Archive of Our Own

You spun around, body swaying to a nonexistent melody, your feet shuffling over the damp old stone; arms held up as if you were embracing somebody, and at the same time, nobody.  Your wrists turned and fingers relaxed as you kept moving in the middle of the desolate room, humming to a tune only you could hear that was accompanied by the brushing of your bare toes on the floor; laughing you felt a small shiver run up your spine and making goosebumps stand up on the nape of your neck. You raised your hand up into the air again, and slowly you turned in a circle, a smile growing on your face as the moonlight caught the figure that held your hand back, the translucent and shimmering features of the ghost of the person you loved smiling at you sadly… Loved .

That was the gloomiest part, that it was no-more.

 It was freezing in the churchyard, even before all the ghosts came back, but you pushed that reality away, the cold truth of what he is now. You pushed all the thoughts that threatened to pull you further inside a sea of sadness, on how you would never feel his warmth and instead were only encompassed and wrapped around his absence. So instead, you thanked whatever god was up there that gave you both this moment every dusk, where you could feel him better, not exactly touch him but feel the chill he broke over your skin. The wash of ice-cold water that made every nerve on your body sizzle and burst alive with just the faintest of his brushes through you.  

The outline of his body shimmered palely as the sun dipped down and the air around you chilled, his taller frame moving close to you in a way that reminded you on how he cradled your body every now and then, and reminded you of the days before it all went downhill. And as the day ended, and the night began you could hear the soft lilt of his voice, the comforting echo of what his matter-less body produced as the wind’s whisper, swaying to it as his hand moved to cup your face, bringing you close to him, tilting your face up to him.

His voice was sweet, his hold on you gentle and barely there, and his eyes, his lovely black doe eyes, they were emptier than they’ve ever been; gaunt. Haunted. Starless, void of life’s spark which once made you stare into them, get lost inside them when he was alive. Now his whole face looked pale and colorless, the moles scattered over his feature’s mere abysses, his proud and tall nose mocked you for if you ever tried to brush it with your own as you knew now that touching him was something that you could never do again. Any and all expressions of his blurred together like looking through a camera that couldn’t register all movements, his once tattooed and decorated body now blurred at the ends into black smoke and would prevent you from ever detailing him.

Yet still, he spun you around on the damp old stone and tried to hold  you closer than ever before. He tried to hold your body, tried to show he cared but all he got was his form dissolving and passing through you, it made you wonder if he could feel you, if he could hear you, or if this was instead a torture for you both. Wondered if he felt like he was underwater around you, pushing his way against the world to reach closer, if anything that you spoke were mere bubbles of air he couldn’t make out. 

So, you danced, danced to the wind’s music, the song the cicadas started to sing when the night came, danced to the stomping of the other ghost as they finally headed inside the black mouth of the church you spent your evenings in. There was nothing else to do, or nothing you could even think of doing. You couldn’t communicate, you couldn’t touch, you could barely see each other, so you did the best next thing: You danced with your ghost.

As the world got dark a pale blue glow appeared all around you, and you didn’t need to turn your head to spot the orbs floating, the other ghosts spectating your miserable attempt of remaining with the love of your life, pretending that he hadn’t committed what he had. The ghosts simply there to spectate the saddest dance you’ll ever perform.

You had met him too late, there was nothing you could’ve done, nothing to be done as his life had grown into misery and the strings connecting both your hearts weren’t strong enough to stop or prevent his challenges to the sun, how his youth commanded and spoke to every cell in his body to reach higher and faster, to attempt to fly, completely unaware that humans were never born with wings, that they could never have wings; fly too close and you’ll plummet down into the ocean. But that was who you fell for, for none other than Icarus.

He was too prideful, thought that he could handle anything and everything, that no matter what he’d get up. He believed that his youth made him unbreakable, that it was his duty first and foremost to help others no matter how detrimental it would be, help you no matter the cost. And oh, oh how much you had begged him to get up, how you had held his hand and sobbed for him to look at you with innocent eyes, to command the body of a broken bird to mend itself and chirp once more with life, to spit out the blood pooled in his mouth and finally break out with an “I’m fine”.

Such bullshit.

A sob broke your chest, feet faltering and slipping with the wet mossy floor, falling down and going through Jungkook as he tried to catch you, but the only one that could ever catch you from now on was the cold ground. The stinging on your palms brought you back, looking down as you saw the scratches have brought in blood. Dark red blood. Carnation. Heat and life pumped through you, and here it was, overflowing and dripping down because you had too much inside, so much inside, and nothing to give back to the cold shadow that stopped his actions and just sat beside you, shadowy fingers moving up to try and hold your hands to help, but the blood on your palm pushed him away, made sparks fly in the air before fizzing out.

You let out a broken chuckle before breaking into a sob, squeezing your palms, not caring that more blood was dripping down, not caring about the pained expression of the ghost besides you over his incapability to help you. You glanced back up, heart hammering and barely able to see through your tears, but this hurt you more. You had always imagined the procession of spirits to be an orderly thing, but all ghosts ever did was wander, hesitate, caught in a limbo and you were sure the only reason Jungkook stayed beside you was because he was too stubborn to pass over and leave you alone. He had been so young, so terribly young that you had reached a point where you were older than he would ever be. He was not quite transparent, but he was also not there, never there. He was as murky as dirty water, no sign of what made him him . Nothing that would show her it was the man she loved other than his youth. He had been so young it broke you. 

And he was breaking you, every second you spent with him fed him, fed him for him to even appear to you under the moonlight, fed all other ghosts in the cemetery, made your hands grow numb from the cold, made your heart slow from the freezing cold he was bringing you. Filling you with dread.

You looked over his cracked and faded face, tears spilling down the side of your face as the eerily blue of the other specters grew brighter; as you distinguished the sick red that had once spilled down on him and now just mocked you with the turn of events of that day in April.

“Is this all? Is this our forever now?”

And his answer came to you back in the wind, his expression pained, his whole posture pained, his hand hovering over your face, showing his desire to hold you more than anything he had in his life, in his after-life: “This is all there ever will be”

You weren’t late right? No, no you weren’t anywhere near late, just having moved to the city and having to navigate and somehow find your way through Seoul’s public transportation to finally use the metro and commute to your new workplace. Who would’ve thought little old you would be scouted so quickly by a highly recognized company, a company that did it’s very best to convince you to move halfway across the globe to be one of the principal dancers? And more so, for it to be one of the companies you had your eye on as you performed and auditioned for spots across the globe.

         But there was something about BigHit Entertainment, and the shows they adapted from literature and ballet to perform in the air with a series of stunts and acrobatics, that mesmerized you. And to be part of the principals, after they had seen your audition tapes, videos of previous performances whilst you were still a trainee in other companies and played parts of smaller productions, but it wasn’t until you played Juliet that the job offers started to pour in. Who would’ve known it was the classic tale of doomed star-crossed lovers that would open the doors to one of the biggest contemporary circus companies?

“Y/N?”, you heard your name be called just as you walked inside the building, turning your head at the direction of the voice to see a tall man behind the front desk, a woman sitting behind as well. You nodded softly and bowed your head a bit.

“Ah, finally, I’ve been dying to meet you”, he said, walking closer and taking your hand shaking it surely, “I’m Namjoon”, he explained, smiling back and showing the dimples in his cheeks, “I’m part of the board of directors and supervise the performers, I saw your tape and I was thoroughly impressed with your skills on the trapeze, really what we have been missing”, he continued the rant, smiling at the praise and starting to follow him as he waved at the receptionist and started to talk through the day. “You came rather early, I was expecting you tomorrow”.

   You laughed, his easy talking calming your nerves from the first day of work, shaking your head, “I wanted to check out the stage you have, and get to know a few of my coworkers as well… also I was afraid I’ll get lost using the metro so I left early just in case I did”.

Namjoon nodded, opening a pair of doors as you both walked through more hallways, the familiar sounds of trampolines and a net tensing echoing and bringing you warm memories, “I’m sure you found your way easily?”.

“Yes, yes, I didn’t really have any problem”.

“That’s great to hear, oh, oh Hyung!”, Namjoon yelled after a blond young man, his hair hidden underneath a beanie and wearing a too-big shirt over his pale frame, “Hyung, this is Y/N, she’s the company’s new aerialist”, he introduced you, smiling kindly at the stranger as he turned and looked over you, “Y/N, this is Min Yoongi, we call him Suga, he’s the sound producer, sometimes our conductor and also part of the creative board, right now he’s planning the next production with Hoseok, our choreographer, you’ve met him right?”.

You nodded, smiling at him, “yeah, he’s the one with the bended little ears, right?”, the man called Yoongi laughed, nodding your way.

“Yes, that’s Hoseok, but don’t expect him to be as nice as when you met him in the interview, he’s killer with the newbies no matter how talented”.

