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wwilloww · 2 years

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sh. | chapter twenty one | ot7

PAIRING ot7 x reader RATING Explicit. 18+. GENRE smut. fluff. angst. nonidol au. wildnerness au. roommates au. friends to lovers. SUMMARY Six months of quarantine have kept you apart. Somehow the distance sparks something new in each of you: questions, unfinished conversations, threads once chased now left cold. So when your roommate invites you to come with him to a mysterious house in the mountains with your friends, how could you even think of saying no? WC 4.5k WARNINGS AND TAGS no use of gendered pronouns to refer to reader. some sexy dreams. duel.

AN back on the sh. horse after a short break! this chapter is the result of a poll that i did a couple of weeks ago. thank you and many hugs and kisses to @thatlongspringnight and @hesperantha and @hobi-gif for helping me out with this chapter. i have no idea where i would be without the ability to brainstorm and edit with these incredible folks.

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CHAPTER TWENTY ONE: DUEL

The night winds around you, the darkness on the edge of the fire pit leaning in closer as the embers begin to burn low, painting your friends’ faces in golden shadows. Familiar shapes drift across their features as the flames flicker, but then the shapes shift, building a fragile dance between what you know and what you don’t. In a way they do look different. When just days ago they felt like strangers, they once more feel familiar. But not in the old way. Not in the way you used to know them. In a new light, like meeting a stranger on a train in a foreign city and talking through the night. It’s the kind of strange, burning closeness that feels like it could disappear at any moment.

The eight of you stay up late, huddled around the dwindling fire, sharing jokes and stories from quarantine and little touches. A hand on a thigh. Hair brushed away from an eye. Fingers tangling in the dark spots between seats. What surprises you is that even after months in quarantine passed with seemingly nothing happening in your personal life, there is still something to talk about. With them, there’s always something to talk about.

Soon, it becomes too cold to stay outside and yawns begin to pop up around the circle. Reluctantly, you all shuffle inside, as what feels like winter air rushes down the mountain towards you, slicing straight through the wool blanket you have wrapped around you.

“I wonder when it will snow,” Jimin says, taking one final glance over his shoulder towards the mountain.

“It’s quite late in the year for there to be no snow yet,” Namjoon replies, ever-knowledgeable. “Soon, I think. Soon.”

Everyone breaks into their separate directions, murmuring and mumbling goodnights.

Hoseok lingers, though. He reaches for you and squeezes your hand. When you look in his eyes, there’s a deep sadness there. You want to reach for his face, to brush the despair from the window of his gaze, but your hand remains at your side.

“I’m so sorry about everything. I’m so sorry I caused you pain.”

It’s okay, you almost say, but then you stop yourself and swallow the words down. “Thank you, Hoseok.” It’s not about excusing him. It’s about accepting him. And it’s easy to accept his apology, especially when the warmth of his hand sinks like a song into yours.

“Goodnight,” he says, pressing a kiss to your cheek, and reluctantly lets go of you.

You watch as he disappears down the hallway, an ache in your chest as you watch him go. But that ache is very quickly replaced with deep exhaustion, a weariness to your bones. Your feet hurt, your chest is tight, your eyes are heavy. All you want is to crawl into somewhere cozy and warm and cocoon for days.

Jimin, who you hadn’t realized was lingering behind you, approaches you, a hand sliding over your shoulder. You jump at the sensation. “Oh! I didn’t realize you were here.” You wonder if he witnessed the exchange between you and Hoseok.

“Do you need somewhere to sleep tonight?”

You nod and he opens his arms. You rush into his hold and he squeezes you tight.

“Why do I feel like I haven’t seen you in weeks?” you ask.

“I dunno,” Jimin chuckles. “Maybe you’re in love with me. Maybe you’re obsessed with me.”

You stiffen and he notices.

“You know I’m joking.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

He leads you back to his room. You haven’t been in here since that memorable night with him and Jungkook, and your face warms as you think about it.

You both get ready for bed in silence. Jimin seems quieter than usual. Like he knows you’ve seen something you’re not supposed to.

When you get into bed, you cuddle closer to him, slipping underneath his arm and pressing your face to his chest. He’s like a ball of warmth shielding you against the cold.

When your fingers play against the hem of his shirt, he tenses. “You know we don’t have to do anything tonight,” he says, wrapping his arm around you and pulling you closer. “I didn’t bring you back here just because I needed a fuckening. I wanted you here because I miss you and I want to be close to you.”

