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jeonggukingdom · 5 years

Text

across a lifetime (m)

❖ Pairing: Taehyung x Reader x Jeongguk

❖ Genre: Smut, Angst, Fluff, Sci-Fi - criminal!AU, time-travel!AU

❖ Summary: In your world only a few rules exist: don’t reveal your true identity to anyone, kill or be killed and, most importantly, do not get caught. It only takes a few moments for the scale to be tipped to the wrong side, for the fine equilibrium to be easily ruptured by an inexplicable turn of events and for you to lose the only person that ever mattered to you. With the love of your life lost in the distant past, you are left with only one option: get caught. ❖ Word Count: 29.101 words

❖ WARNINGS: lots of violence, murder/death, mention of wounds and blood, gore, graphic depictions of sexual intercourse, oral (receiving), fingering, hickeys, dirty talk, cussing, penetrative sex, unprotected sex— the sex scene is not very kinky but it is very passionate ;)

❖ Author’s Notes: This story is part of the “Under Fire” collab hosted by the @btssmutclub ! ♥ Make sure to check the rest of the stories because they are all bomb ** || The main plot of this story was based on this prompt: here. I tried to research a lot to write the scenes set in the past but if there are some errors, please do not mind them too much, I really tried! ♥ ❖ PS: I know some of you struggle to read long fics on Tumblr so here’s the AO3 link to read it more comfortably: here!

❖ 6th May 2018, h 23:58 || Seoul, South Korea

In your world only a few rules exist: don’t reveal your true identity to anyone, kill or be killed and, most importantly, do not get caught.

Taehyung’s scream behind your back comes in the form of your name, the urgency in his tone goading your legs to move even faster, begging you to keep going and not to stop, not to even look back. But you do look back, because that is the only way you think the dread in your heart will be quenched but, instead, you are met with the most terrifying sight you could have possibly envisioned.

The bright yellow uniforms of law enforcements shine like a beacon in the night, looking quite menacing in the night with their proximity.

You can hear their voices shouting your way, you can see their guns aimed at you both as you try to flee the scene and save your asses but it is clear, despite how hard you try to deny it to yourself, that this time, there is no chance of escaping and for the first time in forever, you are utterly terrified.

► two hours before

“Understood.”

Taehyung clicks his phone shut, his lips drawn in a tight line as he stares at the closed gate before you. The house it is supposed to protect is concealed by darkness, the silence all around it making it appear abandoned or, at the very least, currently vacant but you both know it is not the case. You can’t see them but you know there must be at least thirty guards surrounding the building and every way of access to it.

Most importantly, you know perfectly well who is secluded there, protected by his men as he comfortably sleeps in his master bedroom with a light conscience and a heavy wallet.

Your gaze drops on the file in your hands, your eyes scanning the pages one last time before you need to leave the car and complete your mission.

“Was it Hoseok?” You ask absentmindedly as you turn the page over to stare at the face of the man you are about to kill.

You have spent countless of days studying your target, his life and lifestyle, his habits and all the little things that can help you both finishing off the mission as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Taehyung hums as he rolls his eyes, the displeasure clear in his demeanour as he refuses to address what the nature of the call was.

“He means well,” you say, deciding to fill the silence with a peace offering hoping it will set his mood straight again so that he stays focused the entire time you are on the field.

You know Taehyung like the palm of your hand and you like to think he knows you just as much, to the point where sometimes words aren’t necessary to express what one of you two is thinking or going through. Sometimes, though, Taehyung makes it really hard for you to understand him and tonight it seems like it’s going to be one of those kinds of situations.

He has clearly decided to shield himself inside what you like to call his ‘silence-ball’, that inaccessible place in his mind he likes to seek comfort in when he is upset, angry or quite possibly both and not very willing to talk about it.

“I know, that doesn’t mean I have to like it.” He replies after a few seconds that almost feel like minutes. The tension in the car gets thicker with every breath you take and it makes you squirm in your seat.

If there is something you do not like is working with your partner when he is in a dark mood. It makes you anxious, restless even and those feelings bring your eyes back to the file in your hands.

Target Name: Myung Ki Kwon, male Age: 37 Marital Status: married, 2 kids (currently out of the State)

You know the file by heart by now but still, you keep checking every single detail, careful not to overlook even a tiny fraction of it because, in your line of work, even a single hair can make the biggest difference.

You sigh out loud as you force yourself to close the file and stop over-thinking every single detail of this mission. It’s not like it is your first one nor the hardest one you ever got and, even though he is in a rough mood at the moment, you know you can always count on Taehyung. You have been partners for six years, four of which you have been spending as an actual couple and there is no doubt you can do your job to perfection.

Assigning you to this case was not a coincidence and even though the enmity between Hoseok and Taehyung is fairly mutual, your boss is still smart enough to recognise a good agent and trust them with the most dangerous and delicate cases.

Your target tonight is the head of the local mob, he ascended to power in the span of a few months after ruthlessly murdering his predecessor—someone who, at that time, was supposed to be your target.

In those few months at the head of a clan, though, Myung Ki Kwon has managed to conquer what the ones before him never could. Just like oil expanding in the sea at a quick rate, so did his power and, in a few weeks, half of Seoul has been turned into his domain.

"So what did Hoseok say?" You ask to both fill the silence in your car and possibly soothe Taehyung's nervousness and your own in the process.

Taehyung pursues his lips, his eyes turning cold as he fixes them on the road almost as if he's imagining your boss there, defenceless and ready to be shred to pieces.

"Apparently there will be no extraction team for us."

Taehyung's words are pronounced slowly, quite surely reluctantly because he knows perfectly well what they will do to you.

"What?!" It is something akin to a shriek what comes out of your mouth and he winces a little at the sound because he hates this just as much as you do, if not more.

Extraction teams are the most important things in your line of work. They are what makes it possible for you to survive and to not get caught and not having one can easily mean absolute doom.

Taehyung sighs and fixes his gaze on you, his eyes turning gentle as he takes in your distraught expression and the way your body has stiffened against the leather seat.

"There was a problem with the other mission and they had to send another extraction team there to help. They'll try to get here in time but we are most likely on our own."

Why not recall the mission? You wonder for a second but you know why perfectly well. This is your chance and to waste it would be too much of a risk. Your target must be eliminated, the sooner the better.

"It's ok, we're good enough on our own." Taehyung takes your hand in his and gives it a gentle squeeze that makes you smile in return.

You know you are good, you know that most of the times your extraction team has been helpful only to make a quick escape but still, the doubt settles itself in the back of your mind and even though you try to ignore it, you know it'll remain there for the rest of the evening, like a woodworm.

"I know, you're right, I'm just being silly."

He gives you a little smile in return and then turns his focus on the iron gate again, peering in the darkness to check even the smallest of movements in its midst.

You have studied how the security system works, how often they take rounds and at what times so it is only a matter of waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

That moment is in about ten minutes, according to the watch at your wrist.

You take a deep breath in and close your eyes to relax both your body and mind.

You have been doing this for years and you know how important it is to calm yourself, steady the beating of your heart and clear your mind from all thoughts that aren't related to the operation.

You push out of your mind the doubts, the news about your extraction team not being there, you even push as far away as possible Hoseok's orders that morning. You know your job, you know how to kill and disappear like you never been there in the first place.

Being an assassin for a rogue agency—even if it is aimed to target high-profile criminals that menace to disrupt the equilibrium of the entire society—means you are public enemy number one for the Government and the law enforcement. To the rest of the world, you do not exist, you are absolutely invisible and that is how it shall remain.

"You ready?" Taehyung's voice peels you off from your meditative state and you open your eyes again. Yes, you know you are.

You hum in response and follow him outside the car while clicking the timer on your wristwatch. Time, as always, is the essence.

You steal a glance at your companion and he silently nods in your direction whilst reaching for the gun behind his back.

You mirror his movements and follow him up to the gate, your eyes fixed on the dark field ahead to scan any possible change in the usual routine.

Just as expected, the passage is clear and it should remain so for the next couple of minutes—just enough for you two to climb the gate and seek coverage in the darkness before you are spotted and shot on the spot.

It was a surprise to discover that against all odds, the gate is not secured by anything aside from the guards. No electricity, no sensors for movements from the outside, no nothing.

For someone like Myung Ki Kwon to overlook something so important feels very out of place and that is why all of your senses are alert, ready to catch even the smallest of signs that things are bound to be harder then they look.

Behind this gate, the unknown awaits you. Aside from the number of guards placed on the outside perimeter and how they change position every two hours, you have no idea what is waiting for you behind those closed doors.

As your feet touch the ground on the opposite side of the fence and you wait for Taehyung to join you, you scan your surrounding with your infra-red glasses, seeking every trap that could be hidden in the darkness.

Your partner lands safely beside you and you exchange a knowing look because, from this point forward, you're on your own.

You nod towards him and hold his gaze for a couple of seconds, the usual silent prayers and recommendations hidden in it. Be safe, be careful, do not get caught, come back to me.

You turn your back towards your partner and silently run in the opposite direction, quickly finding refuge behind a big old tree. Just as you stop behind the bark and crouch on the ground, you spot the first guard.

He is an easy target for you when you are lurking in the dark and he has no suspicion of your existence.

He goes down quickly and silently as you ambush him from behind, your hands strong around his neck until you hear it crack to the point of no return.

You drag his corpse to your hiding spot and strip him off of his weapons, safely hiding a few inside your boots, your hostler and the small of your back. Extra ammunition is always helpful in those types of missions, especially when there is only two of you and plenty of them.

Your steps are silent as you come out of your hiding spot again. Your eyes scan your surroundings anew, your heart beating steadily in your chest as you crunch on your knees and look up towards the high windows where you know guards are situated.

Every step is careful and calculated because the presence of traps under the ground comes more and more plausible the longer it takes for you to spot another guard. It feels too easy and when an assassination mission appears to be simple it's because it is not and you are getting lurked inside a trap with not a single way out.

You glance at your watch and notice that ten minutes have already passed. It has been too long without a guard and you are now certain, the danger awaits you behind the corner.

You decide to ditch the perfect silence of your steps on the ground in favour of speed. After all, time is the only luxury you do not have at the moment.

Your run on the lawn seemingly goes unnoticed in the night and it helps you reach the opposite right external wall of the building.

Finally, you spot some guards there, their figures bulky and dark and menacing as they stand like statues in front of the balconies. In a one on one fight, you'd probably lose against any of them but you have an advantage right now: you are beneath them and they cannot see you just yet.

You take this opportunity to silence your weapon and shoot the closest one from your position.

Just as expected, the bullet perforates his neck—the only truly exposed spot in his armour—bringing him to the ground within seconds.

You quietly watch the two guards gaze in his direction before rushing towards him, just like you planned.

They go down just as easily, albeit the last one mustering a tentative shot towards your general direction.

The bullet doesn't even come near you but it is not good news either. A gun going off in the night is enough for everyone else in the house to be alerted by it and you know, there is no chance in hell you’ll be able to bring the other guards down as easily as these ones. You lost the element of surprise, after all.

Just as you expected, the lights flicker on inside of the building, shining like beacons in the night.

The initial advantage you and Taehyung had is shrunk to a minimum in an instant. Hiding in the dark won’t be as easy when there is light shining all around and eyes eager to catch even a single glimpse of movement on the outside.

You curse under your breath and check your watch again. Eighteen minutes.

You decide to go for it and rely on both your partner on the other side of the house and your own skills. There is simply no point of keeping yourself hidden like this the entire time. Now more than ever, your time is shrinking and the longer it'll take for you to enter the building and find your victim, the fewer chances you'll have to actually get to him.

You run as quickly as you can, your legs moving even faster as you realise someone has spotted you the instant you came out of your hiding spot. You do not dare a single glance their way or towards any of the windows and just keep pushing forward.

You can hear the bullets going off behind you, you can feel some of them graze your skin and the hissing sounds they make when they pass near your ears but still, none of them catches you and you know it is not just because you have skills, oh no, it is also luck.

When you finally reach the safe spot that represents the far end of the complex you are almost out of breath and you can make out the edges of a shadow lurking there, dressed all in black as to camouflage with the darkness itself, pointing a gun right at you.

For a second, you fear the worst. In fact, for a second you even consider lifting your own weapon and shoot them right between their eyes but then you recognize his stance and the way he holds his gun and you realize it is your lover you are looking at.

You quickly lift your arms as to surrender to him and you hear him hiss under his breath as he recognizes you as well.

"Shit, I almost shoot you." He whispers as he runs in your direction, cutting your distance short so you are standing side by side.

"What the fuck happened?"

"There were three guards and one of them shoot me before I could take him down."

You whisper as you keep scanning your surroundings, looking for more guards to take down. It is, again, oddly eerie and calm when you’d expect for all the guards to be running down the lawn by now, looking for you.

Taehyung hands grasp your shoulders roughly, forcing you to turn around and face him.

You can’t clearly see his face in the darkness, even when you are standing so close to each other but you can still sense the way his eyes are scanning your body, probably looking for possible injuries, alerted by your poor choice in wording.

"I'm not hurt, the bullet didn't even come close to me.”

You hear the sigh of relief he emits before letting you go, his muscles relaxing before your eyes as he steps a little to the side to look up at the window above your heads.

"Is your side clear?" You ask, moving alongside him so that your shoulders are always brushing against each other.

Your plan has been screwed over at this point and what you have to do is adapt and, judging by the numbers reflected on your watch, you have no more time to spare. You need to enter the house and find him, doesn’t matter if you’ll have to break hell loose in order to do it.

“Yes.”

His reply is short and barely above a whisper as he glances upwards, gesturing up to the windows with his hand as well. You follow his pointed finger and find a guard there, his eyes evidently fixed somewhere in the distance, probably trying to catch sight of you.

You nod your head yes as he looks at you, years of practice making it possible for you two to understand each other without the need to speak.

He secures his gun behind his back and puts his hands together to form a step for you to climb on so that he can propel you forward.

You have done this plenty of times before and just as always, Taehyung is able to push you upwards enough for you to grab onto the window and surprise the guard there with your sudden appearance.

"Oh, hello, there." You say before punching him hard in the face.

The guard steps back a little and you take the chance to jump onto the floor, aim your gun at him and finishing him off before he can even think about aiming his rifle at you.

You turn around with a little smile on your lips while reaching for the electric wire secured on your belt.

Your agency has evolved a lot in the past few years when it comes down to weaponry and useful utensils and the extensible wire is one of those. Absolutely weightless yet strong enough to resist to the weight of the heaviest soldiers, it proved to be quite resourceful in more than an occasion and as Taehyung grips the other end of it to climb up the wall, you are proven yet again that the right tools in the right hands can make the biggest difference.

