Chapter 1: 01 | devotion
Chapter Text
Worthless.
The word sits in Taehyung's skull like a rotting tooth.
Not painful anymore—just there, decayed into the bone, a permanent fixture. Worthless. His mother's voice, twenty-something years later, still echoing.
Sometimes he imagines cutting into his brain, finding where that word lives, and scrubbing it clean. But nothing ever gets clean enough.
Paris is outside—pavement slicked with cold, the breath of a morning rain barely dried. In here, the air is flat.
Fluorescent.
Everything smells faintly of mop water and dying batteries.
He exists behind the counter, with his wrists tucked close, thumbnail grinding against the seam where the plastic laminate splits. It’s not a conscious movement. The itch just collects there—under his skin, inside his jaw, everywhere his mother’s voice ever landed.
(worthless)
The shelf by the door coughs out its contents: a can rolls, then a bottle, another bottle, a clatter that jars the pulse behind his eye. Sticky leaks on the tiles. No one looks at him—customer, manager, pink-haired girl behind the second register sketching with a dried-out pen. He’s the quiet one. The shadow. The clean-up.
He counts the droplets on the ground. One. Two. The stain widens. Beer and cola. A chemical amber, eating its way along the grout. His fingers twitch for the cheap blue rag balled up under the till. Sticky spots, dirty dots, broken thoughts. Three. Four. Five. It’s spreading. Marcel’s voice always comes before the panic does.
“Kid! Clean that shit up, come on! Clients don’t have all day.”
He sees the world in surfaces and stains. Every footprint etched in last night’s grime. Chewing gum slicked flat under a boot near the cooler. The way someone’s fingernails left half-moons in the tape over the torn cereal box. Small atrocities. He is intimately acquainted with the way filth lingers—in the cracks, yes, but also in his chest, in the language of his own hands.
He moves without thinking: rag in hand, knees bending. The bottle neck is sticky. His palm leaves a ghost on the glass—oily, ugly.
(dirty, dirty, dirtydirtydirt)
He swears he can hear her voice; the echo that raised him sharper than any cradle song.
He wipes too hard, more circles than necessary, like there is any chance of making the world new.
One. Two. Three. Seven. Seven. Seven again. If the number is right, the feeling dulls.
Nothing makes it right.
The rag soaks up sugar, cheap wheat, that thin acrid scent that reminds him of old men on metro benches. The stickiness clings to his fingers, seeping past skin and nail, as if he’s absorbing the world’s waste molecule by molecule.
If he had a choice, he’d bleach the whole city. Himself first.
Someone steps around him—he feels the shadow before the person—a grunt, a grumble in French about the mess, about incompetence. He shrinks into the crouch. Tries to take up less space.
Sometimes, he wonders what it would take to be truly invisible.
Sometimes, he thinks he’s halfway there already.
(worthless)
He doesn’t know when the word started looping. Was it, really, at two years old? Maybe three. Maybe four, when he dropped a bowl and she made him hold the shards, blood trailing into the grout as proof of his clumsiness.
‘If you were worth anything, you’d be clean. You’d be careful. You’d be quiet and good and wanted.’
He’s quiet. He’s careful. He’s so good at disappearing he startles himself when Marcel barks his name—the only time he hears it, sandpapered into a reprimand.
Sometimes the sound of it makes him nauseous.
He presses the rag into the floor. Bleach sting in the back of his throat. Nails scrub until knuckles ache, the line between diligent and desperate lost years ago. He likes this better than standing—the way knees grind bone against bone, the ache that says he’s solid, present, here.
It almost feels like penance.
He glances up—Sophie sketches him again, glancing once, twice, pausing on the curl of his neck. He will become a line in her notebook, a story she tells at parties, a tragic fixture in the background of her real life. He hates that he has thoughts about being observed. If anyone really saw, they’d peel back layers until nothing was left but the word.
(worthless)
The store’s radio coughs static. Some old pop song limping its way through a broken speaker. The world blurs at the edges—what is Paris, if not concrete and piss and distant sunlight, leaking slowly across linoleum? He wishes the tiles here would just dissolve.
Wishes his skin would too.
He wrings the rag out in the bucket, watches beer foam swirl with grime down the cheap plastic drain. His hands are pink, raw, stained with the same feeling that never quite leaves. His fingertips burn. Sometimes they bleed. That’s good.
Pain is clean. Pain is honest.
Marcel doesn’t say thank you. Doesn’t look at him. Sophie tucks her drawing away, eyes flickering elsewhere. Taehyung straightens, wipes his palms on his trousers, and returns to the counter. He exists to erase.
Counting in his head—seven steps to the end of the aisle. Seven minutes until the shift ends. Seven letters in the nine his mother wrote under his skin:
Worthless.
Sometimes he thinks it’s the only word he’ll ever earn.
And outside, the city is gray. Inside, he is nothing. Inside, he is clean.
(For a moment. For seven counts. That’s all.)
The water makes patterns like fractured light.
His shift ends like they always do—uneventful, almost unregistered in the library of his mind.
Paris is set in a brooding mood, rain stalking down the windows carelessly. Taehyung watches each droplet make its slow descent, leaving dirty trails on the glass he'd scrubbed this morning.
Seven hours ago. The bleach has worn off. Everything wears off eventually.
He'll have to clean the windows before going home. Marcel doesn't really care. Clean windows mean cleaner space. Cleaner space is good for Marcel's business. Or its reputation at least. Not that Taehyung cares about reputation or lack thereof, he just needs to quiet down the bubbling pressure that builds in his chest when the water droplets remove the bleach he's injected into the glass this morning.
The streak marks form constellations he doesn't know the names of. Names have never mattered much to him. Except when they belong to ghosts.
(worthlessworthlessworthless)
The register drawer sticks when he pulls it, a metallic scrape that makes his molars ache. He counts the bills by sevens—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Again. Again. The rhythm is comforting, like a metronome he can set his pulse to. His fingers leave no prints on the paper. He's careful about that. So careful.
Sophie comes by his counter, as she usually does at this time. Her hair is wet at the ends, dripping onto her shoulders. The moisture makes him twitch. He knows the pattern, knows how her hand raises to pat him in the shoulder, so he moves. Just lightly. A shift to the left. His body tilting away from contact like a plant bending from shadow.
She notices. She always notices. But she never says anything about it.
"Marcel left early," she says, tapping her pen against her lower lip. "Something about his daughter's recital. You know how he gets about that little prodigy of his."
Taehyung doesn't respond. He doesn't know what it's like to have a father proud enough to leave work early. He doesn't know what it's like to have someone watch you with anything but disappointment.
Sophie sighs into the silence. The sound scrapes against his eardrums. He counts the register one more time, even though the numbers are perfect. They're always perfect. He makes sure of it.
"You should really come to the dinner tonight. Would do some good for you to socialize," she says with a grin that shows too many teeth.
Her lipstick is smudged at the corner. Imperfect. He wants to hand her a tissue but his hands stay where they are, counting, ordering, fixing what isn't broken.
He doesn't blame her for trying. He doesn't blame her for the invitation that comes every Friday, the same words in slightly different arrangements. He doesn't blame her for not understanding that socializing feels like drowning with an audience.
Taehyung doesn't respond, simply nods. He's learned the minimum requirements for human interaction. Nod. Blink. Breathe. Exist without being noticed.
She sighs, signals two fingers over her forehead as she exits the store, all while saying, "Don't stay too late, and close before you leave!"
Taehyung didn't need the reminder. He always checks seven times before he leaves, that the door is closed.
Sophie knows. He knows she knows. He still doesn't say a word, just nods. Then, Sophie is gone.
Solitude, at last.
Empty store, peace restored.
His fingers move to the cloth under the register. It's damp from earlier, beer and soda and whatever else the world tracked in. He should get a fresh one. Clean things with clean tools. His mother taught him that, at least, between the lessons about worthlessness.
The rain comes down harder now, drumming against the glass. The windows will need extra attention. He can already feel the itch building under his skin, the need to make everything spotless before he leaves. Before he walks through the rain and into his apartment, where everything is already clean but never clean enough.
He moves methodically. Counts each step. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Again. The mop bucket rattles as he pulls it from the back room. Water sloshes against plastic sides. He measures the bleach precisely. One cap. Two caps. The smell burns his nostrils, familiar and comforting. It smells like absolution.
The store is empty now. Just him and the endless task of erasing evidence that anyone was ever here. He likes it this way. Prefers it. People leave messes. People notice things. People try to touch his shoulder and invite him to dinners where he would have to speak and be seen and remembered.
No one remembers the person who cleans up after them. That's the beauty of it.
The mop makes wet streaks across the floor. He counts each stroke. Seven in one direction. Seven in the other. The pattern matters. The rhythm matters. If he gets it wrong, something terrible might happen. He doesn't know what. He just knows the fear tastes like metal at the back of his throat.
The windows come last. He saves them because they're the worst. Because they connect inside to outside. Because they're never truly clean, no matter how hard he scrubs.
He sprays the glass, watches the solution drip down in rivulets that mirror the rain on the other side. Seven sprays. Seven wipes. Seven circles clockwise, seven counterclockwise. The ritual matters. The counting matters.
When he's done, the store gleams under the harsh lights. No evidence that anyone has been here. No evidence that he exists at all, except in the absence of dirt.
Then, a sound.
It comes from behind the door nobody opens.
Not the storeroom where Marcel keeps the cigarettes he thinks no one knows about, not the employee bathroom with its perpetually damp floor—the other one. The abandoned space where even Marcel refuses to go.
Taehyung freezes mid-wipe, cloth suspended against glass. The sound isn't loud. Just different. A disruption in the pattern of silence he's grown accustomed to.
He finishes the seventh circle, completing the ritual. Can't leave it unfinished. Bad things happen when rituals break. His mother taught him that—one of the few lessons that wasn't delivered with a slap or that word.
(worthless)
The sound comes again. Not a crash or a thud, but something lighter. A scrape, perhaps. The shuffle of something being moved after years of stillness.
His bleach bottle is nearly empty. The level has dropped below the label, and the thought of finishing his cleaning without it makes his chest cave inward. The supply closet—the forbidden one—holds what he needs. Marcel put the cleaning supplies there because no one else wants them. Because Taehyung is the only one who uses them. Because Marcel knows he'll go, no matter how much it terrifies him.
The handle feels wrong under his palm. Not cold or hot, but somehow both. The metal leaves an impression on his skin that he'll need to scrub away later. Seven times. With soap that smells like nothing.
The door creaks—not dramatically like in films, but with the quiet protest of hinges that have forgotten their purpose. The smell hits him first: dust and mildew, ancient paper, and something underneath it all that reminds him of childhood.
Not his childhood—someone else's. Someone who was allowed to be happy.
Taehyung doesn't step fully inside. He hovers at the threshold, one foot in darkness, one in light. Liminal. The word appears in his head unbidden. He knows it from somewhere. A book, maybe. Something he read in the quiet hours when sleep refused to come.
The bleach is stacked against the far wall. Seven bottles. Always seven. Marcel orders them in sevens now without being asked. It's the only kindness Taehyung has ever noticed from the man.
He'll have to cross the room to get there. Step fully into the space that feels wrong.
His skin prickles with contamination.
One step. The floor creaks.
Two. Dust motes dance in what little light filters through a grimy window.
Three. His breathing shallows.
Four. The sound comes again, clearer now. Not from this room, but beyond it.
Five. His hand twitches at his side, wanting to count on fingers but knowing better. Counting out loud is for children. Counting visibly is for the insane.
Six. He sees the wall isn't solid. There's glass embedded in it, cloudy with years of neglect.
Seven. He stops, right where he needs to be. The bottles wait, patient as saints.
He crouches, careful not to let his knees touch the floor. It's filthy here. Beyond salvaging. The kind of dirty that lives in the bones of a place, too deep for even bleach to reach. He imagines gutting the room—tearing out floorboards, scraping walls down to bare structure, burning it all and starting fresh. The fantasy calms him enough to grab a bottle.
That's when the melody starts.
Piano notes, distant but clear. A practice scale, then something more complex. The music doesn't filter through the wall—it seems to emerge from it, as if the plaster itself remembers a tune.
Taehyung stands, bottle clutched to his chest. His eyes find the glass panel naturally, drawn by the sound. It's a mirror, he realizes. Or it was meant to be. Years of grime have turned it into a cloudy barrier between this space and whatever lies beyond.
Curiosity is dangerous. His mother taught him that too. But the music pulls at something in him—a thread he didn't know was loose.
He approaches the glass, steps measured in sevens. The closer he gets, the clearer the sound becomes. Not just piano now. There's movement.
Without thinking, he raises his free hand—the one not clutching bleach like a lifeline—and wipes a small circle in the grime. The action is so automatic, so ingrained, that he doesn't register the contamination until it's done.
His palm is gray with dust. He'll need to wash it. Scrub it. Make it clean again.
But then he sees through the cleared space, and everything else falls away.
The room beyond isn't abandoned. It's alive with light—not the harsh fluorescence of the convenience store, but something softer. Golden. The floors are wood, worn but cared for. Barres line the walls. A practice room.
And in its center, a figure moves.
She doesn't dance to the piano.
She is the music.
(worthyworthyworthy)
Her body creates shapes he doesn't have names for. Arcs and lines that make his breath catch.
Taehyung doesn't know ballet. Doesn't know dance at all. But he knows beauty when he sees it. Knows holiness. Recognizes glory.
The glass, he realizes, isn't just dirty. It's one-way. A mirror on her side, a window on his. She can't see him watching. Doesn't know she's being witnessed.
The knowledge makes him feel profane. He shouldn't be here. Shouldn't be seeing this. It's too intimate, too sacred for someone like him.
(worthless)
But he can't look away.
Her hair is pulled back, severe and perfect. No strand out of place. Her leotard (is that the word? he thinks it might be) clings to a form that seems impossible—all angles and curves existing together in defiance of what bodies should be able to do.
When she turns, her face catches light. Features like a doll. But her gaze is nothing like that. Eyes focused on nothing but her reflection. On perfection. On control.
She is everything he is not.
Clean.
Worthy.
Then, a series of turns that make his head spin just watching. She's counting, he realizes. Her lips move slightly with each rotation. One, two, three... he can't tell how high she goes. Can't follow the complexity of it.
The bleach bottle is cold against his chest. His palm still dirty. His breath fogging the small clear spot he's made in the glass.
He should leave. Should run. Should take his bleach and go back to his world of sticky floors and meaningless tasks. Should never come back here again.
But even as he thinks it, he knows he will. Knows that he'll return tomorrow, like he has to now. And the day after. And every day the store is open. Just to stand in this filthy room he can't bear to be in. Just to watch her move like water, like air.
Like everything pure in a world of contamination.
Chapter 2: 02 | twirls
Summary:
➔ CONTENT in this chapter: self-demanding thoughts; perfectionism, self-critique, pushing oneself, expectations, dismissing praise, first encounter, lowkey sadistic streaks (lol you go girl), shaking, trembling, antisocial behaviors, anxiety, ocd, curiosity
Notes:
➔ A/N: So, fair warning, I know the aesthetic needs work, I know there’s no color but it’s 3AM and I pushed myself to post this because I have been writing and editing all night and I needed this bitch out or I wouldn’t allow myself to sleep (tragic). SO. Here’s my baby number 2. What can I say about this one, truly… I think you can really pin down OC’s personality in this one a lot better, bahahahahaha. I know what you guys were thinking when you saw stalker x ballerina, and I’m glad to twist your expectations completely and be like ‘yeah nope’. You’ll see how this develops but… Yeah I don’t know, I fucking love her. I adore the water imagery, I adore the nicknames I’ve given these two and I can’t fucking wait for you guys to see more. I also adore him, no lies told here. He’s so pathetic and reverent and ugh my heart combusts everytime I write him shaking (I am mentally unwell, we all know that). Anyways, no more yapping from me. Enjoy this monster. As always, I’ll be maniacally laughing while reading your unhinged comments. Mwah mwah mwah. 💕
Chapter Text
Another twirl.
Your body knows the motion by heart—the sharp pivot, the snap of head and shoulders following a fraction of a second later, the correction of your core that comes automatically.
Another twirl.
The floor beneath you creaks, just slightly. Just enough to notice. Just enough to hate.
Another twirl. Another twirl. Another twirl.
It's not perfect. It's not enough.
Your ankle wobbles one-eighth of a centimeter on the landing. Invisible to anyone else. Glaring to you. You will never achieve perfection if you don't master a simple fucking twirl.
Another twirl.
Camille sneers from the barre. Her reflection catches yours between rotations—that twist of lips, that narrowing of eyes. It is ugly, really, that expression on her face. The way her mouth quirks down at the corner, the way her nostrils flare just slightly. You would feel anger at the derision in her mouth, but it is so exaggerated it's pitiful, really. So you deviate your gaze, focus on the mirror in front of you, and continue twirling.
Another.
Another.
The studio’s windows are streaked with last night's rain—Madame never allows the cleaning staff to touch them during rehearsal weeks. ‘Too distracting,’ she says. As if anything could distract you from the absolute necessity of this movement.
Your leotard cuts into your hip, just slightly. You'll have a mark there later. You don't adjust it. Discomfort is irrelevant.
"Excellent extension,” Madame calls your name from the front of the room.
Her voice is crisp, just as usual. You don't register it. Praise means adequate. It is what's expected of you. Expected and therefore unremarkable.
The rest of the company has moved on to petit batterie. You remain in your corner, working. They glance at you between jumps. You don't look back.
Madame calls your name again, and then says, "join the others, please."
You nod once.
You take your place at the back of the group, not out of modesty but because it gives you the clearest view of yourself in the mirror.
You need to see the mistakes before anyone else does.
Jean-Paul catches your eye in the reflection. Smiles. You don't smile back. His smile isn't for you—it's for the image of himself smiling at you. Everything he does is performance. You recognize it because you do the same.
The piano starts. Your body follows. Jump, land, repeat. Your muscles know the pattern. Your mind catalogs each moment, each placement of finger and toe. It's automatic, this dissection. This constant evaluation.
Madame walks among the dancers, making corrections, yet she never approaches you. That's not a compliment. It's simply acknowledgment that you'll fix your own flaws before she can identify them.
Elodie, in the front row, keeps glancing back at you. Her form is flawless as always, but you note how tense she is. How she always is around you.
She knows you're gaining on her. She's thirty next month. Ancient, in ballet years.
The combination ends. The pianist pauses.
"Let's try that again," Madame says. "And this time, perhaps with some actual musicality? We are artists, not robots."
She isn't looking at you when she says it, but you feel the words land anyway. You've been called mechanical before. Precise to a fault. It shouldn't bother you—precision is the foundation of excellence—but something in your chest tightens.
Water break.
The other dancers cluster by their bags, talking in low voices.
You stay at the barre, stretching.
Your hamstring protests. You push deeper into the stretch.
Madame beckons you. "A word, please."
You cross the room, spine straight, chin level. Your reflection follows you, a pale ghost in black cotton.
"Your fouettés are improving," she says.
It's not a compliment. It's a fact.
"Thank you, Madame."
"The company performs Ondine next season. I'm considering you for the lead."
Your face remains neutral. Your pulse does not.
Ondine. The water nymph who gains a soul through love, only to lose everything.
Not just a lead—the lead.
"I'll work harder," you say.
Madame's mouth twitches. Not quite a smile. "That would be inadvisable. You're already overtraining. Work smarter, not harder."
You nod, though you don't agree. There is no ‘smart’ way to excellence. There is only work. Endless, punishing work.
You turn back to the center, Ondine in your head.
You’ll research her later.
The piano begins again. You take your place. Your custom Freeds creak slightly—you'll need a new pair soon. This one has perhaps two more hours of life in it. You've already prepared the next pair, scoring the soles according to your usual pattern, crushing the box to your exact preference, sewing the ribbons in the specific formation that minimizes blisters on your Achilles.
Camille watches you from her place at the barre, her freckles barely visible beneath her foundation. She performs friendship whenever others are watching, but you've caught her moving your water bottle from your spot, just slightly, just to see what you do.
Collecting weaknesses like souvenirs.
It is pitiful.
She is pitiful.
You are not.
Another combination. Another chance to fail. Another chance to be slightly less imperfect than yesterday.
L'heure bleue.
The hour, however, is not currently blue. Hours don't hold colors in themselves. The name is pretentious, like most things in this city. But the fluorescent sign flickers that particular shade of navy that matches the rain-slicked streets outside, so perhaps there's some truth to it after all.
You catalog the store methodically. Four aisles. One register. Three security cameras—one broken, its red light permanently extinguished. The floor tiles are chipped at the corners.
Imperfect.
Everything is imperfect here.
Rain slides down the windows in precise rivulets. You've been caught in it twice today already. First during your morning commute, then during the three-minute walk from the studio to this convenience store. Your hair—still pulled back in its regulation bun—is damp at the edges. The slight discomfort of wet hair against your scalp is familiar. Almost comforting.
Better the rain, anyway. You need to understand water if you're going to embody it.
Ondine.
It sits in your chest, the role, like a stone dropped into deep water, heavy like an anchor pulling you under.
You can already hear the applause, see the perfect arc your body will make as you take your final bow.
Another performance. Another success. Another inevitability.
Your eyes move across the shelves with surgical precision. Land on the protein bars. The numbers flash in your mind automatically: 20 grams of protein, 180 calories, 4 grams of sugar.
Excessive.
Unnecessary.
You grimace.
The bar goes back exactly where you found it, aligned with the others. Your stomach tightens—from hunger or discipline, you're not sure there's a difference anymore.
Your bun pulls at your scalp, the slight sting a reminder of structure. Beauty is pain. Excellence is sacrifice. These are not platitudes but mathematical certainties. Input equals output. You have the equations memorized.
The oversized cardigan hangs past your hips, concealing the lines of your body. Leotard, tights, canvas shoes—not pointe shoes, never pointe shoes outside the studio. That would be blasphemous. Disrespectful to the craft. You'd sooner walk barefoot through Paris than subject your pointe shoes to the indignity of street grime.
You move through the aisles with the same deliberate placement of feet that you use in adagio. Heel, arch, toe. No wasted motion. No unnecessary steps.
The cosmetics section is in the back corner, poorly lit. You need cotton pads. The ones at home are nearly gone—three left, to be precise. Not enough for tomorrow morning's routine. You glance down, locate them on the bottom shelf.
Crouch.
A blur of motion interrupts your descent. Someone reaches—faster than you, more impulsive—and retrieves the package. Hands it to you without a word.
You note the gloves first. Latex. Clinical blue. Worn at the fingertips as if from constant scrubbing.
Then the downturned face, completely obscured by ashy, wavy hair that falls forward like a curtain.
You can't see his eyes. Can't see anything above the bridge of his nose. Just the curve of his mouth, pressed into a tight line. The shoulders hunched slightly forward. The careful distance he maintains—close enough to hand you the cotton, far enough that no part of him risks touching you.
"Thank you," you say.
Your voice sounds strange in the empty store.
Too formal. Too precise.
He doesn't respond verbally. Just nods once, a sharp downward jerk of his chin. His face remains tilted toward the floor, hidden behind that fall of unkempt hair.
You take the cotton pads. The package is slightly dented on one corner. Your eyebrows furrow before you can stop them.
The reaction is immediate. He snatches the package back, so quickly it startles you. For 2.5 seconds, you stand frozen, watching as he examines the shelf with frantic intensity. He selects another package—perfectly intact—and offers it to you with both hands, like a supplicant.
His fingers never touch yours during the exchange. It’s like the avoidance is intentional. Thought out.
You straighten, the pristine cotton pad package in hand. Consider saying something else. Decide against it. What would be the point? Social niceties are performances without purpose. At least on stage, the performance means something.
The rain continues its assault on the windows. You'll be soaked again on the walk back to your apartment. Your hair will frizz at the temples. Your canvas shoes will squelch with each step.
Bothersome.
You approach the register, mentally calculating how many steps it will take. It feels oddly hollow, this convenience store…
Empty except for the cashier—a pink-haired girl with three facial piercings who hasn't looked up from her phone once—and the strange man with the latex gloves.
Seven steps to the counter. You take them.
The cotton pads make a soft sound when you set them down. The cashier doesn't move.
"Excuse me."
Your voice is clipped. Necessary.
She looks up, blinks, then sets her phone down with visible reluctance. Scans the package. Names a price that you mentally note is 0.20€ higher than last month.
Inflation. Even cotton isn't immune to economic decay.
You reach for your wallet—left pocket of your cardigan, where it always is—and find nothing.
A blank space where certainty should be.
Your hand slides to the right pocket. Also empty.
You left it at the studio. The realization arrives without emotion, just a fact to be cataloged. An error to be logged.
You never make this kind of mistake.
(You made this kind of mistake.)
"I don't—" you begin, but stop.
The sentence is a dead end. Unnecessary.
You'll simply return the cotton pads to their shelf and come back tomorrow. It's inefficient, but not catastrophic. You have three pads at home, which is sufficient for one more morning routine. You'll adjust.
The pink-haired girl sighs. Her lower lip has a small sore where the ring passes through.
Before you can pick up the cotton pads, there's movement to your left.
The man with the gloves steps forward. Not close enough to crowd, but close enough that you register the height difference.
It is inevitable, catching the scent of something warm beneath the clinical sting of antiseptic—roasted chestnuts, perhaps. The kind sold in paper cones along the Seine in winter.
He keeps his head down, that curtain of fluffy hair obscuring his features. One gloved hand extends, placing exact change on the counter.
