 

“You know, since it’s such a monumental event I’ve been trying really hard not to knock your heads together, but if you and Fi don’t stop dredging up my relationship with your brother I make no promises,” you half joke, half warn. 

Namjoon laughs a little, but his smile fades after a few moments. 

“Maybe we just see something you don’t.” 

“Yeah? What do you see?” you challenge. 

Namjoon raises an eyebrow, “Do you want me to be brutally honest?” he asks permission. 

“Sure,” you lie and take a difficult swig of beer. 

“I see my little brother, who made a mistake. A terrible, awful, stupid mistake - but a mistake no less,” he begins but you cut him off already. 

“Namjoon, a mistake is filing your taxes wrong. A mistake is forgetting to pull the roast out of the oven. A mistake is something you didn’t mean to do. Fucking someone else is a very long string of choices in which multiple opportunities to stop occur and the person chooses to continue anyway,” you explain. 

“Okay, fair enough,” he sighs, “I see my little brother who made a very awful and stupid choice. I’ve watched him rot in it for the last two years. I’ve watched him punish himself to torture. He won’t let himself enjoy anything, he won’t let himself be happy. He doesn’t smile, doesn’t laugh. I’ve never seen him in such a dark place.” 

“You’re breakin’ my heart,” you mutter darkly, taking a long sip. 

Namjoon tenses, but he doesn’t scold you. 

“Then I see you,” he points the tip of his bottle towards you, “who’s writhed in your own misery for two years. You never even had a conversation with him, you just stamped a period down before the sentence was even over. You love him,” he holds his finger up to shush you when you start to deny this, “Don’t deny it. Just shut up and listen. You love him, because if you didn’t it wouldn’t still effect you so much. He loves you too, by the way. I’m not saying you need to get back together with him, I know it seems like that’s where I’m going with this but I’m not. What I mean is that you need to talk, and I’m sure it will be a very uncomfortable conversation, but you both need that closure. This misery has to end.” 

“He cheated on me Joon,” you say pathetically, chin wobbling. 

“I know, I know he did and it was so disappointing to all of us. We were all pissed at him, but I also know how uncharacteristic it was. He’s never done anything like that before, and I doubt he’d ever do it again. You’ve got to stop acting that even entertaining the idea of forgiving him or even speaking to him would make you lose this imaginary game that no one is playing,” he says. 

An imaginary game that no one is playing. 

The words play over and over in your head long after you finish your conversation with Namjoon. They plague you all night, and most of the next day. 

Are you playing a game in your head? The more you allow yourself to think about it, the more you realize that you’re no different than you were that night. You haven’t changed or grown or moved forward in any direction in two years. You’re still the same wounded, humiliated, hurt woman who was sitting in his apartment while he told you he fucked someone else. Maybe you should have had a discussion - no maybe - you should have. Probably not that same evening, God knows you were in no condition to have a stable, adult conversation. 