Usually, you do not get cocky on the job, you do not get too relaxed and you never let your guard down but, somehow, tonight you do all of the above for just a little second and you have to pay the consequences of that carefulness with a bullet planted in your left shoulder.

Your cry of pain fills the dead silence of the house and it represents yet another mistake that you shouldn’t have made.

When the sound of a bullet resonates in an otherwise silent environment and it is followed by a shout of pain, there is no chance in hell all the inhabitants won’t know your exact position and where to run to in order to finish you off.

Taehyung climbs the remaining inches of the wall with bolting speed and practically launches himself inside the building, aiming his gun to the guard before they have a chance to finish you off.

The shot is neat, precise between his eyes, but the fire in his eyes doesn't die down as he looks down at you and notices the pain twisting your features.

"I'm sorry, I was distracted," you say with gritted teeth. The bruise on your ego seems to be hurting far more than the bullet lodged within your skin but, either way, you are not allowed to stop now.

You run with him through the long corridor, one of his hands around your elbow in a strong vice that almost feels bruising on the skin, anger and concern evidently seething inside of him as he looks for a place for you to hide, even for a few seconds.

He absolutely hates when you get hurt. Despite years of training, he still loses his focus when you are injured, no matter how slightly. It makes him do things he shouldn’t and it makes him care about things that shouldn’t even be on his mind during work and, really, this is not the right mission for you to be going through all of this, especially considering no extraction team will be there for you at the end of it but, things have happened and, once again, you need to adjust.

Taehyung’s eyes scan your surrounding as if he were looking at the rough blueprint of the house you got in your file and, disregarding completely the fact that any noise will give your position away again, he opens one of the doors along the corridor with a strong kick, breaking it off of its hinges.

The room appears to be one of those on the north aisle of the house with no windows and only one way of getting either in or out of it. This one is held in complete darkness for the moment and, for the few seconds you are spared before guards show up there, it represents a safe refuge for you to attend your wound at the best of your abilities.

Taehyung guides you inside the room and forces you to sit down so that he can take a proper look at your wound with the torch in his hand—his gun safely placed next to his knee, ready to be picked up and fired the moment someone shows up by the doorstep.

"The wound is not that deep, it's a good sign." He says, his voice thick and tense and not matching his words very well which puts you on edge because you know, your lucidity as a team has been cut in half now.

You have been on so many missions before, you have killed so many targets, even harder than this one and you made such a rookie mistake tonight compromising not only your own health but also the success of the mission itself and that is something your partner will need to deal with alongside you.

Guilt perforates your heart like stalactites and you gulp down heavily, opening your mouth to pronounce your shaky apology when Taehyung rips off a limb of his own shirt, offering it to you like a bandage for the time being. You do need to stop the bleeding if you want to survive the night and still be somewhat useful to him.

"Can you move your arm?" He asks before you have a chance of repent for your mistakes and you find yourself nodding your head yes a few times, unable to utter a single word.

This is a half-lie because yes, you can move your arm but no, you can’t move your shoulder without it hurting like a motherfucker—something you quickly decide Taehyung doesn’t need to know.

"Good." His voice sounds rough and thick and you look up at him with dread, noticing how his lips are still in a tight line as he takes the gun back in his right hand and gets up on his feet.

"We need to move."

You check your wrist and your insides constrict at the numbers shining on it. Thirty-six minutes.

Ideally, the mission should last for 60 minutes sharp, the time including getting in and out of the building. Clearly, you are late on track and Taehyung knows just as much and you can see it in the tense line of his shoulders as he moves to the door and peers outside.

The sound of bullets going off comes next and it forces Taehyung to pull his head inside the room again in order to avoid them.

He takes a sharp breath and then bravely jumps out of the room, firing his gun like a mad man. You get up on your feet as well, wincing at the pain in your shoulder, and grip your own gun in your right hand, ready to put it to good use to help him.

Your partner is fast and he is sharp and precise and it really isn't a surprise that he clears the hallway so easily without you need to lift a single finger. This is why Hoseok still relies on him, after all.

You step into the hallway as Taehyung turns his head towards you, tilting his head to the side to prompt you forward and follow him.

Moving through the building is not an easy task now that your cover has been completely blown and you have to keep fighting your way through the corridors while losing hope of ever finding your target.

Fear of him fleeting in the ruckus fills your mind and makes your insides feel incredibly heavy but, still, you do not dare voice the doubts out. Right now is not the moment to have second thoughts, to show concern or to give up your objective.

The building turns out to be something akin to a maze for those that do not inhabit it and, despite your eager study of the blueprint it becomes a very arduous quest to not get lost within it.

What you start losing, though, is the count of guards you have to kill in order to keep moving forward and, yes, there are far more than the thirty expected ones on the external perimeter.

The long and intricate corridors and the guards that keep coming your way only slow you down more to the point nervousness starts seeping in and out of you. We should just blow this bloody shit up, you think as you turn yet another corner in the hopes of finding a new course to keep on moving to the heart of the building.

Taehyung suddenly stops in his tracks and, consequently, so do you while scanning your surroundings to find what gathered his attention.

There it is.

It’s a tiny shift in light and texture on the far end of this corridor, right in front of the wall you are facing right now.

Taehyung steals a glance your way and you nod in acknowledgement while slowly taking a few careful steps forward.

If you hadn’t been trained for years and if you hadn’t had all those missions behind your back to count as experience, you would have never caught the little detail.

A secret passage is hidden at the end of this corridor and you keep moving towards it, hope rekindling in your heart with every step forward you take.

Now, how to open that secret passage is a whole other story.

Both of you look for ways to open it up whether through some sort of password, keys, handles, anything.

You knock on the wall a few times, trying to feel if there are some empty spots on the wall but your search is not fruitful and the clock keeps ticking around your wrist.

Actual minutes tick by before you as you try to find your way in, even by force if necessary.

If your target hasn’t fled the scene yet, there is no doubt he is hiding behind this door, perfectly protected and concealed in the real heart of the building.

Sixty minutes.

Your eyes pick up on the number blinking on your clock, the digits turning a deep shade of orange to signal you your operation should be pretty much over by now and yet here you are, still trying to even reach your Myung Ki Kwon.

Taehyung grunts in frustration and kicks the wall hard as if trying to bring it down by sheer force.

For a moment you hold your breath, almost hopeful that kick alone could bring the whole wall down but, of course, it is not that simple but as he kicks it another time, in that split of a second, you catch it. The shift.

"Do it again," you say, your eyes focusing on the left corner of the room, right next to the window.

Taehyung kicks the wall again under your instructions and you focus your whole attention to that portion of the room until you can clearly see it: the way in.

A few inches away from the window lies a wooden black table and right on top of it is placed a completely lit chandelier made of little tendrils of crystals.

You cross the room with quick steps and jump on the table with a swift movement, eager to check if your hunch is correct or not.

You lift your good arm up and tug at one of the little tendrils hanging down from the ceiling, the one at the very centre of the old-looking ornamentation.

As you pull the crystals down towards you, you hear the clicking sound of a mechanism going off and, sure enough, a few seconds after the wall you had been staring at for at least ten minutes flies open.

"How-?" Taehyung's question is swept away by gunfire aimed your way.

Five guards in all jet black armour come out of the secret hallway with loaded machine guns focused directly on the both of you.

Your steps are quicker than your mind, bringing you down the table and under it as Taehyung slides towards you and forces the table to a vertical position in order to protect the both of you from the explosion of bullets.

Your companion grunts in pain beside you, signalling you he has been caught by at least one of the bullets fired your way.

The table is standard wood and it does not suffice as a cover under the rapid-fire. In a few seconds, it’ll be totally useless as a protection and unless you can think of a solution fast, you have no chance of escaping this madness and your pending deaths.

Bullets graze your skin again, too awfully close as they break the wood in front of you. Shards of the split open wood plant themselves in your skin and you really start doubting you'll make it out alive.

"Hold onto me," Taehyung says, forcing you within his arms as he reaches for his belt, "We'll have to use the grenade now."

You look up to him and nod your head. The grenade was supposed to be your last resort because you know, once it goes off there is no way the Police won't be alerted by it and that means even a shorter amount of time left for you to kill your target and escape.

Still, with no other option available, Taehyung launches it behind your backs while hugging you tight to his chest in order to protect you from the blast.

It takes only a few seconds for the grenade to hit the ground and explode beneath your feet, sending you both flying forward.

Your ears start to ring, covering any other sound but you know you can’t stop now. This is your chance.

Taehyung has his hands around your shoulders as you both get up on your feet and turn around to marvel at the destruction you created.

There is a deep hole right at the centre of the room, the wooden floor has caved in and turned a burnt black colour and, from the creaking all around you, there is no doubt the part of the building where you are standing will collapse soon.

There is only one option available: jump.

You take a few steps back and then start running with all your might to launch yourself into the void, hoping your strength will be enough for you to reach the other side.

Your fingers grab onto the sinking wood of the floor with all the strength you possess, your shoulder burning like hell as you try to lift yourself up and save yourself from certain and very painful death.

The shards of wood cut and nip your skin and the slight pain makes you groan out loud as you give it your all to push yourself up to safety.

Once you are standing on your feet again you turn around to look at your boyfriend, still standing on the other side of the room.

“Don’t stop, I’ll be right behind you!”

You give him a curt nod of understanding and even though your heart hurts a little, you turn your back on him and start running again.

The corridor is long and seemingly bottomless as you race through it, your steps echoing on the walls, surely giving your arrival away.

In the short amount of time it takes for you to cross the long corridor, a thousand different scenarios play in your head.

As an experienced assassin, you exploit those few minutes to prepare yourself for nearly anything possibly awaiting you at the bottom of this passage.

With your gun firmly grasped in your hand, your heart beating steadily in your chest and your mind clear of anything that is not your target and his death, you finally step inside the room secretly lodged within the heart of the building.

You expected many things to be there to welcome you, including absolute emptiness but, to be honest, Myung Ki Kwon sitting calmly at the centre of the room with a cigar in his mouth and a smirk painted on his features wasn’t one of them.

Your target appears to be completely alone, dressed as if he were about to go out and attend a gala event or a wedding and he sports the most unbothered and calm expression you have ever seen.

"Looks like you found your way in," he says before inhaling deeply the tobacco of his expensive cigar. He puffs it all out a few seconds later in your direction, a taunting expression painted all over his features.

You take a step towards him, your gun precisely lined to the perfect spot between his eyebrows. After the hell he has made you and Taehyung go through, you are more than ready to take him down and get it over with.

"Ah, ah, ah," he shakes his head a little while rising his other hand for you to see what he is holding, "I'm afraid your life is connected to mine, dear. Kill me and this bomb will blow the entire building away."

He puffs his chest a little and opens up his vest to reveal a tiny bomb bound around his upper torso, ready to go off in approximately fifteen minutes unless deactivated.

His smile twists into something perverse, evil, and it gathers goosebumps on your skin because you could have never imagined him being ready to take his own life just to spite you and take you down with him.

What does he have in mind? You ask yourself. There is no chance in hell this isn’t part of a bigger plan because, simply, there is no way someone as smart as Ki Kwon wouldn’t think of a way for him to survive while taking down his enemies in the process.

You are a trained soldier. You were taught to value your life and protect it for as long as possible in order to accomplish your goals. But, you were also taught to make sacrifices for the sake of your mission and if you were alone, tonight, what you would be doing right now is shooting the target and kiss your life goodbye knowing you helped in making the world a better place, even if a tiny bit.

Sure, you are scared of dying, hell, you are scared of even getting caught and plenty of other things but you would still do it, for the greater good.

But tonight, you are not alone and it doesn’t matter how much you want to kill your target, it doesn’t matter who he is and what he has done and will keep on doing to innocent people unless you stop him now because Taehyung means more.

You cannot and you will not sacrifice the life of the man you love only to cut down one of the heads of the hydra.

For every Myung Ki Kwon you kill, another will rise and you all know it, even though you keep fighting in the hope that one day another head won't grow back but, is it really worth it to kill this one man at the expanse of your lover?

You decide that no, it is not worth it and in that tiny fraction of a second you hesitate, in that instant when you start to drop your weapon, something hard hits the back of your head.

You stumble forward, your vision turning into black and white dots as you try to turn around and look at your assailant.

A punch is delivered straight to your face next and then your weapon is falling from your hands and down on the floor, out of reach.

You can barely catch up your breath before a kick is sent up to your stomach, so strong it makes you cough out blood.

Myung Ki Kwon has saved the best for last, it would seem.

You had studied the file to the point you could recite every dot and comma in there and yet, in the heat of the moment, you forgot the most important detail: Myung Ki Kwon has a special bodyguard that follows him everywhere.

Another rookie mistake.

You are on the ground, blood flowing out of your mouth in big droplets, ears ringing and head spinning as you try to push yourself up and fight back the mountain before you.

His bodyguard is one of the tallest men you have ever seen, quite easily double your size in everything and he has clearly the upper hand in this fight when you have been deprived of your weapon.

“Seems like you’re all on your own, little girl,” he says, voice low and rough as he takes a step forward, ready to break your body further.

You steal a glance behind his back, your heart heavy with concern as you start to wonder where on earth your boyfriend went. He should have been here by now and the fact that he is not fills you with dread.

You take in a sharp breath and re-focus your attention on your opponent. He is big, sure, but that also means he is heavy and if you have an advantage in every one-on-one combat situations is that you are fast.

You charge forward with your bare hands trying to reach his face and as he intercepts your attack, you let your body slide down on the floor so that you can pass between his long legs.

As he spins around to catch you, you land a high kick on his chin, sending him a few inches away as he grabs onto his bone with a wince.

“You fucking bitch,” he says under his breath as he jumps forward to catch you.

Again, you are faster than him and manage to crouch down before he can grab your neck and pin you down until you cannot breathe.

You push yourself upwards and land a punch on his right cheek, splitting the skin open.

The mountain takes a step back and you take advantage of his little confusion to land a powerful kick to his abdomen.

The man coughs hard but grabs your ankle with his rough hands and with a strong pull of his arms, you are sent flying on the ground again.

You hit your head on the concrete floor and groan at the utter pain that invades your skull with the free fall.

Myung Ki Kwon’s bodyguard is on top of you in an instant, his hands tight around your neck in a bruising vice that leaves no way out for you to fight back.

"Get your hands off of her, you motherfucker," Taehyung’s voice comes from behind your back and you glance in his direction, relief spreading through your body as he appears before you looking like a guardian angel.