His fingers are long. Elegant, even in those hideous blue gloves. You notice a slight tremor as he pulls his hand back quickly—as if the proximity to the cashier might contaminate him somehow.
The money isn't for him. He hasn't bought anything. It's for your cotton pads.
"I don't need—" you begin, but he's already retreating, backing away from the counter, from you.
His shoulders curl forward. The blue latex of his gloves catches the fluorescent light, making his hands look bloodless. He steps backward, once, twice, eyes still fixed on the floor.
The cashier shrugs, takes the money. "Need a bag?"
You shake your head. No. More plastic waste for something so small would be absurd. Wasteful. Undisciplined.
The cotton pads are yours now, purchased by a stranger who won't look at you.
You should thank him. Social convention demands it. But when you turn, he's no longer beside you.
You scan the store, methodical. Not by the register. Not in the front aisle. You spot him in the back corner, methodically straightening items on a shelf. The motions almost beautiful in their devotion to order.
Three steps and you're close enough to speak without raising your voice.
"Thank you for the pads."
The words come out stiff. Clinical. Ridiculous, suddenly. Thank you for the pads. As if there's any meaning to the gesture beyond simple efficiency.
He freezes completely. His back to you, shoulders gone rigid. You can see the line of his spine through his oversized black shirt. Too thin. His belt has been cinched to the last hole and still hangs loose at his waist.
When he doesn't respond, you consider walking away. You've fulfilled the social obligation. Acknowledged the gesture. There's no reason to prolong this interaction.
But something stops you. Some strange, unquantifiable curiosity about this man who won't face you. Who performs small kindnesses while visibly shaking. Who wears medical gloves in a convenience store.
You wait for a response that doesn't come.
A drop of water falls from your hair onto your collarbone. Slides down beneath your leotard. The sensation is unwelcome and bothersome.
He remains perfectly still, as if movement might shatter something crucial. His breathing is shallow. Almost imperceptible.
You should leave now. The exchange is complete. The social obligation fulfilled.
Instead, you tilt your head slightly. Study the slope of his shoulders. The precise angle of his neck as he stares fixedly at the shelf before him. The way his gloved fingers press against his thigh in a rhythm you can't quite decode.
Something about him is... delicate. Like a blown glass figure one breath away from shattering.
A strange impulse seizes you. You want to see his face. Want to know if his features match the fragility of his posture. Want to understand why he refuses to meet your eyes.
You step to the side. Just slightly. Just enough that you might catch a glimpse of his profile.
His reaction is immediate—he turns away, keeping that curtain of washed-out hair between you. Maintaining his anonymity with surprising determination.
The motion is too deliberate to be coincidental—as if he's preserving something vital through this avoidance.
You find it... interesting.
Most men stare. They always have. Since you were thirteen and your body first began to take the shape that others found worth watching. Their gazes slide over you like oil—unpleasant but expected. A toll you pay for occupying space.
This man refuses to look at all. Refuses even to be seen himself.
The novelty of it sparks something in you. A flicker of curiosity. A desire to press just a little further.
"Why are you helping me?" The question is direct. Almost rude in its bluntness.
No response. Just that same rigid posture. The same careful avoidance.
The cashier calls from the front: "We're closing in five."
You should leave. The cotton pads are secured. The errand complete. There's no logical reason to remain.
You take one step back. Then another.
His shoulders lower by perhaps two millimeters. Relief.
Your eyes narrow. What a curious reaction to a simple retreat. As if your mere proximity causes him distress.
As you turn to go, something catches your eye. A small plastic employee badge clipped to his belt. Mostly obscured by his shirt, but partially visible now that he's shifted position.
The convenience store's logo. A name printed beneath it.
Kim.
That's all you can see from this angle. Just a single surname.
You file it away. A data point that shouldn't matter but somehow does.
Four more steps and you're at the door. The rain is still falling, harder now. Your shoes will be ruined.
At the threshold, some impulse you don't examine makes you pause. Turn back.
He's watching you now.
Not directly. Not obviously. But you can feel the weight of his gaze from across the store. Can see how he's angled just slightly in your direction, observing through that muted veil of hair.
When he realizes you've caught him, he jerks his head away. The movement is so abrupt it's almost violent. As if being caught looking is somehow worse than looking itself.
Something unfurls in your chest. Something you haven't felt before and therefore cannot name.
It feels like power, but softer. Like command, but quieter.
Like the moment in rehearsal when you know—absolutely know—that every eye in the room is fixed on the perfect arch of your foot.
You watch him a moment longer. Note how his hands have begun to shake more visibly. How his breathing has quickened. How he seems to be counting something under his breath—his lips moving in a silent rhythm.
Afraid. He's afraid. Of you.
The realization should make you uncomfortable. Should compel you to leave.
It doesn't.
Instead, you find yourself... intrigued. By his fear. By his avoidance. By the contradiction of a man who will pay for your purchases but won't meet your eyes.
He's like a puzzle with missing pieces. An equation that doesn't balance. A phrase of music that ends on an unexpected note.
And you…
You’ve always been intrigued by seemingly unsolvable problems.
As you push open the door, the bell above jingles—a cheerful, discordant note in the tense silence of the store. The sound makes him flinch, though it's difficult to tell if it's the suddenness or simply the fact that it marks your departure.
But you file the reaction away with everything else you’ve noticed about him. Building a catalog of responses. Creating a framework for understanding.
You step into the rain, cotton pads clutched in your pocket.
The water hits your face in cold droplets. Your shoes squelch with each step. Your hair grows heavier with accumulated moisture.
None of it matters.
What matters is tomorrow's rehearsal.
What matters is Ondine.
What matters is perfection.
What matters is, strangely, the image of his downturned face.
The graceful arc of his wrist as he straightened those bottles.
The way he was utterly aware of your presence.
It was beautiful—his fear; his distance.
It makes you wonder what would happen if you shattered it.
Chapter 3: 03 | psycho
Summary:
CONTENT in this chapter: bruising, self punishing, self harm, cleansing one self, ocd portrayal, stressful situations, psych sessions, public healthcare portrayal in the mental health realm
Notes:
➔ A/N: HELLO. WELCOME BACK TO THIS NIGHTMARE. Kiki Nation is THRIVING. And by thriving, I mean crumbling under the weight of my own pacing choices. That’s right. You thought you were getting plot? ACTION? MOVEMENT? Wake up, babe. This is Kiki Nation, and here? We move like anxiety on a Sunday night—slow, painful, and entirely internal. But listen… listen. Jokes aside (kind of), this chapter is actually doing a lot even if it looks like nothing is happening. I love writing scenes like this because, while it feels still on the surface, the psychological current is raging underneath. What’s being said without being said? What’s slipping through the cracks? What isn’t Taehyung allowing himself to articulate because if he did, it would crack him open? That’s what this is about. It’s tension. It’s claustrophobia. It’s the mind eating itself alive. We’re diving deep into the obsessive-compulsive loops here—realistic ones. I researched this thoroughly, not only as someone who lives with neurodivergence, but as someone who respects how complex OCD truly is. It’s not just “I like things clean” or “haha I’m quirky about numbers.” OCD is a deeply distressing, all-consuming, reality-warping condition that demands ritual to relieve unbearable tension, even when you know it makes no logical sense. You KNOW it’s irrational. That’s the point. But the alternative feels worse. And that’s what I wanted to capture. The thing about trauma—especially when you’re neurodivergent—is that your brain will cling to anything that feels controllable when real life becomes overwhelming. And sometimes, those fixations grow teeth. What starts as “I need to clean this” becomes “If I don’t, I am disgusting. I am dangerous. I will harm something I care about.” That’s not aesthetic. That’s hell. And yeah… Dr. Bernard trying so hard but still being limited by time, funding, caseloads… It’s a subtle nod to the very real way public healthcare systems stretch mental health care to its absolute breaking point. Because if Taehyung had money? He’d have private therapy, trauma-informed care, daily support. But no. He gets 45 minutes in a tile-counting room twice a month and a prescription that might not even be enough. It’s not fair, and that’s kind of the point. For legal reasons, this is a joke!!! 🥰 (But is it?) So yeah. I hope you’re paying attention to the mirror. The numbers. The language he uses. The way he doesn’t trust reality itself. There’s a reason this chapter feels repetitive. There’s a reason he keeps looping. And if you felt trapped reading it—good. You’re right where I wanted you. (affectionate)Thank you for reading and for trusting me to tell a story that digs a little deeper than surface-level trauma bait. Your comments and support mean everything to me. I read every single one. See you in the next chapter where… oh. Oh no. Yeah. See you there. (awkward finger guns)
Chapter Text
Purple blooms beneath thumb pad.
Bruises beneath his finger.
Taehyung presses harder, watching skin darken under pressure.
Pain flares, then dulls. Not enough. Never enough to convince himself that yesterday was real.
He sits on the edge of his mattress, counting breaths.
One-two-three-four-five-six-seven.
The apartment smells of bleach and nothing else.
(bleach, he needs to bleach the r—bleach—it’s dirty, he needs bleach)
No food. No life. Just chemical purity and the faint must of walls that never fully dry.
You were there. In his store. Breathing his air.
(impossible impossible impossible)
His fingers find another patch of unmarked skin along his forearm.
Pinch. Twist. Hold until capillaries burst and blood pools beneath the surface.
The pain grounds him in reality, but reality itself has become suspect.
How could you exist in the same grimy corner of Paris where he scrubs floors and straightens shelves? How could something so clean touch something so dirty?
Your scent lingers in his memory—sweet almond, rose, powdered sugar.
Macarons.
(macarons, macaronsmacaronsmacarons)
The kind sold in patisseries where everything costs too much and the staff watches him like he might pocket something.
He's never wanted macarons before. Never craved anything sweet.
Now his mouth waters at the memory.
(disgusting filthy unworthy)
Seven new bruises track up his arm like stepping stones.
Evidence that he exists. That yesterday existed. That you might have seen him—really seen him—even through the curtain of hair he uses to hide.
The thought makes his stomach lurch.
He stumbles to the bathroom, falls to his knees before the toilet. Nothing comes up. He hasn't eaten since yesterday morning. Just water. Just enough to keep his body functioning.
The tile is cold against his forehead as he counts again.
One-two-three-four-five-six-seven. Again. Again. Until the nausea passes.
You'd asked him a question. Spoken directly to him. Your voice precise as cut glass.
‘Why are you helping me?’
He hadn't answered. Couldn't answer. What could he possibly say?
Because your knees shouldn't touch this filthy floor.
Because you're too perfect for this place.
Because I'm not worthy to watch you bend.
The memory of your cotton pads—the dented package he'd first grabbed, the horror that had seized him when he saw the imperfection—makes his fingers twitch. He'd found you a perfect one. Undamaged. Clean.
It mattered so much in that moment, more than breathing.
He drags himself up from the bathroom floor. Crosses to the sink. Turns the water as hot as it will go and plunges his hands beneath the stream.
The burn is good. Clean. Skin reddens instantly.
He scrubs with the rough side of a sponge until his palms are raw. Until he can't feel the phantom touch of the cotton pad package he handed you. Until he can't remember the way your fingers almost—almost—brushed his gloved ones.
Gloves. He'd been wearing gloves. Thank god. Thank god.
(still dirty still contaminated still worthless)
The mirror above his sink is spotless. He keeps it that way, though he rarely looks into it. Now he forces himself to meet his own eyes.
Dark circles. Hollow cheeks. Hair too long, falling across his face in messy blindish waves.
He looks like a ghost. A shadow. Nothing substantial enough to exist in your world.
Yet you'd looked at him. Tried to see his face. Asked him a question in that voice like winter air.
His stomach clenches again, but differently. Not nausea this time. Something worse. Something like hunger, but not for food.
Macarons.
The word loops in his mind, sweet and forbidden. He wants to taste them now. Wants to know if they taste like you smell. Wants to dissolve them on his tongue and pretend he's breathing the same air that touches your skin.
The thought is so profane it makes him dizzy.
He stumbles back to his bed. Sits on the edge again. Pinches another spot on his arm, harder this time. The pain blooms bright, then fades too quickly.
You'd looked back at him from the doorway. Caught him watching. Your eyes narrowed slightly, calculating. Seeing.
No one sees him. No one notices. He's made sure of it for years.
But you had.
His phone buzzes. Work in an hour. The convenience store waits, its floors already collecting new grime, new evidence of human existence that he'll need to erase.
Will you come back? The question terrifies and exhilarates him.
(come,come you have to comeback)
He should pray you don't. Should beg whatever god might listen to keep you away from his dirty corner of Paris. Away from his contaminated existence.
Instead, he finds himself hoping. Desperately, pathetically hoping.
The bruises on his arm throb in time with his pulse. One-two-three-four-five-six-seven. Evidence that yesterday was real. That you were real.
That maybe, just maybe, you'll be real again today.
Persistent.
The word hangs in stale office air. Taehyung's fingers twitch against his thigh.
Twenty-six tiles. Wrong number. Wrong pattern. Wrong room. His eyes trace the edges where white grout meets ceramic, counting again in case he missed one. Twenty-six. Still wrong.
(wrong wrong wrong fix it fix it)
"Taehyung? I asked if your contamination fears are still persisting."
Dr. Bernard's voice is distant as a radio playing three rooms away as it filters through the fog. The man sits across from him, pen poised over a notepad that's seen too many patients. His colorful socks peek beneath gray trousers—today they're yellow with small blue bicycles.
Taehyung notices this instead of meeting his eyes.
"Yes." The word scrapes his throat. Dry. Unused.
How long has he been sitting here?
"And the medication? You're taking it regularly?"
Taehyung nods.
Paroxetine. Forty milligrams. White oval pill. Bitter when it touches his tongue if he doesn't swallow fast enough. He takes it every morning at 7:07. Never 7:06. Never 7:08.
(seven seven seven)
"Good, good." Dr. Bernard makes a note. The pen scratches paper like insects crawling. "And the cleaning rituals? Any improvement there?"
Twenty-six tiles.
The pattern is wrong.
If he could just add two more, it would be twenty-eight. Seven times four. Perfect.
His fingers curl into his palm, nails digging half-moons.
"About the same."
Dr. Bernard sighs. Not an impatient sigh. A tired one. The sigh of a man with sixty-three other patients. Taehyung counted the files once when the secretary stepped away. Sixty-four including him. Too many. Not enough time.
"You mentioned last time you were using bleach on your hands again." Dr. Bernard taps his pen against the notepad.
Tap-tap-tap.
Not seven taps. Irregular. Unpredictable.
“Is that still happening?"
The bleach burns. Burns means clean. Clean means safe. Safe means—
(he won't contaminate you)
Taehyung blinks.
Where did that thought come from?
"Sometimes." His voice sounds hollow even to himself. "When it's necessary."
Dr. Bernard's glasses slip down his nose. He pushes them up with his middle finger, a gesture Taehyung has seen forty-seven times in their sessions together.
Always the middle finger. Never the index. Never the thumb.
"And what makes it necessary, Taehyung?"
You. Your perfect skin. Your clean leotard. The way you move like water, untouched by the filth of this city.
But he can't say that. Hasn't told Dr. Bernard about you. About the mirror. About the convenience store. About yesterday when you spoke to him and the world tilted on its axis.
"Dirt." The answer is inadequate. He knows this. "Contamination."
Dr. Bernard waits for more. The clock on the wall ticks. Not seven ticks per minute. Sixty.
Wrong number.
"I see." Dr. Bernard writes something down. "And have there been any changes in your routine lately? Anything new?"
You.
You are new. You with your rose-macaron scent and perfect posture. You who looked at him—really looked—and didn't immediately turn away.
"No." The lie tastes metallic.
"Taehyung." Dr. Bernard sets his pen down. Leans forward slightly. His chair creaks. "We've been meeting for three years now. I'd like to think I know when something's changed."
Three years. Thirty-six months. Not a multiple of seven.
Wrong.
"Nothing important." Another lie.
Through the thin wall, he hears another doctor's voice. A woman laughing. Someone crying. The Centre Médico-Psychologique never has enough space, enough privacy, enough time. His forty-five minutes will end in seventeen more. Then Dr. Bernard will see someone else. Someone whose problems might be fixable.
"I've increased your sessions on your Carte Vitale authorization." Dr. Bernard slides a paper across the desk. "Twice monthly instead of once. I think it could help."
Taehyung stares at the paper. The government seal. The stamps. The signature.
So much bureaucracy to fix a broken mind.
As if more sessions in this room with twenty-six tiles will stop him from scrubbing his skin raw after thinking of you.
"Thank you."
He doesn't reach for the paper. His hands are dirty. Always dirty.
Dr. Bernard's phone buzzes. He glances at it, then back at Taehyung.
“I'm sorry, I need to take this. Just a moment."
As Dr. Bernard steps outside, Taehyung's eyes drift back to the floor.
Twenty-six tiles. He could fix it. Break two into halves. Make twenty-eight. Seven times four. Perfect.
(break them break them make it right)
His foot hovers over the tile nearest his chair. One stomp might crack it.
Fix the pattern. Fix the room. Fix him.
But he doesn't move. Just counts again. And again. And again.
One-two-three-four-five-six-seven. One-two-three-four-five-six-seven. One-two-three-four-five-six-seven.
Dr. Bernard returns, tucking his phone away. "Sorry about that. Where were we?"
Taehyung's foot settles back on the floor. Twenty-six tiles. Still wrong. Still broken.
Like him.
"They're wrong."
The words escape before Taehyung can swallow them back. His tongue feels thick, disconnected from his brain.
Dr. Bernard leans forward. "What's wrong, Taehyung?"
"The tiles." His finger points downward, trembling. "Twenty-six. Wrong number."
(wrong wrong wrong fix it fix it)
Dr. Bernard follows his gaze to the floor, brow furrowing. Understanding dawns slowly across his face. He sets his notepad aside and kneels, running a finger along the grout lines.
"The tiles—there are twenty-six. Should be twenty-eight." Taehyung's voice cracks. "Seven times four. Or at least twenty-seven. Has a seven in it."
His heel bounces against the floor. Up-down-up-down. One-two-three-four-five-six-seven. Again. The rhythm keeps him tethered when his mind threatens to float away.
Dr. Bernard stands, retrieving a black marker from his desk. Without hesitation, he kneels again and draws a thick line across one tile, dividing it neatly in half.
"There," he says. "Twenty-seven tiles now. Contains a seven."
The marker squeaks against ceramic.
The line isn't perfectly straight.
Doesn't matter.
The number matters. Twenty-seven. Has a seven. Better.
Taehyung's breathing slows. The pressure behind his eyes eases.
"I'm sorry," Dr. Bernard says, returning to his chair. "I've been seeing you for three years. I should have noticed sooner."
He gestures vaguely around the room.
“They just changed my office last month. I didn't think to count the tiles before you came in."
Three years. Thirty-six months. One hundred fifty-six sessions. And Dr. Bernard still doesn't understand that everything must be counted. Everything must be checked. Everything must be right.
But he tried. He fixed it. Drew a line. Made twenty-seven.
(better better better not perfect but better)
"Thank you," Taehyung whispers.
Dr. Bernard nods, uncapping his pen again.
"You mentioned nothing had changed in your routine. But something in your face tells me otherwise." His voice softens. "Sometimes change can trigger episodes like this. Even good changes."
Taehyung's fingers find each other, twisting. Counting knuckles.
"I found something." The words feel strange in his mouth. Heavy. Dangerous.
Dr. Bernard waits. Patient.
The clock ticks. The newly-divided tile stares up at them both.
"A window." Taehyung continues. "At work. Behind the storage room."
"At the convenience store?"
Taehyung nods. "Two days ago. Needed cleaning supplies. Went to the back room. Not the main storage. The other one. Where they keep replacements."
His sentences fragment. Break apart like the tile on the floor.
He can't help it.
The memory is too bright, too sharp.
"Nobody goes there. Dusty. Dirty."
(filthy filthy filthy)
"And you found a window?" Dr. Bernard prompts.
"Not a window. A mirror." Taehyung's throat constricts. "But it's not a mirror. It's a window. One-way. Looks into the building next door."
Dr. Bernard makes a note. "The building next door to your store is...?"
"Ballet academy." The word 'ballet' feels sacred on his tongue. Too pure for his mouth. "Practice room. Empty usually. But not that day."
His heartbeat accelerates.
One-two-three-four-five-six-seven.
Faster now.
One-two-three-four-five-six-seven.
"Someone was there?" Dr. Bernard asks.
Taehyung closes his eyes. Sees you immediately. Your reflection in the mirror as you practiced. Arms extended. Back straight. Perfect. Clean. Untouchable.
"A dancer."
He can't bring himself to say more. Can't describe the way you moved like water.
The way your reflection caught in the dirty glass and somehow remained untainted.
The way he stood, frozen, watching for twenty-seven minutes before his manager called his name.
"I see." Dr. Bernard makes another note. "And this discovery upset your routine?"
Upset. Such a small word for the earthquake that destroyed his carefully constructed world.
"I went back. Yesterday." The confession burns his throat. "After work. Before closing."
Dr. Bernard nods encouragingly. "To see this dancer again?"
Taehyung's nails dig into his palms. "Yes."
"And did you?"
The memory floods back. Not through the mirror this time. Face to face.
You, entering the convenience store minutes before closing.
You, scanning shelves with precise movements.
(dirty dirty dirty can't touch can't let you touch)
"Yes." His voice barely audible now. "She came into the store."
The pronoun feels wrong. Inadequate. You are not a 'she.' You are something else. Something more. Something clean in a filthy world.
"Did you speak to her?" Dr. Bernard asks.
Taehyung shakes his head. Then nods. Then shakes again. "She spoke to me."
The memory of your voice makes his skin prickle. Cut glass. Winter air. Perfect diction.
"What did she say?"
"Asked why I was helping her." His eyes find the divided tile again. Twenty-seven now. Better. "I picked up her cotton pads. Found her a new package. Undamaged one."
Dr. Bernard writes something down. "And how did that make you feel? This interaction?"
Feel? How could he possibly explain?
The terror. The exhilaration. The certainty that he was contaminating something perfect just by existing in your presence.
"Wrong," he finally says. "I felt wrong."
"Wrong how?"
"Dirty." The word tastes like copper. "She's clean. Perfect. I'm..."
He gestures at himself. His stained uniform. His raw hands. His existence.
"Taehyung, have you ever heard of religious scrupulosity?"
The question hangs in the air. Taehyung's fingers freeze mid-count against his thigh.
"It's a form of OCD where someone becomes fixated on moral or religious purity. They develop intense fears about contaminating sacred things or being unworthy in a spiritual sense."
Taehyung stares at the divided tile. Twenty-seven.
His throat closes. Words retreat, curling back inside where they're safe.
(not religious not that simple not that)
Dr. Bernard waits. The silence stretches between them like a thread pulled too tight. When Taehyung doesn't respond, he tries again.
"I'm not suggesting this is exactly what's happening. Just that there might be similarities in how you're viewing this dancer."
Taehyung's jaw tightens. His teeth grind together. The sound fills his skull. Drowns out Dr. Bernard's voice. Drowns out everything except the memory of you.
Perfect posture. Clean lines. Untouched by the filth surrounding you.
"She's just a person," Dr. Bernard says gently. "A talented dancer, perhaps, but human. Like everyone else."
Wrong. So wrong.
You're not like everyone else. Not like him. Not dirty. Not broken. Not wrong.
Taehyung shakes his head. Once. Twice.
Seven times.
"Taehyung?" Dr. Bernard leans forward. "Are you still with me?"
Words scatter like roaches when light hits them. He can't catch them. Can't form them. His tongue feels swollen, useless. He manages a nod.
"I'm not concerned about you seeing someone dance twice," Dr. Bernard clarifies. "That's perfectly normal. I'm interested in how intensely it seems to have affected you."
(not normal never normal nothing normal)
"You helped her pick up some cotton pads. That's a kind gesture, not contamination."
Taehyung's hands curl into fists. Dr. Bernard doesn't understand. Can't understand. Hasn't seen you. Hasn't felt the wrongness of his existence next to yours.
"Not..." The word scrapes his throat. "Not kind."
"No? What was it then?"
"Necessary." Another word claws its way out. "Had to."
Dr. Bernard makes a note. The pen scratches paper. Seven scratches. Taehyung counts them.
"Had to protect her from the dirty floor?"
Taehyung nods. His chest tightens. The room shrinks. Twenty-seven tiles. Focus on the tiles.
"Taehyung, I've known you for three years. Your contamination fears typically center on yourself—protecting yourself from outside dirt. This seems different."
Different. Yes.
Everything is different now. The world tilted when he first saw you through that grimy one-way mirror. Tilted further when you walked into the store. Spoke to him. Looked at him.
"Let's back up," Dr. Bernard suggests. "Tell me about finding this mirror."
Taehyung's eyes close. Behind them, he sees the storage room. Dust motes floating in stale air. Cardboard boxes stacked haphazardly. The wall that wasn't a wall.
"Cleaning." His voice barely audible. "Needed bleach."
"For the store?"
A nod.
"And you found this mirror in the storage room?"
"Back room." The distinction matters. "Not main storage. Nobody goes there."
"And through this mirror, you could see into the ballet academy next door?"
"Practice room." The words come easier now. Focused on facts. Not feelings. "Empty usually. But not then."
"And you saw this dancer practicing."
"Yes."
"For how long did you watch?"
Taehyung's fingers twitch. "Twenty-seven minutes."
The truth slips out before he can stop it.