You shuddered, smiling a bit as the nerves and the anticipation for new challenges mixed together in your blood, and the idea of a different choreographer having the chance to see your limits and make you push them further excited you. You just hoped he wasn’t one to make you break.

“Jeez hyung, don’t scare her she’s barely been here for 10 minutes and you’re gonna make her want to pack up and leave”.

Shaking your head, you looked back at him, smiling a bit, “No! No, I’m fine, thank you for the advice actually, I wasn’t sure how I’d work with someone that was so bright.”

Namjoon’s face relaxed into a calmer smile, nodding a bit and waving as Yoongi replied he had to go back to his ‘studio’ as he called it, turning to you. “You’re going to meet the rest, we have a lot of talented staff members, we even have a few freelancers like a young man named Kim Taehyung, he’s around your age as well but he’s also the lead costume designer for our staff  and we hire him constantly to design for our performances… if he says something weird please ignore it, he has a funny way of communicating but it’s usually all harmless”.

You nodded, taking note and finally going inside a room, in your head memorizing the twists and turns that were taken to finally arrive here. It was a huge arena, all divided to the needs of the artist. Turning your head you spotted a few performers in normal exercise clothes using the trampolines and practicing their flips in midair; on another corner a few were using monocycles and starting to juggle knives and equally dangerous instruments; men and women hanging from silks tied to the ceiling, twisting and falling down, unraveling themselves as a spider would from her net, before stopping mere inches from the ground, but further down you saw what really interested you. It was the long net hung securely below a set of trapezes, a young man already swinging on one secured by his knees, letting go at just the right moment to spend a second in the air, his body turning one, two, three times before gravity finally claimed him and the second trapeze swung back for him to simply extend his arms and grab a hold of it, finally swinging back onto the safety of a platform. Up above your heads, higher you ever thought you’d ever swing from when you were working in your previous company. Your hands just itched to start flying from that height.

“Y/N? Y/N… Y/N!”, you snapped back as you heard your name, looking up at Namjoon who just chuckled a bit, having caught you staring back at the aerialist. “That’s Jungkook, your partner”.

You tilted your head, looking at him, “Partner…? I didn’t think I’d have an assigned partner so quickly".

Namjoon chuckled, turning back to look in the direction of the net, where stood another guy wearing an acorn beanie and a face mask, yelling some directions back at the trapeze artist you knew now was Jungkook. “He’s our male principal, he and Jimin do a lot of the lead roles in our productions, but Jimin tends to like aerial silks and tightrope walking much more than the trapeze, and for this next one we might need an aerial as skilled at the trapeze as Jungkook… which is also why you’re here”.

You nodded, starting to walk finally back in the direction of the net, hearing what the two young men were yelling, “So, I’m performing with him? I hope we get along”.

Namjoon chuckled again, raising his hand back up and scratching his nape, “Jungkook is very, very talented, if anything he’s stubborn and stresses out when focusing on a task so you might need to get him out of his head from time to time, but he’s really shy and kind hearted. If you don’t talk much at the start don’t take it too personal”.

Nodding you finally arrived at the net, seeing that there were actually a few more nets and trapezes set up, that it wasn’t just Jungkook practicing the trapeze but a few other acrobats as well, and finally spotting the acorn-wearing man recognizing that it was Hoseok. True to word, his ears bent down a bit from the beanie he had on top of his head and found it adorable and somehow fitting to the sunshine man everyone talked to you about.

“Yah! Jeongguk! Stop being a show-off you were late by half a second!”, you heard Hoseok yelling again, shaking his head and pulling the mask down and under his chin as he turned and spotted you, raising a brow, “Woah, Y/N, I didn’t think you’d be here until tomorrow evening”.

You bowed your head a bit to him as he did the same, laughing softly and nodding “I couldn’t really stay still and unpack when I could meet this place, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you after all the video calls”.

Hoseok kindly smiled back, his hand coming behind his ear to take off his mask and nods, “pleasure is all mine, I hope it’s not too much of me to ask you to warm up and see live a few of the basic tricks up in the air? Just to see where we are?”.

You shook your head, “no, no, it’d be fun actually”, you moved taking off your gym bag from your shoulder, smiling back at Namjoon as he said he’d bring in the last of the paperwork at lunch cause he didn’t have any time to prepare it, saying his last goodbyes and walking away leaving you with Hoseok.

You were ecstatic to move in the air again, the last few months filled with packing and unpacking, running through the airport and spreading out your yoga mat on hotel or even the airport to keep your body flexible and warm. You had garnered a set of stares one time you did a middle oversplit by resting your ankles on your travel bags in the middle of the airport. But yoga and stretching was nothing compared to the air, the nothing around you and floating in the air by nothing but your own willpower. So you happily took off your jacket and shoes, staying barefoot and starting to stretch out your body to warm up, head moving up just when you heard the tensing of the net again, seeing Jungkook had thrown himself down and was now rolling back to the ground for a short break. But you glanced away, letting out a slow breath through your mouth as you were bent over yourself, the tingling and burning in your calves bringing more energy down into your body.

“You’re Y/N right?”.

Your head turned to look up at the raven-haired boy, he was wearing black tights and a fitting black shirt, holding onto a towel and thermos, “…Yeah?”.

Quickly a bunny smile took over his features, and not wanting to be rude you stood back up, looking over the man again and finding something incredibly youthful in his doe black eyes and big nose. “I’m Jungkook, I’m your partner now”.

You blinked, looking over the man before you, his broad shoulders and body built on muscle, tattooed from his fingertips on his right hand and ink crawling up his arm, under the sleeves and peaking even from under the collar of his shirt, and then glanced back up to the trapeze. Most of the trapeze artists you knew were lithe, but he was nowhere near that. He was thin, yes, the tight black shirt hugging his chest and accentuating the small waist, but he looked, a bit bigger than you would’ve first guessed. “Oh, Oh! I’m Y/N, it’s nice to meet you Jungkook”.

He nodded, letting out a small sound as he did so and again, somehow finding it more adorable than a normal person would, “I saw a few videos of you, you’re really good!”

Chuckling you smiled wider, slowly getting comfortable around him and glad that you were seeing as you’d have to spend a lot of time with him from now on, “thank you, I saw your flip up there, you look amazing in the air”.

Jungkook grinned, bunny teeth more visible, small dimples on his cheeks as he did so and leaning back, “well, I try… oh, oh you’re warming up for Hobi, I’ll leave you be I don’t want him to blame me later that you’re too stiff”.

Scoffing you poked on his chest softly, pushing him a bit back, “I am not stiff, just give me a minute and I’ll show you”.

He raised a brow and laughed again, raising his hands back up to show his palms, “sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to provoke you this soon, that was supposed to be later when we were performing together”.

Tilting your head, you smirked a bit, “when we’re performing? Why”.

“It makes the dance that much interesting, more fun too”.

Shy? Namjoon really described him as shy? This guy was a brat.

You scoffed, smiling back at him, “well, when we’re up there and I’m hanging from you I hope I don’t bother you enough to have you let me go”.

He laughed and shook his head, “I never let go, don’t worry about that Angel ”. Jungkook smiled cheekily, emphasizing the pet name he now gave you and happily walks away to finally give you your space to warm up, about to yell at him but stopping as Hoseok yelled at you if you were done already, making haste you moved back to your small warm up routine, smiling to yourself at just the small interaction you had with your partner, wondering if that’s what would wait for you for the next few months as you worked together for the next production. What would be the next production for them to pick the trapeze as the star of the show?

Your legs caught together, letting out a small gasp as you looked back up at Jimin and his expression as you failed to reach his hold, the trapeze already swinging him back and away from you as felt the weight on your ankles and wrists to grow heavier, and, missing the chance you plummet back down; down as your chest tightened, down as everything around you became lines and blurs, down as the silent scream you let out that day before your world had turned black echoed inside your skull, down as you braced for impact but felt only the familiar yet rough net catching you before anything fatal would befall you. The net tensed and dipped down, catching you and absorbing the impact before it straightened again and made your body jump off from it before once more landing and stilling. Heart ramming against your chest, up on your throat and filling your stomach with bile you wanted to throw up immediately.

No more abyss, no more of the terrible vastness of nothing. Only you and the net. You and the net, you and the net. Hoseok rushed over to help you get off and back to the ground. Jimin letting go of the trapeze and falling onto the net with you, crawling over as you slowly sat back up, heading to the edge to get onto your feet, get on the ground, shaking your head as people offered water bottles and towels to wipe the sweat away.

“Shit, what the fuck was that? Y/N look at me what the fuck was that?”, Hoseok replied, his face showing the stress these past few days have been on him, dark circles under his eyes and lines around his mouth.

