Now Or Never (Kim Namjoon X F!Reader)

Now or Never (Kim Namjoon x F!Reader)

Pairing: Surgeon!Namjoon x Surgeon!Reader

Genres: tooth-rotting fluff

AUs: Medical AU, Established Relationship AU

Word count: 1.2k

Tags/trigger warnings: mentions of blood and surgery, otherwise just cuteness and Trivia:Love being the most perfect song ever

Ratings: sfw, g

Summary: Move over McDreamy, Dr. NamSwoon is on the scene.

A/N: Happy birthday to the one, the only, my beloved Namjoon! I love this man so much, so I had to combine him being the most perfect and swoonworthy human along with one of the most romantic moments to air on network TV: MerDer’s Post-It wedding. Their vows to each other include a combination of MerDer’s vows from season 5 episode 24, Burke’s vows to Cristina in season 3 episode 25, and Trivia:Love lyrics to make the perfect heart-stopping combo. I wrote this while watching Grey’s in the car, all credits go to Shonda Rimes and Namjoon for being geniuses tho.

Banner was made by me (graphic design is my passion!) Crossposted to AO3 here.

The high pitched “ping” of your pager echoes through the empty break room. Letting out a groan, you sink to the floor. Would you ever be able to catch a break these days? Life as a surgeon seemed non-stop, limitless, and all-consuming. Every day brought on the thrill of exciting new cases and saving lives, but you found yourself missing those quiet moments that brought stability and security in your life. The moments that helped show you that you had a home and a life to go back to. Which is why today, of all days, was so important.

You hear the soft click of the door unlocking behind you as footsteps tap on the tile floor.

“Are you ready to go?” a deep voice asks. Turning around, you’re met with a sight for sore eyes: Namjoon in a perfectly pressed midnight blue suit and tie, hair gelled back, dimples popping as he greets you with a smile. He holds out your coat and dress towards you.

You look towards him listlessly, sadness filling your eyes.

“I just got a page right now, that patient we saw before needs to go back into surgery,” you sigh, showing him the blinking red light.

“I know,” Namjoon reaches out a hand to rest on your slumped shoulders. “The CT showed a re-bleed. I’ll page Yoongi and ask him to take care of it.”

“Oh no, really? You should go back in and check then,” you respond, gently pushing him towards the door.

“I would, but then I have to go check in on Jungkook’s mother after she had that terrible fall. He says he doesn’t trust anyone but me to take care of her. Maybe we can both do that together and then go to city hall,” he explains softly.

“No,” you groan. “Because then we have the board meeting afterwards for the hospital. You know Taehyung is going to chew our heads off if we’re not there to protect him from the wrath of his parents and the entire board of trustees.”

Running through the various ways to tackle the situation at hand, you resign yourself to another chaotic day on the job.

“How about,” you respond, thoughts running at the speed of light, “we tell the nurses and the team to prep the patient, we’ll run to city hall and do it once we come back.”

“___,” Namjoon begins, but you press a finger to his lips to cut him off.

“There’s no time, Namjoon,” you shush. “We have to get moving. We’ll go to city hall, come back, you’ll check on Jungkook’s mom, I’ll go hype up Taehyung and tell him that he’s going to be the next head of pediatric surgery, no matter what his parents say, and then we’ll tackle the patient-“

“___,” Namjoon grips you by the shoulders. “We can always do this some other day.”

“There is no other day!” you yell exasperatedly, waving your hands in the air. “Every day is like this. I love you, and I do want to marry you today, but there is no time.”

Namjoon catches your wrist in the air, enclosing his large palm over your own. He takes a step towards you, bringing his other hand to rest on your cheek.

“___,” he says, his deep voice rumbling gently. “Can you find me a piece of paper?”

“Namjoon,” you groan, frustrated that he’s not taking this as seriously as you are. There’s no time for these antics, the two of you had countless surgeries and follow-ups waiting on your schedule. “For what?”

“We made a promise that we wanted to commit the rest of our lives to each other. To do that, we need to makes vows to each other. Marriage is a commitment, and it’s a contract. Who says we need to be somewhere specific to sign it together?”

You roll your eyes at how stark and serious he seems to be in this moment. This is far from even the modest city hall wedding the two of you had managed to squeeze into your busy schedules. Reaching into the pocket of your white coat, you rustle around the pens and highlighters and gum wrappers to find a stack of Post-It notes. The soft, happy glint in his eyes manages to bring a small smile to your face.

Namjoon lets out an exhausted groan as he slumps back into one of the plastic chairs, dragging you into his lap with him.

“Ok,” he breathes softly, taking the Post-Its from your hand. “Now let’s make our promises.”

Taking the pen from your pocket, your messy scrawl adorns the Post-It as you read aloud your words.

“Promise that we’ll always love each other, even when we hate each other. No running, no walking out on each other. That we’ll take care of each other, even if one of us becomes old and senile, and has to spend their life on a hospital bed.”

Namjoon’s eyes fill with tears as he listens to you speak the words aloud, smiling as you don’t even notice that your voice begins to crack when you make this covenant. Reaching out, he brushes the frizzy strands of hair that have fallen loose from your hairstyle out of your face.

“My turn,” he whispers, taking the pen from your hands, and turning over to a new Post-It as he hands you yours.

He quickly scrawls two words on the Post-It, the black Hangul lettering causing you to raise your eyebrows at what he could possibly mean.

“___,” he chokes out, eyes becoming misty. “You make I to an O, you make live to a love. In Korean, 사람 (saram) is the word for person, and 사랑 (sarang), is the word for love. You were the person that taught me how to love. I live so I can love you today, and every day we’ve had before, and every day we’ll have after. I’m a surgeon: I stitch bodies together and take them apart, I hold people’s heart in my hands. And today, I promise to give you my heart, and lay it in your palms. You’re my person.”

