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filmflowersbangtan · 6 years ago

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Unbound

pairing: yoongi x reader

genre: angst, smut, fluff | (anti?) soulmate au | fwb to lovers au

warnings: a lot of swearing | smoking (cigarettes are bad for you, kids) | spanking | a tiny bit of dom!yoongi | a lot of talk about love

word count: 21k+ (I got carried away with this one)

The world is an unfair place.

This was what you told yourself every day until the moment you left home at seventeen to find something bigger, better, and more comprehensible. You were leaving your home to venture out to a city that you’d never slept in. A city that was vast and limitless and stretched as far as the eye could see. You didn’t know where you were going, but you knew what you were looking for – people that were like you. People who didn’t follow the idiotic laws and traditions that everyone else abided by blindly. People who thought of themselves as autonomous beings, not robots who were forced to love whoever’s name showed up on their skin.

For years, you thought that you were the only one in the entire world that didn’t believe that “the System was always right.” Soulmates are things that the majority of Earth’s population don’t question. No one wonders why a certain person’s name is marked on their skin. They simply go along with it. It’s something that was meant to happen, they say. It’s out of our control.

Ever since you were small, the way that people believed in the System didn’t make sense to you. They followed it strictly like a religion. They married their soulmates and only their soulmates. Dating anyone that wasn’t the person marked on your skin was sacrilegious, and it was enough to have them shunned by their friends and even their family. Governments made it illegal to engage in sexual relations with anyone that you weren’t promised to. It was all so nauseating.

Girls like you don’t belong in a world like this one where you speak up during class discussion about how you don’t think laws should be made around soulmates, and then have your peers whisper about how the only reason why you believe such things is because you are promiscuous. And then teachers ignore your hand in class when before they were delighted to call on you. Then neighbors start to whisper, glaring at your parents, hissing under their breath about how they raised such a “loose girl.” Boys approach you in secrecy, thinking that since you aren’t interested in soulmates, maybe you’re interested in something more fun. Something less binding.

You were foolish once to think that when the pretty boy of your class, the boy that all the girls ogled over, asked you to meet him under the bleachers after school that it would be different. It wasn’t. You pushed him away when he advanced, called him an asshole, and stormed off. That wasn’t what he told the school.

The weeks that led up to you packing your things, hopping in your shitty car, and peeling off to the biggest city that was far enough away from that little, miserable town was riddled with you seeing the weariness on your parents’ faces, scrubbing dirty words off your locker until your fingernails broke, and punching that pretty boy in the face over and over and over again until you saw red. It was wildly satisfying to see the blood gushing from his nose and pooling down into his mouth. A maniacal smile broke onto your face as a teacher hauled you away.

Driving away with the windows down with the breeze whipping your hair all over your head and your hand out the window was the happiest you had ever felt. You were finally free.

The city was different than anything you could’ve imagined. Neon signs blinked and twinkled and flashed. Giant billboards advertising everything from skin crème and fast food restaurants to expensive matte lipstick stretched across buildings that reached toward that sky. All kinds of noise, some that you didn’t even know existed before arriving, created a cacophonous buzz all around you that made it difficult for to focus but easier to think. Throngs of people bustled across wide streets and down sidewalks. Here, you were no one. You weren’t a “loose girl.” You weren’t whatever those awful kids scribbled across your locker in permanent marker. You loved it.

You slept in your car for a few days. Or weeks. You didn’t know. Every day bled into the next as you tried to make the money that you had saved in a Mason jar stretch until… Until what? You didn’t know the answer to that, either.

The people here were restless and selfish. They were so preoccupied with their own lives that they didn’t give a shit about anyone else’s. And for some strange reason, you admired that. You were just a kid trying to discover herself, trying to understand why the world was an unfair place, but in the meantime, you had to grow up. And if you didn’t already have a thick skin from the situation back at home, the city definitely forced you to grow one.

All of this was an adventure, and that adventure reached its peak when you serendipitously stumbled upon what appeared to be a house party. The house was bursting with people and you had to park your rusty car all the way down the street since the amount of vehicles present was overwhelming. There were even cars parked haphazardly on the lawn.

You checked your appearance in the side mirror of your car. Messy hair, no makeup. Glancing down at yourself, you realized that maybe you weren’t dressed properly for a party. Your jacket was an old army one that was a few sizes too big, spilling past your fingertips. The knees of your jeans had holes in them. But you still walked into the party, exuding fake confidence. Those who saw you must’ve been drunk or believed that you actually belonged there because no one batted an eye.

The air was thick with cigarette smoke and something that smelled faintly like must. Bodies pressed against one another, sweaty and sticky and unsteady on their feet. All these people looked so much older than you. You had never been in a space with so much smoke before. What were you doing here?

There was food and drinks arranged on the countertops in the kitchen. You ate ravenously, gulped down drinks that burned your chest. Time was liquified and weighted. The night blinked before your eyes like the opposite of a camera’s flash. Somehow you were in a room, sitting on a couch, strangers’ shoulders pressed on both sides of you. Someone passed you something that looked like a cigarette. You lifted it to your lips and inhaled. It scorched your throat. Everyone laughed. After coughing a lung out, you were laughing, too. And then the guy next to you had his mouth on yours. His hands in your hair.

There was a shout. The guy pulled away from you, said, “Shit, Lisa, it’s not what it looks like!” There was still a lazy smile on your face, but it was snapped away when a pretty girl stalked over to you, shoulders and mouth tense with anger. Her fist cracked against your nose.

The room swelled with noise and waves of pain spiked through the center of your face. And then someone grabbed your wrist with calloused fingertips, tugging you out and into the hallway into less opaque clouds of smoke, through all the bodies that parted at the sight of the dark blood leaking through the gaps between your fingers, despite how tightly you were pressing your fingers together against your nose like a dam.

You were pulled into a bathroom. Hands pushed down on your shoulders, forcing you to sit on the lid of the toilet. You blinked – once, twice, three times – gathering your scattered thoughts and drinking in your surroundings.

It was a girl that saved you from the mess of the party. Her hair was dyed a bright copper like a newly minted penny. She had features that were sharp but soft. She was a girl that looked like she could break someone’s heart but be their shoulder to cry on simultaneously. Because of these contradictions, you trusted her. There was no way that someone who was this three-dimensional was a dishonest person.

She shut the door and locked it, separating you both from the party. “Tainted Love” by Soft Cell thumped through the walls. The bathroom had an eerie feel about it, like people weren’t meant to use it for its practical purpose. Like instead they came here to cry or hide, have dirty sex or stop nosebleeds. On the bottom left corner of the mirror above the sink, someone had scrawled I was here.

“Rule number one, kid. You can’t go around kissing people’s boyfriends.” The girl was hastily unwinding an excessive amount of toilet paper from the roll and pushed your hand aside to tend to your nose. You winced when she dabbed at the blood, sharp pain shooting throughout the nerves of your face. “Oh, yeah, that’s going to bruise up nice and good in the morning.”

“What’s a boyfriend?” Your voice was nasally and thick with tissue and blood. Your head was tilted back at an angle that was quickly making your neck stiff.

She paused, dumbfounded. “You seriously don’t know what a boyfriend is? Where are you from?” She was wearing a shirt that was essentially a bra, and it gave you full view of the name marked on her sternum, dark and permanent. There was a neat line tattooed through it, like a teacher correcting a mistake, just as dark and just as permanent. She noticed you staring but didn’t appear to be bothered by it.

“A very, very small town. Nothing exciting like this.” At the mention of your hometown, you thought of that beautiful boy that you punched in the face, causing it to bleed similarly to the way that you were doing in this random bathroom with its walls covered in graffiti. Suddenly, you were laughing at the irony. Laughing so hard that the pretty, copper-haired girl scrunched her eyebrows together in either confusion or uncertainty.

She tossed away the bloody tissues once the bleeding slowed and washed her hands. “I’m glad that you find humor in this situation of yours. I’m Hyuna, by the way.”

“I’m ___.”

She turned to face you and shook the excess water off her hands, leaning back against the sink. “How old are you, kid?”

The tissue stuffed in your nose made you sound congested. “Seventeen.”

Her eyes widened. “Seventeen? What the hell are you doing here?”

You shrugged. “I got expelled from school and left home. And then I ended up here.”

She was studying you. “And where do you live now?”

You looked down at the cracks in the tiles of the floor. There were crushed cigarette butts in a corner along with dead flies. You briefly wondered if anyone actually lived in this house or if it was strictly for parties. “I’m in my car. No big deal.”

“No big deal,” she deadpanned. “Right.”

You glanced up at her. She was still watching you with a stern look in her eyes. Her glittery eyeshadow glimmered softly in the dim yellow lighting. “Are you going to tell me to go home?” you said.

She folded her arms over her chest and sighed. “Do you want to go home?”

You shook your head.

“Then I won’t tell you to go home. Simple.” She pushed off the sink. “I was like you once. Luckily, I know a place where you can sleep tonight that isn’t your car.”

Hyuna didn’t have a car. She and her friends walked to the party, but she told them that she would meet “back at the house.” They were all too occupied with their conversations or partners or drinks to mind what she had to say or even notice that you were with her.

“Can I smoke in here?” she said after she settled in your passenger seat. You had never had anyone in it before, and you were hyper aware of the mess that was the backseat and the passenger side floor. She kicked aside some empty fast food containers, unfazed.

“Yeah,” you said, gripping the steering wheel tighter than what was needed.

She cranked down the window and lit her cigarette. It was the skinny kind. The kind that someone had to have rolled themselves with their own papers and tobacco. She pressed it to her lips, holding it daintily between two slim fingers. “Turn left here.”

You flipped on the blinkers and turned. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.” She inhaled the smoke, the skinny end burning scarlet.

“Why do you have a line through your mark?” You glanced at her face, gauging her expression in case the question was too personal.

But her visage was neutral, maybe even a little bored, and she exhaled, the smoke billowing around her face before dissipating like a small ghost. “I’m Unbound. I don’t let the System choose who I can be with. Who I can love. Turn right at the light.”

Excitement was expanding inside your chest, and you were so focused on keeping a neutral expression that you almost missed the turn. “Isn’t that a little illegal, though?”

She lifted the right side of her mouth in a sort of I-don’t-care gesture. “That entire party was illegal. All of them are Unbound.” She inhaled the cigarette. Exhaled. Tapped the ashes out the window. “We’re a movement. This is the house right here.”

You hit the brakes so hard that the tires squeaked on the asphalt. Hyuna doesn’t bother waiting for you to park before she stepped out onto the sidewalk. You parked and cut the engine, scrambling out to follow her. She stopped on the walkway to wait for you.

“So this is my humble abode.” There was affection in her eyes as she gazed at the two-story house before her. The paint was peeling severely and there were a few shingles missing from the roof. “I know the paint looks terrible. I keep pitching color ideas to the guys for when we do paint another coat, but none of them like baby pink or banana yellow. Oh, well.” With that, she stalked up the porch steps, the wood creaking under her feet.

Stray cats were curled up on the weathered welcome mat. She simply stepped over them after unlocking the door with a key that was tucked in the soil of the pot of a yellowing fern. “We had a girl who used to live here named Sana. She loved the cats so much that she fed them every day. Now, even after she’s moved out, they won’t leave us alone.” She kicked off her heels inside. They landed on top of a heap of shoes of all shapes, sizes, and types. You thought that this was where shoes went to die.

“I like cats,” you said. You slipped off your sneakers and neatly placed them outside of the pile so that maybe you could find them later.

“Good. Maybe you can get them to pay rent someday.”

The house was fairly large. It would’ve appeared bigger if there wasn’t so much…stuff. Each nook of the house had something there. Hyuna conducted an impromptu tour, giving facts as she waltzed through the place like it was a museum. In the living room, “No smoking in here. House rule. My rule. Cigarette smoke is a bitch to wash out of nice curtains.” There was a wide, oriental rug spread across the floor, an upright piano shoved in the space between a plush couch with sinking cushions and a door that Hyuna said led to the basement. There was an armchair that once looked comfy but was now pitifully held together by duct tape, and a television with a thin coating of dust across the top and the gray curved glass. Someone had drawn a smiley face in the dust with their finger. A Magic 8 ball sat atop the television, dust-free. According to Hyuna, its name was Genie and it was forbidden for it to have a speck on it. Another house rule.

In the kitchen, “There is a couch in here because we couldn’t fit another in the basement or the living room.” The kitchen was separated from the living room by a simple archway. The black-and-white checkered linoleum floor was cracked in places, and a leg on the table had a weary paperback book under it to keep it level with the rest of them. The door by the refrigerator led to the backyard, and it didn’t have a lock, so at night a chair was pushed under the knob.

The tiny downstairs bathroom next to the kitchen: “The toilet in here has a fifty-fifty chance of working. So if you have to shit, use the upstairs.” Basement: “That washer and dryer don’t work. No one wants to haul them up those awful stairs, so they’re doomed for eternity down here.” There were several wilting cardboard boxes with Christmas decorations spilling out and furniture that looked like they would never see the light of day again. Upstairs bathroom: “This is the only shower in the house. It’s a bloodbath trying to get in here in the mornings.”