“I-I, I’m sorry, my timing was off, it came too soon”, you tried to make excuses, remembering your mistake, the way you were standing by the platform and holding the trapeze in your hands, watching as Jimin ran off the platform and swung on the second one from the other end, bringing himself back up and hooking onto it upside down by his knees; but also the shadow of who was on it. The whisper of your name against your ear as you saw him hanging by his knees, arms reaching over and ensuring he would catch you. Of him, not Jimin, of Jungkook who was taller and stronger, who would reach down to get you no matter what. No matter what it took.

You should’ve noticed that his ghost was just that, a ghost. No one but you will ever see him, no one but you will ever be haunted by the beautiful youth. You should’ve noticed Jungkook wasn’t there, and he will never be there, you shouldn’t have jumped as if someone would catch you; you should’ve flown all on your own and got to the other side with Jimin.

“Y/N… It’s been weeks, weeks and nothing, I need you to at least be caught by Jimin, he’s strong enough, he can take your weight ok?”.

“I know he can take my weight, I’m not doubting if he’s strong enough or not”.

“Then what is it? Cause I need you both to work together for this to actually work, I need you to pull yourself together Y/N”.

You nodded, head bowed in shame and flinching when someone placed their hand on the small of your back, turning after and seeing it was just Jimin, sweet lovely Jimin, trying to comfort you in some way even if all that anyone has been doing lately was putting you on edge. Edge. You felt like you were standing between the ledge of a crumbling cliff and the thundering waves, both promising your demise, a fall you were avoiding completely.

“S-Sorry”, he replied quickly, moving his hand back to himself and glancing at Hoseok who was looking at you with disbelief. “Hyung it’s fine, maybe I ran off-beat, if it isn’t at the right height in the millisecond you need it to be you can fall, I’ve fallen plenty of times lately to try to get the beat so even Y/N has been trying to accommodate to me, she can also have her off days”.

“She doesn’t have off days, she’s been having an off-shitting-season for the looks of it”, Hoseok snapped back, promptly shutting the brown-haired boy up, sighing as his own nerves were tested and taking a second to compose himself again.

You didn’t need his help, biting on your lip as Jimin tried to make up more excuses for what happened when you knew it was your fault. You had been somersaulting in the air for too long, had hung from the bars for too many hours to not feel the moment you had to jump. This was your fault, everything going on lately was your fault, every delay, every hiccup during rehearsals and the mess you and everyone in the company was in was your fault. Jungkook, his death, that was also your fucking fault.

“Y/N, I don’t want to say this but, but it’s been over a week. Jimin has already Jungkook’s solos memorized, the only thing we need is the Prince meeting the Swan Queen, thee dance between Odile and the Prince, and after that I need you to teach him what you taught Jungkook with me, I need you to teach him the fall of the Queen with me or he won’t ever get it… If you don’t get it together by the end of the week, I’ll have to call for your understudy as well, and I’ll have to rethink the whole last scene”.

 Your eyes widened, looking back at him and taking his hands quickly, nails marking his arms with red half-moon prints as you pulled him close and pleaded “no, no, Hoseok we’ve been dancing this for months, you can’t just take it away from us, you can’t take this one away from us please”.

Hoseok froze at your grasp on him, looking over you, thinking over how you kept saying we, us, you hadn’t been able to let go of him and everyone could tell. But it was starting to cripple your art, your passion, it was starting to burn your own wings and making you nosedive down into the sea of unknown. He exhaled slowly, his hands turning and making you let go of his arms and notice you had hurt him, and instead, held at the two weights shackling your wrists, lifting them up with you and shaking you into really look at him, to look into his eyes were his sadness mirrored your own. “Y/N… you have until the end of the week, I’ll keep this place open for you to practice on your own with Jimin like you had been doing the past months, but convince me you can actually do it or it’s over.”.

Your hands shook, a cold dread settling on top of your bones, the murmuring and whispering of all the other artists growing in volume and muffling out any other type of thoughts. They doubted you could do it, doubted even when you had proved them all before that you can and have done the Flight before. They doubted you could ever replicate it with anyone else… but you did as well. Could you? Could you ever try and do something as difficult as what made Jungkook lose his life with someone else? With his best friend?

You weren’t sure.

You couldn’t be sure.

But you had to. You had to prove it to all of them, you had to prove it to Jimin, but you also had to prove Jungkook that you were capable, you had to keep your promise to him. You had to make sure you could overcome this, or you feared you wouldn’t be able to overcome anything else in your life.

You leaned your body forward over the bar, your leg resting on top and deepening the stretch as you pushed your body to bend and for your hand to reach your toes, grabbing your foot and breathing in for three seconds before leaning back and relaxing, jumping and turning around as a loud sound caught your attention. “What the shit Jungkook?”.

Jungkook had apparently decided to arrive in the early morning to the studio as well, smiling a bit and shutting the door more gently than when he had opened it “ah, sorry I didn’t think you would be here”.

You sighed a bit, shaking your head and smiling as you brought your leg down and raising the other one to stretch it out too, “I thought we agreed on practice at 7am?”.

Jungkook walked over to you in the bar, leaving his duffel bag down and taking off the big oversized shirt resembling a pillowcase he had been wearing, “We did, but it’s 5am Y/N”, he replied, smiling at your direction when he caught you staring at his chest. But instead of ignoring it, or being cocky about it, he brought his hands up, hugging himself and turning away from your view, “where are your manners! You don’t just stare at a man when he’s changing”.

You can’t help but laugh, looking away as you had finally managed to warm up your body for the little practice you had wanted to continue, “as if you don’t stare at my ass when I’m changing”.

You heard Jungkook chuckle, taking off the soft and comfy looking sweats that hung around his hips to show the tights he was donning underneath them, tights that stopped right above his knees and hugged his thighs a bit too much for your taste, hugged his crotch a bit too tightly, “Not my fault you shake your ass or bend over when you’re changing”.

“Sometimes it’s tight and won’t go down jeez, as if you didn’t just flex while taking your shirt off right now”.

“I did so involuntarily, some muscles gotta move when I lift up my arms you know”, he replied cheekily, smiling at your direction and making you glance back down quickly at the mole under his mouth that screamed at you as an invitation to kiss him.

You have been living in Seoul for a couple months already, which involved daily practices with ballet and gymnastic instructors, going to acting classes taught by a young man called Seokjin with both Jungkook, Jimin and a few other acrobats, and finally, when they technically had a day off to cool down, you and Jungkook could be found at the “closed” studio, getting more familiar with each other to anticipate your partner’s next breath, you had found a comfort when you were being thrown about or held by Jungkook. And as such, you both joked and pulled each other’s hair just for the fun of it, to calm each other down and break in the seriousness of your work even with something as dumb as casual flirting.

“Well get warm kookie, I’ll bring down the fixed trapeze before we start swinging”.

Jungkook grinned and walked closer to the bar, settling besides you but at the same time too close to you. This was a long bar, pretty long, and Jungkook was standing right next to you, “give me a couple minutes, I won’t take as long”, he said, before reaching for your hand to keep you from moving for a second as he leaned down and kissed your cheek, “don’t have too much fun up there without me Angel”.

You scoffed, cheeks heating up and moving your hand away before doing something you’d regret, instead heading back towards the net and where other ladders were in place, starting to head up as you muttered more names back towards the giant brat that was your partner. You were sure he could’ve heard at least some of it because his elmo laugh bounced back through the building. That laugh, it warmed you, warmed something inside you as you made your way up to the podium, seeing the controls for the equipment and quickly bringing down the different set of trapezes, grabbing one that was hooked close to you and leaning back, gripping on the bar before quickly jumping up and letting it swing you down. 

The cold rush of air around you chills your bones, grinning at the shivers it brought up to you but using the momentum to reach at the suspended and rigged trapeze in the center, lifting your body up and sitting on it, taking a second and looking down from the height you found yourself.

Glancing down you saw Jungkook stretching, how his feet were already bandaged to protect and grip better at the equipment, looked down at the ink that spread over his whole right arm but also some that peaked under his tights and up over the left side of his hip. You wanted to know why there when he already had one of his arms completely covered, wondered if he had done it before he noticed not all costumes would hide the ink and his hip was an obvious answer that would never be exposed. You thought of your own small acts of rebellion on your skin and wondered if he had gotten his ink for the same reasons you got yours.

“Y/N! Did you hear me?!”, Jungkook yelled at you from below, shaking your head and glancing down seeing he was starting to climb back up.

“No! What did you say?”, you yelled back, eyes still following as he climbed up.

“I said throw me the trapeze!”.

You laughed a bit, glancing around you and spotting the hanging trapeze you stood back up on the one you were on, leaning over and gripping the bar before pulling it back and swinging it to where Jungkook was on the podium. You saw Jungkook quickly grab his own trapeze, raising it above his head before gripping on it and jumping up letting the momentum swing him like a pendulum closer to you. Midair he turned his body upside down, his legs coming up and holding onto the bar as he let go, reaching the apex of the swing and extending his arms up to you, and without any hesitation in seeing his movements you moved down, reaching up and grabbing his arms, feeling his grip on you secure and letting him hold you as he pulled you down to keep the swinging going.