You warm at the words.

“I miss you too, Jimin.”

Sleep flutters at the edge of your consciousness and you give in for a moment, letting your eyes slide shut. It feels so sweet to let yourself rest. But something nags at the back of your mind, and eyes closed, you press closer to Jimin.

“Jimin?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

He hums in response. A non-answer. It feels like a wall between you and him. But he doesn’t say anything more, and as you wait for him, sleep takes over.

You sleep deeply.

********

The logic of a dream is something that you’ve never quite understood, let alone thought too deeply of. It appears, wrapping you in tendrils of place, time, knowing that sink into your skin. You become an actor of sorts in the play of your mind.

Tonight is no different.

The dream starts innocently enough.

In the way that dream logic operates, as soon as you step into the room—a barn converted into a dance hall—you know who you are, where you are, and what’s going on. Even as the swirl of blurred faces flashes by you, it’s like you’ve been in this world your whole life.

Here, in the barn-turned-hall, you’re surrounded by flickering candlelight as a small band of local instrumentalists sits in the corner, stringing along a lively jig while a wicked spring wind throws itself against the walls. Hordes of local townspeople trip and twirl through the space, as the band plays one perky dance song after another. Everyone knows these dances by heart. Even you find your feet tapping, itching to dance along with them in rows of coordinated patterns.

Someone calls your name and you turn to find a familiar face—Namjoon—standing behind you. As the local printer and owner of your town’s press, Namjoon was a frequent figure in your childhood, playing with you in the fields, your families joining one another for dinners and picnics. Until at some point, his frequency became familiarity, and then light smiles turned lighthearted. Recently, your heart had been flipping a little more when you saw him. His hands are stained with ink, but he’s done up finely for the occasion, trousers clean and pressed, collar standing high, and eyes shining bright in the candlelight.

He opens his mouth to speak, but a matronly stranger steps between you two, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Mr. Kim,” she says, a smile glimmering falsely on her lips. “My daughter has been keeping her card clear all night, waiting for your arrival. Of course you’ll dance with her first.” There’s an unspoken “and only” written across her face. Immediately you don’t like her.

His smile hardens ever so slightly. Ice sinks through your veins.

He’s not yours.

“And of course we’ll want to talk about that printing job for my husband. I know how eager you are to help him with his business. Considering you’ll be part of the family oh-so soon.”

“Of course.”

His eyes flicker to yours, and as the older woman pulls him away, the back of his hand brushes against the hand you’ve got clutching your skirts. A zing of electricity sparks through you. It’s like a secret, that he’s passed to you with no one else knowing. When you look up at him, he’s looking away, at the woman he’s being led to. Your heart aches. You don’t want him looking at her like that.

That’s when you hear your name a second time.

You turn to find the local dressmaker—Hoseok—grinning before you.

“You look awfully lonely standing there like that,” he says. He leans against a lone wooden pillar, his roguish grin dancing on his lips. He’s done up nicely, as he always is, in vibrant and fashionable fabrics, always the latest styles.

“Are you just here to call me lonely and run away again?” You step closer to him, your gloved hand ghosting against his chest. He looks down at it and grins.

Your history with Hoseok in this world is fully-formed in your mind: a boy you grew up with, who liked to tug on your hair and run for the hills, who turned into a man who’d nearly kiss you before smirking and running for the hills. He always left you wanting more.

“Perhaps,” is all he says.

You roll your eyes and step away from him.

“In that case, I’ll be on my way—“

As you step away he captures your hand in his.

“Dance with me.”

“Everyone will see,” you say. In the past, Hoseok had been so careful with who saw you, when, doing what.

“I find there’s a certain kind of invisibility that one can don in a large, drunken crowd,” he offers with a grin. “On the other hand, maybe I don’t mind too much who sees.” He leans a little closer, a dangerous gleam in his eye. “Maybe I want them to see.”

Since when did he want them to see?

When you hesitate, he continues.

“Please.”

You place your hand in his.

Just like that, he whisks you off into the crowd. The dance blurs the way dreams do, but all you feel is the closeness of his chest to your own, the way his hand grips your lower back like you’re something of his. Your body warms to him. He’s holding you tightly. Tighter than he should. During a twirl, where your back is pressed to his front, you feel the ghost of his lips against your neck.

“Hoseok!” you gasp.

“What?” You can hear the shit-eating grin in his voice before you turn to face him.

“You can’t do that.”

“But I want to. Do you want me to?”