In the aftermath though, that’s when people start to rebuild, and you did nothing of the sort. Not with Taehyung by any means, but not with yourself either. You’d chosen to stay miserable, chosen to hold that hate so strong in your heart that no one, not him or anyone, could penetrate it. You’d done it all because you thought it would punish him, but all you’ve truly done is punish yourself. 

~~~~~~~~

Rehearsing the ceremony, and going to the dinner that followed was non-negotiable as Maid of Honor. Obviously. This is the part you’d been dreading, because as Best Man, Taehyung was practically your escort for the duration of the wedding. 

So far you’ve managed to remain civil, if being completely silent is civility. Thankfully Taehyung has read the vibe and hasn’t tried starting up any type of conversation with you. Eventually the minister pulls Namjoon and Fi off and you and Taehyung are left completely alone. 

“Think we’re done?” he asks. 

You’ve rehearsed the ceremony no less than seven times, and aside from the bumpy first take, the rest went off without a hitch. The music is on point, you and Taehyung know your cues, Fi’s youngest cousin had a blast tossing her pretend flowers. Everything went according to plan. 

“Probably,” you offer him three syllables and no more. 

“Good. I’m starving,” he says, resting his elbows on his knees. He starts playing with the sand beneath him, and you watch him. Like this, with his attention elsewhere, you can observe. His hair is much longer, his frame a little thinner and you wonder if that’s got something to do with an emotional issue or if he’s been dieting or something. It bothers you, that he might not be eating properly, and you get angry with yourself. Then Namjoons words echo, “an imaginary game that no one is playing.” Being concerned about a man that you spent loving for so long won’t make you lose anything. 

“You’ve lost weight,” you tell him, attempting to keep any emotion from your voice. You pull your arms around you. 

“I guess,” he shrugs, looking at himself as if he’s never seen his own body. 

“You should eat more, you look thin,” you say, then before you can add anything else, you stand up and walk away toward the banquet room. That’s where the rehearsal dinner will be, and that’s where they can find you if they need you. You can feel Taehyung staring at you as you go. 

Everyone is so enamored with the bride and groom that you scrape by without being noticed much. You fill a plate that you poke with your fork, and smile when it’s appropriate. You look happy whenever Fi starts talking to you about anything, and you smile and participate in pictures. 

You’re sat next to Taehyung for most of the dinner, but thanks to the chaos of the event with so many conversations going and attention on Fi and Joon, you don’t have to interact with him much. 

“These noodles are fucking good,” he says as he slurps some into his mouth. 

“Here, take mine, I’m full,” you use the back of your hand to scoot the bowl over to his area. 

“Thank you,” he says politely, though you can feel his eyes boring into you as if to ask ‘why are you being nice to me?’ 

“You’re welcome.” 

“Wine sir?” a waiter asks Taehyung and gestures to his empty glass that’s remained as such the entire time you’ve been eating. 

“No, some more water would be nice though, thanks,” he says and the waiter nods and trots off. 

“It’s good, not too sweet,” you tell him, picking up your own glass and taking a sip. This is your attempt at a conversation, the sweetness of wine. 

“I don’t drink anymore,” he says in a way that makes you feel like you shouldn’t ask why. Something in your stomach twists and you think you can probably guess. 

He was probably drunk, when it happened, when he decided to bed somebody else. It puts a sour taste in your mouth as you swish the wine around. You force it down your throat and set the glass back down on the table, wiping your mouth with a napkin and standing up. 

“I’m going to go lay down, not feeling good,” you tell Fi, and you can see in the way that she looks at you she knows you’re lying. You don’t care. The rehearsal went fine. No one cried. No one yelled. You’re still on her fucking team, but dinners over, and you don’t have to do this anymore, at least until tomorrow afternoon. 

As you’re heading out you notice the table where they’re keeping the bottles of wine and champagne being served. With a quick look around to make sure no one’s watching you pluck a bottle off the table, they can consider it your fee for having to make a speech in front of a crowd tomorrow. Small price to pay for gushing about love and happily ever afters when you’d rather eat dirt. 

~~~~~~~~

The hotel pool closes at 10PM, and it’s well after midnight as you sit on the edge, skirt bunched up around your thighs, legs dangling in the water. 

Fi had come to check on you, and you’d continued the charade of a headache, explaining that you’d taken something and you’d see her in the morning to help her get ready for her big day. She was apprehensive, but left you alone. 

Too overwhelmed by the silence of your room, you decided to take your stolen booze and sit by the empty pool. The sound of the nearby ocean should be enough to drown out your thoughts. 

Except it wasn’t. 

You were still thinking about everything Namjoon had said. You were still thinking about what you wanted to say to Tae. And each time you took a sip of wine, you were thinking about him hovering over his coworker, the scent of alcohol on his breath, as he pushed into her and made her feel good the way he did with you. You felt like vomiting, but kept drinking anyway, call it self-flagellation. A punishment for being a bitter hag who can’t let anything go. 

When the pool gate creaks open, you turn, expecting to explain to a staff member that you were just about to leave. It’s not an employee though. It’s Taehyung. 