“This is forever,” he finishes, signing his name at the bottom the post it and holding it out to you.

“This is it then, huh?” you smile, scribbling your name next to his. “A wedding on a Post-It?”

“And now, I can kiss the bride,” Namjoon’s palms cup your jaw, leaning in as your lips meet, and pure euphoria floods your veins at the thought that this brilliant man is finally yours.

Namjoon lovingly sticks both Post-Its into your respective cubbies, just in time for the loud knocking on the door of the break room to cause the both of you to jolt.

“Namjoon! ___!” Yoongi’s gruff voice calls out. “Where have the two of you been?”

Namjoon creaks open the door, slipping on his white coat over his suit as he ushers you outside.

Yoongi’s face is stern, but his eyes sparkle with mirth at the discovery of catching you both alone in there.

Giving Yoongi a wink, Namjoon slips an arm around your waist and leads you away, making sure to turn back and tell his older colleague:

“That’s Dr. and Dr. Kim to you now, Dr. Min.”

A/N pt. 2: Happy birthday again to Namjoon - I'm so thankful for his existence and leadership in Bangtan everyday, he's absolutely wonderful. Thanks for reading! As always, any feedback or comments are much appreciated, but I appreciate you all anyway. Lots of love, Isi 💜

《“If it’s quiet you desire, that can only be bought by the meeting of your tongue and mine.”

...

“And if I don’t desire your quiet?” Your words came out ragged, edged with a desperate ache.

“Then I will never stop telling you how much I love you, never stop showing you. You will never want for anything more than me, and if you do, I’ll know I have not done well enough.”》

Admittedly, I've read this story three times:

The first was when I was blessed with the opportunity to be asked to read this before you posted, and I completely and absolutely fell in love with it.

The second was a few days after you posted. I remember that it was a school night, and I had just finished taking my exams for the week, but I treated myself by rereading this gem, and I fell in love with the story for the second time. This was one of the sweetest gifts to me.

And finally, the third is now (well, technically, about a week ago by the time this is posted).

Each read gave a different emotion. A different response and visual image of the world slowly emphasized how dynamic and detailed this world is and the characters you created. Each read made me realize that I could honestly never get tired of this story, even if I had read it once or one hundred times. This is a story that I can genuinely and without a doubt call timeless.

Your writing is liquid gold, Kay. The world is so vibrant and alive, and the people are filled with so much beauty. So much magic that I loved living there with every chance that I had. Subtle things that I might’ve missed previously stood out, like how Seokjin was looking for the main character, he said he was looking for “the only person in the room that mattered” and how she was “easily the brightest spot in the room”. Reading these lines now just made my heart stop for a moment because of just how beautiful that line was. It also feels like I’m spewing poetic right now when I haven’t even really begun thinking back through everything, but your mind is truly remarkable, and I feel honored that I had the chance to read something so emotive like this story.

Okay, but to start this off, I do have to say poor Hoseok.

From the beginning, you could tell that there was a natural attraction between the main character and Seokjin rather than what could be felt toward Hoseok. Their thoughts made toward each other, for each other, were incredibly salient (and also so romantic and passionate and just so full of love). How they reacted to each other's presence, even though the feeling of being wrong veiled the point where the misunderstanding occurred, was intense yet soft. More so out of hurt than anything, and you wrote it so well. Especially this part:

Longing curled around your heart in suffocating tendrils, begging for another deadly dose.

UGH!!! It is one of the most beautiful and poignant lines I’ve ever read and one of the lines of the story that truly captures what this story is about and shows the seesaw of feelings that the main character experienced during the first half.

My favorite part though has to be, hands down, the entire sequence of the apology.

"For a princess of summer, your shoulder is rather cold from this side,"

The build-up to just getting the main character away from her family and out to the dance floor was astonishing. The back and forth shown between the mc, her dismissiveness, and Seokjin, his determination heightened by his own declaration, was one of the moments that truly made me clutch my phone a bit harder. Bring my face a bit closer to the screen to take it all in. It felt as though I were in a movie, both as an actor and an observer, watching them and listening to their conversation…

And then, the actual apology.

I wish I knew more words that could encapsulate all of the emotions and visions that flashed in my mind while reading that part, but it was so magical. From her siblings helping to the imagery of just all of the elements shown, to Seokjin’s singing...It was overwhelming in the best way. And then the fact that Seokjin calls the mc his “sunbeam” and literally gives her a sun drop?!!?!?!!?!?

Oh, Kay!! My heart.

The moments that struck me the most though were when the main character was explaining the concept of love in terms of Fey. How inconsistent and untethering it is between two people. But, for her, whenever she looks and thinks about Seokjin, the only thing she wants is him. The way she spoke about her love and affections for him made my heart swell out of my chest (it is honestly still making me quite a bit emotional even as I reread the passages. Especially the moment where Seokjin admits to wanting to tie himself to her and get married--with the human custom of rings!!!!), and I could only hope that one day I find a love that is as strong and devoted as theirs.

Sidenote: The moment when Seokjin tells the mc his real name, Astóir, was so touching. This entire piece was heartwarming and emotive and passionate, and I feel myself wanting to tear up right now as I am finishing my thoughts tbh.

