Archive of Our Own

~

It was there again— that haunting, searing weight at the base of his neck. That familiar burn, like unseen eyes dragging across his spine, coaxing the fine hairs at his nape to stand at full attention.

Jimin hated that he knew the sensation too well now. A hollow pounding in his chest, slow but unsettling, the kind of rhythm that didn’t match panic or peace. Just…  dread.

Every time he was alone, in some nondescript space, it crept up on him again like a shadow with sentience.

He could feel it. The stare.

And yet, no matter how swiftly he turned, no matter how sharply his gaze sliced through his surroundings— there was never anyone there. Just the emptiness of corridors, or the blur of people too wrapped up in their own lives to bother watching someone like him. Eyes downcast in their phones, footsteps hurried, conversations layered over one another like static.

No one looking. No one still.

But Jimin felt it. Always. That silent, lurking thing.

He had, embarrassingly, even reached a point where he suspected almost everyone. Eyes darting to strangers’ faces, small fingers tightening around the straps of his worn bag, too eager— too desperate— to catch whoever, whatever, was doing this to him.

It was exhausting, the way paranoia could mold itself into every crack of a weary mind.

Sometimes, Jimin tried to reason with himself. Maybe he was just being paranoid. Maybe this was all because of sleep deprivation— he hadn’t been getting proper rest ever since everything fell apart. Since he lost his job. Since the weight of financial ruin and purposelessness dragged him down like quicksand.

That was when it had started. When it felt like hell opened its mouth just to swallow him whole.

He would lie awake for hours each night, thoughts gnawing at the edges of his sanity. What-ifs. What-nows. What-nexts. The whole thing felt endless. And to make matters worse, job-hunting had become a nightmare. For the clever and the bold, maybe it was easy. Maybe for those with confidence and connections, life still opened its gates. But for someone like him— introverted to a fault, lacking whatever spark the world seemed to demand— there was just no hope.

No direction. No light.

Even when he tried to sleep early, to fix the chaos in his system, his body betrayed him. It was like some invisible switch wouldn’t flip until the dead of night, long after he’d given up on rest. It wasn't funny— not anymore.

Especially when he saw the effects every morning, staring back at him from the bathroom mirror.

There were dents under his eyes now, dark and tired. A sunkenness that made him sigh in resignation as he brushed a hand across his cheek.

Still, Jimin chose not to focus on the creeping unease today. He reminded himself: if there was truly something or someone to be afraid of, then surely they couldn’t act on it here— not in a place like this, surrounded by people.

He was at his old school’s cafeteria, and it was filled with students. No one in their right mind would attempt something sinister in such a public place. That, at least, was logical.

So why did his thoughts keep spiraling?

Why was he like this?

Just because he could feel someone watching him didn’t automatically mean he was in danger. Right? Maybe— just maybe— someone simply found him interesting to look at. He had spent an hour trying to brush and curl his brown hair, after all. He wasn’t very good at it, but today he tried. Maybe they were just admiring the way the brown strands curled at his nape.

It could be that.

Usually, Jimin didn’t even bother fixing himself up. His hair would fall freely, his face bare of anything cosmetic, not even sunscreen. And he didn’t mind. But today he’d tried, and maybe someone noticed. Maybe that was all this was.

Maybe he shouldn’t overthink it.

After checking the time on his phone screen— a quick, thoughtless glance— Jimin finally replied to his friend’s message. Taehyung was being his usual self again: an angel in disguise, swooping in to rescue him from yet another crowd he couldn’t breathe in.

That was just his way. He always had a radar for when Jimin was spiraling.

Taehyung: 

still at work

when you're done, message me so we can meet

you good with that, Jimin?

The brunette typed his reply quickly, fingers flying over the glass keyboard like they were trying to escape.

Jimin:

the faculty staff are on lunch

it’s only 11, i don't think i can stay here longer 

i wanna go home

Of course, he didn’t tell him about the feeling again. That strange, unsettling sensation that had wrapped itself around his spine like vines. The last time he mentioned it, his friend had laughed— lighthearted and thoughtless—and joked that maybe he had a stalker.

A stalker.

He had almost snapped at Taehyung for that. Almost launched into a tirade right there on the spot. Because what the hell was funny about that? The mere thought of being followed or watched was terrifying. And yes, the idea had crossed his mind once too, fleeting and ugly. But it was too horrifying to hold on to. So he buried it, shoved it deep into the shadows of his thoughts.

It was easier to think he was just being paranoid.

The world was already a terrible place. He’d seen the news— those chilling reports of women— and men — murdered by obsessive stalkers, by unstable partners— or strangers — who went from sweet to savage.

Killed. Raped. Brutalized. And no one ever saw it coming until it was too late.

The moment Taehyung had thrown that joke at him, even in passing, he nearly confronted him about it. Not because he was angry, but because he was afraid. Deeply, terribly afraid.

What if there was someone out there like that? Someone watching him with hands itching for violence?

People like that didn’t need reasons. They just needed the obsession. And worse, they didn’t need a conscience. Just impulse.

His phone buzzed again, yanking him out of his spiraling thoughts. He nearly jumped in his seat.

With a sharp breath, Jimin took a quick glance around the chaotic, noisy cafeteria. Everything was as it was before— students eating, laughing, moving in clusters— but none of them looked back at him. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that somewhere, someone was.

Finally, he checked his phone.

Taehyung:

you need to get your transcript, right?

it’s long overdue already!

your employer needs that

now grow up and stop being a caveman!

Jimin rolled his eyes instinctively, a soft sigh escaping his lips. Even through the cold text, he could hear his voice— sharp, dramatic, exasperated in only the way Taehyung could be. A sermon in four texts. No one did it better.

Well, they weren’t best friends for nothing.

Taehyung knew about his internal war, of course. Taehyung knew about the noise inside his head, the weight he carried. But since Taehyung had never experienced it himself, not really, he took it lightly. Jimin didn’t blame him for that. He wasn’t the one walking in Jimin’s shoes.

How could Taehyung know how heavy they were?

People loved to make jokes about things they didn’t understand . Depression. Anxiety. Paranoia. They’d laugh and brush it off with a clever comment, wrap it in a meme, move on.

But for people like Jimin, people who felt it— deeply, endlessly— it wasn’t something to laugh about.

It was something you drowned in.

It was crying silently at night, pressing your face into your pillow while the world slept around you. It was waking up and wishing you hadn’t. It was carrying the aching contradiction of wanting to die and yet still fighting to live, clawing for a reason to hold on to tomorrow.

They didn’t understand that. They couldn’t.

That in-between— between wanting to disappear and daring to hope— it was the cruelest place to live in. And yet, that’s where he was. Every damn day.

And it was killing him slowly.

Jimin was just about to type a reply to Taehyung when the world suddenly tilted. His entire body jolted upward from the bench, a sharp gasp escaping his lips as something icy and wet spread across his torso. Cold. So cold it felt like glass shattering against his skin. 

The brunette looked down and found his white shirt— soaked, clinging to his chest, dripping with sticky juice. The air hit him all at once, sharp and intrusive.

Apple-flavored juice.

His eyes trailed, wide and slow, toward the table. Toward the documents he had just painstakingly filled out— forms awaiting nothing but a signature for him to finally retrieve the documents he needed.

They were soaked.

His chest tightened, stomach churning with disbelief.

Of course. Of course they were wet.

Perfect .

"Shit, sorry! It’s just— my friends, they…" came a voice from behind him, followed by poorly stifled laughter. College boys. Their tones reeked of immaturity and cheap cologne.

Jimin didn’t bother turning around. He couldn’t. He was still frozen, eyes locked on the destroyed paperwork, juice pooling in the edges like a metaphor for his last shred of patience.

For a brief, glorious second, the idea of giving up crossed his mind. Just walking away. Leaving the cafeteria. Shutting the world out. He saw it clearly— his bed, the silence of his room, the way his comforter hugged his body like the only one who ever knew how to.

Peace. Bliss. Nothingness.

But then came the counter thought.

If he left now, if he walked out— he would lose the job. The one Taehyung had been kind enough to get him, to believe he could handle. And what would he give him in return? Disappointment?

No.

He couldn’t afford that.

Not again.

“Oh for God’s sake— I said offer it to him, not pour the entire thing all over his papers!”

“Don’t pin this on me! You’re the one who shoved me too hard!”

“This is mortifying. Do you even understand how ridiculous this looks? You could’ve just walked over and spoken to him like a normal human being.”

“As if! This entire disaster was your suggestion. Don’t start rewriting history now.”

“I can’t believe I agreed to this. We look unhinged. Like a troupe of overdressed buffoons.”

Their bickering clawed at the back of Jimin’s head, every word needling deeper. He felt it all piling inside him like a storm waiting to snap. But he was tired. Too tired to argue, too tired to explode.

So instead, Jimin inhaled slowly, deeply, and began to quietly gather his things. He stood, trying to salvage what he could, heart pounding beneath his soaked shirt. Just leave. Just get out.

But then— fingers brushed his arm.

He flinched, jerking away as if burned. A boy— tall, round spectacles, nervous eyes— looked at him like a guilty puppy, offering the same forced remorse that every boy like him wore like a costume.

Jimin’s gaze turned ice-cold as he stared at the boy. A slow, heavy silence fell between them.

"I'm sorry, I just... I really wanted to know your name, that's all—" the boy stammered, voice soft, hopeful.

But Jimin had already read him like a worn-out page.

He’d seen the type before. Boys who acted sweet, with bashful smiles and gentle tones— right until you let your guard down. Then they turned. Mocked you. Toyed with you. Broke you down in front of their friends like it was some kind of game.

"I’m not interested," Jimin said flatly, each syllable slicing through the air like glass.

And he turned.

He didn’t care about the eyes watching him now. The curious students scattered around, the whispers flitting just beneath hearing. He didn’t want to be here anymore. He wanted out.

They were just kids, anyway. Too young to take anything seriously. He didn’t even blame them for mistaking him for one of their own— he was dressed casually, blending into the crowd.

In a campus full of students, no one really knew who belonged and who didn’t.

Still, there was something about them— about the way they stared, about the silence that followed— that didn’t sit right.

He crossed the campus grounds quickly, not looking back, and entered the administration building. The tension in his shoulders didn’t ease even as the door clicked shut behind him.

Before heading to the registration office, he ducked into the restroom. There, under the harsh fluorescent lights, he tried to pat dry his ruined shirt with trembling hands. His reflection looked pale, shaken. His skin felt cold still— his nerves refusing to calm down.

And even then— even inside that tiled, empty space— he couldn’t shake the feeling.

That someone was watching him.

Again.

That same eerie prickle at the back of his neck, the way the air seemed to shift when no one else was around. That same invisible presence that had haunted him for weeks now. Heavy. Inevitable.

But Jimin refused to let it show.

He straightened his spine, walked out of the restroom with his jaw set tight, and sat on the bench outside the admin office. He would wait. He would do what he came to do.

Even if something, somewhere, was watching him.

He wouldn't let it win.

It had been an agonizing hour of waiting. When Jimin finally finished his request and was told to wait for a call about the release date of his documents, he felt a weight lift from his shoulders. With a lightness he hadn’t felt all day, he strode out of the building, relieved to be done.

There was nothing else to do now. The prospect of heading home to the peace of his apartment brought him comfort. His house was a sanctuary— a place where no one disturbed him, no one intruded upon his solitude. It was his safe space. His silence.

The oppressive heat, though, drained him. The air was thick with humidity, the sun still too high, relentless in its scorching intensity. He was eager to get away from it, to retreat to the coolness of his own room. But when he turned the corner, he was stopped by something odd— an enormous crowd of students gathered in a tight circle in front of the main building. 

They were gathered for something, but Jimin wasn’t the type to pry. His instincts screamed for him to keep walking, to ignore the huddle and make his way home, but the low murmur of voices pulled at him. 

"They were just laughing a minute ago!" 

"It’s unbelievable…"  

"Don’t his friends know yet?"