She led you to a door at the end of the hallway upstairs. “This is the spare bedroom for any new residents. Now this is your room. Until, you know, you decide that it’s not anymore.”

The walls were covered in various handwritings; quotes and signatures left behind by previous occupants in a rainbow of colors. The only pieces of furniture in this room were two mattresses stacked on top of each other like an old, discarded cake on the floor. That was it. This was the emptiest room in the entire house. And it was now yours.

“Thank you,” was all you could muster up to say. This was all so much. These random acts of kindness from this gorgeous stranger. Saving you from a party. Cleaning up the bloody mess that was your face. Giving you a place to stay. You were so grateful you could cry.

“Please don’t cry,” she said, her eyebrows rising towards her hairline. But it was too late. Tears were stumbling lamely down your cheeks and you wiped them away with the back of your hands. “Oh, come here.” She pulled you into a hug. A hug that made you miss your own mother so much that it ached. Maybe you should call her tomorrow just to let her know you’re okay. Hyuna held you for a while, and as she rubbed calming circles on your back, she muttered in your hair, “I think it’s best if you take a shower now. You smell a little ripe.”

You scrubbed every inch of your body until the water that swirled down the drain no longer had a brown tinge to it. You dug dried blood from under your fingernails and washed your scalp until it was sensitive and raw. You dressed in fresh clothes that Hyuna lent you, and when you emerged from the bathroom, steam curling out the doorway, there were voices downstairs. They were all male, and they tumbled over one another. Hyuna’s voice was distinct amongst them. You didn’t bother to introduce yourself. You’d deal with that in the morning. Right now, you were beyond exhausted.

The mattresses were now fitted with blankets and pillows had been neatly placed at the head against the wall. You were grateful. So grateful that you flopped on the bed face down, immediately greeting sleep.

The morning came with a house just as alive and bustling as the city downtown. Conversations were in full force downstairs. There was a belly laugh that was joined by a softer, quieter chuckle. Hyuna’s voice, “Guys! Hoseok worked a late shift last night! Quiet it down!” Another, deeper, gruffer voice: “You’re the one yelling.”

Your stomach squeezed at the smell of a hearty breakfast sizzling on the stove, but your body was still draped in exhaustion. The sun was extremely bright and wide awake outside the window. The blinds were no good at keeping the light at bay due to the several missing slats, but you were determined to go back to sleep. You pushed a pillow over your face and rolled over so that the sun was glaring on your back instead of your face. Your face was pulsing with pain from the last night’s punch, but even that didn’t deter you from wanting to go back to sleep.

Hyuna: “Kookie, can you go wake up the newbie? She’s in the guest room. Her food’s getting cold.”

A soft, gentle voice: “Should I just bring it up to her room instead? I don’t want to bother her if she’s sleeping.”

A deep, jovial voice: “I’ll wake her!”

Hyuna: “Thanks, Tae.”

Feet stomped up the stairs. You braced yourself for the door opening, but you still weren’t ready for the shouting that came with it. “Time to eat!”

You jerked up, almost leaping out of the bed. The guy standing in the doorway was beaming at you like he didn’t almost stop your heart in shock. You blinked, orienting yourself. “Okay.”

He turned on his heel and retreated towards the stairs.

A door down the hall creaked open. An annoyed voice laced with fatigue said, “My God, Tae. Could you be any louder?”

“Sorry, Hobi!” Taehyung called up from downstairs.

Hyuna, from wherever she was: “I told him to not be so loud!”

The tired man said, almost unkindly, “Thanks, Hyuna. You were of great help.” The door shut again unceremoniously.

Once you made it downstairs, Hyuna, the guy who woke you, and two other boys were sitting at the table in the kitchen. They were all staring at you. You were very aware of your messy hair and swelling of your nose.

Hyuna was sitting at the table with her back to the window. The sunlight beaming in made the edges of her hair glow gold. “Guys, this is ___. ___, this is Taehyung.” She gestured towards the loud boy who woke you. He nodded once at you with a soft smile in his eyes as he chewed on some scrambled eggs. “This is Jimin.” She directed her open palm at a pretty guy with even prettier lips, who was in the middle of taking a large bite out of a slice a toast. He smiled at you in acknowledgement around the bread. “And Jungkook.” A boy with round, tender eyes gave you a polite, closed-lipped smile. “And that grumpy man upstairs is Hoseok. He works late shifts as a pizza delivery boy, but some people forget this fact.” A sharp glare was directed at Taehyung who was genuinely taken aback by the accusation.

No one said anything about the conspicuous contusion on your nose, which you were thankful for. You took a seat at the table where there was a plate of untouched food. You didn’t hesitate to dig in, eating ravenously.

“Are eggs vegetarian?” Taehyung pondered over the fluffy scrambled eggs on his plate, poking them with the prongs of his fork.

Jimin sighed. “You ask this every time you have eggs. You’re gonna eat them anyway. Just eat them.”

Hyuna said, “I think they’re vegetarian if you want them to be.”

“But eggs are considered dairy. Right?” said Taehyung.

“Sure,” Jimin said, scraping up the last crumbs on his plate.

Taehyung looked to Jungkook for help. The doe-eyed boy lifted up his glass of orange juice and took his time drinking it. You noticed a name marked down the side of his palm, but a slash, thick and black, went straight through it. Just like Hyuna’s. Taehyung, too, had a mark, slightly behind his left ear marred by a similar line.

You were Taehyung’s next victim, but before he opened his mouth, you asked another question. “Do you all have that line through your marks?”

“Of course,” Jimin said with a smile. “We’re all Unbound here.” He pushed back his right sleeve and bared his forearm, the soft, inner part facing the ceiling to expose his very own mark, neatly tucked in the crook of his elbow that was also slashed through. You noticed Jungkook smiling to himself at this.

“Do you have a mark?” Taehyung asked.

“No. She’s only seventeen,” Hyuna answered.

“Well, when do you turn eighteen?” said Taehyung.

“Today,” you admitted.

Silence hung over the table until Jimin and Taehyung shouted, “Happy Birthday!” in unison.

“Oh shit. Happy birthday, kid. Why didn’t you tell me?” Hyuna said, almost disbelieving.

“It never came up.”

Jungkook muttered a quiet “happy birthday” to you and reached across the table to pat you on your hand.

A door upstairs creaked open. “Goddammit, guys.” Then Hoseok appeared in the archway, hair disheveled and eyes barely open. “Whose birthday is it?”

You raised your hand.

He nodded, eyes squinting to get adjusted to the morning sun pouring in through the large kitchen windows. He wasn’t fazed at all by a new face sitting at the table, which made you wonder how often people came and went through this place. “Cool.”

That night, while you were in the shower, you scoured every inch of your body. Your clavicle, sternum, the back of your hand, behind your ear, the crook of your elbow. Everywhere. But there was no mark. You weren’t sure if you were relieved or terrified. Burdened or happy? You should be happy, right? Yeah. You were happy.

Every birthday after that, no mark.

Now, at twenty years old, still nothing. Maybe you’re one of those people that don’t get their mark until years after their eighteenth birthday. Or maybe you belong to the infinitesimal percentage of the population that don’t get a name at all. Whatever. That soulmate shit isn’t your thing anyway. Asinine laws, ridiculous societal pressures. Things will be easier this way.

There’s a tiny alley between the flower shop where you work and the tattoo parlor next door, and you lean against the cool brick wall, inhaling a cigarette. A door slams and Yoongi steps out of the tattoo parlor, fishing a pack of cigarettes from the back pocket of his jeans. It’s strange how often his smoke breaks sync with yours, but you never say anything about it.

He’s quiet most days. Others, he would sometimes mention something fleeting like, “The weather is nice today,” while looking at everything but you. And you would reply with, “Yeah. Weatherman said it’s supposed to hold up all week,” while occupying your vision with anything but him. And then he would mutter a, “Nice.” Then you both would finish your cigarettes in a silence that isn’t quite awkward but isn’t entirely pleasant, either. And you would part to your respective workplaces.

“Saw you and your hippie friends in the paper this morning,” says Yoongi. Guess it’s one of those days where he talks.

“I don’t think we’re hippies, but, yeah. We were at that Unbound protest last week.”

He leans back against the wall beside you. There’s enough space so that your shoulders aren’t in danger of touching.

“Got a light?” he says. His voice is chilly and rich. You can feel it in your bones like an autumn wind.

Without a word, you pull out a book of matches from your pocket. He sets a cigarette between his lips as you strike a match and he cups the flame. He sneaks a look at you, the fire flickering in his dark irises. You avert your eyes. The end of his cigarette burns, and he inhales. He thanks you, smoke shooting from his nose not unattractively. You shake the match until the flame extinguishes and nod in reply.

You think that the silence that you plunge into is permanent, one of those habitual holes in small talk that you both stumble into until you decide to return to work, but he says, “A lot of people don’t like people like you.”

You raise an eyebrow, shooting a look at him. He meets your gaze and doesn’t look away. It’s almost unsettling. “People like me?”

He taps his cigarette. A breeze suggestive of the oncoming spring slithers through the alley and brushes the ashes away. “Anti-soulmate people. They think you’re trying to topple the System.”

“We’re trying to change things. No one likes change.”

“And what’s that change about? How is it that you’re going to get rid of something that happens naturally?” He’s watching you steadily. Challenging you.

“Just because a mark shows up on your skin doesn’t mean that it should dictate who you love.”

“You don’t think it’s natural for someone to fall in love with the person they’re promised to?”

You tap your cigarette, scoffing at the word “promise.” The ashes tumble away. “No. I do not.”

“Why not?” He places his cigarette to his lips. Inhales. His eyes never leave your face.

“If we believe that someone is our soulmate, and we go be with them, we’re just following instructions. All free will is gone.”

His eyebrows scrunch together in disagreement. “So, if I actually fall in love with my soulmate, then it’s not my doing?”

“I think if you see that name on your skin, you’re automatically programmed to want to like the person just because society told you that it’s the correct thing to do.”

Yoongi shakes his head in disbelief and laughs. “That sounds like nonsense to me. It’s someone’s choice to fall in love.”

“But are they really in love? Or are they tricking themselves into thinking they are because they are ‘destined’ to be together? Society tells us that the name marked on our skin is the love of our life. Right? So. If I grew up with that notion without ever challenging it, then of course I’ll think that I’m in love with my soulmate. Without a doubt.”

He takes his cigarette between his teeth, knocking it up and down. Down and up. His eyes fall away from yours. The corner of your mouth twitches ever so slightly in victory.

“So, what you’re saying is, no one who has ever matched with their soulmate is in love with them?” he says, not letting up.

“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that no one should be forced into a relationship with someone simply because a name pops up on their body. It shouldn’t be law that I have to marry the person that I’m ‘promised’ to. It shouldn’t be illegal to be with someone who is not marked on my skin.”

He mulls this over. The cigarette going up and down and down and up between his teeth. “I see what you’re saying.” He properly takes the cigarette between his fingers, sucks, and tosses what’s left of it. He blows the smoke out from and nose and mouth, crushes the butt that smolders on the ground with his shoe. “See you around.” And then he heads back into the tattoo parlor.

The remainder of the day, you think of Yoongi. The door is open in the shop to let in the air, the feel of it not quite spring but too warm for winter, and you think of him as you wrap flowers in white paper for the customers who enter in an effort to grasp spring before it’s yet to arrive. You think of him as you tie ribbons around bouquets of chrysanthemum and baby’s breath, your fingers fumbling and the material slipping from your grasp. And it pisses you off.

You’ve barely known him for the few weeks that you worked at the shop, and it had been uneventful. But now he wants to have a conversation with you, and when he does, it’s about soulmates. A subject that has become polarizing currently with the Unbound movement growing bigger. Usually tattoo artists take sides with the Unbound since they are the ones slashing marks, but Yoongi defended soulmates. It reminds you of your hometown and how those people treated you, and now just the thought of him pisses you off.

“Looks like somebody had a pleasant day,” Hyuna says at the sight of you.

She is on the couch in the living room, legs draped over the armrest and guitar resting on her stomach, idly picking a melody with her fingertips. Her head is on Hoseok’s thigh, who is poring over a newspaper with a picture of the anti-soulmate protest on the front page, large and in color. You recognize your face and Hyuna’s and Taehyung’s in the frame. Jungkook and Jimin are on the floor, engrossed with the video game console that Jungkook recently bought. You can tell by the small, pleased smile on his face that Jimin is letting Jungkook win.

You step over a pair of sneakers abandoned in the doorway and drop on the couch next to Hoseok. “I had a lovely chat with a guy who is pro-soulmates,” you say, resting your head on Hoseok’s shoulder. He doesn’t react. People touching him is something that he has grown used to long ago.

Hyuna makes a disgusted sound in the back of her throat, her fingers still undulating across the guitar strings in an improvised melody. “Sorry that happened to you.”

