I Am SpEED READING ~the Finale~ While Also Racking My Brain Remembering Some Parts And Taking It All

😂😂 I am spEED READING ~the finale~ while also racking my brain remembering some parts and taking it all in. Does that make sense?! Anyway matchy U A MENANCE ISTFG--

Trip No Further | Chapter 19 (Pt. II)

Summary: When your valiant attempt to get your best friend laid not only backfires, but results in one mind-boggling discovery—that the world-famous idol Min Yoongi of BTS is your soulmate—you’re forced to confront your new reality. Soon, you will need each other’s touch to survive. Too bad Suga, despite his sweet name, is proving to be something of an acquired taste…

Pairing: idol!Yoongi x Reader Genre: soulmate!au, idol!au, slow burn, heavy humor, smut, idiots/nemeses/enemies to biases/lovers (iykyk) Word Count: ~10k Rating: 18+ Warnings: swearing, mentions of drinking/partying, explicit sexual content (spanking, unprotected sex, blow jobs, ill-placed atla jokes, breast play, allusion to a potential choking kink [but only if you squint], yoongi has a filthy mouth and he's not afraid to use it, the clit gets: slapped, marking, teasing, yoongi's bony fingers do the devil's work, softdom!yoongi but also subby/whiny!yoongi makes his grand debut) Links: AO3, Masterlist 🖤 Please note: Trip No Further does not have a taglist 🖤

A/N: If we live fast, let us trip young*~*~

Whewwww! Hey, besties. TNF's penultimate chapter is here 🥺💜 Without getting into it, I know it's been an eventful week in Bangtanland, to say the least, so I truly hope this chapter provides a little slice of joy or light to whoever needs it right now. I love you!

Chapter Nineteen (Pt. II): Journeys End In Lovers’ Meeting

You die a little death waiting for the car to arrive.

After a brief check-in with Jungkook and Jimin to make sure they’d be comfortable staying without you, you follow Yoongi out into the brisk autumn night, more aware than ever of your outfit—or, more accurately, the lack thereof. Two minutes ago, when you’d been inside with Yoongi, hiding together from the rest of the party, you’d felt like your skin was on fire. Now, goosebumps line your arms, only somewhat related to the chill.

It’s clear Yoongi notices you shivering, but it’s not like he can draw you in for a hug when you’re both outside and could be spotted. That sad reality doesn’t stop him from finding other ways to be menace, however.

“Don’t smirk,” you chastise, crossing your arms over your chest—your nipples have responded to the weather, pebbling up through the fabric of your shirt, and it appears Meeyooee has noticed. Far from dissuading him, your admonishment only spurs him to deepen his smirk—he tilts his head to the side, staring baldly at your chest before breaking into a shit-eating grin.

Asshole. He’s provoking you, knowing you can’t do anything about it. Not in pubic.

“What’s the matter, Princess?” Yoongi whispers, his voice carrying to you on the wings of a breeze. It’s insane how even now, your heartbeat still stutters at the pet name, but you recognize the fake-concern in his voice. This can only mean trouble. “Cold?”

His gaze flickers wickedly up to meet yours as the car pulls up, Jae behind the wheel.

Two can play this game.

“Not really.” You shrug, letting your arms drop to the sides. You’re impressed by how level and calm your voice sounds. “I’m just not wearing a bra, is all.”

Shooting him a wink—which instantly makes you feel like an idiot—you stalk over to the street, hearing Yoongi’s puff of laughter behind you. He trails after you closely, his breath tickling the nape of your neck when he leans forward to open your door.

The moment you’re both strapped in for the ride, the very air between you seems to shimmer, the space separating your respective legs sparking with electricity. He’s so close; he might as well be across the ocean. Your blood tingles through your veins like streams of liquid fire—more than anything, you want to reach across the middle seat and touch him. The only thing giving you pause is the knowledge that if you do it now, you won’t be able to stop.

Patience, you think. It’s hard-going, though. So hard. Desperate to release some of the tension coiling deep in your belly, you dig your fingers into the meat of your thighs, tapping your foot impatiently to the radio. When you glance over, it’s to see Yoongi mirroring your exact stance; his long, bony fingers dig into the carseat, dimpling the expensive leather with his strong grip.

You’re affecting him, you realize, just the same as he’s affecting you. You want him, just the same as he wants you.

It’s only once the car passes the usual turn-off that you remember you’re not headed back to the dorm. A thrill sparks through you as you zip down unfamiliar streets, headed somewhere new with the man who somehow always makes wherever you are—a hotel room in Paris; a utility closet in Los Angeles; an overlarge couch in a dorm room in Seoul—feel like home. You turn to stare at him, swept up in a sudden surge of emotion, and for one moment, as his dark eyes flick up to meet yours, Min Yoongi feels yours for the taking. He smiles at you like he has a secret. He smiles at you like he’s going to share it. If you’ve learned anything since June, it’s that everything can change—that everything does and will change. That’s the reality, and it’s unescapable. Sometimes those changes are out of your control, but sometimes they’re not.

You chose this.

You chose him.

Yours.

The sky is pitch black, the glow of the streetlights providing paltry illumination as the car pulls down a secluded side-street, depositing you in front of a tall apartment complex. You unbuckle your seatbelt, preparing yourself to sprint to the entrance, when Yoongi chuckles.

“Relax,” he says, the first thing he’s uttered since you both entered the car. “This is a safe complex—Hobah has an apartment here, along with many other actors and artists. Don’t worry too much.”

As though to drive the point home, Yoongi winds an arm around your waist the moment you’re back in the cold, the soulmate connection overriding your chills with heady anticipation as you mosey into the complex, your slow steps belying the urgency coiling deep in your gut. Once the pass the doorman, however, heading over plush carpeting into a separate hall with the lifts, the atmosphere shifts. Yoongi’s hand drops from your waist to grab at your hand, and he drags you forward, one thumb jamming the up button at least four times impatiently. You giggle, and he shoots you a thoroughly unamused look laced with something else—something that looks a lot like desperation.

“In a rush?” you tease, and to your surprise, he literally tilts his head back and groans. You’ve barely any time to contemplate this new development before he’s striding forward, caging you between the slice of wall separating the lifts and his arms; his chest; his intoxicating scent of musk and sweetness… his whole fucking deal washes over you. Slowly, he drags the back of his hand from your temple to your jaw, blown-out eyes hyper focused on your reaction to his touch as you take in a jagged breath.

You know what he’s doing, and the knowing—the knowledge that he’s reminding you that he knows, too—makes you shudder. Just like that, the two of you hurtle back in time. You’re standing outside the dorm again, waiting for the elevator to take you down and away from him. You’re pretending Yoongi’s touch is just like any other. You’re lying to yourself, and you’re lying to him—

And he’s seeing right through you.

“You feel so good,” you admit now in a choked whisper. “You always have.”

Maybe you should be embarrassed at the blatant neediness underscoring your tone, but it’s hard-going when he’s looking at you like that. It doesn’t matter that he hasn’t even touchedyou yet—not properly, anyway. Suddenly, you’re overcome with a desire to rewrite that night—the night you became nemeses and called Yoongi “a means to an end.” Suddenly, it feels like if you’re not honest with him now, you might never get the chance to prove to him how much you want him—how much he’s ruined you for anyone else—again.

“I know, Princess,” he says, splaying his hand out over the expanse of your throat; your pulse thuds wildly against his fingers, but you make no move to wriggle out of his grasp. You like him here—like the rush of adrenaline flooding your veins as he observes you, his expression primal and enraptured. He dips his head down, nuzzling into the crook of your neck for a minute, and you can feel his throaty laugh reverberating through your entire body. When he pulls back, he looks disheveled. He looks undone. Your breath catches, your fingers tugging him closer by the loops in his pants almost subconsciously. The truth is, you haven’t had the talk yet, but something about that look ignites something deep, something full, something you think you might finally be ready to face in your chest.

Maybe you can belong to each other, you think.

Maybe you already do.

Just before the lift arrives, Yoongi flashes you one of his genuine, gummy smiles—the one that stops your heart—and whispers something that makes you crumble: “You feel good to me, too.”

When the elevator dings and the doors slide open, you’re the one who pulls him into the car—he stumbles after you, looking sort of dazed, and you have to ask him several times which floor before he finally comes to, scanning his thumb (of course, you think) on the biometric reader before jabbing the button for the penthouse.

No sooner do the doors close than he’s on you again, his lips chapped and rough, his grip on your exposed waist strong and relentless, as though he’s nervous you might disintegrate in his fingers, or even float away if he dares let you go. You feel languid, drunk not on alcohol, but on the fact that somehow, you’re getting to see this new side—this stripped-of-all-disinterested-pretense side—of Yoongi. He’s so worked up. He’s not even trying to hide it, confident at always in going for what he wants. On a whim, you push him off you, and he goes willingly, chest heaving as he stares at you with lidded eyes and swollen lips.

“Is everything all r—”

“Sh,” you cut off his concern, watching the confusion in his eyes morph into an almost anguished lust as you slide a hand under your skirt. “Stay there.”

Yoongi swallows, jerking his head in an obedient nod as he tracks your movements with rapt attention, groaning as you shiver involuntarily when your fingers graze against your clothed heat. The skirt is short enough that you think (you hope) he can see exactly what you’re doing—can see just how wet you already are for him as you loop your thumb through the top band of the lacy material—you came prepared tonight—and tug gently, wriggling your hips a bit until your panties slide over your ass and drop down, coming to rest on the floor. You step out of them with one foot, then cock an eyebrow at Yoongi before slowly lifting the other foot up, the ruined fabric dangling around your ankle, messy cunt on half-display for him. You feel obscene, and very, very powerful.

“Here,” you say simply, your heart pounding hard as Yoongi’s jaw drops, his pupils blown black and wide as he takes a moment to recalibrate. He drifts toward you as though he has no choice—as though you are a siren; as though you are his destiny—and grips your waist to steady you as his free hand relieves you of your damp panties and stuffs them into his pocket.

“It’s like that, huh?” he murmurs, canting his hips forward as he towers over you. One of your legs is still hovering a bit in the air—when his pelvis connects, you inhale sharply, seeing stars. “My filthy girl.”

You bite your lip, inwardly preening at his praise. There’s nothing but the thin material of his pants separating your naked, slippery warmth from the erection you feel pressing insistently into you. 

Hello, you think distantly. Zuko here.

Before you can do anything else, the elevator slows to a smooth stop—but not at your floor. You only have a split-second of time to react before the doors glide smoothly open, revealing two sweaty, white, middle-aged men in gym clothes—there must be some sort of athletic facility in this complex—who clearly have less than zero interest in the two of you, despite your heavy breathing and dope ass matching costumes.

In one seamless motion, Yoongi spins and smooths your skirt down for you, shielding you from the newcomers by trapping you between the far corner of the car and his back as one of the men scans his finger for his floor, a few stories below the penthouse.

With your head leaning against the back wall, you tilt your chin to the side and catch your reflection, distorted and filmy, in the far elevator panel. Your eyes are wide and bright; your hair in complete disarray. If you had Yoongi’s complexion, you expect your cheeks would be pink and flushed right now. Your entire body is hot. Tingling. You feel both fully grown and like a little girl—hopelessly giddy for what’s to come.