Dr. Bernard's eyebrows rise slightly. "You counted?"
"Always count."
"And then what happened?"
"Manager called. Had to go back."
"But you returned the next day?"
Shame burns his cheeks. He nods.
"And then she came into your store?"
"Before closing." The memory floods back. "Accident."
"The cotton pads?"
"Yes."
"And you helped her."
"Had to." His voice cracks. "Floor is dirty. She's not."
Dr. Bernard studies him. "Taehyung, when was the last time you spoke to someone outside of work or these sessions?"
The question catches him off guard. He blinks. Tries to remember. Can't.
"This connection you feel—" Dr. Bernard chooses his words carefully "—it might be intensified by isolation. Human beings need interaction."
(not human not normal not worthy)
"I'm not suggesting anything inappropriate is happening," Dr. Bernard continues. "Just that your reaction seems disproportionate to two brief encounters."
Disproportionate. As if there could be a proportionate response to witnessing divinity in a convenience store.
"She's clean," Taehyung whispers. The only truth that matters.
"Everyone seems clean to someone who feels contaminated, Taehyung."
Taehyung flinches. His vision tunnels. The twenty-seven tiles blur. His breathing quickens.
One-two-three-four-five-six-seven. Too fast. Too shallow.
"I think we should focus on your isolation in our next session," Dr. Bernard says, glancing at the clock. "And perhaps revisit your medication dosage."
Taehyung doesn't respond. Can't. Words have abandoned him completely now.
His mind retreats to the only safe place it knows—counting. Tiles. Breaths. Heartbeats.
Seconds until he can leave this room with its wrong-then-fixed floor and return to his apartment where everything is arranged in sevens and nothing beautiful exists to be contaminated by his presence.
Dr. Bernard sighs. Not impatient. Sad. "Our time is almost up. Is there anything else you want to tell me about these encounters?"
Taehyung stares at his raw hands.
What could he possibly say? That when you looked at him, really looked, something inside him recognized something inside you? That for one brief moment, he felt seen instead of invisible? That helping you felt like prayer?
He shakes his head.
"Alright." Dr. Bernard stands. "Same time in two weeks, then. And Taehyung?" He waits until Taehyung looks up. "Try to talk to someone. Anyone. Even just to ask the time or comment on the weather. Human connection matters."
Connection.
As if someone like him could connect with anyone.
Especially someone like you.
The session ends. Taehyung leaves without speaking again. Steps carefully over the divided tile. Twenty-seven now. Better. Not perfect.
Like him.
Chapter 4: 04 | crumble faster
Summary:
female rivalry/competition, eating disorders(eating cotton pads), ballet classes, self-demands, perfectionism, ribbon discarding (or not), convenience store reencounters and small discoveries.
Notes:
➔ A/N: Okay. Okay. Everyone breathe. Especially me. (I'm the one hyperventilating into a protein bar wrapper at 3AM because I cannot believe this chapter EXISTS.) Welcome back to Altars in Shallow Waters, where we do not chase plot—we let it simmer on low heat while the characters emotionally spiral into the void like aesthetically pleasing depressive ballerinas and bleach-stained ghosts of men!!! ✨🩰🧼 So, this chapter. Let's talk about her. The real action here is perceptual rupture. The moment you realize someone is watching you, but not in the "flirty eye contact in an indie café" way. No. In the "someone found your discarded legwarmer ribbon and folded it like scripture into their jacket pocket" way. Delicious. Horrifying. Both. Psychologically, this chapter is playing with reciprocal hyperfixation. How the act of being seen can unravel just as much as seeing. She doesn't name it, but she feels it—the way she catalogs his reactions, the way her interest grows when he avoids her eyes, like a cat with a wounded bird. She's measuring his discomfort like a dancer mapping mirror angles. Efficient. But curious. And curiosity? Is the gateway drug to ruin. Also let's talk about that ribbon. Because symbolically, she discards it—functionally useless, easy to forget. But he keeps it. Stores it like evidence of contact. That's how obsession works. You think it's nothing. You think it's gone. But it's in someone's pocket. It's their proof that you touched the world they live in. On a more serious note: mental health themes remain central. He is not quirky. He is unwell. She is not "coolly aloof." She is also unwell. And the way those fractures collide? That's what this fic is. Not fluff. Not romance. A slow collision of two very broken people who think they're control freaks, but are actually being dragged by subconscious forces stronger than either of them.
And no, I will not give you relief. Not yet. We're still descending.
Chapter Text
Cotton dissolves like sin on your tongue.
You've perfected this ritual. The pad breaks down slowly against the roof of your mouth, becoming pulp, becoming nothing. The texture no longer bothers you.
Nothing bothers you before 5 AM.
Your reflection watches with clinical interest.
Dark circles beneath your eyes. Acceptable. Not ideal, but within parameters. You've calculated the exact amount of concealer needed to erase them—three dots, blended outward in concentric circles.
Precision matters, even in camouflage.
The cotton expands slightly as you work it around your mouth. Your stomach will feel full for approximately forty-seven minutes. Long enough to get through morning barre without distraction. Long enough to maintain focus when others are already thinking about breakfast.
This is discipline. This is necessary.
Your tongue presses the dissolving fibers against your teeth. No calories. No guilt.
Just the illusion of consumption that tricks your body into compliance.
The bathroom is eerily silent—except for the sound of your breathing.
Four counts in, four counts out. The same rhythm you maintain during adagio. The same rhythm your heart should follow during rest periods.
You reach for your hairbrush. The bristles scrape against your scalp, just shy of painful.
Good.
Pain means progress. Pain means you're paying attention.
Camille took your hairpins. All of them. The evidence was clear: her side of the room littered with them this morning, carelessly scattered like she couldn't be bothered to hide her sabotage.
How desperate. How transparent.
You pull your hair back until it hurts. The ponytail is tight enough to create tension at your temples.
Not your preference—a bun offers cleaner lines, better balance—but you adapt.
Adaptation is part of excellence.
The last of the cotton dissolves. You rinse your mouth, watching the water swirl down the drain.
Clean. Empty. Ready.
Your leotard fits precisely as it should. Dark blue, high-necked, modest in cut but not in purpose. The fabric compresses your ribcage just enough to remind you of your boundaries. Your physical limits. The container you must perfect.
White tights. No runs, no snags.
Navy leg warmers, positioned exactly three inches above the ankle bone. The little ribbons on the front—blue to match—catch your eye. Tacky. Childish. But the color coordinates perfectly with the leotard, and aesthetic cohesion supersedes your opinion on childishness.
Function over feeling. Always.
The cropped sweater—also white—settles just below your sternum. The ensemble is well thought out. Coordinated. It communicates seriousness, dedication, attention to detail.
These are not clothes. They are statements of intent.
Your reflection assesses you with the same merciless scrutiny you apply to everything.
Arms: acceptable. Neck: could be longer. Posture: correct. Weight: maintained within 0.4 kilograms of target.
You turn slightly. Check your profile. The curve of your spine, the placement of your shoulders.
No room for error. No allowance for imperfection.
The cotton has left a slight residue in your mouth—texture that reminds you of your choice.
Your control. Your discipline.
You think, briefly, of the convenience store. Of the cotton pads in their perfect packaging. Of the man who wouldn't look at you.
Kim.
The name surfaces without permission. An unexpected ripple in the still pond of your morning routine.
You dismiss it. Irrelevant. A random encounter that means nothing.
(But you remember the tremor in his gloved hands. The way he backed away. The way he watched when he thought you wouldn't notice.)
Your dance bag waits by the door, packed according to your usual system. Pointe shoes in their separate compartment. Towel folded precisely in thirds. Water bottle filled exactly to the line you've marked with clear nail polish. Kinesiology tape. Scissors. Antiseptic wipes. Bandages. Everything you need. Nothing you don't.
The dormitory is silent as you move through it. Your footsteps make no sound. You've learned to walk like a ghost. To exist without disturbing the air around you.
The kitchen light is on. Unexpected. Unwelcome.
Elodie stands at the counter, spreading something on toast. Butter, probably. Or worse—jam. Sugar and fat combined in a useless, indulgent paste.
You grimace. Her lack of will is evident in every bite she takes.
Every gram of unnecessary calories.
Every moment wasted on pleasure rather than preparation.
She'll be replaced soon. They all will. The company has no room for weakness.
"Morning," she says, her voice still rough with sleep. "You're up early."
The observation is pointless. You're always up early.
She knows this. Everyone knows this.
"Yes," you say, because a response is expected, not because the conversation has value.
Her eyes flick to your ponytail. Notice the deviation from your usual style. Her mouth opens slightly—about to comment, to ask, to pry.
You don't give her the chance. "Excuse me."
Two words. Polite but final.
You move past her, not waiting for a response.
The dormitory door closes behind you as the hallway stretches ahead, empty and dim.
Perfect. This is how mornings should be. Quiet. Solitary. Undistracted.
You begin the walk to the studio at your usual pace.
The route never changes. Left from the dormitory. Right at the café that won't open for another two hours. Straight past the bakery where the smell of fresh bread will soon fill the air.
Your stomach tightens. The cotton is doing its job, but barely.
You focus on your breathing instead. Four counts in. Four counts out.
The streets are empty except for delivery trucks and the occasional cleaner hosing down the sidewalk.
Paris pretends to sleep, but it never truly does. It just shifts its rhythms, like a dancer moving from allegro to adagio.
Your mind drifts, just slightly, to the convenience store again. To the fluorescent lights that made everything look sickly and unreal. To the man with the gloves who wouldn't meet your eyes.
Kim.
What a curious specimen.
Most men stare. They always have.
They look with hunger or appreciation or professional assessment.
They look because looking is taking, and you are something to be taken.
But he refused to look at all. Refused even to be seen himself.
It was... interesting.
The memory of his downturned face surfaces again. The curtain of washed-out hair. The blue latex gloves worn thin at the fingertips.
You wonder what his hands look like beneath those gloves. If they're as elegant as their shape suggests. If they're damaged somehow.
Scarred. Diseased.
You wonder why he was afraid.
(You wonder if he's still afraid.)
The thought brings an unexpected sensation.
A slight warmth in your chest.
A tightening that isn't hunger or discipline or determination.
Then, the studio appears ahead, windows still dark.
You'll be the first to arrive, as always. The first to warm up. The first to claim your spot at the barre.
You reach for your key card, already positioned in the outer pocket of your bag for efficiency.
The cotton in your stomach has begun to expand, creating the illusion of fullness. Of satisfaction.
This is discipline. This is necessary.
This is what separates you from Elodie with her toast and jam.
From Camille with her petty sabotage.
From all of them with their weaknesses and wants and human frailties.
You are not weak. You are not wanting. You are not frail.
You are becoming perfect.
The studio door beeps as your card registers. For a moment, you think you see movement in your peripheral vision—a shadow shifting, a presence retreating.
You turn your head, just slightly. Just enough to check.
Nothing. Just the empty street. The dim morning light. The faint drizzle that has begun to fall.
You step inside, leaving the outside world behind.
Here, in the studio, everything makes sense. Everything has purpose. Everything can be controlled, measured, perfected.
The lights flicker on automatically. The empty room waits for you, patient and demanding all at once.
You set down your bag. Remove your sweater. Take your position at the barre.
As you begin your first plié, you notice one of the blue ribbons on your leg warmers has come loose. It dangles precariously, threatening to fall.
Distracting. Imperfect.
You untie it completely. The ribbon comes away in your hand, a small strip of navy satin. You place it deliberately by the door, next to your things. You'll dispose of it properly later.
For now, it's been removed. The imperfection excised.
Your gaze returns to the mirrors, reflection multiplying—four versions of yourself executing the same movement precisely.
Arms: acceptable. Turnout: could be deeper. Neck: elongate further.
You move through your warm-up.
Pliés. Tendus. Dégagés.
Each movement builds upon the last, preparing your body for what you'll demand of it today. Preparing your mind for the scrutiny that will come.
The door opens at 6:15 and Madame Villon enters first, as always. Her eyes sweep the studio, landing on you without surprise.
She expects your presence. Your dedication is not remarkable to her.
It is baseline.
"Good morning," she says, her voice crisp in the quiet room.
You incline your head slightly. "Madame."
She moves to the piano, arranging her notes for the day's class. Her movements are economical. You recognize the discipline in her posture, the control in her hands.
She was exceptional once. Now she creates exceptionalism in others.
The other dancers begin to arrive. First Mathilde, then Sophie, then Clara. They move to their usual spots, begin their own warm-ups. Their reflections join yours in the mirrors, creating a forest of limbs and torsos and necks all striving toward the same impossible standard.
Camille arrives at 6:27. Three minutes before class officially begins.
Her hair is already in a perfect bun—the style you couldn't achieve today.
Her eyes meet yours in the mirror. She smiles. The expression doesn't reach her eyes.
"Morning," she says, her voice pitched to carry. To be heard by others. To create the illusion of friendship.
You nod once. Acknowledge the performance without participating in it.
Her gaze drops to your ponytail. Registers the deviation from routine. Her smile widens slightly—satisfaction poorly disguised as concern.
"No bun today?" she asks, knowing exactly why.
"No," you say, final.
She moves to the barre, taking her position behind Mathilde.
Her spot in the hierarchy is clear—not quite at the back with the weakest dancers, not quite at the front with you and Elodie.
Middle tier. Hungry for advancement.
Madame Villon claps once. "Places."
The pianist begins. Your body responds automatically.
First position. Demi-plié. Rise. Second position. The sequence is as familiar as breathing.
More familiar, perhaps, since you've never had to think about how to breathe.
Class progresses with its usual intensity. Madame moves among the dancers, making corrections. Her hand on Sophie's waist, adjusting alignment. Her voice sharp as she instructs Léa to extend further, reach higher.
She passes you without comment. Not approval. Not yet.
Just the absence of correction, which is its own kind of evaluation.
Center work begins. The barre no longer there to support you, to steady you. Just your body in space, responsible for its own balance, its own lines.
You execute each combination flawlessly.
Not perfect—perfect doesn't exist yet—but flawless in the sense that no one else in the room could identify your mistakes. Only you know the millisecond delay in your spotting during the final pirouette. Only you feel the slight tremor in your supporting leg during the adagio.
These are errors you will correct.
Weaknesses you will eliminate.
Imperfections you will excise, like the ribbon from your leg warmer.
Madame calls your name. "Demonstrate the grand allegro, please."
It's not a request. It's not even really a command.
It's an expectation.
You take your place in the center. Feel the weight of every gaze in the room. The cotton in your stomach has long since dissolved.
The music begins. Your body launches into motion. Jump, turn, land, extend. The combination is complex—designed to test not just technique but musicality, stamina, presence.
You move through it flawlessly again. Each beat accounted for. Each position achieved exactly as choreographed.
Your breathing remains controlled.
Your face betrays no effort.
When you finish, landing in fifth position with arms curved perfectly in low fifth, there is a moment of silence.
Then Madame nods once. Not praise. Acknowledgment.
"Again," she says to the class. "Four at a time."
By the time Madame signals the end of class, your leotard is damp with sweat. Your muscles vibrate with exertion. Your ponytail has loosened slightly—another imperfection to address.
"Thank you, ladies," Madame says. "Rehearsals begin at ten. Do not be late."
The dancers disperse, moving toward their bags, toward the changing rooms.
Conversations bloom in their wake—discussions of the day's schedule, complaints about sore muscles, plans for the brief break before rehearsal.
You remain at the barre, extending your cool-down.
There is no benefit to rushing. No advantage to socializing.
Your body requires proper care if it's to serve your ambition.
Camille passes behind you, her reflection catching yours in the mirror.
"Lunch later?" she asks, loud enough for others to hear.
A performance that continues.
"Perhaps," you say, noncommittal.
You both know you won't join her.
You both know she doesn't want you to.
The studio empties gradually. Dancers leave in twos and threes, their voices fading as they move down the hallway.
Soon it's just you and your reflection, multiplied across the mirrored walls.
You finish your cool-down. Move to collect your things.
The sweater goes back on—your body temperature will drop quickly now that you're no longer working. The water bottle is half-empty. The towel damp with sweat.
You look for the navy ribbon, left by the door where you placed it.
It's gone.
You scan the floor.
Perhaps it fell. Perhaps it was kicked aside accidentally.
But there's nothing. The ribbon has vanished.
Your eyes narrow slightly.
Camille. It must be Camille.
First the hairpins, now this.
But why would she take a discarded ribbon? What possible advantage could it give her?
Perhaps it's simply spite. Perhaps it's just another way to demonstrate that your space, your belongings, your boundaries are not truly your own. That nothing here belongs exclusively to you—not even your trash.
Or perhaps it's something else. Something you haven't calculated yet. Some new form of sabotage you'll need to anticipate and counter.
You straighten your ponytail. Adjust your sweater. Shoulder your bag.
The ribbon doesn't matter. It was defective. Discarded. Its loss is irrelevant.
But you remember exactly where you left it.
Remember that it was there, and now it's not.
Remember that someone took something of yours, even something you no longer wanted.
You don't know why you're here.
This purgatory with its flickering lights and linoleum floors that never quite look clean no matter how recently they've been mopped.
L'heure bleue.
The convenience store that exists in that strange space between your world and...
Perhaps it's curiosity.
Perhaps it's boredom.
Perhaps it's the man with the ashy blonde hair who seems to vibrate with anxiety whenever you enter his orbit.
Kim.
The protein bars are arranged in descending order of caloric content. You scan the nutritional information with practiced efficiency. This one: 15g protein, 160 calories, 2g sugar.
Acceptable. Not ideal, but functional.
Your body requires fuel. Not pleasure, not indulgence—just the bare minimum to maintain performance.
The store is empty except for you and him. The pink-haired girl is absent tonight. No buffer between you and his strange, trembling avoidance.
You approach the counter, place the protein bar down slowly, almost teasing.
The sound it makes against the surface is soft but there is no mistaking it.
A statement of presence.
No response.
You wait. Ten seconds. Twenty. Your time is valuable. Each wasted moment is a micro-failure.
You tap one long manicured nail against the counter. Sharp. Demanding. A single finger communicating what your voice shouldn't have to.
Still nothing.
Finally, you clear your throat.
There's a sudden scattering noise from the back room—something falling, something being knocked over in haste. Then footsteps, quick and uneven.
He emerges from somewhere behind rows of shelves, eyes are fixed on the floor, that curtain of hair hiding his features just as it did before. His shoulders curve inward, making his tall frame seem smaller, less substantial.
He doesn't look at you.
Doesn't acknowledge your presence beyond the most basic recognition that someone is standing at his counter. His focus fixes on the protein bar as if it's the customer, not you.
"Is the pink-haired girl not working tonight?" Your voice is cool. A simple question requiring a simple answer.
He doesn't respond. His fingers—still encased in those blue latex gloves—hover over the protein bar without touching it. His breathing has quickened, just slightly. Just enough for you to notice.
"Do you work here every night?" Another question. Direct. Uncomplicated.
Nothing. Just that same frozen posture. That same careful avoidance.
How curious.
How peculiar, this man who seems physically incapable of meeting your gaze.
As if eye contact might burn him. As if your attention is a weight he cannot bear.
Is he afraid of you?
The thought brings that same strange warmth to your chest. That same unquantifiable feeling you haven't yet categorized.
"You paid for my cotton pads last time," you say. Not a question this time. A statement of fact. "Why?"
His fingers finally move, picking up the protein bar with such care you might think it was made of glass. He scans it, the beep unnaturally loud in the silent store.
When he speaks, his voice is so soft you almost miss it.
"Three euros forty."
Just that. Just the price. Nothing more.
You extend your hand with exact change, coins arranged in your palm for maximum efficiency of transfer.
He doesn't take them from your hand.
Instead, he places a small plastic tray on the counter, sliding it toward you without making contact.
For coins. So he doesn't have to touch you.
The realization makes something in your chest tighten, and it's not offense. Not exactly. Something more... interesting.
You place the coins in the tray. He takes it, careful not to brush against your fingers. Counts the money methodically. Places your change in the same tray, slides it back to you.
All without once lifting his eyes to your face.
"Thank you," you say, though you're not sure why.
The transaction doesn't require gratitude. It's a simple exchange of currency for goods. Nothing more.
He nods once, that same sharp downward jerk of his chin you noticed last time. His hands retreat to his sides, then behind his back, as if he doesn't trust them to behave appropriately in your presence.
You collect your change. Take the protein bar. Turn to leave.
That's when you see it.
A flash of navy blue, peeking from his pocket. Small. Satin. Unmistakable.
The ribbon from your leg warmer. The one you left by the studio door. The one that disappeared.
Not Camille.
Him.
But how? How did he get it? How did it travel from the dance studio to this convenience store? To his pocket?
You pause, your back to him, processing this new information.
He must have been there. At the studio.
Must have seen you. Must have taken what you discarded.
The realization should disturb you.
Should trigger alarm, concern, perhaps even fear.
It doesn't.
Instead, that same strange warmth spreads through your chest—that same unnamed feeling that isn't hunger or discipline or determination.
Chapter 5: 05 | haunted by grace
Summary:
➔ CONTENT in this chapter: ritualistic behavior with stolen ribbon, escalating obsession, voyeuristic elements at reader's apartment, sexual tension and arousal, religious/profane imagery, compulsive counting, mental deterioration, stalking behavior, trespassing, contamination obsession, self-flagellation themes, discovery of reader's address.
Notes:
➔ A/N: WOAH. OKAY. So here’s where it starts getting twisted—like actually, visibly, irreversibly twisted. I know a lot of you were waiting for this shift and yeah. Yeah. We’re here. The ribbon. That ribbon. Taehyung is not okay about it (shock and awe, I know), and spoiler: he’s going to get worse. Much worse. (See you in ASW 6, you unhinged creatures.) After Chapter 4, I answered some asks clarifying that ASW!Taehyung is not Joe Goldberg from You. They are not in the same moral orbit, not even in the same psychological universe. Yes, Taehyung is a stalker. But he’s not narcissistic—he’s self-loathing. And that’s the core of this fic’s emotional architecture: the dichotomy between someone who sees themselves as filth, and someone who has been told she must be perfect at all times or else she ceases to exist. You (reader) are not idolized because you’re believed to be chosen, you’re held to impossible standards you’ve internalized as worth. Meanwhile, Taehyung is clinging to the only clean thing he’s ever known—you—and punishing himself for even looking. This isn’t romanticization. This is exploration: of obsession, of shame, of how mental illness contorts perception into scripture. That ribbon has become his holy relic, his proof of closeness, of desecration. He knows it’s wrong. He feels sick about it. He repeats profane like a prayer because he still has a conscience, but it’s being eroded by compulsion, not delusion. The moment he sees the number 307—ending in seven—his brain needs it to mean something. That’s how OCD roots itself. Not in logic, but in craving: for patterns, for signs, for tethering a chaotic world to meaning. The ribbon is a tourniquet, the watch a mask. The burgundy leotard scene was one of the hardest things I’ve written emotionally because it demanded I plunge into the mind of a man who is drowning in his own hunger—for cleanliness, for beauty, for her—and who knows, deep down, that he’s already crossed the line. The language is meant to reflect that too: sweet metaphors wrapped around rot. Cloying, saccharine descriptions that melt into grime. Because she is soft, sweet, sugar—and he is rust, mold, contamination. This is about the slow corrosion of restraint into justification. The moment at the end—“he will never be absolved. he never wants to be.”—that is the death of devotion and the birth of possession. The horror of obsession isn’t ignorance—it’s awareness, and the inability to stop. And now we’ve crossed the Rubicon. Stay sick. Love y’all. <3
Chapter Text
(ribbon, ribbon, ribbon)
The ribbon. Blue ribbon. Navy ribbon.
It doesn't belong in this room.
Not draped across the mattress, not clutched in his raw, trembling hand, not wound around the pale underside of his wrist like a ligature or a secret.
The blue is too deliberate against his skin—navy satin in a world where nothing soft survives, a strip of color that catches the yellow light and refuses to become invisible, even when he tries to hide it under the fraying elastic of his watchband.
Taehyung knows it's wrong to have it.
No—worse than wrong.
He doesn't remember picking it up (lie) but he remembers the press of your thumb as you stripped it from your warmers, the way it fell—lazy, perfect spiral—onto the wooden floor.
You left it behind.
The ribbon is an afterthought, a thing without value. Discarded, like the crusts of bread he's swept under his mother's table, like the #41 bus tickets still creased and yellowing in his coat pocket, like the things that never count for anything in the brief accounting of a day.
It shouldn't matter. It shouldn't feel like proof.
(but it does it matters it burns)
He tells himself the same things he always does: you never looked at him, you never meant for anyone to see it. Picking it up was reflex. Cleaning the floor, as always. Maintenance. Sanitation. Salvage. You drop, he retrieve. World as it's always been. Filth and order.
But his hands know better.
His hands, red with nerves and compulsive effort, can't let this particular piece of refuse go.
Ribbons don't last here—nylon fibers fray, stains settle in—yet in his palm it's as soft as wet hair between his fingers, as alien as forgiveness.
He's sitting on the edge of his bed, knees pressed together, back humped, the same way he used to shrink into himself after his father's bad days. The covers are thin, yellowed at the edges.
He stains everything he touches; there's no point pretending otherwise.
The room smells of bleach and must.
Damp wool, tired lungs.
The window is shut against the rain, but he can feel the temperature buffering up in little shudders along the glass.
Fifteen minutes until work. Thirty-seven minutes until the room with the glass, the one that nerves him up so sharp that his wrists pulse with heat, anticipation, dread.