"I don’t get it— why would he kill himself?"

That last remark sliced through the chatter like a blade, so cold and definitive that Jimin’s body tensed without thinking. Kill himself?

Against his better judgment, his feet moved forward, drawn to the crowd. Every step felt heavier than the last, a growing pressure in his chest urging him to turn back. But he couldn’t. He had to see.

As he neared the crowd, his heart stuttered. A strange, icy sensation crawled down his spine. His body froze when he finally saw what they were staring at.

A young man lay motionless on the ground, his limbs twisted at unnatural angles. His face was frozen in a grimace that seemed to speak of shock and terror, even in death. A barricade of yellow police tape kept the students at bay, but it did nothing to silence the whispers that swirled in the air. 

Jimin’s breath hitched, a sharp, painful intake that felt like it came from someone else’s lungs. The world around him seemed to spin in slow motion, the harsh reality of the scene before him pressing down like a weight he couldn’t escape. His legs trembled, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away.

This… This felt like déjà vu.

A chill ran through him, the fear so palpable it almost suffocated him. He had been here before. Not like this— no, not exactly like this— but something similar. Something so eerily close it made his stomach turn.

It wasn’t the first time he’d witnessed something like this.

No. Not at all.

The first had been a boy— a stranger— who had bumped into him in the neighborhood weeks ago. The collision had been accidental, but the boy had yelled at him, blaming Jimin for something that wasn’t even his fault. He had raised his voice, angry, furious at Jimin for no reason.

The very next day, he was found dead. Bathed in his own blood.

The next incident was a girl, one who had confronted Jimin for stealing her boyfriend’s attention. She had shouted at him, called him all sorts of vile names. And just a night after that, she was found in an alley, her scalp torn raw, her hair ripped out. Gone . 

And there had been more. So many more.

Each of them had one thing in common. They had all wronged him. They had all confronted him, challenged him, belittled him. And then— just as swiftly as they had entered his life— they were gone.

And now… this boy.

He had been careless, had spilled juice on him in the cafeteria, had laughed it off with his friends. He tried his luck with Jimin. And now— dead .

It couldn’t be just coincidence anymore. No, this was something else.

Jimin’s heart pounded in his chest. His mind was racing, thoughts colliding in a whirl of disbelief and horror. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be. But the signs were undeniable, the pattern too consistent to ignore.

Someone was killing them. Killing in his favor.  A favor he had never asked for.  A favor he would never ask for.

It didn’t make sense. The idea that someone was systematically eliminating anyone who wronged him— it was ludicrous, horrifying. And yet, here was the proof, right in front of him. 

And Taehyung— Taehyung had warned him.

The words rang in his mind, the warning that had been left lingering on the edge of his memory. Was this what Taehyung meant? Was he really right all along?

Jimin’s hands shook as he backed away from the crowd, his body acting on instinct. He needed to get out. Needed to escape the growing panic that clawed at his throat, that made his skin prickle with a sensation he couldn’t name— fear, guilt, paranoia.

But one thing was certain: the horrifying truth was sinking in.

He was being protected. In the most twisted, blood-soaked way imaginable.

As the wail of sirens filled the air, signaling the arrival of the ambulance, Jimin didn’t need another second to hesitate. His body moved on its own accord, his heart pounding in his chest.

He had to leave. He had to get out.

His mind was already set on one thing: getting home. The one place where he could feel some semblance of safety, some illusion of normalcy. His small hands trembled as he fumbled for his phone, his fingers shakily typing out a text to Taehyung. Come over. We need to talk.

He couldn’t just tell him everything over text— Taehyung had a terrible habit of thinking everything was a joke, even the most serious of things. Especially when it came from him. 

At the bus stop, the image of the boy’s lifeless body kept clawing at the edges of his mind, refusing to let go. The boy in the glasses. The way his arms were twisted, bent at unnatural angles as though broken by some unseen force. The blood— so much blood— pooling around his head like an unholy crimson halo. And his insides. The sight of his organs spilling out, scattered on the ground as if the boy had been torn apart from within, was burned into Jimin’s vision.

It didn’t make sense. He couldn’t make sense of it.

His stomach churned violently at the thought, and his hand shot to his mouth in a desperate attempt to stifle the nausea rising within him. He hadn’t eaten anything all day, but the image in his mind was enough to make him feel as though his insides were about to reject everything.

I’m going to be sick, he thought desperately, trying to swallow the bile that burned at the back of his throat.

He had to get out of there. Had to run. 

As the bus screeched to a stop, Jimin didn’t wait for the doors to fully open. He darted out and broke into a fast jog, his legs moving on their own, propelled by the fear gnawing at his insides.

The world around him felt unreal, like a nightmare he couldn’t wake up from. His thoughts were a mess, a whirlwind of confusion and dread, and he couldn’t escape it.

What was happening? What was really happening?

He tried to push the thoughts of his pre-employment to the back of his mind, but they wouldn’t stay there. How could he care about something as trivial as work when his life felt like it was slipping into something… darker, something far beyond his understanding?

Maybe I’m overreacting , he thought. But then again, maybe not.

The first death— well, maybe it could have been a coincidence. But the others? The growing number of them, each more violent and horrific than the last? They weren’t coincidences. They couldn’t be. They were intentional, willing murders. 

And what terrified him more than anything was the creeping realization that he was somehow at the center of all of this. 

The murderer was targeting him. He was somehow connected to it all. What did they want? Why was this happening to him?

The truth was undeniable now. That person had killed so many people, so many innocent lives. Were they a serial killer? Were they stalking Jimin for some unknown reason? Probably . There was no other explanation. And were they a psychopath? That, Jimin was certain of.

Who else would do something like this, kill people without mercy, without care for the lives they were ending?

A deep shiver ran down Jimin’s spine as his breath caught in his throat. Oh my god… They’re after me. They’re really after me.

A cold sweat broke out on his skin. His mind raced faster than his feet. Where did they even see me? How did they know who I was? There was no connection, no way the two of them could have crossed paths before.

He didn’t even know this person— but they knew him. That was the scariest part. This person had been following him, stalking him, knowing exactly what to do to make him feel like he was losing his mind. 

Who were they?

The question echoed in his mind like a haunting refrain, the answer just out of reach. Jimin could feel it in his bones— whoever this person was, they had a purpose. And whatever that purpose was, it was terrifyingly clear: they wanted Jimin. They wanted something from him. And that something… could be more than just a twisted sense of control. 

His heart pounded harder, his breath ragged as the anxiety twisted deeper. The silence that had once felt like safety now felt suffocating. Each step he took felt heavier than the last. He wasn’t just running to his house. He was running from something— someone — who knew far too much about him.

Jimin’s hands trembled as he fumbled with the key to his apartment door, his small fingers slipping several times, each failed attempt causing a string of curses to slip from his lips. He could almost hear Taehyung scolding him for his language, but that was the least of his worries right now. 

When the door finally creaked open, he slammed it shut behind him with a force that rattled the entire frame. His body quivered as if it had a mind of its own, a desperate reflex to protect itself. The fear that had been gnawing at him all day intensified, twisting like a knot in his gut.

His grip on the doorknob tightened, almost to the point of pain.

The decision seemed impossible: Should he leave again, run, and risk facing whatever danger lurked outside? Or should he stay put, here, in this supposed sanctuary, and end it all with whatever fate awaited him? How terribly brave of him. Could he really face this? 

Of course not! He didn’t know this man. Or did he? Was it really a man? The figure that appeared in his mind, seated there, just behind him, felt too real. The presence behind him… familiar in the most unnerving way.

Jimin’s eyes squeezed shut as his breath hitched. When he dared open them, the figure he feared the most solidified before him. 

The man sat casually on Jimin’s favorite love seat, draped in all black, his features cloaked in shadow, though Jimin could sense the undeniable familiarity, like a creeping sense of dread that sank into his bones. 

Why was he here? In his house? The place that was supposed to be his refuge from the chaos, from the world outside? The place where he was meant to find peace and security…

Yet now, it was a trap.

“Oh, welcome home, my angel…”

Jimin gasped, his breath catching in his throat as a sharp exhale tore from him, unbidden. The voice that echoed from the man seemed too casual, too calm, too confident. It was as if they’d known each other for ages, as if nothing had happened in the world beyond the walls of the apartment. As if the murder, the blood, the screams— none of it mattered to him.

His stomach churned violently, bile rising in his throat, but he swallowed it down, trying to steady his nerves. He didn’t need to ask the man about the deaths that had been following him around, because Jimin already knew. He could feel it in the very marrow of his bones.

This man had been the architect of it all.

Jimin didn’t dare move, his body frozen in place, his heart pounding in his chest. His grip on the doorknob tightened with a force that made his knuckles white. There was no escape. 

What could he do? 

There was a distant hope that Taehyung— bless his ironclad work ethic— might come home early today, though the likelihood was slim. Taehyung valued every second of his work, never one to cut corners. But Jimin still prayed silently, hoping that the sound of his best friend’s familiar footsteps would break through the nightmare before it got worse.

The man rose from the couch with a fluid motion, and the sound of his steps echoed in the otherwise silent apartment.

Jimin’s fingers wrapped tighter around the doorknob, his pulse hammering as the sharp, brittle sound of the knob being squeezed reverberated throughout the room.

The air in the apartment thickened as Jimin’s breath quickened. He had to close his eyes again. He could still hear him, his voice smooth like velvet but laced with something sinister. 

“Careful now, angel,” the man purred, voice as smooth as velvet drawn across a blade. “You’re breaking my heart.”

That voice was too soft, too sweet— and so very wrong . It slid into Jimin’s ears like poison in warm tea, deceptively gentle, fatally addictive.

“You’ve no idea how long I’ve waited to be this close. How much courage it took to finally reveal myself to you… and now you want to flee? Is that how you greet your knight ?”

The word hit Jimin like ice water, flooding his veins with confusion and disgust. Knight ? That’s what he called himself? There was nothing noble here. No armor. No code.

Just a monster who thought madness was devotion.

“You’re insane,” Jimin breathed, the word unspooling from his lips before he could stop it. His voice shook, thinner than paper. “I-I didn’t do anything to you.”

“No,” the man agreed with a calm that made Jimin’s blood run cold. “But they did.”

There was a pause— deliberate. Measured.

“I killed them,” he said finally, and there was something reverent in his voice. Something sacred. “For you.”

The stillness that followed was unbearable.

“For your favor, angel. For your name in my mouth. For your light in my darkness. Those parasites… they mistreated you. Spoke to you like you were ordinary. They looked at you like you were disposable. They didn’t worship you.”

He stepped closer. A floorboard groaned beneath his shoe.

“So I removed them.”

Jimin staggered back a step. His stomach heaved, bile rising in his throat. His skin crawled beneath the weight of those words— the peace with which they were delivered. Not boastful. Not apologetic.

Righteous .

“Why are you doing this?” Jimin gasped. His voice was barely audible, as if his lungs couldn’t summon enough air to push it out. “Why me?”

The man tilted his head, like a doll waiting for the right line of code.

“You don’t need to ask that,” he whispered, his voice wrapped in a terrible tenderness. “You’re mine. I’ve watched over you longer than you know. I’ve seen every time you cried alone, every time someone made you feel less than divine.”

His voice dropped further, a conspiratorial murmur.

“And I thought— no more. No more pain. Not for my angel.”

“You’re not protecting me!” Jimin burst out, his voice cracking in two, a sob and a scream trapped in one sentence. “You’re hurting people! You’re killing them!”

Silence. Then—

“Damn it!” The word exploded from the man like shrapnel, the fury uncontained. “Yes! I kill! I kill for you!“

The apartment seemed to shudder with the force of his roar, the windows rattling ever so slightly in their frames. Jimin stumbled backward again, breath caught in his throat, a tremor in his legs. The man’s rage hit the room like a storm front— sudden, electric, and lethal.

And then, the laughter.