The question pings something deep within you, but you find yourself answering honestly: “Yes.”

“Then let me continue.”

As he swoops before you and the music swells, he passes quickly in front of you, circling you as the dance commands. The hall fades out into darkness and it feels like it’s just the two of you, dancing among a set of stars. “What ever will I do with you?” he whispers from behind you, before stepping in front again. His gaze flickers between your lips and your eyes, and for a moment, you think he’s going to kiss you.

“What do you mean?” you whisper.

“I mean, I am absolutely and entirely taken by you—and I have no idea what to do about it.”

The sincerity singing in his eyes knocks you off guard. But you scramble to your senses, quickly saying. “Well, you ought to do something about it before someone else does.”

He chuckles. He’s so close to you and you swear he’s going to kiss you. The dream narrows to a sharp sense of reality. You can feel his fingers drifting up your arm. You can smell the scent of pine and fabric on him. And though you’ve never kissed before, not by anyone, you feel like you know exactly what he will taste like, what it will feel like: like the earth being moved beneath your feet. He moves closer. And the music stops. The rest of the hall flickers back into your vision.

Someone coughs from behind you.

You step back from Hoseok and turn.

“Namjoon—”

“May I have this next dance?”

You nod eagerly, and are quick to let go of Hoseok’s hand, quick to step away from the confusion, the tension swirling through you. Though you don’t miss the hard gaze that is exchanged between them.

The music starts up again, a livelier jig than before, and you find yourself hoping alongside the sturdy man before you.

You can feel the glare of the girl burning into your back, but there’s a kind of delight in having him, having Namjoon all to yourself, even if it’s just for a moment.

His movements are strong, sincere, filled with the weight of intention. You can tell he’s been practicing his dances, but sometimes notice that he’s counting aloud, just under his breath. It makes you giggle. When someone calls out his name, encouraging him on, he accidentally steps on your toes. He apologizes profusely, and you smooth a hand along his shoulder.

“You can step on my toes any day of the week.”

As his hand grasps yours, there it is—the same warmth that was there with Hoseok is here too, writhing within you, glowing in your chest. Why is it the same? If anything, it should be different. But his hand on your lower back feels the same, his proximity still urges the same flickering light within you.

Your brow furrows.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I—“

“Do you need fresh air? A turn around the garden?”

“That—“ At first you’re quick to dismiss the idea, the notion of slipping away with someone you’re not supposed to. The indecency. But the thought of a chill seeping beneath the tightness of your dress and easing the strictness of your breath sounds divine. “That might help some.”

He looks relieved at your acquiescence, and takes your hand. Walking through the middle of the dance floor, he leads you to the doors.

There’s a little garden outside, one with tall bushes and a little bench that looks over the hill and down towards the town you call home. Little golden lights brighten the windows, though a few go out as you watch over them.

For a while the two of you sit in silence. This is something familiar to you. Silence with Namjoon. The way he knows when to let it settle over the two of you like a comforting blanket. You want to lean into him, but propriety says otherwise.

“The stones in your hair—“ Namjoon suddenly touches them with a careful finger, eager discovery hindered by his desire not to mess up the careful updo you’ve managed to create. “—They remind me of the stars that take up residence in your eyes when it’s dark.” In the real world, a line like that would make you cringe. It would probably make him cringe too. But here, in this world, it takes your breath away and you shiver when he says “Like this,” and leans closer, his breath brushing over the sensitive skin of your neck. But he pulls back.

“Why don’t you want to touch me?” The words tumble from your lips.

His brow furrows.

“I—” He stops himself before going any further.

I do want to touch you but—.

A million sentences could follow that “but,” and you lay waiting for them.

“We—we should be getting inside. Before anyone thinks anything of your disappearance.” His face is set, his jaw tight.

“I’d very much like to be in charge of my own disappearing acts,” you say. But then you soften. You have your reputation to think of. “But—you’re right. Best to avoid the gossip.”

Namjoon leads you back inside, the heat of all those bodies hitting you as the doors swing open to reveal no one other than your Hoseok. Yours? The natural claim surprises you.

Hoseok’s gaze lights on the gentle grasp you have on Namjoon’s arm and his eyes narrow.

When he speaks your name, there’s an edge to it. But you realize it’s not directed at you. Namjoon, however, seems to notice who it is directed at—himself—and tightens his grasp on you.