Your gut reaction is to tell him to fuck off, but you stop yourself. He seems to expect it, in the cautious way he approaches, he looks as if you’re about to send him away any second. Instead you turn back to the water, watching the reflection of hotel windows ripple on the waters surface as he rolls his pants up and sits next to you. 

“It’s warm,” he says after several moments, when it’s clear you’re not going to snap him in half. 

Silence. You sit next to one another for what feels like forever, though only about ten minutes probably pass. You take languid sips from the bottle occasionally, but you don’t look at him or offer any words. You’re just procrastinating, sitting stagnant as you’ve been doing for two years.

“Go ahead,” you finally say. 

“What?” he croaks, seemingly shocked that you’ve spoken at all.

“I want to know,” you take a big gulp from the bottle, “I want to know why you did it.” 

He takes a long time to answer and you wonder why. After two years, after all the five thousand word essays he tried to send you, shouldn’t he have all this outlined already? 

“The entire PR department was at that conference,” he starts. You remember. He’d gone to a week-long conference with the other people in his department, which you’d not really given much thought to, but that’s where it happened. While he was away. 

“The group had never been out together, in all the years we’d worked with each other, so on the last night we decided to go out drinking at some bar. It was all just good fun, until it wasn’t,” he says darkly and you waiver, but let him continue. 

“We got so drunk, God I was wasted,” he says with a shake of his head, “the kind of drunk where anything sounds like a good idea. Someone could suggest jumping off a bridge and you’d be like ‘fuck yeah, that’s the best idea I’ve ever heard’ because you’re just so out of your mind. Eventually we all had to go back to the hotel we were staying at, but I honestly can’t remember if it was because one of us suggested it, or because the bar staff wanted us out, but somehow I ended up in an Uber with Lia.” 

Lia. You’d met her several times at his office Christmas parties, and you knew she was the one he’d fucked without ever having to say her name. You choke down the whimper that wants to escape and wipe your tears away with the back of your hand. 

“She randomly admitted to me that I was her work crush, but I could barely comprehend what she was saying. The car was spinning. I kept looking out the window, but then she’d start talking again. She was telling me that her marriage was ending and she was depressed. She felt alone and hopeless - it was all so heavy - and then she started touching my leg, and scooting closer-,”

“Okay stop, stop,” you suck in a ragged breath. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, “I thought maybe being transparent was best, but the whole truth - without the gory details - is that there was no reason ___. I was drunk. She was drunk. I think I felt bad for her, but I don’t remember feeling anything. I don’t remember what we said, I don’t remember how it felt,” he drags a hand down his face, “I threw it away for nothing. I ruined us, everything we built, everything I loved, everything I wanted for absolutely fucking nothing.” 

You look away from him and hide your face so you can sob quietly. He places his hand on top of yours, and you stiffen, but don’t pull it away. 

“Please say something,” he urges. 

“I don’t know how to feel,” you sniff, “I don’t know if I should feel better because it was nothing or feel worse because you threw me away for nothing.” 

“I’m so sorry,” he repeats and you’re not sure how many times you’ve heard the words, a thousand - millions? Suddenly though, it doesn’t disgust you when he says he’s sorry.

“I hated you,” you say.

“I know,” he cries, “I deserve it.” 

“I hated you because it was your fault, you’re the one who ruined everything, you’re the one who should’ve suffered but instead I spent six months balled up in my apartment sobbing, screaming for you, screaming at you, I was a fucking mess Tae,” you sob. 

“I know, God I know that I hurt you so bad, and I know you may not want to hear it, and I know it was a different kind of pain but I swear to you I have been in agony for the past two years,” he sniffs. 

“I will never be the same,” you admit, to him and to yourself, “I will always feel like I’m not good enough, I will never be able to trust like I used to, and I will always wonder when someone is going to choose someone else over me and it’s all your fault!” 

“I’m so sorry ___,” he says. He scoots over close and starts to wrap his arm around you. God damn it you want him to. You want him to comfort you, you want to cry into his shoulder. You want it so bad. 