Kay, thank you so much for sharing your incredible writing. This has been a long time waiting, but I’m happy that I can share my thoughts with you. I’m just so in awe of this story and your writing in this. Fey and Wilde will forever be one of my favorites from you (but everything you write is honestly a fave of mine). I am also very thankful for all of the behind-the-scenes you let me in on for this story. I feel so honored. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I’ll always and forever be sending you my love, even if it has to come through the form of these (not so) little love letters💕

Fey and Wilde

Audacity takes on many forms in vampire High Lord Kim Seokjin. Daring to show his face at the summer court after insulting your honor was one. Finding his way back into your bed in spite of that was another entirely.

Pairing: Seokjin x Female Reader

Genre: Vampire!Seokjin; Fae!Reader; Fantasy; Established Relationship; Fluff; Angst but not really; Smut

Word Count: 16,000+

Warnings: Alcohol; Profanity; Explicit sexual content, Vampire biting, Blood drinking and smearing; Obscene, decadent, and purely indulgent romantic drivel; Purple prose

Related storie(s): Moonflower

Note: This story features a reader-character with brown skin and physical features similar to those of African descent

If you enjoy my writing, please consider buying me a ko-fi

“Join me for a dance then and I’ll explain everything,” he said. Your expression didn’t change.

“I’ll have to decline,“ you said. “I’m not in the habit of sharing dances with partners who gravely insult me with such indifference.”

Predictably stubborn to a fault and he would never expect any less. Instead, he had developed a taste for it, lapped up your incorrigible fey pride as he had every other part of you — the cold, and the soft, and the ever blazing.

“Only one dance,” he insisted. “And if I haven’t convinced you of my sincerity by the end, I’ll leave Southsong and never return. You have my word.” He felt the weight of his declaration lift into the air, the magic of the Feywild snapping it up with hungry satisfaction. It was a gamble to bet everything on a few moments, knowing that he truly would never be able to return if he didn’t convince you. But he was willing to take those kinds of chances if it meant he would win you back. He had to.

Read on AO3

collab announcement: IN THE SPOOP

Welcome to the threshold, where worlds collide.

For the 31st of October, seven authors have joined forces to bring you stories of rituals gone awry and worlds meeting. Join @augustbutwinter @xjoonchildx @kkulfm @hobisuniverse @sahmfanficbts @madseok and @wwilloww for an out-of-this world ride.

GOODNIGHT NABI by @sahmfanficbts

Pairing Namjoon x reader Rating Explicit Genre DILF mechanic AU, ghost AU, school AU Summary It’s been years since his Nabi (Butterfly) flew away with angel wings. Kim Namjoon meets you, a librarian at his daughter’s school, who reminds him of life’s beauty and love he's sure he doesn’t deserve. It will take a strange convincing from the other world to help him let go of the past and embrace... you. The question remains: Is he ready?

OCTOBER 28

GOD OF MISCHIEF by @wwilloww

Pairing trickstergod!Jin x reader Rating Explicit Genre fantasy, smut, supernatural au Summary You've dedicated your life to the temple of Lugh, the golden sun god. But when your world crumbles, your ticket to escape is not what you imagined it'd be, especially when it comes as a handsome, mischievous figure waltzing through the flames.

OCTOBER 29

WHAT THE WATER GAVE US by @madseok

Pairing ghost!Yoongi x reader (f) Title What the water gave us Rating explicit (18+) Genre ghost AU, strangers to lovers Summary What was supposed to be a quiet Friday night after a hectic week at work is ruined by the sudden arrival of a strange man. The worst part? He doesn’t want to leave your bathtub.

OCTOBER 30

SEE YOU AGAIN by @hobisuniverse

Pairing ghost brother!Hoseok x human-turned-ghost!reader Rating PG-13 (death) Genre angst, h/c, smidgen of fluff at the end Summary You lost your older brother when you were 25. Every subsequent year, at the stroke of midnight on All Hallows Eve, he appears in front of you with a dazzling smile to spend twenty-four hours with you. But this year, when you turn 100, things are different when you realize everything as you knew it has changed.

OCTOBER 31

ALL WE SEE OR SEEM by @kkulfm

Pairing bird shapeshifter!Jimin x neutral!reader Rating PG-13 Genre dream AU, shapeshifter AU, angst & fluff Summary Trapped in a dream you can't wake up from, you find yourself on a strange journey home. On the way you meet Jimin; a young man but also a magpie who wants to help. But not all is what it seems, and something is chasing you that cannot be outrun.

NOVEMBER 1

STRANDS by @xjoonchildx

Pairing soldier!tae x reader (f) Rating explicit (18+) Genre creepy shit, spooky smut Summary taehyung can’t figure out how he ended up separated from his men, lost in these woods. or how he got hurt. he only knows he has no choice but to rely on the beautiful, secretive stranger who found him.

NOVEMBER 2

SEASONS DON'T FEAR THE REAPER by @augustbutwinter

Pairing reaper!jk x reader Rating mature (for themes) Genre reaper!AU, strangers to something Summary life is short, they say. one day everyone meets their death, they say. how often can you meet yours before he takes you with him?

NOVEMBER 3

《“What? Were you imagining something a little bit more formal?”》

*sighs*

Will there ever be a point where I am not impressed by you and your words, Willow?

I read this during the summer, and this was actually the story I hinted in my last reblog of yours. To be honest, I’m not sure why I thought that this might have put me in an even more coherent state because right now, my mind is fuzzy with the thoughts of this park scene and maybe what might’ve happened at the movie theatre👀. But I’m also not going to let my mind stray too far off because those are dangerous thoughts, and I’m trying to make it through the day in one piece, haha!

Amazing, beautiful, sultry, and funny are just a few words that have come across my mind while and after reading this, and it is with great pleasure (or maybe pain?) that I will be thinking about this for a while.

