Definitely Today, Satan | Knj

definitely today, satan | knj

After having a strange dream about your hot neighbor, you realize it might be time to finally make your move. Dreams are a sign from the universe, right?

○ Pairing: DILF/Neighbor!Namjoon x f!Reader

○ Rating: Explicit/18+

○ Genre: Neighbors to lovers, smut, crack

○ 11 / 100 Drabble Challenge (Neighbor)

○ Word Count: 1,076

○ Warnings: It's corny and horribly written and I don't know what the fuck came over me when I wrote any of these fics, cunnilingus (Namjoon eating it from behind while MC wears a skirt, god bless), nipple play, vaginal fingering, I have a really bad sense humor, reference to NSYNC fanfic

○ Notes: This fic was written for @mapleleaf000 for my "part 2 when?" follower milestone game. It's actually part 3 of what has turned into a mini-series about the "Demon DMV" LOL. The links for the other parts are below. For those of you who haven't read "Not Today, Satan," you don't have to read parts 1 and 2 to understand this fic, but I highly recommend it, or else this won't be as funny. Also, yes, there is NSYNC fic on AO3. In case you were curious. 💀

○ Post Date: March 12, 2024

○ Masterlist | AO3 Crosspost

○ What was Jai listening to? Dangerous - TEN

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3

Honestly, sometimes your ability to pull hot men shocks you. It doesn’t only happen at night when you’re weirdly dreaming about your hot, daddy-dom neighbor being Satan, tempting you with his sexy biceps and boobs. You’re actually here, in his apartment, sitting on said hot, daddy-dom neighbor’s thick thighs as he sucks on your throat and squeezes your tits. 

Namjoon is even hotter in real life than he was as Satan in your dreams, though you can’t help but think about your dream while he’s pulling off your shirt to trail kisses across your collarbones and reaching around you to unclasp your bra. 

“Fuck, you’re so sexy,” Namjoon moans against your chest as he drags his tongue across one of your nipples, flicking it repeatedly until it’s hard and soaked with his spit. His tongue isn’t pointy and forked like it had been in your dream, but that’s fine!

“Not as sexy as you,” you insist with your fingers threaded through his hair. 

Namjoon’s hair is short and bleached with highlights, and you think he’s probably the only person in the twenty-first century who can pull off bleached tips without looking like Lance from NSYNC. 

Is there any NSYNC fanfiction on AO3? If there is, it’s probably Lance/Justin. 

Not to kink-shame anyone, but ew. 

You’re pulled from your distracting thoughts by Namjoon grabbing your ass and helping you grind against the bulge in his pants. He’s still wearing his slacks, having just come home from work. You were supposed to go on a dinner date since his daughter is staying with her mother over the weekend. 

As a respectful father (hot), Namjoon has avoided mixing his dating life with his family life. It’s what’s best for now since the two of you are still getting to know each other. Only recently did your dreams of Purgatory and Hell push you to ask Namjoon out. It makes sense that he wants to take things slow with introducing you into his daughter’s life. 

You’re definitely not taking things slow in other areas of your dating life, though. 

“Is it weird if I say that I dreamt about this?” you ask when Namjoon hooks his arms around your thighs and carries you out of the living room. His strength is impressive, even if his bedroom isn’t far from where you’d been. 

“Not at all. I’ve dreamt about you, too.” 

Namjoon seems shy when he confesses, but you suppose it actually is kind of weird, and the two of you are probably just weird together. Which is nice. Sexy or not, you wouldn’t be able to vibe with Namjoon if he couldn’t keep up with your weirdness. 

“Oh, did you?” you purr as Namjoon reaches under your miniskirt to pull your thong down your legs. 

“Mhm,” he hums against your neck when he hovers over you, slotting himself between your legs so he can grind his thigh against your exposed pussy. 

One of the buttons on his white work shirt catches on your nipple. The rough drag makes your body shiver with goosebumps. When you try to unbutton his shirt, he grabs your hand and pins it to the bed above your head. 

“Keep it on,” Namjoon whispers in your ear. 

His breath is hot against your face, and his voice is deep and scratchy. If you close your eyes, you can almost imagine something darker in his tone, something demonic. It’s so hot you feel your pussy throb and slick up even more. When Namjoon pulls away, there’s a dark spot on his pants from how wet you are. 

“Can I eat you out?” Namjoon’s request is more like a plea, a hopeful lilt to his voice when he speaks. He runs his palms up your thighs to push your miniskirt further up your waist to expose more of your body.

“You don’t even have to ask a question like that.” 

“From behind?” 

“Fuck, yeah, oh my god.” You throw your head back with a dramatic groan before rolling onto your stomach and transitioning to resting on your forearms and knees. “Please, I didn’t even get to the fucking in my dream about you, so I need this.” 

Squeezing your asscheeks, Namjoon pulls you apart and uses his leg to push your knees apart more to open you. 

“I definitely got to the fucking part in mine,” Namjoon says with a chuckle as he runs his thumb over your pussy, first gathering your arousal from where it leaks at your entrance and gliding it up to wet your clit even more. 

“What,” you swallow the drool you’re afraid might come out of you when Namjoon picks up the pace, “What was your dream like?” 

“I don’t know if I should tell you. It was weird.” 

He circles your clit, occasionally thumbing at it with gentle flicks at the tip that makes your legs shake. When you start kicking your foot and moaning louder, he finally brings his mouth down to where you throb for him. 

“Oh fuck,” you moan against Namjoon’s bed sheets. 

You’ve got your face pressed into the bed because you can’t keep your head up as he fucks his tongue in you while he rubs your clit with his slick fingers. He moans against your pussy when he switches positions so he’s fingering you while he laps at your clit. His movements are languid, which drives you even crazier than if he’d been fingerfucking you hard enough to make your ass jiggle.

“Good?” he murmurs with his lips slick and his fingers still massaging your walls.

“So good, god, your lips are so perfect, fuck,” you moan and push back against his face. “Tell me your dream. Was it like this?”

Namjoon kisses your clit before bringing his other hand to rub it while he still fingers you. Leaning back on his knees, Namjoon increases the speed of his movements as he admits, “You were the Devil, and I fucked you so good that you kept me as a pet.” 

“I WHAT?” 

You turn around to stare at Namjoon with wide eyes and an inability to say anything more as your orgasm rips a whiny moan out of you, legs shaking and threatening to collapse. Namjoon wraps his arm around your waist and keeps rubbing your clit until you wiggle away from him when you grow too sensitive. 

Namjoon wipes his messy fingers on your thigh and shrugs. 

“I told you it was a weird dream.”

Join the 100 Drabble Challenge taglist.

@jooniesxbby @seokteoksworld @taegeum @dprmoon @chimmisbae @yoonminkookk @joonsmagicshop @shameless-army

Disclaimer: All my writing is fictional and for entertainment purposes only. None of these characters are meant to actually represent the real people mentioned in the stories. 

All rights reserved © @gimmethatagustd​ - Do not copy, repost, modify, or translate any of my writing. Do not use my writing for any AI purposes whatsoever. Do not use my fics for anything aside from reading and commenting on them. My fics will only be posted on this Tumblr and on AO3 (gimmethatagustd & daddytaehyungie).

look down on me like that - 2 (explicit)

genre: slow burn enemies to lovers hatefucking coworkers au, smut (w some eventual angst)

pairing: yoongi x reader

summary: your asshole coworker min yoongi has made it his personal mission to ruin your life.

word count: 6.1k

contains: this is the last chapter before it gets smutty, just needed to rly get the enemies build-up going ;))) believe it or not reader is somehow even dumber than last time, jungkook continues to be too good for this world, yoongi continues to be a dick, water is wet, etc. aaand mentions of alcohol (a running theme in this one!)

A/N: i really have nothing witty to say just hope you enjoy 💜 this is also on AO3!

chapter one | masterlist | chapter three

To say that the rest of your first week is overwhelming is an understatement. You operate in a constant state of confusion. You keep a page in your notes to track all of the unfamiliar terminology your coworkers use; you frantically Google as many phrases as possible whenever you have a moment alone.

Unfortunately, the moments alone are few and far between. From the second you unlock the door each morning, you’re always busy, and nearly always in meetings, which inevitably result in more things getting tacked onto your to-do list: compiling presentation materials, booking artists for studio time, setting up task boards for the production teams, creating project timelines for upcoming releases, ordering additional recording equipment, submitting a maintenance request for the broken door in studio B. Your desk phone’s voicemail and your inbox are already filling up, and you haven’t had a free second to so much as check them, let alone respond to anything.

You arrive to work earlier and earlier each morning, where Jungkook is always waiting to greet you, hair still damp from his post-workout shower. More often than not, a smile or offer of help from your baby-faced coworker is the only thing that gets you through the day.

Inversely, there’s Suga. He hasn’t said anything to you since the team meeting, and he doesn’t attend the next one. That doesn’t stop his presence from feeling like a dark cloud looming over your head. You don’t dare put headphones in again while you work, but you still find yourself regularly glancing over your shoulder, just to be sure he isn’t standing there smirking at you.

But he never is. In fact, Jungkook was right— you pretty much never see Suga, other than when he gets to work and leaves each day.

You find yourself working later and later into the evenings as well, trying to tread water, but to his credit, Suga seems to be respecting your boundary. He leaves at 5:55 each day like clockwork, always with his dark sunglasses on, never saying anything. You’ve stopped saying goodnight to him, figuring it’s a waste of air.

In fact, you feel your most productive once he’s gone for the day. There’s an entire physical response you have to the mere absence of him from the building. Your shoulders relax, your brain unfogs. It’s like you can breathe deeper, knowing your secret of incompetency is safe to live on another day.

Of course, you don’t actually know that he knows. He can’t know for sure, you reason, unless he’s some kind of stalker. He just has his suspicions, albeit ones he was confident enough in to voice aloud to you.

But the rest of the company seems to have faith in you, so you can’t be doing that horribly. That thought keeps you afloat, if just barely.

On this particular day, you’re asked to reset one of the studios after talent has finished a scheduled recording session. The company is producing an up and coming female rapper’s mixtape, and you thank every lucky star you have that Suga is not involved with this project. The engineer you are working with doesn’t say much, but he’s at least pleasant. You follow his lead to start breaking down and organizing a clusterfuck of audio equipment set up in the recording booth. While you continue, he slips back into the control room.

“Damn, the storage on this thing sucks ass,” you hear the engineer’s voice over the talkback intercom. “One day eats up like half the drive. Hey admin?” You glance up, continuing to wrap a cable around your arm, to see him hunched over the studio desktop.

“Do you mind porting the files from today off here so we don’t run out of space when she comes back tomorrow?” He slides open a couple drawers until he finds what he’s looking for, holding up a thumb drive so you can see it through the glass. “If you can throw them on here, that’d be great.”

“Sure.” The microphones are all unplugged and you’re not sure if he can hear you, so you shoot him a thumbs up with your non-occupied arm.

“Thanks! We’ve got another client coming in so I gotta bounce. Just bring it by my office whenever you get a chance.”

It takes ages, but you get the booth and the control room put back together, then take a seat at the desktop. There are a ton of files saved haphazardly all over the place from the session, and you gather them into a folder, then plug the USB in and move the data over.

A small green progress bar loads for a while, then eventually disappears, and you pull the drive out. Easy peasy. You mass-select the files and delete them, clicking through all the annoying “are you sure?” messages until they finally disappear. All done.

For good measure, you plug the USB back into the desktop to review. You might even get crazy and organize the takes for him, who knows.

You open the drive in your file explorer, and it’s empty.

That’s weird. Maybe it just needs to load, you consider. You give it a second.

Panic rises in your chest as the blank folder stares back at you. There’s no progress bar, no loading icon, no spinning rainbow wheel. You swallow hard. The thumb drive is empty.

“No, no, no, no,” you murmur to yourself, clicking around on the screen as if to somehow summon the files from beyond the grave, your stomach in knots. “Please come back,” you whisper through a lump in your throat.

Tears sting at the corners of your eyes and you start to hyperventilate. This can’t be happening. You find the Recycle Bin on the desktop and open it, but that’s empty too.

“What is the fucking point of you then?!” You hiss angrily at the Recycle Bin. The tears in your eyes threaten to spill over, and you push the desk chair back. You have to get out of here before someone finds you in this state.

You grab your purse off the desk and pull the USB out of the computer, chucking it in next to your laptop. You sling the straps over your shoulder and will your face to look some amount of normal as you push the studio door open.

You rush towards the bathroom. Please don’t let anyone see me please please please—

You’re so focused on the target ahead that you don’t realize you’re about to smack into someone leaving the men’s room until it’s too late. You collide into his chest at full-speed. Your clumsiness is the final straw and you let out a choked gasp of a sob, unable to catch your breath to even apologize.

Your palms rest flat against this person’s chest, and his hands instinctively grab your arms to keep you upright. You’re terrified to make eye contact and confirm who it is. If this is Suga, you will literally die of embarrassment right here in the hallway.

“Whoa, hey, are you okay?” Jungkook’s voice has already become familiar to you, and you’ve never been more glad to hear it. “What’s going on?”

Tears roll down your face as you look up at him. “I think I fucked up.”

Keeping his hands firmly on your shoulders, Jungkook steers you down the hall into an open meeting room. You sit with your back to the door so passersby can’t see your now free-flowing tears. Your shoulders shake as you hide your face in your hands. The embarrassment of being so emotional in front of a coworker that you barely know only makes you cry that much harder.

Jungkook finds a box of tissues in one of the media cabinets and slides it across the table towards you. He’s patient with you, and waits it out silently until you’re able to gasp for air and calm yourself down a little. “Tell me what happened.”

You reach for a tissue and dab at your eyes, certain you look like a disaster. “I… accidentally deleted all the files from the recording session.” You say with a sniffle. His jaw drops.

You go over the incident, the studio, the files, the drive. “So, I pulled the USB out, and then—”

“Did you eject it?”

You pause, wondering if that’s supposed to mean something to you. “Eject it?”

“The USB.”

“Um, I pulled it out of the computer?”

“But you didn’t click the eject button first.”

“I… No, I guess I didn’t.”

He leans back in his chair, his face serious. “That explains it. You can usually get away with not ejecting a USB and be fine if you’re moving a couple small files, but hours worth of audio recordings… They were probably still writing to the drive. Pull it out before that completes and the data can get corrupted. Or in this case…” He makes a small gesture with his hands. “Poof.”

“Poof.” You drop your head into your folded arms on the table. “I’m so fucked.”

Jungkook snaps his fingers. “The Recycle Bin!”

You shake your head where it is. “Tried it. Empty.”

His hand drops to the table with a thud. “Dammit. That can happen with big files. No second chances.”

You sit back up, pressing your fingers to your temples. “What do I do? That’s hours of work, a talent’s time wasted, a damaged relationship, thousands in booking fees we’ll probably need to pay back—”

“Blame me.” He interjects. You laugh because that’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard.

“You weren’t even there.”

Jungkook leans forward, and you can see the gears in his head turning. “Say that I asked you for the tracks because I wanted to start brainstorming some teasers for our socials.”

“But you know how to eject a USB,” you counter, then add bitterly, “because you’re not a fucking moron.”

He pauses. “I… misunderstood. I thought you’d made two. I thought the engineer had his own version, so I deleted everything when I was done.”

The weight of his words sinks in. “Jungkook, no. I can’t ask you to lie for me.”

“You’re not asking. I’m offering.”

You huff a shaky exhale. “This isn’t your responsibility.”

“Hmm. How long have you worked here?”

You pause to count. “Twelve days.”

“Uh-huh.” He says, lazily circling his index finger on the table. “Do you know how long I’ve worked here?” You shake your head. “Four years.”

“Wow.”

“And they love me.” You smile at that. Of course they do. “I’m the golden boy here. I’ve never fucked up, not even once. I mean it, let me take the heat on this one.”

The offer is so tempting, but you can’t. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”

“Because—” he starts, then falters. “You’re a good coworker. I see how many hours you’re putting in and how much stuff they’re throwing at you. I told them when they posted the job that this position needed to be two roles, but they didn’t want to listen to me. And I think we could use more people like you around here. You’re nice, and disciplined, and honest.”

The last word stings. You’re a fucking monster, is what you are. Maybe you might as well embrace it.

“Thank you,” you say, as sincerely as you’ve ever meant it. “I seriously can’t tell you how much this means to me.” Your eyes threaten to tear up again and you tilt your head back, willing yourself not to cry. “God, I’m such a wreck. I don’t know how I’m supposed to go back to work like this.”

“What’s the rest of your day look like?” He asks.

You retrieve your laptop from your purse and open it up. Jungkook walks his feet against the floor to wheel his office chair over to your side of the table. It’s just goofy enough to make you laugh.

You pull up your calendar and he looks at it with you. The universe has actually blessed you with a rare chunk of free time. You’ve got a solid 90 minutes until your next meeting.

“Well, I’m hungry.” Jungkook says decisively. “Do you want to get some food?”

You balk at his question. “What, fucking up an entire recording session wasn’t enough, you want me to skip out on work too?”

“You’re not skipping out on work!” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and taps at the screen for a moment. “Look.”

A few seconds later, an hour-long event appears on your calendar. The sender is one Jeon Jungkook, and you’re the only listed attendee. He reaches over to your laptop’s trackpad and accepts the invitation.

“It’s a meeting. A walking meeting. Come on.”

You’d underestimated how nice getting outside would be. It’s a good reminder that the world still exists beyond of the glass walls of your office. Jungkook slows his pace so you don’t have to hurry to keep up with him in your heels.

He must be able to sense your desire for a distraction from the events of the past hour, because he doesn’t say anything else about it. Instead he regales you with stories of his most recent social media projects— apparently he’s amassed a small army of fans who love it when he does Instagram Q&As on the company page.

“You know they came up with a nickname for me? It’s Baby Star Candy.” His cheeks redden as he says the name. “I have no idea what it means.”

You don’t either, but it’s oddly perfect for him.

The two of you approach a fairly unremarkable looking building, and he pushes the door open and motions for you to enter first. You step into a bustling food hall and are immediately hit with an overwhelming array of sounds and smells. There are dozens of stalls, but Jungkook heads confidently in the direction of one, and you follow him, trying to take it all in.

Jungkook stops you at a bakery, the displays piled high with various kinds of breads, donuts and pastries. The aroma is heavenly.

“Grab a seat,” he calls over his shoulder as he jumps into the line, and you find a table for two in the corner. He returns a few minutes later with two buns on a tray. The gesture is overwhelmingly kind. Part of you wants to argue that you don’t deserve this, but you don’t think you could get the words out without the truth about all your lies spilling out with them.

Instead you thank him, pick up a bun, and take a bite. It’s soft and warm, and the slightly sweet taste of the red bean filling is incredible. Jungkook closes his eyes in happiness when he takes his first bite. You both chew in silence.

When you’ve finished, you rest your chin on your hands. “So, Jeon Jungkook, what is the agenda for this urgent meeting?”

He smiles, wiping at the corners of his mouth. “Let’s see. What would make you feel better?”

“The free food definitely helped. I still feel like a dumbass, though.”