It spilled from him in low, fractured bursts— amused, delighted, deranged . It didn’t sound human. It sounded like a lullaby gone rotten. Like something ancient and broken that had been stitched together into a man.

Jimin’s grip on the doorknob slipped. His hand was slick with sweat. His breath hitched and stuttered, the panic clawing its way higher in his chest .

He couldn’t move. Not because he didn’t want to. But because some part of him knew—

It wouldn’t matter. Not anymore.

Then came the final command. Soft. Precise. Fatal.

“Turn around.”

Jimin squeezed his eyes shut.

“Come to me, angel. That’s all you need to do.” His voice was almost a song now, low and hypnotic. Not a threat. A promise. “You belong to me. You always have. And you will, until the end of all things.”

Jimin’s legs moved without consent. One step. Then another. Like he was walking into a dream. Or a grave.

He turned, eyes still closed, too afraid to look— because he knew that smile would be waiting for him. And he wasn’t sure which would kill him first.

The man’s hands…

Or his unsolicited love.

When he finally opened his eyes, it struck him like lightning to bone.

The man stood there— no, loomed , as if the very shadows deferred to him. A figure pulled from the spine of a fever dream, impossibly elegant, terrifyingly still.

He was dressed simply— black hoodie, black pants— but the fabric hugged him with precision, like darkness had tailored it for his body alone. His skin, pale as winter moonlight, almost glowed beneath the dim apartment lights, casting him in an otherworldly hue.

Not alive. Not dead. Something else entirely.

Raven hair fell messily over his brow, parted just enough to reveal a pair of obsidian eyes— sharp, unreadable, unblinking. His features were too perfect to be real: a straight, sculpted nose, cheekbones carved like statuary, and lips— those lips— crimson, thin, and curved into a delicate smile that was far too gentle for someone who’d confessed to murder.

Jimin stared.

And stared.

And the longer he did, the harder it became to breathe. Because he wasn’t seeing a monster. He was seeing something beautiful. Something divine. Something sacredly wrong.

His thoughts whirled, caught in a storm of contradiction. His brain knew what he stood before. A killer. A madman. A liar bathed in blood. But his eyes — his traitorous, trembling eyes— saw something else entirely.

How could he look like that? How could evil wear a face like this?

Was this a hallucination, conjured by panic and despair? Or was this man truly real— real in every impossible, glorious, horrifying detail?

Then he spoke again, and Jimin nearly stumbled from the sound alone.

“Come, angel…” His voice wrapped around the room like smoke— velvety, warm, and deceptively gentle. “My arms are waiting.”

Jimin’s pulse stuttered. Not from fear. Or at least, not only fear.

There was something else. Something far more dangerous. A thrill so sharp it could’ve sliced through his skin. His body reacted before his mind could protest, nerves alight, knees unsteady.

He hated it.

He needed it.

He was going insane.

“I…” Jimin’s voice broke, a whisper caught in a windstorm. “W-What’s your name?”

The man’s smile deepened, eyes narrowing just slightly— as if pleased, or amused, or both.

“Jeon Jeongguk,” he said, the name sliding from his tongue like silk soaked in red wine. “But I’d much rather you call me your knight.”

A beat passed. Then another.

Jimin’s stomach twisted violently, revulsion curdling with something shameful. Something hungry. His every instinct screamed to run , to fight, to vomit — but his body…

God help him, his body leaned forward.

His breath came shallow and hot, heart galloping in a rhythm that had nothing to do with logic. His fingers trembled at his sides. His skin felt too tight.

He should have recoiled. He should have screamed. But all he could do was stare at the beautiful thing in front of him, and realize, with hollow horror—

His body was betraying him.

~

It was sometime past midnight when Jimin gave up on keeping his eyes open. The city outside was hushed, and his apartment, for once, felt like a sanctuary. Not from the world— but from himself.

He should have been afraid.

He wasn’t.

Jeongguk, his stalker, lay behind him, an inked arm draped around his waist like a velvet shackle. Every breath he exhaled warmed the back of Jimin’s neck, steady and slow, like they’d done this a hundred times before. Like they were lovers, not strangers tangled by obsession and blood.

Jimin’s mind floated. He didn’t know how it had happened— how Jeongguk had gotten into his apartment, into his bed . But there he was. Real. Solid. Pressed against him like a second skin.

“Shh,” Jeongguk murmured against his brown hair, voice low and warm, like honey poured over coals. “You’re safe. I’ve got you, angel.”

The words settled over Jimin’s brain like fog. Safety. He hadn’t felt it in weeks— maybe longer. But here, now, in these strong arms… everything went quiet. His panic, his logic, his fear. All drowned beneath the rhythm of Jeongguk’s voice, whispering directly into the hollowed-out chambers of his soul.

“You were made for this,” Jeongguk whispered, and his long fingers slid beneath the hem of Jimin’s shirt, under his old dirty hoodie, to rest on his stomach— gentle, reverent, as if touching sacred ground. “Made to be held like this. Touched like this.”

Jimin should have flinched. But his body betrayed him again. Instead, he melted further into the touch, his breath hitching as Jeongguk’s lips pressed behind his ear.

No one had ever touched him like this before.

Not so softly. Not like he belonged to someone.

“I’ve waited so long,” Jeongguk murmured, fingertips tracing slow, maddening circles across the skin of Jimin’s waist. “Waited to have you in my arms. To kiss you. To protect you. To keep you.”

He kissed the side of Jimin’s neck— soft, slow, terrifying. Like a priest at the altar of a personal god.

Jimin’s eyes fluttered closed. He should have pushed him away. Screamed. Fought. Anything . But instead he whispered, “Why me?”

And Jeongguk smiled into his skin.

“Because you’re mine , Jimin. You always have been. Even before I touched you.” His voice grew heavier, velvet dipped in iron. “And after tonight, there’s no going back.”

His hand slid over Jimin’s chest— possessive now, like he was memorizing the shape of him, branding it into memory.

Jeongguk’s fingers brushed over the delicate peak of Jimin’s nipple, the bud caught tenderly between two fingers, an unhurried tease beneath the thin fabric of his shirt. Jimin bit down on his lip, holding back the sound that rose in his throat— because to let it out would make this real.

This touch wasn’t exactly innocent, and yet Jeongguk didn’t seem to treat it like a transgression. He toyed with him gently, almost absentmindedly.

No one had ever touched Jimin like this before— not with reverence, but with a quiet ease, a kind of practiced intimacy that felt less like permission and more like belonging .

“You’ll sleep here every night,” he said, as though he were reciting fate, not fantasizing. “In my arms. In our bed. And when people look at you, they’ll know. They’ll know you’re spoken for. No more crying alone. No more fear. I’ll kill for your peace. I have killed for it.”

Jimin’s breath hitched, the words slicing through his half-dream like a cold blade. But he didn’t recoil.

He couldn’t.

Something about Jeongguk’s voice made resistance feel impossible. Like trying to wake up underwater.

“You’re scaring me,” Jimin whispered, though it came out more like a confession than a protest.

“I’m protecting you,” Jeongguk said simply. “Even if it scares you now, one day you’ll understand. One day you’ll thank me.”

His other hand found Jimin’s jaw, tilting his head gently back as he kissed the underside— slow, indulgent. Terrifyingly tender.

“I’ll never let you go,” Jeongguk whispered. “Not after tonight. Even if you beg.”

Jimin didn’t beg.

He fell asleep instead— lulled by the soft cadence of madness disguised as love.

And when the morning came, he woke to cold sheets, an open window, and the absence of everything that should’ve terrified him the night before.

That morning after Jeongguk vanished, Jimin woke to the silence like it was a scream.

At first, he thought it was a dream again— one of those too-soft nightmares that left his skin warm and his heart shredded. The sheets were twisted around his limbs like vines, his cheek pressed into the cold side of the bed where warmth once was. His hand reached out instinctively, desperate, curling into nothing but crumpled cotton and the ghost of a promise.

Jimin could still feel the ghost of his warmth— woven into his skin, echoing through the hollows of his mind. It was absurd, really, how the most unhinged corner of his psyche clung so viciously to the beautiful madness that was Jeon Jeongguk and his promises.

“You’ll sleep here every night… In my arms.”

That’s what Jeongguk had said. Whispered. Sworn.

But Jimin woke to a hollow dent in the mattress and the sour breath of early morning Seoul creeping in from the barely-cracked window. No note. No scent of blood. No shattered glass or splatter of horror. Just the fading trace of rosewood cologne— and something metallic, like iron left out in the rain.

The absence was so clean, it felt surgical.

Jeongguk was gone.

And Jimin… wasn’t sure if he had ever been there at all.

The following days passed like wet gauze pulled over an open wound— blurry, stifling, and suffocating.

He didn’t tell Taehyung.

Of course not.

What would he even say?

"Hey, remember the thing you said about a stalker? The one we joked about possibly murdering me? Well, turns out he snuck into my apartment, held me like I was glass, kissed my neck like a prayer, touched me in places I’d have struck anyone else for daring, promised me forever… and vanished before sunrise. But it’s fine, I’m totally thriving."

No. No, he couldn’t say that.

So instead, Jimin did what he’d been trained to do since childhood: he smiled. He wore it like armor when Taehyung dropped by with bags of fresh fruit and obscure matcha powders, chatting away about a new gallery on Itaewon’s quiet end.

He nodded, he laughed— sharp and hollow, like a wind chime in a storm. He even teased back, let his mouth curve upward when it needed to, and kept his voice light.

But inside? Inside, he was fraying. Quietly. Devastatingly.

“You’re living in this hoodie now?” Taehyung had teased one afternoon, tugging on the long sleeve of Jimin’s oversized black sweatshirt. “Didn’t you say this got wrecked during your midnight pasta disaster?”

Jimin’s gaze lingered on the faint orange stain near the hem. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Guess I just… couldn’t bring myself to wash it.”

He didn’t explain why. Didn’t explain that this was what he’d worn the night Jeongguk held him. Didn’t explain how he’d folded it under his pillow every night since, like some sad, secret shrine. Didn’t explain that he thought — hoped— he could trap the scent if he just slept in it long enough.

Sometimes he still swore he could smell him— faint rosewood and musk, stitched into the fabric. But maybe that was just memory playing dress-up. Maybe it was madness.

He didn’t sleep anymore. Not without him . He wouldn’t have slept even if he tried.

The bed, so recently their altar, was now an enemy. He would lie there at night, wrapped in that sweatshirt like a burial shroud, and listen for footsteps that never came. No arms around his waist. No low, sultry voice murmuring “ sleep, angel” into the space behind his ear.

And most haunting of all—

No prick at the back of his neck.

That was the part he hated most. That eerie, invisible weight— like someone was watching him from the corners, always just out of reach— was gone. Utterly.

He didn’t feel hunted anymore. He felt… abandoned.

And wasn’t that worse?

One night, with fingers trembling from too much caffeine and not enough sleep, he finally spoke into the dark.

“Jeongguk,” he whispered. “You said you’d never let me go.”

The silence that answered nearly broke him.

He’d believed it. He’d believed him.

And that was the part that shattered something vital inside him— not the fear, not the crime, not even the insanity of it all— but the fact that some hollow, lonely corner of him had wanted Jeongguk to stay. To hold him again. To make good on that terrible, beautiful promise.

The part of him that had pressed back into those arms and whispered “ why me?” — and then begged, silently, don’t leave.

And he had.

So now, Jimin simply existed. He ate when Taehyung reminded him. Showered when guilt stuck to his skin. Answered texts with emojis. Smiled at baristas. Drew open curtains and stared out at the city with eyes that didn’t really see.

But every night, as dusk crept in like a stranger, he lay back in that cursed bed, heart pounding against memory, waiting for the ghost who’d promised to haunt him forever.

~

It started, innocently enough, with eggs.

That was all.

He had run out. The carton in the fridge was pitifully empty, a graveyard of cracked shells and forgotten dates. It was 11:43 p.m., the hour where Seoul slipped into shadow and silence, and Jimin— dressed in the same hoodie, hood up like armor— walked out of his apartment as if summoned.