“You know,” Namjoon says, turning you towards him. “You ought to come by the press sometime. It’s been ages since I’ve seen you around those parts of town. I’m adding on a little wing—a bookery—”

“Or you could use your free time to come by the shop,” Hoseok cuts in quickly, his hand reaching for yours. He turns you towards him. Never, not once, had you ever seen him show such an apparent display of affection. “I’d love to make a dress for you.” His gaze roves over you. “I could guess your measurements, but there’s something about the experience of having someone make something just for you. The experience of an expert dressmaker—” In his eyes you see what he imagines. The measuring tape held tightly between his teeth, his hands ghosting over your figure as he drapes fabric and takes measurements. The goosebumps that will rise. The looks that will be exchanged. That concentrated look you know and love so well as he crafts a garment just for you.

Perhaps the shoulder of your dress will slip off, revealing untouched skin. Perhaps Hoseok will take notice. Perhaps he will slowly, but delicately, fix the fallen fabric, his eyes never leaving yours.

“I have the best editions of books for leagues,” Namjoon continues, shouldering in front of Hoseok. “I know you love to read. I’ll have only the best selections laid out for you. You should see the gilding on these books.” In Namjoon’s gaze, you see his hopes flicker. “We could even take the books out. On a tour of sorts. Maybe a picnic.” You know that this is a big deal to him. Namjoon never let his precious books out into the sunlight, let alone into a potentially muddy field, with all its hazards. But you can’t help but let the idea of a picnic with Namjoon fill your imagination. The sunlight dancing on the planes of his glowing face, his fingers drifting nearer and nearer to yours—

“In fact, I’ve been meaning to try out a new French style,” Hoseok continues. If you’d be willing to be my model I’d love to practice—and of course you could keep the dress. A gift.” He grins.

“I could show you how to use the press. You could put your poems into print. Our very own local poet.”

“I could—“

“My goodness,” you cut in, and both of the men quiet, waiting with rapt attention for what you have to say. “I’ll have a hard time choosing between whether to spend my money on a new dress or a new book,” you say, flattered by the pressing attention though unsure of how to break the tension that hangs like silken spiderwebs between the two men.

“It’s a gift!“ Both men say at the same time.

“But for now, I ought to say goodnight.”

You think the only way through this situation is out, so you turn your back, not missing the fallen faces of the two men, but just as you do:

“I’ve asked your father for your hand.”

You whirl around. The two men that hold your heart stand behind you, but instead of staring at you, they’re staring at one another.

“You’re already engaged,” Hoseok says, his eyes burning into Namjoon.

“An engagement that can be broken.”

“You’ve always been quick to break things, haven’t you?” Hoseok says. “What, for instance, were you doing out in the garden?” He steps closer to Namjoon, leveling him eye to eye.

“It’s none of your business,” Namjoon cuts back.

“It is though, isn’t it?” Hoseok says, before turning to you. “Your father said yes to me, so you are my business now.”

“Your father said yes to me as well.”

The two men glare heatedly at one another. A small crowd has gathered around you all.

“Then I suppose there’s only one way to solve this,” Hoseok says.

Namjoon nods.

“On that point I can agree with you.”

“A duel.”

The two men storm out of the room, but not before Namjoon hesitates, gripping your hand in his.

“I’m doing this for you.”

“I don’t want you to do this for me. Just stay, stay. We can sort this all out.”

Namjoon shakes his head and disappears.

You run out of the hall after them, but they’ve already taken off towards the thick woods that surround the hall. You walked here, but launch yourself onto the closest horse, who whinnies with dissent, and speed off after them. The trees whip at your face, your dress, like hands grabbing you from the darkness, but still you speed on.

Soon you reach a clearing.

Everything is wrong. There should be witnesses for a duel. There should be a reason for a duel. The two men stand fifteen feet apart, pistols drawn. There is a hardness to their faces, one you don’t recognize. One that scares you. Would they really go to such lengths to tear each other apart, just to get to you?

The notion frightens you.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Hoseok says through gritted teeth.

“You shouldn’t be doing this,” you cry.

Namjoon ignores you and nods solemnly.

Duel.

The harsh trill of a cellphone ringing breaks through the early morning mist, and you look down to find a phone in hand, the number 222-2222 lighting up the screen. A strange mixture of confusion and dread fills you as you press the answer key but nothing happens. You press again.

The ringing doesn’t stop.