Jungkook shrugs. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. It could’ve been worse.” He pauses. “You could have lost the company thousands of dollars in stolen equipment, for example.”

Your eyes widen as you realize what he’s referencing, and you bite back a laugh. “Honestly, that’s a really good point. Do you know what happened with that?”

He shakes his head. “Not much more than what you heard at the meeting. Suga was working really late on some project. This was back when we all had our own keys, so the rule was just to lock up whenever you left. And I guess he forgot?”

You can’t imagine working so hard you’d forget something that simple.

“I was the first one to get in the next morning,” Jungkook continues, “so I was the first one to see it. The place was trashed. They took basically anything that wasn’t too heavy to lift. I can’t imagine how much Suga must have paid to replace everything.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. I tried asking him about it right after it all went down, just trying to be supportive, but he got super touchy. Like, touchy even for Suga. So I haven’t brought it up again.” He shrugs.

The thought lingers in the back of your brain the rest of the walk back to the office, and even throughout your remaining meetings. You don’t have many nice things to say about the guy, but Suga is clearly methodical, dedicated, and very observant. You know it’s not your business, but you can’t help but wonder what the hell happened.

~*~

The next few days pass in an anxious blur. You keep expecting the other shoe to drop, sure that someone will see through Jungkook’s lie and your boss will show up at your desk with your termination notice, but nothing comes of it. Life goes on. You’ve gotten away with murder, and it feels awful.

You’re in such a fog of guilt, and still so overwhelmed by your workload, that you forget about your first meeting Friday morning. The notification pops up alerting you to an overdue calendar event, and you grab your laptop and sprint for the conference room, nearly twisting an ankle in your heels.

When you push the door open, already apologizing profusely, you realize Suga is sitting alone at the table.

Your stomach drops. Every cell in your body wants to turn around and walk right back out the door. Instead you gingerly pull out a chair across from him and sit, refraining from making eye contact.

“Um, good morning, Min Suga.”

The silent question of what this meeting is crosses your mind, but you know you should know that, and you’re not about to give him any ammo. You open your laptop and pull up the invite.

Oh. Oh. The memory comes back to you now. Your boss had asked you to provide support for a huge client pitch first thing Friday morning. He’d specifically stressed just how big of a deal it would be, both financially and reputationally, to clinch this. He’d left out the part about Suga being the pitching producer, but it makes sense. Everyone in the business is dying to work with him.

Everyone except you, you think to yourself.

When you glance up at him, Suga is staring at you. Your mouth goes dry, and you clear your throat. “I really am so sorry I’m late.”

You expect the usual response of absolutely nothing, but he actually speaks. “You’re lucky they are too.” You exhale a small sigh of relief and he continues. “You better not embarrass me today.”

You blink twice, trying to process his thinly veiled threat, and something in your gut twists. You speak without thinking. “I’m not scared of you, Yoongi.”

There’s a glint in his eyes at your words, like maybe you should be. He leans back in his chair and you could swear he’s almost smiling.

“You know people talk around here?” You stare blankly at him. You have no idea what he means. “I just find it very interesting that Jeon Jungkook, who has never made a mistake in his life before this week, somehow managed to delete an entire recording session’s worth of files. Seems pretty out of character, wouldn’t you agree?”

Heat rushes to your face and for a second you can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t do anything but sit there and stare stupidly at him. Your heart is racing, the urge to cry already bubbling up in your chest.

The conference room door opens. Suga immediately gets to his feet with a wide smile and a formal greeting for the artist and their label reps. You rise and do the same, your face still burning with embarrassment. You pray that you can keep it together for the duration of this meeting.

Suga launches into a pitch about the track in question, and you’re thankful for the few minutes to steady your breathing as you copy down a brief transcript in your notes.

As much as you may personally dislike him, it’s still kind of amazing to see him in his element. He’s clearly done his research on this artist, and he’s able to encapsulate their entire brand in a few perfectly chosen words. You see the team glance at each other with impressed looks on their faces. Suga explains that, like all his tracks, he’s written this specifically for them, and wouldn’t give it to anyone else.

“Admin,” he turns to you and your throat constricts. “Can you please play the track I sent you?” He’s still smiling, but his eyes are cold.

“Y-yes,” you choke out, and you navigate through your inbox as fast as possible. When you search his name, dozens of messages come up, all with various demos attached, and your eyes widen. You knew you were behind on emails, but you didn’t realize he’d been sending you so many. You find the thread with the artist’s name, but there’s a lengthy list of emails to choose from under it. You press play on the first track you see.

Though you’ve never heard a proper demo before, you would’ve guessed one would be rough. But this one is really rough. The beat is way too loud, the vocals sloppy, the rhythm disjointed. The smile on Suga’s face falters and you feel sick. 

In one swift move, he reaches across the table and grabs your laptop with both hands. You jump back reflexively and helplessly watch as he pulls it towards him, turning off the track as quickly as possible.

“Whoops!” Suga’s smile returns, clearly more forced than before, as his fingers scroll your computer’s trackpad. “Sorry about that, team. Let’s try this again.” He clicks something and a far more polished version of the same song starts up.

The artist’s team listens in silence, some of them nodding along. They compliment Suga when it finishes, and there’s additional banter and exchanging of pleasantries before they agree to meet internally and send an official response over within the next week.

You don’t say a word, hoping instead that the ground might open up and swallow you. When Suga stands to see the team off as the meeting wraps, you robotically follow suit. There’s a tightness, a humming in your chest that you can’t put a name to.

It’s only once the room is emptied of everyone except you and Suga that you recognize the feeling. Underneath the shame, and the guilt, and the fear. It’s anger.

He snaps your laptop shut and silently slides it back across the table.

“Don’t touch my stuff without my permission.” You feel stupid as soon as you say it, like a little kid.

Suga huffs. “Play the right track and we won’t have that problem.”

“Why did you send me fifty versions of the same thing?! I played the first one I saw!”

He presses both palms flat on the conference table. For a split second, you think he might flip it over. His voice is deadly serious, hair falling in his eyes as he leans across the table toward you. “Because it is your job to organize them.” He tilts his head, gaze still fixed on you. “Tell me, did you look up what the position actually entailed before applying? Or did you just figure you’d wing it?”

Your stomach turns, mostly because you know he’s right. You scramble for a way to escape the blame.

“Y-you didn’t give me any prep for this meeting! Instead you wasted my time talking about some stupid mistake that I—” your voice breaks. “That Jungkook made,” you correct yourself carefully. Fuck.

At this, he laughs, sharp and bitter. “What a shame. If only we’d had more time. If only someone had purposefully set aside fifteen minutes before the client was scheduled to arrive, to ensure he’d have enough time to show the admin how to do her fucking job. Oh wait, that’s right, I did.”

His words sting like a slap to the face. It’s yet another reminder of your mistakes, your inability to get anything right. You were late and unprepared. There’s no way to twist this to make it his fault.

You grit your teeth, willing yourself not to give this horrible man the satisfaction of seeing you cry. Your voice is barely more than a whisper. “Do you need anything else, Yoongi? Or am I dismissed?”

He rolls his eyes. “Do what you want. I’m not your boss.”

Your vision blurs with tears as you grab your laptop and exit the conference room.

~*~

You drag Jimin out both Friday and Saturday night in an attempt to drink until you obliterate the memories of your latest fuck-ups. But both nights end the same, with Jimin holding your hair back while you puke your guts up in a club bathroom.

“Alright,” he says Saturday night when you’ve finally finished, using his dancer’s poise to nimbly flush the toilet with his foot. You collapse against the wall of the stall and sink to the floor in a much less graceful state. “What the hell has gotten into you?”

You wipe your nose with the back of your hand. “I think I have to quit my job.”

Jimin’s brow furrows. “What?! Why?” He slides down the wall opposite you, your legs tangling together on the bathroom floor.

You shake your head and the room spins. “I keep fucking up.”

He blinks at you, clearly waiting for more. “And…? Have you gotten in trouble about it?”

“Not really,” you groan, “but that’s because my coworker stepped in and saved my ass.”

Jimin shrugs. “That’s what good coworkers do. You’re new. Fuck-ups are to be expected. You’ll figure it out.”

“But I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Everyone feels that way when they first start a new job. It’s called impostor syndrome.”

“But Jimin!” You whine, exasperated. “I am literally an impostor!”

“Who gives a shit? As long as you’re actually trying, and learning from the mistakes you make, you’ll figure it out. You’re only a couple weeks in. It sounds like everyone’s cutting you some slack anyway.”

You hiccup a laugh. “Not everyone. I can think of one specific coworker who already hates my guts. I’m pretty sure he knows I’m a fraud, too.”

Jimin rolls his eyes. “He’s probably just a sexist jerk who thinks women are incompetent. I’m sure he’s made mistakes, too.”

You nod. “He has, I know he has. He made a really big one right before they hired me. Way worse than anything I’ve done.”

“There you go.” Jimin stands up and offers both hands to help you do the same. “Screw that asshole. I mean— don’t like, put rat poison in his coffee or anything. But just remember he’s human, same as you. Don’t let him kill your vibe.”

Your hands still clasped together, you lean into his chest for a moment, rubbing your nose against his shirt. “Thanks, Jimin.”

He slides the lock of the club bathroom stall open. “Come on, drunk girl. Let’s get you home.”

~*~

Jimin’s words are on repeat in your head all Monday, like he’s your own personal motivational speaker. You will yourself not to give up on this job.

After your last meeting of the day wraps, you decide to finally sit down and tackle your nightmare inbox. You feel like you’ve barely scratched the surface when Suga rounds the corner. 5:55 already. You wish it was professionally acceptable to crawl under your desk and hide, but you drop your gaze and hope he’ll just breeze right past like he always does.

No such luck. He approaches your desk, seemingly waiting for you to look up. Your pulse quickens as you make eye contact.

“I need to work late tonight,” he says simply. His typical blank expression looks tinged with some emotion you can’t quite name. Stress? “Can I have the key? I’ll lock up when I’m done.”

“I’m the only one authorized to have the key,” your tone comes out sharp, because you know he knows this. “I can’t give it to anyone else. I’ll get in trouble.”

“Seriously, I have a really big deadline tonight, and I’m behind.” Suga persists. He almost looks like he’s in pain.

He’s human, same as you, Jimin’s voice in your head reminds you. As much as it kills you to even think it, you sort of feel like you understand where he’s coming from. You’re drowning, too. You could easily spend another two hours in your email and not hit the bottom. And you probably will, whether he’s here or not. So would it really be that bad if he was?

Plus, you did kind of fuck up his meeting. You clench your fists under your desk, out of his line of sight. Curse your stupid conscience.

“I can’t give you the key,” you say with a sigh. “But I can do a couple more hours. But then we both have to go home.”

You see a muscle in his jaw work. “Fine.” He’s gone again before you can say anything else.

You return to your inbox. You dig through message after message, responding quickly where you can and adding everything else to an ever-growing to do list of follow-ups and deliverables. You work until your vision blurs and you never want to read another email again.

Exhausted, you slump back in your chair, stifling a yawn, and look at the clock. It’s nearly 8:30, and your stomach grumbles as if in protest. You’ve never stayed at the office this late. You try to resume work, but when it takes you over five minutes to read a two-line email, you realize your brain has shut off for the evening. You stare listlessly at the screen for a few minutes, then finally throw the towel in.

Time to go disturb the genius, you guess. Grabbing the office keys, you walk down the hallway to his lab, ringing the doorbell and then knocking in case he’s got headphones on. “It’s time to go!” You call through the door.

There’s no response, so you bang on the door harder, then try the handle. It doesn’t budge, and you glare at the number pad. How is it fair that he gets an extra lock on his door? Isn’t that a fire hazard?

“Suga!” You smack your palm flat on the door a few more times. “Come on, I’m hungry and I want to leave!”

A few more seconds, and you’re about to give up and look for a fire alarm to pull, when the door opens a crack. You can’t even see him, but you hear his voice. “Just give me ten more minutes. That’s all I need.” He sounds as tired as you feel.

You roll your eyes and stalk back down the hallway, chucking the office keys on your desk. Picking up your phone, you automatically go to call Jimin, but then remember he’s at dance practice for another hour. You chew on the inside of your cheek, scrolling over to your music library. At least that will help distract you a bit, you reason.

You put on your playlist of current favorites and turn the volume up as loud as it will go, figuring Suga probably can’t hear it but also not really caring if he can. You survey your desk— you’re definitely not doing any more work tonight, but it has become a bit of a disaster. You can take ten minutes to tidy.

You gather up all the stray papers and organize them into piles: schedules, invoices, random notes you jotted down so you wouldn’t forget. You slot them into the paper organizer you keep in the corner of your desk. Once that’s done, you start putting the big items back into their respective drawers— a stapler, a hole punch, a zillion paperclips. You drop the pens, pencils, and highlighters that you’ve also inevitably left everywhere back into your pen cup organizer.

The next song comes up on shuffle, and you laugh when you realize what it is. Cat & Dog by TXT, your guiltiest of all guilty pleasure songs. There’s still no sign of Suga, and you also don’t give a fuck what he thinks about your taste in music, so you let it play.

You sing along under your breath as you go. The song has just gotten to Yeonjun’s verse, the inarguable best part, when someone clears their throat behind you.

Shit. The sound still takes you by surprise even though you know it’ll be Suga before you whip around. How did this happen for a second time? You scramble for your phone to turn it off before they all start barking, and the movement is so frantic that you knock your pen cup off the desk at the same time.

“Fuck,” you groan. Suga makes no offer to help. Because why the fuck would he, you think bitterly to yourself. You scoot your chair back and crawl under your desk to retrieve your office supplies.

When you emerge with your pens reassembled, you do your best to smooth out your clothes and not look as flustered as you feel. Suga is standing across from you, palms resting flat on the surface of your desk.

“I need more time,” he says bluntly, and you could scream. You open your mouth to argue, but he continues before you can get a word in. “Do you like tteokbokki?”

You blink hard, mystified at his question. “What?”

“You said you were hungry. There’s a really good tteokbokki cart around the corner that stays open late. If you go and get us some, I swear, I only need like thirty more minutes. Then we can both go home.” He retrieves his wallet from his pocket and pulls out a couple bills, extending them to you. You narrow your eyes suspiciously. “Please.”

The sound of him pleading, no matter how brief, is something you never thought you’d hear in a million years. Maybe you hit your head while you were under your desk and this is all just a fever dream. But your stomach twists at the mention of food. You really are starving.

You snatch the money out of his hand and grab your purse. “Fine. But I’m keeping the change.”

It’s a brisk walk to the cart and back, but the chilly night air feels good, and the smell of the takeout bag is enough to make your mouth water on the elevator ride back up. As you step out, you shift the bag in your arms to reach into your purse. Out of habit, you dig for the keys for a few seconds before you realize you didn’t actually lock up when you left.

You wince. Probably not great, but at least Suga’s still inside.

You lean against the glass door to push it open with your shoulder, but it doesn’t budge. Weird. Maybe you locked it without even thinking about it. You set the bag of food down so you can properly dig through your purse for the keys, but you can’t find them.

Crouching down, you turn your purse inside out, dumping the contents on the carpeted floor. You sort through the pile of cosmetics products and tampons and loose receipts, starting to panic. No office keys.

It’s only once you stand up and turn to fully face the door that you see the paper sign taped to the inside. Your mouth drops open as you read the untidy scrawl.

I have your keys. Keep the food. See you tomorrow.

No. This isn’t fucking possible. You squeeze your eyes shut, trying to hold in a scream, running back through the evening in your mind.

You took your keys with you when you knocked on his office door. Then you threw them back on your desk. Then Suga snuck up behind you, and you knocked the pen cup over, and when you stood back up Suga was—

Suga was standing with his hands on your desk, you realize. Right where you’d thrown down your keys. He could’ve easily pocketed them without you noticing; you were too busy picking up all your stupid pens.

He fucking tricked you.

You push hard on the door, but of course it doesn’t give. You bang on the glass for a few seconds, if only to get your anger out, but you know it’s pointless. Licking your wounds, you shove everything back into your purse and sling it over your shoulder, then hoist the takeout bag in your arms.

Alright, Min Yoongi, you think to yourself. This means war.

chapter one | masterlist | chapter three

---

look down on me like that - 8 (explicit)

genre: slow burn enemies to lovers hatefucking coworkers au, smut (w some eventual angst that is no longer eventual 👀)

pairing: yoongi x reader

summary: your asshole coworker min yoongi has made it his personal mission to ruin your life.

word count: *deep breath in* 15.3k

contains: explicit sexual content and discussion of some dark themes .....yyyyyep 🤐 includes past-tense discussions of the d3ath of a parent (reader's) and su1c1dal ideation (yoongi's) so please tread carefully loves 💜 some references to alcohol per usual, and plenty of confusing feelings and piss-poor communication..... i'll leave the rest as a surprise 👀 but here are your smut-specific warnings: kissing (‼️), nipple play, clit stim, a single pussy slap lol, fingering, cunnilingus, squirting (🤭), unprotected sex and pulling out (💀), orgasm denial of sorts, but it's cool bc reader has multiple orgasms, ok byeeeee~

A/N: welp..... i'm off to enter witness protection in case you all decide you hate this chapter 💀 not really but heuhjkghkfjgdsf dear god am i nervous to post this lmfao. hope you're ready for some ~answers to questions~ and a whole lotta callbacks to earlier chapters idk why i shoved them all in ch8 specifically but here you go. the scene at yoongi's apartment was one of the very first things i dreamt up in regards to this story and it's nuts to me that we're all the way here now 💜 hope you're ready for a little more insight into these two! also baby goth fans don't come for me..... i promise we'll get a better resolution there..... reader and yoongi just have to survive LA first 😩

an eternal thank you to @haliiimede and @monimonimoon for being wonderful betas, and to @nabiolive for the dead parent sensitivity read lmfao I LOVE Y'ALL

read on AO3!

chapter seven | masterlist | chapter nine

~*~

In the morning, you wake up well before your alarm with an inexplicable uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach. When it’s clear sleep is a lost cause, you decide to just get up, and you move through your routine slowly. Everything feels distant, not quite real, like it’s happening to someone else.

On the bus ride to the office, you let your eyes drop closed and try desperately not to replay the events of last night back. You should feel bad about the sex on the conference room table, and you do, a little. But your mind is stuck somewhere else.

Rain streaking down Yoongi’s windshield. The silence as he drove, disturbed only by the low rumble of his voice. The way he’d looked at you, and the heavy pause that hung in the air between you, for just a moment, until you’d fumbled open the door of his car and had practically ran back to the safety of your apartment. And his story— he’d told you something personal, with no malice or hidden agenda that you can manage to find, no matter how much you search for one. Something from when he was just a kid, growing up in Daegu.

You’re embarrassed to admit that it never even occurred to you that Min Yoongi might be a person with a past and a hometown and stories to tell. As long as you’ve known him, he’s always just felt like… a menace. A life-ruiner. An inescapable force.