Adrenaline pumped through your veins, breathing better than you could ever breathe on the ground whenever you found yourself in the air, sensing the shift in Jungkook’s body and letting go of one of his hands to let him help you pivot your body in the other direction, how he pulled you back up to him and using his momentum to twist your body up and impulse you back up in the air and for a second let go, spinning for a second before his arms came down and hugged your waist, made you know you were still secure and hearing his heavy breathing at the strain of your exercise. Looking up you could see his face, a mere inch away from you and smiling softly as he nodded and you pulled you up closer, your arms wrapping around his waist and letting out a shaky breath. The momentum kept the two of you moving, his arms letting go of you and instead grabbing hold of the trapeze, letting go and turning his body so you both hung horizontally, giving you the chance once you could to hook the back of your knees on the bar and lifting up to sit on it, Jungkook hanging from his hands below you and grinning, “show off”.

He laughed back, head tilting up to look at you “I had to get your attention somehow”.

“Haven’t you noticed?”, Jungkook tilted his head at your reply, pulling himself up on the bar with you as it slowed down, sitting beside you, “you always have my attention”.

 Jungkook snorted, shoving you with his shoulder gently, “god that was very cheesy of you Angel”.

“Not as cheesy as the fact that you call me Angel to begin with, why do you?”.

 “Call you angel?”.

You nodded, waiting for his reply.

Jungkook, instead of replying, stood back up, making you blink and hold onto the ropes as he raised his arms and leaned back into nothing, jumped up as the trapeze you were both in reached part of its apex up. Your eyes widened, noticing what he was doing a second too late as he was already falling down, down and into the net where the material absorbed his fall, launching him back up just as a trapeze swung by, just in time for him to catch it and swing his body up on it looking at you from a distance, “cause you’re the type of person that lives more in the clouds than on earth, like me”.

You laughed, tilting your head, “cheesy, and you’re more like Icarus, you can’t just be this high up to throw yourself down like that, we’re not supposed to be throwing ourselves down Jeongguk, we’re supposed to fight to stay up here, you could hurt yourself if you fall wrongly on the net”.

Jungkook, being Jungkook, instead of paying any attention to what you were saying, the small show of concern of how he always seemed to challenge the trapeze and the air itself when you were both together there, pulled his body up, hooking the top of his feet on the bar and letting go, hanging upside down like a bat and grinning at you cheekily. You laughed though, and, instead of being responsible and chastising him on his childishness, just swung your body forward on the trapeze propelling the swing further as you slid down to hold onto the bars, swinging back as a kid would on a swing, and once you and Jungkook could meet let go, somersaulting in the air and raising your arms as he reached for you, letting a small grunt as he had to focus on not letting go with his feet. But this, as always, was no challenge to your partner, pulling you up and hugging your waist against his body as you both swung to-and-fro, all before you jumped back to the first trapeze, one leg hook on it and laughing excitedly as everything stopped.

“See? You enjoy challenging the sun too Angel”.

Laughing, you shook your head, smiling at his direction, “oh shut up”.

Jungkook pulled himself back up to sit safely on the trapeze, he looked sweaty and flushed from hanging upside down for so long, but so were you, glancing down at yourself and checking on the bandages protecting your hands, at the small leotard you were wearing just to ensure whenever you held the bars the clothes wouldn’t actually let you slip, and then at Kook, who was staring at you. You tilted your head, glancing one last time at yourself, “what, do I have ketchup somewhere?”.

Jungkook laughed, snapping out of his staring and shaking his head, “no, nothing, I was just thinking”.

“You? Thinking? I never thought that was possible, I thought you were all muscle and food, no thoughts”.

Rolling his eyes Jungkook snickered, “Yeah, ha ha, very funny”, he grinned, his feet waddling in the air like a toddler’s would in a pool when he was learning how to swim, “I’m just thinking of what Hobi Hyung told me”.

You were intrigued, looking over him, “and what did Hoseok tell you?”.

“We might be starring for Swan Lake this season”.

You blinked, more alert now, “wait, wait wait wait, the Swan Lake? Us? Holy shit… wait, don’t we have to audition and shit? I mean, they haven’t even announced what would be our next work, I thought we might be doing Alice in Wonderland or something but Swan Lake?”.

Jungkook grinned, apparently happy that he knew something you didn’t, but then again, Jungkook had been here for longer, and knew the higher ups cause he was just that charming, “Who do you think gave the staff the idea we might be doing Alice? I mean, Hobi talks about a smiling cheshire cat and how up is down and down is up during practice, he even yelled off with their heads a few times as a joke, and obviously some people would suspect, and yes, we do have to audition… but Hobi has been auditioning for the past two weeks with the routines he’s been making us practice”, he continued, “I mean, why do you think Jimin was taught that trapeze stunt I was? When he usually just sticks to other stuff… and that girl and you trying to do a synchronized stunt with both of us, that was for a reason, we were competing for the lead roles”.

You were stunned, a smile itching as you remembered the pirouettes, the burning sensation in your hands from holding on for so long and body aching from having bent every which way, but you had truly thought it was Hoseok being Hoseok and pushing everyone for better choreographies, “when do we know?”.

“If my sources aren’t wrong, and they’re usually never wrong, in an hour or so… maybe now, the list could be hung up at reception right now”.

Your eyes widened, body thrumming as you stood up looking at him, “then why the fuck are we here Jeongguk!?”.

He laughed, tilting his head back and glancing to the side where a window was placed that faced the sun, noticing the color of the sky had changed and that it wasn’t as early as before, “I had to stall you somehow, now, should we?”

         He didn’t have to say anything else, quickly dropping back down and letting the net catch your fall, hearing Jungkook’s loud laugh as he also dropped down to the net, but you were already crawling out of it, rushing to where your duffel bag was to put on at least some clothes before freezing to death outside in the early November Seoul weather, pulling on your socks and sneakers, getting tangled when your brain decided to put pants after your shoes, and donning a big hoodie. Not realizing Jungkook had been faster than you, he was now grabbing your hand and pulling you to a run as you both rushed back to the company’s main lobby.

         You both ran, and ran, spotting a few of the staff laughing at your and Jungkook’s excitement as they probably knew already what it was all about since the list was already up, spotting even Taehyung that was pushing a rack filled with costumes and had a tape measurer hung around his neck, raising his voice and letting it echo your heart swelling, “congratulations!”.

         Congratulations indeed. There you were, still trying to catch your breath, still trying to fill your lungs with oxygen so that your body and heart could get as much of it as it needed because right now, right at that moment, you couldn’t truly believe your eyes. Hung right there in front of your eyes, looking at the piece of paper that announced your next part for the quarter:

BIGHIT ENTERTAINMENT’S SWAN LAKE

ROLE LISTING

The Swan Queen – Y/N Y/L/N.

Prince Siegfried – Jeon Jungkook.

         And the names went down, to announce how Jimin had been given the role of the Von Rothbart and the production’s antagonist, but also who else would be part of the swans, who would have to change from costumes within scenes to also play the part of the people during the Queen’s ball to finally find Siegfried his bride, who the four girls would have to adapt the usual dance of the little swans to something more dynamic to fit the circus, the understudies.

         “Jungkook, Jungkook holy fuck we’re the leads”.

         Jungkook could hardly believe it himself, laughing and face stretched in a smile, turning to you and grabbing you by your hips, lifting you up into the air and turning you both around in the middle of the lobby. Both of you sweaty from the previous and short practice, red and bodies filled with energy, but to anyone else’s eyes purely happy, overwhelmingly happy and excited to the new chapter of your careers this performance might take the two of you, and more than anything, happy that you would also perform it with each other.

         Your arms quickly hugged him by his neck, laughing and leaning closer, feeling him getting you back on the ground, laughing and happy that the secret tests that Hoseok had been putting you both through paid off into this. Oh, hell the hard stuff would finally begin.

         “Ah, but look who it is, my swan and my prince, don’t fall in love right now, I need you both falling during the performance”, Hoseok interrupted, quickly causing the two of you to let go and set a distance between yourself, a bit flustered to have been caught like that, “oh, don’t let me interrupt”.

         Jungkook laughed, shaking his head to his old friend and instructor, “there was nothing to interrupt, we’re just happy”.

         “I wouldn’t be so happy; I have some ideas and ‘painful’ is an understatement”.

         You winced, from the last few months that you had been working with Hoseok you knew this was going to be your hardest performance up to date, “oh shit, well, uh, any spoilers for now?”.