So you shove him into the pool, naturally. 

You watch him flail for a few seconds before he realizes the water is only waist deep, then he stands up, flinging his wet mop of hair from his face and sputtering water. 

“Are you kidding?” he squeaks, he looks like a drowned mouse. 

The look of utter shock on his face has you biting down hard on your lips trying to hold it together, but it comes out anyway. 

You laugh. You laugh so hard you can’t breathe, so hard that you snort, so hard that you feel like your chest is going to burst but you can’t stop. 

“Sorry, I gave in to my intrusive thoughts,” you tell him between gasps of air. 

“Intrusive…fuck,” he mutters, trying poorly to pull himself back onto the edge of the pool. You use your foot to shove him back in. 

“___!” he scream-laughs. 

“I couldn’t stop myself,” you shrug, still giggling. 

“Yeah?” he gives you a look as he pushes his wet hair out of his face. 

“No…” you warn, but before you can even get the whole word out he drags you in by your arms. 

“Bastard!” you squeal, wiping the water from your eyes. 

“Sorry, I gave into my intrusive thoughts,” he parrots and then splashes you for good measure. 

You shove him backward and he disappears under the waters surface, until you feel him grab you by the ankles. He pulls hard and you lose your footing, joining him under the water. You fight the sting of chlorine as you open your eyes, finding your target, and you reach out and pinch one of his nipples beneath his ruined sweater before pushing off the bottom to get air. 

“Oh that does it!” he jeers, dramatically rubbing his chest and leaping over to where you try to scramble out of the pool. He grabs you by the waist and drags you back down, pinning your arms with one of his and using his other hand to tickle you. 

“Stop! Please stop!” you plead between fits of laughter. 

You manage to loosen his grip and twist yourself until your chest is pressed against his. Suddenly playtime is over, and it’s just you looking up at him, his arms still around you, unrelenting. 

“What are we doing right now?” he whispers, pushing a wet piece of your hair off your cheek. 

“I think I’m forgiving you,” you say, and you rest your forehead against his chest as he holds you tighter. It feels so good that you continue to stand there, despite the absurdity of standing in a pool fully clothed. 

“This pool is closed, and those clothes are not appropriate swim attire to be wearing in the facilities,” a stern voice intrudes and you both spin around to see a very annoyed looking employee drumming her fingers on the top of the fence. 

“Sorry!” you yelp, jumping towards the pool stairs. 

“We were just going, we’re very sorry,” Taehyung echoes as he follows suit. 

“Yes, well, the pool rules are posted right here,” she taps a sign hanging on the fence aggressively, “for future reference. Have a good evening,” she grumbles, though she looks like she hopes the two of you have anything but. 

Taehyung grabs a few towels off a nearby caddy and you pour out the wine, then toss the bottle into a waste basket. 

Only a few people stare as the two of you walk towards the elevators, clothes drenched, but then again, there’s only a few people around at this hour anyway. You both grin like cheshire cats as the doors shut in front of you. 

Without giving it much thought, you reach over and lace your fingers into his, and when the elevator opens on the floor that’s been rented for the wedding, you lead him out and down the hallway to your room. 

“Wait,” he stops short, though he doesn’t let go of your hand as you slide the card into the door lock. 

“What?” 

“Are you sure you want me in there? I don’t want to wake up tomorrow morning and have you regret all of this,” he says, holding your hand to his chest. 

“I’m not going to, at least that’s not my plan,” you assure him as you cross the threshold - though if you’re being completely honest, you have no plan. You have no idea what you’re doing, or if it’s a good idea or a bad idea. 

“Then… what?” he wonders, looking like if he breathes the wrong way or says one wrong word you’ll smite him. 

“Take your wet clothes off and just lay down with me,” you shrug. 

“You want me to get naked, then get in your bed?” to say he looks stunned is an understatement. 

“Yes, if it will make you less uncomfortable I’ll sleep naked too,” you tell him with a shrug, pulling your skirt off. 