The thoughts follow you as you step off the bus and make your way into the building and onto the elevator. You can’t figure it out. Yoongi could’ve easily left you to suffer in the rain, but instead he did something nice for you, without asking for anything in return. He’d related to you. He’d let you in, barely, but it’s something.

And you have no idea what to make of it.

Polite small talk with Jungkook as you unlock the front doors is a decent distraction, but you wonder if he can tell that you’re not all the way there today. You set your bag on your desk, then circle around to take a seat, only half-listening as he continues to talk.

“Did you stay late last night?”

You swear your heart stops beating. “What?”

He shrugs, like it’s an obvious question. “There’s the big overseas thing today. I’m sure you had a bunch of stuff to prep. Hopefully it wasn’t too late of a night?”

“No.” The word comes out harsher than you mean it to. You’re not quite sure why your body is suddenly doing emotional alchemy, taking your fear of being caught and somehow turning it into anger. “It wasn’t,” you say firmly.

Jungkook makes a face, like he knows he’s touched a nerve but can’t figure out why. “Okay. That’s good.”

You don’t respond— you just try to control your breathing, try to will your heart to quit racing as you start up your laptop and pretend to suddenly be engrossed in it.

“Well,” he tries again after a moment’s pause. “I guess I’ll see you at the presentation thing.”

“Okay,” you answer, your voice a little softer this time, but you’re still too scared to look away from your screen. When you do eventually work up the courage, he’s already gone.

Before you even have the chance to glance back down, like some universal joke at your expense, the front door of the office is pushed open, and Yoongi steps through. Annoyed as you are, you can only be grateful that his entrance didn’t overlap with Jungkook’s question. You probably would have died of embarrassment on the spot.

Yoongi’s usual dark sunglasses are nowhere to be found today, and he’s in nice clothes for the presentation, a button-down and dress pants, his hair styled. He does still have a death grip on a large iced coffee, but that’s to be expected, especially given the fact that he’s in a lot earlier than is typical for him.

It’s only when his eyes snap over to you for the briefest of seconds that you see the dark shadows sunken deep beneath them, weighing heavy on his face.

Yoongi’s gaze moves back to the hallway in front of him as quickly as it alighted on you. You open your mouth before you even understand why you’re doing it.

“Yoongi?”

He stops dead in his tracks and blinks at you a few times, clearly tired, clearly not expecting the interruption. “Yeah?”

“Did you sleep at all last night?”

His mouth pulls into a flat line as he shakes his head. “Nerves. It’s why I don’t do stuff like this. Unless forced.”

You nod, unsure of what to say— or why you even asked. “Oh. Well, uh. Good luck.”

Yoongi lifts his coffee in a parting gesture, then disappears toward his lab without another word.

You try to focus on your work, to shove the interaction to the back of your mind with everything else you’re avoiding, but the screen seems to blur in front of you, until you finally push back from your desk with an exasperated sigh. The emails can wait.

Maybe, you consider, it would be good to stretch your legs. You can head into the presentation room early to set up before everyone arrives, and make sure everything is working for the several hours of agenda lined up for the morning.

Setting your shoulders back, you grab your things and make your way down the hallway. The thought feels like a good idea until you push the door open and encounter a severe case of deja vu.

Yoongi glances up from his laptop at the front of the room, blearily rubbing at one eye with the heel of his hand. “Is it time already?”

You hover in the threshold, unsure. “Uh— I mean, not quite. I’m early. I can go, if you want.”

He shrugs, busying himself with something on his computer screen. “You’ll have to hear it anyway. Can I just run through it one more time?”

You take a few tentative steps forward, dropping your bag and laptop on the table, right where you sat to watch him the night before. The energy in the room feels entirely different now, and your stomach is twisted into knots that you can’t manage to breathe deep enough to untangle.

“Yeah, fine.” You pause, unable to help yourself. “Just… don’t expect the same treatment as last night.”

Yoongi huffs a dark laugh. “I wasn’t.”

Taking a seat at the table, you set about your admin duties and try to ignore the way Yoongi mumbles over his presentation as he taps through his slides at the front of the room. There’s only so much you can do without bothering him, and you fly through those tasks all-too quickly. You drag your bottom lip between your teeth as you glance back up at Yoongi, and then you inhale to steady yourself before you speak.

“Can you turn on the mic?”

His head snaps up, caught off guard. “Hmm?”

“I need to make sure the mic is working.” Yoongi’s gaze flits to the podium’s built in-microphone, then back to you as he presses the switch to turn it on. “Say something into it,” you instruct. “It doesn’t matter what.”

Yoongi’s eyes move back to the microphone, and it’s like you can see the delay in his brain from lack of sleep. You don’t know what you were expecting— maybe a half-assed ‘check, check’, at worst some sexual or smart-ass remark. Instead, he leans in far closer than is necessary, until his mouth is nearly touching the microphone as he whispers into it.

“Sugaaaaa.”

The live demo of the notorious producer tag that intros all of his tracks is so ridiculous, so unexpected, that you can’t help it. You burst out laughing, clapping a hand over your mouth a few seconds too late. “What the fuck was that?!” The question is only muffled slightly by your palm.

Yoongi’s head drops forward, his dark hair falling in his face, and you can see his shoulders shaking with laughter, too. “Sorry,” he manages with a gasp for breath, tilting back up to speak into the microphone, which you can now actually tell is working properly. “I’m so fucking tired, I think I’m going insane.”

You uncover your mouth as you shake your head in disbelief.

The sudden loud buzz of your phone against the conference room table makes you jump, and you quickly reach for it, for fear it might be an emergency text from your boss that needs immediate attention. Your eyes widen in surprise when you see it’s actually from Jungkook.

Presentation thing? Wanna sit together?

You read the words again and again, and a strange feeling rises up in your chest that you can’t quite name. As you stare down at your phone, you hear the distinct sound of Yoongi’s laptop shutting, and then his voice, no longer amplified by the microphone when he mutters to himself, “Fuck it. It’s as good as it’s gonna get.”

Feeling suddenly overwhelmed, you glance up at Yoongi again, then back down at the text. With a final hard swallow, you turn your phone on silent and flip it over on the table, leaving Jungkook’s question unanswered.

The time is close enough now that you get to your feet to prop open the presentation room door, and then your colleagues quickly start to file into the space, filling in the seats around the large U-shaped arrangement of tables. It’s everything you can do to keep your expression neutral as your brain unhelpfully reminds you that Yoongi fucked you on one of these tables last night.

You try to manage something close to a smile when your boss enters with the team from the American office in tow, and you proceed to exchange pleasantries with them and fake laugh at their jokes when he introduces you.

As you’re listening diplomatically to one of them drone on about the flight to Seoul, you spot Jungkook slip in the door out of the corner of your eye, and it takes extra effort to keep the smile plastered on your face. The seats on either side of yours have long since been taken, and you glance over to see his eyes sweep the room before he moves to take an open spot at the far end. 

You watch unabashedly now as he leans back in his chair, tilting to one side to pull his phone out of his pocket, and you can only pray he’s watching TikToks with the sound off rather than checking for a text that’s never coming.

When your manager repeats a question meant for you, your attention snaps back to the group. Sure your smile is nearly a grimace now, you apologize and blame the distraction on needing more coffee, which is enough to earn you a polite chuckle.

Eventually the room takes their seats as your manager moves to the front to start the presentation. You stay focused on copying down minutes as various speakers go through the company’s financials for the previous four quarters, the roadmap for the coming years, and a summary of top-level talent that the label has signed or directly worked with.

The discussion of talent leads smoothly into a quick review of achievements and nominations, and then Yoongi steps to the front of the room.

As he launches in, you can’t get over the stark difference between the Yoongi you’re used to and the one standing behind the podium in front of you. The man with the easy, confident, cocky demeanor is nowhere to be found, replaced with someone who barely looks up from his slides and speaks at a rushed pace, like he’s trying to get the words out as fast as possible. You bite down firmly on your bottom lip and try not to react at all.

He’s nearly halfway done now, and just as you’re thinking he might make it through the whole thing unscathed, Yoongi stumbles slightly over his words. It’s not a lot, a little slip-up that the rest of the room probably didn’t even notice, but you see a momentary flash of panic in his dark eyes. And then those eyes snap up to meet yours, and your stomach drops.

The memory of the two of you in this room, the thought of what you’d be doing to him if you were alone again, the way you could so easily make his voice shake and his knees threaten to buckle with just your mouth— it’s all too much.

You can’t help yourself as the smile you’ve been desperately trying to hide starts to spread across your face, equal parts supportive and indecent.

There’s a beat of silence, not long enough for anyone to think anything of it, and then Yoongi drops your gaze as quickly as he found it. He squints back down at his computer screen, and though he leans away from the microphone, you don’t miss the unmistakable sound of him clearing his throat.

“Excuse me,” he murmurs, and then he picks up where he left off, managing to get back on track without further issue.

You desperately try to ignore the warm flush of heat that creeps up your neck as Yoongi goes through the rest of his slides.

Time seems to speed by in a rush after his presentation, and you barely manage to keep up with the barrage of content. You’re more than grateful when your manager inevitably wraps up the session, reminding everyone to head to a nearby restaurant for a team lunch immediately following.

As the room begins to empty, you take your time finishing up the notes and firing them off to the broader audience. When you finally close your laptop and look up, you realize nearly everyone has left now, though as fate would have it, Yoongi has also lagged behind. He’s standing hunched over the conference room table as he types something into his own laptop.

You try not to overthink it as you hug your computer to your chest and take a few steps toward him. “Yoongi?”

He hums a response, and when he glances up at you, the bags under his eyes are just as prominent as before.

“Are you, uh— coming to lunch?”

He rolls his eyes, like the question is ridiculous. “I can’t. I’m drowning in shit I put off for the last two days.”

His words make you take a step back, and you immediately feel stupid for asking. Why do you even care what he does? “Right. Got it.”

You don’t wait around for him to say anything else, you just shove your laptop into your purse and pull the strap over your shoulder as you head for the exit.

Largely preoccupied with getting away from Yoongi, you don’t pay much attention to your surroundings as you slip out of the room, and you only get a few steps down the hall before a voice behind you nearly makes you jump out of your skin. “There you are.”

“Jesus!” you gasp, whipping around to find Jungkook leaning up against the glass wall of the conference room, his arms crossed over his chest. “You fucking scared me, Baby Goth.”

“Sorry.” He gives a shy smile, nose scrunching slightly like he’s embarrassed. “I wasn’t gonna let you ditch me again. Lunch?”

You do your best to match his smile. “Let’s go. I’m starving.” 

The two of you meet up with the rest of the team at a restaurant well out of your price range, and Jungkook babbles freely as he stuffs his face, seemingly unbothered by how little you have to say in return. The chatter of so many people at the long table is a white noise that you can’t focus on any part of, and Jungkook’s usual comforting presence feels overwhelming today, nearly stifling. You push food back and forth on your plate but barely eat, your stomach uneasy for reasons you don’t want to dwell on.

“Min Suga seemed like he didn’t even want to be up there.” The mention of Yoongi’s pseudonym is enough to snap you out of your haze.

“Huh?” You glance up at Jungkook, your eyes widening slightly, and you force yourself to eat another bite of pasta as he continues.

“I don’t know, he went through it so fast. Guess it makes sense. He hates anything that drags him out of his lab, right?”

You aimlessly twirl your fork against your plate, around and around. When you first started this job, you would have agreed with Jungkook without a second thought. Laughed about it, even. Now you’re not so sure. You don’t want to add to this growing sense of friction, the weird energy in the air, but the words come out anyway.

“He was nervous, Jungkook.”

When you meet his gaze again, Jungkook looks confused, and you instantly regret saying anything at all.

“What, did he tell you that?”

You nod as you take another bite of food to avoid having to explain yourself.

Jungkook’s eyes drift down to the table between you, distant, his brow furrowed like he’s suddenly doing some complex mental math. “When?”

“Last night,” you murmur through your mouthful. “We both worked late. I helped him practice a little.” The explanation was meant to make the situation sound less incriminating, but somehow you feel like it only makes it worse. You hope Jungkook can’t tell how warm your face is starting to get.

When he finally speaks, his voice is low, his gaze still not meeting yours. “I thought you said you didn’t stay late. When I asked you this morning.”

A rush of adrenaline hits your bloodstream so hard it makes you dizzy. “I—I didn’t. It wasn’t that late. Like an hour max. Didn’t seem worth mentioning.” You set your fork down, quickly hiding your hands in your lap so Jungkook can’t see the way they’ve started to tremble.

His only response is a slow nod, and then he goes quiet in a way that’s rare for him. It feels like an eternity of sitting and eating in silence before either of you says another word.

The conversation eventually picks back up again, and when it does, you try to tell yourself you’re just imagining that it’s slightly more stilted than before.

As you and Jungkook trail after the rest of your coworkers on the walk back to the office, you trade a few more polite questions about work-related projects, and then you fall quiet again, seemingly out of things to say. It’s a few stretches of city blocks, and then you see Jungkook’s head tip up, and he outright sniffs the air.

You can’t help but laugh a little, mostly because he looks like a dog, and then you smell it too. The unmistakable aroma coming from the street cart up ahead. You smile softly to yourself as you both slow to pass it, ogling rice cakes and fish cakes simmering in a pan of spicy sauce.

“God,” Jungkook groans appreciatively. “I would absolutely destroy some tteokbokki right now if I didn’t think I’d literally explode.”

“This is what happens when you help yourself to thirds every time you eat,” you chide him with a giggle, and the two of you nod to the vendor before you continue on toward the office. You only take a few more steps before you falter, and Jungkook turns back when he notices you’ve stopped.

“What’s up? Did you want to get some?”

You don’t know what makes you lie. “Uh, no. I, uh— I just realized, I think I left my scarf back at the restaurant. I’m gonna run back, but don’t worry about waiting for me. You’ve got work stuff.”

Jungkook shrugs, like it’s not a big deal. “It’s cool, I can go with you.”

“No, that’s okay,” you say, firmly enough to make it very obvious you don’t want company. Maybe a little too firm, because Jungkook blinks, like he’s taken aback. Your stomach twists with a feeling that you imagine must be similar to having just kicked a puppy.

“Oh. Alright, well. I’ll see you later, then.” He pauses for a moment, tongue pressed to the inside of his cheek, and then he turns on his heel and keeps walking in the direction of the office. You worry your bottom lip between your teeth as you watch Jungkook’s retreating form until he disappears down the city block.

You try not to overthink the interaction as you retrace your steps to the cart, then head back to the office with a takeout bag gripped in one hand. Thankfully you don’t have to fumble for another lie of an excuse, because you don’t run into Jungkook or anyone else in your straight shot from the entrance to the door of Yoongi’s lab. Quick as you can, you punch in the lock code, then push the handle down and slip inside.

It takes you a minute to process what you’re seeing as you shut the door behind you. Yoongi’s arms are folded on the desk in front of him, and he’s slumped forward, head buried in the crook of his elbow. For a brief moment your heart drops, and then you take a tentative step closer and realize there’s no shake or shudder to his shoulders, only the smooth rise and fall of deep, steady breathing.

He’s asleep.

You close the remaining distance until you can reach out and gently place a hand on his back. “Yoongi?”

He inhales sharply, and you quickly pull your hand away like you’ve just been burned. Tilting his head to one side, he cracks an eye open, mumbling something that sounds like a question but is otherwise fully incoherent.

“You fell asleep,” you say dumbly, and Yoongi slowly sits up with a grunt, his eyes squinting, clearly readjusting to the room around him. He leans back to stretch, and several places in his back and shoulders crack impressively loudly.

“Fuck,” he sighs, voice strained, one hand rubbing at the back of his neck. “Why are you in here?”

“I brought you lunch,” you murmur, lifting the takeout bag for him to witness. He frowns at it, then up at you, like he can’t quite figure out what’s happening.

“Thanks,” he eventually manages. “You can just leave it. I’m nowhere near done with all my—”

You cut him off before he can finish. “Go home, Yoongi.”

The look of slack-jawed confusion on his face is enough to nearly make you laugh. “What?”

“I said go home.”

His brow furrows. “You’re not my boss.”

“I’m not saying it as your boss,” you sigh. “But you need to eat, and sleep. This isn’t healthy.”

Yoongi huffs a little, exasperated. “That’s easy for you to say, but I have so much stupid admin stuff to get caught up on.” He gestures halfheartedly to a massive to-do list pulled up on his monitor, one he’s barely a quarter of the way through.

Suppressing the urge to roll your eyes, you hum, feigning thought. “If only you had someone who could help with that. Some kind of… Admin Bitch.”

The comment must catch him off-guard, because he outright laughs. “You know, I still haven’t changed your contact name.”

You quirk an eyebrow. “Then you should go before I question why I’m being nice to you. I’ll leave a note for tomorrow with anything I can’t figure out for myself. Assuming you trust my ability to do my job.” As if to indicate that you are no longer open to discussing the subject, you shove the takeout bag into Yoongi’s chest, and he wraps both arms around it, still looking entirely dazed.

But to your surprise, he doesn’t fight you, just slowly rolls his desk chair back and gets to his feet. You watch carefully as he shifts the bag of food to one arm, then grabs his work bag and slings it over his shoulder. “I, uh— thanks.”

You wave a hand as if to tell him not to mention it, and then you plop down into his chair and get to work, barely phased by the sound of the door clicking shut when he leaves.

~*~

As you settle in at your desk the next morning, it dawns on you how close the Grammys have started to loom, made abundantly clear by the overwhelming amount of prep you find yourself launched into. You don’t think you look up from your screen once, not even bothering to greet coworkers as they push through the doors, until the muted tap of something being placed on your desk startles you.

You see the cup of coffee first, and when you glance up expecting a pair of Baby Star Candy eyes, you instead find Yoongi hovering at the edge of your desk, like he’s not sure what he’s doing there. You make zero attempts to hide your total shock at whatever the fuck is going on in this moment.

He looks— good. Fresh-faced, like he managed to actually get some sleep, a little less gaunt. Even his expression seems weirdly pleasant, something you might mistake for happiness if you thought that he was capable of such an emotion.

There’s a crinkling sound, and when he gently sets a small wax paper pastry bag on your desk next to the coffee, you’re sure that you’ve overslept your alarm and are in the depths of a wild, ridiculous dream. It’s the only way any of this can be happening.

You blink up at him as you hesitantly reach for the bag, like you’re scared it might bite you.

“It’s maple,” he says as you slowly pick it up and investigate the contents. It’s still warm. “I asked for the most disgustingly sweet thing they had.”

Too overwhelmed, you set the pastry bag back down wordlessly. As you do, it’s only now that your eyes focus on the letters “AB” sketched in black marker on the side of the coffee cup, where a barista would typically write your name.

Yoongi’s eyes must be watching yours carefully, because he huffs a laugh as he sees realization dawn over your face. “Making them actually write Admin Bitch seemed a bit much.”

You can’t manage to find a laugh to match his, can only sit there, shell-shocked. When you look up again, he’s already walking backwards in the direction of his lab, but his eyes are still on you. “I’d tell you not to tell anyone, but I don’t think they’d believe you even if you did.”

And just like that, he’s gone again.