         Hoseok nodded, they were in the company so he didn’t mind talking it out in the open, and as of now it was mostly an idea and he needed the both of you to actually make it true and perfect it, glancing between them and starting to walk his way down the halls leaving you and Jungkook to catch up. “In the final act,” Hoseok started, “when Oddette dies and the prince realizes his mistake, finally saying goodbye, I want you both to do something extremely hard, and I need it to be so well done that the audience could feel they could also pull off that move”.

         “For that, I want you Jungkook to lift Y/N up into the air, I want you to push her up as hard as you can, and I need Y/N to stay there, in the air, for a few seconds before she falls and you catch her to lift her up again and again”.

         Your eyebrows scrunched together, glancing at him confused because Jungkook throwing you into the air had been something you’d both been doing since day one, “how is that difficult?”.

         Hoseok grinned, glancing at you specifically, “he can only hold your hand to push you up, and any other type of contact between you he’d have to lift you with his own feet. Jungkook can’t hold you, can’t actually use his strength to fully push you into the air, it’ll have to be all you Y/N, and you have to be so good at it you’ll need to look like an actual swan in the air, completely weightless, flying”.

         You chilled, glancing back at Jungkook knowing for the two of you, and for most duets you knew, they relied heavily on the guy’s strength and stamina for such moves, for you to figure a way to be lifted up with just his hand, and for you to stay in the air for more than a few seconds, that would have to be months and endless nights of practice.

         “… How do we start to do that Hyung?”.

         “I have some weight back in the studio, I’ll lock both of your wrists and ankles, even your waists, and you’ll have to also practice by yourself, specifically you Y/N, I need you to strengthen your legs so that you can lift up just by jumping… There’s a lot in the works, we’re even thinking of investing in a different type of trapeze structure to further the feeling of the both of you flying and soaring in the air as the Swan Queen dies”.

         This was serious, sounded like hell for your muscles, and at the same time, fired you up more than the prospect of simply practicing the same things over and over again with Jungkook, looking back at him and seeing his own smile. The both of you were made for this, and no matter how, you’d make sure to make Hoseok’s vision a reality.

         Hoseok looked between the two of you, felt the sizzling in the air, the energy, and grinning just opened the doors once more into the arena you would practice at from now on, “let’s get it”.

“Again!”.

You let out a strangled cry as you slipped from Jungkook’s grip and plummeted down, your body weighted down with what felt like lead shackles as you fell back once to the net, the impact absorbed and quickly bouncing back up but the frustration blurred any other thought from your head.

“FUCK!”, you heard Jungkook yell from above you, hanging by his feet on the bar and swinging back.

“Jungkook, get back down and powder, you’ve been up there for too long!”, Hoseok called back up at him, glancing at you and how you were still laying back down on the net, shaking his head, “we’ve been at this for 4 hours already, take a breather guys… I’ll send Taehyung in to measure you for the costumes”.

You nodded defeatedly, sitting back up and raising your hands back up to wave at him away but your arms shook, glaring back down at the twenty-pound weights strapped to both your wrist. “I fucking hate you” was the only acceptable thing to say back to it.

Jungkook got back down to the ground, climbing down a rope and landing on the floor, his wrists, forearms and ankles all weighted down like yours, but he somehow looked more graceful with moving around with them. Fuck men and being naturally stronger than women, what the shit was that.

“I’m really sorry about that I was just, I’m just really sweaty and I should’ve powdered”, Jungkook tried to explain himself, but you just shook your head and made your way off the net.

“I don’t want to hear it, I’m still trying to get used to being heavier on the trapeze Jungkook, I was late, and you couldn’t catch me like usual”.

Jungkook bit on his lip, helping you down and doing you the favor to start unlatching the weights you had on. He had a habit of taking everyone’s mistakes as a direct result of any little thing he might’ve done differently, and although well intentioned, it could annoy you. “I’ll get it right next time, I won’t let you fall”.

You sighed, your arm feeling immediately lighter as the shackle fell off, helping Jungkook to take his off as well, “ we’ll get it right next time, just need to shake it off, drink some water, get our heads off it”.

Jungkook nodded, raising his hands to you as an offering as you took his weights off, but placing them neatly to the side, your fingers rubbing on his skin, over the ink, and looked back at him. “We’re better than yesterday, I was up for a bit longer”.

Jungkook shook his head, “not long enough, you need to pirouette suspended in the air, you could barely spread your arms out”.

You sighed, raising your hands and cupping his face, pulling him down and pressing his forehead to yours, “small progress”.

Truth be told, you were the most stressed about it. Yes you practiced the whole day with Jungkook and Hoseok, Hoseok dropping by occasionally to see where the two of you were then, but if you couldn’t counter Jungkook’s strength to launch you into the air you would barely be able to perform the last act. Not to mention you had to somehow make your way into jumping from trapeze to trapeze cause Hoseok warned you that staying on one for too long would break the effect of floating for the audience, and could potentially unbalance the whole structure and tip you both over.

You would have to fly in the air, spend most of it suspended on nothing than actually with Jungkook or on the trapeze itself. Something you had never done. Yes, you were used to jumping and twisting in the air, but you were used to knowing there was a comfort on the next trapeze, on Jungkook’s arms ready to hug you and pull you in, to pivot you into even more twists of your body. But to make people believe this was Odette’s last flight before she threw herself into nothing she’d have to sell the idea of flying away from her prince, to linger around him and barely touch him or hold him for the duration of the performance before finally leaving, before Von Rothbart came and separated the two of you as he had promised to marry Odile and not her. You would need to express all the longing and agony in never being able to hold each other, of how treasured the small brushes with each other really were, and especially, how the prince accepted this fate and gave you the good-bye you both needed, deserved, but were pained in doing.

So, you also practiced alone, as you were sure Jungkook was as well, standing in one leg for hours on end, keeping your weighted leg raised high behind you, and wouldn’t stop until you ached with the idea of standing. Doing so during your trains in the metro, maybe making some bus passengers uncomfortable as well as you tried to force yourself into staying on one foot even with all the shifting of a moving car.

“Um”, Taehyung interjected, clearing his throat quickly, “am I interrupting something?”.

Jungkook was the first to move away, laughing and shaking his head, raising his feet and taking off the weights left on his ankles, “Hyung! No, of course not, just trying to cool down”.

Taehyung’s eyes narrowed, walking closer as he held onto his notebook and tape measurer, a pencil tucked neatly behind his ear, “that looked like much more but sure, whatever you both want to believe”.

You rolled your eyes, taking off as well the last bits of torture devices strapped onto you, legs shaky but feeling much lighter than ever before, “are we the last ones? You seem hurried”.

“Of course I’m hurried! You’re both the stars and somehow you’re the last actors I need to dress, now come here Jungkook, yours is easier”.

Jungkook nodded, walking over and already aware of the drill standing up straight for Taehyung to start his ‘little ritual’ as he’d call it. But it was him just opening a notebook and writing down all the numbers his tape measurer told him in an order and design only he’d ever understand.

You, instead, took this as a small break that had been granted to you for a few minutes, sitting back down and reaching for a bottle of water to hydrate yourself. Jungkook had to stand still and that always presented itself as a challenge, so instead of letting yourself worry further with his jittering you looked over him. 

He was as ripped as ever, arms bigger than your head, thighs about to break the biker shorts he’d worn for today’s practice but wearing a tight sleeveless shirt for practice. He was breathing easily, and you were following the movement of his chest when he inhaled… and then exhaled. After these many months of practice together you weren’t surprised by the fact his breathing matched your own, completely in sync, attuned to each other’s rhythm.

“What’s she staring at?”, Taehyung’s voice broke your train of thoughts, glancing back at the blue haired creative.

“She’s ogling me, it’d be weird if she didn’t so don’t mind it”.

“I was not ogling you!”.

“You were Angel, but don’t worry, I like it”, Jungkook replied, winking at you as he did so.

You just rolled your eyes. Fucking brat .

Taehyung laughed, his boxy smile breaking the previous nerves and frustrations hanging in the air and instead his hands coming around and wrapping the tape around Jungkook’s neck, looking over and jotting down a number on his notepad and moving down to his shoulders. “Kookie, don’t bully your partner, she’ll quit on you for the next season if you keep it up”.

“She won’t leave me, she likes looking at me too much to ever leave me”.

You sighed rolling your eyes, “that doesn’t even deserve an answer”.

Jungkook, instead, just smirked at you, his eyes twinkling, “woah, I’ve left you speechless already?”, he chuckled, “sweet, and you haven’t even seen my d–”

“Finish that sentence and I’m making your costume two sizes too small Jeongguk”.

With that Jungkook promptly shut up, lips zipped together and earned a loud laugh from you. Having to lean back and clutch your stomach as Taehyung joined you in the laughing session. Jungkook, albeit still quiet, also had a small smile on his face.

“Oh, that reminds me, do you cover all of Jungkook’s tattoos?”.