You shrug in dismissal like it doesn’t bother you. Like Yoongi’s existence didn’t torture each thought that sprung up after the conversation with him.

On the television, Jimin’s little character dies again. Jungkook smiles at him, large and triumphant. There is a shimmer in his eyes that is unique when regarding the older boy, and a tangible heartbeat pulses in the space between them. Whenever you dare to look at them together, there is a strange intimacy that forces you to tear your eyes away. Like you’re intruding on something special. Jimin shoves Jungkook’s shoulder playfully, and the younger boy topples over onto the rug with a laugh.

The front door opens, and from the living room you hear the stray cats outside begging for food before it closes. Hoseok mutters, “That damn Sana,” under his breath and turns a thin page. His mark is obvious on his thumb, starting at the knuckle and stretching up towards the fingernail. Unlike everyone else’s, his is completely blacked out like a censor bar. That’s something no one dares to ask about. There’s the familiar thump thump of shoes being kicked off, and then Taehyung emerges in the living room with a pot of fresh pink tulips in his hands.

“More flowers?” you say. This should bother you since every time Taehyung brings home flowers, you’re the one who’s left to take care of them because he’s shit at keeping them alive. The big kitchen window was lined with pots of dry soil and withered petals when you first arrived at the house. “Since you have such a green thumb, why don’t you work at that flower shop a few blocks down?” he had asked as you nursed that fern on the porch back to life. And then you got the job.

“Just these tulips. This is the last time.” He disappears into the kitchen to place them on the windowsill if he can somehow find room.

“Um hm,” Hyuna says with a raised eyebrow at you. And then she jumps up, setting aside her guitar and stepping over the black cords that attach Jimin and Jungkook’s controllers to the game console to grab Genie. Her haste snatches both your and Hoseok’s attention, and Jimin and Jungkook groan when she briefly blocks the TV. “Genie, will Tae ever stop bringing home flowers and leaving them to ___ take care of?” She cranes her neck to peek in the kitchen from where she stands to see if Taehyung is listening, a mischievous glint in her eye.

“Hey! Don’t bring Genie into this!” Taehyung says, storming into the living room.

Over the years, you’ve learned that whenever there is a disagreement, or if someone is unsure about something, or someone just wants to mess with someone else, Genie is brought into the picture. For some strange reason that you can’t wrap your head around, Genie is the deemed as an actual mediator, like its answers hold some sort of weight. It’s completely silly to you, and you’ll never use it because of how ludicrous it is, but Genie brings this house joy, so you just go along with it.

Now, Hyuna even has Jungkook and Jimin’s attention, who have paused their game. Taehyung is standing in the archway between the kitchen and living room, his arms limp by his sides. Hyuna shakes the Magic 8 ball, the liquid inside churning, and waits for the answer to show itself. She reads the answer aloud, “‘My reply is no.’”

Everyone erupts in laughter.

“Genie has spoken,” Hyuna says. “I guess this isn’t the last time.”

“Yeah, we all knew that because he said that last time he brought in flowers,” you chime in.

Hoseok says, “And the time before that.”

And Jimin adds with a laugh, “And the time before that.”

Taehyung crosses his arms over his chest petulantly, but he’s fighting back a smile because he knows it’s true. “I’m just trying to make this house beautiful. It’s not my fault that I don’t have a green thumb.”

“It’s not that you don’t have a green thumb, you’re just shit at taking care of anything that’s alive,” Jimin says.

“Am not!”

“Remember that time you brought home that stray dog, but it ran away the next day?” Jungkook says, laughter bubbling up as he speaks.

“I remember that!” Hoseok claps jovially at the memory. “Poor dog took one look at all these damn plants and knew what his future was going to be like.”

“That’s not true. The dog just remembered where its home was,” Taehyung mumbles under his breath.

“Really?” Hyuna says, giving him a look. Then, to Genie, “The dog ran away because Taehyung is shit at keeping things alive, right?” She shakes the Magic 8 ball with all her might, and when she reads the answer, she laughed so hard that she doubled over.

“What? What did it say?” Taehyung says, exasperated. He grabs Genie from her, and he can’t help but to laugh when he reads the answer: “‘Yes – definitely.’”

The city is awash in a constant rain as spring arrives. It’s the kind of rain that mists and clings to your clothes. The inescapable kind that you can feel even after you’ve changed out of wet clothes into dry warm ones.

You don’t see Yoongi as much – thank God – because the rain prevents you from having your usual smoke breaks. Sometimes you would see him as you’re going in to work and he’s coming out, a perpetual look of boredom stuck to his eyes. Or you would see him out the window, the hood of his baggy sweatshirt pulled up over his head, smoking under the doorway of the tattoo parlor to stay dry. He never notices you as you sit behind the counter in the flower shop watching him, and you never realize that you’re staring until a customer comes in, shaking their umbrellas and asking, “What’s a good ‘I’m sorry’ flower that isn’t as cliché as a rose?”

On Wednesday, the rain decides to take a break and the dingy clouds split apart to let sunlight spill out. The alley is damp and chilly, and black, reflective puddles are riddled all over the ground. You stand next to one, leaning against the freezing wall with the zipper of your jacket pulled all the way up to your chin. You look down at the water. Your face, clear and disinterested, gazes back up at you.

You place a cigarette between your lips. Strike a match. Light it. Like strange clockwork, or déjà vu, Yoongi steps out of the tattoo parlor with his hand reaching for the pack of cigarettes in his back pocket. The hood of his jacket is pulled up over his cap. He’s watching the ground as he passes you, purposefully not making eye contact as he leans back against the wall, the puddle keeping a considerable distance between you both.

He places a cigarette in his mouth, and before he asks, you already have your book of matches out. You want today to be one of those days where he doesn’t talk. He leans forward, cupping the flame after you strike the match. A corner of his mouth is turned up, too miniscule to be mistaken for a smile, but not really a smirk, either. He nods in gratitude when you light the end of his cigarette. You drop the match in the puddle.

There’s that up and down of his cigarette again. His itch to say something is palpable. You speak first, just so that he doesn’t.

“Do you really believe in that soulmate shit?” you say, picking at the chipped nail polish on your pinkie nail with your thumb, feigning disinterest.

You feel him look over at you briefly before turning his face up at the sky. Dark clouds fringe the powder blue, ominously closing in. “I mean, none of this can be an absolute mistake. I believe marks show up on people’s skin because of some higher power. It’s predestined.” His voice is sonorous and smoky. You forgot how disconcerting it is.

“I call bullshit.”

Yoongi scoffs at your bluntness, but it’s followed by a chuckle. “What?”

“It’s a lottery, and most people come out unlucky. I’m not even sure why people call it the ‘System’ when there is no actual order to it. All over the world, for eons, around the time of someone’s eighteenth birthday, a name would appear somewhere on their body. For some, the names come sooner. For another, smaller percentage of people, a name doesn’t find its way on their skin until months or years after their eighteenth birthday. And there is less than one percent of people that don’t get a name at all. How is that a system? How is that predestined? It’s not fair at all. If I was that higher power that you’re talking about, I would make sure that the people that I match are first are compatible and capable of falling in love.”

After your rant, you glance over at Yoongi, who appears to be smiling. “What can I say? I’m a sappy motherfucker. I like the idea of having someone for me, and me being somebody’s special person. You can’t say you’ve never thought about it.”

You don’t respond. Instead, you suck on your cigarette, the tip burning an angry red.

He places his cigarette to his lips and takes a puff. The smoke drifts out of his nose and mouth as he says, “Do you maybe want to grab something to eat after work if it doesn’t rain?”

Your fight-or-flight response kicks in, but you keep a bored composure. You learned this skill from Hyuna long ago. “We can’t let people know that they’re affecting us,” she had said. “Especially if those people are men that are interested in you.”

“It will,” you say, glancing up at the slowly advancing clouds. You aren’t sure how the conversation took this turn. It makes you feel vulnerable.

“But if it doesn’t?” Somehow, despite his persistence, he doesn’t sound desperate. He sounds like if you say no, he won’t care, and that’s attractive. Maybe he’ll be a little disappointed, but he’ll get over it and maybe he won’t ask you for a light anymore. But maybe he will. Maybe he won’t be fazed if you say no at all. The possibilities secretly excite you. You aren’t sure why.

Your eyes meet his. There’s no anticipation, hope, or expectation in the dark pools of his pupils. There’s just…Yoongi. So you say, “Sure.”

The end of your shift comes and Yoongi is outside the tattoo parlor, leaning against the door. He sees you and sticks his hand out, palm up and smiles when it comes away dry. The sky is severely overcast, the clouds hanging low as if fatigued. But no rain.

“Okay,” you say, approaching him with your hands in your pockets. Your mouth twitches in an almost-smile. “No rain. Where to?”

“There’s this place by the river that has these amazing burritos. The width of them as big as my fist.” He makes a fist to demonstrate. “Do you like burritos?”

“I wouldn’t mind eating a burrito that size right now.”

“I’ll lead the way.”

The river isn’t far from the tattoo parlor and the flower shop, so you both walk. He asks about the Unbound movement, and you tell him. You ask him what made him become a tattoo artist and he says that he’s always been good at art. He asks you what made you want to work at a flower shop, and you say that you might as well by the way you were taking care of plants back home.

“Really? That many people in one house?” Yoongi asks after you talk a little bit more about your place, stepping around a puddle tucked in the crevices of the sidewalk.

“Yeah. It’s strangely comforting.”

You arrive at the burrito shop and wait in queue. You’re skimming the menu board posted up on the wall above the cashier’s head as Yoongi says, “Growing up, it’s only been me and my older brother. I couldn’t imagine living in a place with five other people.”

“It’s an adjustment. There’s always something going on.”

He orders a steak burrito, and you get the chicken. The clouds are clearing up to reveal the sky blushing pink by the time you pay for your food and head outside towards the river. The air is still chilly and wet, and sheer steam swirls from the thick burritos wrapped in foil in your hands.

A waist-high brick wall runs down the length of the river, right next to the bike lane, and you and Yoongi sit on it, facing the water. Yoongi takes a hearty bite, but leaves his mouth open for the scorching food to cool. You find yourself giggling despite you pressing your lips together to suppress it. He laughs around the burrito when he meets your eyes.

“What made you go the anti-soulmate route?” he asks after he swallows.

You blow on your burrito before saying, “I grew up seeing the way my parents looked at each other. Like they were stuck, you know? It was obvious that they didn’t love each other. And then I found my mom’s old diary from when she was in high school in the attic. She was in love with this guy that was on the track team and they were in this secret relationship that they knew wasn’t going to last forever. She ended up getting her mark - my dad’s name - early and it broke her heart. They didn’t even have until her eighteenth birthday together.”

Yoongi is quiet. He stares out at the water, and says, “Damn. That’s deep.”

You’re idly kicking your legs. “Yeah. So that’s where it all started for me.”

“Have you ever been in love?” He tries to ask this as casually as he can, but you can hear the interest in his voice. He places a cigarette between his lips and smiles a bit when you lean over and light it for him.

“Love is just...inconvenient. Too messy. I have nothing against it. I just don’t think it’s for me.”

He’s squinting at you because the fiery sunset is right behind your frame, and he’s studying your face as he inhales his cigarette, its own tiny sunset burning bright red on the end. “You didn’t answer my question. Sounds like you’ve gotten your heart broken once,” he says, smoke billowing from his nose.

You bite the inside of your cheek, unable to deny. You finger at the foil around your burrito to give your hands something to do.

He’s still eyeing you. “Twice?”

“Three times,” you mumble. Your appetite is now gone.

He whistles lowly. “You’ve got me beaten by a landslide.”

“But I’ve learned from my lessons. Have you?” You’re defensive now, and you can tell by the way that he glances at you that he can hear it in your voice.

He presses the hot end of the cigarette down into the brick wall, crushing it. He leans back onto his palms and says, “Building up walls and closing down openings for romantic love doesn’t mean you’ve learned any lessons. It means you’re running away.”

The burrito in your hands is unappealing now and you haven’t even eaten half of it. “You don’t know me.” You’re pouting and you know it. Whatever game that Yoongi’s playing, you’ve lost. And you hate it.

Yoongi chuckles and takes another bite of his burrito. “I’m not saying that I do.”

“What do you want from me?” If he wants to sleep with you, you just need him to be upfront about it. You don’t want him to try to get to know you if he doesn’t care.

He raises one eyebrow.

“Why do you take your breaks the same time that I do? Why ask me out for burritos? What do you want?”

He smiles, and that frustrates you. “Has no one ever wanted to be your friend?”

“That's not what I’m asking.”

“Why is everything a challenge with you?”

You take a bite of your burrito instead of answering. “Wow. This is good.”

“I get it,” Yoongi continues. “You think I want to fuck you.”

Your eyes flit up to meet his briefly. A warm sensation spreads through your chest like spilled ink on soft, white cloth. “That’s not what I said.”

“But that’s what you’re thinking.”