You remain unconvinced that both of his gifts aren’t secretly poisoned, but your desperate need for a fresh hit of caffeine overwhelms any other emotion. Carefully, you lift the cup to your lips and take a sip— it’s not scalding, but still perfectly hot, and your eyes widen as the flavor hits your tongue.

Two cream, three sugar. Exactly how you like it.

Before you’ve even had time to swallow, Jungkook is suddenly rounding the corner from the opposite direction, and you have to make a conscious effort not to choke.

He slows to a stop, and you watch him take in the coffee cup clutched between your hands like a lifeline. “Hey! You seriously snuck out for coffee without me?” His tone is mock-hurt, but you can’t help wondering whether it’s entirely put on.

Your gaze drops back down to the cup. “Sorry, JK. Someone else picked this up for me.”

Jungkook doesn’t pry into your vague statement, but a sinking feeling in your stomach tells you that maybe he doesn’t have to.

~*~

It’s Saturday night by the time your schedule aligns with Jimin’s for a night out, and given that it’s the last time you’ll see him before you leave for Los Angeles, you manage to guilt him into driving. The bar you choose is a shitty dive nowhere near your office, where you’re certain you won’t have to worry about any accidental encounters.

Or any encounters at all, as it turns out. The place is dead.

“I think we’re single-handedly keeping them open tonight,” Jimin murmurs with a grimace as you grab a pair of stools.

The bartender pours you each two shots and two beers, then returns to their side work at the far end of the bar in an apparent attempt to give the two of you some privacy.

It’s only once you’ve had your first shot and are halfway through the accompanying beer that you’re able to speak the words aloud: “I had sex in the office again.”

Jimin glances up at the ceiling, as if asking for strength, and you recount the full story mostly to the wood grain in front of you, unable to look your best friend in the face while you catch him up on everything.

When you fill in the final details, Jimin nearly spits his drink out. “Suga really hatefucked you on a conference table?! I need to go buy some lottery tickets.” He throws back his second shot, and there’s a smug smile on his face as he swallows it down. “God, I love being psychic.”

You shove an elbow into his ribs. “Listen. I don’t know what’s fucking happening anymore, Mochi. Sometimes he’s insufferable but now sometimes we apparently mildly tolerate and are even nice to each other. Like, coffee and a pastry nice.” You smack your hand on the bar for emphasis as you repeat the words. “Coffee. And. A. Pastry.”

“So,” Jimin clasps his hands together as he surveys you. There’s a look on his face like he’s clearly expecting you to draw some conclusion from all of this, but it seems to have entirely escaped you. “What have we learned?”

You drop your head down on the bar with a resounding thud. “We’ve learned that Min Yoongi is ruining my life.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

Voice muffled slightly, you groan. “Don’t make me say it louder.”

“No, what did you just say?” You lift your head up to look at him, and his expression is deadly serious, his eyes sharp and focused. “Min Yoongi? I know Min Yoongi.”

You give him the same look right back. “You what?”

“We were trainees together. I— wait, Min Yoongi is Suga the producer? Really?!” He scrambles for his phone and you just sit there, dumbfounded.

“How are you only now telling me that you know him?”

Jimin glances up, incredulous. “Um, hi, because you literally never fucking told me Suga is Min Yoongi?”

You roll your eyes. “Please, surely I have said his name to you at least once.”

It’s Jimin’s turn to smack the bar, and he does so loudly. “Run those tapes back, ma’am! We have always called him Suga.”

“You’re telling me you’ve never even Googled him?!”

He makes a face like the mere suggestion is ridiculous. “I am an adult, with a job and a very needy boyfriend. Your chaos already monopolizes too much of my time.”

The search on his phone loads, and you watch Jimin tap and scroll slowly, mouth dropping open in disbelief. “Min Yoongi is Suga. Wow. I think I need a minute.”

Jimin’s earlier words finally catch up to you, and you finish the last of your first beer before you dare ask the question. “Yoongi was really a trainee?”

“He was,” Jimin confirms, gaze still locked on his phone. “Obviously he didn’t debut either. He left a few months before I did. I always wondered what happened to him.”

“What was he like?” Your voice comes out soft, a little unsure.

His eyes widen, staring off unfocused as he searches through his memory. “I mean, we weren’t super close, he’s a few years older than me. But it doesn’t sound like that much has changed if I think about what you’ve told me. He was quiet, not too personable. Worked hard. Didn’t really seem that close to anybody. I think maybe he had a difficult home life?”

Your stomach drops a little as Jimin pauses, choosing his words. “Like I guess his parents weren’t very supportive. So I think he felt like he had a lot to prove, and had really high standards for himself. But he obviously loved music. Makes sense that he ended up a producer. It’s like me and dance, right?” He picks up his beer with a shrug, staring thoughtfully down at the amber liquid. “Man. Those years were tough.”

As Jimin takes a sip of his drink and then continues on about his trainee days, your head starts to spin. You throw back your second shot in hopes that it might help.

You wish you could go back and unlearn this information, unsay the name Min Yoongi. Because you don’t want to think about him. You don’t want to know that Min Yoongi gets nervous about public speaking, that he likes his coffee iced, that he can’t say no to street cart tteokbokki, that he used to be a trainee, that he worked an unpaid job in Daegu, that he had a disapproving family and never felt good enough and maybe still doesn’t.

Min Yoongi was so simple when you first met him, back when he was a two-dimensional character, the antagonist of your TV show life, your enemy. But now he’s none of those things. He’s a real, flawed, complicated person, and your feelings for him are confusing and overwhelming. And you deeply do not want to think about your feelings. You don’t want to examine them, don’t want to hold them up to the light for fear of what you might find. It occurs to you in this moment that you don’t want to think about anything at all.

With a sigh, you scoot your chair back from the bar, then get to your feet.

“What are you doing?” Jimin interrupts himself to ask as you dig your phone out of your purse.

You’re doing the only thing that makes sense. “I’m gonna go fuck him,” you say, resigned, and then you make your way out the front door of the bar as you pull up Yoongi’s contact in your phone.

It’s only as the line starts to ring that you realize you don’t exactly have a location in mind. Sex in a bar bathroom is an experience you have no desire to repeat, and the thought of Yoongi seeing your shithole apartment makes your drinks threaten a return appearance.

You’re starting to consider that maybe you should just hang up and forget the idea entirely when Yoongi’s voice startles you.

“Uh, hi?”

“Hi.”

There’s a pause as you realize you didn’t actually plan how to have this conversation, and then you and Yoongi speak in tandem.

“I was just wondering—”

“Is there a reason you—”

“Shut up,” you snap, agitated by your own awkwardness. “What are you doing right now?”

Yoongi laughs darkly into the phone. “I’m sorry, is this a booty call?”

“Answer the question, asshole.”

There’s a slight shifting sound, like he’s making himself comfortable. “Nothing. Drinking.”

“Great, same here.”

Another pause, and you swear you can hear Yoongi slow blinking, can see the stupid smirk on his face when you close your eyes. “Would you like to come over, then?”

“Yes,” you answer, trying to sound more confident than you feel, and then you falter slightly. You’re not about to ask Jimin to drive you— you don’t trust him enough to stay in the car and behave, not when he’s been drinking. “Uh, are you by any chance near a bus stop?”

Yoongi doesn’t even try to suppress his snort of laughter. “I’m not. But I can send a car.”

“You don’t have to do that,” you say quickly, trying to think. “I can figure something—”

“Please,” Yoongi cuts you off. “If you’re really calling me begging to get fucked, the least I can do is provide the transportation. Just send me your location.”

“Fine,” you concede, and your voice comes out harsh. “But to be clear, I am not begging.”

He hums a low note, like he’s thinking it over. “Not yet,” he ultimately responds. “See you soon.”

You swallow hard as the call disconnects.

The time it takes for the car to arrive is just enough for you to slip back inside and finish your beer, and Jimin’s eyes narrow with frustration when you’re unable to explain yourself.

“Didn’t you just complain that this man was ruining your life?”

“Yes,” you retort. “And then I thought it over, and I decided that’s my job.” Your phone buzzes with the notification that the car is outside, and you quickly swig the last of your drink. “Bye.”

Jimin’s face twists like he’s holding further commentary back, which you didn’t think he was capable of doing without combusting. “Alright, babygirl,” he finally sighs, defeated. “Call me if you need saving.”

“I always do,” you deadpan as you lean in to press a kiss to his cheek.

~*~

Yoongi doesn’t say anything when he opens the door for you, just nods his head to the interior of his apartment to gesture you inside, letting the door swing wider so you can step past him. He shuts it again as you slip your heels off, and it takes you a second to adjust to your true height difference, the fact that you have to look a little further up to meet his gaze now.

“Want a drink?” is his delayed greeting, and you shrug.

“Yeah, okay. Just whatever you’re having.”

Without another word, he turns and heads down the hallway, and you follow after him, taking in your surroundings as you move further inside. It’s only now that it occurs to you how rich he must be. His place is identical to any one of the swanky, million-dollar Hannam apartments of which you’ve spent thousands of hours watching YouTube tours. You try to keep your expression neutral as you follow him into the living room, but it’s hard not to be impressed.

Yoongi crosses the room to a mini-bar, built into the far wall and softly backlit with inset LEDs. You pull your bottom lip into your mouth as you hover nervously for a second, then finally choose to drop down onto the large, L-shaped couch, setting your purse on the floor next to you.

“Thoughts—” When Yoongi’s voice breaks the silence, you start a little, not expecting it. “—on single malt whiskey?” He turns over his shoulder, and you shrug back at him.

“Never met one I didn’t like.”

The corner of his mouth pulls up, just barely. “Alright.” You watch as he grabs a dark green bottle off the shelf, coating the bottom of a glass with the amber liquid inside, then just barely topping up what must be his own drink. He crosses back to the couch, hands you yours, then drops down a respectable distance away from you with a sigh of effort.

The atmosphere is certainly different from what you’d expected, and Yoongi must be able to tell you’re a little on edge, not sure what to do or why you thought coming here was a good idea.

He glances over at you as he swirls the contents of his glass. “Not feeling up for much small talk tonight. Sorry.”

“That’s fine,” you say quickly. “We don’t have to talk.”

As soon as the words leave your mouth, you grit your teeth in anticipation of the smug smile, the cocky smirk at your unintended double meaning, but it never comes. Yoongi stays just as he is, slouched forward, his eyes unfocused, like he’s got a thousand thoughts running through his mind at once.

You turn sideways on the couch so you can look over the back of it and out of the large picture window behind you, where the city is alive in a blur of light and color, bracketed by the dark swath of the Han River.

Yoongi’s whiskey is strong but smooth, tastes like the bottle probably cost more than the entire bar-tab you and Jimin rang up tonight, and you sip it slowly. The thought of your best friend sparks something in your mind— you find yourself speaking again in spite of your previous statement.

“I just found out that you know my best friend. Park Jimin.”

At this, Yoongi looks up, clearly stunned. “No shit?” You nod, taking another pull from your drink, and he shakes his head. “I haven’t heard that name in years. How is he?”

“He’s good,” you murmur, the sharp taste of alcohol lingering on the back of your tongue. “He’s really good. He actually just performed in the concert I took Jungkook to.”

Yoongi pauses, glass halfway to his lips. “What group is he in? For someone in the industry I am atrocious at keeping up with this shit.”

“Oh, he’s not, he’s just a back-up dancer now. He never debuted.” 

Yoongi nods slowly. “Well. Makes two of us.”

Your chest starts to tighten a little— you’re weirdly nervous to talk to him about this. It feels like uncharted territory. “I can’t believe you were a trainee.”

He leans back, resting his free arm over the back of the couch, fingers tapping idly. “I can’t either, most days. It was a long time ago. Feels like it happened to somebody else.”

Torn between deep curiosity and not wanting to pry, you stare down at the liquid swirling in your glass and leave it up to Yoongi. To your surprise, he keeps talking.

“So what did Jimin tell you about me?”

The unexpected question makes you laugh a little. “Uh… I don’t know. Said you sound like you’re still the same as you were back then. Keeping to yourself and working a lot.”

You don’t know if you should repeat everything, but the liquor loosens your tongue. “He said your parents weren’t very supportive.”

You glance up to see Yoongi shake his head, matter-of-fact. “They were not. So you can imagine how well they took it when I quit.” Your heart sinks at the thought. “Probably put a chip on my shoulder, if I want to be introspective about it. Explains the workaholic tendencies, maybe.”

He takes a longer sip of his drink this time, chasing his swallow with a grimace as he stares at the floor. “It’s funny. I always feel like I have to do better, even now. I get obsessed with work because it’s better than being depressed. And most of the time it feels like there’s nothing else to do anyway. I just work myself to death because it’s my only reason to stay alive.”

Your stomach drops sharply, and you can’t help but look over at him as he continues, feeling thoroughly unprepared for this sudden insight into the inner workings of Min Yoongi.

“It doesn’t even matter what milestones I hit, the fame, the fortune, whatever. I’m going to the fucking Grammys next week and it still doesn’t feel good enough.” His eyes flicker up to find yours, and his voice is quieter now. “Even if I win, I know it won’t. How sad is that?”

“You sound like my dad,” you mutter into your glass, and then your gaze snaps back to Yoongi as you realize what you’ve just said.

He looks as surprised as you feel, and you steady yourself as you take a swig of your drink and swallow it down. Fuck it. If he can overshare, so can you. “Work always came first, before family, before everything. And you know what happened? He dropped dead in his office before he even turned fifty. They said it was probably stress.”

There’s a flash of something in Yoongi’s eyes, but he doesn’t try to interrupt you.

“It makes me so mad,” you say, and you will yourself not to get emotional, your grip on your drink tightening slightly. “Because he worked so fucking hard thinking that once he got to a certain place, he’d be happy. Just a little more, then he could relax. But he never got there. He worked non-stop his whole life and then he fucking died. That’s it.

“And you know what’s really fucked up?” You don’t wait for Yoongi to respond— you can’t stop it all from coming out now, like a tap turned on high.

“People say grief makes you resilient, that it makes you stronger, or kinder, that we go through these things and they’re hard but you learn from them and grow or whatever the fuck. And I don’t feel like any of that shit is true for me. My dad died, and I just got worse.” A self-deprecating laugh flutters out around your words. “I’m selfish. I’m lazy. I make terrible choices. I deeply cannot fucking stand myself, if I’m honest with you. Jimin is like the one friend I still keep in touch with who knew me when my dad was alive, because everyone else just… didn’t know what to do with me. And I don’t blame them.

“And it makes me feel like such a fucking asshole, because he died, and I’m sitting here complaining about me. It’s like I don’t even miss him as much as I just miss… the way things used to be. The person I used to be.” You let yourself take a breath, but the final thought, the part you don’t usually say out loud, slips out with it. “It’s like she died, too.”

There’s a long pause that feels like an eternity, and you realize your heart is racing in your chest. You lean back against the couch with a sigh of frustration, too embarrassed at your own word vomit to do anything but stare at the stupidly high ceiling. You’re so wrapped up in the rush of saying it all— it’s been a while since you’ve gone this deep with anyone— that it takes you a second to notice that Yoongi is laughing softly.

“Wow. And here I thought you were just a slacker.”

The words make you glance over at him. You haven’t divulged these feelings to many people, but nearly everyone you’ve told has responded the same: awkward apologies, shitty words of affirmation you didn’t ask for, waxing poetic bullshit lies about how you’re not a bad person. A road paved with good intentions, things meant to console you that only make you want to scream. 

But Yoongi gives you none of that. He just nods, like he understands.

“Well,” you counter, trying not to let the shock read on your face. “I thought you were just an asshole.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong. I am an asshole. I’ll own that.” He smirks into his glass as he takes another sip of his drink. “Do you want to know something?”

“What?”

He suddenly pauses, like he’s not sure how to word it, like he maybe regrets asking the question at all. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him so hesitant before. “You have to not make a big deal about it.”

“Okay,” you say simply. You’re willing to return the favor.

“The night I left the studio door unlocked, and there was the break-in,” Yoongi starts, his thumb fiddling with the ring on his index finger. Something twists in your stomach, an intuition you can’t explain that makes it immediately clear to you what he’s about to say. “I wasn’t thinking about locking up that night because I... was planning to kill myself.”

It’s like all the air is sucked out of the room, and you will yourself not to react, gripping your glass until your knuckles blanch. Your eyes drop to the floor as you try to process the weight of his words.

“But you didn’t,” you reply dumbly.

“No, I didn’t. I walked up and down the bridge over the river for a long time. Probably an hour, maybe more, I don’t know.” You look up to the window again, tracing the inkblot snake of the river in the distance.

“I thought about it, and then I decided to go home. I thought that maybe I could give it just one more day and see what happened. And then when I got to work the next day, I was in such deep shit about the break-in, I felt like everyone would blame themselves if I did it after that. Like they’d think they were too hard on me.” He laughs bitterly to himself. “Like I’m not always the one who is hardest on myself.”

“Yoongi,” you breathe. “I don’t know what to say.”

He shrugs. “You don’t have to say anything. It just feels nice to tell someone.”

There’s a heavy silence between you, and heat rushes to your face as the words leave your mouth before you can stop them. “I’m glad you didn’t do it.”

He glances over at you, brows pinched together like he doesn’t believe you. “You hate me.”

“I do not!” The insistence in your voice surprises even you. In an attempt to ground yourself, you press your palm to the side of your drink and try to focus on the feeling, the cool surface against your flushed skin. “I mean, I definitely did. But now, I don’t know. Would I really be wasting my Saturday night here if I hated you?”

Yoongi pauses with his glass halfway to his mouth, and you can see him fighting to keep a smile off his face. “Look at me, you came over here to fuck and I turned it into a therapy session. Christ.”

With a final shake of his head, he downs the last of his drink in one swallow. “You want a tour?”

You follow Yoongi as he takes a winding path through the various rooms of his apartment, and you continue to sip at your drink, barely processing any of what he shows you. Your mind is still spinning from the conversation, and that paired with the cotton fuzz of strong liquor makes everything feel muted and far away.

As anticipated, the tour ends in his bedroom, which matches the rest of the place: sleek, minimally decorated, and bathed in the soft glow of inset strip lighting that runs the length of the ceiling.

When Yoongi sets his empty glass down on the dresser, you mirror him, then watch as he steps in to close the distance between you. As your eyes search his, you realize you’re once again caught between conflicting versions of Min Yoongi, still trying to reconcile the one you thought you knew with the person who just spilled his guts all over the living room floor. It feels impossible to hold the two of them together in your mind.

Up close, his smirk seems to soften. “You’re a lot shorter without those heels.”

Before you even understand what you’re doing, or why, you take his face in your hands and kiss him. It’s only a split second, your lips barely brushing over his, and then you quickly pull away, struck by the reality of what you’ve just done.

“Shit,” you breathe, dropping your hands and taking a step back. You stumble slightly as a hot wave of shame rushes up in your chest. “Sorry, I just—”

You don’t get to finish the thought, because Yoongi’s touch is sliding over the curve of your waist, and then he’s dragging you back toward him until his mouth finds yours again. The taste of whiskey lingers on his soft lips as they move against yours— you can’t help but whimper a little at how hungrily he kisses you. Like he’s wanted to do it for a long time.