He tracks the minutes because they're easier, cleaner, than tracking want. Minutes break into sevens, sevens stack into hours, and hours mark the gaps between the rare moments he feels chosen, if only by accident, if only as a collector of things nobody else wants.
And now this. The ribbon.
He ties it slowly, methodically, looping once, twice, three times around his left wrist, then again the other way, tugging until the ends lay flush, trembling in the airless light.
The knot is careful. The knot is essential. The knot means it will not fall, even if the rest of him does.
He threads the battered black watch over it, buckle scraping the bones of his wrist. It presses the satin into his skin, hiding the color from the world.
Only he knows it's there. Only he feels the drag—tight, secret—when he turns his hand over, feeling the pulse flutter beneath flesh and new devotion.
Why the watch?
He never wore one before. Used his phone, the clock on the register at work, the screech of the metro beneath the floorboards, marking time by sound, not weight.
Watches collect bacteria—he can recite the numbers, the studies, each one a slab of proof about the dangers of contamination trapped beneath plastic and steel.
But now: watch as imperative. Watch as excuse. Nobody asks about a watch. Nobody asks what he hides beneath it.
Nobody asks about the way the blue edge peeks out sometimes, how he fidgets with the hard disc on his arm whenever he feels eyes on him, real or imagined.
How he feels safest when the ribbon is tightest, marking the skin in a faint seam that echoes all the other places he's tried, and failed, to excise dirt and memory and want.
It's not enough, having it. Not really.
When was the last time anyone chose him for anything but labor or blame?
His stomach pitches, hollow with disgust, that familiar lurch like swallowing a chunk of rotten apple.
Profane, profane, profane—wanting to belong, wanting to matter, wanting to be held in the same equation as someone like you.
He shouldn't want that.
There's something shameful about even imagining it: your attention landing where it shouldn't, on someone who was never meant to be witnessed.
He tastes bitterness, mouth dry, tongue heavy.
He presses the watchband down, hard, until the buckle pinches. There, that's punishment. There, that's the line between suffering and sin.
The blue edge disappears under the watch—a secret now—and the throbbing at his wrist feels halfway to honesty.
He checks the time again.
Five minutes gone, spent thinking of you, of the ribbon, of the terrible possibility that one day you might notice what's hidden.
That moment—almost as sharp as terror—sends a flicker of hope up his throat so fast he wants to gag.
To be seen is to be ruined, to be named, to be known as the thief of things you've discarded.
But maybe to be seen is to be chosen, too.
The air in the room puffs up like clouds clogging the sky.
He bends forward, elbows on knees, face in hands, breathing through the panic tight in his chest.
The pressure soothes, a little. His eyes press shut.
The afterimage of your dance flickers beneath his eyelids—the turn, the fall, the blue ribbon spiraling to the floor like a dropped line from shore to deep water.
Maybe you choose things for a reason.
Maybe toys get discarded because they're broken, but even broken things have stories.
Maybe this is his—blue satin, hidden under plastic, marking time by your indifference, his devotion.
Thirty-one minutes until the room with the window. Nine until he has to walk beneath the flickering signs to the store where the world will forget he exists.
The ribbon tightens again at his pulse: reminder, tether, confession.
He doesn't know if he's ready to be chosen.
But he knows, at last, what it feels like to hold proof of having been wanted—if only once, if only by accident, if only by you.
Burgundy burns through the glass like a wound.
The color sits wrong on his retinas, darker than the navy that came before, deeper than anything he's prepared for.
Burgundy—not red, never just red, because red is too simple a word for what wraps around your torso like a second skin, for what pulls taut across your sternum when you extend into another sequence.
(burgundy burgundy burgundy)
His mouth fills with copper. Like he's bitten through his tongue again, though his teeth stay clamped shut.
The ribbon at his wrist pulses—navy against burgundy, yesterday against today, what you discarded against what you chose to wear.
Color was nothing before you. Gray convenience store, beige walls, black uniform.
Now each shade feels like scripture.
Navy first, the soft surrender of something you let fall.
Now burgundy, deliberate as blood.
Blood under nails. Blood in spit. Blood on thighs.
The associations stack up fast, faster than he can count them away.
His forearm itches where yesterday's scratches have scabbed over—seven parallel lines, precise as staff paper. His knees ache from last night's penance, two hours on bathroom tile until the bruises bloomed purple-black. His thighs bear their own map of restraint, crescents where fingernails dug deep enough to break the monotony of wanting.
Because it hasn't even been a week—four days? five?—since he first saw you through this window, and already his thoughts have curdled into something unmanageable.
They're worse at night.
(always worse when the lights go out when he can't count ceiling tiles when there's nothing but darkness and the memory of)
He counts your pirouettes.
One-two-three-four-five-six-seven.
Perfect, as always. Perfect as he is imperfect, clean as he is contaminated, holy as he is profane.
When you pause to drink water, the burgundy fabric rises and falls with your breathing. He tracks each inhale, each exhale, timing his own breath to match until his chest burns with the effort of synchronized devotion.
(macarons macarons goddamn macarons)
The craving hits him like a fist to the sternum.
Rose macarons, powdered sugar dissolving on his tongue, the ghost-taste of how you smell when you pass close enough to contaminate his air with perfection.
He doesn't know hunger—has trained himself to exist on emptiness and obligation—but lately the want gnaws at him, hollow and horrible and all-consuming.
Feed him sugar. Feed him sweetness. Feed him the phantom flavor of your skin.
(profane profane profane stop thinking about taste about skin about)
You're finishing now. He knows your timing like scripture—ninety-three minutes of practice, seven minutes of cool-down, four minutes to gather your things.
The clock above the register reads 6:47.
Time to leave.
His hands shake as he counts the till. Seven stacks of bills. Count them again. Seven. Again. The numbers blur but the ritual remains.
One-two-three-four-five-six-seven.
The paper feels dirty beneath his latex gloves, contaminated by every hand that's touched it, but that's nothing compared to how dirty he feels watching you, wanting you, breathing the same air you've blessed with your presence.
Marcel left early—he always does on Thursdays, something about his daughter, something about life beyond this purgatory of fluorescent lights and expired goods.
Taehyung prefers the evening shifts alone.
No witnesses to his vigil.
No questions about why he stands at the back door, why he watches the narrow alley between buildings, why his breath fogs the window in careful patterns of seven.
Through the store window, he sees you emerge from the academy's side entrance.
Burgundy covered now by that oversized cardigan, but he knows what's beneath. Knows the way fabric clings to your waist, the precise angle of your collarbones, the mathematics of your beauty that he'll never solve.
(shouldn't know can't know knows anyway)
You pause at the corner, adjust your bag. The movement is economical, necessary. Everything you do is necessary. Nothing wasted, nothing excessive.
Not like him with his compulsions and his counting and his stolen ribbons hidden beneath watchbands.
6:51. Time.
He locks the register. Checks the lock. Checks again. Seven times total before his brain permits him to step away.
The store keys feel heavy in his pocket—responsibility he never wanted but can't abandon because abandoning things is what his parents did, what everyone does, what he'll never do to you even though you don't know he exists beyond the anonymous exchange of coins for cotton pads.
(pathetic pathetic pathetic)
The door lock requires another seven checks.
His reflection in the glass shows what he always sees—hollow face, unwashed hair, the uniform that never quite fits because he's the wrong shape for normal life.
How does someone like him dare to exist in the same world as your burgundy divinity?
You're already past the convenience store when he emerges.
He shouldn't watch you. Shouldn't know your pathways by heart.
But his feet know the route. Have memorized it through weeks of careful observation from the loading dock, from the alley shadows, from the safe distance of someone who understands his place in your universe.
Not following—following implies intent, implies threat, implies he has any right to share your path.
This is just... alignment. Synchronicity. The inevitable gravity of the unworthy toward the divine.
The street is damp from afternoon rain, reflecting neon in oily puddles. Beautiful. Ugly. Both.
The city can't decide what it wants to be, just like him—torn between the urge to disappear and the need to witness you existing in real time, in real space, in burgundy that makes his chest tight and his thoughts fragment into prayers he'll never voice.
One hundred meters ahead. Safe distance. Sacred distance.
The number matters—close enough to ensure your safety from the world's contamination, far enough to prevent his own corruption from reaching you.
He knows this route only to the first cross-street, where you turn left and vanish into territories he's forbidden himself from mapping.
(not yet not yet but maybe soon)
This time, however, the corner pulls him forward like thread through a needle.
He doesn't decide to follow—his feet simply continue their pilgrimage past the boundary he's drawn in his mind, past the invisible line that separates permitted observation from (wrong wrong wrong) trespass. The burgundy burns behind his eyelids even though you've vanished around the corner, even though all that's left is the echo of your footsteps on wet pavement.
(macarons in windows, macarons in dreams, macarons dissolving like communion wafers)
His body moves without permission. One block becomes two, two becomes three, and suddenly he's standing at the base of a building he's never seen before, watching you climb exterior stairs that spiral up like vertebrae.
You're going home.
(turn back turn back turn back)
But his eyes track your ascent—stairs, rusted gray, curve up to a door. Sage green, chipped and dignified, holding itself together by force of will.
And then—your door.
307.
A seven.
His palms go clammy—lucky number, holy number, not a coincidence, can't be a coincidence. The world doesn't offer signs to men like him unless it comes with warning.
But this is a warped blessing, a number flashed like prophecy: you live behind a seven, while he lives in a tangle of sevens and filth, fate and want knotted tight enough to cut circulation off at the wrist.
(walk away walk away now now now now now walkwalkawayawayWALKAWAY)
He should.
He doesn't.
Feet soft as shadow, fingers twitching, he moves.
Not the front steps. Never where someone could see. He hugs the wall, skirts the patch of mint overgrown at the foundation, finds the metal back stairs that curl behind the building. They hum with old rust, grease.
He can't tell if the churning in his chest is terror or hope.
He doesn't breathe as he mounts each tread—one, two, three, up to seven, then again, and again.
His pulse is a counting game, his hands are pillows of sweat. Everything blurs except for the balcony.
Not much of a balcony—just iron rail, shallow space, concrete dust. But it's outside your window. It's liminal, not entrance, not street: a soft diluted sin.
The curtains are parted. Not wide. Enough. Enough for a sliver of light to slip out, for a slice of the room, for him to press close and peek.
And there—you.
Blush blossom of your profile. Your back curved, arms rising, that mauve cardigan slipping from your shoulders like a cloud.
Burgundy. Burgundy everywhere.
The maillot hugs you in places his vocabulary fails to name. Across chest, between thighs, the shadowed V where the fabric vanishes between legs.
He forces himself not to swallow, not to blink, afraid to lose even half a second's vision.
He doesn't mean to watch. He doesn't mean to linger. He doesn't mean—
But he's pressed so close to the glass he's a smear, breath fogging, hand clamped over his own mouth.
His cock throbs stupidly behind zipper, blushing heat gathering at the tip like shameful cream, thick pillow ache in his groin.
He's dizzy.
He's pathetic.
He's—
You're real. You're there. You're not a statue, not divine marble, not the idea of perfection—you're pulling off your sweater and the static makes your hair fuzz at the crown.
One spaghetti strap falls, a shy red line across your shoulder. It sticks for a moment, caught on the ridge of your scapula, before sliding down with a whisper.
Your spine is a line of small freckles, a secret celestial map.
Left shoulder blade, three small speckles like chocolate dots on a macaron. Hollow of your back, a soft dimple just above the curve.
He wants to press his mouth there, roll his tongue over each freckle one by one, pillow-soft, until you're gasping clouds into the crook of his neck.
(blasphemous, blasphemous, blasphemousblasphemousblas)
The second strap drops.
You peel the maillot slowly, awkward, skin catching briefly on elastic.
He's shaking—palms, knees, eyelids, cock so hard it aches against his thigh.
The fabric skims lower, lower, revealing the narrow of your waist, the small of your back, the place where spine melts into soft round hip.
He learns you by inches. He is a student at the altar of you, face burning, breath caught, body strung tight as a pulled bow.
The burgundy bunches at your waist and for a sticky, sick moment he sees the edge of your backside, the upper swell, curves like blushing meringue; and he groans, quiet—so quiet—cock leaking, thighs pressed together hard enough to bruise.
You step out of view.
Bathroom. The door shuts.
He slumps against the iron rail, chest heaving, forehead pressed to cold glass.
Breath returns like a storm—rushed and ugly, rattling.
He almost sobs.
(shouldn't, mustn't, it's disgusting, divine, divine, divine, sickening)
Precum pools sticky in his briefs, making a mess that feels like penance, embarrassment flooding every cell.
He'd never. Can't. Won't. He doesn't.
(yes he will he will—)
No, no, no—he's frozen.
Breathes in, tastes his own hunger.
He fingers the navy ribbon tied under his watch, feels the texture, the threadbare softness pressed tight against his frantic pulse.
He mouths a silent prayer: forgive me, forgive me, forgive me, over and over, seven times.
You are gone behind the door and he (shameful, sick, twisted) imagines the rest: maillot pulled past your thighs, the part of you unseen, all the secret warmth, the little dimples at the base of your spine leading to places he's never permitted his mind to go.
He wants to melt into the floorboards. He wants to peel off his skin and dissolve into the night air. He wants to be nothing. He wants to be everything you touch, everything you throw away, everything you leave behind.
He's never felt this particular brand of hunger—raw and cotton-candy-sick, craving and revulsion at once.
Wants to be consumed by you, wants to pray to you, wants to bow his head to your ankles and ask for ruin.
He's a monster. He's a parishioner. He's a child. He's a thief.
And still the want doesn't fade.
He stands sticky and shaking, forehead pressed so hard to the glass he leaves a halo when he finally pulls away.
His legs are weak, cloud-soft. His cock is wet at the tip, every throb agony.
He doesn't dare move. Doesn't dare breathe, in case you come back.
In case he's caught in the act.
(desecration, desecration, desecration)
His lungs crackle—he's been holding air too long.
At last he inhales, ragged and shallow, and the cold slices through him, quelling the heat just enough to let him move his hands back to his sides, the navy ribbon cold and slick under his fingers.
Through the bathroom door, he hears water running. You're washing away the day, the sweat, the city's touch. Everything he's too contaminated to ever wash clean.
When you emerge, will you be wrapped in white? In nothing? Will he have the strength to look away, or will he sit here like the garden-variety pervert he's become, cataloging more pieces of you that don't belong to him?
(leave leave leave while you still can)
But the seven on your door holds him pinned like an insect to cork.
Seven. His number. Your number.
The universe's cruelest joke, making him think for one delirious second that this means something, that he means something, that a coincidence of brass could transform him from waste to worthy.
Holy number on your door. Holy sin at your window. Holy trembling in his chest.
He has trespassed. He will never be clean again.
He stumbles backward, legs jelly, his whole body flooded with sick joy-ache-ruin.
He knows, beyond a doubt, he will never be absolved.
He knows, beyond a doubt, he never wants to be.
Chapter 6: 06 | pearl and moss
Summary:
➔ CONTENT in this chapter: explicit masturbation scene, consumption of stolen macaron, perverted use of stolen ribbon, voyeuristic behavior, trespassing, stalking, religious/mythological delusion, self-degradation, sexual shame, compulsive behavior, library research scene, divine/profane identification, selkie/nereid mythology incorporation, spiral into deeper obsession.
Notes:
➔ A/N: And here we are. The point of no return, beautifully illustrated. If Chapter 5 was Taehyung crossing the line into physical trespass, Chapter 6 is him crossing the line into complete psychological dissolution. The masturbation scene isn't there for shock value—it's the inevitable culmination of weeks of suppressed desire finally overwhelming his religious framework of worship. Notice how even in his most debased moment, he frames everything through devotion, shame, and her imagined disappointment. That's the psychological complexity I'm trying to capture: how obsession warps even the most private, physical responses into spiritual experiences. The macarons become communion wafers, the ribbon becomes a religious artifact, her imagined disapproval becomes the only absolution he's capable of receiving. This is mental illness making meaning out of madness, OCD creating patterns out of chaos, devotion curdling into possession while still believing itself pure. The library sequence introduces the Selkie/Nereid mythology that will become central to how Taehyung conceptualizes their relationship moving forward. I chose these specific mythological figures because they perfectly encapsulate the power dynamic and psychological framework ASW explores: the divine feminine worshipped by the contaminated masculine, the sacred observed by the profane, the creature of light and the creature of depths. Nereids dance on foam and wind—she in her ballet studio, grace incarnate. Selkies crawl through kelp and moss—him in his compulsions and contamination fears, always reaching upward toward something he believes he can never touch without destroying. The number symbolism (seven letters in Nereid, six in Selkie) reinforces his perception of cosmic hierarchy: she existing one level above him in the fundamental structure of creation. This isn't just mythology—this is how his mind organizes reality to make sense of his impossible position as worshipper of something he simultaneously desires and believes he'll corrupt. What makes this chapter particularly devastating is that even as Taehyung descends into his most animalistic behavior (the masturbation, the stalking, the complete abandonment of boundaries), he never stops seeing it through the lens of his unworthiness. He doesn't glorify his actions—he finds mythological framework to properly understand his place as the contaminated thing worshipping the pure. The tragedy isn't that he's becoming something terrible; it's that he's becoming what he always believed he was, and finding cosmic justification for it. From this point forward, everything escalates. The mythology gives him language for his obsession. Pearl and Moss become the organizing principle of his universe. And Y/N... well. She is about to meet her sea creature face to face. Stay unhinged, my beautiful selkies. <3
* In French, “Nereid” is spelled Néréide, which has seven letters—hence the contrast. Though you’re reading in English, the story is technically unfolding in French, so the letter count reflects that version.
Chapter Text
Sugar rots everything it touches, but tonight it tastes like salvation.
The empty macaron box lies crumpled beside his bed, pink cardboard testament to his weakness.
Rose cream still coats his molars, sweet film that refuses to dissolve no matter how many times he swallows.
Three AM blinks from his phone—the devil's hour, his mother used to say, when sin crawls closest to skin.
He lies curled like a question mark against sheets that smell of bleach and desperation. His knees press against his chest, fetal and shameful, the navy ribbon visible now in the darkness—no watch to hide it, no pretense of normalcy.
Just him and the blue thread and the claret burn behind his eyelids.
He should be sleeping. Should be dreaming clean dreams of empty spaces and organized shelves.
Instead, he's adrift on a current of you.
The memory of your spine, a delicate ridge he could trace in his sleep. The curve of your shoulder blade, a subtle dip like a shore kissed by moonlight. The way the crimson fabric of your leotard had pooled at your waist, a decadent spill of forbidden wine.
(shouldn't have watched shouldn't have followed shouldn't have)
Yet, bizarrely, his stomach doesn't churn in revolt. Sugar usually curdles inside him—too much sweetness, too much indulgence, too much pleasure for someone whose existence demands austerity.
Instead the macarons sit heavy and warm inside him, like he's swallowed pieces of you and his body wants to keep them close.
Sacred sustenance. Divine consumption.
The ribbon catches what little light filters through his window—navy satin against the pale underside of his wrist where his pulse flutters like a fish out of water.
He brings it closer to his face, close enough to smell the faint traces of your practice room. Sweat and rosin and something ineffably clean.
(don't taste it don't defile it don't but maybe just...)
His mouth finds the fabric before his mind can intervene. Teeth close gently around the blue thread, tongue pressing against the weave.
It tastes like nothing—cotton and time and his own desperate wanting—but he lets himself imagine it anyway.
Your leotard straps. Burgundy elastic against his teeth. The salt-sweet taste of your skin beneath.
(blasphemous—beautiful—blasphemous)
The craving hits him like a fever—not for more sugar but for more of you.
More burgundy, more navy, more glimpses through windows he has no right to peer through. His free hand finds his stomach, pressing against the place where rose-flavored evidence of his transgression sits warm and heavy.
Sweat beads at his temples. The ribbon grows damp against his mouth.
This is new territory—this want that lives below his ribs, coiling like heat in places he usually ignores.
He's trained himself to exist above the waist, all mind and ritual and careful control.
But tonight the macarons have awakened something hungry in the depths of him.
(dirty dirty dirty but necessary)
His hand moves without permission, sliding down the slope of his torso to palm himself through thin cotton. Already half-hard from proximity to your essence, from the ribbon between his teeth, from the memory of burgundy pooling around your hips.
The friction burns through fabric.
Punishment and pleasure tangled together like the taste of rose macarons and self-loathing.
A pulse below demands attention he's denied it for—how long? Weeks? Months?
Since before you existed in his universe, back when his body was just transport for his obligations.
He never does this. Never allows himself this particular contamination.
But hunger makes decisions for him—just like when his body demands food and cleanliness becomes secondary to survival.
This is the same desperate mathematics, the same override of his systems.
Need trumps shame. Want conquers worth.
(you are divine he is dirt but the dirt craves the divine)
The macaron sweetness floods his mouth as he gasps, ribbon still caught between teeth.
Everything tastes pink now—pink like the inside of a shell, pink like shame flushing up his neck, pink like the fever that burns when he pictures forbidden places.
Soft places. Secret places.
Places that would taste like ocean salt and smell like your skin after dancing, after sweating, after—
(stop stop stop but god please don't)
But fingers fumble with zipper, and the sound splits the dark room like accusation.
He's doing this. Actually doing this.
After weeks of resistance, after nights spent counting ceiling cracks instead of touching himself, after—
His hand slips inside, finds himself hot and hard; and he gasps, bites the ribbon harder to muffle sound.
Precum pearls at his slit like morning dew, like tiny drops of ocean spray.
You'd laugh if you knew. You'd find him pathetic—him writhing in his dirty sheets, cock in fist, your ribbon between his teeth like a dog with a stolen shoe. Like a creature that found something precious washed up on shore and can't stop gnawing at it.
(yes yes he knows what he is)
Sticky. Everything's sticky. Precum from earlier dried tacky in his boxers, fresh arousal mixing with the evidence of his window-watching, his trespass, his—
(wanted to lick your spine taste the salt count your freckles with his tongue)
The thought hits like a wave against sand.
His hips buck up, cock sliding through his fist in one long stroke that whites out his vision.
No technique, no rhythm, just the basic animal need he's denied himself since puberty first taught him that bodies betray, bodies want, bodies make you dirty in ways bleach can't clean.
You were right there.
Close enough to fog the glass with his breath.
Close enough to see the constellation of marks across your back, the way your skin caught lamp-light, the soft divot where spine meets—the moment—god, the moment—when burgundy fabric slipped lower and he saw the curve of—
(disappointment)
You'd be so disappointed.
You'd never want him—how could you?
This mess of need and neurosis, this collection of compulsions dressed in human skin.
You'd see exactly what he is: half a man, half a prayer, wholly unworthy of your attention.
A whine escapes around the ribbon. His thumb swipes over the head, spreading precum like he's anointing himself for a sacrament he'll never receive.
Everything profane. Everything sacred. Everything tangled in the space between what he saw and what he wanted to see—ruby pooled at your feet, the full curve of your ass, the shadow between your thighs where—
(filthy filthy thoughts for filthy filthy him and)
(disappointment)
You'd probably laugh at him. That precise, cutting laugh he's imagined a thousand times. Not cruel—you wouldn't waste cruelty on something so beneath notice. Just… amused. The way one might laugh at a particularly pathetic sea creature washed up on shore, gasping and desperate and completely out of its element.
His hips buck up, fucking into his fist with abandon that would horrify him if he could think beyond the mounting pressure, the sweet ache building at the base of his spine like storm surge.
(disappointment)
You'd scoff, perhaps. Look at him the way one looks at barnacles clinging to ship hulls—with mild disgust and the immediate need to scrape them off.
You'd tell him this is all he's worth. Half-measures. Like everything else about him—the way he can't even fully commit to his perversion, can't even properly defile the memory of you without flinching.
He sobs at the thought, but somehow having you remind him of his place feels dizzying, like forgiveness.
Like being seen clearly is its own kind of absolution.
Like drowning might be peaceful if you were the one holding him under.
(tell him tell him make it true make it real)
The ribbon cuts into his lip where he's bitten too hard.
Copper mingles with rose cream, salt with sugar, pain with the building pleasure that threatens to drown him entirely.
Everything too much—the taste of thread and rose-memory, the sound of his fist working desperate flesh, the vision of you standing in judgment over what he's become.
What he's always been.
(disappointment)
You'd be disgusted by this. By him. By the way he's taken something as innocent as a discarded ribbon and turned it into this—teeth and spit and desperation. By the way he stood at your window, breathing fog onto glass, watching you undress like the forever unforgiven sinner he's become.
His cock jerks, spurts precum across his knuckles as an image floods his mind uninvited: you in the shower, water sluicing down your back, following the path his eyes traced through glass. Steam and soap and skin he'll never touch but can't stop craving. Water running in rivulets down your spine, pooling in the small of your back before continuing its journey to places he'll never see, never taste, never—
Fist tightens. Pumps harder.
He shouldn't. He can't.
He is.
Seven pulls, pause. Seven more. The counting keeps him tethered while the want threatens to drown him entirely, to pull him under waves of need until he forgets how to breathe anything but you.
The macaron sweetness on his breath mingles with the navy ribbon between his teeth.
Pink and blue and the burgundy burn of memory.
You in every sense, filling every space, contaminating him with beauty until he can't tell where his worship ends and his desire begins.