The convenience store was a fluorescent tomb.

Buzzing lights hummed like static above his head, sickly white and sharp-edged. The air smelled of disinfectant and sugar. Two teenagers loitered by the ramen, loud and careless in the way only people who felt safe could be.

The cashier, a boy with bleached hair and pimples like stardust, was half-asleep behind the counter, scrolling through his phone.

Jimin floated through the aisles. His hands were cold. His skin felt thin. He didn’t remember how he got there. The eggs were in his hands before he realized he'd picked them up, a bottle of water dangling uselessly in the crook of his arm.

And then, suddenly— he noticed it. Or rather, the lack of it.

There was nothing. No awareness prickling at the back of his neck. No phantom presence breathing behind him. No invisible eyes tracing the line of his throat or shadowing his footsteps like they had for weeks .

The silence was unbearable. Not peaceful. Not safe.

Void .

He was alone. Utterly. Stupidly. Devastatingly alone.

And for the first time, he realized— he missed being watched. He missed the weight of it. The paranoia. The hunger. Him .

At the counter, the cashier barely looked up.

“That’ll be 5,400 won.”

Jimin blinked. “It’s supposed to be 5,000.”

“It’s after ten,” the boy replied lazily, gesturing at a printed sign. “Extra charge.”

Something flickered behind Jimin’s eyes. A subtle tic. A spark.

“That’s stupid,” he said, too flat. Too even.

The kid shrugged. “It’s policy.”

Jimin tilted his head to the side. His lips parted slowly, brows softening— not in confusion, but in that dangerous kind of amusement one has when they start to stop caring. “What if I don’t want to pay it?”

The boy looked up fully now. Paused. Clearly weighing whether this was a prank or a threat. “Then you can leave the eggs.”

“I need the eggs.”

“And I need the surcharge.”

It should’ve ended there. But Jimin’s voice lowered, dipped into something theatrical— cruel and curious and edged with velvet.

“I think you just want someone to notice you. Is that it?” He smiled, slow and sharp, unfamiliar on his face. “Do you want me to scream at you? Shove things off the counter? Call you names? Ruin your week? Would that help?”

“Sir—” the cashier’s voice cracked, panic threading in. “There’s a camera.”

Jimin didn’t even blink.

“Good,” he whispered. “Let him see me.”

The boy didn’t ask who he was. Didn’t want to know.

Jimin lingered just long enough for the moment to rot. Then he dropped a crumpled bill on the counter— far too much— and walked out, leaving the change behind like the scene of a crime.

Back in the apartment, the silence was worse. Not because it was quiet, but because it was dead . Flat. Unfeeling.

Jimin dropped the bag on the counter and stared at it like it might blink. He pressed his palms flat to the marble. Closed his eyes. The hum of the fridge sounded like a funeral dirge.

“Come back,” he whispered.

No answer.

He laughed, low and breathless. “I did something bad. Doesn’t that count for something?”

Still nothing. Not a breath. Not a touch. Not even the whisper of wind against the windowpane.

So he laughed again, louder this time. Bitter, bright. Unhinged.

“God,” he said to the empty kitchen. “You’re the one who stalked me , and I’m the one losing my mind? Is that fair?”

No response.

The hoodie he wore suddenly felt like a straightjacket. He tugged at the sleeves, clawed at the fabric, then froze. His eyes landed on the fridge, slowly trailing across the pale surface to the butcher knife on the counter.

And for one terrible second— he thought.

If I hurt myself, would he come back?

Not to save him. No, not that. He wasn’t so deluded. But to see it. Witness it. Feel something again.

The thought passed, but it left a residue behind— sticky and poisonous. Jimin swallowed thickly and looked away. He wasn’t there yet. Not quite.

Instead, he began to pace. The floor creaked beneath his steps. His thoughts spiraled tighter and tighter, blooming in shades of red.

What else could he do?

He’d already stayed up for days. Worn the hoodie every night. Left the window cracked just enough. Called Jeongguk’s name in the dark. Let his sanity peel like paint off a condemned wall.

And still, nothing. Not even a flicker of shadow. Not a touch on the glass. Not the scent of rosewood and gunmetal in the air.

So perhaps… escalation was the answer. Perhaps he needed to become louder , stranger— more magnetic, more worthy of obsession.

“Alright,” he murmured to no one, pacing now in tight, frenetic circles, the rhythm of his heart quickening into something bright and breathless, something nearly euphoric. “You want a spectacle?”

His gaze caught on the front door like it was fate incarnate. He was panting now, the air thin in his lungs, that delicious edge of delirium blooming beneath his skin like fire through frost.

“Then I’ll give you one.”

Because if Jeongguk wasn’t watching anymore… then someone had to. And if no one was watching— if there were no eyes, no consequences, no divine gaze of a monster who loved him just enough to kill—

Then what was the point of being good at all?

~

It was supposed to be nothing.

A mundane act. A domestic rite. Just a bag of trash and a breath of air. Just a night, quiet and forgettable. But even that had begun to snarl .

The wind carried the crisp edges of mid autumn, a dryness in its breath, like the earth was beginning to decay in preparation for winter. It swept against Jimin’s skin with a ghost’s touch— an intimacy so subtle it almost made him weep.

The chill reminded him he was still warm. Still soft. Still here .

He stepped out in the grey sweatpants he hadn’t washed in a week, hoodie sleeves pushed up to his elbows like armor. His veins thrummed. His forearms were taut with coiled intention. In one hand, the trash bag swung like a pendulum— useless, full of bones and rot.

This was supposed to be a ritual.

Breathe. Step. Stretch. Listen.

No pings from his phone. No red dot blinking from across the street. No weight of his gaze pressing into Jimin’s spine. No Jeongguk.

Only the smothering absence of something divine .

He used to like this hour. Liked how the world bent soft and slow when no one was awake to witness it. But that was before solitude began to feel like exile. Before silence turned into punishment.

Before the night stopped being his confessional— and started becoming his stage.

He reached the dumpsters, let the bag slump at his feet like a dead thing. He leaned back against the stone wall and tilted his head up as if the sky might offer him a message. Something. Anything. But the heavens were starless and blank, like a page someone had given up writing on.

And when he looked down again—

It was there. Another bag. Black. Heavy. Nestled against his like a leech.

His jaw locked. His heart gave a traitorous flutter. He hadn’t placed it there.

Then came the steps. Lazy. Entitled. The ahjussi from 1F, in a stained shirt and cheap loafers, the type of man who fed on assumptions and relied on the quiet cruelty of being ignored. His face was sour with smugness, like he knew this little trick worked every time.

The message was unspoken but clear, You’ll take it out. Like always. You’re soft. You’re polite.

But something in Jimin’s chest snapped. No, peeled .

Tonight wasn’t for playing nice. Tonight was a theory .

His vision bloomed red at the edges. His ears roared. He lunged.

The bag was torn from the ground and hurled with the strength of a long-festering ache. It hit the pavement hard— bursting open like a carcass. Bits of uneaten dinner and broken eggs spilled out like viscera. The smell slapped the air. Soy sauce wept into the concrete like old blood.

“You think I’m blind?” Jimin’s voice rang out, honeyed and lethal. Beautiful, in the way a blade is beautiful just before it breaks skin.

The ahjussi startled, stammered, “It’s trash, kid— what’s your problem?”

“My problem,” Jimin hissed, “is that you thought I was your houseboy. That I’d carry your filth like it was mine. That I wouldn’t mind.”

He stepped closer. The air trembled. So did the ahjussi.

“You thought I’d stay quiet.” Jimin smiled now— small, sharp, the kind of smile that could haunt a dream. “You thought wrong.”

“You’re overreacting.”

“No,” Jimin whispered. “I’m testing a theory.”

The ahjussi blinked. Confused. But Jimin wasn’t looking at him anymore. He was looking past him. Past the wall. Past the air.

Is this enough?

Are you watching, Jeongguk?

He imagined him there, just behind the stairwell, shoulder resting against brick, a breath of laughter in the dark. Jeongguk’s eyes, bottomless and fond, watching him crack like porcelain. Watching him perform.

If I scream, will you come? If I bleed?

The ahjussi stepped forward, unsure now.

Jimin didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. He welcomed it.

“Try me,” he said softly. “See what happens.”

The ahjussi cursed, low and uneasy. But he didn’t get closer.

Jimin turned with the elegance of someone who knew he had just made a mark on the world— even if it would fade.

He approached the dumpster, lifted the lid like it was an altar, and deposited his trash with grace. Then, like a dancer rehearsing for an audience just out of reach, he sorted the recyclables. One can. One bottle. Each motion slow. Precise. Beautiful.

Every second whispered, Are you watching me now?

But when he looked up again, nothing. No figure. No cologne. No shadow cut from obsidian and hunger.

Only the quiet. Only the ache. Only himself.

And that— that was what broke him. Because it wasn’t rage that lingered. It was longing. Grief. A shame so thick it congealed in his throat, bitter and choking.

He hadn’t even been trying to win. He’d just wanted to be seen . And the world hadn’t blinked.

Three nights later, the next chance to test the theory came.

The knock came two minutes early.

Jimin heard it before it landed— three soft thuds like the door itself was embarrassed to interrupt him. He’d been mid-shelving, fingers dusted with old paper and melancholy. The bookshelf was a cathedral now, sorted not by genre, not even by preference— but alphabetically by author, then chronologically by emotional devastation.

Kim Hyesoon hovered beside Han Kang. Gong Ji-young lived next to Choi Seung-ja. It made sense to him. Pain always did, in patterns.

He opened the door without a word, took the plastic bag from the boy on the other side. The delivery guy barely made eye contact. He was wearing a hoodie with the sleeves chewed through and shoes that looked like they’d survived a minor war.

Jimin shut the door.

He didn’t eat right away. He had rituals. Arrangement. Unwrapping. Folding the receipt into neat triangles. Lighting a candle, sometimes. Sitting on the floor because the mattress reminded him too much of Jeongguk’s hands.

It wasn’t until the box was open, the chicken still steaming, that he noticed.

The dip was missing.

The garlic dip. The only thing that made the grease feel deliberate. The only thing that made him feel like he had control over how things entered his body.

Gone.

Jimin stared. One minute. Two. Three. Then, without blinking, he picked up the crumpled receipt and dialed the number at the bottom.

“Hello?” a voice answered. Young. Nervous. Still wearing hope like a second skin.

“You forgot the dip,” Jimin said.

A pause. The sound of traffic in the background.

“I— I’m sorry?” the voice stuttered.

“There was supposed to be a garlic dip,” Jimin continued, tone calm enough to make a knife feel welcome. “It’s on the receipt. You see it, don’t you?”

More fumbling. “Oh. Yeah. I think— it must’ve been left at the shop. I can come back? Or send—”

“You’re the only person I’ve seen in three days,” Jimin interrupted, voice dropping into something almost intimate. “And you forgot the one thing that made this bearable. The one thing. You understand that, right?”

“Sir—”

Jimin exhaled, slow. Measured. “Do you ever wonder if you’re real?”

A beat.

“Do you ever think maybe you’re not a person at all,” he said, fingers tightening around the phone, “but just something my brain created because I needed someone to blame?”

“…Sir?”

Jimin hung up. Didn’t eat the chicken. Just sat there, in silence, surrounded by the echo of garlic that never arrived.

Time passed. Probably.

It wasn’t marked by clocks anymore. Just by the slow erosion of clarity. The days bled together like watercolors left in the rain— pretty at first, then putrid. Distorted.

Jimin began going to the park.

Not because he liked it. He hated it, actually. Hated the forced joy of children’s laughter. Hated the way people existed without needing permission. Hated the sun most of all— so bright, so clean, so smug in its warmth.

But he went anyway. Because something had to happen. Something always did in places like that. And he was ready to meet it, whatever it was, in full regalia: sunglasses, hoodie pulled tight, headphones with no music playing.