Thank you so much, Willow. You are such a talented person, and your mind is filled with the most beautiful constellations and creations. Sending you my love (for the billionth time)💕

"I just want to please you" + "this wasn't supposed to happen this way"

Namjoon and yn, at the park

incredible, nonnie

DATE NIGHT 

wc: 301 rating: explicit warnings: public sex, handjob

“This wasn’t—”

He chokes on the word. He chokes on it, his throat closing around the phrase, his head thrown back in pleasure, his eyes squeezed shut. He even bites his lip to keep the words — more like sounds at this point — from spilling out of his throat.

He always was a little too controlled, you think, and then you squeeze your grip a little tighter and he cries out. The groan is soft and delicious and you want to drink it up.

“Hm? What were you saying?” You tease, your words hardly above a whisper. “It wasn’t what?”

“This wasn’t supposed to happen this way,”  he spits out through gritted teeth.

“What? Were you imagining something a little bit more formal?”

“We’re in a fucking—ngh—park!”

Your hand is now twisting up and down his shaft and you can tell he’s close, his breath drawn shabbily through his throat, eyes clenched shut, knuckles turning white.

“You ought to be quieter,” you whisper. “In case anyone else notices.”

“It’s a little hard—  when you’re doing it like that.”

“I just wanted to please you,” you say softly.

It’s something about your voice that does it for him. With a hardly covered groan he cums, filling your hand with his seed. You give him a moment. Let his breath return to normal, his eyes blink open to the summer sun beating down on you both.

“Fuck,” he hisses, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t think I’ve ever cum that fast.”

“You’ve got a bit of an exhibitionist streak, huh?”

He just grins sheepishly at you.

“C’mon,” you say, grabbing a wipe from your bag and cleaning off your hand before offering it to him, helping him to his feet. “Let’s finish our date, shall we? What’s next? A movie?”

sh. | ot7 | chapter nine

PAIRING ot7 x reader

RATING Explicit. 18+.

GENRE smut. fluff. angst. nonidol au. wildnerness au. roommates au. friends to lovers.

SUMMARY Six months of quarantine have kept you apart. Somehow the distance sparks something new in each of you: questions, unfinished conversations, threads once chased now left cold. So when your roommate invites you to come with him to a mysterious house in the mountains with your friends, how could you even think of saying no?

WC 4.5k

WARNINGS AND TAGS nudity. exhibitionism. angst. no use of pronouns for reader. untimely erection. cuddling. sexual dreams.

← || series m.list || →

AN Lyrics from "Boy Meets Evil." Big thanks to M @madseok for this beautiful image used in today's banner. and of course to the ever-incredible betas: @thatlongspringnight and @calixwrites. i literally cannot conceptualize how my brain would function without you. thank you for helping me realize this story.

Also, HAPPY ONE YEAR OF SH.! I can't believe it. Thank you for coming along for the ride. I appreciate all of you so, so much. anyways, lets get this bread. If you enjoy this chapter, I'd love to hear what you think <3

CHAPTER NINE

Light spills out from beneath the door before you. Tonight, even the abyss below the glass-floored hallway doesn’t raise the hair on the back of your neck. Instead, it’s the light, it’s the door—no,—it’s the man waiting on the other side that sends a shiver down your spine. With a shaky breath you press the door open, walking straight into the unknown.

Enter: silence.

You’re not sure what you expected. Hoseok, waiting eagerly for you?

Instead, just the homey scene before you: Hoseok, wrapped up in a blanket before the fire, one arm poking out of the comfy mess and balancing a heavy book. He’s got a pen gripped between his teeth.

“Hey you, where were you?” he mumbles around the pen, not even looking up.

“The library.”

“Find anything interesting?”

“Ah, um—” You can’t help but think of the erotic image you saw earlier. Your face flushes with heat at the thought of those eight tangled bodies, pleasure drawn across their faces, hands gripping onto anything and everything in reach. The hands, oh, the hands, everywhere. “Picture books. And Jin.”

“Excellent pairing,” he says, a chuckle in his voice.

He keeps looking at his book.

You sigh. It’s been a long day. Maybe now’s not the time for this. Maybe now’s the time to crawl into bed and wrap yourself up with a nice warm man, an untethered voice in your head calls out. But the so-called warm man is currently busy with what must be the most engaging book in the whole world.

With a sigh, you make your way over to the wardrobe, opening it and begin to get undressed, combing through your thoughts, picking through the day.

What a day.

First the conversation with Yoongi, then Jungkook in the kitchen, Namjoon in the library, and finally that creepy fucking bear. All at once you feel the exhaustion hit you. It feels like it’s been five years since you got out of bed this morning.

Your mind, body, and heart all feel heavy and tired.

“Oh, shit, sorry, I—”

Hobi’s voice breaks through the grey reverie.

It’s then that you realize the door to the wardrobe barely covers your form and that you’re in direct view of Hoseok as you undress.

“I can leave and give you privacy,” he says quickly.

“No—”

“No?”

The two of you stop and stare at one another for a moment. You reach to pull your pajamas out of the wardrobe, searching for the right words.

Hoseok begins tapping a rhythm on the arm of the chair, a soft, nervous padpadpad. Your heart rate is rioting through your body, but when you listen, it matches the same tapping as Hoseok’s tic.

“I told you it’s okay to look, right?”

“Right, um. You did say that.”

Expressing that, god, it feels so awkward, you wish you could swallow your words right back up into silence, but you can’t, you won’t, and then, then he’s looking at you like that, not at your body, but at you, eyes burning like the fire that’s smoking behind him.

His fingers still.

And suddenly you are shy, wishing you didn’t have half a tit peeking out of your shirt. Your cheeks warm, and he notices, coughs, and looks away.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” you say. “I—” Deep breath. “I like it.”