You open your mouth to say something, to call out to them again, but their confused, angry faces are getting farther away. The meadow before you is fading, the fabric of the grass turning into actual fabric, the world darkening, zooming out—

A clock before you reads 2:23am, and you half understand you’re in bed, as a voice behind you grumbles, and murmurs, “Jin, why the hell are you calling me at this godforsaken hour.”

Muffled, but clearly enough you hear: “I think you should come to our room.”

“Why? I’m sleeping.”

“You know, we could be doing things other than sleeping.”

“I already have a sleeping buddy.”

“Even better. Bring them.”

“Hit me up when it’s not the fucking middle of the night. Goodnight Jin.”

A dial tone.

Shuffling behind you.

A hand slipped over your waist.

“Sorry.”

You revel in the touch, how it feels so similar to dancing with Hoseok, with Namjoon, and you cuddle closer to the warmth.

You go searching for the tendrils of the dream. You find candlelight, the crisp smell of a garden in spring, the feeling of being pressed close to a body. Wanted. You go searching, looking for a door back into the world you were just in.There’s a desperate need to know what happens next. To know they’re okay.

But all you find is smoke.

At some point waking descends out of the flashes of logic and into a landscape you’re unfamiliar with: rolling hills and marshes, towering ancient trees that provide shelter from a distant sun and long grasses. You find yourself reaching back through the dream for the familiar and warm touch of broad hands pressed to your lower back, but all you find is the damp coldness of spring.

Half-awake, you wipe your hand across your damp forehead. There’s someone close, you can tell by the warmth next to you in the bed, the feeling of it drawing you like a moth to a flame and when you burrow into their side, their face, their identity, flickers between seven different faces. Sleep pulls you back in, and with a sense of loss, you don’t dream again.

When you wake fully the sun is just beginning to peek over the mountains, tossing rosy hues around the bedroom willy nilly. It’s one of those mornings where you blink awake and your whole body zings with energy. You’re on the far side of the bed from Jimin and he sleeps peacefully, a little bit curled up in himself.

You slip out of bed and tiptoe through the house. Finding yourself in the library, perhaps subconsciously looking for someone in particular, you find it empty. On the table lies a book.

It’s a beautiful thing, ornate and gilded, but new, like it’s been produced in the last couple of years. You pick it up and flip through. Random words catch your eye: the unwinding crevice, blueberry sunsets, the body beneath the body. That’s enough to convince you. You pick it up and carry it out with you.

Someone’s puffy jacket is hanging on a hook near the door and you slip it on before heading outside. They won’t mind, you think. The air is cool and crisp, but is warming from the golden touch of the sun.

You eye the fire pit, where you had been so comfortable last night. But in the morning light, it looks stark and barren and empty. You don’t want to feel that way. You look to the forest. Even as something tight coils in your stomach, you find yourself drifting towards it.

That’s when you know: you’re going to climb a tree. Just like when you were a kid, you’re going to find a tree and you’re going to climb it.

It takes a while to find the perfect one: a sturdy one with big, frequent branches. You grin.

You slip the book into the jacket, zipping it up tight so that the book is pressed to your chest. Then with one hand, you grasp the rough bark of the branch immediately above your head and begin your journey upward.

This feels like something you’re not supposed to be doing, climbing the tree like this, let alone with a book as beautiful as the one you carry tucked away in your jacket. Still, you climb higher, wrapping your hands around the next branch and hauling yourself up.

When you’re high enough, you stop and settle into the nook between branch and trunk, resting your back against it. The corners of the book poke into you, but you find yourself breathing deep and finding a space of rest within yourself. The cool morning air fills your lungs, finds a home in your limbs. The tree supports you, holds you.

Carefully, you pull out the book and begin reading. The pages of the book flutter in the late autumn air, a crisp sound, like birds wings in summer. In all honesty, you don’t really understand what’s going on. The story is beautiful, a story about a young adult winding their way through a foreign city, interacting with stranger after stranger, but the sentences are long, the words big, and the meaning blurry. But the language, oh the language. You can feel the beat of the words, like a drum in your head. It pounds out a song like you’ve never heard before, one that winds through you and settles warmly in your chest. There’s something familiar here, even if you don’t know what it is.

That blurry song follows you to the end of the first chapter. But the last lines, the last lines, are what bring it all into focus.

“Are you going to come home?” Beatrice asks.

“What do you mean, ‘home?’”

“I mean whatever you want it to mean. Whatever you make it to mean.”

And something within you aches in response.