His eyes darken just a bit, “Is this some kind of torture? You want me to press my body against yours and try not to touch you?” he laughs, but his mouth sounds dry as a desert. 

“It’s not meant to be a punishment, but yes, that’s what I want. I want to lay here with you, in a very vulnerable state, because I want to know what it feels like. I want to know if it makes my skin crawl or if it makes me want you to fuck me and hold me against you the rest of the night. I’m testing the water, so to speak,” you say. You continue peeling wet layers of clothes off until you’re completely nude, then you pull down the sheets and get in. 

Taehyung stands there for about three seconds before he starts fighting his wet clothes off. You watch the lean muscles of his stomach ripple as he tugs the, very expensive looking, ruined cashmere off, and you lock eyes with him as he pushes his jeans and boxers off in one go. 

He’s hard, which isn’t very surprising, not that you’re just so incredibly irresistible that he can’t help it, but you understand what he’s going through because you are too. You’re wet, you can feel the slickness with every movement of your lower body. It’s been two years. You weren’t completely chaste in that time, though it was never anything that lasted more than a weekend, and the number of encounters were very few. You also aren’t sure if he was being honest about his two year celibacy streak, you’re not ready to accept that or not, but if it is true he’ll probably combust. You only take a tiny bit of inappropriate satisfaction from that. 

When he crawls in as well the two of you just lay on your backs, a whole other person could fit in the space between you, and you stay like that for a little while. 

“Skin crawling yet?” he asks timidly. 

“Not yet,” you sigh, and turn the lamp off, then roll over next to him, draping your bare thighs across his. You’re a little embarrassed that your slick slides against his leg. 

“Jesus christ,” he groans in a whisper as your hand slides up to find purchase on his chest, his arm coming around to pull you in close. 

“What about now?” he asks in a strain. 

“Nope. Not yet.” 

You’re being honest. It doesn’t make you sick, or angry, and it doesn’t make you feel like you’ve lost. There is no imaginary game. No imaginary score. Not anymore, and you breathe the first easy breath you’ve taken in two years. 

You take his hand that rests on top of yours and pull it down your torso, his fingertips brush over one of your nipples and your lips part against his shoulder. 

“Fuck,” he breathes out, and you continue pulling his hand lower and lower until his fingers rest above your cunt. 

“What do you want?” he asks, twisting over so you’re more under him than beside him. His fingers play idly in your soft tuft of hair, but he doesn’t try dipping them any lower. 

You take a deep breath, your pussy aching, “I think you owe me one, wouldn’t you say?” 

He nods, licking his lips, “I’d say I owe you a lot more than one, tell me, I’ll give you anything you want. Just tell me,” he urges you, his lips ghosting the side of your face. 

“I want you to touch me, and then I want you to go down on me like your fucking life depends on it,” you take his mouth with yours, sliding your fingers into his still damp hair to anchor him. 

You both let out involuntary moans when his fingers come in contact with your slit. He drags the wetness up from your entrance to your clit, circling around in a way that has you pushing back, spreading your thighs further for him. 

He toys with you as you kiss him, tongues teasing, teeth bumping, but his fingers persist. Then he pushes one in, followed by another and you groan. 

“Tae,” your voice is soft and pleading, and he delivers, thrusting his fingers into you hard and deep, the way you love. The way he knows you love. He pauses every so often to work your clit, and each time you have to hold yourself back, have to control your body so you don’t cum so soon, so you can enjoy it longer. 

“Does it feel good?” his voice is deep and scratchy in your ear and you nod, eyes closed, hips moving in time with his fingers, “Are you close?” 

You can’t help the breathy laugh that escapes, “Yes. So fucking close, fuck,” you curse as his fingers go back to your clit, this might be it, but he slows down. 

“Do you want me to finish you like this, or do you want me to eat you out? Because I really, really want to eat you out,” he smiles, taking your ear between his teeth gently. 

“Tongue,” you manage, “Definitely tongue but please keep using your fingers for the love of God.” 