The elevator pulls to a stop, and, compelled by the power of petty vengeance—tonight, you want nothing more than to get him back for his staring stint outside; to bring this beautiful man to his knees—you reach forward to rub a cheeky hand over Yoongi’s ass. Just because you can. Just because he’s yours now. He latches onto your hand with surprising celerity, squeezing tight as though salvation lies in the fusion of your fingers—as if you’re the anchor keeping him from getting swept up in the wreckage of a sudden squall.

“Careful, sweetheart,” he breathes, flexing his grip on you for a second, and the way his jaw flexes as the men get off on their floor tells you everything you need to know. He intends to get you back for that.

You’d like to see him try.

Still feeling playful, you step around him once the doors close until you’re face to face again, delighting in how he runs a thumb over your lips when you smile teasingly at him; at how his other hand goes to cradle your head and pull you into him again, his hold uncompromising and deliberate. He kisses you like he’s testing to make sure you can take it; like he needs to do his due diligence and ensure you won’t break. His tongue thrusts into your mouth fiercely as he alternates between sloppy kisses and teasing nips, not too far gone to lose his rhythm, but when one of your hands drifts up to his chest, he swats you away.

“Nuh uh,” he says, and you realize then that this is your punishment; he’s going to make you beg for it. Make you beg for him. You’re still processing this when your vision blurs as Yoongi spins you around again to face the doors as they slide open. Behind you, he commands, simply: “Move.”

The elevator lets out into a short hall, with only one door to break up the drywall. Yoongi hovers behind you, crowding your space, making your entire body tingle like a lyre that’s been tuned to the highest frequency. Everything in you grows taut, waiting for him to touch you. You want him to pluck you, to play you like a piano; to hold on and never let you go.

Trust him, you tell yourself. Yoongi scans his thumb again, and then you’re taking your first step inside his flat.

Though you wouldn’t admit it aloud, a part of you had expected Yoongi’s apartment to lack in personality. You’d assumed it would look almost like one of those model homes—an impersonal but aesthetic bachelor pad that prioritized minimalist sophistication over warmth and character. 

To your pleasant surprise, that’s not the case. Exposed brick greets you upon entry, lending a cozy, lived-in feeling to the admittedly spacious living room. A cursory scan reveals soaring ceilings, worn-in leather armchairs, overstuffed bookshelves, and a record player—the glass is still up, as though Yoongi had been about to switch the record before heading out the last time he was here.

“Whoah,” you breathe, taking your time ridding yourself of your shoes. He doesn’t hurry you. He doesn’t say a thing. But the moment you’re barefoot, he grabs your hand and pulls you along crudely after him to what you imagine is his bedroom. “Look at that view, is that—”

“Later.”

You can’t help but giggle, neck craning this way and that to gather what snatches of information you can—there’s a wooden console table in the hall that looks like it might be handmade, perhaps by Yoongi himself; an office with a miniature basketball hoop attached to the outside of the door, which seems impractical. You point at it.

“Why—”

“Baby,” Yoongi interrupts you, squeezing insistently on your hand, and then he finally succeeds in pulling you into his bedroom and shoving your back against his wall. One of his hands comes to grip your waist, keeping you stationary; the other slides along the wall behind you, flicking some sort of dimmer switch, so a single light, amber and ambient, ignites from the ceiling. It’s enough so that you can make out Yoongi’s features—his glowing, dark eyes; pouty lips; sharp jaw; surprisingly broad chest—but only just. You two might as well be outside, the low glowing embers of a campfire your only source of illumination.

“Hey,” Yoongi says, his voice gentle—and then his hands are roaming over your stomach, fingers dipping under the fabric of your shirt to discover you hadn’t been lying to him before.

“I missed these tits,” he says in a low growl. You blink, and his lips are traveling down your throat, sucking harshly against the skin there—marking you, you realize. Signaling to the world that you belong to someone, and that there’s someone out there who wants you—who claims you. Someone you were made for, and who was made for you.

Soulmate.

Your knees buckle, unable to withhold your whimper as his thumbs caress the swell of your naked breasts. The cold had betrayed you, but your top had enough padding to warrant your decision to go braless—a decision Yoongi is wasting no time in making known his approval. With no warning, he bucks his pelvis into you, his lips sucking down from your neck to nip at your exposed collarbone as he hooks his fingers under the material of your shirt and tugs upward. Obediently, you lift your arms, allowing him rid you of your top.

Abruptly, he pulls back, running his hands almost chastely down the curve of your body before he lets his arms drop to his sides. His eyes are twin burning coals in the shadows as they roam over you—your kiss-swollen mouth, your bare chest heaving under his heated stare, your legs pressing together in search of the friction you so sorely need. When his tongue darts out to wet his slightly chapped lips, you think you can feel your brain leaking out of your ears. You can’t believe you’re still standing. You are made brighter under his attention, as though lit from within by starlight.

“Yoongi,” you choke out, already so gone for him. You take him in, standing before you, fully clothed with a slight furrow between his brows and his jaw clenched—almost as if he’s in pain. As if he’s literally in distress over baring witness to you. For a moment, the world stops. You freeze, mouth parting slightly as his eyes rake shamelessly over your figure again. The intensity of his stare makes you want to look away.

“Baby,” he murmurs, and then he must see something in your expression—some flicker of self-doubt as you try to hold on to his endearment—because his gaze softens marginally when you two lock eyes.

“Come here,” he says, and you have no choice—you step forward, a moth to a flame. For a second, he doesn’t touch you, leaving you to stand there with your stomach curling in anticipation.

And then—

“So pretty,” he breathes, almost to himself, pulling you into him. Suddenly, he’s on you again—he’s overwhelming; he’s everywhere—his thumb tweaking your nipple, coaxing it to a stiff peak, while his other hand comes to cup the heavy weight of your other breast. “You’re so beautiful, YN,” he says, his tone betraying nothing but awed sincerity as he dips down to replace his hand with his tongue.

“Fuck,” you whimper, squeezing your eyes shut as the wet muscle flicks against your nipple. Your back arches, chasing the high as your eyes roll back in your head. “Yoongi, please—”

“What’s that?” he taunts, biting gently down on your hardened bud. You jerk in his arms, shaking in pleasure when his tongue comes out to lathe at the skin, soothing the sting. He refuses to stop his assault until you’re a writhing, pliant mess beneath him. Overcome with a burning need, you slide your hands down his clothed torso, fingers hooking into the waistband of his pants, but he makes a tutting sound against your lips in warning.

When you try it again, he spins you around until your nipples—aching and fully erect now—graze the wall, your cheek pressed into the plaster. You relish the cool temperature against your sensitized skin.

“Can I?” he whispers into your neck, letting his fingers slide down to toy with the fabric of your skirt. Gently, he cants his hips into the curve of your ass, earning a mewl from you.

You nod, words failing you—but Yoongi won’t have it.

“Let’s hear your words, Princess,” he says as you scrunch your eyes shut.

“Yes, Yoongi,” you manage to croak out. Trembling with want, you allow Yoongi to divest you of the last of your costume, his hands traveling all the way down your leg and circling your ankle, helping you step out of the skirt. You can sense rather than see him straighten back up behind you, and a shiver rolls up your spine. You’re completely naked now, back arched, ass out, waiting for him to do something to you. Anything.

A second passes without him touching you. Two, and he still hasn’t made a move. You clamp your lips down together, determined not to unleash the desperate pleas you feel sparkling up in your throat. The waiting is a glorious torture, turning the edges of your vision warm and fuzzy as you concentrate on trying to read the mind of the man behind you. He is all you can think about—he is all you want.

Tonight, you need to make sure he knows that.

When you can’t bare it any longer, you tilt your chin to back to gaze behind you, and find Yoongi looking at you again with that same pained expression, biting his bottom lip. It’s like he’s actually paralyzed by how many things he wants to do to you—now that he has you here where he wants you. You bite back your own moan at the sight, pressing your thighs together in search of some relief, feeling as though you understand his quandary.

How do you express to someone that this is it? That you want it forever? How many different ways can you show someone without words that, yes. This is it for me. I’m sure if you are.

“Please,” you whisper—it’s as good a start as any. All the waiting is killing you, the longing and trust and admiration and understanding you have of this man twining together in your gut. Your core throbs, impatient and wanting, under the weight of his consideration.

“What’s that?” he says idly, as if utterly disinterested in your answer.

“Yoongi,” you whine, your composure crumbling on a dime. He’s driving you crazy. He’s barely gotten started. “Please, please touch me, I—”

“Sh. It’s okay.” In a flash, his hands are back where you want them—one links around your waist, pressing you into his chest, while the other impatiently spreads your folds, gliding down to your entrance.

“Spread your legs for me,” he murmurs, the words slurring a bit—or maybe you just can’t hear him right over the delicious head-rush his command inspires. You comply without hesitation, granting him direct access to your cunt, keening as his fingers dip to gather up your slick in a long, luxurious stroke. “Such a good girl,” he whispers, and you feel the curve of his smile against your throat. He plants a hot, wet kiss on your pulse point. “Already so wet for me. You’re dripping, YN.”

Your knees weaken at his tone, and he notices, chuckling darkly as he drags his fingers up to circle your clit. Your hips buck involuntarily, the stimulation as heavenly as it is unbearable.

“This pussy is just begging to get stuffed,” he continues, voice dangerously low and almost stern. “Is that what you want, YN? You want me to fuck that tight, wet cunt the way it deserves?”

God, yes. You’re trembling now, his sinful words causing a new wave of arousal to pulse through you. His arm wound around your waist moves, sliding slowly up your chest and coming to rest lightly over your neck again. Your eyes go half-mast and you swallow deeply under his fingers as he whispers your name—a question. You nod your consent eagerly, needing him to move. You don’t think you’ve ever been this turned on before.

“Yeah?” he breathes, sounding almost dazed. You hum weakly, eyes fluttering closed in rapture as he flexes his fingers with feather-light pressure, securing you against him as he slips two fingers inside of you, curling expertly against your walls.

“Fuck. Look at that,” he says, the hand on your throat drifting down to play with your breast again. Your gaze drops to where his digits pump in and out of you, the sight so erotic and the sound so lewd that if it weren’t for the soulmate connection flooding your body, you’d almost believe you were watching an adult film. This can’t be real. This can’t be your life. “Such a needy little pussy,” Yoongi goads you. You squeal when he suddenly exits your heat to slap two sticky fingers harshly against your clit. “Should I spank you for being such a greedy girl, Princess?”

Your pussy clenches hard around nothing at his words, your cheeks heating up as your craving for him reaches a fever pitch, pooling deep in your belly. You jerk your head in a nod, too riled up to say anything, black spots tinging your vision.

“Take a breath for me, YN.”

You didn’t realize you were holding it in—but Yoongi pays attention to you. You can trust him. Nodding, you release a shuddering breath, twisting your neck to blink back at him with your best doe eyes—but it’s all for naught. Yoongi’s not going easy on you anymore.

“Speak up, baby girl.” he smirks. “No more of that coy shit. Not with me.”

“Yoongi—”

“If you want something, you gotta ask for it.”

What do you want?

When you still remain silent, he flips you around to face him, cradling your head in his hands, forcing you to meet his gaze. You can smell your essence on his fingers, deeply musky and sort of sweet.