The day it finally happened was almost cinematic.

He was sitting on a cold bench, watching an ant carry a crumb like it was divine punishment, when it hit him.

A ball. Right in the back. Not hard. Not painful. But insulting .

Jimin stood slowly. Turned.

A lanky teenager with a scraped knee and guilty eyes jogged up, panting. “Ah— sorry, hyung. Didn’t mean to—”

“You think you can throw something at me,” Jimin said quietly, “and just walk away?”

The boy blinked. “What?”

“You think I’ll forgive you because you’re young? Because it’s a game? What if I said this is how it starts?”

His tone was soft. Polite, even. But beneath it— static. Something wild.

“What if I told you I’ve seen a man’s skull break from something this small?” Jimin continued. He took a step forward, voice honeyed and horrible. “You think it’s harmless until the blood pools. Until the concrete remembers the shape of his fall.”

The teenager paled, shoulders twitching like he wanted to run.

Jimin smiled. Not kindly.

“Go home,” he whispered, voice dipped in velvet. “And pray that no one real sees you next time.”

He turned, hands tucked into his sleeves, and walked away as if nothing had happened. His heart thundered in his chest like war drums under silk. He didn't know if he was proud or afraid. But at least— at least — he’d made a mark.

Maybe somewhere, Jeongguk would feel it. A tremor in the atmosphere. A note out of tune.

Maybe he’d know. Jimin was getting worse.

~

Every night, he’d sit by the window and wait for Jeongguk  to come back. He didn’t cry. He didn’t beg. He invited . He lit candles. He stopped locking the door.

Sometimes he talked into the dark. Sometimes he whispered “I miss you.” And sometimes he laughed— soft and broken and terrifying.

He didn’t know what was real anymore. Maybe Jeongguk wasn’t real. Maybe he was the result of a delusion spun from trauma and loneliness, something his mind conjured to hold him just once, to let him sleep without choking.

Maybe the murders weren’t real either. Maybe Jimin had imagined them. Projected them from headlines. Maybe he had killed someone and forgot. Maybe Jeongguk was just a name he made up for the part of himself he didn’t want to know.

Perhaps the night Jeongguk held him, touched him with reverence, kissed him like a secret—perhaps that too had been a fiction, conjured by sleeping pills and desperation, just another hallucination he’d clung to in order to survive the dark.

Jimin didn’t know. He couldn’t tell. But he knew why he was doing this. Why he was unraveling so publicly. Why he was starting fights over trash, dips, and dodgeballs.

Because he was trying to lure him back. Trying to prove he was still worth watching. Still worth claiming.

Still worth saving— from himself.

~

He’d been waiting for something. Anything.

The night before, Jimin had stood by his apartment window long enough for condensation to bead on the glass, long enough that the ache in his spine started to feel holy. He was watching. Not the stars— they didn’t exist here. Not the traffic, or the moon, or even the life crawling behind the neighboring windows.

No, he was watching the ahjussi downstairs. The one who tried to line up his garbage like it belonged to Jimin. As if proximity meant ownership. That little crime, that little disrespect— Jimin had almost prayed that it would be enough. That he would come back for it.

But that was the other night. And now?

Now he was standing in the middle of the grocery store, still wearing the hoodie with the faint stain of the pasta sauce, the fabric clinging to his back from sweat. It was cold inside, but Jimin’s body didn’t know it. He was burning.

There were police lines, and people murmuring, gasping, retching behind hands. But Jimin didn’t see any of that. He saw the body.

The young man. The one from the grocery counter. The one he’d argued with. Now split open— like a sacrifice.

His midsection had been hollowed out, replaced with eggs. Egg trays like makeshift ribcages, slimy and cracked. One whole egg lodged in the mouth, and where the eyes used to be— white, void replacements stared back at nothing. Not even God would look at this.

And beside the body, scrawled in congealed red across the tile floor like some sick Valentine:

“you’ve been naughty, angel.”

Jimin’s blood turned to ice. His hands trembled. His knees gave slightly, just slightly, and he caught himself on the nearest metal shelf.

He should have thrown up. He should’ve run. But all he did was look. Search.

Jeongguk .

He was here. He had to be here.

Whispers curled around him like smoke.

“Did you hear? They think it happened around midnight.”

“I live nearby— didn’t hear a thing. That’s what’s scary.”

“They say the guy was alive when it started. Can you imagine?”

Midnight.

Jimin hadn’t been sleeping well. He remembered being awake. Tossing. Heart racing with no reason. Skin crawling, but the room empty.

He had thought maybe it was a nightmare. One of those false-awake episodes. A ghost crawling under his skin.

Now he wondered: had he been watched?

The next morning came like punishment.

The apartment complex was swarming. A police car outside. Yellow tape. Screams that echoed up the stairwell like they were made of metal.

Jimin stepped out of his door like a shadow peeling off the wall. He walked to the end of the hall, peered down.

It was the ahjussi . Or what used to be.

Same artistry— no, evolution . This one was filled with trash. Plastic wrappers where his lungs used to be, styrofoam takeout boxes stuffed into the cavity like pillows. The smell was unbearable. His intestines had been pulled out and coiled like garden hoses along the stairwell.

And there it was again, fresh and red on the tiles just beyond the body.

“got the message though, i miss you too, angel.”

Jimin stared. Blinked. He should be horrified. Should be telling the police. Should be begging for help. But his fingers twitched at his sides. His breath came short and quick. And his chest— his chest felt warm. Comforted .

He wasn’t alone. He wasn’t insane.

Jeongguk was real.

~

Jimin had not slept.

There were moments— fleeting, cruel— where he thought maybe he did. Maybe he’d blinked. Maybe that blinking stretched out into seconds, minutes, hours. But no. He was still here. Still awake. Still hunched on his kitchen floor with his knees to his chest and the blue light from his phone washing him pale.

The screen lit again. Taehyung . The seventh missed call. He watched it buzz once… twice… and fall dark again. Just like the last six.

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

His eyes flickered toward the front door. It was still locked. Still bolted. Still uneventful. But something in him— it clawed and itched— said someone was supposed to burst in already. Someone had to. He had to. Jimin was waiting. He’d been waiting.

His fingers twitched. His mouth tasted like iron. And there was something wrong— horribly wrong— with how comforted he felt by the silence. Because it wasn’t silence at all. It was a kind of pressure. Like something watching , biding time. His own conscience maybe, blooming so painfully bright it scorched everything else inside him.

Jeongguk was real. Right? Jimin gripped his hair and leaned forward until his forehead touched the cold tile. 

Jeongguk had held him. That night. That impossibly warm, horrifyingly peaceful night. Jimin had fallen asleep in his arms, and dreamt nothing . No nightmares. No panic. Just black. Rest. Peace. 

And then he was gone. 

He left Jimin alone to rot in his mind again.

It was driving him mad.

It had to be real. And if Jeongguk was out there— lurking, watching, loving in the only way someone like him could— then maybe Jimin had to prove something.

Maybe… sacrifice something.

The idea made him shudder. Made him smile. He didn’t know which reaction was more disturbing.

The delivery guy. The one who forgot his dipping sauce and caught Jimin on a bad day. That had been a fight. Minor, but loud. Maybe Jeongguk didn’t see it. Maybe it wasn’t enough.

He could try again.

He scrolled to the contact— C&M Fried Chicken — then paused. No. No call. That was the flaw. Jeongguk worked off sight , didn’t he? Off signals. Like a predator.

So he pulled himself up. Same clothes. Hoodie with the faint stain of pasta sauce down the hem. He didn’t even change his socks. He just left. Into the dead blue dawn.

Outside, the world felt too quiet.

The chicken shop was closed. Nothing. No police tape. No gasps. Just the low hum of a vending machine next door and a cat staring at him from under a parked scooter.

Jimin blinked hard.

" Impossible ," he muttered, breath fogging. " He never misses."

He stood frozen for a moment, chewing his nail. Then—

Screech. Wail. Sirens. A blur of black-and-white vehicles and flashing blue lights raced past him, wind curling his hair back. And Jimin didn’t hesitate. He ran.

Like a bloodhound.

The crime scene was cordoned off near an old payphone.

A crowd had already formed— neighbors in pajamas, shopkeepers craning necks, kids on bikes halted in morbid curiosity. Jimin pushed through like a man possessed.

And there it was. The delivery guy. Or at least, what was left of him.

He wasn’t just dead— he was erased . His head, smashed in so thoroughly it looked like a dropped melon, was a stew of skull fragments and viscera. Blood pooled in the chalk circle drawn around a massive rock. 

The phone dangled from its hook, the receiver swinging lazily, smeared with red.

Jimin didn’t scream. He didn’t flinch. He just stepped forward, breath shallow. And then— he saw it. Just near the chalk, in blood that still gleamed fresh and angry: " Keep the door open, angel."

His knees almost buckled. The world tilted. Someone behind him gasped. A woman said, “Third one this week. All in the same damn neighborhood—”

“—Sick bastard. But the messages— always a message, huh? It’s like he’s talking to someone.”

“Maybe he’s not working alone.”

“Maybe someone’s helping him.”

Jimin staggered back, their words dull static in his ears.

Maybe someone’s helping him.

Maybe someone’s helping him.

Maybe—

~

Back in his apartment, Jimin didn’t close the door. He didn’t touch the locks. He left it wide open, breeze curling the edge of the welcome mat.

He stood in the center of his living room, fingers trembling as he opened the pill bottle. Two. Three. Five. He didn’t count. He just swallowed.

His phone buzzed again.

Taehyung calling.

Decline.

He lay down on the couch, barely breathing, staring at the ceiling like it might split open.

“Come back,” he whispered. “Come back to me.”

The night was quiet— too quiet. Like the world itself was holding its breath, or had already died.

Jimin wasn’t awake. But he wasn’t sleeping either. His eyes were closed, but behind his lids, memories formed as they happened. He could feel it.

Or were they really memories? 

A hand on his chest, slowly flattening over his heart, leather fingers digging into his feverish skin. Jeongguk’s warm breath against his throat, “You always smell so sweet when you’re scared, angel.” Lips sucking harshly on his glands, wet, there was tongue.

A deep guttural voice murmuring things too soft to catch, but too devastating to forget. “You don’t know what you do to me, you’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever ruined.

And then in a particular hard suck on the skin just above Jimin’s chest. “I could cut my tongue out and still remember how you taste. You look like something meant to be worshipped.”

Jimin’s breath came in shallow, feathered gasps. His limbs didn’t respond, but his skin did— tingling with every slow glide of leather fingers along his jaw, his neck, his collarbone. Reverent. That was the word. Every touch felt like a prayer. Or a curse.

He couldn’t fight. Didn’t want to. Not in that moment.

“I know you feel it too. Don’t lie to me, angel. Not with a body this honest.” Jeongguk’s voice was hauntingly beautiful, a fortress for Jimin’s unstable mind to get insane to. He was too far gone, too tired, too broken. This wasn’t terror anymore. This was inevitability. This was fate .

He remembered the feel of Jeongguk’s lips against his wrist, his palm, the tip of each trembling finger, the way his tongue licked each skin on the wake of his lips. 

He remembered the way his shirt was unbuttoned with a patience that felt holy. How cold air kissed his skin only to be replaced with something warmer— someone warmer.

Jeongguk moved like a man tracing the lines of a masterpiece he’d long studied. Like he was reminding himself of every inch he’d memorized. Every secret spot he’d worshipped in silence.

“Do you still belong to me?” Jeongguk whispered, his voice thick, low, guttural. “Even now?”

Jimin wanted to say yes. He couldn’t. But his body answered.

“That’s it. Let me in. Let me back in.”

He felt it— how he arched into every touch despite the weight of the pills. How his skin burned where Jeongguk’s hands roamed, his chest, his hips, his thighs, how his pulse stuttered under each kiss. How his body opened, soft and pliant and ruinous, under every slow movement.