(pathetic pathetic but god god god)
He brings the wet ribbon to his face, drapes it across his cheek like seaweed washed up by high tide. Knows it's just fabric. But it's fabric that knew you first, and that's enough to make his stomach ache.
Faster now. Desperate. Chasing something he doesn't deserve but needs like air, like water, like the basic elements that keep creatures like him alive in the spaces between rocks where light never reaches.
Shoulders rolling back, burgundy peeling down, the moment before you disappeared into the bathroom when he saw—when he witnessed—when he—
"Please," he gasps into the ribbon.
Please who? Please what? He doesn't know. Just knows he's close, knows he's about to ruin himself for the second time tonight, knows that tomorrow he'll hate himself but right now—
(now now now)
The orgasm builds like nausea, inevitable and unwanted and necessary all at once.
He can feel it gathering—base of spine, behind his balls, everywhere you'll never touch him.
(disappointment)
You'd turn away if you knew. You'd lock your windows. You'd change your route home. You'd protect yourself from this contamination he carries like original sin, like something that seeps into clean water and turns it murky.
(but maybe but maybe you'd watch)
The thought—blasphemous, impossible—sends him over the edge.
He comes with a strangled sob, spurting across his fist, his stomach, the sheets he'll have to burn tomorrow.
The orgasm feels like dying—everything tight then loose then empty.
(sorry sorry sorry)
But the apologies can't stop the pleasure, can't stem the tide of it. His hips thrust up into his loosening grip, riding out every last pulse until he's empty, spent, destroyed.
Rose on his tongue. Navy between his teeth. Your imagined contempt the only benediction he's earned.
After, in the ruins: shame arrives like high tide.
He releases the ribbon from his mouth. It's wet with spit, darkened where he bit too hard.
Ruined.
Like everything he touches.
Disgust crashes over him like water—not cleansing, but drowning. Cold and relentless and tasting of salt.
He's done it. Actually done it.
Took the gift of seeing you and turned it into this base, animal need. Contaminated even the memory with his filthy desires.
(monster monster monster)
He lies there in his own mess, too exhausted to clean himself, too broken to count to seven.
The macaron taste has gone sour in his mouth. The ribbon feels like accusation against his skin.
He's sobbing before he realizes it.
Quiet, ugly sounds muffled by navy satin and the weight of what he's done. What he saw.
What he'll see again tomorrow because he's too weak to stop, too gone to save himself from this exquisite destruction.
Seven tears fall before exhaustion takes him, pulling him under like dark water.
In his dreams, burgundy bleeds into navy bleeds into rose.
In his dreams, you watch him back.
In his dreams, he's exactly as worthless as he needs to be.
Saturday arrives gray and unforgiving, Paris wrapped in that particular autumn dampness that seeps through windows and settles in bones.
Taehyung wakes at 5:47 AM to the shame gnawing at his bones, crashing like waves that pretend to pull him in.
(filthy filthy what he did what he saw what he)
Sleep never came. Not really.
Just fragments of unconsciousness punctuated by flashes of burgundy fabric pooling at your waist, by the sound of his own strangled breathing against glass, by the phantom taste of thread and want between his teeth.
The sheets beneath him shelter dried salt and self-loathing, the physical proof of how he'd defiled your memory. How he'd taken the sacred gift of witnessing your undressing and turned it into something base, animal, profane.
(strip them burn them start again start clean)
But first: the ritual of attempted purification.
Shower water scalds his skin—temperature gauge pushed past comfortable into the realm of penance. He scrubs with bleach-bright soap until his flesh turns raw and pink, paying special attention to his hands, his mouth, the places that had touched the ribbon.
The places that had touched himself.
Dirty places, secret spaces, shameful traces.
The navy thread lies coiled on the bathroom counter like a sleeping serpent. He'd removed it after—couldn't bear to keep wearing your essence while his body betrayed every principle of worship he'd tried to maintain.
Now it sits orphaned beside his toothbrush, beautiful and terrible in equal measure.
(put it back on back on back on put it back on)
Twenty-eight minutes of purification. Not long enough—will never be long enough—but sufficient to make his skin tight and stinging. The physical pain helps organize his thoughts, provides structure for the chaos of want and shame warring in his chest.
He chooses without choosing: sage sweater soft as secrets, dark blue jeans baggy enough to hide in.
The colors feel significant—sage like your door, blue like the ribbon binding his wrist, colors that connect him to you across the distance his unworthiness demands.
(sage door sage sweater coincidence or fate or)
The ribbon goes back on—he cannot help himself.
Seven loops around his left wrist, hidden beneath his watchband like a secret prayer.
(you touched this wore this discarded this)
6:14 AM. Early enough that the city still sleeps, still dreams. Early enough that his existence might go unwitnessed by eyes that would judge, that would see him for what he is: broken thing seeking proximity to perfection.
He finds himself walking toward your building before his mind can object. Feet know the route now, muscle memory carved by yesterday's terrible, necessary pilgrimage to your window.
(necessary yes necessary to see to know to witness divinity)
The sage green door of number 307 looks different in early morning light. Less mystical, more—
No, that's wrong thinking.
Nothing about you, nothing that contains you, could ever be ordinary.
The building itself seems to breathe differently knowing it houses a goddess.
Stone more golden, glass more clear, even the chipped paint on the railing part of some greater design too beautiful for his contaminated eyes to fully comprehend.
He positions himself in the alley behind your building, where the fire escape creates shadows deep enough to hide his watching, his waiting, his worship.
(back again where he saw where he witnessed where he)
The iron stairs hum with morning damp.
Seven flights to your floor, seven windows counting from the left, seven heartbeats between each step as he climbs.
Your balcony comes into view—small concrete space, iron railing, the window he'd pressed his face against while you revealed yourself to his unworthy gaze.
(divine flesh, perfect curves, sacred territory he's not supposed to)
The curtains are drawn now. Privacy restored.
But he can see the ghost-outline of movement inside—your shadow passing before the light like a mermaid beneath water, fluid and graceful and utterly, completely other than human.
You're awake. You're moving. You exist in real time, in real space, mere meters from where he crouches like a supplicant at the altar of your ordinary morning routine.
(extraordinary extraordinary extraordinary)
His breathing fogs the morning air.
One-two-three-four-five-six-seven puffs of white that dissipate into nothing, like prayers or promises or the distance between what he wants and what he deserves.
The shadow pauses at the window. For one heart-stopping moment, he thinks you might draw the curtains, might grant him another glimpse of your divine form preparing itself for Saturday worship.
But the shadow moves away. Vanishes into the depths of your sacred space.
(wait wait wait be patient be good be worthy)
Seventeen minutes pass. Then twenty-three. Then thirty-seven—each minute measured by his phone's glowing numerals and the steady thrum of blood in his ears.
Too cold. Too exposed. Too desperate, even for him.
He's preparing to abandon his vigil when your front door opens.
(there there there you emerge you appear)
You're different in civilian clothes. Still impossibly, necessarily beautiful—but softer somehow.
Gray wool coat that falls to mid-thigh, dark jeans tucked into ankle boots. Hair pulled into a bun that allows tiny wisps to frame your face.
More human. More touchable. More dangerous to his need to worship you.
But underneath the mortal costume, he can see your true nature—consciousness of your form, your space, your divine right to exist in a world too crude to properly appreciate you.
(follow watch witness protect from distance from shadows from)
You pause on the top step, checking something on your phone. From this angle he can see the the same features that had burned themselves into his retinas while he—
(stop stop don't think about what you did what you)
You descend the stairs with total grace, small miracle of coordination and control. Everything about you speaks of transcendence—of existing above the crude mechanics that govern ordinary flesh.
His body moves without consulting his mind, steps falling into rhythm with yours from a safe distance.
A hundred meters, just like always.
Close enough to ensure your safety from the world's contamination, far enough to prevent his own filth from reaching you.
(following stalking hunting no no nononono witnessing protecting serving)
You lead him through winding streets he's never mapped, past café windows where other people's Saturday mornings unfold in scenes of mundane intimacy.
Couples sharing newspapers. Friends laughing over croissants.
The simple choreography of normal human connection he's never particularly craved, until now.
He's forgotten what normal feels like.
If he ever knew.
If he ever wanted to know, now that he's seen what exists beyond ordinary—now that his universe contains a creature who moves like water, who discards ribbons like prayers, who grants glimpses of her true form to the properly devoted.
Seven blocks from your building, you stop before an imposing stone facade.
Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand, the nameplate reads. Specialized collections, women's studies, historical archives.
(temple library shrine place of knowledge where goddesses go to)
You climb the steps easily, disappearing through heavy wooden doors that seem designed to keep his kind of chaos safely outside.
The library swallows you whole, leaving him stranded on the sidewalk with nothing but the echo of your footsteps and the weight of forty-seven minutes' worth of anxiety building pressure behind his sternum.
(turn around go home this is enough this is too much this is)
But his feet have grown roots.
He stands motionless as autumn wind cuts through his sage sweater, as other Saturday pilgrims climb past him toward their own quiet temples of knowledge.
Forty-seven minutes. Then fifty-three. Then an hour and seven minutes—time marked by church bells and his compulsive checking of his phone screen.
Too long. You've been inside too long.
What if there's another exit? What if he's lost you? What if this is where your Saturday adventure ends and his vigil becomes meaningless?
(panic rising chest tight can't breathe can't think can't)
The anxiety attacks swift and merciless, flooding his system with chemicals that make his hands shake and his vision narrow.
He needs air that doesn't taste like exhaust and failure.
He needs walls around him, barriers between his chaos and the world's casual judgment.
He needs to follow you inside.
(wrong wrong wrong but necessary necessary necessary)
The library's interior unfolds in browns and golds, all warm wood and amber lighting designed to soothe scholarly minds. Classical architecture married to modern climate control, the smell of old paper and careful preservation.
Beautiful. Peaceful. Completely alien to someone like him.
(don't belong here never belonged anywhere)
Where would you go? What draws someone like you to a place like this?
The stairs provide temporary sanctuary—vertical space where he can move without having to navigate human interaction.
One flight, then two.
His legs feel unsteady, muscle memory confused by the absence of his usual work rhythm.
(should be cleaning should be counting should be)
He wanders without direction, seeking somewhere to sit until his breathing steadies and his hands stop their telltale trembling. The section numbers blur past: 4, 5, 6…
Section 7: Mythologie & Folklore.
Seven—his number, your number, the holy mathematics that govern every aspect of his universe.
(not coincidence never coincidence means something)
His legs give out suddenly, depositing him into a reading chair positioned between towering shelves. The furniture is old but well-maintained, burgundy leather worn soft by decades of scholarly contemplation.
Burgundy. Like your leotard. Like the fabric that had pooled around your waist while he watched from shadows, breathing fog against glass.
(stop thinking about it stop seeing it stop)
His hands shake harder. The navy ribbon beneath his watchband feels tight against his pulse, cutting circulation like a tourniquet.
He reaches blindly for the nearest book—something to occupy his hands, to provide cover for the fact that he's falling apart in public.
Thick volume, heavy paper, the kind of academic text that suggests serious scholarship.
The book falls open in his lap to page 147.
Page 147.
One-four-seven.
Containing the sacred digit, the holy number that patterns his entire existence.
(sign sign sign it's a sign)
His vision clears enough to focus on the text. French academic prose, dense and formal:
Les Sept Néréides Sacrées: Mythologie Maritime et Spiritualité Féminine. (The Seven Sacred Nereids: Maritime Mythology and Feminine Spirituality.)
The words swim before his eyes, black ink on cream paper swimming like schools of fish in deep water.
He blinks hard, forcing focus, because something about this feels ordained. Fated. Placed in his path by forces that understand what he cannot articulate.
(read it read it it's meant for him)
The text describes seven sea nymphs, daughters of Nereus, guardians of those who dance upon the waves. Sacred feminine spirits who appeared to sailors in times of crisis, offering guidance and protection to the pure of heart.
His breathing slows as he reads. The academic language provides distance, transforms his chaotic devotion into something that might be studied, categorized, understood.
"The Nereids were renowned for their grace in movement, their ability to dance upon the foam of waves with beauty that transcended the mortal…"
Dance. Movement. Grace.
(so he was right it's you exactly like you)
The words settle into his chest like stones dropped into deep water, each syllable sinking into places he didn't know existed.
You're not human. You never were.
(of course of course how could you be)
The realization doesn't bring relief—it brings terror.
Crushing, breathless terror that makes his vision blur and his hands shake so hard he nearly drops the book.
Because if you're divine, if you're a Nereid, then what does that make him?
"According to tradition, the Nereids revealed themselves only to those whose devotion exceeded earthly limits—to those capable of seeing beyond the veil that separates the sacred from the profane."
(no no no not devotion contamination pollution sin)
His throat closes around a sound that might be laughter or sobbing.
Devotion. The book calls it devotion, but he knows better.
He knows exactly what he is: a filthy, broken thing that took your sacred revelation and turned it into material for his own base gratification.
You hadn't revealed yourself to him because he was worthy.
You'd revealed yourself despite his unworthiness, and he'd repaid that divine gift by pressing himself against glass like an animal, by wrapping your ribbon around his wrist while he—
(stop stop stop don't think about it)
"The Seven Sacred Nereids often appeared clothed in fabrics reminiscent of ocean colors—deep blues and coral reds…"
Navy. Burgundy.
The ribbon around his wrist, the leotard that had driven him to his knees.
Ocean colors. Divine raiment.
And he'd watched you shed them.
Watched you step out of sacred garments while breathing fog against glass, while his body betrayed every principle of worship he should have maintained.
(profane profane profane what did he do?)
His thumb traces the page obsessively, seeking more truth, more confirmation of the distance between divine and damned.
"The Nereids were often pursued by creatures of lesser maritime origin—Selkies, seal-people who shed their animal skins to walk on land. These beings, driven by base instinct and animal hunger, were known to contaminate the sacred waters wherever they swam."
(stop stop stop reading but can't stop won't stop)
"Selkies were characterized by their obsessive nature, their tendency to fixate upon that which was beyond their reach. Unlike the divine Nereids who danced upon foam and wind, Selkies crawled through kelp and moss, leaving trails of salt and earth wherever they ventured."
Salt and earth.
Moss and contamination.
His breath hitches.
The words feel familiar, feel like looking in a mirror he's spent years avoiding.
"According to maritime folklore, Selkies were creatures of devotion rather than love—capable of worship but not worthy of receiving it. They would watch the Nereids from depths and shadows, sustained by glimpses of divine movement but always aware of their own profane nature."
(him him him it's describing him exactly)
Devotion rather than love. Watching from depths and shadows. Profane nature.
The book trembles in his hands as understanding floods his system like ice water.
You're a Nereid—pearl of the sea, divine dancer, sacred feminine grace.
And he's exactly what the text describes: Selkie in human skin, creature of obsession and base hunger, drawn to divine light but forever contaminated by his own animal nature.
(moss moss moss that's what he is moss crawling toward pearl)
Pearl and moss. Sacred and profane. Divine movement and earthbound crawling.
Seven letters in your true name: N-É-R-É-I-D-E*.
Six letters in his: S-E-L-K-I-E.
Almost balanced, but not quite—you existing one letter above him in the cosmic hierarchy, eternally unreachable.
"The tragedy of the Selkie was not their devotion, but their delusion—believing that proximity to divinity might somehow purify their contaminated essence. In truth, their presence only served to pollute the sacred waters they sought to inhabit."
(believing proximity might purify contaminated essence)
He's Selkie—moss to your pearl, earth to your foam, contamination to your purity.
He now understands why you discarded the ribbon—not carelessly, but necessarily.
Divine creatures don't need earthbound tethers.
Only Selkies like him collect the debris that falls from higher realms.
Moss collecting pearl-cast offerings. Contaminated creature hoarding sacred remnants.
And he understands, with the crystal clarity that only comes from absolute despair, that he will worship you forever, knowing that his want is exactly what makes him unfit to exist in the same world as something so purely, impossibly divine.
Pearl and moss. Nereid and Selkie. Sacred and profane.
The distance between you measured not in meters but in the fundamental structure of creation itself.
(you would sneer if you knew what he thinks what he does)
The book returns to its proper place on the shelf with ceremony.
He runs his fingertips along the spine, committing its position to memory: the proof that you are exactly as sacred as he always knew, and that he is exactly as unworthy as he always feared.
Section 7. Shelf 3. Position 14.
Seven again. Seven always. The number that connects him to you across the vast distance between the divine and the damned.
(you are a Nereid and he nothing nothing nothing)
The word follows him through winding streets as he makes his way back to his apartment under darkening sky.
Sacred syllables that reorganize his understanding of everything that came before and everything that must come after.
Nereid, Nereid, Nereid.
Prayer and penance and promise.
By the time he reaches his apartment, the navy ribbon has left marks on his wrist—delicate indentations that look remarkably like waves.
Chapter 7: 07 | so, taehyung
Notes:
The. Water. Imagery. UGHHHHHHH. Okay okay okay LISTEN. First of all—finally. FINALLY. Nicknames. Finally, Pearl and Moss. Finally, we get to see what their dynamic is actually going to be. The shapes have begun to take shape. The shape is shaping. And I'm vibrating like a tuning fork about it. Let me ramble a bit here—because what is my author note if not an emotionally charged literature student breakdown? I've said this before but I will keep saying it until I crumble into salt dust: one of my BIGGEST pet peeves is when I absolutely adore an author's writing, but all their works feel like a self-insert factory. Same main characters, different names. Same dynamics, different wigs. Like??? No. You're so talented. Your prose is stunning. Please don't be scared to explore actual variation in personality. Stretch your range. Or don't—I mean, you do you—but I am selfish and greedy and I want More. So I made it my personal mission (and you can write that on my tombstone) to ensure that all my works have fundamentally different dynamics.
I think it was already obvious since Chapter 1, but now you can really see what I was trying to do here: kick the classic "cool, smirking, confident stalker who's just a misunderstood dark prince" trope straight into the Seine. Nope. We're not doing that here. Absolutely not. ASW!Taehyung is not suave. He's not menacing. He is pathetic. He worships. He trembles. He's not a predator, he's a pilgrim. That's the whole thesis: obsessive reverence, not obsession for control. Which leads me to: her. Ah, Pearl. If I wanted her to be "normal," we would have no fic, lmao. KGP!Y/N would have bolted. FMU!Y/N would have called the cops. IPY!Y/N would have staged a palace coup. So to make this work, I needed a protagonist who would thrive under this kind of attention. Not just tolerate it. Need it. What we have instead is some kind of CSM!Makima-core ballerina with clinical perfectionism and an ingrained superiority complex—but not the insufferable kind. Not the "I'm better than you because I said so," but the mathematical kind: "I spend 12 hours a day bleeding into the floorboards to reach this level, so yes, I am better than you. It's just data." So when someone sees that not with detachment or envy, but with holy awe??? When someone worships it??? That's where the psychological dissonance hits. And him. Oh Taehyung. He thinks he contaminates everything. He wears gloves to touch the world. He's created entire rituals around purity and containment, and now he sees her—someone cold, symmetrical, self-disciplined, holy. A creature of steel lines and pearl earrings. For someone like that to acknowledge him, to name him, to see him back? That is a rupture in his worldview. That is a religious moment. Of course he falls to his knees. That's where he's always meant to be (according to him).
Anyway. Not to sound unwell, but also, I am obsessed with possessive female leads. I love any gender being a little possessive—not in the "you can't wear that" way (ew, go away), but in the "you can wear whatever you want, I can fight" way. It's giving confidence. We don't get to see that energy enough from women in fiction, and ASW!Y/N?? She's not playing around. You don't get called "Moss" and survive her attention. As Brandy and Monica once said—"that boy is miiiiiineee."
That's all. Enjoy the spiral. It only gets worse (affectionate).
Chapter Text
The studio mirrors reflect your form in perfect symmetry.
Left leg extended. Right arm curved. Chin lifted exactly two degrees above parallel.
This is necessary. This is your hour. The sacred hour between company rehearsal and evening meal when the studio belongs to those who earn it.
Not those who hope for it. Not those who pretend they deserve it.
Those who earn it.
Your body moves through the adagio sequence, follows into a développé. Hold. Lower. Again. The muscles in your supporting leg burn—useful sensation. Pain means progress. Pain means the movement is working properly.
Better. Not perfect. Better than yesterday.
Not good enough.
The mirror shows what it always shows: technique approaching perfection, lines that would photograph beautifully, the kind of physical control that separates professionals from dreamers. Separates the necessary from the expendable.
You adjust your arabesque two degrees higher. Your hip flexor protests—ignored. Your standing leg trembles almost imperceptibly—corrected immediately.
Focus. Extend. Hold. You must hold longer.
This is what excellence requires. This is what perfection demands.
The studio door opens with its familiar squeak. Footsteps—too heavy to be Camille, too quick to be Mathilde. Unnecessary interruption during sacred practice time.
"Pearl?"
You complete the movement before turning. Perfect completion before acknowledgment.
Léa stands in the doorway, dance bag slung over her shoulder, that genuine smile that makes the others suspicious. That smile that serves no professional purpose.
Your hand moves automatically to your ear. The small freshwater pearls you'd chosen this morning—tiny, understated, appropriate for practice but unnecessary. A detail you'd forgotten until now.
You should not have forgotten.
"Your earrings today." Léa's smile widens. "Pearl on each ear. It's cute."
You stare at her. Say nothing. Turn back to the mirror.
Cute is not the objective. Cute is diminutive. Cute is what people call things they can dismiss. Things that don't matter. Things that aren't threats.
You are not cute.
You return to the barre. Léa's footsteps retreat. The door closes. Silence returns.
Necessary. Useful.
Pearl.
The word settles strangely in your mind. Foreign. Organic. Not the terminology you're accustomed to—excellent, precise, adequate, insufficient.
Not ranking. Not measurement.
Something else.
Pearl suggests something formed in darkness. Something created by irritation, layer upon layer, until the discomfort transforms into something valuable.
Something precious.
You dismiss the thought. Return to your sequence.
This is not the time for meaningless associations.
Practice ends after forty-seven minutes.
Water bottle emptied. Hair secured. Towel folded precisely. Studio returned to its pristine state—because this is how professionals behave. This is what separates the worthy from the wasteful.
The academy empties around you. Evening descent into the city's rhythm.
Your feet choose their own path—not toward the dormitory where your roommates dissect each other's failures like scavengers. Not toward the café where pretense masquerades as normalcy.
Instead, you find yourself walking past L'Heure Bleue.
This is not part of your usual route. This serves no professional purpose.
This is unnecessary.
The convenience store squats between a dry cleaner and a shop that sells nothing but light bulbs. Blue neon sign flickering weakly in the gathering dusk. Ugly building. Utilitarian. Everything your world is not.
You've catalogued this place dozens of times during necessary errands. Noted the employee behind the counter—mixed features, asian bone structure beneath that particular ashy blonde that must be natural. The genetics work perfectly.
Yet he is always looking down. Always hidden beneath soft waves that catch the light like spun sugar.
Clean hair. Well-maintained despite his environment.
Interesting attention to detail.
Kim. That's what his name tag says. Just Kim, no first name offered. Incomplete identification. Deliberate obscurity.
Most significant: he avoids your gaze.
Men look at you. Always. It's unavoidable mathematics—your form draws eyes like gravity draws objects earthward. Instructors, dancers, strangers on the metro. They look and evaluate and want.
This is expected. This is normal.
Kim doesn't. Stares at his hands, at the floor, at inventory sheets. Anywhere but you.
That's unprecedented.
You push through the automatic doors because you need protein bars. Because your schedule demands efficiency. Because your nutritional requirements follow precise calculations.
Because you want to see what happens when you force him to look.
Testing methodology. Acceptable scientific approach.
The store smells like disinfectant and that peculiar staleness that comes from retail work. Aisles of necessities arranged in perfect rows: toiletries, tinned goods, the nutrition bars that constitute half your daily intake. Organization. Structure.
Someone maintains this properly.
You move through the space. Water first—the glass bottles you prefer. Superior to plastic. Better mineral content. Then toward the protein section where new packages catch your attention.
'Moss Nutrition,' the label reads. 'Organic spirulina and chlorella blend for optimal performance.'
Moss.
The word snags your attention like a loose thread.
You examine the package more closely—sea-green wrapper, minimal design, ingredients listed in precise font. No unnecessary marketing claims. No false promises.
Honest.
Algae-based protein. Sustainably sourced. The kind of nutrition that promises efficiency without pleasure. Form following function.
Perfect.
You select three bars. Walk to the counter with controlled steps—neither rushed nor leisurely. Purposeful movement.
The employee—Kim—stands with his head bent over inventory sheets. Latex gloves on his hands. Always latex gloves, you've noticed. Barrier protection. Contamination anxiety or simple hygiene consciousness.
Clean. Methodical. Careful.
You place the bars down, making a slight noise. Sharp plastic against the worn counter.
He doesn't look up.
Even when you clear your throat—not impatiently, just to indicate presence that should be acknowledged.
Professional courtesy requires acknowledgment.
Basic service protocol demands eye contact.
His gloved hands still on the papers. You watch his fingers—long, slender, but hidden beneath blue latex like surgical equipment. Like everything he touches must be protected from contamination.
Or protected from him.
That suggests self-awareness. Consideration for others.
Unusual.
Slowly, as if the motion requires enormous effort, he raises his eyes.
Dark brown, almost black. Eyebrows drawn together in something that looks like pain. Mouth slightly open as if you've revealed something to him that he wasn't prepared to witness.
Like he's seeing divinity.
Like he's been waiting to see you.