“What do you need, sweetheart?” he whispers, resting his forehead against yours. You see his Adam’s apple bob in his throat as he swallows around nothing, and that tiny, visual cue—the reminder that he’s just as affected as you are—gives you the courage you need.

“Spank me,” you whisper.

He grins.

“Then get over to the bed,” he says lazily, eyes drinking in your shaking, bare form, “and bend over for me.”

His predatory gaze does something to your insides—you can’t imagine ever denying him. You heed his request, breath catching in your throat as after a moment, two hands come to rub over your ass, kneading the skin and pulling the cheeks apart. A yelp of mortification catches in your throat—you’ve never felt more exposed in your life—but the long groan of obvious desire Yoongi releases as he plays is enough to ameliorate the heady (and not necessarily unwelcome) discomfort of letting him see you this stripped down; this vulnerable.

Your soulmate is not the type of man to do something he doesn’t want to do, you remind yourself. And he’s certainly not the type to outwardly praise something he doesn’t like.

As though he can read your thoughts, his voice drifts over you, like a pinion cutting through the mist of your apprehension.

“Give it to me, baby,” he says, and for a moment, you’re not sure what he’s asking for from you. 

“Whatever you’re worried about, give it to me,” he breathes, and you melt. “Give it all to me.”

The sweet words, followed by a loving caress, sends you soaring up to the rafters—because he’s doing it again, you realize; he’s letting you shed whatever shame you brought into the room, showing you it has no place in here with him—before the sharp sting of his hand lands on your ass, the crack of it ringing through the silent room. You lurch forward with a gasp, more of surprise than pain, the tingle spreading belatedly through you as Yoongi’s hand comes back to rub soothingly over the abused skin. Slowly, Yoongi inches closer to you, smothering you in his heat as he curls down, his chest warm against your back as his free hand returns to roll circles against your clit. Driven by instinct, you grind back hungrily into his fingers.

“That’s it, baby,” Yoongi growls, his erection pressing into you. “I love it when you take what you need. Let go for me.”

“Fuck, Yoongi.” You rut against him, his encouragement making your blood sing—because this, again, is another gift he’s giving you. He’s always finding ways to show you that you’re safe with him; that nothing you can feel—nothing you can want—can ever be wrong with him. He’ll meet you wherever you go. He’ll take whatever black thoughts plague you and siphon them away. He’ll use his words, his actions, his fingers to turn your ailments into music. Into something beautiful. “Can you take another one?”

“I can do it,” you breathe, pliant and boneless and his, his, his. “I can take it.”

A beat of silence.

“I know you can,” Yoongi rasps, and then the second strike comes down on your ass, eliciting a moan from each of you. All the uncertainty—the overthinking; the desire you’d trampled down; the words you’d bitten back and the questions you’d let go unanswered—evanesce into nothingness. There’s no place for any of that anymore. Not now, when you’re here with him.

Yoongi hand caresses your ass again, and before he can draw it back for another strike, you flip around, grabbing his wrist. He looks down on you in subtle surprise, and you wonder if the expression is mirrored in your face—you certainly hadn’t planned on moving. You’d wanted to be patient for him; to let him take his time, even if you went crazy from the waiting.

But enough is enough. You’ve proved to him that you’ll follow him—over seas and across countries, and now, at long last, up to a penthouse, on top of Seoul and the whole wide world. You grip the bottom of his shirt, and for one moment, you think he’s going to stop you—to swat your hand away again, and make you beg for this, too.

But he doesn’t. The asshole-y smirk that you love—the cool pretense and lazy disinterest—drops from his face as you drag the fabric up, tossing it unceremoniously to the floor. Your eyes rove over his torso greedily; the milk-pale skin, the dusky nipples, the winding trail of black hair leading below.

You drop to your knees on the hardwood, curling a finger at him. As though hypnotized, he stumbles forward, slightly sweaty strands of hair hanging in his face as he watches you undo the button of his pants and tag the material down; you hardly notice him kick them away, your eyes homing in on the outline of his cock bulging through his briefs. As you watch, he reaches forward to palm the length, giving it a little squeeze to take the edge off. The sight has you practically drooling; your tongue pokes out between your lips, unbidden, as you stare up at him.

“YN,” he says, and his voice is wrecked. “You don’t have to—”

“Let me,” you whine, fingers looping through the band of his briefs. There’s a wet spot that you press your lips to, kitten-licking at the material, and his eyes narrow as he stares down at you, mouth popping open a sliver. “Wanna taste you so bad, Yoongi.”

“Yeah?” he asks, finger coming to card through your hair. You hum against the outline again, heart soaring like a blown flame when he tilts his head back, eyes squeezed shut at the sensation.

“Go on then, baby.” He presses a finger between your lips—the one that had just been inside of you. Your swirl your tongue indulgently around the digit, tasting yourself on his skin, releasing it as he groans with a faint pop. “That’s it,” he says, voice deeper and more ragged now. “Wanna see you choke on my cock.”

That does it. You tug his briefs down, his cock bobbing up instantly to rest against his lower abdomen, and finally, finally, Min Yoongi, your soulmate, is standing naked before you. It comes as no surprise that his cock is just as beautiful as the rest of him—long, straight, and more girthy than you’d expected. You’re smug to discover he’s already leaking, his head flushed and ready for your ministrations. Wasting no time, you reach forward to feel the weighty warmth of his cock in your hand, gathering up the beads of precum with your thumb and rubbing them over his head before giving his length an experimental pump.

“Don’t tease me,” Yoongi hisses, his voice strained. You look up to meet the fire in his gaze with a shy grin before leaning forward to wrap your lips compliantly around his tip, sighing in happiness at the warm saltiness of him. You swirl your tongue in a sloppy, wet circle before focusing on the underside of his head, lust dripping between your legs as he lets out a throaty moan, staring down at you with hooded eyes.

“Oh, fuck.” He sucks a stuttering breath through his teeth, and your heart quickens at how this must look to him; his pretty cock resting between your smeared, swollen lips as you suck him off like your favorite candy. As though reading your mind, he tilts his head back again, hand flexing in your hair—he doesn’t push, but you know he wants to. “You look so hot like this, YN,” he says, brows knit together as he exhales shakily. “So fucking sweet for me.”

Drawing back, you give him another pump with your hand and then, keeping eye contact, spit on his length, before immediately diving down to lick a slow stripe up a prominent vein, all the way back up to the flushed, angry tip. His hips jerk as, with no warning, you relax your jaw and swallow him down as far as you can with a series of obscene slurps, hollowing your cheeks and using your hands to service what you can’t fit in your mouth. Adjusting to his size, you establish a rhythm, head bobbing, eagerly soaking up his quickening breaths and quiet, worshipful groans as you pick up your pace, gagging on his velvety skin.

“Shit,” Yoongi gasps, hips surging forward involuntarily after a particularly deep thrust. Eyes watering, you power through the discomfort to lean forward, managing to take his entire length, feeling the tip of his cock graze the back of your throat. His thighs clench, his stomach muscles tensing as he mutters a string of lewd, affectionate curses, the filth of which only serves to encourage you.. Determined, you hum lightly before swallowing around him, one hand coming up to gently fondle his balls.

“Holy hell.” Immediately, Yoongi’s fingers clamp down and he rips you off of him, staring down at you in fucked-out reverence. You meet his gaze with teary eyes, your soaked lashes fluttering. You feel so tall, so strong, right now, down here on your knees. “What the fuck?”

He looks mesmerized, utterly enthralled by you, his breathing heavy and labored. You manage a pleased smile, practically purring at how flustered you—your mouth, your touch; you, just you—have made him.

You mean to stand up to meet him, some insecure part of you still needing that reassurance—still needing that reminder that you are on his level, and that it’s okay to assert yourself as his equal, and that you can stand strong in your belief that you really are his partner. His other half.

But Yoongi doesn’t make you rise up to meet him.

He drops to his knees.

“YN,” he says, your name rough and idolatrous and desperate on his tongue. He cradles your face, claiming your mouth hotly before drawing back, looking you bang-on in the eyes.

“Was it good?” you rasp.

He shakes his head, looking to the ceiling like some sort of aggrieved votary seeking a higher power.

“Princess,” he huffs a laugh. “I have literally never been this hard in my life.”

He pulls you up with him, both of you rising together in perfect, synchronized harmony—one flame and one shadow—and then he’s walking you backward, pawing at you, and together you’re a clumsy jumble of limbs. No one’s in control; no one’s steering this ship. You’re both swept away together, driven by pure need; both caught up in a frenzied haze of relentless, reciprocal passion.

“I need to be inside you,” he murmurs, pressing you onto the bed, and his lips travel down, up, across your body, branding nonsense patterns into your skin with his tongue. “Want you so badly, YN,” he says as he crawls over you to settle between your thighs. “Always fucking want you.”

You watch his eyes travel over to the bedside table, but when he reaches for the drawer, you wrap your arms around his neck, pulling his chest flush against yours. You want to keep him here—want to continue sharing the same breath for as long as possible. You can’t imagine ever letting him go.

“I want to feel you,” you whisper, body aflame at the way he instantly freezes above you. You know he’s clean, as are you—the doctor you shared with Bangtan had tested you all before tour, and you’d shared everything with him (including that you had an IUD) during that ride back to the hotel in New York. “Is… that okay?”

Yoongi nods, his expression darkening into something hungry and primal. Slowly, you take hold of his length, peering down between your bodies to see the way the tip, glossy from precum and saliva, shines under the low light. When you drag it up and down your folds, smearing your essence over his already messy cock, Yoongi groans, planting his forearm on the bed next to your head as he plunges his tongue into your mouth. There’s no more finesse to the movements anymore. It’s all tongue and teeth and hot and wet, unstripped and raw and perfect.

“Please,” he whines, and the sound is devastating. He’s practically begging now, relinquishing all control. Placing everything that he is—all his trust, and his want—in your hands. “Please, baby. I need you.” 

He pulls back to look at you, and in that moment, time stops—or at least, it compresses for the two of you. His dark hair fans across his face, his lithe, toned chest heaving. Sweat beads across his brow as his cock twitches in your grasp, seeking out your wetness and heat. He is, now and always, the prettiest man you’ve ever seen. And he’s staring down at you like you’re the beautiful one. Like he never wants to stop looking.

Again, you align the tip of his heavy cock with your entrance, and this time, instinct takes over. Threading your free hand with his, you arch as Yoongi slowly presses in, the stretch of him considerable and overwhelming, even after all the prep.

“Fuck,” you moan, pussy fluttering around his flushed cockhead. Your vision goes white, bliss ripping through you like a forest fire, hazing down every barrier left standing within you.

“You can take it,” Yoongi grits out, fingers coming up to pluck at your nipple. You mewl into the sensation, rocking your hips, allowing him to slowly spear you open, feeling every veiny, heavy inch of him as he sinks further into your heat.

“There you go,” he encourages you, voice breaking the deeper he goes. “That’s… that’s it.”

He stops when he’s finally fully seated, panting as your walls tremble around him, but wanting to let you adjust to the sensation. You don’t know if you ever will—you feel full, stuffed to brim with him, driven absolutely incoherent with pleasure and satisfaction. Maybe it’s the soulmate connection, or maybe it’s just him. Yoongi. Only he has ever made you feel this way.