How does Yoongi - this stranger - know you so well already? He thinks he has you figured out. No. He does have you figured out. You’ve worked so hard over the years to pack on an impenetrable armor. But around Yoongi, that very armor cracks and splits right down the middle, exposing your most vulnerable parts. At this point, you can’t be pissed off anymore because now it seems that you’re just letting him.

“Look, ___. You’re pretty. Like really fucking pretty and I’m sure any guy would be lucky to sleep with you at a moment’s notice. But I actually want to get to know you.”

You frown. That warm sensation is prickly now like your ribs are sprouting thorns.

“Hard to believe, right?” he adds sarcastically.

“You don’t do one-night stands, then?”

He shakes his head. “Not at all.”

Thick drops of rain tumble down from the sky. Gentle and easy at first, like a warning. The clouds must’ve snuck up during your conversation. Yoongi holds his hand out, palm up. You watch him from the corner of your eye as he tilts his face heavenwards. His Adam’s apple bops when he hums in thought.

“Guess it’s time to go home,” he says.

“Guess this is when we part.”

His dark eyes turn to you, and the thorns in your chest stab and stab and stab. “Yeah. Guess so.”

The entire second floor of the house smells like Chanel. The delicate, floral kind that Hyuna’s ridiculously rich grandma bought her for her birthday last year. Cyndi Lauper’s voice wafts from the only room with its door open. Hyuna must be getting ready for another date. Her second one this week.

You peek in. Her room is painted the baby pink that the guys won’t let her color the house. Fashion magazine cut outs are plastered all over the walls. Posters of gorgeous, soulless supermodels are taped up by the vanity that is cluttered with an array of perfumes and makeup.

She’s standing in front of the full-body mirror, hiking up the strapless shirt and smoothing down her skirt. She turns, assessing how her backside looks in the fabric.

“Your ass looks great,” you say with a smile, stepping in and sitting down on her impossibly soft bed.

She sighs in relief. “Oh thank God you’re home. None of the guys will ever say something so reassuring.” She takes a seat on the bench in front of her vanity and uncaps a red lipstick. “So, where have you been?”

“I was out with a guy.”

She calmly rolls the lipstick on in the mirror and waits until her mouth is a perfect red, red as bloodshed, until she turns to you in shock. “What? When was the last time that you’ve been with a guy? When was the last time that you’ve gotten laid?”

“Since after.”

Empathy flickers in her eyes until she remembers that you hate it when she pities you. “Oh, yeah. You were wild back then.”

You snort, but you’re thankful. You’d rather her make fun of you for sleeping around than have her dampen the mood by thinking too long about the breakup that caused it. “A little too wild.”

“At least you had fun.” She picks up that flamboyant, faceted glass perfume bottle and sprays her neck. Once, twice. Her top puts her slashed mark on full display. She’s proud of it.

“Does your grandma ever give you shit about you being Unbound?”

“Nah. She’s too old to give a fuck about trivial shit like that.” Once a week, Hyuna visits her grandma in her immense home in the country for tea. She always comes back with expensive gifts like a kid would come home on Halloween night with candy, passing things out to each person in the house: A Cartier watch for Hoseok, a pair of Gucci slippers for Tae… “Now tell me about this guy.” She wiggles her eyebrows suggestively, and you roll your eyes with a laugh.

You shrug and pick at a loose thread in the quilt. “There’s nothing to tell. We had burritos today and he pissed me off. That’s all.”

She fluffs her hair and checks her makeup in the vanity mirror as she says, “Boys that piss you off are only good for a few fucks. Nothing else. And sometimes even that is too much. You’ll get over him soon.”

You don’t mention how Yoongi has been the only thing that you could think about for the past few days. Conveniently, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” comes on, and the song steals Hyuna’s attention. She gets up and sings the lyrics with all the breath in her lungs, pulling you up from the bed for you to sing along with her. You reluctantly agree, and together you dance around and shout the lyrics.

One glance at the clock and Hyuna says, “Oh shit! I’m gonna be late. See ya, doll!” She plants a fat, red kiss on your cheek before snatching her purse from where it hangs on the back of the door and rushing downstairs. The cloud of dainty French perfume trails behind her.

You go into the hall and shout down, “Have fun!”

Downstairs, she already has the door open. The cats are curled up on the welcome mat, but she ignores them. They know by now that Hyuna is not the one to whine at. She’s digging through the pile for her favorite heels, cursing under her breath at the guys for not being neater with their stuff. You’re not sure if she brightens up because of the encouragement from you or because she finally finds her shoes. “Thank you!” She pulls them on as she heads out the door. She nearly trips on the threshold and yanks the door shut behind her.

You think about Hyuna and all her dates. Hyuna doesn’t let anyone get her down. She’s free and she’s bold and she’s who she wants to be. Why can’t you be like that? Why let a breakup that happened almost two years ago affect you today?

You’re sure Yoongi is still working as you lock up the flower shop. The sun has already settled under the horizon, leaving behind a smear of gold and a sky as purple as a bruise. You know that the tattoo parlor closes thirty minutes after the flower shop, so you lean against the telephone pole looming in front of it and wait. Yoongi steps out after the last patron leaves. He sifts through a ring of keys, searching for the correct one.

“You don’t do one-night stands,” you say.

He pauses and turns to you. The streetlight across the street doesn’t provide a sufficient amount of lighting for him to see your face, so he squints like that’ll help. “___?”

You take a step forward into a little more light. “You don’t do one-night stands. I don’t do relationships. Maybe we can meet somewhere in the middle.”

He lets your statement settle like the fine dust on the television in your living room. “You mean like...a no strings attached sort of deal?” He asks this like he’s never heard of such a thing. Like something so emotionless doesn’t actually exist.

“Yes. Unless you’re too much of a sappy motherfucker to do it.”

He laughs, and you painstakingly realize that you really like his smile. “Okay,” he says.

“Okay,” you repeat.

He twirls the key ring around his finger, making the keys spin and glint in the low lighting. This is similar to him knocking a cigarette up and down in his mouth. You can practically feel the thoughts whirring in his head.

“What?” you say.

“When do we start this sort of...agreement?”

“Tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes. Tonight. Unless you have something better to do?”

“Um, no, not at all.”

“Okay. My house isn’t far from here.” You gesture for him to follow you.

He does, tucking the keys into the pocket of his jacket and catching up with you. “Are there rules for this thing? I feel like there should be rules.”

“Sure there is.” You keep your voice light as you look over at him and say, “Don’t fall in love with me.”

There’s a flash of something in his eyes. Some emotion that is drowned quickly in those dark irises of his before you can catch it. He chuckles and says, “Well, I guess my rule would have to be…” He ponders, turning his thoughts over in his head like a child meticulously searching for bugs under rocks. “Don’t ask me to take off my shirt.”

Curiosity surfaces, and it’s at the tip of your tongue before you swallow it down. That’s something you won’t ask him about just like you won’t ask Hoseok about the mark that’s blotted out like a bad memory on his thumb. “Done.”

Crickets chirp, hidden among the wet grass. Yoongi walks with his hands in his jacket pockets, and you walk a step ahead of him, unable to endure the awkwardness of it all. Maybe you made a mistake. You should take this whole thing back and say you were joking. Maybe you -

“What kind of music do you like?” His voice is as cool as the night.

You step over a puddle and say, “All kinds. But I mainly listen to whatever my housemates listen to.”

“Which is?”

“A lot of Bruce Springsteen and Cyndi Lauper.”

“Oh God.”

You laugh. “Don’t let Hoseok hear you say that. He’s, like, in love with Bruce Springsteen. What do you like?”

You don’t have to look at him to know that he’s thinking. It’s like you can physically feel him sticking his hand into his thoughts and trying to decipher which one is the best to pull out. “I like the Smiths a lot.”

You stop and turn. “Really?”

Yoongi jolts to a stop, nearly bumping into you. A smile is playing on his lips. “Yes.”

“I like them, too.”

Now he does smile. “Favorite song?”

“Let’s say it at the same time. Three, two -”

He says, “There is a Light that Never Goes Out” at the exact same time that you say, “This Charming Man.” He laughs, and you find yourself joining him. Your eyes meet, and something crackles there, but you turn away again.

“I do have to warn you, though,” you say, walking again.

“About?”

“My housemates are all Unbound. Like, all of them. So, please -”

“I won’t.”

You nod. His eyes are sincere. Whatever you both are about to do, he doesn’t want to mess it up.

You make it to the house sooner than you think, and it looms before you. It looks bigger now that you’re with Yoongi, like the place is going to swallow him up and spit him out. The light in the living room is on and so is the one on the porch. Your car is gone, so Hoseok must be working another late shift. Why are you so nervous?

“Never brought a guy home before?” he teases. Dammit. You must’ve shown emotion again. Or maybe it’s just Yoongi peering through that chasm in your armor again.

You don’t respond. Instead, you head up the porch steps and unlock the door, stepping around the motionless cats. As soon as the door is open, you hear the guys shouting something over each other. You can’t tell if they’re arguing or joking but either way, you’re afraid it’s going to scare Yoongi away.

He slowly shuts the door behind himself, looking towards the archway that leads to the living with caution as you pull off your shoes.

“They’re cool. They’re always loud,” you assure.

He takes off his shoes and places them outside the pile just like you did your very first night here. He follows you into the living room where Taehyung and Jungkook hold up a broom and Hyuna staggers and stumbles as she bends backwards under it. The place is littered with cheap beer cans and Jimin is taking a swig straight from a bottle of liquor.

“___!” Taehyung exclaims. He drops his end of the broom and the stick whacks Hyuna right in the stomach. She drops to the floor in exaggerated pain. “Asshole!” she yells at him. But everyone’s attention is on you now. And Yoongi.

“Who’s the cutie?” Taehyung asks. His eyes are glossy and unfocused.

“This is Yoongi. My -” Friend? Fuck? Acquaintance? You don’t know what to call him. “Just Yoongi.”

“Hi, Just Yoongi!” Jimin says, waving like a child. “I’m Jimin.”

Jungkook drops the broom and goes over to Jimin, enveloping him in a back hug. “That’s Jungkook in the overly baggy shirt,” you say, “And the girl struggling to get off the floor is Hyuna.”

You go over to help her up. It’s difficult because she refuses to use her legs to assist you, but once she’s on her feet, she places her hands on both your cheeks. Her fingertips are rough with callouses. “I think I’ve found the one, kiddo. I think I’ve finally found the one!” She struggles focusing on your eyes and her words are slurred. They must’ve been drinking for a while now.

“Is that what we’re celebrating?” You aren’t sure if Hyuna is serious or if it’s just her intoxication talking. Whenever she gets drunk, she thinks she’s in love with the last person she’s kissed.

“Yes!” Jungkook shouts. He’s only loud when he’s got liquor in his system. His cheeks are rosy and so is his smile as he rests his head on Jimin’s shoulder. “She’s in love!”

“We’re all in love!” Taehyung bellows. He picks up a random can of beer and finishes it. He crushes it in his fist with gusto - a party trick he’s been perfecting over the past few weeks.

Yoongi stands awkwardly in the archway, unsure of what to do.

“Hey… I forgot your name already, but what can you do?” Hyuna asks Yoongi. She still has your face in her hands, and she smells faintly like Chanel but a lot like beer. You peel her hands away.

“I’m sorry?” Yoongi says, a crease burrowing between his eyebrows.

“I wanna be in an all-girl rock band, but if you can play an instrument, maybe I’ll make an exception for you. ___ here is shit at any instrument that we have in this house.”

“Thanks,” you deadpan.

Yoongi runs his fingers through the hair at the top of his head. “I can play the piano a little.”

“You can?” you say.

“He can!” Jimin shouts like he knows Yoongi well. “Play something for us!”

Yoongi blinks. “Right now?”

“Yeah!”

“Uh…” Yoongi looks to you for help. You just nod your head. You really wish you can save him, but there’s no escaping a drunk Jimin. When he demands something, he gets it, even if that means shedding his dignity and whining. “What should I play?”

“‘Heartbeat’ by Wham!” says Taehyung.

Jimin says, “I fucking love that song!”

Hyuna asks, “Can you play it?”

Again, Yoongi looks to you. “Yeah. Of course.” The room watches as he passes the television and settles on the creaky piano bench. He lifts the fallboard and stretches his fingers over the keys. “How does the start of the song go?”

Taehyung tries to mimic the intro, but it just sounds like a drunken babble, but Yoongi gets it. He bangs out the opening chords with a few trial and errors, but when he finally gets it, Jimin screams in excitement like he never seen anyone play the piano before. You and Hyuna clap to keep rhythm and Jimin belts out the first verse. His voice still sounds nice despite him being inebriated.

When the chorus comes around, Taehyung, Hyuna, Jimin, and Jungkook shout and jump and twirl around the room to the lyrics. The room crackles with their effervescence and when Taehyung takes your hand and spins you around, you’re laughing hard like you’ve had a few drinks with them. Yoongi is laughing, too, but he doesn’t mess up the chords. He bangs out the solo and Taehyung says, “I think I may be in love with that man.”

Hyuna steals Taehyung away from you to dance with him, and Jimin and Jungkook are in a trance, lost within each other as they drunkenly shuffle in each other’s arms.