The idea overwhelms you, and you pull away from him again, your lips still ghosting over his. “Yoongi.” You try your best to sound firm when you say his name, pressing one hand against his chest as you look up at him. “This… can’t mean anything.”

You can feel the heat of his breath when he laughs softly. “It doesn’t have to. I’ve been trying to tell you that.”

Too desperate for his mouth to want to argue, you decide to let him win. “Okay,” you sigh. Your hand is already tangled in his long, dark hair by the time his lips meet yours again.

“Get on the bed,” Yoongi murmurs between kisses, and you do as he says.

Moving backwards, you crawl up toward the pillows while Yoongi crosses the room to hit a panel on the wall, dimming the soft lights overhead until they’re barely there. He comes back to join you, strong hands wordlessly guiding you to lay down beneath him.

It’s weird to not be rushing through this: to feel like you can take your time as he kisses you again, as you lick into his mouth to roll your tongue over his, as one of his hands starts to creep under your skirt to gently rub up and down the length of your thigh.

The motions of his hand push the fabric higher and higher, until it’s as far up as it can go, and he leans back, clearly not satisfied.

“Can I take this off?” he asks, and you nod, sitting up to help as he pulls your dress up over your head.

It occurs to you a beat too late that you’ve never been this naked in front of him before, and your heartbeat flutters. “You too,” you murmur, pinching gently at the hem of Yoongi’s t-shirt, and he smirks as he reaches one hand between his shoulder blades to tug it off entirely.

You take him in as he drops the shirt to his bedroom floor: he’s broad-shouldered in a way you’ve never noticed under all his baggy clothes, with firm definition in the muscles of his chest and arms, and there’s a flush of warm glow to his pale skin.

As you blink up at Yoongi, more than dazed, you realize his eyes are roaming over your body, too. “Fuck,” he swears under his breath, and you resist the sudden urge to hide from his surveying gaze. “You have great tits.”

You’re not sure what you were expecting, but it wasn’t that, and the surprise of it makes you laugh.

“Just for that, I’ll let you see them,” you say, unable to keep the teasing edge out of your voice as you lean forward to reach behind your back. Your hands shake a little more than you’d like as you fumble to undo your bra and toss it off the side of the bed to join everything else.

Your nipples stiffen quickly in the cool air of his room, and when you lay back again, Yoongi covers your body with his, the movement paired with a groan that’s nearly a growl. You can’t hold back your own soft sounds as his lips and tongue move down your neck, and it occurs to you now that there’s so much that the two of you have never done before. So many steps you skipped.

Like the way Yoongi cups one of your breasts in his hand, rolling his thumb over your nipple to earn a louder whine from you. “Shit,” you gasp as he does it again, his mouth still trailing kisses between the valley of your breasts.

“God,” Yoongi hisses against your skin. “You drive me fuckin’ crazy.”

With his thumb continuing to work at one nipple, he takes the other into his mouth, and you can feel the way your arousal is starting to soak through your panties as he sucks firmly at the stiff peak. You arch up into him, and then he’s shifting to roll your nipple between his teeth and tug, and you can’t help it— you flinch and yelp beneath him, overwhelmed.

He quickly pulls his mouth off of you, eyes flashing up to find yours. “Sensitive?”

You nod, face flushing, embarrassed. “A little bit of teeth is okay. Too much hurts.”

“Okay,” Yoongi answers softly. He licks up the underside of your breast to pull the bud of it back into his mouth, and the swirl of his tongue there soothes like an apology. When he just barely grazes his teeth across the sensitive peak, it’s enough to make you keen, your eyes rolling back as they flutter closed.

“Oh, fuck, just like that.”

With a wet noise, he pulls off to switch sides, repeating the firm suction, the drag of his tongue, the slightest brush of teeth. His fingers pinch gently at your other nipple, made slick with his spit, and he keeps working you lazily, unhurried, until your body writhes underneath his.

“Yoongi—” You try to catch your breath, and you run a hand through his hair to pull his mouth off of you. His jaw is still dropped open slightly when he meets your gaze. “Touch me.”

His lips pull into a smug smile. “Told you you’d beg.”

Your grip on his hair tightens in response. “Not begging. Ordering.”

Yoongi tuts gently, like he’s disappointed. “I don’t follow orders, sweetheart.”

As much as his teasing irritates you, a twin smile to his spreads across your face. “I’ll kill you,” you murmur, releasing your grip as he shifts back onto his knees.

It gets harder to focus on your bloodlust when his palms run over the curve of your hips, then press between your legs to part your thighs. “Don’t threaten me with a good time,” he deadpans as his fingers slip under the waistband of your panties and he starts to drag the lace down your legs.

“That’s fucking dark,” you can’t help but laugh as you kick your underwear the rest of the way off.

Yoongi licks his lips, clearly distracted, and you spread yourself wider for him. “This pussy,” he grunts hoarsely, like he’s talking to himself more than you. “Gets so puffy when you want it. All tight inside, too.” He unexpectedly slaps the whole of his hand over your center, and you gasp, your hips jolting up.

You don’t even have time to respond before he’s pressing a finger into you, your cunt squeezing tight enough to reward him with an audible noise as he fucks it in and out. “Fuck,” you groan.

“You get this wet just from having your tits played with, huh?”

The thorough analysis makes you huff a laugh, because he’s not wrong, and it stutters into a moan when his thumb gently starts to circle your clit.

“God,” you manage to choke out, “you’re fucking chatty tonight.”

Yoongi smirks, and you’re not sure why until he speaks again, his voice now pinched in a clear imitation as he withdraws his hand. “I’m sorry, is there somewhere you’d rather I put my mouth?”

Your jaw drops in disbelief as he repeats your own stupid tease from weeks ago back to you. “I’ve changed my mind,” you snap, sitting up a little, and Yoongi glances at you, already in the midst of settling between your spread thighs. “I do still hate you.”

“That’s fine,” he says with a shrug, and then he leans in to lick a thick, wet stripe up your slit. His mouth is immediately dizzying, and you drop your head back against the pillow, overwhelmed.

It’s another thing you’ve never done before, at least not with Min Yoongi. As he repeats the motion over and over, lazy long strokes where he drags his tongue from your entrance all the way up to circle your clit, you mentally kick yourself for every missed chance, every opportunity to have his mouth that you didn’t take.

“What the fuck,” you breathe.

Yoongi just barely pulls off of you, close enough that a string of your arousal is still joined to his lower lip when he speaks. “You’re not the only one with good head game here.”

He dives in again like he’s determined to immediately prove his point, and you shove your legs open wider as he sucks your clit into his mouth.

As much as you’d like to bruise his ego, it’s impossible to keep yourself from moaning when he pairs the firm suction with the press of his index finger back into your tight heat. As wet as he’s made you, he’s easily able to slide a second in beside it now, and your nails scratch helplessly over the sheets beneath you.

“Yoongi,” you gasp as he curls his digits to beckon inside you, stroking over your front wall and easily finding the spot that makes you gush. He does it again and again, like a button press, working up more and more arousal until you’re dripping down his wrist.

Even the way he hums against your pussy sounds like a smirk, but you’re too far gone to care. Yoongi starts to flick his tongue steadily over your clit, matching the rhythm of his fingers pumping into your g-spot, and you can feel the pressure in your core building, a band pulled tight enough to snap.

Your hips buck up toward his mouth in an overwhelmed reflex, and Yoongi’s free hand is immediately there like he was expecting it. His palm presses firmly to your lower abdomen to hold you down and keep you there, and even that feels good too, renders you entirely helpless to his mouth and his hands as he takes you apart.

“Fuck,” you moan, loud and unabashed now. “Fuck, yes, I’m—”

The feeling overtakes you before you can get another word out, and you nearly sob as your orgasm rips through you, your whole body straining hard against Yoongi’s strong hand as he pins you to the bed. The extra pressure on your core pushes a rush of fluid out of your cunt, enough to soak the sheets beneath you as your muscles contract around Yoongi’s fingers.

“Oh my god,” he doesn’t even pull away to groan, and the low vibration of the words against your throbbing clit makes your thighs tremble.

There’s a wet smack of his lips and tongue as he finally relents, the pace of his fingers slowing as he continues to work you through the aftershocks. You desperately try to remember how to breathe as you start to come down.

Yoongi is a fucking sight when he leans back to look up at you: long hair falling in his face, eyes dark with lust, lips and chin slick with your arousal. “Did you seriously just squirt?”

It’s been a long time since anyone has managed to make it happen, and you suddenly feel overwhelmed in a different way. Still recovering, you can barely get the words out. “Shut up.”

“What the fuck do you mean, ‘shut up’? It was hot,” Yoongi grunts, and you’re at least grateful that you don’t have to have the ‘it’s not pee’ conversation right now. He ducks his head down again as he withdraws his fingers, and his tongue drags up the crux of your thighs to chase a few stray droplets. You squirm, oversensitive, your legs nearly snapping shut around his neck, and he takes the cue to back off with a soft laugh.

You’re too spent to fight it when he starts to manhandle you a little, palms slipping under your ass to drag you further down the bed until your hips are flush with his, then encouraging your knees to pull up toward your chest. “Think you can do that on my cock?”

The question sparks something in your core, the first lick of a freshly lit flame, and you prop yourself up on your forearms to better meet his gaze. “Make me.”

Yoongi’s appreciative smile is nearly a snarl, and he shifts lower on the bed to quickly strip out of his pants and boxers. You watch as he starts to crawl back up your body, anticipation tightening in your core, and then a flash of realization crosses his face and he freezes.

“Fuck,” he swears, and your stomach drops.

“What’s wrong?”

“I forgot I’m out of condoms.” Your eyes widen as his gaze meets yours. “Do you have any?”

You shake your head. “Not with me.”

A muscle in his jaw works as he exhales a resigned sigh, and you reach out, one hand finding his bicep to stop him before he leaves. You want it too much, bad idea or not. “Just… fuck me anyway.”

His expression goes deadly serious, and there’s a long moment before he responds. “You’re sure?”

You swallow hard as you nod, your eyes searching his. “Just pull out, okay?” You hate yourself for saying the final word before it even leaves your lips. “Please.”

“Okay,” Yoongi repeats back to you, and his hands press to your thighs again to encourage your knees up as he positions himself between your legs. There’s a feeling humming in the space between your bodies, like the reality of the situation has settled over the both of you. The reckless abandon of the previous moment is gone, replaced with something slower, more hesitant. Heavier.

With your eyes fixed on his face, you feel it first: the weight and warmth of his cock grinding over your slit, sliding easily with how soaked you are. You look down to see it for yourself, flushed dark and hard enough to leak precum, trailing a glossy sheen over your folds as Yoongi guides it against you, one hand gripped firmly to the base. He teases the head of his dick over your clit and keeps it there, and you’re still sensitive enough to whimper at the feeling.

“Please,” you repeat, and he’s too focused to be smug about it. He just nods as he drags his cock back down to your entrance, then braces one hand against your thigh and starts to push in.

You exhale softly at the welcome stretch, familiar made new at the lack of anything between you. You can feel it all: the thick swell of the head of his cock as he eases you open, how he throbs gently as your walls squeeze around him, so tight that you can even feel the prominent veins that trace down his shaft.

You’re still wet and getting wetter from the way he fills you up entirely, your arousal drenching the length of him when he bottoms out with an audible slick sound. His cock twitches, buried to the hilt, and even that barely-there motion is enough to coax a breathy moan from you.

“Shit,” Yoongi laughs softly, and the tinge of humility to his voice makes you glance up at him again. “Not gonna be able to go that fast. Feels too good.”

“It’s okay,” you murmur. “Just…”

The words won’t come. It would mean too much to say what you want, and this isn’t supposed to mean anything at all.

So you don’t say them: you just hook your arms over his shoulders and pull his mouth down to yours. “Just fuck me,” you murmur against his lips. He grunts a low note of appreciation as he kisses you, as he starts to drag his cock out of you just to fuck it back in again.

It’s shallow, it’s slow, it’s nothing like what you’re used to with Yoongi, but it’s good. Good enough to make your kisses sloppy when you trade open-mouthed breaths, good enough to make you tilt your head and slide the flat of your tongue over Yoongi’s unabashedly, like an earned reward.

He pushes your knees up a little more, thrusting deeper this time, and the new angle drags the head of his cock right over your g-spot. You whine at the heavy weight of him, the shudder that ripples through you in response, and he stays there, stroking steadily to rub that spot again and again until your eyes roll back in your head.

“Oh my god, Yoongi,” you gasp into his mouth.

“Shit,” he groans shakily, reaching one hand up to brush his hair out of his eyes. A few dark strands stick to the sheen of sweat on his forehead. “Squeezing me so fucking tight.”

Your arousal coils hot and fast inside of you as he keeps thrusting, and you have to break away from kissing him to tip your head back on the pillow and moan. “Fuck, please don’t stop, I’m—”

It feels like the final second before your climax when Yoongi pulls out, sitting back on his knees between your spread legs with a low groan. The sudden loss of his cock makes your walls clench at nothing, and you whine, petulant. “Yoongi!”

“Sorry,” he mutters, breathless. “Almost came.” You glance up to see him squeezing at the base of his cock with one hand, his chest heaving with effort. Your hips tilt up toward him, jealous.

“I miss your cock,” you whine, fucked close enough to be shameless.

“You’ll get it,” he retorts, and then you feel three of his fingers press in to fill the space he left behind inside of you. “Want to make you come again first.”

You keen as he starts to pump them, wrist angled just right to meet your g-spot each time. “Oh fuck, Yoongi.” The arousal in your core aches as he fucks you open on his fingers, and you can hear how wet you are in the soaked squelch of your needy pussy, can feel it leaking down your thighs.

His thumb brushes over your clit with every upstroke of his hand, and it makes you gasp, your moans starting to pitch higher. “Harder, baby, please, I’m so close.”

Too lost in the feeling, you barely notice when Yoongi laughs a little, but he does as you ask, and the way he pounds into you is just enough to work you over the edge. Waves of pleasure rip through your body as you come for a second time, squirting a little on his sheets again, your thighs shaking violently.

“That’s it, there you go, fuck,” Yoongi groans appreciatively at the sight.

You’ve just barely made it past your peak, still shuddering all over, when Yoongi withdraws his fingers to shove his cock back in again, and you keen.

He thrusts like a man close to his own end, fast and hard, his breath coming in ragged pants of effort and pleasure. Your pussy pulses around him, squeezing like a vice, so swollen with sensitivity that it really does feel like he’s splitting you open every time he fucks into you.

You moan unabashedly now and cling to him all over, legs bracketing his snapping hips, nails of one hand digging into his shoulder, the other hand tangled in his hair. Your cunt throbs and gushes around him as he strokes, and it still feels like you’re coming: you can’t tell if it’s an intensely drawn-out second orgasm or if the hot stretch of his cock worked you seamlessly into a third.

When he finally pulls out, you drop back against the bed with an exhausted groan, every inch of you fucked into oblivion. You can barely focus your eyes to watch as Yoongi shoves his hips up to straddle yours, one hand working his cock until his release overtakes him.

He flattens both palms to the mattress as he starts to come, groaning softly and rocking his hips so that his cock grinds against your stomach. The head of his dick twitches visibly, leaking pulse after pulse of sticky gloss over your skin, and he smears his cock through it as he ruts against you. He keeps going, rolling his hips and rubbing the mess across your stomach until he’s thoroughly spent, until you’re both flushed and sticky all over.

“Holy fucking shit,” is all he can manage when he finally collapses down on the bed next to you.

You glance over at him and nod, trying to imply without speaking that the feeling is mutual. He meets your gaze, and you lay like that for several long minutes of silence as your breathing slows, eyes fixed on each other as your heartbeats race through the comedown.

It’s hard to believe that any part of tonight has been real, and you can’t help but wonder if he’s thinking the same thing.

As the post-orgasm glow starts to settle, exhaustion hits you like a train. You groan, breaking the prolonged eye contact to throw an arm over your face, blocking out Yoongi’s bedroom with the crook of your elbow.

You’re not expecting it when he softly says your name, and something in your gut tells you that whatever’s coming isn’t good. You will yourself not to look back again, to stay as still as a statue when you answer him. “Hmm?”

“You know Jungkook is in love with you, right?”

The plan to not move goes out the window at his words. Your pulse spikes, and you drop your arm to look at him, your face twisted in confusion. “What?!”

Yoongi studies your expression for a second, then makes a small hum of surprise. “Interesting. I figured you were just trying to let him down easy.”

“I— what?”

“You really didn’t know?” He scoffs, and his tone is enough to instantly make you set your jaw. “It’s pretty obvious. It’s funny, I guess he’s sort of inadvertently responsible for all of this.”

That takes a second to sink in, and you blink. “How?”

Yoongi stares up at the ceiling, seemingly nonplussed. “Well, when he asked me for the code to my office, I figured he wanted to take you in there and fuck you.”

Hot blood rushes to your chest, and you sit up a little. “You talked to Jungkook about fucking me?”

“No.” Yoongi blinks. “This was before anything happened. I haven’t told him anything. It was just clear he liked you, even back then, because I have eyes. So I was trying to do him a favor. He’s a good kid.”

You squint, still trying to catch up. “Why would Jungkook fuck me in your office?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know, it’s the only door that locks. Sometimes you get desperate.” You swallow the immediate urge to argue when your brain unhelpfully reminds you that you have in fact fucked Yoongi at the office. Twice.

“But you know, I figured he’d wine you, dine you, all that romantic crap first. I’m sure he’s a very respectable sex on the third date kind of guy.” That all-too-familiar smirk is back when he glances over at you again. “I guess neither of us realized who we were dealing with.”

You open and close your mouth a few times before you can remember how to speak. “I’m not having this conversation with you. Particularly not with your cum still on my stomach.”

Yoongi nods toward the en-suite. “There’s towels in there. Or you can shower if you want.”

Your head spins as you silently slip out of his bed, and you shut the bathroom door firmly behind you, wishing you could leave that entire conversation on the other side of it. Maybe his fancy shower will get hot enough to blast all the thoughts out of your brain, you reason, and it only takes a bit of fumbling with the knobs before you figure it out.

The water pressure is so much better than what you’re used to that you groan a little when you step under the spray. You turn in a semicircle, letting it beat down on your neck and shoulders as you close your eyes, willing the tension to melt out of your body. You really are exhausted, practically asleep on your feet, despite the way your mind is still racing.

You don’t know why you came here tonight. You don’t know what you thought would happen. You don’t know what makes you keep coming back to Yoongi, over and over, like a moth to a flame, like the definition of insanity. You don’t know why he opened up to you tonight, or why you decided to do the same— or what the fuck compelled him to say that Jungkook is in love with you. You don’t know if things are supposed to stay the same after tonight, or if they will be irrevocably different, and you don’t know which you’d even want.

You have no idea what you want, actually. Another drink would be nice.