“Fuck YN,” he grunts, slowly rolling his hips to drag himself out of you before snapping forward to thrust back in, pressing to the hilt. Eyebrows furrowed, he shakes two strands of hair from his eyes before beginning fucking into you with long, hard strokes that have you reeling, incandescent with how good he feels. “So… fucking… wet,” he grits out. “So warm and tight for me.”

“Harder, Yoongi,” you plead, arching up to lick into his mouth—and his resolve breaks instantly. You swallow his moan before he instantly complies, driving hard and deep into you, emptying your mind of everything but the slap of his skin, the sheen of his sweat on his forehead, and the warm pulse of his cock splitting you open over and over. You can feel your orgasm looming over you already, the coil growing tauter and hotter with every passing second. Before you can reach that height, however, he pulls out, dipping down to kiss you before slinging both of your legs over his left shoulder, pressing your thighs together.

“Such a pretty pussy,” he says, eyes all pupil as he stares down at your glistening cunt. He slaps it once, as though to give it a high-five in appreciation of its service; your hips jerk up, a shocked hiss escaping you, and his returning smile is all teeth, making him look positively angelic before he drills devilishly back into you with a ruthless thrust. The new angle is even more intense than before, allowing him to stroke your g-spot as he pistons into you.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you curse, teeth rattling in your skull.

“Right there, huh?” he says knowingly. Somehow, he quickens his tempo, eyes darkening as he watches your tits bounce while he plunges into you, hands digging into the meat of your thighs, pushing them closer to your chest; it’s all you can do to continue staring up at him, completely fucked out, just taking it. “Don’t be shy, YN. Let me hear how much you like it,” he growls. “Let the neighbors know how good you’re getting fucked right now.”

You don’t even need the coaxing. Seeing him working above you is mesmerizing, launching you into another stratosphere of being entirely; moans pour from you, throaty and unfiltered as you grab onto his slick, heated skin for purchase. Your fingernails scrape up his back, coming up to grab a fistful of his silky, sweaty strands.

Yoongi groans, and the sound shoots straight to your clit as he bares his teeth—apparently, he enjoys it when you tug on his hair.

“Shit.” His fingers dig into your skin as you gasp, breathless; you want this man lodged so deep inside you he comes out the other side—if you didn’t know any better, you’d think he already had. “Your pussy’s so amazing, YN,” he groans, face falling forward as he reaches out a hand to begin rubbing your clit again with precision. You squeeze your eyes shut as your thighs quiver; you’re dizzy, overwhelmed by how easily he’s unraveling you, your body a tapestry only he knows how to weave.

His next question catches you off-guard.

“Think Benny could fuck you like this?”

“N-no,” you gasp, cursing again as Yoongi continues to pound into you. You’re close now, body bouncing wildly against the mattress, his question whirring in your head as his pace turns absolutely punishing. You can hardly breathe for the pleasure, your fists clenching into the sheets. “There’s—fuck. There’s no one else for me, Yoongi. Only—only you. It’s always been you.”

“That’s right,” he says, leaning over you. You lose yourself in him, in how good he fills you up.

“You gonna come on my cock for me, baby?” he whispers, lips brushing against yours. “Gonna show me who this pussy belongs to?”

There’s one suspended second in which seem to you float outside of yourself, your soul drifting up to look down on your body from up above. You can see it all clearly, now—see how you’re caught on a precipice. Understanding washes over you that it’s too late to rewind the clock; too late to take anything back. You’re in too deep. All that’s left is to try to prepare yourself for the inevitable free fall.

When you return to yourself, you meet Yoongi’s gaze, taking in his lopsided grin as he looks down on you—and it’s over. Time resumes, and you’re catapulted straight over the edge of reason and into oblivion. Throwing your head back, you let yourself to succumb to what feels like endless waves of pleasure; a strangled sob escapes you, garbled and throaty, as Yoongi fucks you through it.

“That’s it,” he hisses, refusing to let you come down from your high. Your pussy convulses around him, sucking him deeper and deeper, your lips pulling in and out with every thrust. “Shit. That’s my girl.”

Your heartbeat jumps several paces at the fond, fucked-out way Yoongi praises you—how you feel, how you look, how sweet you are for him. At last, you slump down onto the mattress, boneless and utterly spent—but you know Yoongi’s not done.

And after a moment, you realize that neither are you.

You don’t know where you gather the strength from; vaguely, you wonder if maybe you don’t. Maybe Yoongi’s just attuned enough to your mind and body that he can sense when you want to lead him somewhere, and he’s willing to follow.

Just take what you fucking want.

You tilt your pelvis, and he lets himself slide out of you; lets you roll him over until he’s laying back on the bed and you’re situated on top of him, straddling him, hands planted on his chest. When you shift forward, his proud cock catches at your entrance.

You both groan; you’d only have to lift a bit to fully sheathe him inside you. But you don’t—you still need a second to regroup and come down. You take moment to look down at him, admiring the way his sweaty hair fans out on the comforter, and how his creamy chest is flushed a bit pink with effort. 

What a relief, that the many roads you’ve walked in life brought you here, to this moment with Yoongi.

What a relief, to be his soulmate.

What a relief, to know deep in your bones that you are in love.

All at once, your chest feels unbearably heavy; you can sense it on the horizon, the tidal wave of emotion threatening to engulf you. To pull you under. You love him. Suddenly, he can’t be close enough. You need him pressed against every inch of you, the desire so fierce it rips a growl from your throat, and you lunge forward, linking your hands under his armpits and tugging until he’s sitting up, facing you.

You wrap your legs around his hips, seated in his lap, eye-to-eye and noses grazing. The urge to confess everything to him is almost overwhelming; you’re brimming with everything unspoken. In lack of words, you communicate it all with the way your fingers trace up his hard chest and then over his shoulders, drawing him impossibly closer; and maybe he, too, is saying something when he leans forward to place a chaste kiss to your shoulder, before gazing up at you in tender supplication.

You kiss him, slow and deep, as you lift above him, and you’re not sure if his groan is from your lips or the feeling of sinking back into you a second later. You expect him to begin fucking up into you, continuing the furious pace from before, but to your surprise, he grips onto your hips, forearms visibly veiny as he concentrates on guiding your rhythm. He rocks you slowly, agonizingly against him, forcing you to feel every inch of his cock dragging through you. You’re dizzy with how full you feel; how snug the fit is from this angle.

Eventually, Yoongi’s hands begin to roam; he cups your breasts, then brings his fingers up to brush at your hair before tracing them down again to caress your shoulders; your neck; the curve of your waist. All the talk from before is replaced, at least for now, with quiet gasps and contented sighs. It begins to scare you, how good the building pressure feels. You’re terrified of when it will end. You never want this to be over.

“I knew you’d take me so good,” Yoongi whispers against your lips, hand coming down to give your ass a quick spank again. “You do, don’t you?”

You watch him greedily as he throws his head back, looking utterly debauched, and you feel certain in this moment that you’re the only one who’s ever seen him like this. Yoongi’s many things to many people, but this Yoongi—this one’s just for you.

“You feel so fucking tight, YN.” His voice is as rough as the way he’s bucking up into you now, his motions beneath you becoming sloppier as he groans. “Shit. I’m gonna—I’m close.”

The words are like an incantation, speeding up your own second release; you grind down into him, clinging desperately to every nonsensical, filthy word he murmurs under his breath as you both hurtle towards climax. When you slide a hand down between your bodies, stroking your clit, a look of pure distress flashes over his face.

“Jesus fuck, keep doing that,” he groans. “Where do you want me to come?”

“Inside,” you pant instantly, gripping onto his shoulders for dear life. “Wanna feel you fill me up, Yoongi, please.”

“I will, baby,” he promises, and you feel your core muscles clenching again, milking his cock as your crescendo of pleasure approaches its crest.

“Look at me,” he commands, voice strained and needy—and that’s all it takes. The second you lock eyes, thunder crashes over you, and you’re dragged into a white-hot surge of pulsating pleasure; it feels like a euphoric drowning. Your body goes soft and pliant, allowing Yoongi to latch on and use you for a few more thrusts before he groans, filling you with hot spurts of cum.

Stars burst behind your eyes as you allow yourself to collapse onto him, his arms a strong, sweaty cage around you as he peppers your face with mindless kisses. After a moment, he rolls you over until you’re both laying side by side, Yoongi staring at the ceiling, and you staring at him. You’ve fallen asleep beside this man every night for months now, but this feels novel. There’s not an inch of your body that doesn’t feel warm, sated, and secure.

“Stay there,” he murmurs once his breathing slows, his raspy voice lulling you out of your reverie. Untangling himself from you, he swings his legs over the mattress and gets up—heading, you assume, to the master bathroom you didn’t notice until now. You prop yourself up on your elbow, admiring the compact muscles of his back as he moves, your gaze skirting down to check out his—

Oh.

“Meeyooee, you whore!” you burst out, the image of the small, black 7 tattoo on his asscheek now forever seared into your mind. Sejin had beckoned Yoongi back down to the party before you’d been able to see the booty in Paris, and though you’d had every intention of continuing that conversation, you’d crawled into bed and passed out before Yoongi got back from the party.

It’s hard to muster up the strength to think, let alone move, while you’re still coming down from your delirium, but you’re considering getting out of bed to text Daehyun when Yoongi reappears carrying a soft looking hand towel, shooting you an impossibly soft smile as he climbs over you. With careful movements, he hooks an arm underneath your knee to bend it up, pressing your thigh closer to your stomach and exposing your core again. There’s nothing salacious about the gesture; wordlessly, he goes about toweling up the mess he made, now dripping wetly down your thighs. Butterflies alight in your stomach, sleepy but still noticeable, at his silent tenderness. He maneuvers your legs as though they’re fragile things—as if they have to be handled with great care.

When he’s finished, he gathers you up in his arms and lays back, kissing your forehead. A bone-deep exhaustion passes through you, as if you’ve spent the past hour commanding Yoongi’s warships to shore.

You’re docked now, you want to whisper. You’re home, and safe for the night.

But you don’t say a word. Instead, you fall asleep to the feeling of your boyfriend’s thumbs tracing idle patterns into your skin.

When Yoongi wakes up, the bed is cold. He blinks groggily, confused, until he makes out the sound of water running in the bathroom.

Seconds later, you appear, your bare figure etched in silvered moonlight. You look resplendent, like some sort of diaphanous creature—a goddess come to life, or an angel plucked from a dream. You pad lightly across the floor, and he reaches for you. Were the world his, he would sepulcher you both in this moment—fold the world up at the sides like a flower blooming in reverse, and trap himself here with you, forever. No need to leave. No need for reality to leak in and tarnish what deserves to be kept pristine. Perfect. He squeezes his eyes shut and commands himself: remember this. Remember her.

Never let yourself forget.

And he won’t. Yoongi doesn’t break his promises, and he vows to himself that he will remember, no matter what happens. When he needs to—when he’s lonely, or unsure, or missing you—he’ll recall this night and that for a few, glimmering seconds, here in the dark, everything was good.

His next words rise in his throat unbidden, like a brilliant, pillared fire, as he watches you. He speaks before he has a chance to think.