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wwilloww · 2 years

Text

sh. | chapter twenty | ot7

PAIRING ot7 x reader RATING Explicit. 18+. GENRE smut. fluff. angst. nonidol au. wildnerness au. roommates au. friends to lovers. SUMMARY Six months of quarantine have kept you apart. Somehow the distance sparks something new in each of you: questions, unfinished conversations, threads once chased now left cold. So when your roommate invites you to come with him to a mysterious house in the mountains with your friends, how could you even think of saying no? WC 2.6k WARNINGS AND TAGS conversations about mental health.

AN This chapter is dedicated to my incredible writing group, who took the time and energy to share with me what they’ve been through these last two years of pandemic. It’s also dedicated to anyone and everyone who has experienced deep loss, grief, and struggle during these times. I began writing this story as a way out of the loneliness and isolation I felt living alone during a pandemic, but it’s become so much more to me. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with this story for so long. And thank you to @hobi-gif and @hesperantha for helping me so much with this chapter. Y'all are the best.

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CHAPTER TWENTY: ROUND THE FIRE

The fire crackles, light flickering across the planes of your seven friends’ faces as they stare back at you with differing looks of quiet understanding, shock, and sadness.

Slowly, you pick over your words, trying to tell them what you had told Hoseok earlier. Then, at the edge of the cliff, it had come pouring out of you. Now, it’s a jutted and staggered mess. But you get the words out anyways.

Hoseok reaches over and squeezes your hand as you fall into silence.

“I wanted to tell you,” you say, clearing your throat to ease the ball that’s quickly forming there, “because I trust you and because as things are changing—as I’m changing—I just want you to know. It’s important for me, for you to know.”

They stare back at you and for a moment you’re unsure if anyone is going to say anything.

“Thank you for sharing that with us, we know that’s not easy to share,” Jin says softly. Maybe a little too softly. It makes you wince, thinking that he might pity you.

“I—I don’t want any kind of babying or treating me like I’m all fragile-like because I’ve shared this,” you say sternly. “I’m not breaking—I’m not broken, I’m just… I’ve had things that I struggled with.”

“If anything it makes you stronger in my eyes,” Yoongi says. “More human.”

Everyone nods.

“We all have our moments. Our struggles,” Namjoon says. “And you’re nothing less of a person for having been through that.”

“I mean, I’ve been there too,” Yoongi says, his voice ringing out across the fire. Your gaze flicks up to him.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“I know I shared that I was writing porn over quarantine—”

“What the hell does porn have to do with any of this?” Taehyung says, a chuckle in his voice.

“Shhh,” hushes Yoongi. “Shut your pie hole and you might find out.” Taehyung quiets and nods. Yoongi continues. “So you all know I was writing porn.” He’s mentioned it more than once, that’s for sure. “But I don’t think I really told you all how I got into it.” Everyone shakes their head. “My therapist told me I should.”

“Is that… ethical?” you ask.

“Well. She didn’t tell me I should write porn, per say.” A round of ahhhs and ohhhs echo around the fire. “I wasn’t doing well at the beginning of quarantine either. I um, had lost a close relationship unexpectedly—” His gaze flickers to you. “And I lost my job—”

“What?”

“Uh yeah. I lost my job.”

Yoongi had never mentioned that to you, let alone to anyone in the group it seems, based on the way everyone in the circle is looking at him with varying levels of shock and awe. He’d worked for a label, producing music for smaller artists. It was his dream job, something that he poured his entire self into, often going above and beyond the job requirements to support the artists he was creating for. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter,” Namjoon says, leaning forward, but Yoongi brushes him off.

“Either way… I wasn’t sleeping. I’d just wander through the day like a ghost. My therapist told me that since it wasn’t really possible to quote unquote ‘get out there,’ that I should sit down and write, write in a way that took my agency back, and let me live the life I wanted to live. Even if it was just on the page.”

“So you wrote porn?” Jungkook asks curiously.

“That’s not what it started out as. It started out as a way of reclaiming my relationships. Making peace with them. And then… um, yeah. Sex was a part of that too.”

The group nods understandingly.

“I dunno. I started and at first I had nothing to say. It was like my voice had dried up. I had nothing left in me. But I gave it time and space and one day it just came pouring out of me. There was a lot there to uncover. A lot of what felt like brokenness. But it didn’t feel so broken once it was on the page.”

“So you’re saying you wrote emo-as-fuck porn,” Jungkook says. “I could be into that.”

“Oh my god,” Yoongi groans. “I’m trying to be serious here and all I’m getting back from you is an obsession about my porn.”