“You were made for this. Made for me.”

It wasn’t love. God, no. But it was something close.

It was hunger. Need. A curse spoken sweetly.

And Jeongguk took his time. Like he had all the time in the world. Like Jimin was the only thing in the universe that ever mattered. He moved with a slow, brutal tenderness— worshipping Jimin’s broken body like a mad priest laying flowers on a desecrated altar. His huge cock didn’t feel like an intrusion when it painfully breached Jimin’s slick entrance, it felt like a sacrifice, and Jimin took the offering with stuttered gasps his voice could allow him.

His pills-laded mind wondered if this was what it felt like to be buried alive. Not in dirt— but in heat. In worship. In ruin too slow to scream through.

Jimin ached to touch. To worship the body that moved on top of him with a clinical precision. Every deep thrust into him, the tip of Jeongguk’s cock hit a tight spot deep within him that no other had before.

Maybe Jimin hallucinated it, but he felt Jeongguk’s teeth clasped around a tender skin on his neck when Jimin’s body involuntarily released a spasm, his hole contracting around such a huge intrusion, pleasure coiled, serpent-like, in the pit of his gut.

Was it still assault if he wanted to be desecrated? Was it worship if the altar bled every time the god touched it?

“You bleed so beautifully, angel. It makes me want to ruin you softer.”

His mind slurred through the questions, unable to land. Every answer tasted like guilt dressed in velvet. Most of his body remained unmoving. No matter how hard Jimin tried to make them move.

He thought Jeongguk had grunted, almost like a growl when he felt the stalker’s movement turned more brutal, more aggressive, as if he was chasing something. Every drag of his cock against Jimin’s walls felt like a testament, Jeongguk was a man on a mission.

“You should’ve known I’d come back for you.” Jeongguk lifted his thighs apart with a slow, deliberate grace— like a beast drawing breath before the kill— then drove his strong hips forward with bruising finality, the heavy slap of his belt echoing off Jimin’s ass like a promise kept in violence.

A memory tried to claw its way forward— his mother’s voice, soft and scolding, warning him not to open the door to strangers. He’d laughed then. God, he’d laughed. And now he was wide open, ass and mind ruined, and the stranger had a name.

A voice. A body that worshipped him like sin.

There was no version of this that ended clean. He knew that now. Even in his stupor, even drugged to the bone, some ancient part of him counted down to a finish line he’d never be ready for.

And Jimin just laid there, taking it all, getting hard fucked by the man who killed for him.

“Take it. Take it all, angel. Be good for me.”

Jimin’s mind hovered above it all, disconnected, delirious. Every nerve ending was lit up. Every dark thought bled into the next. Maybe this was death. Maybe this was what it meant to be consumed. Maybe Jeongguk wasn’t a man. Maybe he was a god. A demon. A fever dream that could kiss and kill.

He didn’t know how long it lasted. Could’ve been minutes. Could’ve been hours. The pills took effect faster than the other nights. He thought about dying. Not tragically, not dramatically— just vanishing. Evaporating under Jeongguk’s mouth, speared on Jeongguk’s huge cock like something holy and unworthy. Like steam rising from the wreckage of a prayer.

“Let me fill you up. Let me make you mine again.”

And the last thing he remembered— before sleep finally took him for good— was Jeongguk’s hot cum that warmly filled his insides, painting his walls and escaping down his thighs, down the food stained couch he was lying on, and  Jeongguk’s mouth brushing his temple, whispering, “Keep the door open again next time.”

And when Jimin woke, the morning light didn’t feel like salvation. It pierced through the blinds like judgment, too gold, too clean for a body so ruined.

His body was sore. His heart, raw. His soul, blistered and blackening.

But his mouth still tasted like him. His skin still burned where fingers had lingered, his hole still had the dried cum that painted his walls inside, his rim felt swollen around nothing. And the sleeping pills still sat on the table— half-used, witnesses to a night no sane man would believe. They looked smug. Like they’d done their job. Like this was mercy.

He didn’t cry. He wanted to. Or thought he should. But crying felt too alive. Too human.

He just stared at the wall. And waited for the guilt to catch up.

Was Jeongguk really the man on a mission, or was it Jimin?

Three lives broken for one night of ruin. Hope the orgasm was worth it, Park Jimin. Really nailed it.

He pulled the blanket over his head like it could undo what had already been carved into his skin. But the thing about ghosts? They don’t leave when you close your eyes.

~

Jimin woke up again in the middle of the day, if waking could even be the word.

Not with a start. Not in shock. Just… emerged . Slowly. As if something rotten floated to the top of a still pond. His breath felt stale in his throat, like smoke curling from a dying candle. The couch beneath him scratched at his skin— rough, familiar. The room didn’t greet him; it loomed. Dim. Smelling of old sleep and pine, a sick perfume clinging to the air like regret.

The light bleeding through the curtains was the wrong kind. Too bright to be comfort. Too dull to be grace.

Was this morning? Or just the next installment of the nightmare?

He didn’t know. Didn’t care.

He blinked once. Slowly. Each lash felt glued to the next. Crusted. Heavy. His throat ached like he’d swallowed glass, his mouth tasted like sin. He wasn’t cold. But he wasn’t warm either. His body existed somewhere in the limbo between.

The bottle of sleeping pills still lay tipped over on the table beside him— two capsules staring back at him like witnesses who hadn’t decided if they should scream.

He should’ve taken them all. Why didn’t he?

Jimin didn’t move.

His limbs ached in ways that whispered used . Not violated. Not exactly. Just… spent . Like the aftermath of prayer. Or war. The back of his thighs felt slick, his hole raw and stinging in a way no dream could imitate.

The shame came in slow waves.And beneath it— worse than the shame— was something darker. Something cruel.

He liked it.

Some poisoned, broken part of him had liked being used like that. Had arched into it. Had welcomed the ruin.

And that— that was the part that made him want to claw his skin off.

He sat up, but only barely. Each vertebra screamed. The couch moaned beneath him. His shirt hung open, exposing his collarbones painted in red welts, teeth marks that hadn’t bruised yet. His pants were bunched at his knees. His thighs trembled. A dull ache throbbed deep in his gut, as if he’d been cracked open and stitched back together all wrong.

No blood. But he didn’t need blood to know he’d been split .

The silence roared louder than any scream. No Jeongguk. No sound. Just a ghost of breath in the air. Just Jimin, marinating in the aftershock, tasting last night like it had been stitched to his tongue.

He dragged a palm across his face. It came away wet. With sweat. Or tears. Or something less clean. His skin still smelled like him . That unplaceable mix of leather, rosewood, heat, and hunger. The ghost of a kiss still pressed against his temple like a brand.

And God. He remembered everything.

How Jeongguk had murmured, “ Let me back in,” like it was his right. How Jimin’s own body had obeyed— legs parting, hips lifting, skin shivering beneath every worshipful drag of those leather-gloved hands.

He remembered the stretch, the burn. The delicious, hideous feeling of being breached slowly, reverently, like a sacrament . How Jeongguk had moved inside him with such aching care, as if fucking him was a privilege. As if Jimin’s broken, drugged body was something sacred .

He remembered moaning. He remembered arching.

He remembered wanting . And it terrified him. Because even if the pills hadn’t dulled his will, even if he’d been stone-cold awake— would he have stopped it?

Would he have begged for more?

Was it still desecration if the altar begged to be ruined?

He wanted to scream. But screaming would mean feeling. And he wasn’t ready to feel yet. So instead, he stared at the table. At the half-used pill bottle and the water glass with a red print on the rim— Jeongguk’s lip? His own blood?

He blinked. It vanished.

No use questioning it.

The hallucinations were as real as the rest of this nightmare. Maybe more real.

He shifted, and the soreness bloomed again— deep and low and unrelenting. He could still feel Jeongguk’s cum leaking down the backs of his thighs, cold now, sticky, shameful. His rim throbbed with every breath, swollen and empty, like a mouth forced to stop singing mid-note.

He shuddered.

Jeongguk had touched every inch of him with the reverence of a priest.

“You bleed so beautifully, angel. It makes me want to ruin you softer.”

That voice. That terrible, sacred voice. It echoed in his mind like scripture gone wrong. And Jimin had let him. Not just let— invited.

No one had ever touched him like that before. Not like he mattered. Not like he was beautiful in his brokenness.

And now?

Now the world felt too real. Too sharp. The guilt climbed up his spine like vines choking a monument. He should feel violated. Should feel destroyed. But what he felt was worse than either.

He felt like he belonged to him.

Still .

He curled into himself on the couch, the blanket from last night slipping off his shoulder like a shroud. His legs tucked up, his hands clutching nothing, and his eyes wide and glassy as they stared at the wall again.

That same fucking wall.

As if it could absolve him. As if it could tell him what was worse— being taken like that under the haze of pills, or knowing in his heart that if Jeongguk walked in right now and touched him the same way again— he wouldn’t stop him.

Might even beg.

What the fuck is wrong with you, Park Jimin?

He didn’t cry. Crying would make it real. He just breathed. And waited for the guilt to catch up. Because ghosts don’t need to knock. And Jeongguk never left.

He was already under Jimin’s skin. Threaded in the marrow. Carved into every breath. And the worst part?

Jimin had left the door open on purpose. 

~

Jimin dragged himself into the day. Didn’t brush his hair. Didn’t eat. He put on a hoodie from the laundry basket. Same one from days ago. It still had that pasta sauce stain by the hem, dried into a rough patch.

He made coffee. Took one sip. Threw it away. Then, as if possessed, he left his apartment and walked to the park.

It was quieter than usual. Late morning, soft sun. Mothers pushing strollers. Retired couples walking laps. And then—

There. By the soccer field. Him. The boy. The teenager. The one who’d thrown a ball at Jimin last week and made him see red. He was there again, laughing, kicking around the ball with two friends. Oblivious.

Jimin stood still, hands deep in the front pocket of his hoodie. His eyes didn’t leave the boy.

Could this be the last time he plays like this? The last time he laughs like that?

A flutter of guilt rose in his chest— but it didn’t reach his face. He sat on the nearest bench, crossing one leg over the other, chin tucked low in his hoodie.

It wasn’t his fault. It was just… the way things were now. This was a ritual. A sacrament. Jeongguk would come back. He just needed the right offering.

The thought was disgusting — and yet, it lit him up. Like a match catching gasoline.

“Should’ve brought snacks,” he murmured to himself, voice flat. “Would’ve made this feel more like a picnic.”

A couple walking past eyed him cautiously. He didn't care. He didn’t even blink. His phone buzzed in his pocket.

Taehyung. Again .

He didn’t answer. Again. The voicemail icon blinked at the top of his screen. He played one out of morbid curiosity.

“Jimin-ah, please. I know you’re going through something. I’m not prying. I just— I want to make sure you’re okay. You haven’t replied to anything. I’m going insane here. I might swing by your place later, okay? Please… I love you. You’re not alone.”

Jimin deleted the message without reacting.

He was alone. That was the whole point. And it was better that way. If Jeongguk came back— if he really came back— he wouldn’t want anyone else involved.

The boy on the field scored a goal. His friends cheered. The sound echoed hollow in Jimin’s ears.

He closed his eyes. And in the dark behind his lids, Jeongguk’s hands pressed into his waist again. Slow. Possessive. Velvet-wrapped in violence. His lips at Jimin’s temple, whispering promises like sins.

“You’re mine now, angel.”

Jimin’s breath caught. And then a strange sound escaped his throat— half-laugh, half-sob.

Was he crazy? Was this all some prolonged psychosis?

He opened his eyes. No. No matter how many times he second-guessed it, no matter how many digital therapists would say “projection” or “trauma response”— Jimin knew .

Jeongguk was real.

And he was coming back. He just needed one more victim.

And Jimin? He needed to make a choice.

~

Jimin didn’t mean to follow him.