The sound of the shower door opening startles you, pulling you up from your thought spiral, and your eyes snap open to see Yoongi shutting the door behind him. Without a word, he steps in to crowd you under the water, and you hate the way your heartbeat flutters when he’s close to you.

“What are you—” you try to ask, but you don’t get to finish the sentence before his hand cups your jaw and his mouth finds yours.

His kiss blots everything else from your brain, and in this moment, you’re grateful for it. You lean into him, letting him in deeper when his tongue traces your bottom lip, whimpering softly as his other hand presses to the small of your back to pull you closer.

You don’t know what he wants, either. Why he came in here. But you have a guess.

“Yoongi,” you murmur against his lips. “I can’t again. I’m so tired.”

“It’s okay,” he answers softly, and then his mouth drags you back in like a riptide.

You don’t know how long you stay there like that, kissing him under the steam and the spray, but you’re breathless when you finally pull away to look up at him. Water droplets are twined through his long, dark hair, collecting delicately on his eyelashes, trailing down his neck and over the muscles of his chest.

“You can sleep here tonight, if you want,” Yoongi offers, and before you can even process the words, he’s stepping back to push the shower door open behind him, and then he’s gone.

With the glass fogged over completely from the heat of the water, and the white noise of the fan overhead, you have no concept of when he leaves the bathroom, or what else he might be doing. You just know you feel entirely alone.

After scrubbing yourself thoroughly with a washcloth that you lather in Yoongi’s soap, you emerge from the shower, grabbing a towel from the linen cabinet to wrap up in. It’s weird to smell like him, sandalwood and musk, somehow both comforting and alienating.

When you nudge open the door to his room again, it’s empty, and the inset lighting has been turned off entirely, the room bathed only in the glow of the bedside lamp that’s been switched on.

He’s left out one of his t-shirts for you, and you recognize it as one you’ve seen him in often at work. You remember Googling the label once out of curiosity and nearly passing out at your desk when you saw the three hundred dollar price tag. You pull it on over your head, then return to the bathroom to hang your towel up.

As you slip back into the bedroom, you can’t help but wonder where Yoongi’s disappeared off to, but you’re too exhausted to go looking for him.

Though you figure he’ll be in eventually, your heart still sinks a little as you pull back the covers and crawl into his bed. It feels so much bigger when you’re the only one in it. You decide to leave the lamp on, then turn over to press your cheek to the pillow, and the waves of sleep almost immediately pull you under.

You’re still alone when you wake up in the morning, the other side of the bed entirely undisturbed. 

Blinking slowly, it takes you a moment to remember where you are, and then the night comes back to you piece by piece. The lamp on the nightstand is still on when you sit up and swing your legs over the edge of the bed.

Yawning and rubbing sleep from your eyes, you push open Yoongi’s bedroom door and pad down the hallway, trying to make sense of things. You have to retrace your steps all the way back to the living room before you find him, curled up on his side on the couch with one arm tucked under his head, still sleeping soundly.

He looks smaller like this. More vulnerable, maybe.

You wonder if you should’ve asked him to join you in his bed, and you wonder why he didn’t. Worrying your bottom lip between your teeth, you decide to let him rest.

You move through his apartment aimlessly, like a patron in a museum. Something cracks open inside of you as you allow yourself to take in his place undisturbed, and with it, what could be. The idea that a night spent here could feel normal. The two of you in the clearly well-used kitchen, how you might sit on the counter with a glass of wine while he cooks dinner. Talking about your days, about the past and the future. Sharing a life. Fucking and showering and falling asleep in his bed, tangled up together.

For something so close, it feels impossibly far away in the harsh light of morning. It feels like something meant for a much better person than you.

When you make it all the way back to his room, you peel your borrowed shirt off and drape it across his bed like you found it. You retrieve your clothes from last night off the floor and pull them back on.

Thankfully Yoongi chose to fall asleep on the far side of the couch, so when you re-enter the living room, you’re easily able to grab your purse where you set it down the night before without waking him. You slip your heels on in his entryway, then open the front door and shut it as quietly as you can behind you.

You fish your phone out of your bag and scroll until you find Jimin’s contact, then press it to your ear as the line starts to ring.

~*~

You don’t hear from Yoongi at all on Sunday, and you barely see him at work the next few days. You don’t know why it surprises you. It makes sense. You said that night had to mean nothing, you left in the morning without another word, and it’s not like you’ve made any effort to reach out since.

But nevertheless, hurt feelings sit heavy in the pit of your stomach, stinging like salt in an open wound. You’re angry that Yoongi seems to be acting like nothing even happened. You’re annoyed that you have to spend an entire weekend alone with him in Los Angeles. And you’re pissed off that you have so much fucking work to do in preparation for a trip that’s all about him.

You keep your head down and just try to fucking survive. You stay silent in your meetings unless directly asked a question. You type furiously at your desk, forever behind on emails and late on promised deliverables.

The week passes by in a blur, and it doesn’t even occur to you what day it is until you find Jungkook waiting for you at your desk when you return from an afternoon meeting.

“Hi, Jungkook.” You try to say it gently, to not take your frustrations out on someone who didn’t even do anything. While you’ve made polite small talk all week, things certainly haven’t felt normal, and you can’t tell if he senses it too, or if you’re just letting Yoongi’s cryptic words plant imaginary strange vibes in your head.

To his credit, Jungkook seems unfazed. “It’s the last day before your trip!” he says brightly, and your eyes widen as you realize he’s right. “What’s the rest of your day look like?”

You take a seat at your desk and pull up your calendar to check, and he circles around to look with you. “That was thankfully my last meeting,” you respond. “Just getting back to my never-ending to-do list now.”

“Or…” Jungkook prompts, and you glance up to see him leaning forward to rest his elbows on the back of your desk chair, his chin propped cutely in his hands. “You could not do that.”

You blink up at him. “And what would I be doing instead?”

“I was thinking, it’s been a while since we’ve had a walking meeting. Plus it’s actually nice out. So you should take a break.”

Glancing back at your to-do list sends a fresh wave of dread through you, and then you snap your laptop shut with a resigned sigh. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

Not only could you use the break, but you want things with Jungkook to feel normal again, even if the weirdness is only in your head. Maybe this is what you need.

Down in the lobby, Jungkook holds the door for you, and when you step outside, you realize he’s right. It’s one of those clear-sky early spring days, warm enough out that it feels like the world is starting over, like everything is coming back to life. You can’t help but feel like you could use a fresh start, too.

Though you expect to be led somewhere with food, Jungkook takes a different route instead, and you follow him a few blocks over to the entrance of a nearby park. You end up side by side on a paved pedestrian path, the length of which is lined with trees that have only just begun to bud.

It’s quiet, save for the distant noise of the city, the rustle of nature, and the rush of the occasional cyclist whizzing past. You walk slowly as you chat about nothing of importance: work, music, his dogs.

Jungkook glances over at you during a moment’s pause, with a look on his face like there’s a question he’s been waiting to ask. “So how are you feeling about your trip?”

You can’t quite manage to keep your expression neutral, your eyes rolling like a reflex. “Whatever. I just want to get it over with.”

“Ah.” Jungkook nods, and you can see he’s biting back some reaction. “For some reason I thought you might be excited.”

“What do you mean?”

He just shrugs. “I don’t know. You’ve been… different lately. About Suga. I thought maybe something was going on.” An uneasy feeling starts to wash over you.

“Nothing is going on with me and Yoongi,” you say, far too quickly. Jungkook glances at you, his brows pinched together slightly as if he’s unsure what to believe.

“Okay,” he says simply. You hope that’s the end of it, but then he keeps going. “That’s good. I’m glad I don’t have to tell you to raise your standards.”

Heat rushes into your face, caught somewhere between shame and anger. “Um, what does that mean?”

You grit your teeth when he just shrugs again. “I don’t know. He was such a jerk to you, and then suddenly it’s like you guys are hanging out and getting close and stuff—”

“We are not close,” you interject, and you hate how unsteady your voice sounds when you say it.

“Good,” Jungkook responds. “Because I thought maybe you might be, and it didn’t make any sense to me.”

Overwhelmed by his words, you come to a standstill on the pavement, and he makes it a few steps further before he realizes. As he turns back to face you, the words rush out before you can stop them. “I mean, I don’t see how it’s any of your business either way.”

Jungkook’s brow furrows again. “It’s my business because I care about you. He made you so miserable when you first started, so I don’t see how you could just forget about that and be into him, especially when you could…” He trails off and looks down, unwilling to finish the sentence.

“When I could what?” Another fucking shrug, and you can feel the rage inside you simmering now, threatening to boil over. Yoongi’s question comes back to haunt you— you know Jungkook is in love with you, right?— and the pieces start to slot together in front of you.

“When I could be into you?” you press him, taking an accusatory step closer. “Is that what you want to say?”

His gaze flits up to the trees above you, like he’s willing to look anywhere but your face. “No. I don’t know.”

The birdsong in the air has suddenly started to sound a lot more like screaming, and you have to suppress the urge to do the same. Instead, your voice comes out low and deadly serious. “You and I are friends, Jungkook. Just friends.”

“I know we are,” he says softly.

“Do you?” you snap back, vicious now. “Because it sounds to me like you’re jealous.”

“I’m not jealous,” he responds automatically, in the same tone, and you scoff.

“Look me in my face and say it.” You take another step toward him, and his eyes meet yours. He’s silent long enough for you to understand the truth, and all at once, you feel like a fucking idiot.

“Let me make this clear to you,” you hiss. “I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself and making my own decisions. And I do not have to explain or justify them to anyone, including you, because you are not my fucking boyfriend.”

When you spit the final word, Jungkook flinches like you’ve slapped him, but you can’t stop now. You’re so angry, it feels like it’s eating you alive. “When I want your opinion, as my friend, I’ll ask for it. Understood?”

You’ve never seen him look at you the way he does now, his eyes dark, his face twisted into a near grimace. There’s a long pause, and his voice is stilted when he finally speaks. “Yeah. Sorry I brought it up.”

The two of you walk back to the office in total silence, and Jungkook doesn’t try to talk to you again.

~*~

It’s early enough to still be pitch black outside when Jimin pulls up to the curb of your terminal at Incheon Airport.

“Thanks again for driving.” You yawn around the words as you reach down to unbuckle your seatbelt. When Jimin suddenly pulls you in for a hug, you groan at the affection, but he pays it no mind, dotting kisses over your hair that make you squirm.

“Love you, have fun. And be a slut!”

You roll your eyes as you manage to peel him off of you. “Bye, Baby Mochi.”

Slipping on a face mask, you push the door of his car open and climb out of the passenger seat. You swing open the trunk to grab your suitcase, then slam it shut again and step up onto the curb.

Making your way into the terminal, you dig your phone out of your bag to double-check the text from Yoongi, and then you glance up at the sign overhead to confirm you’re right where he said he’d be.

It takes a second for you to realize the person walking in your direction is Min Yoongi. The black baseball cap pulled low over his eyes is certainly not a bad look, but when paired with his black face mask, it makes him almost impossible to identify, or get a good read on. Rolling your suitcase ahead of you, you move toward him, and the two of you meet in the middle.

You wore sneakers today, so he still seems tall.

“Hi,” you say simply, a thousand different emotions swirling in your gut. You do your best to ignore them all.

Yoongi hums a wordless grunt back in response, then turns to face the already bustling security line. You mirror him, and for a moment the two of you just stay like that, like you’re standing firmly in the present and unsure of what might be waiting on the other side.

He gives a tired sigh. “Ready?” You’re surprised to learn he can speak this early in the morning. 

“I guess so,” you answer.

Perfectly in sync, you both push your bags forward, stepping carefully toward a weekend that feels impossible to imagine.

chapter seven | masterlist | chapter nine

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bad habits || myg

◈ Part of the Resolution Revolution Collab hosted by @jimilter​ & @knjsnoona​ .

↳ AU/character trope: exes to lovers; college student traveling home

Prompt: “Where was this love when I spent nights wondering where you were? When all I could do was doubt myself and wonder where I went wrong?”

pairing: f*ckboy!yoongi x f*ckgirl!reader genre/au/rating: angst, fluff, smut, exes to lovers, exes with benefits, 18+ summary: You and Yoongi ended your relationship three years ago. However, neither of you can ever seem to resist the urge of sneaking off and screwing each other until the sun comes up. Your friends beg you to stop seeing him, knowing he isn’t good for you. But how can you stay away when you see him at a New Year’s Eve party, looking hotter than ever? There’s nothing to worry about; you know exactly how to play his game. Or so you thought. warnings: mentions divorce, legal alcohol consumption, sexual tension, mentions hookups, mentions financial hardship, toxic relationships, mentions breakups, mentions long distance relationships, trust issues, unprotected sex, choking/breath play, impact play(slapping), clit stimulation, dom!yoongi/sub!reader, teasing, breast and nipple play, groping, dirty talk, name calling, rough sex, hate/angry sex, degradation, light spit play, begging, wrist pinning, hair pulling, biting, scratching, marking, orgasm control/forced orgasms, cum play and eating, pull out method, brief aftercare a/n: sorry this took forever, i had to post it from my phone! i hope you like it, and i’ll edit it when i wake up. thanks Ash and Amelia for hosting this collab. And thank you Beezy @hobeemin​ for beta reading a apart of this for me. word count: 6.3k

↳ teaser - masterlist - official taglist form(no emails collected; dm to be removed)

It has been a long year.

Czytaj dalej

---

Vows aka 10 ways to win your husband's heart Masterlist

An arranged marriage AU

You've been in your arranged marriage with Yoongi for five years, and he's never once retaliated for anything you've done to him. One day you realise you've lost your appetite for provoking him, and you set about trying to win his heart instead.

Vows Part 1 Part 2

Drabbles - Sorry, Pretend, Lonely, The suit, Choices, Geneva, Avila, Drive stick, Sire, Drown, Sulky

Schooled - Seokjin's revenge

Firsts

Everything

Doll

Penance

Every time like the first time

Switch pt 2

Untouchable

First Strike

Shiner

©hamsterclaw 2022-2023

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look down on me like that - 7 (explicit)

genre: slow burn enemies to lovers hatefucking coworkers au, smut (w some eventual angst)

pairing: yoongi x reader

summary: your asshole coworker min yoongi has made it his personal mission to ruin your life.

word count: 8.9k

contains: ~explicit sexual content~ !! alcohol mention, baby goth jungkookie 👀 some appreciation of jimin's ass 🍑 wonho is back !!! reader continues to be goin through it, jimin pulls no punches this chapter he rly said the library is open, could it be..... a.... softer yoongi???, i put some of yoongi's actual achievements as a producer in here (yes that's a warning), suckin' dick and fuckin' in the office yktfv (but make it Riskier™️), inadvisable methods of dealing with presentation anxiety, protected sex, a half-kiss that i fully expect to be screamed at about, some Sad Yoongi Backstory is unlocked (and yes it's real 🥲), and???? feelings??? maybe????????

A/N: ohhhhhh man we're back back again 🫡 i really did not think this chapter was gonna go that hard and then suddenly sdkjgdfljg i don't even know what happened. thank you so much for your patience bc i know it's been a minute 🥺 and i really really hope y'all enjoy and can't wait to hear what you think !!!! 💜 AND I CAN ALREADY TELL YOU Y'ALL AREN'T READY FOR CHAPTER 8...... (i'm not even ready 😩)

ALL MY LOVE TO @haliiimede FOR BETA READING ILY SORRY I FORGOT TO CREDIT YOU THROW ME AWAY

read on AO3!

chapter six | masterlist | chapter eight

~*~

“Jungkook?”

His nose scrunches up a little when he laughs. “Were you expecting someone else?”

“I-I… I just—” You stammer, trying to remember how to make words happen. It feels like your brain is on a five-second delay. “You, uh, look different. Your outfit.”

You’ve interacted with your baby-faced coworker literally hundreds of times at this point, and in that time you’ve become well-accustomed to seeing him in his standard corporate attire, slacks and button-downs, or occasionally changed out for boxing class, muscle tees and sweatpants.

But you have never seen him dressed like this. All black, head-to-toe. His t-shirt and over-shirt are both baggy while somehow still managing to hug tight around his biceps and the solid muscle of his chest. A silver chain dangles from one of the belt loops of his slouchy utility pants, which are in turn tucked into chunky combat boots that easily give him an extra two inches of height. A matching thick silver chain is clasped around his neck, glittering in the dim light of dusk outside your front door.

Jungkook frowns as he looks down at himself, like he doesn’t even recall what he’s wearing. “I always dress like this,” he remarks with a shrug. “Just, not at work.”

“I cannot believe you,” you say, somewhat breathless as your eyes trace down his body and back up.

“What?” He laughs again. “What did I do?”

“First you keep from me that you have dogs, and now I found out you’re goth, too? What else are you hiding, Jeon Jungkook?!”

“I’m not hiding anything! These things never came up!” He sounds so flustered that you can’t help but smile, and you see a clear expression of relief flash over his face as he seems to realize you’re not actually mad.

You shake your head, digging into your purse to retrieve your phone as you brush past him, letting the front door slam shut behind you. “That’s it. Baby Star Candy is dead. You are officially Baby Goth now. Changing your contact name and everything.”

When you turn to look at him over your shoulder, he’s still smiling, still standing dumbfounded on your doorstep.

“Come on, Baby Goth!” You can’t quite suppress the laughter in your voice. “I don’t want to be late!”

As the two of you slip into Jungkook’s car and he starts to pull out of your apartment complex, he glances over at you. ”So, what did you get up to today? I feel like I barely saw you.”

Your gut twists as it all comes rushing back— that mere hours ago Yoongi had you pressed against the door of his office, his hand up your dress, while he went through an entire business conversation with none-the-wiser Jungkook on the other side. And that once Jungkook had left, you’d turned around and practically begged Yoongi to fuck you where you stood, right up against his fucking door. And he had.

Your chest constricts a little at the thought. Sex, in the office, in the middle of the workday. Like an idiot.

You wish you could say you regret it.

Heat rushes to your face, and you fumble for an answer to Jungkook’s question. “I just, uh— today… was a lot.” You hope your smile is more convincing than it feels, and you hope you’re just imagining the way Jungkook’s eyes linger on you for an extra second before his gaze flits back to the road.

“Well,” he thumbs at the volume control on the steering wheel, turning up the radio a couple notches. “Now we get to have fun. Work hard, play hard, right?”

Your nerves start to recede again as you fall into the comfortable routine of time spent with Jungkook. It’s funny to you now that you thought it might be any different to interact with him outside of work.

Apart from the mildly distracting fit of his shirt, Jungkook is exactly the same— wide eyes sparkling in the headlights of passing cars as he babbles on about TikTok, then interrupts himself to sing along to the radio. He only pauses for breath when you interject with directions to the venue, until he’s finally pulling into a parking space and turning the key to kill the engine.

Jungkook gazes up in awe as you have your tickets scanned and lead him into the venue entrance, clearly trying to take it all in. This is one of your favorite places to see Jimin perform, and it’s still overwhelmingly impressive, even though you’ve seen it dozens of times now.

“Wow, this place is really nice. Your friend must be a pretty big deal.”