“Do you want this?”

He can’t believe how simple the words are, how easy they are to get out: it feels good, at long last, to speak the question you’ve both been dancing around into existence. Because now that he’s had you, he knows he can’t endure any more stalling. The ellipses you two have created together need to reach a conclusive ending, the period at the end of the sentence, the happily ever after, the end. He needs you to be sure. You two have pried open the last lock keeping you separated from each other, and anything less than absolutely everything would feel like a betrayal, now.

Yoongi watches your eyes go wide, twin lanterns beaming out at him through the shadows, and for the first time, he begins to worry that the woman he wanted to be his future might choose to become a chapter of his past.

“Do you?”

“That’s not what I asked.” What aren’t you getting? He doesn’t want you to think of him right now. He needs you to choose, and to do what you want. It won’t work any other way.

“I spent a long time worrying it would be wrong of me to ask you to remain my soulmate,” you say, voice soft and quiet as you reach for his hand. Your fingers look so small in his palm. It’s preposterous. It’s the worst thing in the whole wide world.

“It made me sick,” you continue. “It made me feel like a monster. How could I ask you to give up your freedom? If you weren’t chained to my side and forced to be with me, you could do so much more. You could spend a night in the studio without worrying about me. You could visit your friends and family without having me along. It’s not fair for me to ask you to give that up. Right?”

Yoongi blinks once, slowly. It’s like watching a slow motion train wreck he’s helpless to prevent, only it’s his heart caught on the tracks, about to be run over. All of the dark thoughts he’s been holding at arms length swoop in like a cauldron of bats, cloaking him in their shadow. He wants to reach for you, because you’ve become the person he seeks out for comfort, but then he remembers he’s already holding your hand.

Her fingers, he thinks. They are devastating.

You’re still not sure, and it’s not enough.

Just take what you fucking want, he’d told you, but what he’d wanted was for you to want him. He’d spent so much time trying to make you understand—trying to get you to believe in the power you hold over him. Because he knew if you were going to do this—if you two were going to be together—he couldn’t have you doubting how much he wants you. That was important. You had to know, and then you had to believe it, so that you could feel safe enough to trust him and want him back.

And that’s just it. He wants to be wanted so badly by you that you refuse to accept any other option. He wants to be wanted selfishly; wants to be coveted; he wants to be yours. For a while, he thought he was. Don’t you get it? You’re the only person in the universe who could actually want him for him—for who he really is, and who he’s shown himself to be to you. With you, he’s not Suga. He’s not Agust D. There are no pretenses or walls up between you.

But you’re still unsure.

It’s not enough.

“Yoongi.” Your voice gets impossibly lovely when you’re scared—and it breaks his heart, this realization that you’re scared to break his. You lean towards him, and for a moment the scent of spicy vanilla lotion overpowers his senses, ushering in a tide of nostalgia unfit for the seriousness of the moment. Yoongi closes his eyes, sinking into a tidal pool of buried memories—of your laugh, shrill as a hyena’s, as you chased Jungkook around the dorm when he’d spilled sauce on your pajamas; of the way you’d stuck your tongue out at him on the airplane, right before a chunk of hail pelted you in the eye; of those early July hours he’d wasted trying to decide whether he wanted to understand how you worked to make it easier on himself, or maybe just wanted you—until his head clears.

“Don’t,” he whispers, because he needs a second. He needs to elongate this moment before the glass truly shatters; before everything he’s spent the past months building—everything he’s tried so hard to protect—crumbles to dust in his fingers. 

He walks to the bathroom, just to splash some cold water on his face. Just to give himself a moment.

When he returns to the bedroom, the nascent morning light spilling in through the curtains, it’s to find the bed empty.

You’re gone.

A/N: SORRY (NOT SORRY) IN ADVANCE FOR THE ENDING, BESTIES. Please just trust me.

If you enjoyed reading, it would mean so much to me if you considered leaving a comment, sliding into my asks (anonymously or not!), or re-blogging with some feedback about what you thought, particularly since this is TNF's second-to-last chapter. Silent readers, now's a great time to come out of the woodworks 😂💜 I really hope you loved this one, ya'll—it holds a pretty special place in my heartu.

With that, I LOVE YOU ALL and I'll see you next time, for TNF's final update (!!!!!!). If you feel like supporting my work in another way, you can check out my Ko-fi here! 💜

Last Chapter (Finale!)

Ok first off, I QOULD LIKE TO SINCERELY APOLOGIZE FOR BEING THIS LATE!! ALSO- theres some dots connecting to TNF so imma pretend it is cus I just cant let go of it 🥺🥲

Amazing as always, whats there more to say about THE @matchstick6812?!!? I love u sm ×10000000 💖💗💖💗💖💗

BRO I LOVE HOW U WROTE KOOK HERE HES SO CUTE ♡♡

I was gonna say smth... but I forgot..... ANYWAH- IM EXCITED FOR THIS AND IMMA SUPPORT U ALL THE WAY, FOREVER ;))))

Undone Business | Chapter 1

Summary: When Jungkook gets caught in the crossfires of a humiliating PR crisis, his team is desperate to rehabilitate his image—by hiring an escort to keep him in line and restore his “good boy” persona. Well, tough tiddies if they think he’s agreeing to that stupid idea. Jungkook doesn’t want a babysitter, and he certainly doesn’t want you…

Pairing: idol!Jungkook x Reader Genre: reluctant-sugardaddy!au (yes, this is a thing now; no, i am not accepting questions at this time), escort!au, idol!au, humor, smut, some hurt/comfort... Word Count: ~7.3k Rating: 18+ Warnings: Please check the end notes for additional content warnings for this chapter—they contain spoilers, but better safe than sorry if you're unsure! Links: AO3, Masterlist, Ko-Fi 🖤 Please note: Undone Business does not have a tag list 🖤

A/N: *Busts out from my cave of depravity* GUESS WHO'S BACK, BACK, BACK—BACK AGAIN, BABY! This one goes out to all my fellow JK sloots. Strap in, besties—it's gonna be another hornt-up, chaotic ride.

Where did UDB get its name? From this poem by Charles Olson. What’s on the UDB:1 playlist? Bad Reputation by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts; Save Me by BTS; Tired of California by Nessa Barrett 💜

CALLING ALL TRIP HEADS: Undone Business takes place in the Trip No Further universe—but rest assured, you do not have to have read TNF to dive into the story, as UDB stands 100 percent on its own. For those who have read TNF, however: UDB technically picks up about three weeks after that story's final scene.

P.S.: Please check the end notes for additional content warnings for this chapter, and for an important post-script from moi, Your Royal Topness!

Chapter One: The Gono-Gong Gang

So it had come to this.

After two months, six flights, fifty-odd missed calls, and one miserable night spent sleeping in a hotel bathtub, Jeon Jungkook—Golden Maknae; Nochu; Justin Seagull; Muscle Bunny; Baby Star Candy; Jay Kayyyyy—was officially fucked, in every sense of the word but the fun one.

Two months. BTS had been on “hiatus” for two fucking months, and somehow, he alone out of all the members had managed to not only set fire to his reputation, but also to get dumped by his girlfriend in one fell swoop. It was bogus. It was insanity. And it was going to cost him 150,000 won if the bet he’d made with the members about who was going to blow everything up for himself first was still on.

Which, okay. Granted, the bet had started off as an innocent joke between pals. Only Jungkook hadn’t fully been kidding when he’d placed his money on Taehyung being the first to go down. Not that he didn’t trust the guy, or anything—just, come on. The kid played it fast and loose on Instagram, these days—it was a recipe for a PR disaster! Right? Yeah. Right.

It was just… the fact that neither Taehyung nor Jimin had texted Jungkook to pay up kind of concerned him. Because if no one was teasing him about the news, then—well, then he was right to fear the worst.

Jungkook was in deep fucking shit.

Two weeks ago, the weather in Korea had still been unseasonably warm for the end of January. Now, the air outside had a sharp, bitter bite to it, as if even the elements were conspiring to make sure Jungkook didn’t get too comfortable today. Well, tough tiddies, Weather Gods—right now, Jungkook actually appreciated the frigidity, thank you! He welcomed the excuse to bundle up in a puffer jacket and gloves, his armor against the world, as he made the short walk from the dorms to Hybe.

And about those dorms: nobody else was living in them at the moment—there was no reason to, considering BTS’s last world tour for the time being had concluded last April. After getting dumped, however, Jungkook found that he didn’t want to go back to his empty apartment in Seoul, which he’d more-or-less been sharing with his girlfriend. Instead, the familiarity of the dorms had come as a reprieve. Back in the day, the dorms had provided a sense of continuity to Jungkook in an otherwise hectic life; a sense of safety.

Not anymore. Waking up today, the entire building had felt fucking foreign to him. Haunted. Like that feeling he got when he’d had that photoshoot in an elementary school gymnasium a few months ago. Jungkook hadn’t stepped foot in an elementary school for years—there was no reason to—but walking down those halls had given him the strangest sense of cognitive dissonance, like he’d just discovered he was a giant masquerading as a man all along. It was like he no longer understood how to fit inside his own narrative.

It was like he no longer belonged.

The gym, especially, had felt so small to him. Standing there, facing the cameras, he’d had this sudden flashback of playing jegichagi during P.E. as a child. How big the gym had seemed back then; how shiny the wooden floors! That was strange, wasn’t it? How for a good portion of his life, Jungkook had believed the gym was gigantic? It wasn’t, though! Not really. It was tiny, nothing compared to the size of a sold-out stadium.

Yeah. That scared him, thinking about how he’d been so wrong for so long; about how someone could be so blinded by their own perspective. Because what else was Jungkook wrong about? What other obvious truths had he missed?

Christ. What was he doing? These maudlin thoughts were no good for him right now; he couldn’t afford to get all introspective and sad until later. It was February—Valentine’s Day, to be exact—and without the members around, the only thing keeping Jungkook from locking himself in his room and going ham on a jumbo-sized tray of tteokbokki (with extra cheese, thank you) was the fact that he was currently on his way to discover whether or not he’d flushed his entire career down the toilet.

So, that was all fucking awesome. Just how he’d wanted to spend the day. Depending on how the next hour went, he might add a carton of ice cream to that grocery list, because—who cared! Not his ex-girlfriend, that was for fucking sure.

“Jungkook-nim.” Hybe’s receptionist inclined her head politely when he stomped into the building. “You’re here for your ten o’clock meeting, correct?”

Jungkook shot her a wan smile, wincing around his lip piercing: it felt fragile today, like it was made out of spun glass instead of precious metal.

“Right,” he confirmed, fidgeting under her professional stare. There was nothing judgmental about it, he knew, but he was feeling a little raw—a little shatterable—and wished she’d just, like… cover her eyes while she was talking to him. Like they were playing peek-a-boo, or something! Not that he’d thought his gloves and coat would, like, shield him from getting recognized, or anything. Of course not. Jungkook got recognized everywhere he went, and Hybe was his fucking company. He was known here.

It was just… he hadn’t felt this exposed—this on edge—since he’d been a trainee.

It fucking sucked.