Taehyung glanced back at you, nodding a bit, “yeah we usually give him asymmetrical sleeves unless the character’s personality allows for body modifications… But as a prince we can’t really have him showing it off”.

Jungkook pouted, “princes are pussies, they look cool”.

“Yes, they look very cool Jungkook, now stop sucking in”.

Grinning you looked at him, “I’m asking because I have one in my nape, the rest can be covered but… how could we work around that for Odette?”.

Taehyung stopped his hands, rolling the tape in his hands and walking closer urging you to lift up your hair and let him look. You promptly did so, holding your hair and turning, lifting the strands away to let him see. It really wasn’t a big tattoo, just a small black linework of a sun covering the whole of your nape, easily hidden by hair or anything with a collar… But that would totally go against the sketches for the last scene wardrobe change.

“I think our best bet is to simply tape it with something that matches your skin color, same goes with all your other tattoos, I’ll make some modifications if needed like Jungkook’s to make sure no one sees them from afar but seeing as you’ll be spinning in the air I doubt anyone will get to spot it… but it’s really pretty”.

You blushed but let down your hair, turning to see the two young men who had been staring at the ink on you a second ago, “thank you, but thanks for telling me I wasn’t sure how that would go, I don’t tend to go as naked when I’m on stage as in this one”.

 Taehyung laughed, “well, it’s really showy, and I can’t add a collar to cover it, but it isnt’ as big as Jungkook’s whole right sleeve, so, I’ll add in a headpiece to make sure your hair is away from your face for that last scene, but also to distract anyone. Shiny, glowy things tend to do that to people.”.

You nodded, humming to yourself and leaning back reaching for your phone, letting Taehyung work and bicker away with Jungkook while you relaxed. Scrolling through social media and reading memes about something as wholesome as the show you were binging with your best friends on Netflix, texting a few of them when you were free (aka never) and laughing at the small jokes you shared.

“Thank you, Kook, Y/N come here please”, you heard your name and immediately stood up, heading back over to Taehyung and standing straight for him to finally start working.

“Angel?”.

You glanced up at Jungkook’s direction, answering to his nickname as quickly as you would your own name which, for some reason, made him smile widely like a bunny. “Yeah?”.

“If I’m Icarus, then you’re the sun, huh?”.

You were too tired to really process his words, too exhausted from all the practice and stress this last act of the performance was weighing on you, and just nodded to indulge him, keeping still for Taehyung. “yeah, I guess so”.

You stormed inside your home, chucking the keys to your apartment someplace far away as the door shut with a bang, taking off the gym bag from your shoulder and beelining for the bathroom inside your bedroom; starting to quickly discard the hoodie and pants, the sports bra you were wearing underneath,  turning the light on and leaning into the shower, turning it scolding hot and finished stripping off your clothes. The day weighed down on you, the guilt pressing against your chest as the memory of Jimin’s arms around you when he caught you from the air surfaced again.

        Jimin felt safe, he felt like a home. His body was warm, his breath against your nape had calmed you when you were pressed so closely together. Your heart kept the same pace, it found comfort in him, and his easy smiles would make you completely forget about him .

       Shaking the thoughts away you took off your underwear and slid the glass door open for your shower, not testing the water’s temperature and instead just slipping under the spray of water. Your breath caught as you got burned, felt the droplets slowly prickling your skin red from its heat but you ignored it, breathed through it and slowly acclimated to it. Hands reached back to grab the soap off its holder and started to scrub the day away.

Harshly, you scraped the dirt and sweat off your skin, saw the small white clouds of powdered chalk, mockingly placed in handprints all over your body, gripping onto your flesh one last time before being dragged away by the water. Jimin, that was Jimin all over you.

His fingers brushed against your calves before gripping you to keep you suspended in the air while you contortioned yourself to display the flashy and aggressive nature of Odile. You felt his arms caging you against his chest before being broken away as you flew, felt how he would reach for you, follow you, pained and falling apart over himself at your feet, but he was breaking someone else’s heart without knowing. You were breaking Jungkook’s heart. A heart that didn’t beat, a heart that didn’t exist anywhere else but in the empty space of your cavity.

“Angel”.

Your head snapped back up, glancing around and finally outside of your head as Jungkook’s voice echoed around your bathroom and the lights shut off.

“You’re hurting yourself Angel”.

There it was again, standing back straight and looking back down at yourself, realizing that the soap bar had slipped from your grasp, bright red nail marks etched the inside of your thigh and making you shudder. Turning you shut the faucet, still soaked from head to toe but reaching for a towel, the whitest most fluffiest towel that would bring you any semblance of comfort, wrapping it around your body and stepping outside. “Jungkook?”.

Nothing.

“Jungkook, please, I don’t want to think I’m going mad”, you tried to plead to your ghost. Heading out of the shower and walking back inside your room without bumping into any furniture, looking around yourself to see if you could catch a glimpse of him.

“Maybe you are mad” , his voice fell back down your back like a bucket of iced water, catching you averred and quickly turning around to see him.

There he was, black hair plastered against his forehead, chest pressed forward to you, but never touching you, merely a whisper over your skin, raising goosebumps over your skin as what would be his eyes looking gently into you, but was instead twisted to the haunting echo of nothing. His face contorted to a black hole, his eyes flaming up to an unnatural hue of blue as he stepped closer, as he brushed his whispering body through you “Maybe you are deranged, maybe you are strange, lighting up matches to swallow the flames just to feel something, maybe I’m not here Angel”.

“Please, stop”, you cried out, hands shooting up and covering your ear as his voice drilled itself inside your head. Not a whisper, but a cacophony of his voice merging and layering with each other in your mind.  “Jungkook, stop, stop”.

“Stop, stop, stop, all you ask is for everything to stop, do you not want to take responsibility for what happened to me? Of what you did to me?” , his ghost kept talking, walking closer and cornering you until you fell back onto the ground and raised your hands back over your ears, trying to muffle all the cruel things he said.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry I didn’t, I didn’t want you to die J-Jungkook, I n-never thought you’d die”, you tried to reason with him, your body shivering and starting to lose any sensation in your fingers and toes. Moving your head back up to look at him, your eyes widened in horror, saw the long jaws of filed teeth unhinging threateningly at you, and without a second’s deelay, screamed. 

But nothing happened. You waited, heart beating against your chest and threatening to break out, just feeling the silence get longer and heavier, only broken by a wind chime tinkling softly. 

The air weighted like lead, tilting your head back up carefully to him once more to notice he had settle back to the broken and sad image of himself; his wet hair had somehow disarrayed itself, letting you see a path of dried coagulated blood on his temple, contrasting with the pale blue glow surrounding him but was slowly dying down . 

Jungkook seemed to notice you were looking at him again, and his eyes widened silently and somehow made the temperature inside your small apartment drop substantially. “J-Jungkook?”

He bit on his lip, turning his head around and walking over to your window, pointing at it and motioning you to open it, and you did, standing up and heading over albeit still staying a safe enough distance from him, worried about what he had said to you.

By opening the window further you felt the ghost of wind flowing in, dissarying the already blurry image of your lover and making him open his mouth until you finally heard him speaking after months of silence. 

“That wasn’t me, I’m sorry angel”.

You tilted your head moving back to your bed and sitting down, seeing him following you and sitting beside you even if he couldn’t weigh down on it. His presence freezing you but somehow finding a sense of comfort in it. His cold presence brought in a wave of tiredness that you knew were fruit of him feeding off your energy to just apparate in the physical world, and hearing him speak even if it was through the wind, was getting you more lightheaded than you were used to. 

“What happened? Tell me baby”.

“You. Next to me, but I can barely hear you, I can’t see you like I used to, I… I wasn’t thinking for myself, I wasn’t aware you were here. I just felt… a weight, a pressure, I hear all that you tell yourself and I guess I was overwhelmed by it” , Jungkook’s voice faded in and out, his mouth moving but the sound coming from it delayed. He was flickering, his black hands smoking into the air more than it usually did. “But I’m back, I had to fight it a bit I didn’t, II don’t like hurting you like that angel, I don’t know why you even hurt yourself like that when all I want to do is comfort you… but, I guess I can’t, I can’t even feel you next to me”.

His hand moved up into the air, spreading his fingers and looking at you through them, his fingertips forking up into the air in a wisp before closing it down to a fist. 

“I can feel you baby”. He tilted his head at you, mouth moving but the sound of his words never getting to you, raising your hand to hold his fist, or trying to hold his fist.

The smoke twisted around your skin, not going through you but instead brushing over your skin, and your skin acknowledging it as you let out a shaky breath, a mist forming from it and  visible even in the middle of a summer night, making Jungkook sit straighter and look as the small foggy breath disappeared into nothing.

“I get cold from you”.

Jungkook sat up straight like a coil, his whole form flickering blue and then to its usual transparency before you noticed it meant he was happy, big empty doe eyes looking over you, his smile wide yet void as he moved his smoke hands back up to cup your face, making you let out another shaky breathe.