“Absolutely,” he kisses you deeply once more before disappearing under the sheets. 

“Oh my god.” 

When his tongue drags up your slit, your back arches so far off the bed you’re pretty sure you’ll feel it tomorrow. Your mouth drops open as he fights your hips back down on the bed, tongue snaking and sliding over every centimeter of you. When you finally manage to settle down, he pushes his fingers back into you, lips wrapped around your sensitive bud in a gentle suck. 

Your eyes water at the sensation as you gasp and shake, then he switches to soft, wide licks and it finishes you. 

“Ohfuckohfuck,” your hands land on the sides of his head and you hold him in position as you cum, contracting rhythmically around his fingers, still buried inside you. 

When he resurfaces you immediately drag his wet mouth onto yours and wrap your arms around his neck. 

“More,” you tell him, reaching between your bodies to guide his cock to you. 

“I won’t last long enough for you to go again,” he warns. 

You shake your head, “I don’t care, just keep going, please,” you beg and it sounds so desperate but you don’t care anymore. 

“I missed you,” he whispers, and he pushes into your still throbbing cunt. “Oh fuck.” 

It feels like forever before he starts moving, thrusting in and pulling out agonizingly slow. You meet him with every push, grinding into him, connecting yourselves. 

“I can’t,” he whines, “I can’t hold it.” 

“Then don’t,” you tell him, dragging your nails down his back. 

“Shit,” he freezes on a particularly deep thrust and you feel him twitch, spilling himself inside. 

He collapses beside you, damp from sweat and breathless. He’s beautiful.

You scoot over and wrap yourself around him, like before, and he pulls you in, kissing the side of your head. 

“I missed you too,” you whisper, then close your eyes and let yourself rest against his chest. 

~~~~~~~~

You wake up to frantic knocking on your hotel door. 

“___! Hi, it’s me, Fi, I’m getting married today, in case you forgot - just mentioning it because you and I have an 8:30 appointment for massages and it is now,” a brief pause, “8:27 and I’ve not heard from you!” 

“Shit!” you scramble out of bed, grabbing the blanket as you go to wrap it around you.

“Ahh!” Taehyung whines, “Cold!” 

You open the door and greet her. 

“Oh my God,” she says, looking at your naked, disheveled state wrapped up in a hotel duvet. 

“Uhhhh…” 

“I’m cold!” Taehyung shouts from the darkness of the hotel room and you squeeze your eyes shut, bracing for her reaction. 

“Oh my GOD,” she screams. 

“I’ll meet you at the spa, I swear, just…go…just…I’m so happy and this is your special day…but go,” you stumble over the words. 

“I…” she points to the hall, “I’ll go. Meet me down there,” she says then jerks you close, “and be prepared to tell me fucking everything.” 

You pad back into the room, flipping on the light switch. Taehyung sits up and rubs his eyes. 

“Hi.” 

You slide into your bra and grab a shirt, “Hi,” you say back. “You have to go.” 

“Do I have to go because you’ve got somewhere to be? Or do I have to go because I make you nauseous and you don’t want to look at me anymore?” 

You press your lips together trying not to laugh, “You have to go because my best friend and your brother are getting married today, and we both have places we need to be - with them. After everything is over, we can figure all this out,” you say pointing between the two of you. 

“Promise?” 

“I swear.” 

He nods, then gets up grabbing his discarded clothes from the night before. 

“This is still wet,” he frowns, showing you his sweater. 

“Sorry about your fancy sweater,” you laugh. 

You’re not entirely sure what to say or do, so you stand on your toes and kiss his cheek. 

“I’ll see you later,” you tell him. 

He nods, “Later.” 

~~~~~~~~

When you check in at the spas front desk they send you to the waiting area, where Fi awaits you, looking very smug. 

“Don’t,” you tell her, taking the seat next to her. 

“Don’t what?” she says innocently, “Don’t bring up the fact that I just caught you red handed from spending the night with my brother-in-law?” 