The first bullet out of his gun catches your opponent on the right shoulder, the second one the soft spot between his neck and clavicles and as he takes a staggering step backwards in pain, Taehyung completely empties the rounds of his gun on his upper body.

The enormous body of Myung Ki Kwon’s personal guard falls forward and lands right at your feet, the little choking sounds he emits as he suffocates on his own blood absolutely revolting. You are sure, though, that the nausea filling your stomach is not due to his gruesome death but, rather, a concussion.

Still, you push yourself on your feet again, helped by the strong and steady hands of your boyfriend.

Taehyung is staring straight at your target, his eyes not even blinking as he assesses the situation at hand.

"Careful, dear, or you'll still end up killing your lover," Ki Kwon says, his eyes teasing as he keeps glancing between the two of you and the way you appear to be a little too close for you to be just partners in crime.

Myung Ki Kwon is a brilliant man, he is extraordinary at reading people and situations and it is precisely because of these gifts that he has been able to ascend to power so quickly, so efficiently.

Such a wasted talent. He could have been so much more, something bigger and just and profitable for the society but, instead, he chose the easy way; he chose power and money and let his soul rot like everything else he touches.

And that’s why Taehyung, unlike you, doesn't hesitate for a single moment.

He lifts up his spare gun tugged behind his back, he aims at your target and then, he shoots.

Your eyes close, your body tensing as if readying itself for the inevitable blast that is out to sweep it away but then, the explosion never comes. What does come is the sound of Taehyung's voice screaming your name, urging you to run.

"We have exactly one minute and thirty seconds to get out of here."

His words have barely the time to register in your mind before he is urging you forward, grasping your hand to pull you towards him and force you to run.

Your feet are almost flying on the floor as you race against time to save your life. Everything in your body hurts and begs you to stop, lie down and just rest but you are not allowed to.

You keep moving forward, Taehyung right behind you albeit stumbling a little with wounds you have no idea how appeared on his body in the first place.

There is no time to stop and check on him, there is no time to wonder or even care. As long as you are still alive, you need to keep pushing forward.

The bomb goes off behind your backs just as you, somehow, reach the exit door of the house and for a moment it feels like you are flying up in the sky.

The force of the explosion lifts you from the ground and throws you right back on it a few seconds after. Your fall is bad and uncontrolled and you are sure you've just broken a bone or two and the desire of just giving up and surrender becomes even more potent as pain washes over your entire being.

There are tears in your eyes and blood all over your face and even inside your nose and, if it weren't for your lover right beside you, you would probably give up, lie there and just wait for the end to come your way.

But Taehyung's groan awakens you from this state and you are forced back on your feet by his strong hold.

Your bodies are battered, broken even, but you are both still alive and staring into each other’s eyes. We’ve made it through.

The thought has barely the chance to form inside your head before you hear it in the remote distance: the sound of Police cars heading your way.

"Fuck," you glance at your watch, it reads eighty-five minutes in bold, angry red digits that signal your absolute doom. Taehyung must see the panic in your eyes because he shakes his head no and takes your hand in his and forces you to start running all over again.

As your feet stomp against the loan you realize that there won’t be any extraction team waiting for you outside this hell hole and, without the concrete chance of you reaching the car you came in, there is barely any hope for the two of you to survive this night.

Taehyung must know this as well but he keeps urging you forward, he keeps pushing you over your own limit and what your poor body can sustain.

You climb back up the gate as fast as you can while keeping your eyes on the end of the road whilst the red and blue lights start to become visible in the night.

Taehyung lands a little rough on his left ankle and groans in pain but doesn’t stop for a single second. He grasps your hand and pulls you alongside him in a desperate run that feels hopeless and pointless.

Your boyfriend stops for a second and pushes you forward, forcing you to run ahead of him as he looks behind your backs.

You keep running because that is what he wants you to do and you try to ignore his heavy pants or the shouting noises behind your backs as the Policemen leave their cars behind in favour of a running chase.

The bright yellow uniforms of law enforcements shine like a beacon in the night, looking quite menacing in the night with their proximity.

One of the officers chasing you aims at your lover’s leg and without fail blows his right calf off, forcing him to stop and fall on the ground in pain.

"No!" You whip your head around and ignore the way it starts to spin immediately, too eager to reach your lover and save him—by any means necessary—to care about your own well-being.

"What are you doing?! Don’t stop, RUN!"

Taehyung yells at you, tries to push himself upwards and force you to keep on moving but you can't. He is doomed and that means you are too because there is no chance in hell you are leaving him behind.

"I'm not leaving you!"

Your hands reach for his face as the Police starts catching up with the both of you, cutting the distance too short for you to be able to save yourselves.

"What are you doing?" He asks again, tears and snot smearing all over his face as he tries to push you away, "You have to run."

"I can't," you whimper out, tears streaming down your face as well as you look into his eyes for what feels like the last time.

"Yes, you can, _______, look at me. You have to run and save yourself."

His eyes of onyx turn serious, almost cold as they stare right inside your own.

He doesn’t speak the words but you can still hear them loud and clear inside your head: if you stay now, if you don’t save yourself, I will never forgive you.

"I'll save you, baby, I swear I'll find a way to save you."

You sob and kiss his lips and rip your heart to shreds in the process as you force yourself to peel off of him and resume your desperate run to salvation.

You look back one last time as guns are aimed at your running figure while Taehyung gets handcuffed and roughly taken away.

You close your eyes and force yourself to keep running, for him.

Your breath is heavy, your legs are tired and on the verge of collapsing and you can see no hope ahead of you until you hear the gunfire all around you.

The grunts in the distance, the sound of men falling to the ground and the great numbers of bullets moving past you in all directions are the things that force your eyes to open again and re-focus on the dark street.

The sight before you seems impossible: an extraction team awaits you a few meters away, their guns taking down officers left and right.

In an instant, relief spreads through your heart and mind: you are safe.

Hoseok steps out of the vehicle, his eyes dark as they fix on you and the evident absence of your companion.

"They have Taehyung!" You cry out as you run towards him, your arms outstretched to reach him and the promise of salvation that lies between his arms.

Your step-brother runs towards you to envelop you in a tight hug that makes you cry out in pain. It has been years since you last hugged each other and it feels a little like a homecoming but you do not have the time nor the luxury to rejoice in the feeling. You have to save your lover.

"Please save him, please." Your voice quivers as you look up at him expectantly but what you find depicted on his face breaks your heart all over again.

"It's too late now, we need to get you to safety."

“What do you mean it’s too late? He’s right there, we can save him!”

Hoseok’s arms turn rough around you, pinning you down to stop you from running all the way back to your lover and get him back to base.

You scream and struggle to get out of his embrace, you kick and bite the hands of your saviours because they refuse to run and try to save Taehyung.

How can they leave him behind? No, how can he? How could you?!

Despair swallows you whole and soon after so does darkness as the sedative injected in your neck works its way inside your veins, turning you lax between Hoseok’s arms.

You try to fight the liquid sleep with all your might at first but, as it starts to anaesthetize both the pain in your body, your mind and your aching heart, you find yourself gladly embracing the peace it promises to bring.

❖ 10th May 2018, h 10:00 || Seoul, South Korea

Your eyes slowly flutter open and focus on the now-familiar white ceiling of the hospital wing of the Agency.

The splitting headache comes right after, making you grimace as it slowly arises from the back of your skull up to your forehead.

The concussion has given you barely any reprieve from the moment you had run out of Myung Ki Kwon’s house and found yourself safely tucked in aseptic white sheets.

“Hey,” a voice coming from the door catches your attention, forcing you to adjust your focus a little to the left.

Hoseok is standing there, dressed in his all-black attire as if he is about to go on a mission and you would catch on to more details in his appearance if you were to let your gaze wander on him a little bit longer. But you don’t because the sight of him repulses you, now.

Your eyes pointedly fix back on the ceiling before you, not a single word escaping your lips as he steps closer to your bed and sits on the chair right next to you. He has been visiting you every day for the past three days, even multiple times in the same day but he has always received the same treatment from your part: cold, distant.

His presence there makes Taehyung’s absence even more obvious and it makes the guilt within your heart expand every day a little more to the point you fear that is what you’ll only be able to feel in a few days. Guilt and regret.

Your body has been stuck on this bed for the last seventy-two hours and there is no way of knowing how much longer you will have to spend here, confined in this room.

A concussion, a perforated shoulder, a few broken ribs, some internal bleeding and a great number of burns and cuts all over your body are the injuries you brought back as a prize from your mission and, according to them all, you have been lucky.

Lucky sounds like a fun word when your entire world has been swept away and taken from you. Sure, you are alive but, do you have any desire of being so when he is not there?

The immobility that has been forced on you is slowly driving you insane. Your hands twitch all the time, eager to do something, anything.

Taehyung isn’t lost yet, there is still some hope and it is that hope that has made you beg for release a thousand times. Hell, you even tried to escape the bloody agency but you couldn’t make it. Not with your body like this, not with thousands of them and only one of you and especially not when it is your step-brother giving the orders around here.

Hoseok sighs next to you and brushes his fingers along yours.

You do not move, you do not even breathe to acknowledge his presence there but he can surely make out the goosebumps gathering on your skin as you force yourself not to flinch away. Even that would be giving him too much.

He doesn’t deserve your eyes on him, he doesn’t deserve your words nor your time because he is the reason why Taehyung has been caught.

He didn’t postpone the mission, he didn’t send an extraction team, he didn’t arrive on time, he didn’t save him.

Your heart grows heavy, your eyes filling with tears as his presence becomes too much for you to bear.

You used to love Hoseok with all your heart. You weren’t brothers by blood, you hadn’t been born by the same father nor the same womb and yet, you had found each other in time while living under the same roof.

For years, Hoseok had been your true companion, your best friend, the brother you had never had but always wished for.

And now, you can’t even look at him for more than a second.

In a way, Myung Ki Kwon has won. He has died but he has taken away everything from you: your family, your lover, your purpose in life.

Hoseok sighs next to you whilst retracting his hand so that he is nowhere near touching you.

Relief spreads through your body like a wave and you hate that it does but, at the same time, there is nothing you can do to change what resides in your heart.

“I’m off for a mission,” he decides to say after a while. His voice is soft, his words are careful and slightly elusive and they make your heart-rate pick up in hope because maybe, just maybe, he is going to try and save him, at last.

You slightly tilt your head to the side but still keep your eyes focused on anywhere but him.

You can feel his gaze fixed on your face and it takes all of your strength not to turn around and stare back at him.

“I’m going to do everything in my power to get him back to you, I promise.”

Your heart stirs in your chest, hope spreading through your limbs like a warm wave.

Hoseok’s promises are like diamonds: rare and precious. You know he wouldn’t dare to make an empty promise to you, especially not about Taehyung and his well-being.

You hear the sound of his clothes as he gets up, you catch onto the sigh that leaves his mouth and then you plant your eyes on his retreating figure—slumped shoulders, tense neck, nervous steps.

You lift your left-hand to your lips—the one he had brushed his fingers on—and nervously start to nip at your already-chipped nails.

You wish you could join them, you wish you could fight with claws and teeth to get your lover back but you can’t and rationally you do know it is for the best—not much you can do in the state your body was reduced to, after all—but at the same time it wrecks your heart to not be able to be there for him like he has always been there for you.

Still, you hope and confide on the efficiency of your step-brother and the team he is going to bring alongside him.

► twelve hours later

Night has fallen and moonlight filters through the open windows at the other end of the wall.

You have been staring at them for the whole day, watching the time go by and the light shift and change until it was completely gone and replaced by a silvery hue.

Your heart has turned uneasy many hours ago, your stomach feels upset and queasy and the nervousness within your body has turned your limbs restless in the confinement of your bed.

It has been so long since Hoseok has left you this morning, so many hours and minutes have ticked by while you are stuck here, waiting.

The more it takes for him to return, the less you believe he will come back successful and that is a thought you'd rather not linger on too much because it would mean Taehyung is lost forever.

The taste of blood suddenly fills your mouth and you grimace at the sensation and the slight pain of your bottom lip splitting up, again.

You have developed this habit of biting down your lips and nails in the past few days as a form of stress-relieving when you are not allowed to do pretty much anything else.

You curse under your breath and reach for a tissue on your nightstand to stop the slight bleeding and get rid of the bitter taste in your mouth.

As you lift your gaze up again, though, your eyes meet the slumped figure of your step-brother.

His black hair has gotten longer over the past few months and now, as he hangs his head low, a few strands cover his eyes, concealing the feelings reflected in them from you.

You can see the tense line of his shoulders, you can see the way he literally drags himself in the room and in your heart, you already know.

But you rebuff the thought, you refuse to acknowledge anything until he has said something because that is how you save yourself from falling to pieces.

You decide to ignore his split lip or the dark purple halo around his left cheek, you decide to ignore the way he favours his right side as he walks into the room and you also decide to ignore how he flinches every now and then when his weight shifts to the left.

You decide to ignore all of this because if Hoseok got so hurt during a mission it can only mean it went wrong. There is no one in the agency more lethal than Jung Hoseok and there is also no one in it able to beat him or even scratch him.

Your step-brother sits in front of you as you stare at him, too scared to utter a single word or to even breathe, at this point.

He looks up at you for barely a second before shifting his gaze on the ground, unable to look at you. In twelve hours, the parts seem to have turned.

You couldn’t stomach the sight of him this morning and now, as you eagerly try to pry into his eyes, he is the one unable to face you, albeit for very different reasons.

The seconds seem to stretch into hours and the more you look at him, so defeated in his seat, the more the thought you had been trying to ignore all this time becomes prominent, impossible to push down and lock away.

“Say something,” you whisper, your voice sounding as broken as your body and heart feel.

He flinches at the sound of your voice but lifts his head up anyway and as his eyes fix on you, you know. There is no way for you to deny it any more, there is no way you can pretend not to know.

Hoseok’s eyes are filled with unshed tears and as you stare down into his irises, yours does as well.

“I’m sorry, buttercup.”

The little nickname Hoseok had given you plenty of years ago splits your heart into two uneven halves. You can’t even remember the last time he called you that, let alone inside the agency where anyone could hear it and the fact that he decided to use it now, of all times, speaks volumes of how wrong things have gone today.

“Wh-what happened?” Your voice trembles, your throat constricting with the effort to keep yourself in one piece in front of him and not just burst into tears. Not yet, you tell yourself.

“We tried... we really did, ______, but there is a reason why nobody has ever made it out...” Hoseok’s voice sounds tired, defeated and you hate it but most importantly you hate what he is going to say soon, “We couldn’t... I’m sorry.”