But he didn’t stop there. He moved his hands down the side of your body, ghosting them over your skin as it raised with shivers running all around you. Jungkook moved his hands down slowly, prompting you to unwrap the towel covering your body and baring yourself to him, giving him access to yourself as he lingered his hands over your body, loving the confirmation that he still had an effect on the world, that even if he felt nothing you still could.

A childish grin grew on his face, eyes flicking up to you through the wet hair and moving further down; making you feel like you hadn’t before.

Your body grew colder as Jungkook grew bolder, his hands trying to get as close to you without touching you, without going through you, but it just drew more warmth out of you and made your toes and nails go numb, made your teeth clatter and close your eyes with how the shivers buried themselves inside your bones, “Angel”.

You opened your eyes, finding him inches away from you, the emptiness in his features making something deep inside your gut tug at you to get away, create as much distance between you and it, no, you and him. But his features were downturned, his mouth a small pout as he moved his hands back to himself and made you start to gain some of the body warmth you’d lost to him.

“You’re crying”.

Taking a small breath, you sat back up and raised your hands and wiped away the stubborn tears from your face, “I’m fine, it’s nothing”.

But Jungkook wasn’t taking it, doing that usual quirk of his on what would be him pushing his tongue against his cheek as he thought before experimentally moving up his hand and hovering against your cheek, the end of his smoking fingers licking the delicate skin of your fac.It made you turn to him even as you felt the urge to lean away from him, but you fought those urges as not to hurt his feelings.

“I’m hurting you”.

“I’m always hurting, all I know is hurt baby”.

“I don’t – hurt” , his voice flickered in and out like a flame, his hand still close against you. He had taken too much from you in the outburst and he was starting to fade. But you didn't want him gone, you wanted him to stay back with you, to never leave you or let you go like he said he wouldn't.

“Jungkook, you don’t hurt me, I’m already hurt”, you continued, moving your hand up to his face, mirroring his action, but unlike him, you could see your hand through his features, could realize that he was nothing if not gone, air, a trick of the light, “stay with me tonight”.

His brow furrowed, taking in your request and nodding softly, sitting back up and moving away from your touch, and instead, looked around your room before seeming like finding what he was looking for, reaching over and raising up a blanket although it felt impossible. 

You leaned over, taking it from him and covering yourself with it before letting a breath immediately more warmed up. Jungkook instead, moved to kneel in front of you, an empty smile flashing back onto you with as much enthusiasm as the ghost could muster. He looked so sad, so alone, and you were sure you looked the same way to him even if between the two, it was you who was still breathing.

“I can hardly see you baby”, you couldn’t help but comment on it. He had been the most gorgeous man you’d ever known not so long ago; he probably was the most beautiful man you’d ever see, and right now he was just an outline of himself. The only thing that would ever stand out to you was the way he carried the hurt of that night. “Why can’t I see you? That’s just cruel”.

Jungkook smiled sadly, his body thrumming softly beside you, “I don’t think I can answer that Angel, don’t think there’s anyone that can”.

“Even if there was an answer, it wouldn’t seem enough to me”.

“Of course,”, he started, “because nothing will ever be enough for you”.

That one stung, biting on your lip and nodded softly as you shuffled closer, the side of your face pressed against a pillow whilst he looked over you, not minding anymore the silent tears that escaped every once in a while just at the loss you felt inside you while being around him. Jungkook’s hand moved up to push a curl of your hair behind your ear but his delicate fingers just softly went through the strands. You let a small laugh out, not helping it at how he still failed to grasp the reality of your situation. He was stubborn, even in death.

“I can’t help it”, he said, as if he had just read your thoughts, “you’re too pretty not to touch, I spent my last month’s doing nothing but touching you”.

“It was our job Jungkook, you had to touch me, or I’d fall”.

“You did fall, either way”.

“That’s a different kind of fall”.

“You still fell for me”.

Sighing you nodded, not going to argue. How could you argue with that when it was one of the last things you ever told each other, one of the last things you had confessed to one another. “I’ll fall for you in all my lives, I just hope you’re there to catch me”.

Something that resembled the sound of bells clinging together spread in the room, making you know it was Jungkook’s weird way of laughing now, leaning closer to you his hands hover over your waist.  Slowly, he leaned closer, lips ghosting over yours but too afraid to face the truth of not feeling your lips against his, and instead, spoke while a shiver ran down your spine “If there’s one thing you should know by now Angel, is that I’ll always be there catch you” .

Your surroundings were quickly drowned in the vibration of playing violins, counting one, two seconds before slowly you bounced on the trampoline beneath your feet, gaining more and more momentum, gaining more and more height as the fabric under you took in the impact of your landing and used it to push you further up into the air. As you flew up you raised your hand up to see Jungkook standing on one of the trapezes scattered around the both of you, the music picking up and burning into the performance, making you reach your hand to him and bracing as you first felt the roughness of his skin, the calluses on his palms and the magnesium he had powdered on them, before the sound of your hands clasping one another was muffled in a crescendo. His grip was strong, secure, but all he did was use his own strength to further push you up into the air, swinging his hand up to raise you up into the sky and aiding you into completing the first of many Flights.

You held your breath as you rose, arms extended and heart beating rapidly against your ribcage. Your movements had to be graceful, weightless, and it was a challenge with weights strapped around your wrists and to time the idea of floating in the air for a few beats of silence. But still, you managed to do it, closing your eyes as you reached the apex of your flight, hands raised above your head and spinning slowly in the air before turning to face where the audience would be, arms spreading behind you to show the figurative wings whilst you seemed suspended in the air with nothing to distract the onlookers from the magic of the performance. But the ground called for you and started to fall back down, the orchestra growing in as one cello chased another, the strings mixing with a piano, all of it threading into a melody of clarinets and french horns; bracing as you remembered the timing and pattern of the trapeze you were working with.

Falling straight down you’d be landing on trapeze A5, Jungkook would be somewhere between A8 and B3, so you let your body fall down, foot pointed as you landed on the bar, but already feeling the shifting of the balanced trapeze move into you, the way Jungkook’s weight would counter to keep each other balanced, and quickly jumped away from it and to another trapeze nearby.

You and Jungkook could not linger on the trapezes, or else the whole structure would start to tilt one way and throw the other person completely out of balance, so the choreography Hoseok had planned out would make you both mirror each other’s move, show the tragedy in how the Odette and the Prince completed each other, but they were never to ever really touch because she had been damned to die because he got fooled.

Thus, you were barely on one trapeze before you were flying to the next one, forcing all of your weight back onto one leg as you landed and forced yourself off, somersaulting through the air before hearing the tale-tell strain of a trapeze behind you, knowing it would be Jungkook as you didn’t even turn back, extending one leg behind you and straightening the other one underneath as you fell but felt Jungkook catching you by the balls of his feet; taking in your weight before, as he had done once with his hand, and pushed you up into the air.

He swung his body over the trapeze, his legs straight and reaching forward to catch you before you fell and help you sore back in the air. Jungkook had to keep track on you, make sure he was close enough if you were forced to improvise in the middle of the routine or if he had to shift the weight off to ensure you’d be safe. Standing back up on a trapeze as it swung towards you, with you falling face first down to him, moving your hand down just as he did up, and holding onto his hand, the sound echoing loudly as you moved down and closer to him, just when he pushed you back up into the air for a third time. 

The performance lasted only four minutes, four minutes for Siegfried and Odette to somehow say their goodbyes before Jimin came back down to take you away, but it burned your muscles and made it bore down into your bones. 

Lingering touches, Jungkook holding your hand, helping you float in the air, both fighting against the world’s gravity and at the same time with the extra weight you were both carrying during training for the performance to truly seem weightless and passionate. Breathing heavily as your wrists danced in the air, as you turned in the air before falling down, Jungkook clinging by his feet to the bar. But instead of him reaching for you his arms were crossed, making you move your hands down and hold onto his shoulders, faces leaning closer than before as your lips remained a breath away before pushing him down and raising back into the air.

You had made the mistake of looking at Jungkook’s eyes, made the mistake of letting yourself take your time to map out his features, the way his hair clung to his sweaty forehead, the slope of his nose, the moles on his face, how concentrated and fired up his eyes had seemed before softening up when he gazed at you, and the way his mouth parted slightly when you had both almost kissed. Because now you were both ahead of the music, and, instead, moving to your own accord.

Hoseok, obviously, had noticed, the music stopping just a minute before the performance ended, moments before it was time for Jimin to finally descend from the ceiling to steal you away from Jungkook, to reach down just when Jungkook was about to, and grip your body into his own hold and made him watch as you were pulled away from his reach.