“Jimin is a huge deal,” you say with a nod and a shrug, used to it. “You’ll understand why when you see him dance… And also when you see his ass.” You giggle a little, unable to help yourself.

Jungkook laughs too, eyebrows lifting off his forehead like he wasn’t expecting that response.

You wave him down a hallway towards the center of the venue. “Come on, Baby Goth, we’re in VIP.”

His brows lift impossibly higher. “What does that mean?”

You shoot him a wink. “It means we drink for free.”

You know the route by heart as you emerge from the hallway and lead Jungkook towards the front, where you flash your tickets again to be let into a section close to the stage.

Jungkook eagerly volunteers to get the first round, and you’re thankful he isn’t gone long. Alone with your thoughts is the last thing you want to be right now— at least not while sober. When he hands you your drink, you lean in to tap the plastic edge of your cup against his in a cheers.

“To working hard and playing hard,” you smirk as you repeat his line back to him, then pause. “Just— please do not share anything I say tonight with anyone at work.”

“I swear,” Jungkook nods, and you can’t help but smile when he holds out the pinky of his free hand. You link yours with his to seal the deal. “I’m good at keeping secrets,” he says earnestly.

“Right, like you kept the secret of Yoongi’s lock code?”

His face immediately reddens. “That was different.” He covers the awkward pause— or maybe you’re just imagining it— when he takes a sip of his drink, then continues. “Did you ever end up using it?”

Your heart drops into your stomach, and you exhale in relief when at that moment, the lights start to dim, and the now filled-in crowd begins to cheer in anticipation. You wave a hand at Jungkook as if to indicate you’ll tell him later, and you pray he won’t remember to bring it up again.

As the dancers take the stage, you lean over to point Jimin out to Jungkook, though you know as soon as he starts moving you won’t have to. Everyone is talented, but there’s something about the way your best friend dances that makes it impossible to watch anyone else. He can nail any style, can convey so much story and emotion through his movements, can execute choreography flawlessly while still doing it in his own unique way.

After the first few songs, you’re both on your feet, and when Jungkook leans toward you to be heard over the music, you’re certain he’s about to gush over how good Jimin is, the way everyone does the first time they see him perform.

“You weren’t kidding about his ass!” He half-shouts instead, and you nearly drop your drink. Jungkook stares openly at Jimin as he moves across the stage, both powerful and graceful. His head tilts slightly to one side. “I mean. Wow.”

The alcohol makes you laugh easily and loud. You have to take a moment to catch your breath before you can respond. “Okay, Jungkook!”

“What?” Jungkook is laughing now, too. “I can appreciate a nice ass, regardless of who it’s attached to!” There’s a pause as you both giggle and catch your breath. “But uh— please don’t share that at work.”

You extend your pinky first this time. “Promise.”

Jungkook smiles as he locks his finger with yours, then drops your hand. The song has ended, so he doesn’t have to talk quite so loud as he continues. “He really is talented, too.”

You nod. “Jimin was a trainee for a few years, but I think he’s a lot happier just dancing like this. It was a lot of pressure.”

Soft synths of the intro to the next song have already started to build, and when the beat kicks in, Jungkook’s eyes go wide, and he looks up with a grin. “Oh shit! I fucking love this song!”

You giggle. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you swear before.”

He glances at you over the rim of his cup, his smile growing cocky. “Well, you’ve never gotten drunk with me before. The things you miss when you leave happy hour early.”

Your heart sinks a little at the memory, and you’re grateful Jungkook is already lost in his own world, bopping along to the upbeat song, so he doesn’t seem to notice the way your face falls. It’s like Yoongi has left fingerprints all over your life, and no matter what you do, you can’t get rid of them.

You take a long pull of your drink until you hit the bottom.

Jungkook is a welcome distraction to it all. By the final chorus of the song that you now recognize as an EXO cover, he’s fully gotten into it, unable to stand still and launching into some on-the-spot choreography. When he executes a dangerously well-performed body roll, your jaw drops.

“I think you missed your calling,” you shout over the music. “You should’ve been an idol!”

“Yeah?” Jungkook cocks an eyebrow, hips still moving fluidly. “Think I’d be as good as Kai?”

You nod. “Oh yeah. I can see it now.” You gesture as if reading off a magazine headline. “Heartthrob Jeon Jungkook. But they’d call you Baby Star Candy, of course.”

Jungkook smiles at you, striking a final deliberate pose for the last note of the song. “I thought I was Baby Goth now?”

You smirk as you correct him. “Only I’m allowed to call you that. Your army of fangirls will have to get in line.”

It’s like the lack of music backing him up makes him go shy, and you watch the way Jungkook’s cheeks flush, the way his nose scrunches when he laughs and waves the idea away. “I’m good. Think I’ll stick to TikTok.”

You giggle through another two drinks before the show is over, and as the dancers leave with a final wave, you cheer extra loud for Jimin until he glances your way and sticks his tongue out at you. When the house lights come up, you nod for Jungkook to follow you, making your way past more security to the back of the venue to meet Jimin at the stage door.

You can’t help but laugh a little in surprise when you round the corner to see a familiar face amidst the small group already waiting. Wonho is leaning up against the wall, looking hilariously small and nervous for how large his frame is, and clutching a bouquet of roses as red as his hair.

Biting your lip, you wave at him, and he waves back, but neither of you move to say anything else.

You can’t quite shake the embarrassment that comes with being reminded of the night you first met Wonho. Just another set of stupid Yoongi fingerprints.

Jimin emerges from the stage door a few minutes later, unceremoniously dropping the dance bag slung over his arm when his eyes land on Wonho waiting for him.

“Aw, baby!” Jimin pouts in disbelief as he accepts the roses, only to then immediately be swept up into a bridal carry. He squeaks when Wonho effortlessly lifts him off the ground. 

You roll your eyes despite the smile that creeps across your face. “You two are ridiculous.”

Jimin shoots you a sour look. “Can you let me have a whirlwind romance for once in my damn life, please?” He takes Wonho’s face in both hands to kiss him squarely on the mouth.

Jungkook is clearly still processing all of this, radiating ‘confused but happy to be here’ energy as he scoops Jimin’s abandoned dance bag off the floor to carry it over his shoulder.

Jimin sideeyes Jungkook as he pulls away. “And who is this man touching my stuff?”

Jungkook’s eyes widen, and he glances at the bag like maybe he should put it back down.

You reach up to smack Jimin on the arm. “Shut up. This is my friend and coworker, Jungkook. Be nice to him.”

“I’m not going to be nice to anyone until I get some fucking food,” Jimin snaps. His toes point as he kicks his feet daintily in Wonho’s arms, a dancer through and through. “Can we go eat now?”

Your first stop is a restaurant near the venue where you order a metric ton of brisket at Jimin’s demand. While Wonho and Jungkook easily destroy most of it between the two of them, your best friend still seems to have enough to improve his mood. It probably helps that Wonho hand-feeds the majority of it to him.

When he’s not gazing adoringly at his boyfriend, Jimin is attempting to communicate with you using solely his eyes, which keep darting over to Jungkook, his brows lifting in a silent question.

You tighten your jaw and do your best to subliminally shake your head without attracting Jungkook’s attention. Thankfully Jungkook doesn’t seem to remember that there’s anything else in the world except his plate of food.

Jimin narrows his gaze at you, his universal signal for “we’ll discuss this later”, and dread floods in the pit of your stomach.

Sure enough, when you finish your meal and move to a table at the bar down the street, Jimin sweetly suggests that Wonho and Jungkook go together to grab the first round of drinks, giving no indication that he has any sort of ulterior motive. They shrug and nod, Jungkook immediately starting to quiz Wonho on his protein intake as they depart.

Jimin pounces as soon as you’re alone again. “I’m sorry, you’re having a sordid office sex affair with a coworker and you’re telling me it’s not this man?!”

You roll your eyes. “No, Jimin.”

Jimin sucks his teeth, clearly unimpressed. “I thought I raised you better than this. I’m about to make him my hot goth girlfriend if you don’t.”

“You literally have a boyfriend.”

His brows pinch together, like he’s confused why that matters. “Wonho would love a third. He can barely keep up with me. But don’t change the subject.” He leans forward, arms folded on the table as he stares you down. “Babygirl, why on earth are you wasting your time fucking a man you don’t like, when you clearly have some very nice alternatives available to you?”

“I’m not doing that anymore,” you scowl. “The correct number of coworkers I should be fucking is zero.” It feels like Jimin’s gaze is drilling right to the depths of your soul, and you press your face into your hands as alcohol loosens your lips and the guilt overflows. “…Even though the actual number of coworkers I fucked today is one.”

“Bitch!” Jimin’s hand smacks loud against the wood grain, enough to make you flinch a little. “You have got to be fucking joking!”

You shake your head silently into your palms.

“At the office?!”

You nod pathetically for a few moments before dropping your arms down on the table with a whine, your forehead quickly following. “I don’t even know what happened. It’s like when I’m around him my brain malfunctions.”

Jimin goes uncharacteristically silent, and when you dare to peek up at him, his lips are pursed slightly as if in thought. “Are you sure you hate him?”

The question makes you sit back up. “What does that mean?”

He shrugs, feigning innocence. “I don’t know, it’s just... if I didn’t know any better, I’d say that kinda sounds like a crush.”

You instantly make a face of disgust. “What?! No. Absolutely not. I know I hate him. He’s a nightmare. He’s cocky and insufferable—”

“So am I,” Jimin interrupts, crossing his arms over his chest. “And you love me.”

You open your mouth to argue back, but he lifts a single finger to quiet you.

“I’m not done.” He pauses, and there’s an immediate sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. “What I see right now—” Jimin gestures in the direction of the bar “—is a fit, handsome, and seemingly very nice man who has spent the whole night looking at you like you put the fucking stars in the sky. And yet here you are, still talking about Suga, like you’ve been doing nonstop for the last month, who apparently has such a hold on you that he can make your panties drop during business hours. Yet I’m supposed to believe you hate him? This math is not mathing, love.”

It’s only when he stops talking that you realize your pulse is racing.

“Jimin,” you breathe. You double-blink, hot all over with a rush of sudden shame, trying to will away the sting at the corners of your eyes. “That’s not fair.”

Jimin’s gaze stays locked on yours as he refuses to back down even an inch. “Answer me this: would you be reacting this way if you really did hate him?”

Your jaw drops in disbelief, but you only get a beat of silence to attempt to process your best friend’s comments before Jungkook is thudding a glass of beer on the table in front of you.

“Sorry that took a second! It’s busy tonight,” Jungkook says brightly as Wonho moves around to the remaining open seat. “What were you guys talking about?”

Jimin fixes Jungkook in a blank stare. “Menstruation,” he replies flatly, not missing a beat.

You cling to your drink for dear life as the conversation continues on around you, and you do your best to smile and nod while you try not to replay Jimin’s words back a million times in your mind. But it’s a losing battle.

As your head spins, you run through the list of things you know to be true. Min Yoongi is your coworker. Min Yoongi is unquestionably an asshole. Min Yoongi has, since your very first day, embarrassed you, belittled you, lied to you, even threatened your job. Min Yoongi has never shown an ounce of evidence that he cares for you in any way. Your eyes flit aimlessly around the room as you try to think. Min Yoongi is—

Your heart drops into your gut. Min Yoongi is sitting at the end of the bar.

It’s not real.

This can’t be real, you tell yourself. It’s just the long, strange day and several drinks you’ve had working together to play tricks on your brain.

You blink hard, willing Yoongi’s face to morph back into that of some stranger, but when you open your eyes again, he’s just as real, exactly the same as before.

Except for the fact that he’s now staring at you.

Yoongi’s mouth goes slack, like he’s coming to the same realization as you— that the two of you have managed to find yourselves in the same place at the same time, completely by chance.

You stand up so fast you nearly knock your drink over. All three heads at the table swivel to look at you, and Jungkook speaks first.

“You okay?”

“Uh, y-yeah, yes,” you stammer unconvincingly. “Just gonna grab another beer.” Your eyes glance back up to search for Yoongi again, but they don’t immediately catch sight of him, and you don’t dare look for too long.

“You still have half of this one left,” Jimin remarks dryly.

Your gaze returns to your drink and you choose the first option that occurs to you: you down the rest in one swig and slam the empty glass on the table. All three pairs of eyes on you go wide.

“I’ll get another one for everyone, be right back!” You grit your teeth in something that you hope approximates a smile, then start to head for the bar, your heart already racing with anticipation.

After a few steps, a hand on the small of your back startles you, enough to make you freeze in place.

When you look over your shoulder, you see it’s Jungkook, also on his feet and right behind you. “Do you want help with the drinks?” He leans into your ear to ask the question, probably to be heard over the din of the bar. Your head is spinning from the rush of alcohol and from getting to your feet so fast. You don’t remember Jungkook smelling this good, or his voice being this low.

You turn to face him to answer and wow, now he’s really close. You sway slightly, a little unsteady on your feet, as your eyes meet his and your face flushes. “Oh, uh— no, I’m okay. But thanks, JK.”

There’s an extra second where neither of you say anything, Jungkook’s hand still pressed to your back, warm against the thin fabric of your dress. Then he nods and turns to head back to the table.

Your brain can hardly hold space for anything else as you spin towards the bar again, trying to catch sight of Yoongi through the crowd of people that only seems to have grown in the last few minutes. You weave through the mass of bodies with a combination of mildly polite apologies and stubborn determination, until you make it all the way up to the bar—

—where there is absolutely no sign of Yoongi. Gone without a trace, the barstool where you swear you just saw him now left empty.

You squeeze your eyes shut and exhale, willing your pulse to return to a normal pace. Maybe it was just your imagination, a trick of the light, a side-effect of an alcohol-dizzy brain and all this overthinking. Maybe you didn’t actually see what you thought you saw. Maybe…

It’s only when your eyes flutter open that you notice it. A nearly full glass of whiskey sitting abandoned on the bar, directly in front of the empty stool.

Before you can even think about why you’re doing it, you’re moving again, now fully shoving your way through the crowd of people until your palms find the glass of the front door and push hard. You stumble out of the bar, the cold night air like a slap to the face as you belatedly realize you left your jacket slung over the back of your chair.

Wrapping your arms around yourself with a shiver, you step out properly onto the sidewalk. Groups of passersby part down the middle to walk around you, and if they shoot you dirty looks, you miss them entirely. Your head whips one way, then the other, looking for— you’re not even sure what. A flash of familiarity, maybe, a glimpse of something, anything. If only just for reassurance that you didn’t make it all up.

Someone calls your name.

You spin around, your pulse thudding in your ears, only to belatedly realize it’s coming from the entrance of the bar, where Jungkook is standing, holding the door half-open as he leans through.

“What are you doing?” He steps out, letting the door fall shut behind him as he crosses to you. You don’t know why something in your gut twists, why you’re suddenly hit with the urge to scream at him. Didn’t you tell him not to follow you?

Jungkook continues when you don’t respond, his brow pinched with concern. “What’s wrong? Why are you out here?”

The question feels impossible to answer. You can’t think straight enough to make sense of any of it— why you went after Yoongi, what you planned to do when you caught up to him, why it even matters to you at all that he was here tonight.

Jimin’s words echo in your skull, deafening.

“I—” you stammer, giving the only answer you can. “I don’t know.”

A gust of cold air makes you shudder hard, and Jungkook’s hands have suddenly closed over yours on your upper arms, dry heat against your icy skin.

“It’s freezing out here,” he murmurs, clearly still confused. He shifts to wrap an arm around you, pulling you into his side, and you don’t fight it. 

Emotional exhaustion takes over, and as you allow Jungkook to lead you back inside, you do your best not to think about anything at all.

~*~

The weekend blinks by far too quickly, and the dread of Monday morning looms over you, all the little moments from Friday stacked like a heavy weight in the pit of your stomach.

You don’t hear from Jimin after Jungkook drops you off that night, and you’re too stubborn to text first, secretly hoping he’ll make the first move and apologize for reading you for filth unprovoked. But considering how busy he’s been with rehearsals leading up to the show, you doubt he and Wonho leave his bedroom all weekend.

Which means that when Monday morning comes, you have to face it alone.

Thankfully, you have no shortage of work to distract yourself with, so you try to keep your head down and focus, flitting between meetings, calls, spreadsheets, emails, paperwork, slide decks. You make polite conversation with Jungkook as always, but you keep it brief. When you take lunch at your desk, you tell yourself it’s just because you’re busy. That’s all.

You work and you work and you desperately try not to think about anything else. Your coworkers slowly start to trickle out as the day wraps up, but you barely pay them any mind, only half-heartedly returning the farewells called over their shoulders as they push through the glass doors.

When you finally sit back, it’s only because your vision is burning from endless screen time. You’re not even sure you’ve remembered to blink. You press your face into your hands to give your weary eyes a break, before glancing at the clock, eyes widening at the realization that it’s already past seven.

A wave of anxiety floods your veins as it occurs to you that you haven’t seen Yoongi leave yet— you would’ve noticed. You set your jaw as you reach for your phone.

Are you still here?

The response is nearly immediate.

Presentation room.

Better than his damn office, you think to yourself, and then two more texts pop up.

Need more time.

A lot more.

Fucking hell.

You shove your chair back and get to your feet, acting on impulse more than anything else. As you storm down the hallway, you will yourself not to be reminded of shoving through the crowded bar and stumbling into the street Friday night. You were just drunk, and surprised. This is different. It has to be.

You bang open the door to the presentation room with enough force to surprise even yourself.

“Now, Yoongi,” you snap.

He’s seated in the chair behind the podium at the front of the room, slouched over his laptop, bottom lip caught between his teeth. Despite your dramatic entrance, he doesn’t so much as glance up.

“Just give me like, ten minutes.” He winces at the screen of his computer. “Maybe twenty.”

You cross your arms in frustration. “Some of us are tired, Yoongi.”

At this, his head snaps up. “Well, some of us got tapped to give a fucking presentation to the visiting overseas team. Tomorrow!”

You take a step back, your eyes widening at his tone. You haven’t heard him genuinely raise his voice like this— not since the argument during your very first team meeting.

“Not like I don’t have shit that I’m supposed to be working on,” he mutters, more to himself than to you, eyes returning to squint at his laptop. You notice now that it’s connected to the screen at the front of the room, and you can see him scrolling through the slides of a presentation, pausing occasionally to add in speaking notes.

You blink, trying to keep up. “Why did they tap you?”

“A great question,” he huffs. “Apparently they’re curious about who the producer with the Grammy nomination is. I’m being asked to do a ‘high-level timeline of my career and accomplishments’. Guess these assholes haven’t heard of Wikipedia.”

“That’s… stupid.”

Yoongi looks up again, his mouth dropping open slightly, like he wasn’t expecting that response. He finally manages to speak as his gaze jumps back down to his slides. “Thank you. That’s what I said. I tried to get out of it, but it appears I am being forced.”

“I didn’t think you could be forced to do anything.”

“You’d be surprised,” he mumbles under his breath, paired with a dry laugh. “I’ve been forced into dealing with your ass, haven’t I?” His eyes don’t move from the screen.