His eyes beg you to understand and to forgive him and truth be told, you have no idea whether you’ll ever be able of doing so. A part of you wants to because without Taehyung, Hoseok is the only person you have left but the other part of you doesn’t think it will ever be possible because he is part of the reason why you don’t have anyone else besides you any more.

“Taehyung is gone.”

The finality of his words shatters you and even though you didn’t want to cry in front of him, you do.

The tears feel hot on your face as they freely fall on your cheeks, your lips quivering as you stop yourself from screaming at him. He’d deserve it but at the same time, he doesn’t, not when he is looking so desperate himself.

“How... how much?”

You feel like you might choke on your own words but they move past your mouth and he shivers at them, closing his eyes to gulp down heavily as if saying the number out loud would cost him a limb or a vital organ.

In this world, the law doesn’t believe in long-term prison sentences nor the execution of criminals. In this world, your world, criminals are punished with time-travel. They are given a second chance in life away from everyone they ever held dear and if they fail again, they’ll meet their destiny in a different time where laws are regulated differently and no one can save them.

“Sixty-nine years.”

The scream that erupts from your mouth scratches your throat and wrenches your heart from within.

Your hands grasp Hoseok’s shirt and they push and pull his upper torso until his head is lulling back and forth and he is sobbing alongside you.

The tears you had been holding ever since this morning all come rushing down, falling to your cheeks, on your nose and down your chin.

He is gone, gone, gone. Sixty-nine years means Kim Taehuyng is probably dead by now or too old to even remember who you are. He is lost, forever and, with no hope of ever touching his face or hearing his voice you are left stranded on this earth, alone and heartbroken.

“You promised me! You promised me you’ll get him back!”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Hoseok’s voice is broken, barely above a whisper and you know you are wrecking him even more with your words and your actions but you don’t care because you are hurt and you want to hurt everybody else in return.

“It’s all your fault!” You scream in his face, unable to control your despair and anger.

You know those feelings are misplaced on him, they should be turned towards yourself because you messed up that night, not just Hoseok. You are the one that left him behind, you are the one that promised him you’ll get him back and didn’t. You, you, you.

Still, you focus them all on him because it’s easier to blame someone else that isn’t yourself.

“I begged you to save him and you didn’t listen to me! He was RIGHT THERE, HOSEOK, WHY? WHY DID YOU LEAVE HIM BEHIND?”

The scream makes your voice hoarse and it makes you cough as it feels like ripping your throat out from the inside.

Your chest is heaving, your breath ragged as you scratch your step-brother’s face with your nails, as you punch him in the chest and push him away from you inch after inch.

He lets you do this to him, he lets you hate him and push all of your rage out until there’s nothing left. He lets you because he feels like you are right, he feels like it is all of his fault and it is not true but, in the end, we all believe what we want to and Hoseok would rather you’d blame him for everything rather than yourself.

So he takes it all, silently, and when you can’t go any longer, when your body gets too tired and you turn slump between his arms, he hugs you tight to his chest and lies down on the hospital bed with you.

He is there when the doctors come and sedate you to calm the wheezing breaths and the erratic beating of your heart, he is there whilst liquid sleep takes you again and he is there when you finally drift off to a far better place where Kim Taehyung is still alive and well and holding you tight in his embrace.

❖ 21th June 2019, h 22:14 || Seoul, South Korea

The reflection in the mirror is both familiar and foreign to you as you peer into your own eyes, as you study the tight line of your lips and the sharp curve of your jawline.

Your hair is loose in small waves that fall right above your shoulders—far shorter than it used to be—and it frames the face of a girl that feels like you but, at the same time, that doesn’t.

Your attire is one you have worn many times before: black pants, black t-shirt, black boots and black gloves.

Today is your first day back on the field and your heart is already beating fast in your chest at the prospect of being out there once more, even though you plan it to be the conclusion of your career as an assassin and not a new beginning.

You can’t help but let your mind go back to the last time you prepared yourself before a mission. You looked at this very mirror one year ago as well, you studied your appearance to make sure everything was perfectly in place and, when your boyfriend entered the room, you smile at him before grabbing your jacket to leave.

This time, a quick little knock on your door is what awakes you from your daze and as you turn around whilst the door opens shortly after, you are not met with the kind gaze of Taehyung but by the lean figure of your new partner.

Jeon Jeongguk—former Marine and highly experienced in this field despite his young age, has been with you for the past six months.

He was scouted by the Agency when you were still stuck in a bed in the hospital wing and you got to know him only a few months after his arrival, albeit his fame preceded him.

When you were still recovering and in desperate need of a new partner, he was the one that volunteered to be assigned to you even though it wasn’t going to be really beneficial for him. In fact, within the Agency, there were only a few people that were willing to work with you and, truthfully, you couldn’t blame those that wouldn’t.

Jeon Jeongguk easily became your anchor in the past few months. He was kind and patient and he helped you get back on your own two feet in more ways than one.

He is also the one that has trained you rigorously for the past six months in order to help you to become better, stronger.

His doe-like eyes fix on you and you fore a smile to spread on your lips as you fully turn towards him. You offer him a little nod as an answer to the silent question shining in his eyes.

“I’m ready.” Your voice doesn’t betray a single hint of hesitation nor fear and surely not nervousness but you do feel all of those, within your heart. In the past six months, you have also become a master at concealing your true feelings, your most intimate thoughts and you also learned how to embellish them under false pretences and pretty lies.

Your heart has been roughly mended a great number of times at this point but, there is no point in hiding to your own self that you are not the same person you use to be and that you probably will never be, at least not until you have him by your side again.

Jeongguk smiles down at you showing the tip of his teeth whilst he tilts his head a little to the side, encouraging you to walk to the door and leave the safety of your room.

You follow him with eager steps that could be quite easily be mistaken for giddiness over your return on the field but that are, in fact, prompted by the fact that you were finally given an opportunity to change everything. Tonight, it’s your first and only opportunity to get back to your lover and you sure as hell won’t let it slide between your fingers.

You know Hoseok has been rather hesitant about sending you back on the field once again but, you have played your part well and every psychologist in the agency has assured him that you are ready. And you are, but not for what they all think you are.

You can sense his onyx gaze following you as you climb up the stairs that lead to the outside world and for a second, you almost turn around to greet him but, in the end, you decide not to.

There is this fear in your heart that one look at you will show him all the little lies hidden inside your eyes. You’re scared he’ll be able to catch the hint of deception hiding in there, your true intentions for tonight’s mission and it’s a chance you cannot take, not tonight.

With deep regret over the missed opportunity to talk to your step-brother for the last time, you follow your partner to your ride for the night and silently climb inside the vehicle, your insides twitching with the deep sense of deja-vu that overcomes you as that fateful night comes to your mind once more.

Jeongguk steals a glance your way after you depart from the Agency and you scoff at his over-protective gaze and evident concern.

The sound that leaves your mouth makes a smile appear on his own and you feel your heart warming up at the sight.

Jeon Jeongguk is not only your trainer or partner on the field, no, in the past few months he has easily turned into your confidant, your best friend and he has made it possible for your heart to feel something other than despair when you thought it wasn’t possible.

You care about Jeongguk, hell, you love him just like you love Hoseok and the thought of betraying them both tonight makes your smile falter a little.

The drive to your destination is pretty silent but it is not that awkward silence you always wish to fill with something, it’s rather a comfortable one and it helps to steady the rampant beating of your heart as you run through the details of your plan once more.

Tonight’s mission is pretty easy and you have no doubt in your mind you’ll be able to finish your last job effortlessly, especially with Jeongguk on your side.

You have studied the file to perfection even though it was evidently the easiest mission Hoseok could find for you. Still, you applied yourself for all of them, but especially for Jeongguk’s sake.

You are going to betray all of them, sure, but you’ll still make sure they all remain safe despite your own choices.

The target you are going to terminate tonight is someone you could have taken down on your own even a few years back when you were just starting in the field but, tonight you have a partner next to you and an extraction team set up there for you two when it’s over.

It is an inconvenience to have this many people around tonight of all nights but, truthfully, you cannot blame your step-brother in the slightest. He has almost lost you in more ways than one and, evidently, he is not going to take any more chances when it comes down to your safety.

The car comes to a halt in front of an anonymous complex building and your insides churn uncomfortably as you are so quickly faced with the execution of your plan.

Whether you’ll pull it off or not, everything changes tonight.

You drop your gaze to the watch at your wrist, the flashing white digits telling you it’s currently fourteen minutes past ten and, in about six minutes, your mission will begin.

You sigh out loud without meaning to and the sound draws Jeongguk’s attentive eyes back on you.

“Nervous?” He inquires, tilting his head a little to the side before flashing you with one of his cute smiles.

Despite everything, you will miss Jeon Jeongguk and his adorable antics.

The thought makes you squirm a little in your seat and you are forced to look away from him before you give away too much of what you are thinking. After all, Jeongguk is just as much of an assassin as you are and reading people is something he had to master to become as good as he is now.

“A little, yeah,” you decide to reply, your answer not being that far off the mark, albeit it being for a very different reason than the one he is thinking about.

Jeongguk hums a little, his eyes drifting off to the end of the street as he gets lost in his own thoughts.

“I mean, I don’t blame you,” he says after a while, shifting his gaze back on you as you lift your own to meet his doe-like eyes, “But you got me, remember?” He gives you one of those cheesy smiles that makes your eyes roll up to the ceiling and a smile spread on your lips.

“Guess I do, don’t I?”

“Hey, what is that supposed to mean?” He asks whilst lightly nudging you with his shoulder.

Jeon Jeongguk, the only man on Earth able to make you laugh after everything you have been through. The giggles erupt from your mouth with you having absolutely no control over them and his eyes light up in response, shining with something you can only describe as adoration. This is something you have only recently picked up on: the way Jeongguk looks at you and what it could potentially mean.

The sight, then, no matter how endearing, fills your stomach with guilt. You will have to betray this boy tonight. Of all people, you will have to hurt the one that helped you building yourself up in the past few months and if you could do it any other way, you would. But you have no choice.

So, in order to protect yourself, your own heart and your choices, you force yourself to slip into your new character, to let the mask fall on your face and play the part to perfection.

When the clock strikes twenty minutes after ten, you step out of the car with Jeongguk standing right next to you.

Your eyes do not betray any hint of doubt or fear—albeit you feeling both of them within your heart—and as he steps forward to lead you to the vacant-looking apartment complex, you commit your betrayal.

Your finger hovers in doubt for only a mere second over the left button on your wristwatch but, before you can actually talk yourself out of it, you press it down and send the alert to the law enforcement, heart beating rampant in your chest.

The once white digits on your watch turn an angry red but this time, they are not a scary sight, this time they signal hope for a different future—or past, you suppose.

Ten minutes, that’s how long you have to eliminate the target and help Jeongguk escape without you. As for you, you will wait for the Police with your arms spread wide.

In a world where criminals are sent in the past and you were forced to part ways with your lover there is only one option left: get caught.

► ten minutes later

Jeongguk’s legs are moving fast in front of you, his quick steps leading the way out of the building and into the seemingly empty street.

As expected, your mission was carried out with outstanding ease—your target was silently terminated and nobody within the complex area has noticed anything.

On any other night, you would consider this mission to have been extremely successful.

Jeongguk’s steps are light against the pavement and as you follow suit, your heart starts feeling heavier knowing any second now, they will show up.

Just like that night more than a year ago, what alerts you is the sound of the sirens approaching your general position and the shifting in light in the night as the Police cars tint the surrounding buildings in red and blue hues.

Jeongguk turns towards you, his eyes big as saucers and filled with a panic that you thought you’ll never see reflected in them.

“Shit,” he mutters under his breath before taking your hand to pull you forward and force you to run even faster.

He probably can’t believe what is happening tonight, not after everything ran so smoothly and especially not now, of all times, when you are finally back on the field.

Of course, he has no idea you are the cause of all of this and, really, how could he?

You follow him without uttering a single word until you are right in the middle of the street, aiming for the little turn on the left at the end of it where you know your extraction team is waiting for you.

As you pass a lamplight and you are sure you’re perfectly visible in the night, you stop.

There are a few things you’ll never forget and one of those is the panicked and questioning look on Jeongguk’s face as he turns towards you.

“What are you doing?” He asks, his voice a little higher than usual as he tugs on your hand to encourage you to move forward and keep running to safety with him.

You plant your two feet on the ground and shake your head ‘no’ a little.

You can see the confusion in his eyes and the apprehension swimming in those black irises as he turns his whole body towards you.

“Hey, it’s ok, we still have time to escape. But we’ve got to go, now.”

You force your hand out of his grasp and shake your head again, unable to push out the words you rehearsed in your mind a thousand times.

You watch his eyebrows knot together in bewilderment, you notice the way he nervously licks his lips as he grabs your shoulders with his hands, giving you a little shake as if to wake you from a daze.

Of course, he can’t even fathom the grandness of your betrayal right now and how could he, when you showed him not a single hint about you being capable of doing this to him?

“Talk to me, ________, what is going on in your head right now?”

Maybe he thinks you are re-living that fateful night and are now too scared to keep on going, afraid that story will repeat itself. Or maybe he just thinks you have gone mad and finally reached the point of no return. Still, he tries to understand, he tries to help you and you wish he would just leave you there and not be so nice for once, just this one time.

And maybe you are crazy, maybe there is no turning back at this point but in your heart you know, this was your only option all along.

“I’m not coming.” You finally say as the volume of the sirens turns louder in your ears, signalling the Police’s imminent arrival.

“What do you mean you’re not coming?!”

He lightly shakes you again, dread twisting his features as he tries to pull you towards him and finally get you to start running before it’s too late.

“Go, Jeongguk.”

You watch realization spark up on his features, his eyebrows shooting upwards and his mouth falling agape as all the pieces of the puzzle finally connect inside his mind.

“You called them,” he whispers, his voice so small it does nothing to conceal his shock nor how hard it is for him to actually believe you would do this. His eyes look at you as if they are seeing you for the very first time and maybe they are, after all, what you have been showing to him all of this time was someone you are not, not any more at least.

“I’m sorry... I had to.” Your voice is weak, your excuse pathetic but you still offer it to him like an olive branch hoping it will be enough to soothe his heart and help him move forward.

“Are you fucking crazy? What do you think will happen even if you get caught?! ”

Fear propels him forward and turns him rough as he grabs your wrist and yanks you forward, forcing you to take a few steps towards the end of the street just as the Police cars turn around the corner, facing your backs in the distance.

“Please, Jeongguk, leave.”