If the members were here with him, it would be different. He could face this, he thought, if only one of them were by his side. Namjoon would ground him with his calm, reassuring platitudes; Seokjin would crack a stupid joke to distract him; even Yoongi and his grumpy silence would at least be a familiar sort of unease, far more welcome than the uncertainty with which he was now forced to contend.

Yeah. Fuck this. As much as Jungkook hemmed and hawed about wanting more responsibility—more autonomy—the truth was, he was ill-equipped to handle these kinds of situations solo. So, with extreme reluctance, as of Bam not wanting to take medicine and Jungkook having to hide it in the most foul of dog treats to trick him into wolfing it down, Jungkook dragged his feet into the lift and rode it up to the ninth floor—the legal floor—before slumping into the conference room Sejin had confirmed to him via e-mail. Neither Sejin nor Kitae had arrived yet—though Jungkook could see Sejin’s laptop further down the table, already hooked up to the projector—so Jungkook settled into a chair, one man alone at a long, oval table large enough for twenty, and waited.

It was going to be a long day. Not that Jungkook was unused to long days, or anything. He was still an idol, even if the group had announced its hiatus in order to focus on solo projects for the next two years or so.

And the thing was, Jungkook thought bitterly, everything had been going pretty smooth sailing until now! RM had released his album to overwhelming acclaim; Jimin had danced in both a Cardi B and a Megan Thee Stallion music video; Hobi had partnered with Balenciaga to release a special line of bags; Jin and Taehyung had both accepted lead roles in K-Dramas; and not only was Yoongi gearing up to release his first album, but he’d gotten engaged, so he was probably going to be playing house with his fiancée for a while. Maybe they’d adopt, like, a cat. And Jungkook had…

Well, he’d been chumming it up with the Westerners, just like the label had wanted him to! Over the past two years, Jungkook’s English had seen a steep improvement—largely in thanks to Yoongi’s fiancée, who was multilingual and a trained tutor—and so when Charlie Puth and Benny Blanco had invited him to get in on a new song with them six months ago, he hadn’t hesitated.

To be honest, that was an understatement—Jungkook had basically blown his load at the chance. Sure, Benny didn’t pass Tae’s vibe check for shit, and Charlie’s TikToks were kind of cringe, but nevertheless, Jungkook had always admired the two men—perhaps to an unhealthy degree. As such, he’d made a concerted effort to keep in touch with both of them after attending a Halloween party with them in Seoul seventeen months prior.

God, that Halloween party. If he could rewind time, would he take it all back? Would things be different now—better now—if he’d only stayed home?

It had been a big night. Charlie had given Jungkook cocaine that night for the very first time. C o c a i n e. A big boy drug. And guess what? Jungkook had held his own! Okay, fine. Maybe he’d gotten a little more chatty than usual, but it’s not like Charlie or Benny had understood what the fuck he was talking about at nine-hundred kilometers a minute—which had been, according to Jimin (who’d stuck to whiskey), the innumerable wonders of banana milk.

So, yeah. No harm done. Far from it, actually. In truth, that evening stuck out in Jungkook’s mind as an auspicious turning point for him. Benny, who was nearly ten years his senior—and who Jungkook had been pretty sure hated him—had dubbed Jungkook “down to hang” at the end of the night. That had felt fucking cool. Look, not everyone got complimented by the man behind such undeniable classics as Moves Like Jagger. Say what you want about Benny, but that was a fucking song! No denying it!

Anyway. After that night, Jungkook had made it a point to keep in touch with the two of them—as much touch as he could while being in Korea and not speaking their language, anyway. But clearly, he’d done a good job, because they’d approached him with a new song around six months ago. The timing couldn’t have been better. To be honest, it felt like fate. Not only were Charlie and Benny both able to fly over to Korea to record it, but Jungkook’s schedule had really cleared up in the last four months before the hiatus announcement, so he’d been able to follow Charlie and Benny around on a mini promotional tour, and the three of them had sort of—well, they’d become, like, a thing. A real trio.

It made Jungkook feel sort of foolish, admitting to himself just how much he’d liked that. Taehyung had the Wooga Squad, and Jimin had the Parka Squad, and Yoongi had his fiancée, and now Kook—well, he, Benny, and Charlie had yet to come up with a squad name. Westerners didn’t really do that sort of thing—not that he’d have been opposed to it if they’d floated the idea, or anything; far from it, actually—but still! He’d felt grown and capable, being able to establish his own group dynamic outside of the members like that.

What’s more, the fans had loved it. The paparazzi laws in Korea were far stricter than in the States, but Jungkook’s blossoming social life had been well-documented regardless, thanks to Charlie and Benny’s shared penchant for social media. They posted loads of photos of the three of them out at exclusive clubs in Gangnam, and eating at swanky restaurants in Hongdae. When Jungkook had taken them to his hometown, Charlie had let TikTok know they had gone to find out what was “tasty in Busan.”

It was fucking badass.

Three years ago, Hybe would have banned Jungkook from sharing that he even knew what a club was, let alone that he’d stepped foot inside of one. But times were changing. BTS was growing up, and Hybe had allowed—nay, encouraged—Jungkook’s networking efforts, provided none of the photos posted featured any women. Benny and Charlie were both well-loved in Korea, and the public enjoyed seeing Jungkook living his best maknae life with another group. Their song was a hit, and the more the three were pictured out together, the more staying-power it had on the charts.

So, yeah. The past few months had been like something out of a fucking dream. BTS had been trying to age up its image for years; the collective hope was that by the time they made their comeback after their hiatus, they’d be welcomed back, not as idols, but as artists. As adults. For the past two months, a world in which that dream could be realized had seemed possible.

So how had it all gone so wrong?

After all, if Jungkook had never met Charlie and Benny, he wouldn’t have a number one single on the Billboard Charts right now.

And if he hadn’t gone out with them to that club in Gangnam five months ago, he’d never have met his girlfriend—ex-girlfriend, he reminded himself bitterly—Choi Eunha.

And if he hadn’t been newly free of BTS’s group commitments, he’d never have jetted off to Los Angeles two weeks ago to perform the song live with Benny and Charlie at Staples Center.

And then he’d never have brought said girlfriend along—his roll-with-the-punches girlfriend, who’d enthusiastically agreed to Benny and Charlie’s suggestion that they all go out—to a club after the show. A strip club.

And then he’d never have been caught up in a mortifying PR nightmare—the likes of which a Bangtan member had never known—as he was now.

“Jungkook.”

Kim Sejin’s familiar—albeit rather strained—voice wrenched Jungkook from his dark spiral as he entered the conference room. Hybe’s lawyer on retainer, Nam Kitae, hurried in after him, shutting the door with a decisive thud.

“I’ll level with you,” Kitae said, forgoing salutations—he dropped heavily into the seat next to Jungkook with a sigh. “It’s not great.”

“I know that,” Jungkook said quickly, eyes widening a fraction—he didn’t want Kitae to think he wasn’t taking this seriously. He was; he definitely was. All at once, the room felt hot. Stiflingly so. Should he take off his jacket? Or his gloves? No—those were his shields. He’d feel naked without them. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, to die of heat stroke right now. At least then he wouldn’t have to face this disaster…

As Kitae busied himself with his briefcase, Sejin—shooting Jungkook a look somewhere between an apologetic smile and a wince—strode over to the laptop Jungkook had noticed on the table earlier. With a few clicks, the device lit up—and so, too, did the projector screen on the far wall.

Heat flooded Jungkook’s face; if he hadn’t been burning up before, he certainly was now. He couldn’t bring himself to read the words glaring out at him from yesterday morning’s headline. He knew them by heart, anyway.

“I can explain,” Jungkook said, suddenly terribly invested in staring at a loose thread in his gloves. The thing was, there was no way to sugar coat it. Three days ago—the same day a heartbroken Jungkook returned from Los Angeles—Charlie had gone live on Instagram. At one point, he had turned his phone screen toward the camera to show his viewers a picture. Harmless, right? Wrong! Because at that exact moment, Charlie received a text from some girl named Trixie informing him that he had given her an STI.

It didn’t end there. Not thirty seconds later, Charlie’s girlfriend—who had been watching the live behind the camera—burst into the frame and confronted Charlie about cheating on her in front of nearly two-million viewers.

And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Hours later, another girl Charlie had slept with—allegedly—made a TikTok about how she also had an STI she suspected she’d contracted from him; and that TikTok inspired someone Benny had slept with to come out of the woodworks and accuse him of giving the same STI to her, too.

Before Jungkook knew it, what felt like the entire internet had erupted into a very public, very heated flame war in which twelve different women from six different continents—some of whom had been in Los Angeles last week; but also some who’d been in Gangnam when they had, and other countries, too—began blasting Charlie and Benny over Twitter. It was messy. It was a fast-motion train wreck. Charlie and Benny tried to play it down by tweeting out some truly regrettable things about the women, and had made it worse.

It was a shit show—and, as to be expected, the entire thing spurred on a veritable media frenzy, which eventually culminated in TMZ publishing an article with the terribly catchy article: The Gono-Gong Heard Around The World.

Gono. As in gonorrhea.

Yeah.

But that wasn’t all! Oh, no. It got worse—much worse. What happened next was that the bane of Jungkook’s existence—a group of dedicated high school internet sleuths—once again proved they knew how to mobilize better than any political party. They set their sights on collecting the names of people who had been out with Benny and Charlie the night of the infamous gonorrhea orgy—the gonorgy, if you will—like infinity stones.

Their combined efforts made the hashtag #GONO-GANG! ASSEMBLE! trend on Twitter. After that, it was only a matter of time before a photo of Jungkook, Charlie, and Benny—sitting with six of the twelve women who’d accused Charlie and Benny of giving them STIs—at that stupid strip club leaked online.

So.

Yeahhhhh.

And, okay, sure, Jungkook had been at the strip club that night—but only because his girlfriend had wanted to go! The same girlfriend he’d brought along on the trip with him and who was no longer his girlfriend due to: she broke up with him!

It wasn’t fair. It’s not like Jungkook had even done anything at the club beyond sit there with his hands shoved in his pockets and blink. He hadn’t even really looked at any of the boobies because he’d been so busy worrying that his girlfriend thought he was looking at the boobies, and then would turn to look at him and see the reflection of the boobies bouncing in his big brown irises and get sad or something. Well, joke was on him, because it turned out his girlfriend had been the one looking at the boobies the whole time! Traitor! Because the next night, she broke up with him for an American dancer she’d met at the club named Gigi—Gigi, whose entire shoulder was covered with a tattoo of a dragon eating a plain Korean corn dog and was apparently really fucking cool!

Yeah. Eunha had even taken care to specify that bit about the corndog when she’d stomped all over Jungkook’s heart—that the dragon on Gigi’s shoulder was eating a Korean corn dog, as opposed to an American one. Not that you could even tell the difference between a plain Korean corn dog and an American corn dog from the outside, but apparently they were all just supposed to take Gigi’s word for it? Sure, Jan. What the hell?

Anyway, all of that was to say: Benny and Charlie both got gonorrhea, which wasn’t the end of the world—except then they’d turned it into a media circus where infidelity and sexist tweets and unfair power dynamics had come into play, which kind of was the end of the world. It was the death knell on whatever good faith they’d managed to curry with the public over the past decade or so, anyway.