A smirk tugs at the corners of your mouth before you can stop it, and you step further into the space. The room is set up with three large, unnecessarily fancy tables, reclaimed wood, arranged in a U shape facing the podium and screen at the front of the room.

Taking your time, you cross behind the tables and head for the seat furthest away from the podium, dead center. When you get there, rather than pull the chair out, you spin around to sit your ass on the wooden surface, turning in a half-circle so that your legs dangle off the edge, palms flat on either side of you.

You stare Yoongi down from across the room as he continues to fiddle with his laptop. “Let’s hear it, then.” When his eyes find yours, you tilt your head to the side expectantly. “It’s good to practice with an audience. You should be thanking me.”

For a moment, you think he might try to argue with you, but to your surprise, he gets to his feet with a resigned sigh. He presses a button on his laptop, and the presentation goes full-screen, flipping back to the first slide.

His mouth tightens as his fingertips grip the wooden edge of the podium.

“Good morning everyone, my name is Min Yoongi. I’m also known by my producer pseudonym, Suga.” His deep voice is monotone, edged rough like gravel, like there’s nothing he’d rather be doing less.

You fold your arms again, surveying Yoongi carefully as he continues. Your eyes widen in surprise when only a few sentences in, he outright trips over his words, stuttering an impressive amount before he manages to get back on track. His gaze remains at a fixed point on the floor, unmoving, and he speaks like his presentation is one endless sentence, without so much as a pause.

“Stop,” you call from your spot opposite him. The command comes out louder than you expect.

Yoongi’s head snaps up again, but to his credit, he stops talking.

“Start over,” you say simply. “Remember to breathe this time.”

Yoongi blinks once, twice, then silently taps through his slides to the beginning. You hear him take a tentative inhale before he starts. “Good morning everyone, my name is Min Yoongi.”

He takes it slower this time, getting past where you stopped him before, until a moment where he falls silent. You see his face twist slightly as color blooms in the apples of his cheeks. “Uh, shit. I forgot what my next thing was. Fuck, hang on.” He fumbles with the trackpad of his laptop, and you huff a laugh of disbelief.

“Oh my god.” You can’t quite manage to bite back your smile. “You do have a weakness.”

“I just hate presentations,” Yoongi sighs, his mouth pulling up into a flat line. “The whole point of being a producer is that I can stay in my studio and not have to deal with people.”

Your fingers tap against the edge of the table, intrigued. You’ve never seen him like this before. “You just need to fucking relax, Yoongi.”

“You say that like that’s something I know how to do,” he mutters, so low you wonder if you were supposed to hear it.

You’re on your feet and crossing the room before you can second-guess the thought. Yoongi glances up with a face that reads mild confusion, and the expression only deepens when you place both hands on his chest and firmly shove him. As he’s clearly not expecting it, it’s enough of a push to knock him off-balance, and he has to take a few steps back to steady himself.

“What are y—” The question dies in Yoongi’s throat as you sink to your knees in front of him. He’s moved just slightly out of reach, and you gaze up at him through your lashes and beckon him towards you with a single finger.

He steps forward as if drawn in, like a moth to a flame.

If there’s a part of you that tells you to pause and think about this before you do it, you can’t hear it over the deafening silence in the room. And the last thing you want to do right now is think.

Close enough to touch now, you flatten your palms to slide up the smooth fabric of Yoongi’s joggers, teasing your fingers over the waistband when you get there. You glance at him again, half expecting him to tell you to stop, but his only response is the jerk of his adam's apple in a hard swallow.

A thrill runs through you at the idea of doing this here, perfectly hidden behind the podium.

“Start from the beginning again,” you instruct, your voice low and even. “If you can do it like this, you can do it tomorrow.”

A muscle in Yoongi’s jaw jumps, and he nods almost imperceptibly. You don’t move an inch until he inhales and starts over. His voice isn’t quite as steady this time. “Good morning everyone, my name is Min Yoongi.”

With a self-satisfied smirk, you hook your fingers under both his joggers and boxers at once and firmly push them down. His dick has only barely started to harden, which makes sense, given his nerves and your wholly unexpected ambush.

The thought of feeling his cock grow in your mouth, get heavy on your tongue, makes arousal start to pool in your gut.

He’s still talking, hasn’t even stumbled once yet, so you reward him with a finger curled under the head of his dick, lifting it up to be flush with his stomach. You take your time as you drag your tongue up his exposed shaft, laid flat against the prominent veins there. When you reach the tip, you shift to grip him at the base so you can kitten lick at his frenulum, purposefully teasing.

Yoongi just barely manages to disguise his groan as a cough, and you pull back, smirking a little. “What was that?”

He exhales, clearly trying to regain focus as he continues where he left off. “I have over 100 KOMCA credits as a songwriter and producer.” You hum approvingly and take him into your mouth. 

As you hollow your cheeks and begin to suck, you can feel the way he swells to stretch you, pulsing warm, and it only encourages you. Your hands move to grip at his thighs, and when you take him deeper, head bobbing steadily, you taste the salt of his precum as he starts to drip.

You let your tongue loll out past your bottom lip to lap further down his shaft, and this time there’s no questioning the sound he makes: a distinct, breathy whimper. It’s enough to coax a wicked smile out of you, and you have to pull off his cock briefly to keep from gagging. You pause to admire the way it shines, glossed wet with your drool.

Your lips chase after him almost immediately, sucking just the tip in, and you swirl your tongue over it in lazy, sloppy circles.

Yoongi is clearly struggling to keep his composure now. “I was the first— oh, fuck.” He cuts himself off with a proper moan when you take him down as far as you can without warning. He hits the back of your throat and you keep him there, forcing yourself to swallow, your throat spasming around his length as you choke on it.

He tries again. “The f-first artist to win MAMA's 'Best Collaboration' award— m-multiple times.”

You finally pull off to gasp for air, a few strings of spit still connecting his now leaking-hard cock to your lips. Yoongi makes another soft noise at the loss, and you gaze up at him as you pant, reveling in the look of near-distress on his face.

“Finish the presentation,” you purr, your voice slightly hoarse from having just shoved his cock down your throat.

Yoongi’s eyes squeeze shut as he continues, and you lean forward, taking him into your mouth again tongue-first. You waste no time sucking him back into the tight clutch of your throat, and your fingertips dig bruises into the skin of his thighs to keep him from bucking his hips up.

You refuse to relinquish control. Not yet.

His hands cup the back of your head like he’s clinging on for dear life as he keeps trying to get the words out. “T-the collaboration netted me my first fuck—ing Grammy nomination. I— nnh— look forward to attending the ceremony in person next week, and I— I-I feel confident about our chances for success. Shit.” 

With this, you realize that he’s made it all the way through his talking points, and you pull off his dick with a wet pop.

“There,” you smirk, pausing to wipe your mouth with the back of your hand before getting to your feet again. The steady pulse between your legs is hard to ignore. “Was that so hard?”

“God dammit,” Yoongi’s voice is heady and dark as he steps in to close the distance between you. “I need to fuck you.”

You quirk an eyebrow, a little surprised by the bold statement. “Need?”

There’s a flash of something in his eyes that makes your cunt clench. “Get on the fucking table.”

Even as you follow his order, you can’t shake the feeling of still being in control, nor the smug satisfaction earned from making this man come undone so very easily. You hike your dress up slightly before perching on the table closest to the front of the room, your teeth raking over your bottom lip in anticipation.

Yoongi’s already standing in front of you, and his hands slide under your hips to firmly drag your ass to the edge of the table. In two swift movements he shoves your dress further up your thighs, then hooks his fingers under the lace of your panties and pulls them down, tugging them off one ankle entirely and leaving them to dangle from the other.

It’s only when your legs drop open that his hurried pace slows. He pauses, with a soft hum.

You inhale sharply when he lifts a hand up to brush over you. His fingers press against your folds in a V shape, teasingly pulling your pussy lips apart. Just the small motion is already enough to earn him a slick noise.

“Or,” he murmurs, “maybe I should repay the favor?”

Your chest constricts at the thought when you realize what he means. Going down on you, here, in a conference room, where anyone could technically walk in and see. It’s after hours, but you didn’t lock the front door— it’s not unheard of for someone to forget something at the office and double-back for it. It feels too luxurious, too dangerous. In more ways than one.

“We don’t have time, Yoongi.” Your hands fist in his shirt to pull him closer, and he steps in between your spread legs. “Just fuck me.”

The look on his face makes you wonder if you’re missing out. “Suit yourself.”

He fumbles into the pocket of his still pushed-down joggers to retrieve his wallet and fish out the condom tucked inside. A shiver runs up your spine as he tears it open and rolls it over his length.

Yoongi glances up at you when it’s all the way on, one hand pressing into the table behind you for leverage as he uses the other to line himself up with your entrance. It’s only now that you realize how very close to you he is. You’ve never done this face-to-face before.

With no prep, the stretch of him is nearly overwhelming when he pushes in, and you gasp. Yoongi stops when you do, only the very tip of him nudged inside of you.

“Hurts?”

“Not in the bad way,” you murmur, and he pushes in a little further, slow enough that you can feel every inch of him working your pussy open. Your fingers grip the edge of the table and dig in hard as you whimper at the sensation.

“That’s it, fuck.” Yoongi gives a grunt of effort as you take the last of him, until he’s pressed in to the hilt, your cunt clenched tight around him, your walls already fluttering softly from the pressure. You’re both breathing heavy as his hips momentarily still.

It takes you by surprise when his hand shifts to grab your jaw, tilting your gaze up to meet his. His tongue swipes over his bottom lip as he surveys you for a moment.

“Say it again,” he murmurs.

You swallow hard. “Fuck me.”

With the hint of a smirk, he starts to move. He rolls his hips to drag his cock nearly all the way out, then fucks it in again in one heavy stroke, angled perfectly to hit your g-spot. Your eyes roll back in your head.

“God, Yoongi,” you whine when he does it again, and again. “We— nnh, we shouldn’t be doing this.”

The hand on your jaw grips tighter. “Not even a lock on the door. Anyone could walk in and see.” Your cunt throbs at the low growl of his voice. “Do you want to stop?”

“N-no,” you groan as he picks up the pace of his thrusts, enough to make you dizzy. His hand slides down to splay broad over the column of your throat. “Please don’t fucking stop.” 

“Yeah?” He grunts, dark and raw, his grip tightening slightly. “Want it that bad?”

Your legs hook around his hips to urge him deeper, harder. “Need it.” Your voice is hardly more than a whisper from the pressure of his hand. You blink up at him, your eyes searching his— for what, you’re not sure.

“Need,” Yoongi breathes a laugh, more air than sound. “Makes two of us.”

Desperate for an anchor, you reach up and wrap your arms over his shoulders to pull him into you. Your mind is reeling with the adrenaline rush of doing something so reckless, and you press your bodies together until your noses bump with every stroke of his cock fucking into you. His parted lips are so close to yours now, you swear you can feel electricity sparking in the barely-there space between.

You feel like a live wire, like every sensation is amplified a thousandfold. Yoongi releases his grip on your throat to slip the same hand between his hips and yours, and his fingers circling your clit are enough to send you over the edge, fast.

“Yoongi,” you gasp into his mouth, your hands clawing at his shoulders as the pleasure builds until it’s too much, and your thighs start to shake. “Just like that, oh fuck, Yoongi, I-I’m gonna—”

“Come.” His lips brush against yours when he says it, a touch so light it could’ve been an accident.

You throw your head back with a strangled sob as your orgasm rips through you, and he leans into you, forehead dropping down against your collarbone, clearly close behind.

“God,” Yoongi groans hoarsely as his hips start to rut even faster. You’re so lost in pleasure, you can barely process that he’s speaking. “What are you doing to me?”

It only takes a few more thrusts and then he’s coming too, your cunt still spasming around him, both of his palms pressing flat to the table behind you as his voice breaks on a wordless rough-edged gasp.

You stay pressed into one another as you come down from the high together, all flushed skin and shaky breaths. Yoongi shifts first, lifting his head off your shoulder, and you take the cue to unwrap your arms from around his neck. It’s a slow, strained untangling, his spent cock starting to soften inside of you.

“Alright,” Yoongi still sounds breathless as he pulls out, and when he steps away, you reach down to tug your underwear back up over your hips.

Your saving grace is a box of tissues at the podium, and Yoongi makes short work of peeling the condom off, wrapping it in as many layers of tissues as he can before tucking it into the conference room trash can with a grimace. He uses a few more to clean himself up, then exhales a stream of air as he pulls his boxers and joggers back up.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

When you make it back to your desk, you pack your things up in a mindless haze. It’s only a minute or so after you finish that Yoongi emerges from his lab, and you follow after him out the glass front doors, neither of you speaking as you lock them from the outside.

The elevator ride down to the lobby is equally silent, until you step out and see gray-black stormy skies and a steady downpour of rain through the glass walls of the atrium.

“Shit,” you groan.

“Allergic to water?” Yoongi’s smug voice over your shoulder immediately makes your jaw clench.

“Shut up,” you snap. “I didn’t bring an umbrella, and the bus stop is a few blocks from my apartment. I’m gonna fucking drown.” Not that you care, you tack on silently.

“You take the bus?”

At this, you whip around to glare at him. “We’re not all millionaire music producers, you know.”

He shrugs, like you’re not wrong. “I can give you a ride. My car’s in the garage.”

Your eyebrows nearly shoot off your forehead, but Yoongi is already crossing to the elevator bank on the other side of the lobby. He presses the button, then looks back at you nonchalantly, like he’s just offered the most normal thing in the world.

Which, maybe it would be, under different circumstances. But there is absolutely nothing normal about your relationship with Min Yoongi.

As if to make the decision for you, a clap of thunder rumbles outside, so loud it feels like the building rattles. You swallow the last bit of dignity you have as you follow Yoongi into the garage elevator. Once the doors close, you can’t help but shoot him a look out of the corner of your eye, but his gaze is fixed on the indicator, watching the numbers tick down as you descend.

“Why are you being nice to me?” Your voice comes out harsher than you mean it to, and Yoongi turns his head to look at you, one eyebrow slightly raised.

“What does that mean?”

“Driving me home? We don’t do this.” You cross your arms over your chest, indignant. “As soon as the sex is done, you don’t want anything to do with me.”

You’re surprised when he laughs a little. “That’s funny.”

You narrow your eyes. “What’s funny?”

He stares at you pointedly, tongue poking at the inside of his cheek for a moment before he continues. “You say that, but if memory serves, you’re the one who keeps running away after.”

You open your mouth to respond, then close it, unsure of what to say. He’s not exactly wrong. Finally it comes back to you. “That’s not true. I saw you, on Friday, and I know you saw me. You left so fast you didn’t even finish your drink.”

Yoongi’s face scrunches up in a slight wince, like he’d rather not recall the moment.

“Yeah, well. That was different. I was trying to respect your privacy. Let you go on your date in peace.” He smirks slightly. “Though I guess it can’t have gone that well.”

You roll your eyes, your patience really starting to thin. “Jungkook and I are just friends, Yoongi.”

“Okay,” he says flatly. “In any case, I certainly didn’t plan to show up and ruin your night or anything. Just an unfortunate cosmic coincidence.”

You pull your bottom lip between your teeth for a second. “We seem to have a lot of those.”

“Yeah,” Yoongi sighs. “We do.”

The elevator doors slide open, and you lapse into silence again as you follow Yoongi to his car and slip into the passenger seat. After you give him your address and he plugs it into the GPS, there’s no sound at all other than the fall of rain and the swipe of his windshield wipers once you pull out of the garage.

You worry at your bottom lip until the words bubble up. “You don’t listen to music?”

Yoongi’s eyes flit from the road over to you for just a second, like he wasn’t expecting the question. “Uh, I— no, not really. I do that all day. I don’t mind the silence.” You take that as your cue to fall quiet. To your surprise, he keeps talking.

“You know, when I was a teenager, I had a part-time job at a music studio in Daegu.” He squints out the rainy windshield, like he’s recalling the memory. “I started making my own beats there, and I learned a lot of stuff that fueled my drive to be a producer.”

He glances at you again, and you nod, unsure where this is going.

“But, uh—” He huffs a laugh, like he’s embarrassed. “They didn’t pay me. Just kinda how things were back then, and I was too young to know better.” Stopped at a light now, Yoongi drums his fingers over the steering wheel. “I remember there were a lot of nights where I couldn’t afford both food and the bus ride home. If I wanted to eat, that meant a two hour walk home.”

Your jaw drops. “Jesus.”

Yoongi’s mouth presses into a flat line. “Yeah. Wasn’t easy.” There’s a heavy silence, and then he shrugs. “Anyway. Just made me think of it, when you said you take the bus. I haven’t thought about that in a long time.”

“Wow.”

The light changes color and he eases off the brake. You think maybe that’s all you’ll get, and then he nods. “It’s almost like I forget sometimes. That life isn’t still like that. It still feels like it could all get pulled out from under me any second.”

You hum as you take in his words. “And… that’s why you don’t know how to relax?”

The corner of his mouth turns up a little. “Pretty much.”

You can’t suppress the soft laugh that slips out, so you look out the passenger window, letting the sound flutter out to the rain-streaked glass. “Your villain origin story.”

When you glance back at him, a smile has stretched over the whole of Yoongi’s face, though his gaze is still fixed on the road. “Spoken like somebody who wants to walk home.”

There’s a gentle buzzing in your brain, and you wonder if it’s just a post-orgasm high. “Nice try, Min Yoongi,” you tease. “You don’t scare me anymore. I know you’re all empty threats now.”

His eyes flash, and in that moment his expression goes somewhere you can’t quite follow.

“Maybe so.”

The conversation lulls again, and you watch the rain fall fast and heavy on the car windshield, fat droplets scattered aside over and over by the relentless wiper blades.

Try as you might to not think about it, you can’t help but be hyper-aware of Yoongi sitting next to you. He drives one-handed, like it’s easy, his free arm resting on the center console between you. You can see the prominent veins of his hand in clear detail each time the car slips under the glow of a streetlight. Close enough to touch, if you wanted.

The silence has you counting your inhales. It occurs to you that this is the most time you’ve spent in such close proximity to Yoongi where you weren’t actively having sex. You don’t know what to make of it.

He turns into your apartment complex, pulling to a stop in front of your building when you point it out to him. You automatically reach for the door handle, then pause and turn back to look at him, figuring you should say something. “Uh, thanks. For the ride.”

Yoongi smirks. “Thanks for the public speaking lesson.”

You roll your eyes, but you’re smiling a little despite yourself. “I guess we’ll see tomorrow if it worked or not.”

“Guess so.”

There’s a pause, and your heart squeezes into your throat. You don’t know why it feels like you’re waiting for something to happen.

That thought alone is enough to spur you into action, and you quickly avert your gaze from Yoongi’s face. “Have a good night,” you murmur as you fumble open the door, grab your purse, and slip out of the car without waiting for a response.

As you climb the stairs to your apartment and hear the slick of Yoongi’s tires turning out of the complex, you can’t help but wonder if this counts as running away, too.

chapter six | masterlist | chapter eight

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