“Technically he won’t be your brother-in-law until after 1 o’clock,” you point out. 

“Deflecting. Interesting. What does that mean I wonder?” she raises a brow. 

“Weren’t you and Namjoon both hounding me, telling me I needed to talk to him?” you ask. 

“Talk?” she snorts, “Boy, when you have a talk you sure go all out.” 

“We did talk!” you defend, “Before - we had a conversation at the pool.” 

“How did that go?” 

You think about it for a second and sigh, “Well, it definitely made me sad. It reminded me of everything I felt in those months after everything. I ugly cried clutching a bottle of wine,” you say with a half laugh. 

“I can tell, your eyes are grotesque - no offense - we’ll have to fix that for the photography later, but go on,” she compels. 

“So yeah, I cried, I told him how much I’d hated him and how miserable I’d been, he apologized for like the trillionth time and I don’t know, I felt different all of a sudden, I actually believed him. So I pushed him in the pool and ruined his cashmere,” you explain. 

“The cable knit Celine?” she gasps. 

“Jesus Christ,” you mutter, walking over to the coffee bar, praying it’s strong. 

“Sorry,” she says, “but that shit is easily more than two G’s. But yes, we’re talking about you, sorry. What made it feel different? And why did you push a grown man in cashmere into a pool?” 

“Something Namjoon said, the first night Taehyung was here after the bathroom incident, he kind of put things in perspective for me,” you tell her. 

She smiles dreamily, “Yeah, he kind of has a way of doing that huh? What was it he said?” 

“Imaginary games,” you say. 

“I don’t follow?” 

“Would you say I’m a forgiving person? That I handle offenses well?” 

“Abso-fucking-lutely not,” Fi says resolutely. 

“Agreed. I get in my head and keep score. If they hurt me, I have to hurt them worse and if I can’t, then I act like letting it go is losing, so I hang on to it and stay angry because in my sick little toxic mind, that means I’m still winning,” you sit back down and slurp the coffee. 

“Tired of winning now?” she says softly, taking your hand in hers with a squeeze. 

“Yes,” you sigh, lay your head on her shoulder, “I’m tired of winning now.” 

“Good.” 

~~~~~~~~~

Fi was stunning. No, more than that - she was traffic stopping, literally. In her custom wedding gown, guests and even strangers literally stopped in their tracks to stare at her. You cried all day at how beautiful and happy she looked. She glowed. You only looked away from her once really, to see Namjoons reaction when she cornered the aisle and came into view - worth it. 

At the reception Fi leans over to you, “I think someone has been itching to get you alone all day,” she whispers, nodding over to Taehyung who’s in the middle of a conversation with a cousin, but you see him side eyeing you every couple of seconds. 

“I’m your maid of honor Fi, it’s my job to be in your ass all day in case you need me,” you tell her, resisting the urge to run to him. 

“Okay. I appreciate that and everything, but I’m letting you go. Your job is complete, you married me off. Now go,” she nudges you out of your seat. 

You walk over to him as the cousin disappears back into the throng of people and he turns to you. 

“Dance with me?” he asks, and you nod as he takes your waist on the floor. 

You sway back and forth to some romantic jazzy number, resting your head on his shoulder, drinking in his scent and his warmth. You smile. 

“So what happens now?” he whispers, “What happens when we leave this paradise and have to go back to the dreary, gray city?” 

You look up at him, and he kisses you gently on the lips. 

“I think…” 

“Yes?” 

You tilt your head and smile, “I think we should start meal planning.” 

“Meal planning…” he looks perplexed, but then recognition reaches his eyes and his face softens. “Meal planning.” 

“Yes. It’s more cost effective, and it’ll be easier to eat healthy if we only buy what we plan for.” 

“Sounds like a good plan,” he grins, then pulls your head back onto his shoulder and the two of you continue dancing, even when the music changes to a more upbeat song, you just sway back and forth, pressed together tightly to make up for the distance you held for too long.

Kitty&cat

Happy Joon & Hobi Wednesday =)