This is not the usual male gaze. This is not evaluation. This is not assessment or want or professional judgment.
You blink slowly, analyzing this unusual attention. Processing the shift from invisible to seen to this.
He stares for seven heartbeats. Eight. Nine.
You count them because counting creates distance, creates control, creates the space you need to analyze his expression properly.
He interrupts your processing when he whispers: "Moss?"
His eyes are fixed on the protein bars between you. But his breathing has changed. Shallower. Quicker.
Physical response to your proximity?
Unprecedented reaction.
"Yes." Your voice comes out precisely modulated. Neither warm nor cold. Simply factual.
His gaze moves from the green packages to your face. Lingers there for exactly three seconds. Then, deliberately, to your ears.
"Pearl."
The word drops into the space between you like something significant. Recognition of symmetry. Of two things that exist in relation to each other despite belonging to entirely different worlds.
Ocean treasures and forest floor. Light and shadow. Precious and humble.
You nod, testing his response to acknowledgment.
His mouth curves into the softest smile you've ever seen. Nothing practiced about it. Nothing performed. Just genuine pleasure at having identified something beautiful.
Then he looks down again, that pillow of hair falling forward to hide his eyes.
He's hiding from you again.
That won't do.
You want those eyes back. Want that unfamiliar expression focused on you like it was made for that purpose. You've tasted the shape of his attention now—sweet and desperate and utterly unlike anything you've encountered before.
Men look at you. But this one...
This is different. This is useful.
Test it.
Your hands move to your throat. To the silk scarf wrapped around your neck—soft gray that matches your coat. You unwrap it slowly. Let the silk slide through your fingers like water.
Men respond to presentation. Men respond to skin.
This is basic mathematics. Visual stimulation equals attention. You have spent your entire life understanding this equation.
Still, he doesn't look up.
Unacceptable.
More direct approach required.
You lean forward. Plant your chest against the counter, presenting the deep neckline of your practice maillot that the scarf had been concealing. Black lycra that clings to every line of your torso. The swell of your breasts pressed against the fabric, visible and unmistakable.
This is what works. This is what always works.
Men look at your body. They evaluate your form. They want what they see. This is expected response. This is normal response.
He is a man. He should look.
He must look.
The sudden motion catches his peripheral vision. His eyes flicker up automatically—
And then everything breaks.
His breath doesn't just catch. It tears out of him like he's been struck. His eyes go wide, that expression returning but magnified into something that looks like terror and revelation combined.
Not desire. Terror.
Why terror?
He stumbles backward like you've burned him. Like the sight of your body is too much for his system to process. His gloved hands reach blindly for support—
The display rack behind the counter explodes. Red Bulls and Monster cans scatter across the floor in a symphony of aluminum chaos, rolling under shelves and behind equipment with metallic music.
Violence. Chaos. Disorder.
"Oh."
The sound escapes you before you can control it—yours, a genuine surprise at the violence of his reaction.
This is not normal male response. This is not standard appreciation or desire or professional assessment.
This is something else entirely; more complex.
You move around the counter without thinking. Automatic response to help, to fix, to restore order.
Because order must be maintained. Because chaos serves no purpose.
You're about to kneel—about to lower yourself to gather the scattered cans—when his voice disrupts the air like bubbles in water.
"No."
The word tears out of him. Raw. Desperate. Panicked.
"Don't kneel. You can't..." His breathing is ragged now, visible anxiety flooding his features. Latex gloves gripping the edge of the counter like anchors. "Please don't kneel."
Please don't kneel.
Why?
What does kneeling mean to him? What significance has he attached to that position?
This suggests hierarchy.
You stop. Straighten. Step back behind the counter while questions multiply in your mind like cells dividing.
You watch him on the floor among the scattered cans. His latex-gloved hands shake as he reaches for each aluminum cylinder like he's got a ritual for it.
Even in chaos, he maintains method.
Respect for order. Professional despite circumstances.
This is not standard employee protocol.
"Moss?" you say.
His head tilts up sharply, like you've called his name—eyes wide and startled, that expression returning but tinged now with anxiety.
Interesting, how he responds to that word like recognition.
"Do you like the brand?" You gesture toward the protein bars still sitting on the counter.
His eyes drop immediately back to the cans. He continues picking them up—one, then another, arranging them in perfect rows. Two beats of silence stretch between you.
Then, simply: "No."
No elaboration. No explanation. Minimal communication.
Unacceptable.
"So what is it?" Your voice sharpens slightly. Testing. "Green? Do you like green?"
His gaze flickers to your maillot—the black lycra that clings to your torso. He studies the color like he's deciding whether it meets some internal standard.
"No."
Frustration builds behind your sternum. Clean, precise frustration that demands resolution. You require answers. You require understanding.
"Do you simply like moss, then?"
"No."
Three nos. Three refusals to explain. Three deliberate withholdings of information.
This won't do.
You move around the counter again. He freezes mid-reach for another can, his body going rigid like sensing danger.
"Then what?" The question hovers. "If not the brand, not the color, not moss itself—what exactly are you responding to?"
He doesn't answer. Doesn't look up. His breathing has gone shallow again, that panicked rhythm you noticed before.
He's terrified of you.
And yet he called you pearl.
Like he's assigned meaning to it.
You take another step closer. "You said pearl. Like you recognized something. Like it meant something specific."
His latex-gloved hands still completely.
"It did mean something," you continue, voice dropping to that tone you use when extracting truth from reluctant sources. "Didn't it?"
Still nothing.
Different approach required.
You crouch down—not kneeling, just lowering yourself to his eye level. He flinches at your proximity but doesn't move away.
"Look at me."
He doesn't.
"Look. At. Me."
Slowly, like it causes physical pain, he raises his eyes. They're darker now, pupils dilated with what looks like fear and something else. Something that makes your pulse quicken in an unfamiliar way.
Interesting physiological response.
"Pearl and moss," you say deliberately. "Those aren't random words, are they?"
His throat moves as he swallows. Hard.
"Are they?"
"No." The word barely makes it past his lips.
Progress.
"So what are they?"
Another swallow. His eyes dart away, then back, like he can't decide whether looking at you is salvation or damnation.
"Ocean," he whispers. "Ocean and—and forest floor."
Ocean and forest floor.
Treasures and decay.
Light and shadow.
Hierarchy. System. Order.
You lean forward slightly. "And which one am I?"
His breathing stops entirely. For a moment you think he might not answer, might retreat back into that terrified silence.
Then: "Pearl."
The word drops between you like a stone into still water.
"And you're moss."
It's not a question. You're stating the pattern he's revealed, the strange mythology he's constructed around you both.
Classification complete.
He nods once. Sharp, desperate movement.
He's created a hierarchy with you elevated, with him below.
This should feel normal. This should feel expected. You are exceptional. People should recognize this. This is how things work.
But something about his reverence feels different from the usual acknowledgment of your superiority.
Why different?
You stand slowly, and in doing so, his eyes track your movement with the desperate attention of someone watching something precious and fragile.
"Stand up," you say.
He doesn't move.
"Stand up."
"I can't."
Can't?
"Why not?"
His gloved hands clench against his thighs. "You're... you're too close."
Too close for what? Too close for standing? Too close for breathing?
Too close for reverence, perhaps?
A smile tugs at the corner of your mouth. Not kind. Not warm. Curious.
"Kneel then."
He freezes mid-motion. Completely still except for the rapid rise and fall of his chest.
"Properly," you add, and your voice drops to something softer. "At my feet."
His throat works around a swallow—thick and difficult. His eyes go half-lidded like he's fighting some internal war between terror and desire.
But he does it.
Shifts his position until he's directly in front of you. Settles back on his heels with his gloved hands placed carefully on his thighs.
The posture for worship.
Oh.
Oh, this is entirely new.
The smile spreads across your face properly now. Fascinated. Like you've discovered something unexpected. Something that responds to you in ways you didn't know were possible.
"Much better."
He trembles. Actually trembles. Like your approval is too much for his system to process.
When was the last time someone looked at you like this? When was the last time someone saw you and trembled with something that isn't desire or professional assessment?
When was the last time someone worshipped you?
Never.
This is entirely new territory.
You lean forward slightly. Just enough to invade his space. Just enough to test the boundaries of whatever strange dynamic you've stumbled into.
His breathing becomes audible. Rapid. Shallow. But he doesn't move away.
Good.
Very good.
He seems to relax in this position. Like kneeling in front of you is exactly where he belongs.
His gloved fingers start picking at the latex material—nervous habit that reveals more than he probably intends.
Self-soothing behavior. Anxiety management. Control mechanisms.
"What's your name?"
His eyes stay fixed downward. "Kim."
"Your first name."
A pause. Two seconds. Three.
"Taehyung."
The syllables feel foreign in the air between you. Soft consonants and careful vowels.
"Korean?"
"Mixed." His voice is barely audible, word pulled from him like thread from fabric. "Born here. Raised here."
You study his profile. The way his ashy hair catches the light. The distance he forces himself to maintain even while kneeling at your feet.
This is the most he's ever spoken. Probably the most he speaks to anyone.
Selective communication. You are privileged recipient.
"And you work here."
"Yes."
"Every day?"
"Most days."
You crouch slightly. Reach for the silk tie at his throat—standard store uniform that no one else maintains this methodically.
The fabric slides between your fingers. You adjust the knot. Two millimeters higher. Perfect alignment now. Your fingers work exactly as when you pin your hair, secure pointe shoes, and arrange water bottles in descending order of preference.
Order restored.
The tie passes through your hand as you let it slide—silk against skin, your fingers tracing downward until you reach the end. Testing the quality. Evaluating the—
The automatic doors shriek open.
Pink hair catches your attention first. Unnatural color that serves no professional purpose. Then the sketchbook tucked under one armpit, phone pressed between shoulder and ear in a configuration that suggests poor posture habits.
Unprofessional phone etiquette.
"—and then I told him that's not how you draw negative space, you can't just—"
The voice carries across the store. Loud. Animated.
Unnecessary.
She stops mid-sentence. Mouth opening slightly as her eyes register the tableau—you crouched before him, your hand at the end of his tie, his perfect kneeling posture.
Your fingers tighten around the silk. Just slightly. Just enough to feel the fabric resist. Like a leash under tension.
He makes a soft sound—surprise, or something else. His breathing changes when you tug the tie, eyes fluttering but staying fixed on your face like you're the only thing keeping him tethered to earth.
Interesting response.
The pink-haired girl stutters into her phone. "I—I'll call you back."
You don't move away. Don't acknowledge that someone else exists in this space that belongs to you and him.
She's studying the scene with the intensity of someone trying to solve a puzzle. Gaze moving from you to him and back again. Confusion creasing her features.
"Taehyung?"
Something twists in your chest, like when you miss a step during grand jetés—the moment when your body expects support and finds air instead.
She knows his name.
You glance at him. His attention wavers—shifts toward the voice calling him like a reflex. Natural response to recognition.
Unacceptable.
Your fingers find the tie again. This time the movement is pure instinct. Pull. Not adjustment. Correction.
His gaze snaps back to you immediately. Pupils dilated. Breath shallow.
Better.
"Moss," you say quietly. "Get up."
He blinks rapidly. Confusion and obedience warring across his features. Then scrambles to his feet with the desperate eagerness of someone who cannot disappoint you.
Standing, he's taller than expected. Your eyes reach the hollow of his throat where the tie knot sits perfectly aligned now. The height difference creates interesting geometry—you looking up, him looking down.
Yet, the hierarchy remains.
Something else reaches you now. A scent. Roasted chestnuts and something deeper—vetiver maybe, or just the warmth of skin that exists in cold spaces. Not cologne. Nothing artificial.
Just him, standing close enough that you can catalog the specific quality of his proximity.
You like this.
Why do you notice that? Why does the specific measurement matter?
You move toward the counter. Collect your protein bars—. three packages arranged in perfect parallel lines on the worn surface.
The girl's name tag reads SOPHIE in cheerful block letters. Art student, based on the sketchbook. Probably here for supplemental income while pursuing impractical creative endeavors.
Predictable trajectory.
She frowns at the space between you and Taehyung. Still trying to decode what she witnessed.
You nod once. Acknowledgment without warmth. Professional courtesy extended to a colleague you'll never see again.
Then you turn.
Face him directly.
"I'll see you around, Taehyung."
His name feels right in your mouth. Chosen. Claimed.
He nods rapidly. Eyes wide with something that looks like disbelief. Like hearing his name from your lips is a gift he didn't expect to receive.
Necessary.
You walk toward the automatic doors. Feel their eyes tracking your movement—his with worship, hers with confusion. The contrast satisfies something in you that you don't name.
You don't look back.
Behind you, two people stand in a space that still holds the shape of what just happened.
Behind you, someone knows his name.
But you said it last.
Chapter 8: 08 | anemones
Notes:
This one's... well, it's a lot. And before you come for me in the comments with your torches and pitchforks, let me just say this: I NEVER promised you a wholesome coffee shop AU where they bond over lattes and discuss the weather, did I? No. I gave you psychological realism with a side of "these people need therapy" from day one. Is Y/N being manipulative and a little sadistic here? Absolutely. Would we have any kind of compelling dynamic if she wasn't? Probably not. Listen, if these two were mentally stable, well-adjusted individuals, someone would have called campus security by now and we'd have a very short, very boring story. Y/N is who she is—methodical, calculating, and fascinated by the power she holds over someone who worships her like a deity. She's not trying to be cruel for cruelty's sake; she's testing boundaries because that's how her brain works. And honestly? She likes Taehyung exactly as he is: fumbling, reverent, and completely gone for her.
Now, about those anemones—please, PLEASE look up pale pink anemones before you read this chapter because the visual is crucial to understanding the symbolism. I couldn't do roses, okay? Y/N literally mocks them in the narrative because while roses are beautiful (no shade to rose enthusiasts), I needed something with layers. Something that speaks to contradiction. Pale pink petals with dark, almost black centers? Chef's kiss That's them. That's their entire dynamic right there. She's the ethereal pale pink—seemingly pure, untouchable. He's the consuming darkness at the center—the part that knows he'll contaminate everything he touches. Even when he's choosing flowers, he's speaking in his own language of worship and self-loathing.
And here's the thing that gets me: she LOVES that he sees her as both perfect AND corruptible. For once, someone isn't separating her from her achievements, isn't seeing her as "close to perfection but not quite there." He sees perfection AS her, inseparable from who she is. So of course she needs to test how deep that devotion runs. Hence the oversized sweater trick—yes, it's calculated, yes, it's a bit twisted, but it's also brilliant character work.
The macaron scene though? God, that's been living rent-free in my head for MONTHS. It's so layered I could write a thesis on it. There's nothing explicitly sexual happening, but the intimacy is suffocating. The control, the feeding, the way she reduces him to tears and trembling—it's sensual in the most psychological way possible. If you found yourself feeling some type of way about it, that was entirely intentional. I wanted to write intimacy that creeps up on you, that makes you question why your heart is racing when technically nothing "happened." Quick French lesson for my non-francophone readers: Y/N switches from "vous" (formal/respectful) to "tu" (informal/intimate) when addressing Taehyung, while he continues using "vous" with her. It's like the difference between calling someone "sir" versus using their first name. She's just fundamentally altered their entire dynamic with a pronoun and he's having an existential crisis about it. You're welcome for that emotional devastation.
Do I regret any of this? Not for a second. These characters are messy, complicated, and real in ways that make my psychology-loving heart sing.
Now go read and remember—I warned you this wasn't going to be easy ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
And hit that kudos button. They make ballerinas twirl. <3
Chapter Text
Someone has been watching you long enough to learn your preferences.
The studio empties around you as it always does.
Midnight passes unnoticed while you complete your final sequences. Your ritual. Your sacred hour when precision becomes mandatory and movement becomes meaning.
This is necessary. This is earned.
The vestuaire door closes behind you with its familiar squeak. Strips flicker overhead in the lockers room.
Your space—locker 47, upper tier, combination memorized—awaits your attention.
You remove your practice clothes slowly. Fold each piece according to its washing requirements.
Synthetic blends separated from cotton. Colors categorized by darkness. Order maintained.
Your dance bag sits precisely where you left it—water bottle aligned parallel to the bench, towel folded in exact thirds, pointe shoes arranged by wear level.
Everything in its place. Everything as it should be.
Except.
Your fingers pause on the zipper. Something foreign nestled between your warmup layers—soft pink edges that don't belong among the blacks and grays of your usual wardrobe.
Contamination. Invasion. Unacceptable.
You pull the fabric aside with two fingers. Minimal contact. Professional distance maintained even as curiosity pricks at your sternum.
Rose petals. Obviously. Some tasteless romantic gesture from—
No.
Not roses.
Your breath catches as you extract the stem carefully.
Pale pink petals unfurl like silk scarves, each one edged with darkness at its core. Black center staring back at you like obsidian. Delicate tendrils dancing from the heart, dark as shadows.
Anemones.
Not the cliché romance of roses.
Not the obvious gesture of someone trying to impress.
Something that understands the beauty in contrasts.
Light petals. Dark heart. Ethereal softness wrapped around something deeper. Something that consumes.
Your chest does something unexpected. A flutter. Like wings against ribs.
You study the flower slowly; pale pink fading to almost white at the edges—pure, untainted. But the center pulls you deeper. Black stamens reaching outward like fingers. Dark aureole rimming each petal's base.
Darkness bleeding into light.
Contamination and purity existing in perfect balance.
Your breath catches.
This is not amateur romanticism. This is symbolism and meaning wrapped in one bouquet. Someone who understands dichotomy. Someone who sees contrast and creates art from contradiction.
Someone who sees you properly.
It has to be him.
Taehyung.
This is his language—hierarchies and contrasts and the space between sacred and profane. The way he sees you as pearl while knowing himself as moss. Light and shadow. Ocean treasure and forest floor decay.
Pale petals—almost white, light, holiness.
Dark center—void-black, mysterious, consuming.
Light being absorbed by darkness. Purity meeting shadow.
You as the white petals. Him as the black center.
You as light. Him as darkness.
It was him.
But how did he access your space? When did he move through the academy corridors like a ghost? How did he know which bag belonged to you among dozens of identical dance bags in identical cubbies?
He watches. He learns. He remembers.
He's been cataloguing you.
The thought should disturb. Should trigger alarm protocols about boundaries and professional conduct and appropriate distance between strangers.
Instead, that flutter in your chest intensifies.
Someone has been paying attention. Real attention. Not to your technique or your lines or your potential value to the company.
To you.
To the details that matter.
To the symbolism that speaks.
When did you last receive a gift that demonstrated understanding rather than want?
Never.
Never.
You lift the anemone closer. Its petals brush against your lips—softer than silk, carrying the faint salt scent of ocean water. Like he preserved it in brine. Like he understood it needed to maintain its connection to the sea.
Thoughtful. Considerate. Smart.
Your eyes close without permission. The flower's texture against your mouth creates sensations you don't have words for. Gentle pressure. Phantom sweetness. The whisper of something alive.
Beautiful.
Disturbing.
Perfect.
Your eyes snap open.
Perfect?
You don't use that word casually. Perfect is earned through hours of repetition, muscle memory, technical mastery. Perfect is the standard you've spent your entire life chasing.
But the flower trembles in your hands with impossible delicacy. Petals so soft they barely register against your fingertips.
Someone chose this carefully. Someone who sees beauty in contradiction.
He chose this for you.
The flutter in your chest intensifies. Spreads through your ribcage like warmth through water.
Like recognition. Like the first time someone looked at you and saw exactly what you were instead of what you should be.
Dangerous precedent.
Perfect is not a word for flowers left by convenience store employees.
Yet here you are. Holding something that meets your impossible standards.
Interesting.
Your stomach constricts. Unfamiliar sensation that disrupts your usual cataloguing system.
Not anxiety.
Anticipation.
You understand now. The careful symbolism. The oceanic preservation. The placement in your private space.
He has been thinking about you. About the hierarchy you discovered. About the meaning of pearl and moss, light and shadow.
He has been planning this.
Your fingers trace the delicate petals. Soft tissue that bruises easily but remains intact. Fragile yet enduring.
Like something precious that requires careful handling.
Like something worth worshipping.
This is acknowledgment.
This is recognition of what passed between you. Of the dynamic he revealed. Of the worship he offered.
This is continuation.
You close your locker. Gather your things—water bottle. Towel. Dance bag arranged exactly as always.
The anemone remains in your hand.
Walking toward the exit, you calculate distances. Timing. Routes.
L'Heure Bleue sits eight minutes from the academy exit. He works until midnight. The store will be closing soon—lights dimming, security protocols engaging.
He will see you pass.
He will see the flowers in your hand.
He will understand that you received his offering. That you accepted it. That you carried it with you instead of discarding it like refuse.
He will know you approved.
The door resists your push—sturdy metal, colder than expected against the heel of your palm.
Outside, the sky holds its breath. Clouds swollen in black knots hover low, a ceiling of impending storm. Air tastes metallic, damp, sharp at the back of your throat.
You unzip your bag. Pull out the sweater. Oversized, deliberately so. The sleeves swallow your arms, trailing past fingertips, pooling like a costume made for someone not you. The zipper glints faintly as you drag it up to your chin. New fabric smell, crisp, unbroken.
He’ll notice.
He notices everything: misaligned water bottles, the difference between navy and slate, the angle of your wrist, the flowers that hold meaning you didn’t think they could. He catalogs you like scripture.
Your choice—this deviation of a sweater—is no accident. It is new, too large, pretending to be too obviously borrowed. Not woman’s. Definitely not yours-looking.
You want him to see it. You want him to imagine a body attached. Tall, broad, wrapped around you. A phantom rival. A contamination. You want his brain to stumble at the contradiction: pearl weighted down with someone else’s claim, yet still carrying the flower he left her hours ago.
Still carrying his penance.
The anemone rests light in your hand, absurdly fragile against wool.
Petals pale, almost white, their edges bruised with the black of a void. Darkness rooted at the center, bleeding outward. His message. His language.
And yet—juxtaposed intentionally—fabric implying intrusion, possession, the possibility of another.
You want to watch the collision unfold across his face. See what features betray him first.
Does his lip twitch, betraying fracture? Do his eyes lower in shame? Do his shoulders fold inward with apology? Or does something darker crack through?
What does jealousy look like in a worshipper who dares not touch?
You don’t know his limits, not yet.
His eyes flinch like an animal startled by sudden sounds. He avoids you in corridors, hands kept prim, latex skin like invisible borders against the world. Germophobe, you assumed. Ritualist. Peculiar. Nervous. Every tick filed away in the quiet drawer of curiosities but never fully understood.
Tonight, though, you want to push deeper. Peel apart. Lay bare the gears inside his head until you fit your fingers between them and make them move. Test the boundaries of faith. See if worship survives contamination.
If he survives it.
Contamination—what a word.
Does he think of other men that way? Does his mind curl around the idea that you could belong to another, even loosely, loosely enough to leave fragments behind? Do such thoughts disgust him—does he cleanse them, punish himself, pray them scrapped away?
You don’t know.
But you want to.
You want to crawl so far into the architecture of his logic that he can never rinse you out again. Not in a day, not in a year, not for the rest of his life. The way floorboards drink in stains, permanent.
You want him to think you when the metro doors screech. To light up at your silhouette and collapse at your absence. Ritualize you into his every gesture until erasure is impossible. Until even bleach can’t strip you loose.
The thought coils inside you darkly. Satisfying. Possessive.
Your feet carry you forward—the old path. Café shutters drawn, bakery lights dead, intersection curving you toward L’Heure Bleue with its tired neon bleeding pale blue along the street. Five minutes now. Enough time for his mind to grind and tear at every implication your sweater fabric offers.
You adjust the flower in your hand. Position deliberate. Petals open to catch whatever fractured glow the streetlamps scatter through the gloom. His gift carried openly, prominently.
Flowers against sweater. His symbolism against your insinuation.
Contrast blooming like anemones under the sea.
Your lips twitch at the thought. Almost a smile.
Behind you, a bell somewhere rings faintly. Coincidence. Distance. Not relevant.
The only sound that matters tonight will be the one he doesn’t make when you walk past—the silence collapsing his throat when he sees contradiction staring at him in flesh and wool.
Then there’s a prickle on the back of your neck, inevitable and familiar all at once. Shadow extending its reach, invisible attention threading through heavy air that wishes to rain.
Yes. He’s there. Watching precisely as you knew he would. Around two hundred meters away—close enough to feel, far enough to seem absent.
You don’t have to look back, but you don’t need to.
His gaze finds you without prompts, like magnet drawn to its opposite pole. You give him exactly what he wants and deny him at once. Approval in your hand, betrayal on your shoulders.
Perfect symmetry. Perfect pressure.
You wonder, as you cross into the neon spill of his store’s exterior, how far this hierarchy bends before the fracture. How far devotion stretches before it mutates. Whether the purity of his worship survives this test—or if it blackens, the way pink fades into shadow at the edge of the petals you carry.
Either way, you’ll find out.
That’s the experiment: gods testing worshippers.
And you are hungry for results.
Your hair surrenders to gravity when you release the elastic.
The pull against your temples throbs—necessary pain that confirms the bun held position for six hours. Under control. Perfect tension maintained until the exact moment you chose to release it.
This is how discipline functions: absolute restraint, then surrender when you mandate so.
Your gaze drifts to the pink macaron box positioned some centimeters away from your bedside lamp. Your purchase from this afternoon—purposeful acquisition for experimental purposes.