God. Then that fucking photo of Jungkook had leaked, and so naturally, everyone had begun speculating that Jungkook might have contracted and passed around The Gonorrhea, too. Which—not great. It wasn’t even that contracting a curable STI was the worst thing on the planet or made you a bad person or anything—shit happened! Jungkook knew that!—but he actually took sexual health and safety very seriously. He’d always made it a point to be transparent with new partners and have that conversation before proceeding with The Deed of Darkness.

So, yeah. That sucked on a personal level. None of the gonorgy participants had breached the conversation of sexual health before batter dippin’ their old (Korean) corn dogs—that much was clear. But, see, if Jungkook had only been allowed to talk about sex—which, as an idol, he wasn’t—he would have used his platform to educate his fans about how to have it safely by now. That’s what he stood for! That’s what he practiced!

But that was the thing. He didn’t get to promote that message. Sure, he could oil up his abs and flash his nipples and grab his cock on stage until the cows came home, but to so much as mouth the word “sex” was tantamount to a crime in his industry—and so now his fans (who days before had been proud of him for networking and making friends across the world) were pissed at Jungkook for having his name attached to the whole Western-celebrity-STI-ring instead of being pissed at, oh, he didn’t know… the actual celebrities passing around all of those curable and preventable STIs!

Welp. That was idol life for you. He and the members had hoped to break out of that mold with this hiatus, but perhaps that was too lofty a goal.

Only—was it? All Jungkook had wanted was to build his solo career up, and maybe—with Eunha’s blessing, of course—to gradually introduce the idea of him being a Person Who Dated to the public. He’d wanted to shed his baby bunny image; he hadn’t wanted to market himself as a fuckboy! Not that he was a fuckboy. He was just a boy who fucked! Well, fucked one girl, anyway. His girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. Whose name had been Eunha. Still was, it’s not like she’d died! Except for all Jungkook knew, she’d changed her name over the past few days to something futuristic and gender neutral and cool, like Megatronexxi. They weren’t talking anymore. It was possible!

Damn, he missed her. Sure, she’d been kind of mean to him most of the time, and had made fun of his style (especially that ill-advised mullet) a lot—and yeah, he couldn’t talk with her about his interests for more than two minutes before she zoned out and changed the subject back to herself. 

But! She was talented, and a tattoo artist, and really, really pretty. Her fingers were soft and had looked so delicate and small when she’d wrapped them around his erect—

No. NOPE. He wasn’t thinking about that. About her. He was in the middle of a crisis!

Only it was hard not to think about her when he was forced to stare at a photo of himself sitting in the very strip club where he’d lost her to another dancer. Gigi. For all he knew, Gigi had leaked the picture! Jungkook narrowed his eyes at the image on the projector. The Jungkook-of-that-photo had it all, he thought bitterly. He was cheesing, flanked by Charlie and Benny—both of whom were visibly hammered—and probably thinking of something innocent, like… soup. The poor kid didn’t know the shit-storm waiting on the other side of that night for him.

“So, we got your results back from the doctor,” Kitae began brusquely. “You tested negative for all possible STIs. Congra—ahh…”

He trailed off awkwardly, seemingly unable to bring himself to congratulate Jungkook for failing to contract an STI.

“Told you so,” Jungkook grumbled, unable to keep the slight edge from his voice. The moment the news had broke, he’d gone on a conference call with both Kitae and Sejin, and had sworn on Bam’s life—Bam’s!—that he hadn’t participated in the gonorgy. Yeah, all right, so there had been a small part of him that had worried that maybe Eunha hadn’t been faithful—that maybe she had contracted something and unknowingly passed it on to him. If that was the case, he’d have nothing which which to defend himself, even though he’d done everything right.

Now that that had been debunked, though, he could go back to:

feeling righteously indignant that Kitae hadn’t believed him, and 

moping because his technically-faithful-albeit-fickle ex had dumped him in a foreign country for someone else.

“What’s our next step, then?” Jungkook said, anxious to hurry along to the next part—the part where Kitae told him he had a solution to this whole quandary, so Jungkook could go back to his lonely, haunted dorm, bury his face in a pillow, and scream. “Do we post the results online and call it a day?”

Jungkook didn’t miss the furtive look exchanged between Kitae and Sejin. He just didn’t know what to make of it.

“The results will be made public soon, yes,” Sejin said, clearing his throat. “Hybe is preparing a statement on your behalf that confirms you have a clean bill of health.”

“Great,” Jungkook said with real enthusiasm. Like, not great that he had been forced to publicly release his sexual health records in order to distance himself from the Gono-Gong Gang—not the squad name he would have personally selected, if given the choice—but it was what it was. If Hybe was preparing a statement in his defense, it meant all was not lost. When he got home, Jungkook made a note to send Hybe’s hard-working publicists flowers. “And I’m sure we have our team responding to the media outlets that reached out for comments and letting them know as much?”

“We do…” Sejin conceded.

Jungkook hadn’t realized he was hunched over in his seat until the wave of relief washing through him allowed him to sit upright again.

“Good,” he said; suddenly, the room didn’t feel so hot anymore. “What timeline are we looking at here? I don’t want to rush anyone, but I think we should aim for no later than tomorrow. Better to quash the rumors ASAP, right?”

Again, Sejin glanced at Kitae. Jungkook tracked the movement, the nape of his neck prickling.

“Actually, Jungkook,” Sejin said, “before we give the publicists the green light to respond, we wanted to discuss your future plans with you—particularly, the work commitments you’ve signed up for over the upcoming weeks.”

Jungkook didn’t love where this conversation appeared to be headed. Before he could ask for clarification—for reassurance, really—Sejin continued.

“As you know, you’re scheduled to fly back to America next week for two months.”

“Right,” Jungkook said. Following the success of his single with Benny and Charlie, Jungkook had received a slew of collaboration requests, but the offer that excited him most had been an invitation to appear in a documentary. Rolling Stone was taking its Musicians on Musicians series and turning it into a film—and they’d asked Jungkook, along with some absolute musical juggernauts, to participate. Big names like Bad Bunny, The Weeknd, Drake, Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa, and Harry Styles were all confirmed. Jungkook was set to fly back to Los Angeles in six days, presuming he hadn’t been let go from the project. Once filming concluded, Rolling Stone was even putting on its own mini-festival, and they’d given him a headlining spot, at the end of April.

“Did they fire me?” he asked in a low voice.

“Er… no. Not… yet.”

Yet. Jungkook felt something calcify in his heart, then; dread churned in his stomach.

“The producers called,” Kitae said. “And even though you haven’t participated in any of the Twitter discourse—thank you for that, by the way—they did voice some hesitations.”

“Hesitations,” Jungkook intoned. Surely Rolling Stone wouldn’t be so antediluvian to demonize something so incredibly common as a rumored STI? That would be insane. His sexual health was none of their business. That would be illegal!

“The problem here is that over the past few months, you’ve been photographed out and about with two men who are swiftly becoming the most notorious people in show business at the moment,” Sejin explained. “Not because they contracted gonorrhea, but because of how they’re handling that revelation.”

“Not only are they publicly denigrating the woman they slept with on Twitter,” Kitae said, “but Charlie has also humiliated his girlfriend, and is seemingly unrepentant for his infidelity.”

“This is like if that Ned Folger guy had started tweeting horrendous things about his wife and mistress,” Sejin said, “and also had been on crack.”

“Fulmer,” Jungkook corrected morosely. He was still sour over that particular scandal.

“Charlie and Benny are feeding into the drama, and airing their dirty laundry for the world to see,” Sejin said. “In short, they’re making you look like a liability.”

“But I’m not the one doing any of that!” Jungkook protested.

“No, you’re not,” Sejin said. “But the court of public opinion believes in guilt-by-association, and the execs behind the Musicians on Musicians project have worked with enough temperamental stars to be wary. They want this project to run smoothly and to be a success. It’ll be a huge blow to the studio if one of the people they’ve chosen to highlight ends up in a scandal. They don’t want another Armie Hammer on their hands.”

“I have more than a decades worth of professionalism and success behind my name,” Jungkook said, voice tight. “And I have not once expressed a desire to eat any of my partners!”

“No, BTS has more than a decade worth of professionalism and success behind its name,” Kitae corrected bluntly, choosing to ignore the latter half of Jungkook’s defense. “And the other six members continue to have a spotless record. You are the only one who finds himself embroiled in controversy.”

“But I didn’t do anything.”

“I wish that’s what mattered,” Sejin said, far more kindly. “But the optics aren’t on your side, and so not only do we have to act fast to fix this, we need an iron-clad defense.”

“But—”

“Look, Jungkook,” Sejin interrupted. “Cancel culture in this day and age is punitive, and the Western market especially loves a fall from grace. If we don’t act swiftly, and give these people every reason—an irrefutable reason!—to believe you have nothing in common with Charlie and Benny beyond your collaboration, than your reputation will take a hit. It’s not fair, but it’s the reality.”

Jungkook deflated, staring sightlessly at the two men who’d been with him, silent pillars of support by his side, since he was fifteen years old. Kitae and Sejin had always acted in the band’s best interest—and not only that, but in the best interests of the people who ended up sucked into BTS’s orbit. He had no reason to doubt that they were giving it to him straight.

“Okay.” He clasped his hands under the table, trying to prevent them from shaking. He could do this. He could have this conversation without breaking down. “What are you proposing?” Jungkook swallowed, his throat feeling very dry as a new panic set in. “Wait.” His voice cracked. “You… you are proposing something, aren’t you? You have a plan?”

“We do,” Kitae confirmed, finally meeting Jungkook’s eyes. Kitae had always been a no-nonsense sort of guy, and right now, Jungkook found himself appreciating that candor. He could sense by the way Kitae had pressed his lips into a thin line that he was about to say something Jungkook didn’t like—something that was gonna feel like a sucker-punch right to the gut. Jungkook steeled himself for the blow. It was going to hurt. He might fucking reel. But then it’d be over, and Jungkook would have all the facts in his arsenal, and that was better than being stuck in this purgatorial limbo.

“Hit me,” he said.

“Jungkook,” Kitae said. “Hybe would like to hire you an escort.”

Whatever Jungkook had expected to come out of Kitae’s mouth… that was not it.

“Uh.” Jungkook’s brain short-circuited. It felt like a bunny was stuck in his cerebrum, prancing around from hemisphere to hemisphere. He had no thoughts, just a distant awareness of something thump-thump-thump-ing around up there, rearranging all his grey matter.

“Jungkook?”

“Elucidate,” he grunted. Then, remembering his manners: “Please.”

“We know this is probably a lot to take in,” Sejin said calmly, returning once again to his laptop. “But after much discussion—”

Discussion between WHOMST? Jungkook wondered.

“—We have come to the consensus that debuting a long-term relationship to the public will serve as both your best offense and defense in this scenario.”

Jungkook merely blinked.

“If it comes out that you’ve been in a private, monogamous relationship this whole time—with a partner who’s willing to attest to such—we believe your ‘good boy’ persona can be salvaged,” Kitae tried.

Jungkook buried his face in his sweaty, gloved hands. He still wasn’t processing.

“The story we’d like to present to the press is that in light of recent events, you’ve made the decision to release your sexual health records and publicly debut your girlfriend of six months,” Kitae said.