You try to force his hand to release your arm but it only turns his grasp rougher on your already bruising skin.

“I’m not leaving you!”

The heart you had tried so hard to mend in those few months together with him absolutely shatters at his words. The sense of deja-vu leaves you breathless, it gathers goosebumps on your skin and makes your head spin whilst absolute guilt spreads within you like a wave.

“I can’t keep living like this, Jeongguk, please.”

Your eyes swell up with tears, your bottom lip starts trembling and you gaze into his eyes with a pleading look that makes him shake his head and turns his eyes glossy with tears.

“What about me, then? What am I supposed to do?”

Jeongguk’s bottom lip trembles just like your own and it is then that you realize you may have underestimated the depth of his feelings for you.

Yes, you had an inkling he rather fancied you and maybe you had encouraged him by never addressing it but at the same time, the doubt of him feeling something stronger than that had never crossed your mind before now.

The desperate gaze that he fixes on you, the way his body tenses at the prospect of leaving you and the way he is crying right now as he struggles to decide what to do with both you and himself are all very familiar. Because you have felt the exact same way, a little over a year ago.

It is clear as day now that Jeongguk, somewhere down the line, has fallen in love with you.

Maybe if you and Jeongguk had met in another life, or maybe if you had known him before Taehyung then, maybe you’ll be able to feel the same about him.

But destiny has made you meet Taehyung years before him and you have fallen hopelessly in love with him and it doesn’t matter how much you may try to overcome it or to deny it, you know in your heart there will never be a place for someone else. Not now, not even in a hundred years.

“You are supposed to move on and find someone better.”

Jeongguk shakes his head vigorously, a sob erupting from his trembling mouth as both of his hands grab your face, his eyes turning pleading as they gaze into yours.

“I don’t want someone better, I want you.”

You close your eyes as you exhale loudly to try and steady yourself. This hurts so much and you’ll never overcome the hatred you feel for yourself for doing this to someone so precious and kind like Jeongguk.

He deserved better from the very beginning but you have been selfish enough to use him all this time, even without realising it.

You lift the hand that was holding your gun all of this time and with a sinking heart, you lift it to his head.

“Don’t make me do it, please.”

He shakes his head a little in bewilderment, his eyes big and terrified by the person they are staring at right now because to him, this is not you at all.

“I’m sorry, Jeongguk,” your voice trembles as you sniffle loudly, “I really am sorry but I love him,” you shake your head a little because you truly are hopeless at this point and you have no will to try and repress your own feelings any longer, “ I will always love him.”

Jeongguk stops breathing for a few seconds, his eyes closing as he takes it all in: his confession, the rejection, your weapon aimed at him and your decision to try and go back in time to find Taehyung.

A shaky breath comes out of his parted mouth as he forces himself to let go of you and take a few steps back.

Tears are falling in big droplets on both of your cheeks as he slowly steps backwards, defeat painted all over his features.

“I hope you’ll find him and you’ll live a happy life together.”

His voice is strained but you know he truly means it because that is who Jeongguk is. Someone so kind and gentle it’s a wonder he’s actually considered a deadly weapon within the Agency.

You force yourself to smile for him one last time and nod your head yes a few times.

“Leave happily, too, Jeongguk and thank you for everything.”

Jeongguk offers you a small nod before diverting his gaze towards the Police-men running out of their cars with their weapons out, ready to shoot you down at any given opportunity.

“Tell Hoseok that I’m sorry and that I love him.”

Jeongguk nods his head again and then he closes his eyes and turns around, forcing himself again to let go of you and think about his safety now.

You watch him go with tears smearing all over your face and neck and when he is almost out of sight, you drop your weapon on the ground and lift your hands up in surrender.

Your heart feels like a hummingbird inside your ribcage as the Police-men finally approach you, guns aimed at you from all angles whilst one of them roughly handcuffs your hands behind your back.

❖ 25th June 2019, h 15:00 || Seoul, South Korea

Time has always played a big part in your life. In fact, for most of your adulthood, time has been essential.

Now, held in a cold and bare prison cell for the first time in what feels like forever, you’re starting to lose all knowledge of time and how it flows and ticks by to the point in your mind, it’s all turning into a big blur of now and then.

Meals are brought to you in a seemingly precise pattern that allows you to guess what part of the day it is and a semblance of night time is also given by the lights turning off at a very specific hour—whichever that might be.

You often find yourself glancing down at your wrist where your watch used to be out of pure habit. A sigh escapes your mouth each time you are met with the sight of your own skin and not the comforting digits you were seeking.

The silence and loneliness of your confinement prove to be truly unnerving and slowly driving you absolutely insane.

With nobody to talk to and nothing to do, you can’t stop your mind from drifting off and imagine Taehyung in this very situation. You can almost see him before you in the ugly orange outfit, lying on the bed with his eyes fixed on the ceiling as he struggles to recover from his injuries and the thought of leaving you behind.

You also think about Jeongguk a lot. You apparently like the most to indulge in the sorrowful memory of his pained look as he forced himself to turn his back on you and run to safety.

One thing you try not to think about too much, though, is Hoseok and how he may be trying to cope with your absence.

There are a great number of scenarios possible you’d rather not indulge in, the most prominent one being him trying to break you out of prison, like he tried to do with Taehyung, even though he knows it’s basically impossible.

There is a tiny part of you that fears he’ll not only try but also succeed in his endeavour. Of course, the biggest part of you is more preoccupied with him getting himself hurt to the point of no return in the attempt to save you from the path you chose for yourself.

All these thoughts have nowhere to go except run around your head, mixing together, overlapping each other to the point you sometimes have a hard time distinguishing what is real and what is only a fragment of your own imaginations.

After all, this is what you are made to do in a place like this: think, think, think.

Nights—or their rendition of them, at least—do not pass by easily as well because more than often, sleep escapes you.

When you close your eyes you can’t help but picture Taehyung’s face or Jeongguk’s and, honestly, you have a hard time deciding which one is worse. What you know, though, is that your heart breaks a little more every single time and that is why for the past few days—assuming it has been multiple, that is—you have given up on sleep altogether in favour of a silent wait for your eleventh hour.

You can’t always hide your nervousness well; your body jerks every now and then, your legs relentlessly move up and down to alleviate some of the stress you feel clutching your insides, your lips often nip at the tender skin around your nails.

When the door opens again for the third time today, you almost jump from your seat and rush to the guard to ask him the millions of questions swirling in your mind.

You do nothing of the sort, though, as your gaze fixes on his stern one and the tight line of his lips.

You do try to pry into his eyes and catch a hint of something in them, literally anything that could give away a little something but you are met with the same old cold stare.

It feels like a little bit too early for it to be dinner already but then again, time has been slipping through your fingers more and more with each passing hour so who knows, maybe you have already lost the ability to discern it through the tight schedule of the prison.

“Get up,” the gruff tone of the guard’s voice almost makes you flinch, forcefully peeling you off from your own thoughts.

His stance is more intimidating than usual today, his features twisted in a little smirk that dare you to even slightly question his authority so he can have a little fun with you.

The thing is, you are not being held against your will right now, hell, you surrendered yourself to them and that means you have no reason to talk back or disobey their orders.

You get up on your own two feet and let him handcuff your hands behind your back without uttering a single word.

He pulls you out of the prison cell and you follow him diligently as he quickly crosses hall after hall of this seemingly infinite maze of white walls.

There isn’t much to see, really, but you still scan your surroundings eagerly, almost excited for the change of scenarios.

Your eyes actually lit up as for the first time in days—how many could have passed? A couple, a whole week? No idea—you see a clock hanging on a wall.

The ticking hands of the clock inform you it is three sharp, whether that is AM or PM you have absolutely no chance of knowing just yet but you would guess for it to be in the afternoon, just out of logic and intuition.

The walk to your destination—wherever that may be—is pretty silent and it doesn’t help your mind from slowing down on the reeling thoughts at all.

All the things you’d want to ask and inquire about get stuck on the tip of your tongue but, every time you lift your gaze to the huge back of your guard you are reminded that questions are not well perceived here.

At the end of yet another long corridor, you spot a couple of guards waiting for the two of you, each one of them at one side of the big door you came through for the very first time a great number of hours ago—at least sensation wise.

Your heart absolutely leaps in your chest as a new sudden thought creeps up in your mind. This is it, this is the day.

The three guards tower over you, covering every corner of your body except for your back as you are escorted to the trial room.

You have never seen one of those rooms before, except for photos on-line that did not make it any justice.

The white polished room is round and bigger than you anticipated, the ceiling is tall and spherical with a glass at the very top to let the light flood in and illuminate the whole ambient.

If this weren’t an “execution” chamber, you would actually deem it as lovely and warm-looking.

As you move past the door you feel the eyes of the judges and the few civilians present there close in on you, studying you as you slowly walk to the centre of the room.

The first guard that came to fetch you forces you on the elevated seat positioned there, right under the glass you saw while coming in.

In this position, you are now able to look everyone present here today right in the eyes.

As you stare at them you notice some of them squirm in their seats as if uncomfortable under your scrutiny, you also see some of them looking at you with hatred in their gazes as if you were the lowest scum of the Earth, the worst criminal they could think of.

It is laughable when you think about it.

Sure, you are not an innocent soul, far from it actually since you have killed so many men and women in your life but those lives you took, they were taken for a purpose and yes, the means to an end do not always make it right but in your world, you either seek justice for yourself and try to help the whole world by damning your soul or you let the criminals have their way with thousands of innocent lives.

So, even though the many eyes looking at you now as if you are as bad as any other serial killer or the criminals you have killed puts a bitter taste in your mouth, you’d still chose this path for yourself. Yes, even though that would mean losing Taehyung all over again and get yourself caught just to try and find him in the distant past.

Your resolve wavers a little though when you see them. A chocolate and a onyx gaze are fixed on you, a mixture of emotions swirling inside those familiars irises filled with unshed tears.

You didn’t notice them at first but now that you have, you simply cannot look away, hell, you even find blinking a hard task when you all know these right here are the last minutes you’ll spend together, forever.

Hoseok and Jeongguk are standing right at the very end of the room on each side of the exit door as if ready to bolt out at any given moment. And maybe, that’s precisely the case.

Your heart flutters in your chest with a great number of different emotions: sadness, fear, guilt, regret—all of them rise and rise and menace to choke you with their power.

Your eyes swell with tears and you find yourself shaking your head a little, a pleading look plastered all over your face because what if, what if they are here to save you and not to say goodbye? You can’t go back, you won’t.

Please don’t try to break me out, please. You repeat these words in your head like a mantra as if they were even able to hear them.

Jeongguk’s eyes are the ones that leave your face first, his bottom lip trapped under his teeth as he struggles not to break down right in the middle of the room.

You let out a strangled sob and divert your gaze from your brother to the judge in front of you, eager for the trial to begin and put an end to all of your miseries—or at least a part of them.

Your ears try to catch onto any abnormal sound that could come from within the room or even right outside of it as chaos ensues but nothing of the sort happens for a very long while.

You barely hear the judges talk and list all the crimes you are being accused of, you barely register the little coughs and snorts from the civilians watching this live because all of your attention is focused on the two dear people you are going to leave behind soon.

Their shoulders are slumped, their lips trembling a little and their cheeks are wet from all the tears they couldn’t choke down any longer.

You know at this moment that they have accepted it, that they are here to see you one last time before you go and that they won’t fight for you but rather root for you.

You mouth the words ‘thank you’ and ‘I love you’ and you force a smile to grace your lips for them, to give them both a somewhat happy last memory of you.

A cold metal basket is suddenly placed on the top of your head, the contact making you shiver and move your gaze towards the guard right next to you.

You realise now you have no idea how these things actually work and despite yourself, your heart spikes up in your chest with the fear of the unknown.

A few straps are fastened around your torso and your legs are pinned to the chair with handcuffs similar to the ones binding your hands.

You are told to open your mouth and you do so, confusion making your eyebrows knit together as you silently ask for an explanation. Of course, you aren’t given a verbal response yet again but a mouthguard is placed between your parted lips and you instinctively bite it down with your teeth, assuming it is to protect yourself from biting down your tongue.

If you didn’t know any better, you would actually think you’re about to be electrocuted in front of everyone present.

“Jung ________,” the judge says, making your gaze shift up to him so you can meet his cold stare, “You are hereby sentenced to go 69 years in the past.”

You exhale loudly, your heart beating like a hummingbird between your ribs as you realize you’ll be sent back an entire year after Taehyung’s arrival.

Fear and doubt clutch your soul as you start to realize this journey will probably be harder than you first envisioned.

There is no place for doubts though, especially not now that the “executioner” has started the machine that will teleport you back into the past.

You feel a surge of energy coursing through your body and you shiver at the weird sensation. Your heart feels like a heavy stone in your throat and you feel your breath getting shorter and you can’t tell whether that is panic shooting through you or the effect of what is being done to you.

You hear a strangled call of your name and you are forced to fix your gaze on Hoseok and Jeongguk again knowing it is indeed your very last time seeing both of their faces.

Your brother has a firm grip around the chest of your best friend, pulling him towards him and the exit door to stop him from making a mistake he’ll pay with his life.

Jeongguk is crying and reaching his hand out for you, his entire face twisted into one of pain and dread over your depart.

You would reach for him too if you could, you would caress his cheek and tell him that everything is going to be okay, that he will overcome all of this but you can’t.

Even your words get stuck in your throat as a bolt suddenly blinds you and twists your body in all directions, almost eliciting a painful scream out of you.

You didn’t think time travel would hurt this much but it does. It feels like every little cell you are made of is being blown and then recreated with a different form and function. It feels like being ripped apart and built again, but all in the wrong order.

You hear a muffled scream and realise it is your own, blocked by the mouthguard still safely tucked in your mouth.

You catch a glimpse of Hoseok’s face as he cries his heart out and of Jeongguk’s desperate eyes as he falls on his knees realising it is too late to do anything now.

With that last image imprinted in your brain, you close your eyes on the present day.

❖ 25th June 1950 || Seoul, South Korea

The pain stops altogether, disappearing as quickly as it came and all at once. For a second, you keep your eyes close to catch your breath, feeling almost as if you imagined all of this happening and once you dare to look at your surroundings again you'll find yourself still stuck in a prison cell.

Can pain so vivid be imagined, you ask yourself.

The distinct sound of a horn is what prompts you to finally open your eyes and take in what is all around you.

The street before you is busy with cars you would deem ancient in the present time but that shine like new gorgeous pieces here, in what you assume to be the past.

You jump back as the man behind the wheel yells at you to get the hell out of his way and you bow in apology as he stares at you.