It surprises you when it spills out, the truth of it.

“Oh.” Hobi glances up at your eyes one more time and there’s a secret smile dancing on his lips, one that you want to pocket for later, one that warms your chest. And then he returns to his book.

Jesus, now what the fuck was that?

You keep your eyes locked on the floor as you adjust your sleep clothes and pad barefoot to the bathroom. Your nightly routine disappears in a blur of mental fog and half-formed daydreams of bodies pressed closely against one another like the secrets might slip out if they were to allow themselves any space.

Somehow, you get everything done and wake up from the fog, staring at yourself in the mirror. It’s the same face that you stared back into every morning of quarantine. It’s the same face you know.

But now there’s something new flickering beneath the surface: fear. Hope. Desire. Exhaustion. You look older, in the way that experience can carve a person out of a body. You look sharper, the depth of everything you’ve experienced, swimming beneath your skin, bringing you to the surface.

After everything, you’re tired.

So tired. You just want to crawl into bed and scootch close to Hobi’s warmth. Maybe let him wrap an arm around you. So that, you decide, is what you’ll do.

Arms wrapped tightly across your chest, you return to the bedroom, only to find that Hobi hasn’t moved.

“Hobi?”

He doesn’t turn around, just hums.

“Hoseok.”

“Yeah?” He’s still engaged in his book.

“Aren’t you coming to bed?”

He doesn’t look up from his book.

“Yeah, soon.”

You move closer. He’s got a book, but he’s also scribbling in it. You peek over his shoulder and before he can notice, rest your head on his shoulder. He jumps at the touch, like you’ve shocked him, and then relaxes, leaning his head into yours. In the margins, his scrawling handwriting flows. Heavy-handed, but more words than you think he should be writing for simple marginalia. And lines, line breaks.

“What, are you some sort of poet now?” It’s a joke, but his ears redden. “Oh! You are!”

“Not a poet, I guess. But I’m writing. Writing lines.” He closes the book before you can read anything of significance.

“A poet!” you sing and pluck the book from his hands.

“Hey!” Hoseok laughs.

You spin away from him, holding the book over your head, and sprint to the bed, giggling. For a moment this level of comfort, it feels like comfort, it feels like no time has passed between you.

You flop on your back onto the mattress and open to a random page, prepared to read some old-timey poet of years gone by in a dramatic retelling. But instead, you find Hoseok’s handwriting and the words lift off the page.

“Hey give it!”

You ignore him and instead focus on the book. His handwriting sprawls across the page:

“Surrounded by people’s stares that can’t be touched I am getting out of breath at the twisted reality, I close my eyes every night, the music box of tragedy echoes

But to be free from this crime, it’s impossible to forget it, to give up.

Because those lips were too sweet.”

“Oh.” You breathe. “You are a poet. What’s that all about?”

You’re about to spin into a rant about just how beautiful the words on the page are when hands wrap around your ankles and you’re tugged down the bed.

“Hey!” You giggle as Hoseok crawls over you. His face is well warmed with embarrassment but there’s something darker, more meaningful swirling in his gaze. Your breath freezes in your throat when he settles above you, hands on either side of your head, looking down at you. The words of Yoongi’s proposal spring to the forefront of your mind then—suddenly—

It’s hard not to imagine him in the same position but in a different context. His shirt, loose from years of wearing it, swings low, revealing his chest. His face, pressed in concentration, his body,wrung tight in devotion, focus, oh. Your heart is racing too quickly. You set the words aside. Later, you tell yourself. This isn’t the right time.

You clutch the book tight to your chest.

“Give it back.” There’s a kind of nervous stillness, like a doe, unsure if she should bolt or stare straight into danger, in him that inspires the same in you.

Still, you push. “Say please,” you insist.

Silence hangs for a long moment before he speaks.

“Please.” He rolls his eyes, but there’s a quirk of a shy smile in the corner of his mouth.

“Alright, but only because you asked so nicely.”

When you offer, Hoseok snatches the book out of your grasp and retreats to his chair again.

You’re left sitting on the bed.

Something like a tense silence settles over the room, electric, the air between you and Hoseok full of unspoken words. Unspoken want?

The day before you has been so long, so full, and yet you can’t help but think on the half answered questions and begun-but-not-finished conversations. They ring in your head like eager bells, yearning for answers, for closures, for the silence of a period at the end of a sentence. Hoseok, the ultimate question mark.

Staring at the ceiling, you lie there for a long while before it becomes too much.

“Hoseok.” The word splits the silence. “Come to bed.”

He looks up at you. Really looks. His gaze lingers perhaps a moment too long, and then he nods.

It’s a slow process, Hoseok getting ready for bed, and it feels like he takes his time. Like he’s shy or hesitant or— you dare not think what else. When he does finally climb into bed, he reaches over to shut off the light immediately. The room plunges into darkness.

“Goodnight,” he says quickly.

You ignore it.

You’re going to tell him. You’re going to repunctuate one of the hundreds of questions from the day with a period and you’re going to tell him that this whole proposal isn’t so wild, it isn’t so crazy, because it’s already there. That connection. That experience. That electricity. And you’re going to tell him that the only mistake back in January was not holding onto him tighter and longer right before the world ended.

“I don’t think it’s so wild, you know,” you blurt out.

“What?”

“Yoongi’s proposal.”

Hobi is silent for a long minute. “I know.”

“You know?” You’re a little shocked by his answer.

“Yeah, I mean, he’s not wrong. There is chemistry there. Yoongi’s never been one to incorrectly read a room.”

Your heart skips in your throat.

“What do you mean?”

“Like, I can’t deny it. I’m not the only one who feels it.” He says it so assuredly.