“To speak on everyone’s behalf—We’re just saying that if you’re not opposed, we would love to read your porn,” Taehyung says. “Trying to express our support in your industry.”

A chuckle rounds the circle but soon everyone is falling into a soft silence.

“I stopped sleeping too,” Namjoon chimes in. “At first it was just going to bed later and later, and then at some point, I was saying goodnight and the next thing I knew, the sun was rising over the city and everyone was waking up.” He takes a deep breath. “It felt like my body wasn’t mine anymore.”

“On top of that,” Namjoon continues. “I was so cramped up in the same goddamn space—” He looks at you then. “A great space, with a great roommate, but how many times can you pace a living room before you go insane?” He slumps forward onto his elbows like he’s carrying a great weight. Though, now that you think of it, throughout the pandemic he had carried a great weight. He had carried you. He had carried the friend group too, starting chats and arranging video calls and checking in on everyone to make sure everyone was okay. You’d never considered until now the toll it took on him. Despite his best efforts to make the work he did to support your friend group look like nothing, you can see the wear on his face now. “I lost my direction,” he whispers. “I have no idea where I’m going.”

There’s a long, far-off look in his eyes like he’s staring off over some distant icy tundra, a wind you can’t hear howling in his ears. And then something shifts in his gaze, and he comes back to you, to the group. He presses a smile to his lips, one of those stiff ones that you know too well. It’s the one he wears for the sake of other people, even when he’s feeling like an ice block on the inside.

“But being out here—I think I have that space again. To think. To process.”

He’s right. There is something special about this space. As the physical space around you expanded, so did your own inner world. You hadn’t felt like you could breathe in the city. But out here, all there is is air.

“I had a whole crisis too,” Jungkook says quickly, as if he’s afraid that if he doesn’t get it out now he never will. All eyes turn to him. “Uh, I don’t think I’ve talked about this with any of you, actually.”

“Talked about what?” Taehyung asks, leaning over to squeeze Jungkook’s thigh.

You hadn’t meant this to turn into an unloading session, but as you look around at your friends, you realize that this is what has been missing. All along, ever since you arrived up in the mountains, the group had been pretending that nothing at all has changed. Everything has changed.

“You know how I, uh, told you all I was straight. How I insisted I was straight?”

Looking around at everyone in the circle, it’s clear that everyone is thinking back to how Jungkook had fucked Taehyung into the ground—into you—like it was his job. But you all nod, a couple “Uh-huhs,” echoing around the fire.

“Well. I’ll admit that the beginning of quarantine was a weird, weird time. It all started right before everything came crashing down. Actually, the night before the quarantine announcement came out, I was partying and ended up making out with a total stranger. And maybe grinding a little. And also maybe they put their hand down my pants.”

“Jungkook!” Jimin gasps.

“Oh like you’re one to talk,” Jungkook says. “Mr. I Fuck Strangers in Club Bathrooms.”

Jimin flushes.

“Anyways. They—um—he was a very handsome stranger. We texted through the first part of quarantine. And that’s when I realized that flirting, was, well, flirting. And kissing was well, kissing. And now butt stuff is just butt stuff? I kept waiting for it to feel different. I went a little crazy waiting. Thinking that I was making it all up. I hated myself. I hated that I might be just doing it for attention.”

“But you weren’t,” Jimin says. “Were you?”

“No. No, it wasn’t just for attention,” Jungkook says softly, hanging his head.

“You could have talked to us,” you say. “We could have been there for you.”

“But you all are like, legitimately, not-straight, in all of your different ways. How was I supposed to compare to all of you when all I had was some sloppy make out in a club to go off of?”

“Jungkook—” you cut in. “You can’t think like that. That’s not how this works. You have to know, there’s not a right way to do this.”

“I think I keep trying to be an idea of myself. Like a stationary point on a map that doesn’t even exist. But I can’t always be the same, I can’t expect myself to be the person I was yesterday. But thank you. Thank you, guys. I really appreciate the kind words.”

“Taehyung and I almost broke up,” Jin blurts. Eyebrows shoot up all over the circle.

“What?”

“Are you serious?”

“But you guys are so strong together.”

Taehyung and Jin glance at one another.

“There was a point in time when we didn’t know who or what we were if we couldn’t see each other. It was like doing long distance but with a bunch of communal trauma on top of it and no end in sight,” Taehyung says. “And there was that one fight—”

But a glare from Jin silences Taehyung, leaving any speculation of what had gone down between the two of them to the privacy of their relationship.