“Okay, okay. Song’s over,” you declare. “I’m gonna have to steal him back.”

“Boo!” Jungkook says, making Jimin laugh.

“Let’s go up to my room,” you murmur to Yoongi. He nods, thankful that you’re finally on his side. On your way out towards the stairs, Jimin shouts, “Use protection!” causing everyone to giggle.

Yoongi sighs once you close your bedroom door behind you both, shutting out the sound of someone trying - and horribly failing - to play a song until Hyuna exclaims, “Get the fuck off the keys!”

“Sorry about that,” you say, locking the door. “I didn’t know they were going to be drunk.”

“No worries,” Yoongi says, but there are beads of sweat at his temples before he wipes them away. “It was fun. Haven’t played the piano in a bit.”

The lamp on the nightstand is on, and Yoongi is interested in all the writings on the walls. He runs his fingertips over them like they have texture, and he stops when one quote scratched in harsh, black ink catches his eye. “You’re gonna carry that weight,” he reads aloud. “Was this person quoting the Beatles song, or is this referencing something more cryptic?”

You don’t care. His back is to you and as he thinks about this, you’re unzipping your jacket and letting it fall off your shoulders. Unbuttoning your pants and stepping out of them. “Yoongi.”

He turns at the sound of his name, and his eyes go wide at your lack of clothing. Like he didn’t think you were serious about fucking him.

“Come here,” you say, your voice low and sultry.

He does. He drinks you up, but his eyes are devoid of lust. He’s looking at you like an art curator would a painting that he wants to learn everything about. His gaze makes you feel naked but not physically.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispers. His hand comes up and glides across your collarbone. He smells like fresh rain and menthol cigarettes. You want him to devour you. You can imagine him in the pit of your stomach before his lips even touch you.

You’re not sure why him calling you beautiful feels like such a commitment. It scares you, but you close your eyes when his thumb brushes against the pulse fluttering under your jaw. His mouth is wet and warm on your throat. You close your eyes and let the sensation of his tongue pull you apart like sticky fingers plucking cotton candy fluff.

His fingers grip your hips, your waist, your throat. The tips are chilly against your heated flesh. All he’s doing is kissing you, but it feels like a tease. You haven’t been touched in so long, you don’t want him to take his time, but he does.

You grow impatient. You grab him by the chin so that he’s looking into your eyes and you say, “Fuck me.”

He licks his lips. His eyes dance, but not in an excited way. Almost like he’s...nervous? “Okay.”

He kisses you as you undo his jeans. Kisses you as he kicks them off. Kisses as he gets you on the bed. He’s between your legs, sucking hickies on your shoulder, and you’re so turned on that it’s unbearable.

“Condom?” he says, his voice strained.

“In the nightstand.”

He reaches in the drawer, almost knocking the lamp over when he slams it closed. He pushes down his briefs and tosses them to the floor. His cock is erect and wanting. He bites his lip as he rolls on the condom, and a crease is bunched up between his eyebrows as he focuses. Damn, he looks good.

“Ready?” he mutters into your ear as he settles between your legs.

“Yes.” You claw at his shirt, grasping it and screwing your eyes shut in immense pleasure. He fills you up slowly, pushing all the way to the hilt, whispering, “Fuuuuuck.”

“Shit. You feel so good,” you whine.

“As do you,” he strangles out, lightly biting you on your jaw. He thrusts, and you gasp, wrapping your legs around him, pushing your heels into his ass to make him go deeper, deeper, deeper.

No one has ever fucked you like this before. He fucks not like he wants to come, but like he’s trying to make you feel good. No one before has made your eyes roll the way that he is. No one has made your thighs tremble under their grip the way he does.

He unwraps your legs from around him and drapes one over his shoulder, hitting a spot at this angle that has you moaning pitifully. He holds your leg there by leaving a hand on your ankle while the other is pressed down flat against your abdomen, the fingers splayed wide like he doesn’t want you to squirm away. He rolls into you deliciously, his hips snapping like he’s doing it to a rhythm that only he can hear.

You’re pretty sure that everyone downstairs can hear you crying out pathetically, and you’re sure they’re going to make fun of you later, but they’re too drunk and you’re too elated to care right now.

He is sweating profusely, his hair clumping together on his forehead in dark strings, his breaths coming out ragged and husky. This make you wetter. You’re clay in his hands, and you don’t care how he molds you. Damn. You never let a guy take the reins like this. It was always you that was in control. Always you saying -

“Roll over. Get on your knees for me.” He doesn’t say this in a demanding voice, but yet, it turns you on like he just smacked your ass and told you to call him Daddy. Fuck.

You do as he says with no hesitation. Your limbs are trembling and you can barely stay up. Yoongi chuckles and his hands smooth down the dip of your back. Over the curve of your ass. “Damn,” he whispers.

You glance over your shoulder like you’re about to faint, your eyelids heavy. Your body is anticipating the push that’ll come with Yoongi entering you again, but he’s taking his time.

“Tell me what you like,” he says, voice velvet. You can feel the head of his cock against your slit as he rubs it against it, gathering the juices. You quiver violently, your core throbbing. Your mouth opens in a silent moan, and your eyelids drop shut. You just want him to put it in, but he doesn’t.

His hand slides up your ass, across the expanse of your back, over your shoulder, and settles loosely around your throat. “Hm? Tell me what you like,” he repeats.

Your thoughts are scattered, but somehow in your tattered state, you piece together a sentence. “I would like to be spanked.” You aren’t sure whether you should add “sir” or “daddy,” but he doesn’t mention anything about it. He simply says, “Okay,” and then there is the sting of his dry palm colliding with the flesh of your bottom.

You jerk forward with a gasp, but your cunt clenches up with want. You have never been spanked before. It was only a fantasy. But goddamn you want Yoongi to spank you until there is no more feeling in his ass or in his palm. Whichever comes first.

“Mm. What else?” he says.

“I don’t - I don’t know,” you hiccup. Which is the truth. You’ve never been given the opportunity to figure out what you like. It’s only been fuck and finish. No thoughts in between.

“It’s okay.” He leans forward, his body flush with yours and kisses your shoulder. He places himself at your entrance and pushes in. He moans, deep and low and raspy and with a few hard thrusts, you come undone.

“Oh fuck oh fuck oh -” Twitching and gasping, tears stuttering down your cheeks, hands gripping the sheets beneath you like they’ll keep your sanity from floating away.

Yoongi goes slow, his hand placed on your lower back. He pulls out when he knows you’ve had enough and rubs himself. You can see it in the redness of his cheeks, in the tightness of his eyes, he’s about to come. You face him, lying on your stomach and taking him in your hand. His lower abdomen twitches as you work him, twisting your fist up and down around him. His breaths are shallow and his eyes are squeezed tight. His mouth is wet and swollen and it hangs open until he clenches his jaw tight enough to break teeth when he comes. You pump him fast as he spills into the condom. He fists your hair, gripping tight with a satisfying moan and you make a mental note to ask him to do this the next time you’re in bed.

“Shit,” he breathes when he can finally grasp a coherent thought before it flutters away.

“Yeah,” you say, settling back into the pillows.

He lays down beside you, throwing the blanket over your bodies. You wonder how he doesn’t feel suffocated in that shirt by the way he’s sweating.

You roll over onto your stomach to hug the pillows and press your cheek into the fabric. And you just look at him. There’s nothing that you want to say. Nothing that you need to do.

He doesn’t meet your gaze - he’s staring up at the ceiling - but can feel you watching him. “What are you thinking about?”

You smile lazily. “I’m just thinking that was the best fuck I’ve ever had.”

He turns his face to look at you. The streetlights cast a dull glow over his outline, but you can still see his eyes. “Really?” He’s smiling. Not proud or confident, just thankful for the compliment.

“Yeah. Damn. How many people have you fucked to get like that?” Your voice is light and playful, but Yoongi is tense now. Maybe you said something you shouldn’t have.

“Only two.”

You think about what he said by the river. How he alluded to only being in love twice. You make another rule with yourself to never bring up the past with him.

“It’s okay,” he says, sensing your unease. “It was a long time ago.”

A silence falls over you, heavy like a winter blanket. You’re not looking at him. Instead you’re looking past him at the little spot on the wall by the baseboard that doesn’t have any writing on it. It’s the emptiest spot on all four walls, and you’ve always wondered why no one has written anything there.

“Have you met your soulmate?” you ask.

Yoongi exhales through his nose, and toys with the hair on the top of his head. “Yeah.”

“What was it like?” You’re only asking because you’re curious. Your housemates never talk about these things. Your parents once said that when you meet your soulmate, there is this indescribable feeling that runs through you. Like electricity or liquid fire. But it doesn’t hurt, they said. It just feels...strange. You always wanted to know what that feels like.

He swallows and interlaces his fingers behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. “Well, it was… interesting, I guess. To be in front of this person that you’re supposed to spend the rest of your life with. It can be heartbreaking, too.”

“Why would it be heartbreaking?”

“To know that there is a possibility that they might not want to spend their forever with you.”

You frown, thinking about what he said once before. “But I thought you said soulmates are predestined. That none of this can be an absolute mistake.”

“I did. And I meant that. I still do. But just because I believe this is predestined, doesn’t mean that someone is automatically going to fall in love with their soulmate. Maybe there is another reason why they are paired together. Maybe they were meant to have a kid, and that kid is meant to become someone great. I don’t know how the System works or why some people get the love of their lives and others don’t. No one knows. But I just want to believe that it means something.”

You drink it all that he says. “Even though we’re not soulmates, do you think there was a reason why we met?”

Yoongi sighs again, this time sounding like he’s finished with the conversation. He rolls onto his side, his back facing you. “Maybe.”

The morning comes with the smell of breakfast cooking downstairs and the spot beside you empty. You lay in bed for a while, gathering your thoughts. The spot between your thighs is sore when you stretch, but it’s the good kind of pain. A reminder that last night really happened.

You throw on a pair of cotton shorts and the baggiest sweatshirt that you can find in your closet. Taehyung is in the upstairs bathroom throwing up, so you head downstairs to wash your face in the bathroom by the kitchen. Hyuna is passed out on the couch, and Jimin is sprawled out across the floor. They both have pillows tucked under their heads and a blanket carefully pulled around them. Most likely Hoseok’s doing when he came home from work.

You stop when you see Yoongi sitting at the kitchen table, hair messy and sleep in his eyes. There’s a cigarette burning in his hand and he taps it on the plastic ashtray set in the center of the table as he and Hoseok chat about something. Hoseok is busy preparing breakfast, occasionally stopping to take a sip of coffee from his favorite cracked mug that says #1 DAD in bold, black letters.

Yoongi notices you and waves. There’s a hint of a smile on his face. “Hey,” he says.

You probably look like shit, but there’s that warm feeling permeating throughout your chest like fresh honey. “Hey.”

Hoseok glances over from where he’s scrambling eggs on the stove. “Morning, ___.”

“Morning.”

The bathroom door opens, and Jungkook steps out. He is squinting one eye while the other is completely shut, his defense against the glaring sun beaming through the kitchen windows and onto his face. His hair sticks up in all directions. “Fuck alcohol,” he mumbles.

You laugh and pat him on the shoulder. Hoseok grabs the bottle of aspirin he had left out on the counter. “Think fast,” he says and tosses it to Jungkook. Jungkook snatches it out of the air and shuffles into the kitchen. Hoseok pushes a glass of orange juice into Jungkook’s hand as the younger boy drops down into a seat at the table.

“Made coffee,” Hoseok says either to you or Yoongi. You’re not sure.

You thank him and shuffle into the kitchen, pouring yourself a cup. Yoongi finishes his cigarette and pushes out from his chair. He grabs his jacket that was draped over the back of his chair. “I have work soon,” he says.

“I’ll walk you out,” you say, following him out the kitchen with your mug in your hands.

He slips on his shoes, and you stand there awkwardly as he ties them, tightening your grip around the mug. “I had fun...last night.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” He shrugs on his jacket and runs a hand through his hair. A breath of silence hangs as he looks at you. For a moment, you’re genuinely afraid that he’s going to kiss or hug you, but he turns away and opens the door.

The cats are there, begging for breakfast. Taehyung usually has two cans of tuna out for them when he gets up.

“See you around,” Yoongi says. He flashes a smile and then he leaves. You push the door closed behind him.

Hoseok and Jungkook are waiting expectantly when you return to the kitchen.

“So,” Hoseok says, scraping the eggs onto a large plate.

“So,” you say, putting your mug to your lips.

“New boyfriend?”

“Absolutely not.”

“One-night stand?” Jungkook asks, reaching for the plate of bacon set on the table.

“Not that either.”

“They’re just casually fucking,” says Taehyung who appears in the kitchen. His hair is dripping and water pools on his collarbone. A cotton towel is draped over his shoulder. “Damn, I’m never drinking like that again. What were we celebrating anyway?”

“Hyuna’s in love or some shit,” Jungkook mutters, crunching on a piece of bacon.