You don’t want to say anything, dare you let the whole moment collapse around you.

“You didn’t fall asleep on me, did you,” he asks, playfully mocking your pause. Still, there’s a genuine, nervous question in his prompt.

“No, I’m awake,” you whisper into the darkness. “I’m just...processing. I don’t know what the right thing to say here is.”

“Well, maybe there’s just not a right thing to say,” Hoseok says sagely. “What is it?”

“I mean. I’ve thought about it.”

“You have?”

“Same as you,” you add, cheeks warming in embarrassment as you think of what you’ve revealed.

The next thing Hobi says makes you suck in a quick breath:

“And have you thought about me?”

When a million thoughts flutter like falling leaves in your mind, rather than to sort through them, your impulse is to say no, hum a goodnight, and turn your back to him. But the ache in your chest wants to reach for him, wants to take his hand and thread your fingers through his, but maybe that’s too much maybe it’s always too much, so instead you whisper: “Yes.”

He doesn’t hesitate. “And what have you thought?”

“That words don’t work for you,” you say.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” There’s a laugh in his voice, but an ache in his eyes.

“I don’t know.”

“Try.”

You look at him for a long time, like you might find your answer within his features. And then you roll on your back. Look up at the ceiling instead.

“Well. I suppose. You’re so many things at once — in the most beautiful way possible — but it can make it so that… that— I don’t know where to look. Where to begin.”

He looks back at you confused.

“That doesn’t make any sense, does it,” you say.

“Then begin at the start. Look at me. Tell me the first thing that pops into your head.”

“Hoseok…” you sigh.

“Seriously. If it’s a lot of things, start with just one thing. Start with my eyes.”

He turns towards you, rolling on his side. You’re still staring up at the ceiling, hands balled into fists, acid coursing through your veins. He reaches for you. His fingers wrap gently around your wrist and he tugs, softly, a gesture for you to roll on your side and face him.

You do as he bids. Your body feels too warm, hot even, for such a cool night. You can imagine the coolness swirling outside the window behind Hoseok, but here, here, it’s like a bubble of inescapable heat, your heart pounding, your breath coming quickly.

He’s so close too.

But you make yourself look him in the eye and look.

“Your eyes, wellthey'rebeautiful,” you begin, speaking too quickly. You take a deep breath. Start again. “But what I love about them is that when you’re laughing, it feels like they hold all your joy. And when you’re so serious or focused, it’s like, like, looking right into your mind. Like windows.” You can tell Hoseok’s face is warming, even in the dark, but you continue. “And when you want something, really want something, they shine in a kind of way that I don’t really have words for. But it makes me think that I don’t want the world to deny you a single thing.”

It’s then that you realize that Hoseok’s hand never left your wrist, and even though he’s struggling to meet your gaze, his fingers are tracing patterns along your veins. And you think he draws a sun there, right where your pulse is thrumming rapidly.

“Thank you.” He says it so softly you’re barely able to catch it. But then he brings his hand up to his eyes, his index finger gently running beneath one of them like he is experiencing them for the first time.

“And tomorrow,” you whisper. “We’ll do your beautiful nose.” You get a laugh from that, but silence quickly swims between you. Tense, full of questions, full of half said statements and half-sung songs. So you lean into it.

“Hoseok?”

“Yeah?”

“What was it that you were trying to tell me earlier?” you ask softly. The dark swallows your words. Doesn’t return anything.

And then it does.

“Earlier?” There’s a wave of unsureness in his voice. Like he doesn’t want to remember what you’re mentioning. But you push further.

“Earlier. Yes. Remember? You sent Jin to find me. You wanted to talk to me.” The words come strained. A ball in your throat. “You wanted to tell me something.”

“So did you?” Hoseok says softly.

Even though he lies just three feet apart from you, he feels impossibly far away.

“Hoseok.”

The moonlight is stark against him, illuminating half of his face. The way the light falls makes it seem like a mask has been drawn atop his familiar features. You have to remind yourself that he’s there, beneath the moon, beneath time, beneath all of the complications and fumbled words and silence.

“I feel like I’ve messed everything up,” he finally whispers. His voice cracks on the last word.

“Messed up—? how? What?”

He shakes his head.

“Sometimes it’s so hard to bring myself up to the surface.”

There’s a shocking kind of truth in his words and it shocks through your body like ice on a sunny day.

“Oh.” You know it’s not enough — not nearly enough of a response to someone trying to reach you through the fog. And yet even the single, simple syllable sticks.

Why does this feel like there’s a stopper in your chest? With all of the others, it felt as if there wasn’t a question in the world, though you do wonder if that might be an over-eager remembrance of the past couple of days.

Hoseok, before you, feels like the largest question of them all. And in the space of a millisecond, you finally understand. And in the understanding, the thing within you breaks open.

Hoseok is two sides of a precious coin: everything you have and everything you could lose.

But I am over it. I’m over it all.

The separation with Tae. That fateful January night. Everything that has come with the horrors of the pandemic, of isolation. I should be over it. But instead, where all of those things live in your chest, instead, you find ache. You’ve been floating through it all with blinders on and your eyes to the ground, never giving yourself a single moment to feel the deep cuttings of loss. It has been easier to power through, to keep your head down, to shift all of the pain residing in your chest up to the thinking parts of your mind.

There, within your mind, you turn pain to story. It’s the only way you’ve been able to survive it. Once it’s been molded and sculpted into pretty words that are easy to swallow, you wait until the stirrings in your heart quiet down. Though, now that you realize it, they’ve never really quieted down at all, have they? They’re still there within you, singing with the same sharp tremolo as they always have.

I never let myself feel it.