Well, he isn't the only person staring at you right about now and you quickly realise that with your neon orange prison uniform you must be shining like a beacon in the night.

The desire to blend in and disappear between this mass of people is what forces you to move and start walking, in which direction well, that is up to luck, apparently.

You know you must still be in Seoul but there aren't any clues around to confirm your theory nor somebody you could ask it to. At least not with you looking like this.

What you want to do now is make sure nobody looks at you for too long and, most importantly, that nobody decides to report you for whatever reason and send you straight into a Police station once more.

As you walk through the unfamiliar streets—your teeth torturing the poor skin around your nails out of habit and nervousness—you scan your surroundings in search of hints that could tell you where, or rather when, exactly are you.

The year is 1950 and if math didn't help you in guessing it, surely the women walking beside you would have.

Some still sport the classic Hanbok look while others look more up to par with the occidental fashion, albeit them being in the smallest percentage, at least around this area.

History has never been your forte so it is not a big surprise that you cannot remember a single event from this year that may help you in finding out the date and also give you a tiny lead towards Taehyung's whereabouts.

As more and more time passes though, you realise that looking for someone in an age where smartphones and internet do not exist equals to searching for a needle in a haystack.

When you formed your plan in your head you hadn't really thought about the after and as you keep walking around having no idea where to go or what to do, you realise that finding him—if even possible—amongst twenty-something million people will be way harder than you initially envisioned.

You stop on your tracks and force yourself to breathe in and not panic already.

You close your eyes and take a deep breath to steady both your heart and mind, applying what you have been taught at the Agency even in this switch of scenario.

When you feel like you have significantly calmed down you decide to put on pause the thought of Taehyung and how to find him because realistically speaking, there are a few things more vital than that right now.

First: blend in with the people around you.

You scan your surroundings in search of a clothing shop and find one right across the street and even though the thought of crossing it scares you—because let's face it, there is nowhere to hide or conceal yourself out there—you still force yourself to face the dread and get it over with.

The shop appears to be closed and you wonder why when it's still broad daylight outside but, in this case, it works in your absolute favour.

You look around the building in search of a back door or even a back window you can force open to help yourself in and, after a few minutes of attentive search, you find something that will work perfectly fine.

There is a tiny window on the wall that faces the side road and you assume it to be either the bathroom's one or the dressing room's one—not that it would make that much of a difference.

You look around a couple of times to make sure nobody is watching and when you are absolutely sure no prying eyes are fixed on you, you break the tiny window with a single hit and climb up the wall to force yourself in.

In your life, you have done many despicable things in order to take down your targets and you try to brush off the sense of guilt over trespassing and stealing from some innocent man by thinking of this as another one of your missions.

It doesn't help as much as you'd want it to but, without a single Won in your pockets, this is your only option.

You look around the shop and take in the great number of dresses and their different styles at your disposal.

Though you would love to put on one of the more modern dresses simply because it would feel a little bit more familiar, you quickly decide that a more traditional attire would surely draw less attention on when out in the open.

With a sigh you reach out for the first Hanbok you can find and quickly slip out of your prison clothes with a sigh of relief.

The fabric of the Hanbok feels soft between your fingers and it makes you realize you have no idea when was the last time you even wore one of these. Probably when you were still a kid and both of your parents were still alive.

The thought of them brings back memories of Hoseok and your first years together and those reruns draw a shaky breath out of your mouth.

You shake your head ‘no’ a couple of times to push them all out of your head and keep moving forward. You do not have the luxury of dwelling in distant memories you cannot reach nor change.

Without any more hesitations, you fasten the burgundy Chima at your waist, tightening at the best of your abilities while standing in front of the mirror.

The Jegori paired with it is of a beautiful anthracite grey, the collar lightly decorated with strings of burgundy to match the skirt whilst the sleeves are adorned with rose’s design of a darker and almost black colour. The design is simple but very elegant, giving it a refined touch that makes you feel like a princess after staying in those prison clothes for so long.

The image reflected in the mirror is almost of someone you do not recognise. You feel like a new person and you even look like one with no make-up on your face, your hair cut shorter than they used to and not a single sign of the fierceness that once used to inhabit in your eyes.

You sigh out loud and force yourself to stop looking at your own reflection in favour of your new task: find a pair of shoes that is actually comfortable to walk around in.

You are used to the comfort of running shoes or sneakers and there is no chance in hell you’ll find something as soft and comfortable as those here but, in the end you opt for a traditional looking pair of shoes that have no heel and seem at least fit for a little run, if necessary.

The next problem you need to face is your hair. When you cut it a few months ago you did it because you needed a change, you needed to look different since you felt so not like yourself on the inside. Surely, you hadn’t thought of needing them now to blend in with the rest of the civilians.

You do your best to tie them up in a semblance of a bun and decide that this will have to do even though it is not perfect. It’s not like you have that much of a choice anyway.

You stop to ponder a little whether it would be possible for you to climb back up the wall and exit through the window you came in through while dressed like this and you decide that no, that doesn’t seem plausible in the slightest.

With no other option available, you walk to the door to study the lock and figure out how to force it open.

The thing about doors is that they improved over the years and locks have become harder and harder to pry open. In this case, though, time appears to be your friend because cracking the door open proves to be far easier than it was to climb inside in the first place.

You try to look as casual as you possibly can while you exit the shop and you exhale loudly when you realise no one is actually looking at you, not anymore at least.

You resume your walk through the streets with your next goal in mind: find out what day is it today.

Your eyes look around eagerly, studying your surroundings with new-found curiosity and as you move past a couple of shops and restaurant you start noticing a somewhat disheartening detail. Everything appears to be closed.

You wonder why all of the public places would be locked down in the middle of the day—if the sun up in the sky is anything to go by.

You stop on your tracks and look around with a pout, finally noticing how the streets are getting quieter and quieter the more time passes.

With your eyebrows knotted together, you decide to approach a woman hastily walking in your general direction and looking as if about to break into an actual run.

"Uhm, excuse me?"

The woman looks at you with a cold stare that makes you retreat the hand you had moved forward to make her notice you.

"I was wondering if you know why everything is closed around here," your voice is small and your skin hot to the touch as you pose your question. You have never truly been the extreme shy type but there is something about the way this woman looks you up and down that makes you doubt everything about yourself.

"Are you daft?" She exclaims, her eyebrows rising as if she can't believe the ridiculousness of your question, "Who would want to go around on a day like this?"

You tilt your head to the side a little, confusion written all over your features as you try to remember any important event happening during this year.

"Haven't you heard the news, child?!" The woman before you clutches her heart and looks at you as if you were an actual kid and she couldn't believe she had to be the one delivering bad news to an innocent soul.

"I'm afraid not," you reply in uncertainty, your voice barely above a whisper.

"The War has started, baby girl."

The words feel like heavy stones on your shoulders as she deadpans the news to you. Of fucking course, how could you even forget something so important?

Today is June 25th and it is the start of the conflict between North Korea and South Korea and you are right in the middle of it.

You feel panic surging through your body as you start to realize what this means for you. Finding Taehyung was already difficult but finding him in a country that is about to go to war? Suddenly, it feels hopeless and impossible.

Your despair and doubt must be written all over your face because the elderly woman shoots you an apologetic smile before excusing herself and rush along like everybody else around you.

You don't realise you have started walking until you find yourself in the middle of a park, having no idea how you got there in the first place.

It is dusk already and you still haven't figured out how you will spend the night in this foreign place without a single Won to offer in return for hospitality.

When night falls and it seems impossible to keep moving around with not a single clue of where you are supposed to go, you find yourself looking for a shelter for the nighttime.

You are about to lose all hope and simply crawl in a ball at the side of the street when you stumble upon an evidently abandoned building.

You look up at the broken glasses of the windows, the decadence of the walls and the ajar doors on the side road.

With reluctance, you enter the building and choose an empty room for yourself, favouring the proximity of the window over the door.

In this position, you can benefit from both the fresh air of the night and a vantage point in case any visitors decide to show up during the night.

You hug your legs to your chest and stare at the empty corridor ahead, your heart beating fast in your chest as your body starts to relax and the adrenaline dies down leaving only fear and despair behind.

You wish you had thought more about what you were going to find in the past, you wish you had made a better plan to find Taehyung than simply be sent here and deal with the rest once you were stuck in the past.

A part of you wishes you could take back everything but you know, you would have never been able to move on with your if life you didn't do this for both yourself and Taehyung.

You had promised him to not leave him behind, you had promised to get him back and you failed at both of them so it only seemed logical you had to sacrifice yourself in order to be with him.

Now that you are here, though, the thought of never finding him is stuck in your brain and makes you squirm on the floor in anguish.

Tonight, resting in an empty room in a foreign city with not a single soul to turn to, you cry yourself to sleep feeling like you may have made the biggest mistake of your entire life.

❖ 12th September 1950 || Busan, South Korea

The sound of waves hitting the shores and the smell of salt filling the air make you relax as you stare at the expanse of the sea.

You breathe in as much air as you possibly can and exhale loudly with your eyes firmly closed.

Your body is tired after a long day at work but your mind is even more distraught and your surroundings have nothing to do with it.

A little less than three months have passed since your arrival here in the past and you are as close to finding Taehyung as you were on that very first day.

The thought nullifies the calming benefits of the sea altogether and you find yourself struggling to keep the tears at bay. It feels like that is what you have been doing all this time when you are alone and you have nothing better to do than to think and indulge in your own misery.

You turn your back on the sea with a sigh, dragging your limbs to the busy street so that you can return to your accommodation.

You have been in Busan for a couple of weeks now, following the troops here to keep helping with the wounded. You haven't studied medicine in the future nor here in the past but you are quite accustomed to wounds and how to treat them on the spot and, honestly speaking, voluntary work is what is keeping the army going in this dire times.

The North Korean army has conquered Seoul a few days after you arrived here in the past and slowly but steadily, you have been pushed here in Busan alongside with the army as they kept losing territory inch by inch.

Of course, you already know how the War will end but there is still no way of telling whether you'll make it out alive or not by the time the US military comes at your rescue in the south. You are crossing the street with your eyes fixed on the ground and a nail between your teeth as you nibble on it when you hear it. A voice as deep as the ocean, a little chuckle that, in a way, resembles the one of a kid.

Your heart skips a beat as you lift your gaze, hope filling your whole body to the point it feels like it may burst before you even get the chance to make sure it is actually him.

A few meters away from you stands a tall young man. He is dressed as a soldier: a light green uniform, a hat atop his head and black boots at his feet.

His jawline is sharp and manly and you can barely see the tip of his round nose but everything inside you tells you it's him, it has to be.

He starts to walk towards the camp after greeting the young woman he was talking to when you first heard his voice and you follow suit, your steps fast against the bitumen.

Your heart is heavy with doubt—what if it's not him or what if it is him but he has moved on? What if he has forgotten all about you in this year you spent apart? What if he has a new partner now and he is no longer in love with you?

All those questions do not stop your hasty steps at all because even if all of them are true, you just need to see him, to look into his eyes and hear his voice again.

He turns a little to the left and as he does, he exposes his entire profile to you and that's when you know, without a doubt, it is him. Finally, after all this time, Taehyung is standing before you in actual flesh and bones.

He looks relaxed, happy even, and most importantly in perfect health and you would start crying right in the middle of the street with the depth of your relief if the urgency of touching him wasn't this strong, forcing you to keep chasing him.

As he starts walking faster and you struggle to keep up with him in your stupid uncomfortable shoes, you find yourself screaming his name out loud.

"Kim Taehyung!"

You watch him freeze on the spot and slowly turn around towards you, his eyebrows knitted together as if he can't believe someone has just yelled his name in the middle of the street.

Or maybe, he can't believe his own ears and the way that voice resembled yours so much because he knows, without a doubt, that it is not possible for you to be here, right now.

But as his eyes stop on you standing in the middle of the street with your breath ragged and your eyes filled with tears, he truly has a hard time believing all of this isn't real.

You see the hesitation in his irises, his legs quivering a little as he struggles to decide whether he should walk to you or not.

A sob escapes your lips because you can't believe you are staring at his handsome face again.

He looks exactly like you remembered him to be: tall and lean, muscular but not excessively so, black hair a little longer on the back of his head and eyes always shining as if stars were trapped in there when he was born. Kim Taehyung has always been drop-dead gorgeous and, damn, you have missed him so much.

With not a single hint of hesitation, you run to him and throw your arms around his neck to hold him tight to your chest and keep him there for as long as you can.

"__________?" His voice trembles with a mixture of emotions you can only describe as incredulity, relief, happiness and confusion all mixed together and in response, you hold him even tighter.

"Is it really you?" You can hear the tears in his voice as it grows thick with them whilst his arms move to rest behind your back and return your embrace.

"It's me, baby, it's me."

You let go of him that tiny bit that allows you to look into his eyes and as you do, you both fall completely apart and start crying your hearts out in the middle of the street, not caring one bit of all the people surrounding you.

"Ho-how?" He asks, his bottom lip quivering as he brushes his wet nose against yours, "Are you real? Please tell me this isn't another dream."

You shake your head 'no' a couple of times and move your hands to caress his red and wet cheeks, eager to feel more of his skin under your digits just to make sure yourself this isn't one of your own dreams.

"I'm here, I came back for you just like I promised."

"How? What happened?"

He rests his forehead on yours and exhales loudly whilst holding you even tighter with his firm hands, almost as if scared that you'll disappear between his fingertips.

"I... I made sure the Police would catch me as soon as I was cleared to go out on the field again." You confess, your eyes shifting from his intense gaze to the tight line of his lips.

"You willingly did this to yourself?" You can sense the incredulity in his words and, honestly, you think you've taken a crazy leap of faith as well but, as you stand here with him in your arms it is very hard to feel regret over your decision.

"I couldn't live without you."

The confession makes your throat burn with the tears you are so forcibly trying to gulp down, it makes your heart feel incredibly small in the expanse of your chest and you do not have the courage to lift your gaze up all on your own.

It is one of Taehyung's fingers under your chin that pulls your focus back on his eyes.

He is looking at you as if you are the most precious gem he has ever seen and that look of love and adoration, that familiar gaze you were so used to seeing before, erases all doubts about him forgetting all about you and starting a new life for himself.

Kim Taehyung is clearly enamoured with you as much as he used to be and the realisation fills your heart with utter happiness.

All the hardships you had to face, all of the sleepless nights and the tears and desperate moments they were all worth it.

Taehyung lets go of your body and grasps your hand in his own, smiling at the way your fingers automatically entwine just like they used to, fitting together as if they were moulded to always be united like this.