“Or boyfriend,” Sejin cut in smoothly. “If you’d prefer…?”

“Girlfriend,” Jungkook grunted.

“Right,” Kitae said. “We predict that there will be some backlash from fans who—let’s face it—were never going to support you getting into a relationship, but our analysts are confident that the fallout from them will be marginal compared to what would happen if your name continued to be associated with Charlie’s and Benny’s.”

“Furthermore,” Sejin interjected, pressing a button on his laptop. The mortifying headline and photo dissolved, replaced with a powerpoint slide that showed a slew of graphs and metrics that Jungkook had no hope of following. “Our analysts predict that this could ultimately end up being beneficial to your career, believe it or not.”

“Uh, not,” Jungkook said.

“It would age up both your and BTS’s image, for one thing,” Kitae said with a curt nod, “and if we really wanted to strategize for the long run, we could arrange for your contract with your assigned escort to expire right before BTS announces its comeback. By the time your next album promotions launch and tour dates go live, you could plan to undergo a public—”

“—And respectful,” Sejin emphasized.

“Yes,” Kitae nodded, “and respectful ‘break up.’ You’d then present as a single man again right before tour. Your fans would be thrilled.”

“I…” Jungkook didn’t know where to begin. An escort? This had to be a joke. A prank gone awry. “Can’t we just hire some actress to pose with me, and call it a day? Why go through the trouble of hiring a long-term escort?”

“These escorts come highly recommended, for one thing,” Kitae said. “The club we’ve been working with is incredibly exclusive and discreet. Each of their escorts is media-trained, and they all have readily Google-able, vetted backgrounds.”

“Come again?” Jungkook said, feeling lost.

“Curated online presences,” Kitae explained. “Your fans are going to do a deep dive into the past of whoever you end up with, and all the escorts working at this club are solid. When Army conducts their investigation into your new girlfriend, even the most targeted of internet searches will only yield wholesome, impressive results. It’s part of the club’s guarantee. They’re selling an image.”

“Plus…” For the first time, a slight flush stained Sejin’s normally tanned beige skin. His professionalism, however, did not waver. “You’re going to be alone in the States without either me or Kitae there to look after you, Kook.”

Jungkook resented how he melted a bit at the pet name. Now was not the time to go soft.

“It is our hope that hiring an escort would help to keep you out of the Gono-Gong Gang indefinitely,” Kitae added.

“I was never going to sleep with any of those people,” Jungkook said, glowering at Kitae’s use of the triple-G epithet.

“Of course not,” Sejin said smoothly. “However, you were spending a lot of time out at clubs and social events with Charlie and Benny, correct?”

“That’s not a crime,” Jungkook said, feeling petulant. “Hybe permitted it.”

“I’ve been with you for over a decade, Jungkook. I know you have a good head on your shoulders,” Sejin said, keeping his voice level. “But you’re going to be in Los Angeles on your own, and Hybe doesn’t have any professional connections to the musicians you’re going to be filming with. We can’t protect you from any unsavory influences or temptations.”

Yup. There it was. They were infantilizing him again—treating him like a kid who needed overseeing. But what they failed to understand was that Jungkook wasn’t some stupid, impressionable baby who had no control over his baser impulses! He was a man.

“What are you saying?” Jungkook said carefully.

“We’re saying that we think there’s a good chance you can emerge relatively unscathed from this scandal,” Kitae said. “However, if the public catches so much as a whiff of any other foul play attached to your name, there won’t be any saving you. This is your one shot at redemption. There can’t be any slip ups.”

“And why would there be?” It was taking everything in Jungkook not to snap. “I practice safe sex. I’ve been an idol for a decade. I understand discretion. I’m clean.”

“And an escort would ensure you remain so,” Kitae said perfunctorily, “considering they’ve all…” He trailed off, his composure briefly cracking as he searched for the right words. “Well, they’ve all been tested.”

Jungkook could barely concentrate over the sudden roaring in his ears. Surely, Kitae wasn’t implying…?

“Hold on.” Breathe, Kookie. “You… are you telling me you’re conspiring to hire me a prostitute?”

“No,” Kitae and Sejin said as one, with force. Jungkook was gratified to see the horror in their eyes.

“That’s illegal,” Kitae said firmly. “We are hiring you an escort—someone we are paying for their time.”

“And what happens between two consenting adults outside of that contract is no ones business but their own,” Sejin said.

“Riiiiiight,” Jungkook said. He could read between the fucking lines. He wasn’t an idiot! “So, let me get this straight. You don’t trust that I’m gonna be able to keep it in my pants or make sound, responsible decisions while I’m in the States, so your solution is to… what? Put a leash on my dick?”

“No, not a leash.” Sejin put his hands up in a soothing gesture. “We just want to give you a safe and publicly-approved option for socialization. That’s all.”

“Socialization?” Jungkook quirked an eyebrow.

“For example, let’s say you get bored in LA and want to go out to eat, or to a club,” Sejin said. “That’s fine—just bring your escort. You want to go socialize with Bad Bunny and Harry Styles out at a bar? Great! Bring your escort. For one thing, she speaks English, so that’s a plus. For another, the club she’s with restricts its escorts to two drinks a night when they make public appearances, so you’re free to indulge and have fun, and you can rely on her to make sure to get you home safe at the end of the night!”

“You know what that sounds like?” Jungkook said through gritted teeth. “That sounds like a babysitter.”

“Jungkook—”

“Please—”

“Fuck no. This is ridiculous. I’m not a kid, you know! None of the others members would ever agree to this!”

“Taehyung thinks it’s a good idea,” Sejin offered.

Jungkook scoffed. “Yeah, of course he does.” He’d never felt so betrayed.

“Yoongi, too.”

That made Jungkook pause. He looked between Sejin and Kitae suspiciously.

“Wait… seriously?”

Yoongi was the only member in a relationship, and Jungkook had watched him struggle with trying to protect his fiancée’s identity first-hand for months. But Jungkook had also seen how relieved Yoongi had been, when he’d been able to take her with him to public events, under the guise of her being a translator. It had made Yoongi more relaxed. He’d become more sociable. He’d even started letting loose more often, which had been nice to see…

However:

“I’m sure Yoongi-hyung just wants me to hard-launch my fake relationship so that he has an easier time soft-launching his in the future,” Jungkook grumbled. That must be it. Right?

“That may be part of his reasoning,” Sejin allowed. “But really, all of us just want to see you go have a good time filming and then return home safe with your reputation unmarred. Rolling Stone has presented you with a huge honor, Jungkook. You should be able to enjoy this milestone in your career without any black clouds hovering over you, holding you back.”

Okay, that was kind of sweet. Except it didn’t take away from the fact that, once again, everyone was treating Jungkook like an incompetent, ticking time-bomb. Granted, he hadn’t demonstrated the best judgement when he’d yoked himself to Charlie and Benny’s sides over the past few months but—so what?! One mistake didn’t necessitate a fucking escort, did it? 

“Jungkook?”

They didn’t get it. He’d just gone through a break-up, for fuck’s sake. No girl—no girl he was interested in dating, anyway—was going to come within a ten-foot radius of him while he was publicizing a six-month relationship to the world.

Jungkook wanted to move on. He wanted Eunha to see him thriving in a real relationship—not some carefully constructed fallacy put together by his team. He wanted her jealous; if she was jealous, she might try to win him back! Didn't they see? That was the way forward. That would be fucking great!

Yeah. No. This was madness. There had to be another way.

“You guys seriously don’t trust that I wouldn’t just go around fucking everything that moves once I’m left on my own?” he asked.

“No,” Kitae said flatly. Which—kinda fucked up, Jungkook thought! “But that’s not the main issue, and you know it. Without your usual team and your members around to keep an eye on you, you’re vulnerable, Jungkook. And you can no longer afford any public stumbles.”

“We’re telling you this as your advisors and as your friends, Kook,” Sejin said. “This is your best shot, and it’s the only plan we have for you. Do you understand?”

It was bullshit, but… yeah. Yeah, he did. Sort of. Jungkook made a sound between a grunt and sniffle.

“All right, then,” Kitae said, clapping his hands together as Sejin looked down at his phone. “In that case, Jungkook, would you be amenable to meeting the escort we’ve selected for you?”

Jungkook rolled his eyes.

“What?” He was still wearing his fucking gloves, so it felt weird when he ran an irritated hand through his hair. “I don’t even get a say in my new girlfriend?”

“Well, according to the front desk, she finished checking in about a minute ago,” Sejin said pleasantly. “So she should be arriving any moment, now—”

There was a knock at the door. Jungkook blanched, his heart dropping down to his balls.

“Hold on—” he stuttered. What the fuck? “Are you serious? We’re doing this now?”

He wasn’t ready. He hadn’t agreed to this! This was all happening far too fast!

“No time like the present, right?” Sejin said. “We want to figure this out ASAP, just like you said.”

Before Jungkook could form a response, Kitae was already speaking.

“Come in!” he called authoritatively and, gulping, Jeon Jungkook—tattoo haver; empty apartment owner; scandal dodger; and now, apparent future escort hirer—directed his attention to the slowly opening door.

A/N: Despite all evidence to the contrary, I really don’t have anything against Charlie or Benny LMFAO. (Also, did ya'll catch how TNF had its Triple B and now UDB has its Triple G? 💀😂)

A/N II: Besties: I would be so appreciative if you'd leave a comment/reblog with feedback/slip into my ask box (anonymously or on your account) letting me know what you thought of this chapter!

CHAPTER ONE WARNINGS: swearing, mentions of drinking/partying/drugs (cocaine), discussions regarding STIs (gonorrhea)/unsafe sex/celebrity vs. civilian power dynamics (particularly regarding sex), everyone kvetches on and on about cancel culture (yawn), but also there's discussion about stigma re: STIs that could be triggering, discussion of infidelity, discussion of breakups/being left for someone else romantically.

PLEASE READ: I put in my best faith effort to make it clear that the problem with Charlie and Benny in this piece isn't that they have STIs, but that they're being public menaces by acting out, disrespecting their partners and regular civilians, and generally just using their platforms in harmful ways—I hope that came across!

CDC estimates 1 in 5 people in the U.S. have an STI on any given day. They are incredibly prevalent, and having an STI doesn't make someone immoral, or dirty, or "slutty" or anything else! It's literally just an infection that is often asymptomatic, and just like any other infection, they can infect people regardless of race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation—it only takes one partner to end up with an STI. The best way to prevent contracting one is to practice safe sex. Please get screened regularly and make a point of communicating transparently with any and all sexual partners, and remember that all STIs are treatable, and most are completely curable, too! 🥰💜

🥲🥲

you know that expression, "dance like no one is watching you?"

try writing like no one is going to read it

it's easier to let yourself go and just enjoy the process of creation when you aren't also playing 6 dimensional chess with your insecurities and anxieties

write because you have fun writing and if you never post it anywhere that's totally fine because you enjoyed your time with the process

owner of the most squishable cheeks 🥰

bonus:

a mochi asked me to choose and well… i love both white and dark chocolate..😌 {cr. namuspromised, dwellingsouls, 0613data, @yoonjinns}

JIN WILL APPEAR ON LEE YOUNGJIS SHOW OMGGGGG THIS WILL BE ICONIC