Hoseok snorts as he chops up some strawberries. Whenever he makes breakfast, he has to take it to the next level. That’s why he’s ‘number one dad.’ “Again?”

“Maybe she’s serious this time,” you comment, taking a sip of coffee. It burns down your throat, fresh and bitter.

All three men look at you dully.

“But who is that guy? If he’s not a one-night stand or a boyfriend?” Hoseok asks.

You shrug. “Just someone I’m with. Coitally.”

Taehyung sneaks up behind Hoseok and steals a strawberry slice. Popping it in his mouth, he says, “You guys were going at it last night. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you that animated in bed before.”

Your face gets hot, but you keep your expression neutral. “I’m glad it got you off, Tae,” you bite back.

Jungkook snickers. Hoseok makes a face. Taehyung raises his eyebrows suggestively. “If I weren’t so drunk, maybe I could’ve.”

Everyone collectively makes a disgusted noise.

The rain subsides and spring finally bursts throughout the city. The flower shop gets more business as more flowers are shipped in. On slower days, Yoongi skips his smoke break and comes in, shutting the door behind him. He flips the sign on the door over so that SORRY, WE’RE CLOSED faces the street and he fucks you against a wall in the back room where the bags of fertilizer and packets of seeds are stored.

He’s buckling up his belt as you fix your hair to the best of your ability without a mirror after one of your sessions.

“Can I ask you something?” you say.

He’s fitting his cap onto his head over his messy hair. “You’re always so full of questions.”

You ignore his comment. “If you’re so sappy as you say, then why agree to this no strings attached thing with me?”

He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out the omnipresent pack of cigarettes. He places one between his teeth. His eyes fit up to meet yours. “I don’t do one-night stands, and I like sex. I won’t fall in love with you. Don’t worry.”

You smirk and toss him your book of matches. He catches them and nods in gratitude before striking a match and igniting the end of his cigarette. “You busy tonight? Everyone’s going to a party so I’ll have the house to myself. Maybe we can fuck on the stairs or some freaky shit like that.”

Yoongi chuckles and inhales the toxic smoke. It drifts out of his nose and mouth as he says, “Sure. Sounds fun.”

“That’s not going to end good,” Taehyung says. He’s pondering over which tie in his closet would look the best with his grossly expensive Gucci shoes. In this house, it seems like everyone is always preparing to go somewhere.

Origami birds made from all kinds of paper hang from the ceiling. The window is open, inviting the spring evening inside the room. The birds twirl in the breeze. When Taehyung quit smoking around the same time he went vegetarian, he used to fold those origami birds every time he had the itch for a cigarette. Now, he doesn’t even think about smoking anymore and the sight of cigarettes don’t bother him, but he still keeps those birds hanging as a reminder of his accomplishment.

“What do you mean? Me and Yoongi are adults. We know how to handle our emotions.”

He shoots you a look, disbelief all over his face. “Do you really?”

It has been almost two months since you and Yoongi began your agreement. “Wouldn’t one of us have caught feelings by now?”

Taehyung makes a low noise in his throat like a disapproving mother. He pulls out a red tie with green palm trees and a green one with gold embroidery. “Just because it hasn’t happened now doesn’t mean it won’t. Red or green?” He holds up both ties to his chest.

“Green. But I don't think so. He’s cool.”

Taehyung takes the tie off the hanger and works it under his collar. “Just be careful, okay?”

“Always.”

The house is so quiet that you can hear the clock in the hallway ticking. Yoongi is going to be here any minute, and you don’t know what to do until then. You check your hair in the bathroom mirror for the fourth time. Touch up your lipstick for the third. You’re wearing your favorite cotton shorts, the ones that make your ass look spectacular and you rarely ever wear a bar but you’re wearing a lace one that puts your breasts on full display that you bought and never worn. You feel naked, and you haven’t ever walked around the house so exposed. It’s a little exciting.

You sit in the living room, drumming your fingers on the armrest. It’s almost nine o’ clock. Unable to sit still, you wipe Genie down despite him being spotless. You go into the kitchen and look at the chores listed on the blackboard on the refrigerator door. You’re next to wash clothes at the laundromat.

Finally, there’s a knock.

You hurry to the front door, heart racing. Yoongi has been over before. You’ve slept with him plenty of times. Why can’t your stomach stop turning?

He’s wearing all black even though it’s warm outside. “You look like you’re cold.”

“Thank you, so do you.”

He chuckles, and you open the door wider to let him in. As he’s taking off his shoes, he says, “What was it that you wanted to do? Fuck on the stairs or something? Doesn’t sound very practical.”

“Then let’s do it on the kitchen table.”

He curls his nose. “Where your housemates eat?”

“Oh my God, you’re so boring.”

He smiles and straightens up, approaching you slowly. “That’s not what you were saying in the flower shop.”

Your stomach tightens with want. You don’t realize that you’re backing away until you hit a wall. “So where do you want me?”

He kisses your throat, right over your jugular. You close your eyes and moan quietly. “Right here,” he mutters against your skin. He reaches down and picks up your leg, throwing it over his hip. “I want you right here.”

He ends up fucking you on the stairs like you wanted. On the couch in the kitchen instead of the table. On the living room floor. You moan as loud as you want. He spanks you as loud as he wants. You tell him to pull your hair when he takes you from behind and he does with pleasure.

After, while tangled up in each other’s limbs in your bed, Yoongi’s head is on your chest as you run your fingers through his hair. His eyes are closed, his arm tossed over your waist. You could lay like this forever.

You think about what Taehyung said to you earlier in the night. Suddenly, this position that you’re in feels too intimate, and you push him away, claiming that you’re hot. He sits up and runs his fingers through his hair.

“Have you ever heard of the hedgehog dilemma?” he asks, throwing his legs over the side of the bed and stretching. There’s a pack of cigarettes on the nightstand and he pulls a stick from it, slipping it between his lips.

“I can’t say that I have.”

The muscles in his back are visible through his shirt. You have the urge to run a hand over them but snuff it. His voice is muffled around the cigarette. “It’s when a few hedgehogs move closer together to share warmth, but they have to stay away from each other because of their spikes. They want to get close, but because of the way they’re made, they have to stay apart.”

Your chest is tight. “Why are you telling me this?”

He gets up, naked from the waist down. “Just a thought that I had.” He leaves, probably to grab his clothes from wherever they’ve been discarded downstairs.

His words sink under your skin, settling there uncomfortably. It pisses you off. How he acts like he knows so much about you. Anger burns within you, and you toss the blankets off your frame and stomp out into the hallway. Yoongi is downstairs, pulling his jeans up over his briefs. You grasp the banister as you glare down at him and shout, “You don’t know me.”

He looks up, tucking the unlit cigarette behind his ear, an eyebrow raised. Unbothered. “Never said I did.”

You’re completely naked, but you’re too angry to care. “But you have that - that condescending tone in your voice whenever you say something like you know more about myself than I do.”

He ignores you and bends down to grab your shorts and bra. Holds them up for you to come down and take.

You don’t know why, but that pisses you off even more. You descend the stairs and snatch the clothes from him, yanking them on. He doesn’t watch you, but when your hands slip as you try to clasp the bra, he moves behind you and does it himself. He puts his lips to your ear, sliding his arms around your waist. He whispers, “Why is everything a challenge with you?”

You close your eyes as his fingers dip - slowly, slowly - down past the waistband of your shorts. You inhale sharply when his fingertips brush against that spot, and you grip dangerously on his forearm. “You called me a hedgehog,” you mumble between your teeth like a child.

He chuckles. It rumbles through his chest, and you can feel the vibrations in your back. “I didn’t.”

His thumb makes languid, tantalizing circles over your clit. Your grip tightens. “You a - alluded to it.”

“If you’re a hedgehog, then so am I.” His breath is hot and moist on your ear. A shiver racks through you.

A moan threatens to escape. This feels like another one of his games, and you’re losing once again. And just like an arrogant winner, he retrieves his hand from your shorts and moves for his shoes. A muscle in your jaw twitches.

“You’re such an asshole,” you huff.

He fits his feet in his sneakers with a smile. “Yeah?”

You fold your arms over your chest. “Yeah.”

He straightens to his full height, towering over you when he comes close. Mischief is smeared all over his grin. “I’m an asshole?”

“...Yoongi…” you say warily. In a blur of motion, he lifts you up and tosses you on his shoulder. You scream in actual shock. “What the hell!”

He laughs as he carries you up the stairs, not bothering to kick off his shoes. You bounce when he throws you on the bed, eyes wide. “I’m an asshole?” he repeats, grabbing your ankles and pulling you toward the foot of the bed. He kneels between your legs, running his hands down your thighs.

Now your skin is scorching. He’s challenging you, but this time you won’t cave so easily. “Yeah, you’re an asshole. The biggest a - ah, shit.” His mouth is warm and inviting as he kisses your core over your shorts. Damn. You’ve already lost.

His smile is dark and full of victory. “What was that?”

You tighten your fist around a handful of his hair. “Shut up and keep going.”

He laughs. “Yes, ma’am.”

You lift your hips as he slides your shorts down your legs, pupils dilated with sinful intentions, and you let him fluff your thoughts into clouds.

Spring is melting into a humid summer, but still Yoongi wears all black.

“You’re not hot?” you say, touching up your makeup in the bathroom mirror.

He watches you through the mirror from where he leans against the doorframe with his hands in his pockets, probably wondering if all that glitter fluttering down into the sink is bad for the plumbing. “Nope.”

You’re not sure how you convinced him to come to an Unbound protest, and he surprisingly didn’t give you too much of a headache when you asked. His hair is a stark white blonde now. “I dye it a different color every summer,” he claimed at your incredulous expression when you opened the door for him.

“Ten minutes!” Hyuna shouts so that the entire house can hear. She, too, has a glitter-inspired makeup look. Glitter resembles stars, and stars represents the Unbound movement as a sort of ironic stab at how people say that soulmates are “written in the stars.” She even went so far as powdering it all over her hair, which glimmers bright and iridescent in the sunlight.

“Got it!” you call out, focusing hard on darkening your waterline with eyeliner.

In the mirror, you notice Yoongi staring hard at the floor, a crease between his eyebrows. If he had a cigarette, he would be knocking it up and down between his teeth.

“What is it?” you ask.

“Can I tell you something?”

The seriousness in his voice causes you to stop and turn to face him. “Yeah. Of course.”

He glances over his shoulder into the living room where Jimin, Taehyung, and Jungkook are making posters and picket signs on the floor. He steps in the bathroom enough to close the door behind him. “I’m not really comfortable around big crowds.”

You wonder why he agreed to come if that’s the case. “We’ll stay in the back then. Cool?”

He nods, but you can still sense his unease. “Sure.”

The turnout for this protest is bigger than all the others that you’ve ever been to. Your housemates are in their element, dancing and shouting and loving everyone that they meet. The sky is a perfect blue. The clouds have a perfect plump to them, like someone came along and fluffed them with careful fingers. Everyone is wearing glitter, holding up beautiful signs that say LOVE IS A CHOICE or MY LOVE DOESN’T HAVE A NAME or just a simple sign with a line going through the word “System.”

The protest is in the heart of downtown where all the neon lights and tremendous billboards mesmerized you all those years ago. Someone somewhere among the crowd brought a boombox, and they’re blasting “Like a Virgin” by Madonna. Like a movie, nearly everyone present know the lyrics and they scream them at the top of their lungs the way you and Hyuna did in her room to Cyndi Lauper, not caring that police cars sit opposite to the crowd, waiting for something disastrous to happen like guard dogs.

You’re having so much fun that you almost forget about Yoongi. He’s beside you, so close that your shoulder is rubbing his, and when you look at him, he gives you a smile but it’s pulled thin with anxiety.

“Hey,” you say, but you have to get close to his ear so that he can hear you. “You okay?”

He nods, but it’s jerky. The sun is beating down and he’s sweating. The throng of people surrounding you undulates like an ocean as people hug and dance and kiss. He’s not used to this. Guilt runs deep in your chest. You slide your fingers between his, clutching tight.

“I’m right here,” you say with a smile.

He blinks, eyes boring into your own like he’s searching for something. He opens his mouth to say something, but closes it as if second-guessing himself. “Thanks,” he says instead.

It’s a tradition to have a party after a protest. It’s in that same house that you got drunk for the first time in when you were seventeen, where that girl gave you a bloody nose. Yoongi comes with you and your housemates despite you saying that it’s okay if he goes home.

The house is so packed that people spill into the lawn where a few cars are parked and red cups are spread like plastic wildflowers. Yoongi is leaning against a wall in the large living room bursting with bodies, smoking a cigarette. You were dancing with Hyuna to a Whitney Houston song, but then “This Charming Man” comes on. From across the room, you spot Yoongi and he grins, wide and knowing. You rush over to him, almost knocking a few people over.

“Come on, we have to dance!” you insist, taking one of his hands in yours.

He shakes his head, but he’s still smiling. “I don’t dance!” he has to shout over Morrisey’s crooning.