"Come with me," he says and you eagerly follow his quick steps as he guides you through the Camp and a more secluded place.

"So you're a soldier now?" You ask as you briskly walk side to side to reach the privacy of his room.

"Ah, yes, well..." He trails off and steals a glance at your face as his cheeks empurple with a hint of embarrassment, "Killing people is all I ever learned to do so... I just thought I should make the best of what I've been taught in the future."

You smile at the way he tilts his head to the side a little in uncertainty, suddenly escaping your gaze as if you'd ever judge him for his choices.

Being a soldier definitely sounds better than being an assassin when spoken out loud in a casual conversation and in the end, it all seems to be tied to one similar reason: defending the world you love so much from the people that menace to endanger it.

If this were a time where being a female allowed you to join the forces, you would have probably chosen the same path for yourself.

You tug a little on his hand and he finally turns his face towards you, a sheepish smile gracing his lips as you nod your head in understanding and give him the biggest and happiest smile to ever grace your face.

"You are a nurse, then?" He asks after a few seconds, glancing at your simple black dress and classic black shoes that seem to be the go-to-attire for medical personnel outside duty.

"Ah," you glance at yourself and shrug a little before lifting your gaze towards him, "Well, I couldn't join the military but I am quite accustomed to wounds and how to treat them on the spot so I figured I could make myself useful here."

"Look at us, making the best of what we experienced on the field here in the past."

Taehyung is literally beaming at you and you smile back while tightening your grip on his hand. A part of you is still struggling to believe this is real, that you made it and are now finally together again.

Taehyung's steps come to a halt and you stop next to him, looking up at the door that stands before you.

You laugh as you watch him struggle to find the keys in his pockets while absolutely refusing to let go of your hand, almost as if afraid the moment he'll let go you'll turn into dust.

When he finally finds the keys and helps you inside his room, you exhale loudly in relief at the prospect of finally being alone again, away from prying eyes.

Taehyung must be feeling exactly the same way because the moment the door closes behind your backs he pushes you against the wooden surface and steals a kiss from you.

The contact is sudden but not any less sweet. You find yourself sighing on his mouth at the sensation of his soft lips moving atop your own, stealing your breath away.

Touching him again, feeling him like this for the first time in over a year feels like absolute bliss.

Your body seems to melt under his touch just like butter under the scorching sun and the more his hands roam all over your curves, the more eager you get to feel more of him against your skin.

"God, I've missed you so fucking much," Taehyung says as he parts from your lips to breathe in and calm down the quick heaving of his chest.

His nose keeps caressing the tip of your own as he stares right inside your eyes, almost as if he could look at your soul through them.

"I've missed you too," you whisper and your voice breaks a little as you choke those words out because you have never spoken words truer than these ones.

You have missed Taehyung like one misses air and all this time, you felt like a part of you had been ripped from you and scattered across the whole world.

Now that you have him here before you, though, you feel whole again and it is with that sentiment that you grasp a few locks of his hair and pull him forward so your lips can meet again.

His hat falls unceremoniously on the ground with a loud thud but you are both deaf to anything else that isn't the rampant beating of your hearts and your breaths, slowly mingling together.

Taehyung’s lips find the curve of your neck next, right below the ear, and they conquer the sensitive skin anew with his warm kisses, eliciting soft sighs out of you.

He presses his body to yours as if to make sure you won’t be going anywhere and you find yourself pulling on him with just as much passion and eagerness.

“I can’t believe you’re really here,” he whispers atop the curve of your jawline as he covers it with sweet and feather-like kisses.

“I’m sorry it took me so long,” you reply as you seek his eyes to let yourself drown into those black pools.

He smiles at you, shaking his head a little as if he cannot believe you are apologising for something you couldn’t control but he knows, he must know that your apologies go deeper than that. You are sorry for leaving him in the first place, you are sorry for not being there when he was sent back nor when they tried to save him but most of all, you are sorry for the many mistakes you’ve made that night.

“It doesn’t matter anymore, we are both here and we are well.”

He says and you can’t help but claim his mouth again as he does so because his words move your heart in ways you didn’t think possible. You thought you had known happiness and love before by his side but as you keep pulling him into you, as you keep savouring him, it feels like this right here goes way beyond what you felt for him before.

Taehyung is truly your soul mate, your everything and there is no way of hiding that when your fingers are so restless, your mouth so greedy and hungry for the taste of him.

His hands move on your hips and slowly inch backwards until he is palming your bottom cheeks and squeezing them tight, turning your kiss into a heated one.

You sigh and whimper in unison at the sensation of being this close after so long and you can feel the excitement building between his legs with each passing second.

You do not want to rush anything today, though. What you want is to savour him for as long as you possibly can, make him yours all over again.

After such a long time, it feels like your bodies need to get acquainted again, they need to discover every niche and ridge they were made of until you know every single inch of each other just like you used to.

“I want you so much,” he whispers in a shaky breath as he leaves your mouth to attack the expanse of your neck.

Your back arches a little as his lips close on the sensitive skin and bloom purple roses there to mark his passage.

Your eyes flutter shut whilst your fingers grab his locks harder, forcing him closer so that he won’t stop kissing you like this, claiming you inch after inch.

“You can have me, baby,” you reply in a soft whisper, “You can have all of me.”

Taehyung groans against your skin and you shiver as he roughly pulls your dress upwards to reveal your naked legs and aching core.

You are mildly aware of the arousal between your legs and how it must have painted a dark spot in the centre of your underwear and the way his eyes immediately zero on it makes your sex tingle with excitement.

Taehyung’s hands travel upwards again and chose your breasts as their next victim.

His fingers are passionate, a little bit too rough as they encompass the supple flesh and pull it out of your flimsy little dress.

He appears to be extremely pleased with the absence of a bra and he eagerly licks his lips as if about to taste his favourite dessert.

The sensation of his hot mouth against your sensitive buds is intoxicating. A shiver runs up your spine, covering your flesh in goosebumps as you deliciously sigh for him and arch against the simple touch.

His tongue rolls out of his mouth and encompasses the already hardened nipple and you whimper for him, encouraging him to keep up with his little tantalizing touches.

He kisses the thin skin between your breasts and moves to the other to give it the same exact treatment and grow the arousal pooling in your core.

He seems to be satisfied only when you are heaving for him, the expanse of your chest covered in saliva and decorated with tiny, purple love marks.

His fingers hook the edges of your dress around the shoulders and guide it downwards, slowly revealing your body to him.

His eyes drink up the sight of you half-naked before him as he is trying to impress it firmly in his memory, almost as if he has forgotten how you look like and feel like against him and wants to make sure he won’t forget ever again,

You shiver a little under his scrutiny albeit the room being almost too hot for comfort and he smiles at you while biting his bottom lip, the look on his features absolutely mesmerising.

“You’re as beautiful as I remembered,” he says under his breath but he can’t hide the way his eyes linger a little too long over the scars of the wounds you’ve got as a token on your last night together.

“It’s ok, Tae, I’m all healed up,” you whisper, your tone purposefully tender whilst your hands caress his head and cheeks to soothe him further.

He softly hums in response and leans into your touch, closing his eyes for a few seconds just to bask into the sensation.

When his gaze fixes back on you he gives you a little smile and then presses his lips on every little scar that has been freshly added to your body. There are many that constellate your body and they are all small reminders of the enemies you’ve faced, of the hardships you have conquered and raised up from just like a phoenix.

You know Taehyung has many of his own and some may even be new to you but all those blemishes, they have shaped you into what you are today and they don’t make neither of you less beautiful on the outside nor the inside.

You shiver at the sensation of his tongue lapping your flesh as if he were trying to mend your skin and you find yourself sighing for him, calling his name with desperate eagerness to feel more.

His delicate hands respond to your call with ardour, pulling your dress all the way down until you are left in nothing but your flimsy underwear.

As you stand before him like this, exposed and ready to be loved to the utmost, you reach for his uniform and start unbuttoning his jacket as quickly as you possibly can.

The fabric almost seems like a trap with its line of stubborn buttons and Taehyung has to help you undo some of them to free himself.

You almost groan at the sight of a white shirt beneath his jacket blocking your view of his naked torso—albeit it being almost pointless with the way it is soaked in sweat and almost completely see-through and stuck on his golden skin.

You have no idea how he can stand the uncomfortable fit of this garment when you can barely bear the feeling of a cap atop your head while working at Camp.

You strip him off of the shirt and bash in the way he immediately shivers as your breath hits his wet and hot skin.

You attach your mouth on his chest and he sighs instantly at the sensation, relaxing under the feeling of your lips tasting him like this.

As you claim every inch of his upper torso and discover a few new scars there, your hands work fast on his pants to let them fall on his feet and free him of his tight confinement.

Taehyung steps out of his pants and shoes as you keep kissing him, licking and biting the supple flesh to leave there marks that will soon mirror the ones he left on your chest.

With greedy hands you clutch his bottom cheeks and pull him towards you, forcing his hips to rock forward and slightly meet your own. The sensation of his erection against your clothed sex makes the both of you whimper with desire and there is no denying you won’t hold much longer with this dragged out wait for your carnal reunion.

Your fingers hook the hem of his boxers and you slide them down his legs to free him from the sticky garment and as he hisses at the freeing sensation, you attach your lips to his neck and suck on the tender flesh until he groans in both pain and pleasure, perfectly mingled together.

You palm his erection with one of your hands, basking in the way his body trembles at the mere touch and his mouth opens with a silent moan.

Taehyung remains so pliable when it comes down to the pleasure you can ignite in him with the simplest of actions and your heart rate spikes up in your chest. You have him right at the centre of your palm even after all this time, just like he has you.

“I need to feel you, baby,” he whimpers out and you shift your gaze from your hand around his cock to his pleading eyes.

“Then take me,” you reply, your voice sounding almost daring as if you doubt he would when in reality, you are quite acquainted with the way Taehyung loves to claim and ruin your body.

It doesn’t come as that much of a surprise then that he instantly lifts you up, forcing you to hook your legs around his hips for support whilst he steals your breath away with his ravenous tongue, seeking your own.

The kiss is sloppy, lewd with the sounds of your ragged breaths and tongues toying with each other whilst saliva starts to gather on both of your chins.

You moan as his grip around your bottom cheeks turns a little rougher whilst he spins you around to drag you to the bed at the end of the room.

His steps are unsteady as he manoeuvres you through the tiny apartment, his everything focused more on you and how you taste like to care enough about what is surrounding you and where your bodies are going to bruise come morning due to the few bumps along your way.

You are both breathless by the time you reach the comfort of his bed and you sigh as the soft mattress welcomes your back, hugging your body as if it were made of clouds. Or maybe it just feels like it because you are absolutely flying right now, your heart so content it feels like it could burst any moment now.

Taehyung’s eyes are fixed on your lean figure and you tilt your head to the side a little, offering him a sweet smile while opening up your legs for him.

The silent invitation seems to be enough for him to join you on the bed and finally claim what has been his all along.

The mattress dips as his knee presses against the soft surface so that he can climb right between your legs.

You welcome him in your arms as he pushes his body forward to feel your heated skin pressed against his own whilst he steals your mouth anew with the same amount of vigour and passion shown before.

You feel like a feral animal that has been starving for days and is now faced with a feast. You want to taste all of him all at once whilst still savouring every instant and make it last for as long as you possibly can.

Despite the passion burning in your hearts, Taehyung takes his time as well as he explores your body anew, planting small kisses on his way southwards, where he knows your arousal resides.

You sigh every time his lips touch something new and as he grasps your breasts you softly call out his name, biting your bottom lip as his teeth graze the already battered flesh of your hard nipples so he can gently tug on it, drag it forward and enclose his lips around it to give it a firm suck.

Your fingers find purchase into his messy locks again and he groans as you tug on them a little too fiercely in response to his incitement.

“Baby, please,” you whine, arching your back so that your hips can slightly brush against his own and get a taste of what it will feel like to have him lodged deep inside of you again, battering your core until you are screaming his name for everyone to hear.

Taehyung smirks on your skin but is forced to comply to your wishes quite quickly once you hook your feet behind his back and you start rocking your hips forward to meet his turgid cock through your underwear.

He hisses under his breath and forces your hips to still with his strong hands, pinning you down on the bed with a daring look in his eyes.

You release his back from the vice of your legs and watch him resume his travel southward with lust shining in your eyes.

He slides a little off the bed to remove the shoes you hadn’t realized were still planted on your feet and then he kisses his way up from your ankles up to your inner thighs.

You inhale loudly and immediately close your eyes as you feel his hot breath hitting the wetness of your clothed core.

He nuzzles his nose into your panties and you whimper as he shakes his head a little between your legs, the tip of his nose brushing perfectly against your clitoris.

His long fingers hook on the hem of your underwear and you lift your ass up from the bed to help him slide them down your legs and finally reveal the depth of your arousal to him.

He hums in contentment at the sight of you so hopelessly devoted to him to the point even a few kisses can turn you soaking wet.

His hands firmly press your hips down as he blows hot hair on your exposed sex right before his mouth plants a sweet and seemingly-innocent kiss atop your thirsty lips.

Your lashes tremble as you struggle to keep yourself still when he is so close you can almost feel him filling you up and yet, not quite close enough for you to feel actual pleasure.

Your mouth hangs open as you pathetically sigh for him before he has even started touching you, savouring you.

Fuelled by your evident desires, Taehyung’s mouth opens and his tongue darts out to lie flat on your soaked core and lap at the sweet juices dripping out of you.

A long and shaky breath escapes your mouth at the sensation of his languid muscle pressed against your feverish skin.

A string of whispered pleas and calls of his name fills the silence of the room as he laps at your core fervently, his head moving up and down as he covers the expanse of your folds with the tip of his tongue.

Taehyung hums contently against your mound, the vibrations he produces making you shiver whilst forcing your eyes to pry open so that you can bask in the sight of him, residing so prettily between your legs.

“I missed the sweet taste of your cunt so bloody much,” he says as soon as he catches your eyes fixed on his and you whine at the lewd words he speaks with such ease.

“Yeah? Have you thought about it often?” You force yourself to say through the little whimpers that leave your mouth, eager to drink up more of his lasciviousness.

“All the damn time,” he confesses, voice husky with desire as he tilts his head a little to the side to flick the tight bundle of nerves atop your aching core.

His mouth encompasses the trigger to your pleasure in earnest desire of having you surrender to him completely and that, you gladly do as he starts sucking on the little bundle of flesh like his life depends on it.

Whimpers escape your parted lips whilst your hands fly to find purchase on the covers, tugging on them with tight fists that menace to rip them off if you tag on the thin fabric a little longer.