He told himself that all morning the next day. He wasn’t stalking the boy— he just ended up on the same path, again, near the soccer field, hoodie up and eyes blank, like muscle memory had taken him there. The same park. The same bench. The same boy.

And this time, Jimin stayed standing.

A pigeon strutted by, pecking at dust. Somewhere, a child wailed. A dog barked. The world kept breathing like it didn’t know what Jimin was about to do.

He clenched his jaw, breathing through his nose, hands deep in his hoodie pocket like he was holding onto something dangerous.

There— there was the boy again. Same messy hair. Same scuffed sneakers. Laughing as he kicked a ball to his friend, wind lifting his shirt enough to show a sliver of back. Exposed. Breakable.

Jimin’s mouth went dry. He started walking, slow, careful, not toward him exactly— but in the orbit. The edge of the field.

And the boy noticed. Squinted. “Oh,” he said, pausing mid-kick. “It’s you again.”

Jimin didn’t answer. Just stared.

The boy’s friend elbowed him, whispered something, laughing. The boy rolled his eyes and jogged toward Jimin.

“You here to scream at me again?”

“No,” Jimin said. His voice barely sounded like his. “Not today.”

“Good,” the boy muttered, wiping sweat from his forehead. “You looked unhinged last time. Like… straight-up psycho.”

Jimin flinched, but not visibly. He felt it under his skin, like a piano wire twanged too tight.

“I just want to talk,” Jimin said. “Just for a second.”

The boy looked wary, but curious. Kids were like that— smart enough to sense danger, dumb enough to flirt with it.

Jimin crouched near the metal bleachers, not sitting. Just… eye level. “What’s your name?” he asked.

The boy frowned. “Why?”

“I just want to know.”

“Minjae,” he said, then after a pause, “Why do you care?”

Jimin hesitated. His breath fogged a little in the spring chill.

“I had a dream about you.”

Minjae blinked. “What?”

“You were bleeding,” Jimin whispered. “And no one could find you. Not in time. Not even your parents.”

The boy stepped back. “Okay, what the fuck—”

“I’m trying to help you,” Jimin snapped, and then caught himself. He softened. “I just think… I think you should stay away from this park for a few days.”

“Why?”

“I can’t explain.”

“You’re nuts,” Minjae muttered, backing up more. “I’m calling someone if you keep talking like that—”

“You won’t laugh like that again if I’m right,” Jimin said flatly. “So laugh now. Just— laugh all you want today. Make it count.”

The boy fled before Jimin could say more.

Jimin sat down on the cold metal bleacher and didn’t move for a long time.

By the time he got home, Taehyung was already there.

Keys jingled at the front door just as Jimin was unlocking it. They stared at each other in the hallway, one wilted plant between them, hanging off the neighbor’s shelf like it wanted to die too.

“You weren’t at work,” Taehyung said, biting off the words.

Jimin blinked. “What?”

“Work. Your job. The one I begged my cousin to get you into. First day. You didn’t show up. No calls, no texts. Jimin— what the hell?”

Jimin turned, unlocking the door. “I forgot.”

“You— forgot?”

“Yeah,” he said lightly. “Sorry.”

The door swung open. The apartment smelled like old takeout and mildew. Jimin stepped inside, kicked off his shoes, and curled into the couch like a cat.

Taehyung stared at him from the doorway, holding a canvas laundry bag. “You haven’t done a single load.”

“Nope.”

“So I just did it for you.”

“Guess so.”

Taehyung stepped in, dropped the bag by the door. “You’re spiraling again.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not eating. You’re not working. You’re not doing anything, Jimin.”

“I went to the park,” Jimin offered, cheek to the cushion. “Got some fresh air. Talked to a kid.”

Taehyung’s jaw tightened. “Talked to a kid?”

“Yeah,” he said, smiling faintly. “Warned him, actually.”

“Warned him about what?”

Jimin didn’t answer.

Taehyung crouched in front of the couch, eyes searching his. “Look at me.”

“I am.”

“You’re scaring me.”

Jimin reached forward and gently touched his cheek. “Don’t be scared, Tae. You’re not the offering.”

Taehyung recoiled. “That’s not funny.”

Jimin’s smile wilted. “Wasn’t a joke.”

“Get help,” Taehyung snapped, suddenly furious. “I mean it. Call someone. I don’t care who. A hotline. A priest. I don’t care.” Then softer, “I love you too much to watch you fall apart again.”

Jimin touched the end of his sleeve to Taehyung’s lips, brushing it like a kiss. “You’re so dramatic.”

Taehyung stood up, stepping back.

“I’m coming back tonight,” he said. “And if you’re not different, I’m calling someone for you.”

“Don’t bother,” Jimin murmured as the door shut behind him.

~

Silence .

Thick as wool.

Jimin sat for five minutes. Ten. Before the twitch in his jaw returned, small and involuntary. His limbs ached with stillness. He stood, slow as a dream, and moved like a ghost to his bedroom.

The door clicked shut behind him, soft as sin. He didn’t go to the bed. Too clean. Too normal. He lowered himself to the floor instead— cold, grounding, quiet.

But then— he smelled it again. Rosewood. Musk. Copper.

He closed his eyes. And Jeongguk was there. Behind him. On him. Everywhere. The phantom weight of hands over his hips, lips ghosting his shoulder, a whisper slick as poison—

“Mine now.”

Jimin gasped, hips twitching. He curled forward onto his knees, breath coming fast and shallow, like he was suffocating on memory.

He remembered— he remembered .

Jeongguk’s mouth on his throat. His teeth dragging across sensitive skin. Hands gripping his thighs until they bruised. That low, cruel growl in his ear. The way Jeongguk bit down on the inside of his knee just to make him scream.

Jimin’s fingers slipped beneath his waistband. Found his cock. Soft. Placid. Not ready. Not enough. But he moved anyway. Slowly. Shamefully.

Still not enough. Not the place where it ached.

His hand trembled as he trailed lower, past the curve of his perineum, up to his winking, aching hole. The pulse of memory pounded in his head as he pressed one small finger inside. Wrong. Not enough. He added a second. Then a third. The sting of the stretch made his eyes roll back.

Made him remember the way Jeongguk’s huge cock had forced him open. How his body had begged for more. How it had hurt. How it felt too good.

He didn’t moan. Didn’t say Jeongguk’s name. He just— breathed. Heavy. Like it hurt. Because it did.

Every drag of his fingers felt like a blade. His wrist jerked, mimicking the rhythm of Jeongguk’s hips slamming into him. He could feel the phantom bruises bloom. Could taste the sweat.

And every breath reminded him: this wasn’t real.

Or worse— it was, and he’d loved it.

He finished too quickly. Bit into his own arm to keep the sob inside. His fingers still buried to the knuckle, soaked and pruned, locked in the tight grip of his own body like it didn’t want to let go.

He shook. Afterward. Like something had been wrung out of him.

He didn’t clean himself up. Didn’t cry. He just sat there, back against the wall, legs spread, body cooling.

Eyes wide and empty.

And thought, one more day. Then I’ll go too.

~

The boy died at Jimin’s feet.  

And he wasn’t even sure if it was real.  

It started as most nightmares do— quietly. No sirens. No screams. Just a door left ajar.  

He hadn’t meant to. He’d just been… tired. Exhausted. Mind frayed at the edges. He’d lined up the pills like soldiers on the counter. Two, maybe four. Just enough to tip him into sleep. Just enough to dream .  

And maybe, if he was lucky— Jeongguk would come. Again.  

The soft sound of the lock clicking was almost gentle. He didn’t move. Didn’t even look. His breath stilled in his lungs. His body knew before his mind did.

And then—  

“ Angel .”  

The voice— dark velvet, familiar, warm like spilled blood.  

He turned. Slowly. Dazed. Still halfway between sleep and something worse. Jeongguk stood in the doorway, silhouetted by hallway light.

He wasn’t alone.

Across his shoulders— slung like a hunting trophy— hung a body.

Jimin blinked once. Then again. And then the horror took shape. The boy. The one from the park. His face bloodied, head lolling. Still breathing— but barely. And Jeongguk, smiling.

Not kindly. Not warmly. But reverently. As if he’d just laid something sacred at Jimin’s feet.

“There you are,” Jeongguk said, voice low, smooth. He dropped the boy onto the floor with a sickening thud . “You forgot your ritual.”

Jimin backed up. Tripped over the edge of his carpet. His back hit the wall. His eyes— wide. His chest— heaving.

“No,” he whispered. “I didn’t— I didn’t mean—”

“But you chose him,” Jeongguk said simply. “Didn’t you?”

He stepped forward. Each click of his shoes on the floor sounded like a gavel. “You watched him. You followed him. You waited. You wanted it.”

“I just—” Jimin’s voice cracked. “I was waiting. I didn’t mean—

“But I heard you,” Jeongguk interrupted, crouching low beside the bleeding boy. He touched the kid’s face. Patted it, almost affectionately. “I always hear you.”

He looked up. Eyes pitch-black and shining. “You prayed, angel. And I came.”

Jimin wanted to scream. Wanted to run. But he couldn’t. Not with the way Jeongguk was looking at him. Not with that heat blooming in his chest. That rush of adrenaline. That sick, sharp edge of need .  

“I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t do this.”  

Jeongguk stood. Walked toward him. Slowly. Like a predator. He gently touched Jimin’s face. Thumb dragging over his lower lip.

“Yes, you can,” he murmured. “And you will.”

He reached into his coat. Pulled something out. Wrapped in velvet. Jimin didn’t have to look to know what it was.  Surgical tools. Clean. Gleaming. Deadly. Jeongguk pressed them into his hands, one by one.

“Come now,” he said gently. “I brought your altar. You do the rest.”  

Jimin could not tell if he moved of his own volition, or if something older— darker— had awakened within him and taken control. His hand reached out, small delicate fingers hovering over the array of surgical instruments Jeongguk had laid out like offerings on an altar.

They gleamed in the low light— immaculate, almost sacred. One scalpel in particular called to him.

And so he answered.

His trembling fingers curled around its slender handle, too tightly, until the metal bit into his palm and opened a cut of his own. A thin line of blood welled up in the soft flesh— red, fragile, almost shy.

Jeongguk tutted softly behind him. A sound that was more indulgent than disapproving. “That’s not for your precious skin, angel,” he murmured, stepping closer, his voice a warm purr of silk over razors. “You have a perfect subject laid before you.“

His killer’s hand ghosted over Jimin’s wrist, not to steal the blade away, but to adjust his grip with careful precision— like a teacher guiding the hand of a favored pupil.

Jimin flinched, but didn’t pull away. His wound stung, but the pain kept him tethered.

The body on the floor— the boy— was still breathing, shallow and ragged. He lay there, chest rising in broken rhythm, as if he, too, was waiting for something inevitable. The room had the stillness of a chapel before the first hymn.

And Jimin descended.

He crouched over the boy like a surgeon or a high priest, blade poised at the collarbone. His breath caught as the steel kissed skin. And then, in one clean, deliberate line, he carved downward. A seam of blood opened under the scalpel, beautiful in its symmetry.

He should have screamed. Should have dropped the tool and recoiled in horror. But instead, he exhaled. And the sound was one of awe.

The boy stirred— gurgled, twitched— and Jeongguk was there in a blink, pressing a rolled scrap of fabric between his teeth to stifle the sounds. “Keep going,” he said, voice velvet-thick.

Jimin pressed deeper. The blade met flesh, then fat, then tissue. Muscles parted like petals beneath his hand. He reached deeper still, layer by trembling layer, until the boy’s torso unfurled beneath him— an anatomical bloom, obscene in its quiet majesty.

Organs, glistening, intact. Nestled like jewels in a velvet box.

He must be mad. But it was beautiful .

The limbs jerked, no longer in conscious protest but in pure, electric agony. Spasms racked the boy’s frame like a puppet dancing on broken strings. Sweat slid down Jimin’s temple, trailing along the curve of his cheek— Jeongguk licked it off.