“Oh, Hoseok—” it breaks through the silence as a sob. He winds his hand up your back, tangling his fingers in your hair, and pulls you closer to his chest. You nestle your nose into the crook of his arm.

“Sh, sh. It’s okay. It’s okay. I promise it’s going to be okay. Just let it out.”

And you do. It’s like opening a damn, and your whole chest spills into the small space between you and your friend. At first, it’s just salt water, spilling onto your cheeks, but soon the mess comes. Globs of sorrow force their way out of your throat. Sobs wrack through your body, desperate, dying sounds.

You didn’t even know all of it was in you.

But it keeps coming, pouring out like the tide into bottomless sand and you realize Hoseok’s shirt beneath your face is soaked all the way through and so too is your hair except—

“Hobi?” you stutter through your tears.

“Yeah?” His voice is just as cracked and wet as your own.

“Why are you crying?”

He sniffles. Pulls you closer.

“I’m not.”

You look up at him then, arching your back so that you can see his face. As you take a shaky inhale, wetness still streaking down your face, you see it. It’s there. The grief. Sprinkled on his cheeks like stardust. You reach up and with your thumb, wipe them away.

With a sniffle, you say, “Tell me what’s going on in there.”

“I just—” It’s a long moment before he speaks. The silence weighs heavy.

“I feel overwhelmed.”

“What are you feeling overwhelmed by?”

He spits out the word: “me.” Then a pause. “You. Everything.”

“That makes sense,” you sniffle, drawing a smile onto your face. “Who wouldn’t be overwhelmed by J-Hope’s hot body?”

You instantly chide yourself for making light of his sorrow, but you get a wet chuckle in response. Unfortunately it’s followed by another sniffle and some silence.

“Sorry,” you say softly. “Bad joke.”

“It happens to the best of us. But with all that time spent away from everyone, alone, in my little apartment… I feel like I went a little off the rails. Like all that silence, all that alone time. I don’t know. It did something to me.”

You nod into his chest, encouraging him to go on.

“And I thought being back here that I would just feel the same way I felt about everything—about everyone—as I did before. But it’s not that. It’s so much more.”

“More?”

“I thought the missing you, the others too, would stop. But it hasn’t, even when I'm here, it’s like the distance doesn’t get any smaller like there is a gulf between us. Like a gulf between who I was and who I am and now, except now, I have no idea who this brand new me even is.”

Long pause. You hum, and that seems to spur him on.

“Do you feel like you need to know who that person is?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, then you will. With time.” You let your fingers drum against his chest. “Whoever you are, in there. I love you, you know that right?”

He gives a shuddering, tear-ridden laugh. But he doesn’t say “I know,” back. So instead, you just tighten your grip around him. He responds by doing the same.

You lay like that for a long, long moment.

It feels like the moon could have swung through all of her seasons in that time, and yet the two of you stay, interlocked, clutching onto one another like the other is the only lifeboat for miles, in a deep, dark, stormy ocean.

But at some point the ocean quiets. As if the storm within has been heard, she stills. The clouds roll back, but don’t vanish entirely. The waters, once rioting, still.

Your breath shudders to life.

There’s a certain kind of clarity to your mind, like it’s been dunked in ice water. But around it, a heavy weariness.

“Hobi, you know I love you, right?”

A long quiet. And then: “I know.”

“Good.”

“I love you too.” He whispers it into your hair.

“Good.”

Silence settles around you like a heavy blanket. Your eyelids feel weighted down, and when you peek them open towards the window, everything, the stars included, are blurred.

“Hobi, I’m so tired.”

Hoseok’s hand trails down your arm. His fingers wrap first around your wrist, lifting it up and towards him, and finally, they intertwine with yours.

“Then rest. Don’t worry, I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

It’s as easy as that.

When you finally say yes, yes, to sleep, you know. Your body relaxes, and so does Hobi’s around you. And you know, if there was anything to be done, it was this: tangled up in one another, language falling silent, finally, finally breathing easy.

Most of the time, it’s hard to know if your dreams have colors.

But tonight, there’s no question. Dreamworld is alight with late autumn, leave flurrying down in rainbow hues.

That night you dream of not one, but all seven of your boys. They linger at the edge of your dream though, constantly out of sight. You wander through a dense forest. It grows darker and thicker the further into it you clamber, bushes and branches gripping onto your clothes like hands.

You can hear them calling out your name, and even as you keep on moving, it seems as if a question remains: Are you running towards them or away?

At some point the dream shifts. It’s winter, and you stand above the forest on some steep cliff. The height takes your breath away, makes your lungs tighten on the inhale.

You call out their names, and six voices answer from the forest beneath you. You can see them now, figures frolicking in the snow, laughing, throwing snowballs, but where’s—?

A hand snakes around you from the back as a body presses close behind you.

Your name, whispered in your ear, strung through with devotion, desire—

“Hoseok, is that you?”

Your question is answered when he spins you around and into him. He is leaning against the tall, black stone wall, looking down at you through full lashes. But there's a look in his gaze that you haven’t known before. Hunger, deep hunger, ravenous hunger, directed straight at you. And at the edges of it, sunshine peeks through.

Hands wash down your back, taking their time to reach your hips. Warmth swallows you, a pinkish, springtime glow you could bathe in for ages.

It’s snowing and when the flakes hit your skin, they immediately melt. But you’re not paying attention to the darkening sky, you’re paying attention to the way the man pressed against your body feels. You want to memorize it.

There’s a moment when you understand it’s a dream.

Knowing it, you grin. You lean into him, lips searching for lips—

But he stops you. Takes your chin between his fingers and tilts your head up. Looking at you. Examining you. And when he bends down, eyes fluttering shut, it’s not your lips he meets but the flushed and summer warmed skin of your neck, just below your ear.