“The song isn’t that long! Please?”

You’re a little drunk and so you’re not against begging. He knows this, and you can see him caving before he actually does. “Okay. Just this one song.”

You pull him on the dance floor. You can see the anxiety in his eyes, but you say, “Focus only on me, okay?” You take his cigarette and drop it in the drink of someone who squeezes by. You do most of the dancing, but Yoongi follows. He’s laughing as you twirl and jump and shimmy. It delights you to see him laugh this hard, and this realization stings like a lit match pressed against your skin.

He notices your shift in mood. “What’s wrong?”

The song is over, and “Take On Me” replaces it. You don’t want to dance anymore.

You take Yoongi’s hand and pull him through the bodies thick on the dance floor and into the graffiti-covered bathroom that you had a bloody nose in once. The bass of the song is heavy in the walls after you close the door.

“___, are you okay?” Yoongi is asking, but you don’t know what’s wrong.

Your chest heaves with the intensity of your breathing. You’re sweaty from dancing and covered in glitter. Yoongi even has glitter sprinkled all over his black T-shirt like a starry sky. Your glitter or everyone else’s? You’re not sure.

He’s standing in front of the mirror. He’s looking at you like maybe you’ve lost your mind or you’re the most beautiful girl in the world. You can’t tell. His eyes are so dark. So indecipherable.

The words I was here are still printed on the bottom left corner like they were just written a few minutes prior. Left behind like a lingering kiss. You wonder who that person was. Why didn’t they leave a name? Who was here? What does it mean?

But Yoongi is watching you with those gorgeous eyes. It’s just you and him. Him and you. Surrounded by walls covered in street art and words left behind by strangers that want to be remembered.

“___?” Yoongi says. He’s worried now. Or maybe he’s getting uncomfortable by the way you’re staring at him. Again, you can’t tell.

“Is the System perfect, or does it make mistakes?” you ask. Your fingertips tingle.

There’s that crease that appears endearingly between his eyebrows. “I don’t understand.”

“Is it perfect, or does it make mistakes?”

He thinks about this. You like that he has to think about everything before he answers. “A little bit of both, I think,” he finally says. “What’s with you and your random questions?”

He’s smiling at your absurdity, but you grab him and push your mouth against his in a quick, almost innocuous kiss. It catches you both off guard. You’ve never kissed without the intentions of sex lurking behind it. You blame your irrationality on the beer that you drank. But he closes that space again, pulling you flush against his body, melting his mouth against yours.

Emotion swells as you kiss. The emotion doesn’t have a name, but it’s there, and your chest is full of it. You run your hands through his hair as your tongue dances around his, his own hands chastely gripping your waist and caressing the dip of your back.

“It makes perfect mistakes,” you say between kisses.

“Perfect mistakes,” he repeats like it makes any kind of sense.

Your head is full of those plump clouds that were in the sky earlier in the day, and when Yoongi whispers, “You’re my perfect mistake,” against your lips, it feels like flimsy nonsense. Hollow words strung together in a sentence with no meaning. But there is a weight in his eyes when he looks at you.

And when you wake up the next day alone in your bed, that weight hovers. Heavier than a hangover.

You look up, and you immediately notice that quote scratched in black ink on the wall. YOU’RE GONNA CARRY THAT WEIGHT. Beatles song, or something more cryptic?

Sitting on the back porch, iced tea in perspiring Mason jars, you and Hyuna watch on as the guys burn a couch in the backyard. It’s one of the couches from the basement that grew mold, and Hyuna ordered for it to be exterminated. Hoseok is in one of his many old band T-shirts, toying with a few strands of his perpetually frizzy hair as he watches Jungkook and Taehyung squirt lighter fluid all over the couch.

Hyuna’s legs are a perfect bronze, and she stretches her toes out over the edge of the porch. Her toenails are painted red like a hard candy.

“I’m gonna miss that couch,” you say. Jimin has the gas lighter. After a pulling the trigger a few times, finally there is a flame. The guys stand back as he brings the lighter close. The couch ignites, and Taehyung lets out a whoop.

“I won’t. That couch was ugly as shit. Why do you think it was in the basement?” She takes a swig of her iced tea.

You snicker at her comment. Jungkook turns to Hoseok and asks, “Do we have any marshmallows?” Hoseok says no.

The sun is steadily falling, an insanely hot day coming to an end. Diaphanous clouds drag across the sky, drained from the heat as well. Fireflies blink in the grass, bobbing as if disoriented. The fire grows, and the flame is fascinating, eating up the couch the way Yoongi has been painfully consuming your thoughts.

Hyuna sighs dreamily. She leans back on her palms, her hair spilling over her shoulders. “___, I really am in love.”

You rip your gaze from the burning couch to Hyuna’s face. “Seriously?” Hyuna? In love? She has always seemed so untouchable. You always thought that she went on so many dates just because she could, not because she was actively searching for a companion.

There’s a small, content smile on her face, and her eyes are distant. She must be thinking of the person that stole her heart. “Yeah,” she says. “I’ve been seeing him these past few months and I’ve really fallen for him.”

Taehyung and Jungkook are making a game of who can blow the fire the hardest. It’s stupid, but all the guys are having a good time. You try to focus on them. But now your mind has wandered back to Yoongi and that kiss in the bathroom that occurred just a week ago. You’ve seen him only once since then. He had come into the flower shop the next day and fucked you against the wall in the back room, but you haven’t seen him since. He hasn’t even called. Not like either of you talked on the phone much, anyway.

Your voice is thin when you ask Hyuna, “What’s he like?”

She sighs again, this time accompanied by a blush and a shy smile. “He’s sweet. He’s funny and he loves Diet Coke. One time I made him laugh so hard that it came out of his nose.” She laughs at the memory. “And he’s so cute. Like the cutest. And he kisses me like I’m precious, you know? He has a good, clean heart.”

You’re chewing on your lip hard. Hard enough to make it bleed. “How did you meet him?”

She turns to you, a grave expression falling over her face. “Don’t tell anyone, okay?” she mutters, even though the guys are too far away to hear.

“Of course,” you say.

“Well, one day I was curious about who my mark was -”

“Hyuna…”

“Hear me out. And so I went to the nearest match office, and they have like, everyone in the country listed in these files. ___, there were shelves and shelves of them! Like a library.”

The night is warm, but you’re cold. You pull your knees up to your chest and hug them.

“They’re all in alphabetical order, and so I go to his name. And he only lives a few minutes away! So I stop by his house, and I show him my mark. He showed me his, and it was my name. And you know that feeling that people talk about when they meet their soulmate?”

You want to cover your ears. You want her to stop talking. She doesn’t notice and continues on, “Well, it’s real. It was so strange, like we were connected. And he asked me why my mark was crossed out and we had this big discussion. He was so interested in the Unbound movement even though - ___? Hey, are you okay? Where are you going?”

The door slams after you rush into the house. The thorns in your ribs sprout again, and they stab and stab and stab. Everything in your chest hurts as you tug on your shoes. You almost step on the cats when you stumble out of the house. You don’t know where you’re going, but you go. Your eyes are misty and it blurs the world around you.

You find yourself in a phone booth, the door feeble and barely closing. The tears come at full force now, racking your body like crying is a monster that is bigger than you, pushing you around. You think about calling your mom. There’s a few quarters in your pocket, and you pull it out, bringing few balls of lint with them. You dial. The voice that answers isn’t your mother’s.

“Hello? Who is this?”

“It’s me,” you say, your voice thick with tears.

“___? What’s wrong? Where are you?” It’s Yoongi. He sounds frantic. You didn’t know before dialing that you have his number memorized.

You blink to clear your vision enough to glance at your surroundings. “I’m in the phone booth in front of Hugo’s Diner.”

“Stay there. I’m coming.”

You sit on the curb in front of the diner, your chin in your hands and looking truly pathetic. It’s completely dark out now, and the streetlight above pools around you in a soft, white glow. A car pulls up across the street and parks. Yoongi steps out in a baggy sweatshirt and frayed jeans. He glances both ways before shuffling across the street to you.

“Hey, you okay?” he says.

You don’t know when you memorized his number or why you dialed it. He’s standing before you, waiting for you to reply while you sit on a curb in front of a dying diner next to a parking meter, trails of dried salt on your cheeks.

Why are you acting like it’s the end of the world? Hyuna is in love. That’s it. But she’s in love with the name on her skin, and that confuses you so much. You’ve looked up to Hyuna ever since you met her, and you’ve always admired the way she didn’t let the mark control her. Just like your other housemates. But if Hyuna fell in love with her mark, is there hope for you at all? You don’t have a mark, and all the boys that you’ve fallen in love with did, and they all broke your heart. Are people actually tuned to fall in love with their soulmate, and trying to defy it is futile?

But you aren’t capable of saying any of this, so instead you ask, “You have a car?”

He blinks, not expecting that response. “I’ve always had a car.”

“Since when?”

He sighs. “You and your questions. Tell me what’s wrong.”

You think of the dream in Hyuna’s eyes as she talked about her lover. Another bout of crying lurks in your chest, but you swallow it down. You don’t know Yoongi’s favorite drink or his favorite color or his favorite anything. Telling Yoongi why you’re out here looking pitiful will only make this situation worse. He’ll wonder why you’re making a big deal about something so miniscule. He’ll probably think that you’re jealous. Maybe a small fraction of you is.

“Do you like Diet Coke?” you ask.

Yoongi is probably annoyed with you. All you do is ask questions to deflect. He was right that day that you went out for burritos with him. You run away from love. You run away from everything. First from home, now from Hyuna… What next?

He drops down on the curb beside you, resting his elbows on his knees. “Diet Coke is one of my least favorite drinks. Is there a reason for that question?”

You shrug half-heartedly. “We’ve been around each other for almost four months now, and I don’t know anything about you.”

“I’m sure you know some things. But what do you want to know?”

He lets you ask him questions the entire drive back to his apartment. (“What’s your favorite season?” “Fall, maybe.” “What’s your favorite color?” “Blue.” “Not black?” “Haha.”) You ask questions as you walk with him up the stairs to his floor. Questions as he unlocks the door. Questions as you both take off your shoes.

Yoongi’s apartment is a one-room. There is barely any furniture besides a bed, a couch, and a tiny table accompanied by one chair. The majority of the space is taken up by a large, wooden desk with equipment you have never seen before and a keyboard. Beside the desk are a few milk crates filled to the brim with vinyl records. All kinds - from classical to hip hop to jazz. He says that he likes to create music, and he names and explains all the equipment. You watch his eyes sparkle as he talks. This is the most that he has ever said in one breath, and it makes you smile to yourself. He’s animated, passion oozing out of every pore. There’s a lilt in his voice that strangely resembles Hyuna’s when she was talking about her lover.

You wonder what life would be like if Yoongi’s name popped up on your skin one day. How would you feel? He would be yours, and you wouldn’t have to feel guilty whenever you look in his eyes and feel -

He’s smiling as he says, “Did I lose you?”

You blink. “No, no. Not at all. What else do you like to do?”

He likes to build and fix things. Sometimes he will pull things apart just to have the opportunity to put them back together. This is also why he likes creating beats. It’s essentially just assembling sounds together to create something intricate and almost tangible, like building a dresser or a bed frame. Except much more beautiful. A million times more rewarding. Because it was something that he made. Not just something that he screwed together.

You like hearing him talk like this. You could listen to him all day.

“I feel like I’m talking a lot. I want to hear about you. What do you love?” he says.

You’re both standing in the living room where there is his desk with all its speakers and technology instead of a television. You were always good at asking questions. You’re shit at answering them.

“I’m good at taking care of flowers. And I’m good at making origami birds. Taehyung taught me how to fold them.”

He smiles and shakes his head. “Not what you’re good at. What do you love? What’s your dream?”

You avert your gaze to the floor.

He tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. The gesture raises goosebumps on your arm. “What’s your favorite color?”

That questions is easier to chew. “Um, purple?”

He only asks you the same questions that you asked him. Only asking the simple ones that don’t require too much thought or emotion. You both end up on his bed, you laying on your side facing him, tracing the blue veins in his wrist. He lays on his back, eyes up at the ceiling.

“After that kiss, why didn’t I see you for a while?” you ask him, your voice small. This had been on your mind for a while. It had been itching under your skin. It was an unanswered question that you think you know the answer to, but are somewhat afraid to face.

You watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down when he swallows. “Just had some stuff to figure out.”

You both let his answer hover in that quiet space that settles between you.

You return to the house a week later once you’re finally able to confront Hyuna. You know how childishly you acted, and you’re prepared to apologize, but as soon as you step in the house, Hyuna pulls you into a hug and doesn’t let go.

“I’m sorry,” she says into your hair. “I’m so, so sorry.”

You pull away from her. “What are you apologizing for? Being in love? That’s not something you should feel sorry about. I’m the asshole. I’m the one who made you feel guilty.”

There’s tears lingering on her waterline. You wipe them away when they fall. She smiles. “You’re not an asshole.”

“And you shouldn’t be sorry.”