Then it’s the small cactus on the windowsill that catches your attention—thorned resistance that mirrors your own refusal to bend, to break, to compromise toward anything less than perfection.
Finally—there. The curtains at the far window, where shadow pools in familiar proportions.
Where a silhouette waits with the stillness of someone who believes invisibility might protect him from consequences.
Taehyung.
The windows remain open. You left them that way—invitation disguised as accident.
He knows you know, or you presume so.
Cool night air moves through the space, carrying the salt scent of approaching weather.
Of ocean touching shore.
Of boundaries being crossed.
Your oversized sweater slides off with theater. Arms raised, fabric pooling to the floor in sweet, merciless abandon. The black lycra maillot underneath maps every line of your form—compression that defines rather than conceals. That transforms your body into something geometric. Something divine.
“Come in.”
The words drop into silence like stones into deep water.
A thud responds—sharp collision of bone against glass. Probably his elbow. Maybe his head. The sound of someone startling so violently they forget their own body exists in space.
Maybe he didn’t know, after all.
Or maybe he was too absorbed in his mental worship.
You smile despite yourself. He’s probably wearing that deer-in-headlights expression again—the same wide-eyed terror from the convenience store when you made him look at you. When you made him see.
Something molten forms in your throat. Pools warm and strange beneath your sternum. Recognition of power, perhaps. Or the anticipation of wielding it.
“Come in,” you repeat, voice pitched lower now. “Or forfeit your right to ever do so.”
The whisper carries cheerful menace. False lightness wrapped around absolute certainty.
You surmise he believes is the only invitation he’ll receive. That this is his single opportunity to cross from observer to participant.
You let him believe so. For now, at least. It is more fun that way.
Movement stops completely. One heartbeat. Two. The silence stretches taut enough to snap.
Then—motion again. Shallow breathing like someone holding air prisoner in their lungs. Like someone terrified that exhaling might shatter whatever spell has granted them this impossible privilege.
The window frame creaks under careful weight. Fabric rustles against glass. The soft displacement of air that announces a presence entering sacred space.
He comes inside.
You don’t turn. Don’t acknowledge his arrival beyond the slight adjustment of your posture—shoulders squared, spine elongated, presenting your back like a canvas. The maillot’s fabric catches light and shadow in equal measure, creating valleys and peaks that map the topography of disciplined flesh.
You allow him to look, catalog every line, every curve, every place where muscle meets bone in arrangements he believes not to touch but will remember forever.
This is generosity. This is kindness. This is what he must think is the closest he’ll ever come to paradise.
Through peripheral vision, you register his stillness. The way he hovers near the window like something that might bolt at any sudden movement. Like a selkie that has wandered too close to nereid territory and realizes its mistake too late.
But he doesn’t run. Doesn’t retreat to the safety of shadows and stolen glances.
He stays.
Good.
Very good.
Your fingers find the macaron box. Pink cardboard that cost you seventeen euros this afternoon—investment in experimentation. In testing theories about attention and association.
Everyone tells you the same thing about your scent. Has since adolescence, when your body chemistry settled into its permanent signature.
Rose macarons, they say. Sweet almond cream and delicate petals. The way patisserie windows smell in spring.
You’ve never thought much about it. Scent is simply another tool, another element to control and deploy strategically. But now—
Now you want to know if he’s noticed. If he’s catalogued this detail along with all the others he seems to collect. If macarons mean something specific in whatever careful mythology he’s constructed around you.
You need to know if your sweetness rots him from the inside.
The box opens with a whisper. Six small domes arranged in rows—pale pink shells with cream centers.
Behind you, breathing changes. Stops entirely for three heartbeats, then resumes in shallow, rapid bursts.
You select the center macaron—most perfectly formed, a whisper of you, perhaps. Roll it between your fingers, feeling the delicate shell’s resistance. The way it threatens to crumble under pressure but maintains integrity through careful handling.
His breathing grows more erratic. Audible now. Like someone fighting panic or recognition or both.
Very interesting.
You bring the macaron to your lips slowly. Deliberately. Let your tongue trace the curved shell before biting down. Sweet cream spreads across your palate—rose and sugar and something indefinably oceanic. The flavor blooms while you listen to his respiratory distress intensify.
Test confirmed. Macarons mean something to him.
Question: what?
You don’t turn. Don’t acknowledge his distress beyond the theater of consumption. Just let him watch you taste sweetness that apparently connects to something significant in his careful, anxious mind.
You let him understand that you know. That you notice his noticing.
That you approve of his attention to detail.
The final bite dissolves completely. You lick cream from your lower lip—slow, thorough, necessary. The gesture serves dual purpose: cleanliness and provocation.
When your eyelashes raise to find his stare, it’s panicked, reverent.
Testing methodology: successful.
Hypothesis confirmed: he associates macarons with you specifically.
New question: how deeply has he been thinking about you? How thoroughly has he been cataloguing your existence?
How far gone is he—if he is gone at all?
Your tongue catches the last trace of sweetness while his breathing fragments into something that might be prayer or panic or both.
His shoes stay planted exactly beside the window frame, as if the floor beneath him has marked the coordinates of obedience.
Not one step closer, not one step back.
He hovers in place like a sailor trapped on the tide-line, afraid to cross into deeper waters without your command. Hands fidgeting, fingers tangling and untangling themselves, latex creaking faintly in the hush of your room.
Latex, always latex covering his hands
Your nail taps the macaron box, crisp sound shattering the silence. A beckon. A strike. You curl your fingers around cardboard that yields with the smallest pressure.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t even blink. His eyes fix to the floor, terrified of trespassing into the dirtier truth of looking at you. His throat bobs once, twice, like he’s drowning in his own refusal.
That won’t do.
He needs to look at you.
“Taehyung.”
The name cuts the air easily, as if you’ve pulled it directly from him. His head jerks upward so fast it snaps like rope under tension. Dark eyes blown wide, shining like wet glass, big and defenseless.
A puppy, wreckingly sweet. So sweet your teeth ache with the sight of him.
You move toward him with the box in hand. He exhales as though your steps siphon the air from his chest. His lashes lower when you peel the lid open, every motion of your fingers tracked as though the world reduces down to you—the hinge of cardboard, the crinkle of plastic.
“Do you know what this is?” you ask, like you’re quizzing him.
The words fall from your lips without the formality you’ve used with everyone else since childhood.
The intimate form. The pronoun reserved for children, lovers, those beneath your station or so close they’ve earned the right to informality.
He freezes completely.
His eyes go impossibly wider, pupils dilating as the pronoun registers. As the implications crash over him like cold water.
“You…” he breathes, still clinging to the formal pronoun like a worshipful supplicant.
The respectful form he’s always used, now hanging in the air like a question mark against your deliberate informality.
But you continue without acknowledgment, as if nothing has shifted, as if you haven’t just fundamentally altered the architecture of how you speak to each other.
His throat works again, dry swallow audible. “…Macarons.”
Barely there, whispered reverence and shame tangled in one.
You can see him processing it. See the way his hands tremble more violently now, latex gloves slick with sudden perspiration. See how his chest rises and falls in rapid, shallow bursts.
You’re speaking informally to him, and you can see how that pulls him down a tide.
Like he’s close to you. Like he matters enough for intimacy. Like the careful distance he’s maintained between sacred and profane has just been obliterated by a single pronoun.
Like you have that much power.
A hum in your throat; not approval, not dismissal. A sound meant to keep him afloat when the current’s dragging him in.
“Have you ever tasted them?”
Another breath rattles loose, shaky, uneven.
He nods, then corrects himself with words. “Yes.”
As if nodding could never be reverent enough in your presence.
You pluck one out—soft rose shell, cream pressed at its seam. Tilt your head, study it, then lift your gaze to him. He tries to hold composure, but you see it.
The way his pupils dilate, not at you but at the small thing in your hand.
The hunger rolls out of him in waves, but he swallows it down like seawater, trying to pretend he doesn’t choke on every mouthful.
“You crave them, don’t you, Taehyung?”
He flinches. His chest rises too quick, all ribs and panic. He doesn’t answer at first, but then—voice lodged at the back of his throat—
“…Yes.”
A soft admission that cracks him open like a hull against a tsunami.
You make a quiet noise of acknowledgment, rolling satisfaction off your tongue like the curl of foam against sand. You raise the sweet to his lips, smile curling sharp.
“Open your mouth, moss.”
He whimpers—the nickname lands like a blow and a benediction all at once. His lips part tentatively, hesitant as though he misheard.
How careful he is, even in desperation. How cautious not to offend by existing.
You drag it closer, until sugar practically brushes his bottom lip. He obeys. Not wide, not vulgar—just enough. He would never let you see inside of his mouth, never allow you the sight of what he believes would be his dirt.
He’s too convinced of his own filthiness to give you that.
For now.
You slide the macaron between his lips, one finger pushing until it disappears inside his mouth. His breath chokes, catching against sweet powder.
“Chew, moss.”
His cheeks flush strawberry-pink, heat rolling off him in waves, like a fever only you can stoke. The sound of his teeth breaking shell is pleasing. He blinks rapidly, eyes glassy, unfocused.
You don’t let him finish, another macaron between your fingers.
You watch his eyes widen when he realizes he’s still chewing, not ready, not adjusted. But he opens anyway—tiny, reluctant—because refusal doesn’t exist in his vocabulary with you.
You push it in. He sputters around sugar and almond, air catching wrong in his throat. His lashes glitter with the tears that spring up instantly. His chest shudders under the strain of swallowing sweetness too fast.
Crumbs scatter down his dark sweater, pale flecks like salt on black rock. You reach, thumb swiping the corner of his mouth. His breath staggers at the contact, broken sound muffled by the food in his mouth.
“Tsk.” You coo, mock-sympathetic. “Look at the mess you’re making, moss. Such a messy eater.”
He releases a shaky exhale through his nose, eyes brim, lashes clumped by wetness. He stares at you helpless, as though humiliation itself is the language he’s meant to speak.
“One more?” you offer, sweetly cruel.
His muffled sob is answer enough.
“I can’t,” garbled around sugar and shame.
“But you can, moss.”
Your thumb presses against his lip, tugging it down slightly, prying him open just enough to feed him another, not to prickle his discomfort.
His whole body trembles.
You press it inside. He sobs outright now, tears streaking down pale skin, hiccuping against sweetness he can’t process. His chest heaves as though each swallow might drown him, ocean rushing into lungs unprepared.
You watch without flinching. Enjoyment unfurls low and dark inside you. A greedy, sadistic delight at how thoroughly he breaks under the simplest of commands.
“So cute, Taehyung. So, so cute.”
He exhales another sob, a sound ragged with devastation. His eyes, those liquid-dark pools, glaze with something heavier. His breathing shudders.
When your gaze lowers, his hands snap down, tugging his sweater desperately to cover himself.
The motion itself is confession. His body betrays him before his mouth ever would.
“You’re hard?” you murmur, savoring the syllables like another sweet melt on the tongue.
“I’m—” he shakes his head violently. The words break apart. “…sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
You hush him with a single pat at his lips, one finger pressing gently in indication.
He stills instantly. Silent. Mute. Obedient.
You take the box, tuck it into his arms—his trembling fingers hold it like scripture, like it burns and redeems all at once.
“Stay close,” you say, voice honey-thick, directive disguised as gift.
He nods. Eyes wide, tears still clinging stubborn to lashes.
Your head flicks the last gesture with all the finality of a conductor closing a score—one small nod toward the window.
He freezes. His body jerks stiff the way it does whenever he isn’t sure what rule he’s broken. His fingers twitch against the box clutched in his hands, fumbling with edges that don’t need straightening. He shifts his weight, one foot then the other, as though he might trip himself into permission if he hesitates long enough.
The sight almost makes you chuckle.
His indecision, his confusion—it curls deep warmth behind your sternum.
You let the sound slice out—a snort that hitches the corner of your mouth. Eyebrows lift, daring. The expression speaks for you.
Heat splashes across his cheeks, pink spreading too fast, too visible. He stammers without sound, hands fumbling with the macaron box like he’s trying to find exit lines in a play he never rehearsed.
His gaze darts to your face, then the window, then back again—uncertain, flinching, reverent.
He looks wrecked by the realization.
Of course he isn’t granted the right. Of course he doesn’t get to linger here, not yet, not ever unless you decide.
And you—amused—let him drown in that knowledge.
He swallows hard, throat working visibly, and bows his head at last. A quick jerky nod, an acknowledgment, a surrender.
Eyes down, cheeks burning, body folded in upon itself, he edges backward toward the window.
Still fumbling. Still trembling.
And with that, he’s gone—leaving behind the faint scent of sugar and salt and the delicious image of him blushing, flustered, obedient, head bowed in reverence.
Chapter 9: 09 | sinking teeth
Notes:
Oooo–kay so we start strong. Again. Wowzers! (Shocking absolutely no one.)
Listen. LISTEN. You thought the jacket thing last chapter was just me being silly? A tiny sprinkle of flavor? A cute little garnish atop the angst soufflé? Hahahaha. No. I am committed to making this man so sick with want and despair you’re going to feel it in your kneecaps. You’re going to suffer and you’re going to thank me because we are all masochists in this household—Taehyung being the #1 spot holder (who said that, I didn’t say that, don’t look at me).
But before we descend fully into the Rotting Obsession Swamp™, I need to talk about Mamie because… doesn’t it just soften him a little? Just a sliver, like a warm patch of sunlight on a moldy wall. I’ve had this lore tucked in my back pocket since chapter one, and finally showing someone in his life who actually loves him feels like passing you the emotional equivalent of a warm blanket in a house haunted by water damage. Even the darkest characters deserve one person who makes them feel human.
And then… my girl Sophie. Oh, Sophie. She’s trying so hard. She’s doing her best. She doesn’t deserve ANY of the slander your brains are absolutely about to fling at her like deranged monkeys because the narrative is warped through Pearl’s perspective. Being there doesn’t mean being seen, and Taehyung? He only has eyes for one ballerina-shaped blasphemy object.
But genuinely, I want to wrap Sophie in a big hug. My pink–haired, sleep–deprived little art–school gremlin. The fact that she grabbed Taehyung’s phone, put herself on Always Ping, and saved her own name as Kirby like “so you don’t disappear :)” … GIRL. I want to feed her soup. She’s fighting for her life in a story she thinks she’s in, and she’s not even in the right genre.
Meanwhile the possessiveness in this chapter is absolutely feral. I cannot even pretend otherwise. Nothing explicitly sexual happens—no actual acts—but the psychological dominance?? The power play??? The tension so thick you could chew it???
Yeah. I got carried away. (Read: deeply unhinged. Horny in the academic sense. Aroused intellectually, your honor.)
And her canines hurting??? Wanting to bite him??? Yeah. That’s literally me. I want to chomp down on this man like he’s a warm brioche fresh out of a Parisian oven. He is so edible in this chapter it’s embarrassing for my dignity (not that I had any left).
Okay that’s enough from me. Put on your seatbelt. Hydrate. Stretch your emotional hamstrings. Good luck. <3
Chapter Text
The jacket shouldn’t exist.
It hangs behind his eyelids even now—grey, shapeless, swallowing you whole like fog swallowing a coastline.
He can’t stop seeing it.
That ugly, heavy knit drowning out everything bright about you. The color of dirty dishwater, of forgotten sky. It had clung to you like someone else’s claim—too big, too intimate. You’d walked past L’Heure Bleue carrying the flowers he left you, your hand closed around something holy, and still the jacket ruined it.
Like another man’s fingerprints ghosted onto your skin.
Like proof that the world can reach you in ways he never will.
He feels acid pool behind his tongue.
He feels sick.
He’s been sick for a while now—it’s a damp kind of sickness, the kind that lives in the chest, making everything smell like mildew and rainwater trapped in carpet.
He watches the city drip through the window. Rain falls in long sentences that don’t mean anything. Water everywhere. Gutter streams, cracked tiles, leaking down walls, kissing the warped frame of his building.
The room smells of sugar and bleach—an unholy mix, a contamination of what he wanted to be clean.
He’s still tasting sweetness.
Macarons, crushed between teeth, swallowed dry. He forced them down too quickly; the shells cut his throat.
Swallow the guilt to consume it.
Swallow you.
He presses a palm to his lips, afraid he’ll taste you in the cracks of his mouth. He rubs until the skin burns.
(you shouldn’t have touched him you were merciful and that’s worse)
The ribboned box lies in ruin on the table—plastic ripped, crumbs scattered like the remnants of a small massacre.
The table is sticky now.
Nothing clean survives here.
(you dropped formality you called him you stripped the distance)
He wants to vomit. Needs it. Purging as repentance.
He imagines his stomach emptying until only saltwater runs out.
His hands shake.
One-two-three-four-five-six-seven.
Again.
One-two-three-four-five-six-seven.
Still dirty. Still contaminated.
The rain keeps beating against glass, and the city outside reeks of diesel and loneliness. Curtains half-drawn, a single lamp flickers, a buzz that sets the edges of his nerves alight.
Something in his throat catches—half sob, half retch.
He moves to the sink.
Water rushes from the tap, hot then cold, then hot again. He splashes his face seven times.
Each hit stings.
None cleanse.
He grips the counter until his fingers ache.
“You shouldn’t wear grey,” he whispers to no one.
The room doesn’t answer.
(why would you wear that unless— unless— he gave it to you)
The thought claws him open again. His stomach flips.
(blasphemy blasphemy blasphemy)
He bends forward, chest tight, breathing gone wrong. The burn of bile climbing.
Nothing exits but air.
He wants to tear the color out of the world.
Then, a sound, shrill, high.
His phone vibrates against the counter—once, then again, little electric heartbeats that drag him breathing back into the room.
The screen lights up.
Mamie.
He swallows down the guilt still curdled in his mouth and answers. The words stic behind his teeth.
“…Hello.”
“Ah, my poor boy,” her voice wheezes soft through static. “I was wondering if you were eating again. I made soup today. Lentils and carrots, the way you used to like when you were little.”
His throat tightens. He stares at the drain, counts the flecks of rust.
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine.”
He closes his eyes. “Work.”
“Always work with you. You should rest. You sound tired, Taehyung.”
Rain stutters against the glass like apology.
He nods even though she can’t see him. “Yes.”
“Did you go to the pharmacy for those antiseptic creams I told you about? You said your hands—”
“They’re fine.”
The lie hits blunt, limp. His fingers sting from bleach. Skin cracked like porcelain left in too much cold.
A pause blooms on her end. “You never come by anymore.”
“I—” He doesn’t finish. Words dry out in his throat.
How could he explain he can’t bring these hands into her tidy home?
That even love feels like contamination now?
“You sound sad, my heart,” she says, gentle but firm, the way she used to speak before brushing his hair back from his forehead. “Don’t stay alone so much, yes? People need company.”
He wants to tell her he’s not built for company.
Instead he just murmurs, “Yes, Mamie.”
“Good. And don’t forget—you are wanted in this world.”
He nods into the static, throat tightening.
“I love you, Tae.”
“I love you too, Mamie.” Barely audible, but enough.
She sighs, content.
The line clicks dead.
He stays with the silence a while. It hums like tinnitus. A noise only the unclean hear.
Then—ping.
He flinches.
He never checks messages. He doesn’t answer anyone.
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: yoooo u alive 🌀
He closes his eyes.
Of course.
Sophie.
She changed the settings months ago, said he needed ‘a sound in this mausoleum of his’, made it so her messages would always ping.
«So you don’t disappear, alright?”»
He never figured how to mute it.
Now it won’t stop.
His stomach twists tighter. He grabs the phone.
Ding. 1.
Ding. 2.
Ding. 3.
He finally swipes it open before it dings a fourth time.
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝙼𝙰𝚁𝙲𝙴𝙻 𝚂𝙰𝙸𝙳 𝚆𝙴 𝙰𝙻𝙻 𝙶𝙾𝚃𝚃𝙰 𝙲𝙾𝙼𝙴 𝚃𝙾 𝙲𝙷𝙰𝚁𝙻𝙾𝚃𝚃𝙴’𝚂 𝙳𝙰𝙽𝙲𝙴 𝚃𝙷𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝚃𝙾𝙽𝙸𝙶𝙷𝚃
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚈𝙾𝚄 𝚂𝙷𝙾𝚄𝙻𝙳 𝙲𝙾𝙼𝙴
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚙𝚕𝚜 𝚍𝚘𝚗’𝚝 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚖𝚎 𝚐𝚘 𝚊𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚎
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚌’𝚖𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚊𝚎 🙄 𝚜𝚑𝚎’𝚍 𝚋𝚎 𝚜𝚘 𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚢
His thumbs hover, hesitate, tap, hesitate.
𝐓: 𝚗𝚘
The letters look aggressive in grey.
The typing bubble breathes, disappears, returns.
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚠𝚝𝚏 𝚞 𝚑𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚍𝚛𝚎𝚗 𝚘𝚛 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚌𝚖𝚘𝚗𝚗𝚗𝚗 𝚋𝚛𝚘𝚘𝚘𝚘
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚒𝚝’𝚜 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚍𝚊𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚎𝚛
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚑𝚎’𝚜 𝚊𝚕𝚠𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚍𝚒𝚟𝚘𝚛𝚌𝚎𝚍 𝚍𝚞𝚍𝚎 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚋𝚕𝚎𝚖𝚜
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚜𝚑𝚎’𝚜 𝚎𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎𝚜 𝚜𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚔𝚕𝚎𝚜
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚔𝚜 𝚢𝚘𝚞’𝚛𝚎 𝚊 𝚟𝚊𝚖𝚙𝚒𝚛𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚍𝚘𝚗’𝚝 𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚔 𝚕𝚘𝚕
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚘𝚗.
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚎𝚕’𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚋𝚊𝚍 𝚕𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚢!!!
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚗 𝚐𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚞 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚎𝚡𝚝𝚛𝚊 𝚋𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚔 𝚍𝚒𝚍𝚗’𝚝 𝚑𝚎?
𝐓: 𝚗𝚘
He types it again before she can continue.
The bubble returns anyway.
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚘𝚔 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚜𝚎 𝚍𝚊𝚢𝚜?
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚕𝚢.
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚏𝚊𝚌𝚎 𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚙𝚊𝚕𝚎 𝚊𝚜 𝚜𝚑𝚒𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚒 𝚖𝚎𝚊𝚗 𝚒 𝚜𝚊𝚠 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚒 𝚜𝚊𝚠
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚐𝚒𝚛𝚕.
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚞 𝚐𝚘𝚘𝚍???
He stares at the blinking dots, chest folding in.
The grey jacket flashes behind his eyes—your body blurred behind fleece, not silk.
Water runs down a window; he sees himself reflected in it, thin, wrong, open-mouthed.
She saw.
He wipes his palms down his thighs. His heart trips against ribs.
He wants to delete the messages, delete oxygen.
He opens drafts, closes them again.
𝐓: 𝚒’𝚖 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚎
The words sit there like stones.
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚖𝚢 𝚊𝚜𝚜.
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚞𝚌𝚔 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝?????
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚒 𝚍𝚘𝚗’𝚝 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚗 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚍𝚞𝚍𝚎
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚎𝚊𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚟𝚎
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚞 𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚞 𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚐𝚘𝚗𝚗𝚊 𝚏𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚝
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚎𝚕𝚕 𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚍
He types nothing. Deletes everything.
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚝𝚘𝚗𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚎?
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚘𝚝𝚝𝚎?
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚎𝚕 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚢
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚌𝚊𝚗 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔 𝚒𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚠𝚊𝚗𝚝
His stomach turns.
*What if you’re there?
What if you’re among the adults, standing like light on the floor?
What if you’re practice incarnate, applauding little limbs that don’t know perfection yet?
Could he stand it? Could he breathe?
No. He couldn’t.
But still—what if.
Guilt spins inside him, circular motion without exit.
If he stays home, he’ll rot. If he goes, he contaminates air and floorboards.
He imagines the auditorium—pale walls, mirrors, little girl twirling.
He imagines you nearby, maybe in another room, maybe just beyond a door.
He hears your voice, still, the single syllable of intimacy you’d let slip earlier.
You. Not formality, not distance.
(you dropped distance, he didn’t, you dropped it, he held it tight he did good good he did)
That word has become hunger.
He stares at Sophie’s text.
At her stubborn friendliness shoved into pixel form.
The glow of the device paints his fingers blue.
𝐓: 𝚘𝚔
He presses send before he can stop himself, a reflex, an involuntary flinch toward the promise of proximity.
Seconds later:
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚆𝙰𝙸𝚃 𝚆𝙷𝙰𝚃
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚂𝙴𝙴𝙴𝚁𝙸𝙾𝚄𝚂𝙻𝚈??
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚘𝚖𝚐 𝚒𝚖 𝚝𝚊𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚊𝚜 𝚊 𝚢𝚎𝚜 𝚘𝚔𝚊𝚢 𝚒𝚖 𝚙𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚞 𝚞𝚙 𝟼𝚙𝚖 𝚗𝚘 𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚜𝚒𝚎𝚜
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚐𝚘𝚗𝚗𝚊 𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕 𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚎𝚕
𝐤𝐢𝐫𝐛𝐲: 𝚑𝚎’𝚜 𝚐𝚘𝚗𝚗𝚊 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚔 𝚒’𝚖 𝚋𝚞𝚕𝚕𝚜𝚑𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚑𝚒𝚖
He exhales. The rain outside won’t stop.
The apartment feels smaller. Sicker.
He places the phone face-down beside him and presses his palms to his thighs again. Counting. Breathing.
One-two-three-four-five-six-seven.
And still he sees it—
You under grey.
Sweetness bleeding into rot.