You gasp, tangling your hands in his hair, back arching into him until there’s no space left between you.

Body, pressed to body.

This dream is so vivid it feels real. Feels so real that when your eyes blink open to find Hoseok’s skin pressed against you, it makes sense, and you lift his head from your neck to return the favor: like a gift pressed between secretive hands, you press a fluttering kiss to the sensitive skin beneath his ear. Letting your teeth graze against his warmth, you drink in the breath he sucks in so shakily with relish. Hands still tangled in his hair, you wonder when and how you moved to the ground. You’re tangled up in one another against the soft ground, and you can feel the winter air against your skin.

He moves a thigh between your legs, and as he tucks himself against you, it feels like puzzling yourself together.

Your eyes flutter open as you pull away from his neck. His eyes are still pressed shut, but your name quivers on his lips as he tries to pull you closer again. It’s dark out, and the moon leans in close to the window—

The window?

Breath stills in your chest as Hoseok’s eyes open too. Pupils blown wide, he reaches for you, trying to pull you back to him when the dream slips from his gaze too.

When breath returns, it comes quickly, like a river rushing. Hoseok’s gasps match the pace of yours. Your gaze flicks down to see that his neck is reddening quickly. His fingers trail to the spot you’re looking at and the both of you gasp. And that’s when you notice.

Against your leg. Something hard. Hot. Very much in the shape of—

Both of you move at the same time, detangling your leg from between his thighs, him pulling his hand from yours, and flipping to the opposite side at the same time.

Back to back, your breathing matches one another. Wide awake, you can’t calm the racing in your chest.

Fuck.

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→ want to chat about the characters, story, and series? → want to read more?

⟪“I’m so sorry. You’re going to die.”⟫

You know, usually, whenever I come to the end of a serious, I say something like “Finally, we’re here at the end” or something of the sort, but as I’m writing/typing this out, that seems a bit optimistic. It’s bittersweet coming to the end of an era. A series, more specifically.

I remember coming to you earlier this year to let you know that I would be reading MTR during the summer, but now it’s fall, and in a way, it matches how I’m feeling deep inside. The start of things coming to an end. A transition period. But one filled with beautiful colors nonetheless, and lots of tasty treats and holidays spent with those you love.

I’m glad that I read this when I did. Reread it, actually, as I do with any fic just to get my mind into sorts, but I feel as though this was an emotionally perfect ending. Being able to see the sequence of events of this story from a different point of view, a point of view that I hadn’t even considered until it was right there in front of me, was a beautiful way to wrap this up. Remembering and reimagining the muffin tin point and Walpurgisnatch and the ongoing escalade of feelings between Taehyung and the reader felt so blissful and nostalgic and new. It gave life to a deeper part of this story that I didn’t even realize, and it's something that should be treasured tremendously.

More so, I felt my breath catch once I realized what Yoongi meant when he said “Huh, strange. I thought it was the house." a few chapters ago. Even though I feel like I mentioned it as the chapters went on, I was still faced with surprise once it was said that the reader and Taehyung were tethered haha! That, too, was a beautiful and intimate moment. To be honest, I was nervous about it though. I was worried that maybe Taehyung or the reader would lose the other and would have to continue life without their partner, but you turned it into something admired and adored. Dying is not something to be sorry for in this context. In fact, that just means that they’ve established their chance of living. Finally. It’s beautiful. Peaceful. Unburdened and unobstructed.

I also want to add that I really liked this part:

Yoongi hangs his head slightly. “I might have deserved that.” He looks up, and meets your eyes. “I did come everytime you called though, didn’t I?” The blue thread lights up and you smile at the silent apology he sends through it. You hadn't been that alone after all, and definitely won’t be in the future.

This part just wraps everything up so nicely, and it is definitely one of my favorite parts of this story.

You write so beautifully, August. If there were a way to make your words more viable, then I would. It's soft and emotional, yet comforting. A place that anyone would find a home in if they soaked in your words for just a moment. This story encapsulated just that, and I feel blessed that I could read such a story at a time like this.

Now I’m getting a bit teary-eyed as this will be my last love letter for this story (but definitely not for you, my friend). I’ll always think back to this piece with warmth. Thank you for bringing that to me on this chilly day. You have my love💕

my tears ricochet #epilogue | kth

#epilogue: tell me how to live (tell me how to die)

word count: 2587 words

series: my tears ricochet [masterlist]

summary: well fuck. this is not what Yoongi had anticipated.

pairing: ghost!reader x taehyung

genre: ghost!AU, roommate!AU, fluff / angst / crack

warnings for this series: (still kinda) sfw  // it’s a ghost story, so death will be touched upon // questionable ghost mythology //  language (curse words)

chapter warnings: QUESTIONABLE GHOST MYTHOLOGY turned up to 100, Tae is getting dragged for his baking equipment, our ghost is a smart cookie

beta read by the loveliest @snackhobi​ (Dear Joy, thank you from the bottom of my overflowing heart! It’s been so wonderful!)

A/N: It’s a wrap! It’s been almost 5 months, 13 chapters and way more words than I had anticipated. The love I have received on this story is more than I could have wished for, and I’m emotional, so let me get sappy for a minute, because I’m just super happy/touched/grateful for everyone reading/liking/reblogging/reviewing. You can’t imagine the amount of serotonin that was set free. It means the world that people were rooting for this couple, and I can just hope that this ending does them justice. Thank you for being on this ride with me.

I absolutely would love to hear from you, if you enjoyed it! Feel free to get in touch in whicheverr way you’re comfortable with!

#11 my tears ricochet

“Fuck.”

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