The way your body so hungrily responds to every single one of his touches turns him fervent, eager to give you the pleasure you so evidently need and the truth is that you haven’t been touched like this in over a year, you have denied yourself pleasure all this time, believing you didn’t deserve any bliss after what you did to him.

Your body is literally starving, hungry for any form of attention it can get and that is why you are so pliant under his touch.

“Did you think about my cock filling your tight little pussy?” He asks as he slightly lifts his face up, away from your aching core whilst his fingers slowly slide down from your hips down to your wet folds.

His digits are careful, slow against your overflowing sex but they make you sigh nonetheless because you have missed this, all of this, for way too long.

“Y-yes,” you pathetically whimper back because it’s the truth and there is no point in hiding it. You have dreamed of him like this countless of times and that is why you open up your eyes and fix them back on him. This is not a dream and you do not want to miss him looking like this, so entranced with the depth of your arousal and the power he still holds over it.

“Have you touched yourself thinking about me pounding into you just like I used to?” His voice is all rough around the edges, deep and guttural as he stares right into your eyes, seeking an answer in your gaze.

Your expression falters as you struggle between wanting to please him and keep the teasing game going, or tell him the honest truth.

Your resolution on lying is very short-lived though as you catch the shift in his own eyes while he keeps looking at you. For a moment, you forgot how acquainted he is with your habits and little mannerism. For a whole second, you thought you could fool the man you love but you were wrong and that much is clear in the way his brows furrow while he tilts his head to the side, studying you.

His generous fingers leave your core all at once and you almost whine at the sudden loss.

“What’s wrong, baby?” He inquires, encouraging you to speak up whatever is passing through your mind right now.

Your heart hurts a little as you stare at him, looking so serious and concerned and you find out you can’t actually hold that gaze when you are about to confess your very last secret to him, undress your soul completely for him.

“I... I couldn’t. I didn’t think I...” your voice is small as your eyes move to fix on the white wall behind his back, purposefully avoiding his deep and attentive eyes. Your face turns uncomfortably hot as you muster the courage to utter the embarrassing words out loud, “I didn’t think I deserved it.”

The mattress beneath you dips with his weight as he climbs back up on top of you to rest between your legs. Despite yourself, you find your eyes trained in his as he guides your chin upwards, making it impossible for you to look away as he steals a kiss from your mouth.

“Why?” He asks, his voice soft because he probably already knows the answer to this very question but still needs to ask.

“Because I left you,” your voice breaks and his eyes seem to fill with shining stars as he lets out a strangled breath before claiming your lips anew with a gentle touch.

“When was the last time you’ve had an orgasm?” Roses bloom on your cheeks as those words leave his mouth before he places a soft kiss against your temple, the gesture so tender you fear you may burst into actual tears and break down before him at the way he keeps looking at you, touching you and kissing you like you are the most precious treasure on the whole planet.

“I don’t know,” you blurt out in honest truth, your voice still so small it is barely above a whisper.

Taehyung sighs and closes his eyes for a few seconds and when he opens them back up, his long lashes framing his intense gaze, you are rendered absolutely speechless by the fire burning in them.

“This ends tonight,” he says, his voice almost harsh to your ears whilst your heart skips a beat between your lungs with the fear of him referring to your relationship. There is so much sorrow and love gracing his features though you find it hard to even breathe normally, “You won’t feel guilty about leaving me behind ever again.”

The tip of his nose strokes your own, encouraging you to nod in response and acknowledge his desire.

“Ok.”

“Promise me,” he kisses your temple again and you lean into the sweet touch, a little smile gracing your lips as you finally catch onto what his words meant all along.

“I promise.” You say and, this time, you mean it.

“Good,” he kisses your neck next and bites the tender skin until he elicits a moan out of you, swiftly throwing you back into an aroused daze.

“Now,” he says, licking his lips as he glides down your body to return to his initial position right between your thighs, “Time to get what you deserve.”

His words are titillating but also remarkably sweet with what they entail—you have been too hard on yourself, you have punished yourself way too hard for sins you didn’t even commit to his eyes. All this time you deserved everything, you deserved happiness and you still deserved him. So now, he is bent on giving you all of the above, for the rest of your lives together.

His mouth drops on your mound and he grunts as soon as your taste fills his senses again, sending delicious vibrations to ripple through your sex just like ocean waves.

His lips enclose your clit anew so that he can suck on the little mound with all his might whilst teasing your folds with his long and slender fingers.

Your eyes shut and your mouth opens to allow soft sighs of ecstasy out of your parted lips, your body slack against the mattress as you completely give in to the pleasure firmly building within your stomach.

His digits part your dripping folds and you stir in anticipation for the feeling of his warm tongue inside of you, finally claiming what has been his for a very long time.

You bite on your bottom lip as the tip of his enticing tongue moves past your folds to gather all your juices and gulp them down.

The sound of appreciation that moves past his mouth gathers goosebumps on your skin and summons your hands on his brown locks to keep him perfectly still between your thighs.

You can feel Taehyung’s lips twisting into a smirk as you slightly roll your hips forward to meet the dragged out ministrations of his tongue, too eager to feed the raging fire inside of you to care any longer about savouring the moment. You have waited long enough.

“You taste so sweet,” he grunts as he nuzzles your clitoris with his nose, drawing a sigh out of you whilst his fingers start ghosting around your sex anew.

He looks up at you with the most tantalizing smile you have ever seen and as you get swept away by the intense look in his onyx eyes, one of his digits moves right past your external labia and intrudes your sex.

Your body tenses at the sudden sensation of being filled after such a long time and you exhale loudly as he plunges it all the way down and brushes against your pleasure spot with mind-blowing precision.

“T-there,” you whimper out, eyes closed and eyebrows furrowed as you relish into the way your walls start to stretch around him, at the way your juices overflow your core and taint his hand and the white covers beneath your ass.

Taehyung slides his finger almost completely out of you and then slams it right back in as if it were his cock aiming for your cervix. The sensation is blissful and it is evident in the way you start panting for him, rocking your hips to meet the slow pace set between your folds but it is not enough.

“I want-I want to feel you,” you whimper out and Taehyung slips another finger inside your pussy in response, adding to the pressure within you to stretch you even further and prepare you for the glorious feeling of his cock rocking in and out of you.

The thought alone makes you moan out loud and lick your lips as they turn sandpaper dry in mere anticipation.

His swollen lips find the enlarged bundle of flesh hidden above your folds and they suck on it hard until you are yelping in both pleasure and pain. The sounds do not make him relent in the slightest, in fact, the scissoring inside you turns bruising whilst his tongue ravishes you whole and you are quickly turned into a whimpering, begging mess.

Your chest heaves up and down as delectation starts to coil within your stomach, turning everything scorching hot just like liquid fire coiling from your throat down to your core.

Your mind turns fuzzy as your eyes roll back at the sensation of the tip of his digits battering your core with relentless precision and as he slides a third finger in, you come undone under his touch.

“Yes, just like that baby, come for me,” he whispers, voice husky with arousal over the way your body writhes around his palm as the wave of pleasure washes over you from the tip of your head down to your curling toes.

Taehyung’s fingers slip out of you coated in your humours, shining under the orange sunlight coming through the window behind your backs.

The light filling the room caresses Taehyung’s face in a way that makes him look almost angelic with his tousled hair and shining mouth but what he has been doing between your legs is the furthest thing from it.

The smile painted across his lips though helps in creating the little illusion.

That is until he inches forward and decides to collect every last drop of your orgasm from your aching core.

You flinch at the sensation of his tongue fervently licking your sensitive skin and you whine while pulling on his hair, the over-stimulation making you dizzy.

“I can’t get enough of you,” he interjects between two deep and slow licks that gather goosebumps over your heated skin.

“Tae,” you mewl as you push yourself up on your elbows to look at him with pleading eyes.

“Yes, baby?”

“Fuck me, please.”

He smirks and you know he had been waiting for you to beg him this shamelessly all along but as his eyes start to twinkle and he palms himself before you, you can’t find it in yourself to actually be mad at him.

His member looks painfully hard, the tip all red and hungry and sticky with pre-cum as he gives himself a few pumps whilst staring at your dripping wet core, waiting for him.

His cock twitches slightly as you roll your hips for him, taunting him just enough to make him groan out loud.

His free hand comes to rest on your hip as he aligns himself with your vulva, the underside of his cock grazing your skin to gather up all of your juices and make his sink inside of you easier, slicker.

You whimper as the tip of his cock teases your swollen clit and he sighs in response, licking his lips a few times as he tries to steady himself.

With a trembling breath, he grips the base of his cock and with a slow drag, he pushes the head of his cock past your folds and inside your womanhood.

Taehyung moans at the sensation of your walls squeezing him so tightly and you follow suit, overwhelmed with the thrill of having him inside of you again after everything you have been through.

He drags his cock inside of you slowly, inch after inch and every time he goes a little deeper, he sighs at the way you madly contract around him and whimper out his name with nothing but bliss laced within your voice.

He gulps down heavily as he pushes the remaining inches of his girth inside of you, his breath trembling as the base of his cock hits your ass and he finds himself finally deeply sheathed inside of you.

The mattress dips with his full weight as he pushes his body forward and rests his hands on each side of your head, cradling your face with loving fingers as he stares right inside your eyes.

His hips rise a little and then slowly push back in, allowing you to savour the deep drug of his length within you.

His mouth is on top of yours the moment you let out a pleading call of his name and just like that, he starts to slowly rock into you.

Your hands find purchase on his muscular back, your nails dragging along the tense skin until you find the curve of his tight ass to squeeze and press against.

The muscles of his bottom cheeks are hard and tense as he smacks in and out of you, the sound of his balls hitting your ass and your ragged breaths filling the room quite quickly along with the scorching heat of those summer-like September days.

Your fingers crawl around the soft skin of his bottom cheeks, the press of your digits on his flesh making him hiss in both pleasure and pain.

Your lips attach on his neck and suck hard on the flesh, making his hips stutter as his mouth opens into a deep moan of ecstasy.

The sound makes your walls squeeze hard against his turgid cock and he is forced to close his eyes and let his head sink in the soft curve of your neck to keep thrusting forward, picking up his pace inside you.

“You feel so good, baby,” he whines as you roll your hips against his, meeting him halfway to chase your own release for the second time tonight.

“Y-yeah? Is fucking me as good as you remembered?” Your voice trembles with the strain of forming a coherent phrase and speak it out loud between the needy whimpers that still escape your parted lips, no matter how hard you try to keep it quiet.

“No,” he thrusts deeper into you and you yelp at the sensation of his twitching head striking your pleasure spot with utter precision, “It’s even better.”

You whine at his words and feel your walls contracting against him to the point it makes him hiss and curse under his breath because ‘you are so fucking tight’ and there is no chance he’ll last much longer like this.

“Come here baby,” he says, grimacing a little as his cock leaves the warmth and comfort of your delicious pussy to lie right behind you so that you have to turn your head a little to gaze into his face.

His dark brown locks are damp and slightly sticking to his forehead, sweat is slowly dripping over his face and down his alluring neck and you push yourself a little forward to catch a droplet with your mouth and savour the saltiness dripping all over his body.

Taehyung exhales loudly, his eyes fluttering shut as his cock slides right back into you with very little effort.

One of his hands reaches behind your neck to grasp your fingers and intertwine them with his own whilst his arm supports your head upwards.

The gesture is accompanied by a sweet and rather chaste kiss that warms your heart and fills your eyes with shining joy.

The boxed grin on his features turns your body into a puddle and it tugs on your heartstrings to the point it almost hurts between your ribs. How much have you missed his trademark smile, God.

Your eyes water with happiness just as he resumes his pace inside of you, aiming for both of your releases in a desperate endeavour to get lost into the bliss together.

His mouth seeks your swollen lips and you gladly concede them to him, parting them to welcome his tongue past your teeth to tease your own.

The kiss is a little sloppy, it falls on your chin and on his nose as you rock against each other, but it is heavenly nonetheless and brings you both a little bit closer to the breaking point.

You feel his hips stutter and lose the pattern as you start rotating your own a little bit, eager to feel his cock twitch again against your tight walls. His moans turn deeper, more frequent and his eyes close shut as he gets lost into the sensation and that’s how you know, he is very close.

Taehyung licks his lips and guides his free hand on your stomach and then down your core, opening his eyes again to fix them on his target: your swollen little trigger.

His digits find it with utter ease and earnestly press against the enlarged bud, drawing figures eight on it with the same speed set between your legs.

Your head falls backwards, supported only by his strong arm and your mouth opens to let out a deep, guttural moan.

“Do you like that, baby?” He asks in a panting breath as he fixes his gaze back on your face and the way it morphs with pleasure with each one of his deep thrusts.

“So mm-much, y-yes! Don’t stop, please, baby.”

Taehyung groans and roughly claims your lips anew as he fastens the rhythm of his thrusts turning it into a rather bruising one destined to make the both of you unravel between each other’s arms.

“Fuck-ffuck, uh, _______,” his voice breaks with a deep moan that sounds a lot like your name and you feel his dick twitch inside of you, his under-cock artery pulsating against your walls as he creams your sex and fills you whole.

His hips slow down a bit as he milks his orgasm to the very last drop and the sensation of being held like this, pleasured by his hand and filled with his cock and his release makes the dyke of your own orgasm burst completely open.

Your juices spill over his pretty cock and coil between your legs, nicely mixing with the white droplets of cum that have pooled out from your battered pussy.

Your breath trembles as he slowly pulls out of you, his eyes fixed on your sex, mesmerised by the sight of all the juices still oozing out from it.

With your free hand you guide his chin upwards so that you can meet his gaze and when you do, you kiss him with all the love you are capable of showing him.

“I love you, Taehyung.”

He tugs on your entwined fingers whilst caressing your face with his free hand, drawing you closer so that he can firmly hug you against his chest, unwilling to ever let you go now that you are finally one, once more.

The minutes tick by slowly in the silence of the room but you, for once, do not mind a single bit. For the first time in forever, it feels like you have the whole eternity ahead of you.

It is you that breaks the silence, though, after a long while.

“Tae?”

“Mmm,” he tilts his head a little to the side so that he can look inside your eyes as you lift your head up and rest your chin above his toned chest.

“How will we survive here?” You ask, your heart feeling a little tight between your ribs as the anxiousness you’ve been feeling for the past few months starts creeping back up now that the daze of your orgasm has completely dissipated.

“As we always did... together.”

He shows you your favourite smile again and you melt into his embrace because you are instantly convinced. Everything is going to be fine.

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