He thinks of the macarons dissolving in his stomach, the sugar turning to bile, and decides that maybe this is how holiness punishes those who choke on it.
At the very least, he hopes so.
The light is too clean. It hurts a little.
Rows of velvet seats breathe in unison, exhaling the hush of soft excitement that wraps the room.
He sits where Sophie told him to—far edge of the middle row, one vacant seat to his left, Sophie to his right, Marcel beyond her. Marcel already leans back with arms crossed, chin tilting toward the stage, the mild grunt of a man clocking presence rather than attention. Sophie grins tight, elbowing his side once in secret, her pink hair dimmed by darkness.
He keeps his eyes down.
Hands first.
Always hands first.
Latex stretched tight, faint squeak when fingers flex. Breath measures—in four counts, out seven. Again.
One-two-three-four.
One-two-three-four-five-six-seven.
He traces the seams of the gloves with his thumb. Thinks of bleach. Thinks of soap that smells like the sea if the sea had died in a bottle.
The theater is too soft, too plush, too full of surfaces he’ll never decontaminate.
Don’t think like that. Breathe.
Dr. Bernard said: «Inhale peace, exhale guilt. Hand ritual after you get home, not now.»
His chest hums from the restraint.
Then—the lights dim all at once.
Music begins—a piano melody folding into strings, rising like bubbles through water.
He looks up, and the world stops arguing with itself.
A girl—no, a young woman—steps into light. White fabric—for once, a whiteness that doesn’t feel sterile. It glows; it moves. She doesn’t walk so much as pour across the stage. Each step repairs something in him he didn’t know was broken.
His throat tightens.
For two whole minutes he forgets the itch under his gloves. The counting pauses mid-cycle. The sound swells, bodies of music and motion indistinguishable. He focuses on breath, but it’s hers now—the count follows the rise and fall of her ribs, a borrowed rhythm.
When the children filter in, the transition is seamless, separate ripples meeting in shallow water. Their small hands break light into fragments.
“There she is,” Marcel mutters, voice cracked with pride. His phone hovers in front of him, blinking red. “That’s my girl, that’s our Lottie—eh, look, look, Taehyung!”
Taehyung tilts his gaze automatically.
Charlotte. Tiny, certain, wearing sequins that catch every beam and throw it back mercilessly. She performs at the left of the formation, a focus of tremulous joy—concentration etched into her little brow, the serious kind that belongs to those who still believe everything they do matters.
Marcel’s grunt turns almost tender.
Sophie’s quiet “oh” slips between her teeth.
Taehyung feels something warm spark under his skin and travel up—his chest constricts, rearranging itself into a cavity too tight for breath.
Something simple, fragile—so beautiful.
Children turn pirouettes, like sea foam curling and vanishing. Charlotte lands hers, arms trembling but steady, face bright under effort.
An applause breaks brief and soft.
He claps once, instinctively, the movement strange and wet with reverence.
The lights fade, a swell of violins bursts new color onto stage. The children scatter like seashells withdrawn by tide.
And then—
White dissolves into other shades.
Deep coral, washed blue, pale silver.
Women now. The older corps, their movements clean and seasoned.
His chest catches before understanding why.
There. Third from center.
Even through the seam of distance, even with every dancer dressed alike, he knows.
In the subtle arch of neck, in the precision of fingers carving air at forty-five degrees.
You.
The world goes soundless in his head, drops into thin pressure, like being underwater too long.
Your body speaks in ocean waves, syllables of motion only his bones understand. Shoulders roll, ankles flex, toes kiss polished wood.
Every motion is a small theology in itself.
He thinks of that first time in the mirror-room at the back of the store, the shape your reflection made when you didn’t yet know he existed. That same line through space now repeats, only amplified—unreachable, sacred, clean.
The note of music elongates and time thins.
His pulse crawls to match percussion.
He counts silently—one-two-three-four-five-six-seven—just to survive the sight of you turning.
Not just turning. Dissolving.
When you extend your arm, the fabric follows, trailing air particles that shimmer. A thousand tiny dust motes float up through stage light like sea plankton stirred by movement.
He feels tears before he realizes they're there. Quick, silent things that burn edges of eyelids.
He doesn't wipe them.
It feels right, to leak a little salt back to the world that gave him you.
Sophie exhales a soft little sigh beside him. “Beautiful, eh?”
Taehyung only nods. Can’t look away. Can’t even blink.
The lights dim slower this time, the glow curling around the edge of the curtain.
His pulse won’t calm. It’s too loud in his ears; it shakes his ribs.
You’re gone now, hidden behind red fabric and applause, but the echo of you movement doesn’t fade. It hangs there, shimmering.
He sits frozen, face turned toward an empty stage that still feels full of you.
His body hums—low and electric, a fault line under skin.
Everything inside him tightens.
(you were there you were real you moved the air he breathed)
The applause swells, collapses.
Marcel stretches noisily in his seat, grunting with satisfaction, already half-distracted pulling his phone from his pocket. Sophie drops her purse to gather her jacket and smiles through the din.
“Marcel’s going to find Charlotte, so…” she starts, rising halfway, “we should probably head home now, yeah? Maybe grab coffee first? Eh, Tae?”
It takes a second for her voice to reach him. He blinks too slowly. His lungs drag a rough breath out, then another, like the sound will help force everything settle back into body form.
He swallows, throat thick.
Rose and almond. Sugar ghost coating his tongue.
He can feel it—the shape of rose macarons pressing from his stomach outward, blooming sweetness where shame usually lives. It’s there between his ribs, right behind the empty space Mamie’s soup never managed to fill.
That cold hollow carved out the first time his mother said ‘worthless.’
Rose. Almond. Salt. Breath.
He can’t tell what he’s tasting anymore.
“I—” The word breaks halfway, his mouth dry, air thin. “I need to…”
He gestures—not out, not toward exits that make sense, but behind the curtain. A trembling point of gloved fingers toward the back of the theater.
Behind there.
You’re behind there.
He can feel it, like gravity tugging. Like the ocean pulling at a thing it once owned.
Sophie frowns, keys jangling nervously in her hand. “Tae, you can’t just—”
He stands. Quick, uneven. The chair springs squeak from release.
“I—just—” The rest doesn’t arrive. Language evaporates. His body takes over, legs already moving.
A rush of whisper rustles through the aisle behind him but he doesn’t hear it, can’t. The rhythm in his chest beats heavier than audience noise or Sophie’s muttered apology as she scrambles up after him.
“Taehyung!” Her voice cuts against the corridor air. “Wait—where are you—Tae, you can’t just walk back there!”
But he’s already cutting down the carpeted row, brushing past knees and armrests, steps too long for politeness.
Every stride drags him closer to something inevitable.
The need drills deep beneath skin, under muscle, attaches itself to bone.
(one-two-three-four-five-six-seven)
(each count a pulse closer to divinity)
He imagines the line of your spine moving still, the curve of your neck lit by the backstage bulbs.
He imagines the faint sheen of sweat along your shoulders, the smell of rosin and perfume twisting together into something that must be tasted by gods.
(he shouldn’t he must he mustn’t he must)
Sophie’s shoes clap behind him, quick uneven beats as she tries to catch up. “Tae! Wait!”
He doesn’t.
The theater corridors whisper around him, air swollen with makeup powder, varnish, the lingering trace of sweetness that might, if he breathes deeply enough, be you.
His heart hurts. But the hurt sings.
Because if he just sees you again—just once up close, even from a corner, even through dust motes and stage ropes—maybe the knot under his ribs will loosen.
Maybe he’ll understand how something so divine can exist in the same air as him.
Maybe he can remember how to breathe.
The commotion outside your dressing room isn't loud—it's worse.
Worse because you recognize the specific pitch of it—soft giggles that don't reach full volume, the kind that suggest flirtation rather than friendship. The particular hush that falls when ballerinas spot something worth interrupting their post-performance exhaustion for.
You've heard it before, directed at guest choreographers, at visiting company members, at anyone male and moderately attractive who wanders backstage during those brief windows when discipline permits distraction.
Those windows are small. Microscopic, really, compared to the hours demanded.
The route to perfection doesn't accommodate much else—most dancers lack the discipline to maintain your standards, so they fill the gaps with whatever reprieve presents itself.
Tonight, apparently, that reprieve has soft hair and anxious eyes.
You don't need to look to know it's Taehyung.
Taehyung, who sat somewhere in that audience watching you move.
Taehyung, who you felt tracking every extension, every rotation, the same way you feel him now through a closed door.
He offers you that specific quality of attention that's followed you since the convenience store, since he knelt on dirty linoleum and called you ‘pearl.’
He oozes reverence the way other men ooze want—it coats the air around him, makes him visible even when he's trying to disappear.
Cute. He is irredeemably cute. Adorable in that devastating way that makes your canines ache with the need to sink into him, to mark soft flesh and watch him—
The hair clip snaps between your fingers.
You blink down at the two pieces of plastic, each half reflecting dressing room light.
Cheap hardware. Inferior materials.
You discard both fragments into the small waste bin beside your station and reach for another clip from the container, selecting one without checking its quality first.
Sloppy. Uncharacteristic.
You tuck one strand of hair back into your bun—still tight despite the performance, still immaculate—and angle your face toward the mirror. The pearl earrings catch light. Visible. Appropriate. Your reflection shows no sign of the performance you just completed—no flush, no visible perspiration; someone who never breaks.
Perfect.
You step out of the camerino.
The hallway tableau arranges itself like a painting.
Camille at center, leaning forward with her hip cocked in that way she thinks looks casual. Amelie to her left, twirling a strand of hair that escaped her bun. Manon giggling at something that wasn't funny, her hand resting on his arm for two seconds too long.
His eyes dart around the way they always do when observed—like a creature seeking the nearest exit, the darkest corner.
He wants to be invisible. Wants to sink into the walls and disappear.
But there's nowhere to go with three dancers boxing him in, asking questions he's clearly not answering, studying him the way you study combinations before drilling them into muscle memory.
Then you see her.
The pink-haired girl from the convenience store. Sophie, you think her name tag read. She's attached to his elbow with both hands, fingers wrapped around the fabric of his jacket like she has some claim to him. Like she has the right.
Unacceptable.
"Taehyung."
His eyes find yours immediately.
Light up is too soft a phrase for what happens to his expression—it's more like recognition of salvation, of oxygen after drowning.
His lips part slightly.
His shoulders drop half an inch from where they'd been hunched near his ears.
He looks at you like you're a miracle he wasn't sure he'd be allowed to witness again.
The other dancers follow his gaze.
Camille's smile goes tight. Amelie steps back automatically, recognizing hierarchy. Manon's eyes narrow, but she doesn't speak.
You move through them without acknowledging their presence—just smooth, economical steps that carry you directly to him. The space parts around you because it always does. Because you've earned that automatic deference through hours they'll never match.
"You came to see me," you say. Not a question. A statement of fact delivered in that informal register you've claimed as yours alone with him. "Didn't you, Taehyung?"
He blinks downward, color flooding his cheeks. The flush spreads down his neck, disappearing beneath his collar.
He nods, small and helpless.
Sophie's grip tightens on his elbow. "We should really—Taehyung, come on, we need to go."
Her voice carries worry, protectiveness. She tugs him slightly toward the exit.
You reach out.
Your fingers close around his hand—not his sleeve, not his wrist. His hand, the one still covered in those blue latex gloves he always wears.
The contact makes him freeze completely.
Sophie tugs harder. "Taehyung—"
You caress his palm with your thumb, slow and small, feeling the warm latex from his skin underneath.
He shudders. A full-body tremor that starts in his hand and travels up his arm, across his shoulders, down his spine. His breathing changes—shorter, shallower. His eyes drop to where you're touching him like he can't quite believe it's happening.
"I'm fine," he tells Sophie and his voice comes out rough, splintered. "I'm—"
He breathes out, licking his lips before he can form more words.
“I stay—with—with her."
With her.
Not with them, not with the crowd.
With you specifically.
Exclusively.
You like that.
Sophie stares at him. "Are you serious right now?"
You smile at her. Polite. Perfectly pleasant. The kind of smile that looks friendly from a distance but up close reveals nothing warm at all.
She reads it correctly. Her hands drop from his elbow. Her mouth opens, closes. She glances between you and Taehyung, trying to understand the dynamics of something she wasn't meant to witness.
His tongue comes out to wet his lower lip—unconscious gesture, nervous habit.
You remember those lips parting around rose macarons.
Remember sugar on his tongue, cream at the corner of his mouth. Remember the tears that gathered in his lashes when you fed him more than he could handle. Remember—most vividly—the desperate way he'd tried to hide how hard he'd gotten from something as simple as your fingers in his mouth.
Your canines ache.
You want to sink them into the soft part of his throat.
Want to see if you could make him cry without the excuse of food overwhelming his system.
Want to test whether you could make him come just from the right words in the right tone.
Want to bite him until he understands exactly who his attention belongs to.
You turn your attention to Sophie.
"Thank you for bringing him."
The words come out perfectly pleasant. Grateful, even. The kind of tone you'd use thanking a stagehand for placing your water bottle exactly where it belongs.
Sophie blinks. "I—what?"
"For bringing Taehyung to see me." You tilt your head slightly, still smiling. "That was very thoughtful of you."
Her mouth opens. Closes. She's trying to parse the subtext, trying to understand if you're being genuine or—
"I can take it from here." Your grip on his hand tightens fractionally. Final. "You don't need to wait."
Understanding floods her expression. Her gaze drops to where your fingers are wrapped around his, then back to your face.
She knows a dismissal when she hears one.
"Right." The word comes out flat. "Yeah. Sure."
She glances at Taehyung one more time—searching for protest, for hesitation, for any sign he wants her to stay.
He doesn't even look at her.
His eyes are fixed on you like you're the only thing in the room. In the world. Like Sophie stopped existing the moment you touched him.
Her jaw tightens. "I'll just… go then."
"Mm." You don't break eye contact with Taehyung. "Have a lovely evening, Sophie."
The politeness in your voice makes it worse somehow. Makes it clear exactly what you think of her presence now that she's served her purpose.
You walk, drag him toward your camerino without releasing his hand.
The other dancers part automatically—years of hierarchy.
They know which spaces belong to whom.
They know you earned this private room through hours they'll never match, through discipline that separates adequate from exceptional.
He follows. Stumbles slightly keeping pace even though he's a head taller, his longer stride somehow uncertain next to your measured steps.
You like that—the height difference, the way he has to angle his body down slightly whenever you glance back. Like he's built to bend for you.
The door appears on your left. You push through without hesitation.
Inside, the space smells of hairspray and the faint rose of your usual perfume. Everything is bathed in rose gold—mirror lights. Your costume from earlier hangs on its designated hook, white fabric still holding the ghost of stage heat.
You look back at him.
His eyes dart to the door, then to you, then back.
Understanding crosses his face—that quick flash of comprehension that always seems to bypass conscious thought with him when it’s about you. He reaches behind himself. The lock clicks into place with a sound that feels louder than it should.
You release his hand, trail your fingers across his palm as you pull away.
You walk slowly toward the vanity, hands clasped behind your back, feeling his attention tracking your movement the way you feel stage lights—constant, focused, burning.
The chair accepts your weight with a soft sound. You cross your legs. Slow. The movement draws his gaze down like gravity, pupils following the path of your calf as it slides over your knee.
His lashes drop.
His lips part on an inhale he doesn't release.
He's holding his breath. Keeping all that want trapped behind his teeth like something dangerous, something that might escape if he lets it out.
The flush spreading across his cheeks makes him look feverish.
Makes him look edible.
He stumbles backward. One step. Two.
That won't do.
You pat the seat directly in front of you. "Come here, Moss."
He chokes on air.
"Pearl—" Your name breaks in his throat like sugar glass.
"Here." You pat again. Firmer.
His gloved hands flex at his sides. Open, close. Like he's trying to remember how they work.
God, you want to devour him.
Want to taste whether his skin is as sweet as those macarons he consumed so desperately. Want to bite down until he makes that sound again—that helpless, brittle noise that suggests he'd let you do anything as long as you kept touching him.
Your tongue finds your canine. Presses against the point.
He's still frozen by the door, staring at you like you might evaporate if he moves wrong. Like you're some kind of mirage his contaminated mind conjured.
"Moss," you say again. Softer this time. Almost gentle.
The gentleness undoes him. His feet move before his brain catches up, carrying him across the small space in uneven steps. He stops just out of reach.
Close enough that you could touch him if you leaned forward.
Far enough that he's still obeying some invisible rule about distance and devotion.
You'll have to teach him better.
You tap the seat once again.
He sinks into the chair like his legs gave out. Knees pressed together, spine curved forward slightly—the posture of someone trying to make himself smaller.
It doesn't work. He's still tall, still takes up space in a way that suggests he's never been comfortable doing so.
You reach for his hands.
He flinches but doesn't pull away. Can't, probably. His entire body has gone rigid with the effort of not moving, of staying exactly where you put him.
The latex is warm. You trace one finger along the edge where it meets his wrist, feel his pulse hammering against the barrier.
"These need to come off."
"No—" The word tears out too fast. "I can't—they need to—"
"They're dirty." You keep your voice gentle. Matter-of-fact. "You've been wearing them all night. They've touched doors, seats, other people."
His breathing quickens. You can see him processing the logic.
"I'll contaminate—"
"Me?" You tilt your head slightly. "You think your hands are dirtier than the latex that's been collecting bacteria for hours?"
He opens his mouth. Closes it.
No argument forms.
You reach for his right hand first. Hook your index finger under the edge of the glove at his wrist. The latex is warm—body-heated, damp with nervous sweat. You can feel his pulse hammering against the barrier.
You peel slowly. The glove resists, clings to his skin with a soft sticky sound that makes your throat tighten. His hand emerges pale and dainty—long fingers, clean nails kept short, small calluses at the base of each finger that suggest repetitive motion.
Beautiful hands.
The second glove follows. This time you go even slower, watching his face as each finger emerges. His lashes are lowered, hiding his eyes, but you can see the way his lips part on shallow breaths.
When both hands are bare, he stares at them like they belong to someone else. Like he can't quite believe you're allowing this contamination.
You turn his right palm upward. Trace one finger down the center, following the lifeline from base to wrist.
He chokes on air.
"You have long fingers, Moss." Your thumb finds his wrist, presses gently against his pulse. Racing. "Do you play piano?"
"N-no." The word stutters out.
"Pity." You map the length of his index finger. "You'd be a great pianist, I reckon."
He makes a sound that might be agreement or distress. His other hand grips his thigh hard enough that the knuckles go white. He shifts in his seat, crosses his legs suddenly. Hunches forward like something hurts.
You know exactly what hurts.
"Such pretty hands, Taehyung." The informal address makes him shudder. "I bet you've made all your previous girlfriends very happy."
His breath punches out. "N-no—I—"
He's struggling. Words fragmenting before they reach his mouth.
"Never. Girlfriend. I—never."
Never?
The information settles in your chest like warm honey. Possessive and sweet.
No one else has had these hands. No one else has made him shake like this.
You're the first.
You like that.
"No?" You let surprise color your voice. "That's such a waste, Taehyung. Do you know what I mean?"
He just exhales. Looks down at where you're touching him like he can't quite believe it's happening.
His free hand tugs at his sweater, pulling it down over his lap.
The motion confirms what you suspected.
Good.
"I asked you a question."
He shakes his head. Small movement. Desperate.
Your fingers walk up his palm to trace his ring finger. "No? You don't know what long fingers would be good for?"
Another shudder. Violent this time. His legs clamp
together harder. He bends further over himself, breathing gone ragged.
"Finge—"
"Please." He cuts you off, the word breaking apart. His eyes squeeze shut. Lashes clumped together with moisture that hasn't spilled yet. "I—I c-can't—please, Pearl."
Pearl.
Your nickname in his mouth sounds like benediction and surrender combined.
He's so worked up he can barely speak. Can barely sit still. Every touch making him worse, making him shake harder, flushing his skin that feverish pink that makes you want to trace it with your tongue.
You wonder how far you could push before he breaks completely. Before he begs or cries or does something even more interesting.
The thought makes your canines ache.
"Can't what?" You muse. "Can't answer a simple question?"
"P-please—" Again. Desperate. His eyes open slightly, and they're wet. Actual tears gathering at the corners, threatening to spill. "I d-don't—c-can't—"
You did this.
Your touch, your words, your attention reduced him to this trembling mess.
The power thrill is intoxicating.
"Would seven make it better?"
His eyes snap to yours. Wide. Confused.
"Seven." You keep your voice soft. Reasonable. "Seven soothes you, doesn't it?"
He nods. Defenseless. His tongue comes out to wet his lower lip and you track the movement.
"Then let's count to seven." Your thumb finds his pulse point. Presses gently. His whole arm trembles. "We'll move slowly."
His breathing stutters. "P-Pearl—"
"Slowly," you repeat. Gentle but firm. The tone you'd use for a nervous dancer before their first solo. "Just breathing. Just counting."
You lift his hand higher. Turn it so his palm faces upward, fingers spread slightly. Exposing all those long elegant lines you praised.
You start with his thumb.
Press your fingertip against the pad, trace down the length to where it meets his palm.
The touch is feather-light, and yet, his whole body jerks.
"One."
A sound escapes him—half gasp, half whimper, bitten back too late.
Your pulse kicks.
Index finger next. Circle the pad first, feeling how his whole hand trembles in your grip. Then down—slow drag of skin on skin.
"Two."
His free hand clamps down on his thigh. Grips hard enough you can see tendons standing out. He tugs his sweater lower between his legs, presses down. Trying to hide what you already know is there.
Your own knees lock. Subtle. Unconscious.
Middle finger. You take your time. Let your nail drag slightly against the sensitive inside.
"Three."
"Ah—" The sound punches out of him.
His thighs squirm and he curls inward immediately after, shoulders hunching, trying to fold himself smaller.
It's still not working.
You can see him straining under the sweater. Can see how badly he's shaking.
A small, broken sound leaks from his throat.
Something hot and slick pulses between your legs.
You shift again. Cross your own legs tighter.
Ring finger. You trace it even slower. Feel his pulse hammering in the delicate skin. His skin is so soft here, delicate in a way that makes you want to bite down and mark it.
"Four."
"Please—" His voice breaks. "I c-can't—"
"You can." You move to his pinky, the smallest finger, the most sensitive you’d wager. "Just one more for this hand."
You map it thoroughly. Pad to knuckle to base, then down into his palm where all the lines converge.
"Five."
He's panting now, breathing through his nose whilst he bites his lower lip. A tear finally spills over, carving a beautiful, slow path down his flushed cheeks.
He's never looked more beautiful.
You release that hand. Reach for the other.
"Pearl, p-please, I—" He tries to pull away, though it’s weak.
"We're not done." Your thumb finds his other thumb. "We need to get to seven, remember?"
"I c-can't—it's—" He's barely coherent. Words fragmenting. "It's dirty, I—it'll be—filthy—please—"
You press into the pad of his thumb. Begin the slow drag downward.
"Six."
His thigh muscles lock. His free hand abandons his sweater, grips the edge of the chair instead. Knuckles white.
Index finger. But this time you pause halfway. Let your touch linger at the middle knuckle.
"Six and a quarter."
"S-stop—" Not a real protest. A plea.
Middle finger. Same teasing pause. You can feel him trembling so hard the chair creaks.
"Six and a half."
A sob. Actual sob.
His head drops forward, hair falling to hide his face. But you can still see his mouth—lips parted, bitten raw, gasping.
Ring finger. The pause is longer this time. You circle the knuckle slowly.
"Six and three-quarters."
"Pearl—" Your nickname breaks apart in his throat. Splits into syllables that don't quite connect. "Please, p-please, I—I'm—"
He doesn’t need to say it. Can see it in how he's curled so far forward he's nearly folded in half. In how his thighs press together desperately. In the way his breath has gone high and quick and terrified.
You like that.
Your hand moves to his pinky. The last finger. The final count.
You trace it slowly. Pad to tip to base. His whole body locks up. Goes absolutely rigid.
Then, finally, a permission:
"Seven."
He breaks.
It's silent—he bites down on his lip hard enough you think he might bleed. But you feel it. The violent shudder that wracks through him. The way his fingers flex so tight it hurts. The hitch in his breath that cuts off completely before restarting as a choked, shattered sound.
His thighs press together. His spine curves inward. He shakes and shakes and shakes.
You watch. Don't look away. Can’t look away.
The toothache only sharpens.
You like it.
Like watching him come apart from nothing but counting and touch and your voice saying his sacred number.
When the shaking finally subsides, he stays folded over himself. Breathing rushed. Hand still held by yours.
Devastating. Ruined. Wrecked.
Heat pools low in your stomach. Unfamiliar and demanding. This is what power tastes like—watching him fall apart because you decided he would.
Because your touch, your voice, your attention unmade him.
"Taehyung."
He flinches at his name. Doesn't look up.
You reach out. Let your fingers find his chin, tilt his face toward yours.
His eyes are battered. Pupils blown so wide there's barely any brown left. Tears still wet on his cheeks. Lower lip bleeding where he bit through skin.
Gorgeous.
"Look at me."
He does. Can't seem to help it.
And the want in his expression—the raw, desperate, worshipful want—makes your canines throb so hard you taste blood.
He looks at you like you're divinity.
And for the first time, you feel like maybe you are.
Lachlaniah on Chapter 3 Mon 12 May 2025 01:18PM UTC
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jungkoode (fxoye) on Chapter 5 Wed 18 Jun 2025 08:26PM UTC
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