“Go ahead,” he breathed against Jimin’s skin, his mouth at Jimin’s temple, voice reverent. “It’s all yours. Play, darling. Paint with it.”

Jeongguk’s long fingers curled around Jimin’s wrist again— this time, guiding it downward. With obscene tenderness, he helped Jimin drive the scalpel into the soft swell of a lung.

The spray of blood came fast, like a fountain sprung loose from flesh. Jimin gasped— screamed, even— but Jeongguk caught his mouth with his own.

Their kiss was grotesque. Unholy. Mint toothpaste and metallic gore. Tongues tangled, blood passed between them like wine. Jimin sobbed into it. Clung to it. Opened for it.

When Jeongguk pulled back, lips red and shining, he smiled like a man seeing divinity. “There you go,” he whispered. “You’re doing so well, angel.”

And then, a hush, like ceremony. “Shhh. We don’t want to get caught now, do we?”

Jimin shook his head. Like a child with his hand in the candy jar. Except his hand was halfway inside a body.

They continued.

Jimin carved the second lung free with trembling grace, hands slick and shaking. The boy stopped moving after that. His head lolled to the side, mouth agape, fabric still stuffed between bloodied teeth. Jeongguk worked beside him in silent partnership— sorting organs into thick black bags like a butcher selecting cuts.

Efficiency. Intimacy. A ritual between them.

When it was over, Jimin remained crouched on his heels, staring into the hollowed cavity of the boy’s chest. Bones peeked through like the ruins of a cathedral. Blood soaked his sweatpants. His hands. His tongue.

It lingered. His first offering. Jimin’s first murder .

The silence never came back. Not this time. Because from the hollow between them, from the wreckage of the act they had just committed— came the sound of breathless, stuttering laughter.  

Quiet at first. Shaky. Delicate. Like a string too tightly wound beginning to snap. Then louder, doubled, laced not with joy, not with triumph— but something far crueler.  

Release .

The kind that seeps in after a scream that never quite got out.  

Jimin’s hands were slick, trembling, varnished in blood like some sacrificial relic. His shirt clung to him, soaked through— sweat, maybe. Or something warmer. He didn’t even register that he was crying until Jeongguk— calm, bare-chested, blood at the corner of his lip like a lover’s bruise— lifted a hand and brushed a single tear down his cheek.

“You did so well,” Jeongguk murmured, voice made of smoke and silk. “So beautiful, my angel. My perfect little god.”

It wasn’t flattery. It was worship.

Jimin exhaled shakily, mouth open as if gasping for air in a world where air had long since abandoned him. There was nothing inside him but a slow, aching hollowness— carved out by the blade, and now echoing back.

He wanted to throw up. He wanted to do it again.

Still riding the high, chest heaving with the aftermath of ecstasy and sin, Jimin surged forward— his lips crashed into Jeongguk’s smirking mouth with the fury of a soul clawing at salvation. His body was all instinct, guided by obsession and adrenaline, his smaller frame pulled flush onto Jeongguk’s lap like a creature seeking heat. Thighs closed tightly around the sculpted waist, grinding in desperation.

Jimin kissed him with a madness that could burn down cathedrals, a trembling hunger that spoke of sleepless nights and haunted dreams. He poured every ounce of chaos into the kiss, like a drowning man kissing breath itself. His hips moved greedily, grinding his ass over the thick bulge straining against Jeongguk’s pants. His parted lips released a shuddering gasp, and his blood-streaked fingers— shaking, trembling— buried themselves in Jeongguk’s dark hair as if to anchor himself to this reality.

Jeongguk’s hands were large, worshipful, spanning the entirety of Jimin’s back, pressing their chests together until Jimin could feel every beat of the heart that had stopped for no one— except perhaps him. Open-mouth kisses dragged down the edge of Jimin’s jaw, settling like claims along the soft flesh of his neck before latching onto his gland with a wet, searing suck.

“Please,” Jimin begged, voice breaking like shattered glass, raw and dripping need. “Want you… Jeongguk.”

It was sick, insane— deranged, even— to want to be fucked beside the corpse they had just left bleeding on the floor. But Jimin had long since passed the point of no return. His sanity had crumbled alongside his inhibitions, and what remained was this— a beast of longing.

He rocked his hips again, this time slow and deliberate, filthy in a way that defied logic. He begged like he had never begged before— like his fucking life depended on being filled.

And Jeongguk, ever the sovereign of his destruction, obeyed like a devoted disciple. His hands snuck beneath the blood-drenched fabric of Jimin’s shirt, reverent as they traced the curve of his ribs, then upward, cupping his chest like he was holding something sacred.

Clothes disappeared in flashes— shirts ripped off, pants shoved down in frantic urgency— and they ended up sprawled naked across the blood-slick floor. Skin against skin, breath tangled between their mouths, and the body beside them forgotten like an afterthought of sin.

“You’re really an angel,” Jeongguk murmured, amusement curling around his voice as he gently lowered Jimin to the floor. “Your hair looks like a halo.”

The irony didn’t slip past either of them— Jimin, blood-streaked and ruined, haloed in gore, was no angel. But madness didn’t care for logic. If Jeongguk declared him divine, then so be it. Jimin would wear his delusion like a crown.

He opened his legs with a soft sigh, heels digging into Jeongguk’s lower back as if urging him forward. His hole throbbed with emptiness, a hollow ache so unbearable it nearly made him sob. He needed to be filled, fucked full until the madness was replaced by something real— something carnal.

Jeongguk positioned himself reverently between Jimin’s thighs, one tattooed arm steadying the pale limb hooked over his shoulder while the other hand explored lower, tracing down Jimin’s belly to his leaking cock, and then further— fingertips ghosting over his needy hole.

Jimin’s breath hitched. He was trembling, waiting, begging for it. The first finger pressed in, slow, stretching him open with a teasing burn. He winced, not at the pain, but at how much he wanted more. Another finger followed, merciless, and Jimin tensed, his face crumpling as the stretch became sharper.

“There, there,” Jeongguk whispered, lips brushing against Jimin’s as he shoved in a third. “I won’t hurt you, angel.”

He kissed him hard then, tongue dominant, a distraction from the pain of being stretched so obscenely wide. Jeongguk began to move his fingers— pulling back, plunging in— setting a ruthless rhythm that had Jimin’s head thrown back, eyes rolling white.

The lewd squelch of fingers dragging inside him was grotesque, and it reminded Jimin of the moment the knife sank into flesh, of blood spurting, of the violent gurgle that accompanied a fatal wound. His cock bounced with every thrust of Jeongguk’s hand, hard and leaking.

The corpse remained beside them, limbs askew, blood puddled like some macabre altar to their sins. And they— these two madmen— fucked beside it like it was divine approval.

Jimin was wrecked. His mouth was open, drooling pleas, incoherent cries spilling from swollen lips. His cheeks were smeared red from the floor, his hands clawing at Jeongguk’s arm, nails biting into inked skin as the pleasure overtook him.

He came— suddenly, violently— ropes of cum spurting onto his own stomach, his cock twitching from overstimulation as Jeongguk’s fingers slowed.

Then, without warning, he was hoisted back up into Jeongguk’s lap like a ragdoll, his body still trembling from orgasm, ass slick with lube and cum and blood. He was limp, pliant, utterly ruined.

“You’re more insane than I thought,” Jeongguk laughed, dark and delighted. “You came while being fingered beside a corpse.”

Jimin clung to him like a lifeline, wrapping his arms around Jeongguk’s neck. “You want me insane,” he whispered, voice hoarse. “You made me like this.”

And Jeongguk lifted him again, cock pressing at Jimin’s dripping hole. Their eyes met. And then— one thrust. One deep, merciless push— and Jeongguk was inside.

They both gasped.

Jeongguk’s cock filled him like a blade sliding into its sheath— thick, unforgiving, perfect. Jimin cried out, burying his face in Jeongguk’s neck, clinging to him as his walls clenched tightly around the intrusion, his hole fluttering.

“You’re a natural,” Jeongguk whispered against his jaw, biting softly. “You were made for ruin. Madness looks pretty on you.”

Jimin’s cheeks burned. It was unhinged— utterly, horrifyingly sweet. The most beautiful compliment he’d ever received.

“Ruin’s empty without you,” Jimin confessed, eyes glistening. “Stop disappearing on me.”

Jeongguk stared into his soul. “Is this you being clingy?” he teased, before snapping his hips up with a grunt. “You’re literally wrapped around my cock, angel.”

Jimin moaned, neck arching in offering. “More. Please.”

“As you wish.”

And then Jeongguk fucked him— fucked him like he was losing his mind. Arms wrapped tight, he pounded up into Jimin with relentless force, every thrust a brand, every moan a hymn. Jimin bounced in his lap, brown hair wild, lips parted in a litany of “ ah, ah, ah,” each sound torn from somewhere deep and delirious.

They fucked like gods in a cathedral of death. They fucked as if time had to pause and bear witness. And maybe it did.

When it ended, Jimin had come twice, body trembling, hole overflowing with Jeongguk’s seed. They didn’t move. They just held each other— trembling, blood-slicked, real.

Jeongguk was real. Real like the ache in Jimin’s chest, like the pleasure humming under his skin, like the blood that stained their thighs.

But questions still lingered. What was Jeongguk? A demon ? A hallucination ? Jimin didn’t know. He only knew this: Jeongguk had ruined him so exquisitely, he never wanted to be whole again.

Jeongguk pulled out slowly, and cum spilled from Jimin’s raw hole, mixing with blood in a sticky mess that nearly made Jimin cry with how wrong it felt— so beautiful and so fucked up.

Jeongguk kissed his temple. “Let’s clean you up first. Then we clean this mess.”

No words after that. Just movement.

Jeongguk cleaned him like a lover and a sinner both— soft towel to thighs, to belly, to the ruined hole. Then himself. Then, finally, they dressed in clean clothes, and together, they began the slow, methodical work of cleaning up the blood, the body, the proof of everything they had done.

And through it all, they didn’t speak. Because what could be said? The silence said enough: we’re in this together, until the very end.

Everything was practiced, efficient. A ballet of the macabre. They bagged the limp, gutted body in a thick black tarp, sealing the horror like a gift. They scrubbed the floor, took turns with bleach and hot water and gloves that didn’t dare rip. Every hair was accounted for. Every trace, erased.  

It wasn’t desperation. It was ritual.

And then, they didn’t hide him. Didn’t dig a grave, or fold him into the earth like a secret.  

They left the body discarded behind a half-lit public bathroom in the city park— beneath flickering fluorescent lights, propped like a saint in a cathedral of rot. His chest was a split-open altar, organs gone, cavity hollowed like he had been offering all along.

A tableau. A sermon. A warning.

By the time the first light of dawn crawled through Seoul’s fog-stained skyline, the press would have their name for it, the killing angel.

They’d show aerial photos of the scene on morning broadcasts. They’d censor the image, but not its violence. They’d speculate— gangs? cults? artistic terrorism?— but they would not understand.  

No one ever really understands divinity when it bleeds.  

Far away, in the velvet shadows of an old, windowless room, two ghosts watched the world unravel on a flickering TV screen.  

Jeongguk was shirtless, legs spread on the velvet settee, cigarette perched lazily between his lips, the ash curling and threatening to fall but never quite daring. His eyes gleamed— proud, curious.

Possessive.  

And in his lap, Jimin. Bare thighs marked with drying cum stains, fucked out, eyes half-lidded and unreadable, his cheek pressed to Jeongguk’s sternum like he was listening for something buried there.

A heartbeat. A hymn. A matching silence.  

Jeongguk leaned down, brushing a damp strand of brown hair from Jimin’s face. His voice, when it came, was quiet. Knife-sharp.  

“Still think you’re not like me?”  

A pause.  

Jimin didn’t answer. His lashes fluttered. His body stilled. He closed his eyes. And dreamed— of crimson. Of pulp. Of lungs like roses unfolding in the bloom of a scream.

He dreamed of blood.

And it cradled him back.