She shyly tucks some of her hair behind her ear. “He met the guys. They love him. I told him that we’re soulmates, and they were confused at first, but everything’s fine.”

You’ve had the Unbound movement all wrong. It isn’t an anti-soulmates movement. It’s about pro-love. The Unbound movement is about being able to love whoever you want without the government interfering or society telling you that it’s wrong. It’s not about loving anyone except your soulmate.

Now tears are wobbling in your eyes. “I’m so fucking happy for you, Hyuna,” you say. “I really am.”

She gathers you into another hug, warm and comforting like a mother’s. “Hoseok made your favorite. Baked spaghetti. Let’s go eat.”

The trees shrug off their green and shed vibrant orange and reds and yellows as the city succumbs to fall. At this point, you’re at Yoongi’s apartment so often that one day he wordlessly pushed a spare key into your palm after sleeping together. He’s at your place just as much, and he stole everyone’s hearts when he fixed the toilet in the downstairs bathroom.

Thanksgiving is hectic at your house with Hoseok and Hyuna cooking as much food as possible and shooing Taehyung out of the kitchen because he’ll only burn something. Jungkook bakes a few pies and Jimin makes his special mashed potatoes, claiming that it tastes so good because he mixes in a bunch of love (to which you always roll your eyes). Yoongi comes over to eat and fuck you after when everyone is getting drunk downstairs. You call your parents the next day to wish them a happy Thanksgiving. They ask you to come home like every year, and you say you will just like you do every year.

Then the Christmas decorations are revived, pulled from the dilapidated cardboard boxes in the basement. Hoseok and Jungkook haul a tree from a tree farm and everyone fights with it as you all set it up. Yoongi comes over to help decorate and be bullied into playing “Last Christmas” on the piano. Just like every year, Hyuna takes photos with her Polaroid, and when the pictures print, she hangs them up on the tree. Jimin makes popcorn balls, and crushed popcorn is still being found in random places days later.

It doesn’t feel strange to have Yoongi be a part of all this. It’s natural. You’ve seen him almost every day since spring, so he’s fit well into your daily life. But Taehyung senses a shift.

“I thought you knew how to handle your emotions,” he says. He’s wrapped in a quilt and sitting cross-legged on the couch in the kitchen as you water the plants lined on the windowsill. The kitchen is the warmest room in the house, and you sometimes find him sleeping down here.

You frown. “I do. What makes you think that I don’t?”

“You’re in love.”

Your hand jerks in shock, and you get water on the windowsill. It spills over and drips onto the floor. You snatch a few paper towels from the roll. “What the fuck, Tae? I’m not.”

“People who are just fucking” - he uses air quotes - “don’t spend holidays with each other. People who are just fucking” - more air quotes - “don’t give each other keys to their places. People who are just-”

“If you do air quotes one more time…”

“Face it. You’re both in over your heads. If you like or love or whatever each other, be adults and confront your feelings.”

You open your mouth to speak, but he interrupts you. “I know when it comes to your feelings, you’re a track star. But you gotta learn to deal with them. Or you’re gonna let a good one get away.”

You toss and turn all night, unable to sleep. Restless, you reach over and turn on the bedside lamp. Usually on nights like this when you can’t sleep, you look at that empty spot on the wall and you focus on it until your eyes drift closed. But the spot is no longer empty. Two hedgehogs have been drawn there in permanent marker, close enough to touch but not touching at all. Because of their spines. Above their tiny heads, a small heart hovers.

A painful smile makes its way onto your face involuntarily. The thorns stab hard enough to draw blood. You throw the blankets off your body and head downstairs. It’s some time past midnight. The house is washed in silence, so you walk on your toes to the living room.

Genie sits on the television as spotless and lifeless as ever. You glance around. No one’s around. “This is so fucking stupid,” you whisper to yourself. You pick up Genie and close your eyes. “Am I in love with Yoongi?” And you shake and shake and shake the Magic 8-ball, shaking it like no one in the house dares to because they believe it’s fragile. When you stop, an answer bobs up to the surface. Better not tell you now, it reads. “Stupid fucking toy.” You replace it carefully so that no one in the morning will know that it’s been touched, but when you turn around to go to the kitchen, Jimin and Jungkook are staring at you.

“Jesus!” you gasp. “You both scared the shit out of me.”

Jungkook laughs, but there’s a sympathetic expression on Jimin’s face. “You know,” he says, “We only use Genie when we already know the answer to the question. Genie’s there to reassure us or to make us think about the answer harder.”

You watch them pass you for the stairs, dumbfounded. A door upstairs closes, and you mutter, “Fuck.”

You have to tell him. You have to tell him or it’ll devour you the way that flame ate the couch until there was no recognizable features of it remaining. You have to go to his apartment and tell him in person. Doing it over the phone isn’t good enough.

The first snow flutters down, fine as dust. But you sit in your car, unable to shift the gear into reverse. What if he doesn’t feel the same way? You did tell him not to fall in love with you. If he doesn’t feel the same way, you won’t know what to do. He’ll be heartbreak number four. You don’t know if you’ll be able to handle that. You don’t want to.

Suddenly, a searing pain, hot as heated iron, sprouts on your inner wrist. You open your mouth to scream, but no sound comes out. You clutch your wrist tightly, hoping that doing so will decrease the pain, but it continues. Sweat beads on your hairline. You push your puffy coat off your body and yank up the sleeve of your sweater, and the sight could make you cry, but you’re in so much shock that you can’t do anything.

There, on your left wrist, sprawled across the blue veins, is a mark. Dark and black and permanent. The letters are outlined in pink, irritated flesh like a fresh tattoo. Kim Namjoon, the name reads. Not Min Yoongi. Of course it doesn’t. Why would the System decide to be fair?

You don’t know how long you sit in your car for. Looking at the name that isn’t Yoongi’s.

A knock on the window shocks you back into your senses. It’s Hyuna. She’s peering in at you, worry etched all over her face. Her eyes falls to your exposed wrist. “Come inside,” she says gently.

Your housemates sit with you in the kitchen. Someone had placed an electric blanket over your shoulders. Someone else made you hot cocoa the way you like with toasted marshmallows and whipped cream. You can’t taste it, but you drink it anyway to feel the burn down your throat.

“No one talks about the pain,” Hoseok says.

“Yeah, it’s not just you,” says Jimin.

“But I don’t love this…this Kim Namjoon.” His name tastes like chalk in your mouth.

“We know,” Taehyung says empathetically. “You don’t have to.”

Now the tears are coming down your face, hot and persistent. You try to wipe them away, but they’re only replaced by more tears. “I was going to tell Yoongi today. I was going to tell him that I -” you choke on your tears. Hyuna rounds the table and bends down to hug you. But this time, her hugs won’t help.

The electric blanket is on its highest setting and your cocoa is steaming on the table, but you still feel cold.

“If you want to meet him, just let us know, okay? Sometimes it helps with the pain,” says Hoseok.

“Have all of you met your soulmate?”

They all nod solemnly. “I was curious,” Jimin says, glancing at Jungkook. “I think we all get curious. But after I met her, I realized she wasn’t the one.” He takes Jungkook’s hand, and Jungkook squeezes twice.

“I was in love with my soulmate once,” says Hoseok. Everyone turns to him. His eyes are casted to the floor, but you can still see the pain in them. “We grew up together. We were each other’s soulmates. I thought we were lucky. But she didn’t feel the same way. It fucked me up, yeah, but at least she’s happy with the person she’s with now.” His eyes flit up to meet yours. “I think you should do whatever feels right for you, ___.”

If Yoongi isn’t home, you’ll wait for him. But if you don’t go to his place right now, you’ll probably chicken out. You know how you are. Everyone does. You’re best at running away.

He’s in the shower when you arrive. You take off your shoes, but you don’t take off your coat just in case you have to leave in a hurry. Just in case he says that he doesn’t love you back.

The bathroom door opens. Yoongi is shirtless, wearing only track pants. His hair is dripping. He’s humming a song that you don’t know, but stops when he sees you.

The first thought that comes into your head is, I’ve never seen him shirtless before. But your eyes fall to his chest, and you realize why.

His eyes are wide and pleading. “___. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to run you away.”

You’re too emotionally exhausted to be upset or sad. You’re still numb from crying earlier and your wrist still throbs. All you can do is stare.

You have seen marks on many people - across a sternum, tucked in an elbow, secretly behind an ear - but why out of all places did Yoongi’s have to be there? Your name, marked on the skin right across his heart. Like a sick joke.

“How long have you known?” you mutter. You arms hang by your sides limply like you’ve forgotten how to use them.

Water drips onto his shoulders. “Since I was eighteen.”

His mark showed up on his eighteenth birthday like a normal person. And out of all people, it had to be your name. “Did you approach me only because of your mark?”

He sighs and looks down at the floor. “It was a complete coincidence. You don’t have a file in the match office, so we met organically. I swear.”

“I don’t have file because I didn’t have a mark. Just got it today.”

“What?”

You push your coat and sweater sleeves up so that he can see the freshly engraved mark. “I just got it today.” Your voice breaks. Tears scratch at your throat like a caged animal. “And it’s not your fucking name.”

“___…”

“Yoongi, it’s not your fucking name and I’m so pissed because I -” You choke on the words, unable to finish them.

“Me, too.” He crosses the room, coming close. You can smell the soap on his skin and the shampoo in his hair. He tucks hair that fell in your face behind your ear and gives you a soft smile. “I really, really do.”

There are no more thorns in your chest. Only a dull, yearning ache. You warily bring your hand up and trace the letters on his chest with a trembling finger. Your name. You close your eyes. “I thought we made it a rule for you not to fall in love with me?” Your voice is barely a whisper.

“I guess I was doomed from the start.”

You kiss him. When you pull away, there’s that heaviness in his eyes again. Now you know what that means. “Make love to me,” you breathe into his mouth when he kisses you again.

He smiles against your lips. “Yes, ma’am.”

After, you both lay on the bed, you with your head on chest. Your ear against his heart, listening to it beat underneath your name. He idly makes circles on your back with his fingertips. “Yoongi?”

“Hm?”

“Should I meet him?”

His fingers pause. “Your match?”

You nod.

“Do you feel like you should?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t want to not meet him and wonder what kind of person he is.”

“Then you should.”

You raise your head to meet his gaze. “Okay.”

The corners of his mouth lift in a smile.

According to the file in the match office, Kim Namjoon lives three hours away from your home. He’s in university to be an architect, he comes from a wealthy home, and he has a phone number listed. You call and arrange a day to meet up. Hyuna and Taehyung agree to go on that drive with you.

The world is blanketed is a sheer sheet of fresh snow. Hyuna drives while Taehyung sits in the passenger seat, and you’re curled up under a blanket in the back, staring out the window.

“Are you nervous?” Taehyung asks, turning around a little in his seat to face you.

“A little.”

He smiles and reaches back to squeeze your knee.

An hour in the drive, Hyuna stops at a gas station. Taehyung gets out to buy snacks. Hyuna goes in to pay for the gas. There’s a phone booth on the side of the store, and you climb out the car with a handful of change.

Yoongi picks up the phone after a couple of rings.

“Hi,” you say.

You hear him on the other end, ruffling papers. He must be sketching a draft for a client. “Hey. Where are you?”

“An hour away from the city. We stopped to get gas.”

“Are you nervous?”

You sigh. Your breath comes out as a diaphanous cloud of white. “I really am.”

“Whatever happens, know that I love you.”

Warmth spreads through your chest. You squeeze your eyes shut, savoring his words. “Can you say that again?”

He laughs, deep and breathy. “I love you.”

A smile works its way onto you mouth. “I love you, too.”

“Listen, it’s going to be hard. Because you have a different name on your skin, we won’t be able to do anything...domestic.” You know. There are laws stating that if a couple isn’t promised to each other, they can’t be married. They can’t own a house together or have kids or be buried beside each other.

“Let’s pretend none of that exists. Just for right now.”

“Okay.” He laughs again, and you smile. “In another life, we’d meet at a club while the Smiths is playing.”

“Which song?”

“‘This Charming Man.’ And then I’d see you dancing to it, and I’d ask if I could buy you a drink.”

You snort. “Buy me a drink? You wouldn’t ask me to dance?”

“No,” he deadpans. “I don’t dance.”

“Okay, okay. You’d buy me a drink. And then what?”

“We’d talk all night. In that life, marks and soulmates don’t exist. We’d be free to do whatever we want. I could kiss you in public without anyone questioning it.”

“We could hold hands in the park.”

“Yeah. And I’d kiss you there, too. I’d kiss you everywhere.”

Taehyung knocks on the flimsy phone booth door. “You ready?” he mouths.

You nod. “I have to go. I’ll talk to you later, Yoongi.”

“Safe travels, my little hedgehog.”

You laugh and hang up the phone. Stepping out the booth, you say to Taehyung, “Let’s go home.”

He smiles knowingly. “Let’s go home."

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#kreativewritersnet #bangtanwriters-net #btscreatorsnet #yoongi angst #yoongi smut #bts scenarios

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