“Nevermind.”

“And now?” you ask.

“We talked it through,” Taehyung says. “Actually, we did a lot of talking. That was really the only thing we could do for six months straight.”

“You make it sound all pretty and easy,” Jin laughs. “But it was hard. I thought I was going to lose him.”

A ball wells up in your throat as you look around the fire at your friends. At one point or another you had thought you were going to lose them. To distance. To the danger. At one point or another you had thought you were going to lose yourself. You clench your jaw, sniffling, and balling the blanket around you tighter, your knuckles turning white with the effort.

“Namjoon, what you said earlier, about not knowing where you are, what direction you’re going in—“ Hoseok clears his throat. Adjusts his jacket before continuing. “I walked into quarantine thinking that we were getting two weeks off from obligations. And I walked out—well, I guess no one has walked out yet. We’re still walking right in the middle of it all. But I found, like, an empty space where I was supposed to be. Like, when I looked inside it felt like there was nothing there. And I have no idea what to do with that. No idea.”

Namjoon leans over and squeezes Hoseok’s thigh.

“I get it.”

That’s when you glance over at Jimin and watch as his eyes sparkle in the light of the fire. Tears, welling up in his eyes. You don’t hesitate before standing and walking over to him. But Hoseok beats you to it, kneeling before him and taking his hand. You settle at Hoseok’s back, a hand on his shoulder, concerned gaze set on Jimin.

“Jiminie?” Hoseok whispers. “What’s going through your head?”

He shakes his head.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Hoseok asks.

Jimin shakes his head again.

“This is a good space to talk about it,” Jungkook says. “It felt good to talk about it.”

“It’s okay if he doesn’t want to talk,” Hoseok says to Jungkook. And then, turning back to Jimin: “You don’t have to talk about it. But I do need you to know that no matter what happened, we’re here for you. That we love you. That no matter what it is that’s happened, you’re so important to us.” The others have begun to gather around you. Jungkook puts a hand on Jimin’s shoulder, Taehyung squeezes his other hand.

Hoseok says he doesn’t know who he is, but as you watch him brush a tear away from Jimin’s eye with a slow, tender thumb, it feels like a part of himself is remembered. The part of him that was ever-connected to his friends, watching their drinks at the bar while they went off to dance, picking them up in the middle of the night, no questions asked, cradling you in his arms when you’d broken up with Taehyung (and keeping his promise to never talk about that night again when you’d asked). While Namjoon had always been the large and broad center of your friend group, Hoseok had been the quiet glue that stretched and moved between you all and worked to hold you together. You realize, that’s what has been different about him since coming to the house. He’d been holding back. Maybe, you wonder, the part of him that was missing, after all, was you all.

Jimin chuckles through his tears. “You’re so sappy.”

“Let me be sappy!” Hoesok scolds gently. “Let me be sappy for you.” He leans into Jimin and wraps his arms around Jimin’s waist. Hoisting him to his feet, Hoseok cradles him in a hug. You think you hear a mumbled, “I’m so sorry about earlier.” The rest of your friends join around you, wrapping Jimin in the middle, arms intertwining, faces pressed close together.

You can feel the weight of everything that’s been shared tonight hanging over the lot of you like a dark cloud. But, wrapped up in them, the warmth of their bodies almost drowns it out. The truth is, none of you escaped this experience unscathed. Even with the weight of the world still hanging over your heads, even with the end nowhere in sight, it’s clear: none of you are walking out of this as the same person. It really did feel like the world was falling apart, and there was so little to be done about it. When you had imagined the end of the world, you had thought you’d go out kicking and screaming. You didn’t imagine you’d be waiting in a tiny city apartment, days blurring by into smog. The world was falling apart, and the worst part was, people didn’t care that it was falling apart.

But as you look around the circle you know: these men care. And you aren’t and haven’t been alone, not one bit. You weren’t alone, not when the darkness began to encroach and convinced you that you were the only one in the world, not when the distance became unbearable, not when you arrived at the doors to this very strange, very large house and felt like you were meeting seven strangers for the first time again. You haven’t been alone, not since you’ve known them. And you sure as hell haven’t been alone in your struggles.

“Even if I have no direction,” Namjoon says, one of his arms wrapped around you. “I have you all.”

“We’re better together,” Jimin says, though his words are muffled into your shoulder. “We’ve always been better together.”

← || series m.list || →

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