“That’s enough! Jungkook enough!”, Hoseok’s voice broke through the arena, snapping you out of your bubble whilst you were midair, and losing the timing to reach up to the trapeze in front of you instead you felt someone’s hand around your ankle, grunting as it pulled you back up, feeling the jar as the trapeze was shut into a lock and tilted to an angle, looking back up spotting Jungkook hand moved upside down and reached to catch you before you fell onto the net.

“Shit, shit thanks Kook”.

Jungkook just grunted an answer and pulled you quickly up into the air, making you move to grab into the trapeze’s rope and turning back right side up as Jungkook moved to sit on the trapeze. “What’s wrong?! We were doing fine!”, Jungkook yelled back down to the ground where Hoseok was observing.

You really couldn’t see Hoseok from this high up, instead glanced back at Jimin hidden up above the stage and nodding at you to get off, Jungkook taking the initiative and nodding at Jimin for him to throw a length of rope to the both of you. He nodded at you as he held onto one end and threw the rest back down onto the ground, promptly you grabbed onto it and started to slide back down onto the ground, and safe now you saw Jungkook loop the rope on the trapeze and quickly starting to slide down by holding onto the rope as well.

You reached up and helped him steady back into the ground, he was carrying more weights than you, so you didn’t want him to hurt himself. Him thanking you quickly before he started to stride towards Hoseok, which really couldn’t end well.

“Hyung, Hyung come on, why did we have to stop? Jimin was almost on too”.

Hoseok glanced back at Jungkook, Yoongi standing between the two taller men holding a baton in his hand and clearly uncomfortable, “We’ve been at this since 6 in the morning, it’s almost 8, and we’ve done this scene at least eight times already, that’s all for today”.

Jungkook rolled his eyes, “God but couldn’t we have at least finished the performance? We were getting better”.

Hoseok shook his head, “You were used to it by the third rerun, but no, you’re both tired and it shows, you took too long to get to Y/N, and in the last one you had gotten too early, you’re tired Jeongguk, we’re all tired so I say we call it a day”.

“But, but Hyung, I really could’ve done better by the end, you could’ve just given me a chance!”

Hoseok, clearly exasperated, tilted his head to the side as he looked at your partner, you just slowly walked back to them. “Jungkook, let me tell you something, I think you should pace yourself”, your choreographer started, “When you perform powerfully onstage it’s great, and the audience can feel that,  but if it gets too hard you should be able to control that instead of ignoring it and pushing through it…What if you couldn’t go up onstage because you were weak and shaky?”.

Jungkook stood silent, glancing back down at his hands, at the white powdered hands that beneath hid calluses and aches. You looked back at him, raising a hand and placing it on his back comfortably. 

He was obviously tired, as much as you had been training together for this performance, yours were directed to control your body wholly, to control the timing of every single muscle and tendon so that you could use every movement as a tool to stay further up in the air. But Jungkook had to get stronger, build up his stamina whilst also learning more choreographies than you did as he appeared in more scenes than you, in all of the scenes, and he had to keep you in mind inside every move because you depended on him to not fall. He was under a lot of stress, and people expected nothing short from perfection from him.

“Take this as a sign, go hit the shower and head home, eat some pizza I don’t care what the nutritionist would say, but take it slow for tonight, you worked hard enough”.

Jungkook just silently nodded, breathing out and just glancing back at you, his eyes downturned and confusing you further before he started to walk back to the lockers, bowing his head to everyone that crossed him and thanking them for their hard work as well.

“Y/N?”.

You turned, looking back at Hoseok as the aerialist and staff started to pack up all around you, “yes?”.

Hoseok leaned closer, handing you a water bottle, “keep an eye on him, opening night is two weeks away and we know we’re still not close to what we want… You can get the stage to practice for a few nights, but I think you should both work on lifting a bit more, I need you to stay up for a second longer so that the orchestra doesn’t need to catch up to you by the end of the dance… I also need you to work up your core, Jimin has to lift you with the silks, but you’re the one that needs to climb back up and away from Jeongguk”.

You nodded, taking in what he said, “I will, thank you for today Hobi”.

Hoseok nodded, finally leaving and yelling out to someone else as they prepared to shut everything down, walking back to your bag and lifting it, checking the clock on your phone before starting to go back to the changing rooms, scuttling through the other dancers and waving at a few making sure to tell everyone they did a great job.

But even as you changed out of the tights and leotard and instead to a more comfortable set of joggers and a sports bra under a jacket you couldn’t shake off the weird feeling, couldn’t shake the look Jungkook had given you. The two looks he had given you, the one when you were close to kissing in the middle of the performance, and the one when he left…

“Kookie, I swear if you gain a single inch more from how much you’ve been eating and working out my girlfriend will come here and sew your balls together”, Taehyung’s muffled voice came from through the door, freezing unsure if you should come in or not seeing Taehyung was sort of working even if they were bickering like always. Also, you didn’t know exactly what Taehyung was measuring, or how .

“A girlfriend? I thought you were gay Hyung”.

“Just because I like dick doesn’t make me exclusively gay, you should know that by now Jeongguk, weren’t you getting fucked by that musician a few years ago?”.

Oh, yeah, definitely a private conversation, you should probably go away and head home before it gets even later, because there was no chance Hoseok would leave the arena open for you to sneak in and practice more the same night he said it was it for the day.

“I fucked him, not the other way around, or maybe a few times actually, but the point is… Wait, what was the point?”.

Taehyung laughed, warm and loud, “doesn’t matter, and you should know better than asking me that, when you have the biggest crush on Y/N right now”.

He what.

“Shhh, don’t fucking say it aloud, someone might hear”, Jungkook quickly interjected, trying to shush his best friend whilst Taehyung only laughed more

Oh, fuck no, oh what the fuck, no, no, you were both partners, work partners, a duet but only at work, nothing of that sort was going on, nothing .

“Come on Kookie, anyone with two eyes can see it, you’re usually a scared little bun around any new girl that walks by you, but Y/N walks in and you start to flirt? And it has been going on for months? Please tell me you’ve been lying and there’s actually something going on between you”.

“Nothing is going on between us, God, how many times do I have to say that? First you and Jimin, and then it’s Hoseok and Joon hyung all on my dick over this, last thing I need is to hear that Jin and Yoongi hyung have some sort of secret bet”.

“I’m pretty sure you want someone else on your dick, no wonder you’re so fucking cranky”.

“I’m not cranky”.

Wait, wait, why are you even listening to this, no, this was an invasion of privacy, you shouldn’t know this, you shouldn’t have overheard this, yes, grab your things and go.

“You have a bigger stick up your ass than the one Yoongi usually has, and you really do make it obvious JK, your chemistry with her is borderline sexual, I was surprised you didn’t openly grope her in the middle of the Black Swan dance”.

You remembered that clearly, the rapid movements, how you were spinning uncontrollably in the air, falling from a great height headfirst and right in front of Jungkook, followed by his hands glide up your sides and legs in a matter of milliseconds, his hand gripping on your ankle as you quickly shifted to an arabesque upside down, arms above you, leg raised up behind you and toes straightened to an arch whilst Jungkook held you up from above. It had been a single second, but the touch had left you vibrating for the following movements.

“No touchy, principal of the Black Swan: she’s supposed to be a flirt, seduce the public, make the crowd fall into her lure but whenever you get close, she pushes away, Odile can’t be contained”.

“Sounds like blue balls, which is all you two have been giving each other for the past months, never thought you should do something about it?”.

Of course he didn’t, you were both professionals, you also never never thought of such primal things to him, no matter how well you knew each other, it didn’t matter you spent your days and nights with him more than anyone else. It didn’t matter that he was one of the most attractive men you had ever met, and because it didn’t matter you obviously have never thought of Jeon Jungkook like that… You haven’t, right?

“Of course I have, I’m human okay and she’s hot, but I can’t do anything, it’ll be unprofessional, it’d make things, it’d make things very awkward between us and I can’t risk it when she’s the best performer I’ve worked with”.

 Okay, that was enough, the silence palpable even from outside the door and just gripping on your bag, taking a second to really prepare yourself to leave, but you heard that, and well, how could you ignore that?

“That must suck, to act you’re not in love with her when all you do around each other is act roles in which you are”.

You bounced on the ball of your feet, breathing softly one, two times, making sure that the air filled up your whole chest before letting it out from your mouth as you approached the high platform whilst Jungkook swung down below you. You were more than familiar with the sound of the trapeze swinging, could tell where it was and which direction it was heading with just hearing it. Not needing to look back down at Jungkook you turned, giving your back to the empty air below, and fell.

Eyes shut, you let gravity take hold of you, for once not feeling any weights slugging your movements, but instead you felt more invigorated than before, muscles burning by the hours spent so far under the roof of the gymnasium with Jungkook. With a brush as soft as silk, but a grip as secure as shackles, you felt Jungkook clasp his hands around your ankles, helping you swing back and opening your eyes to see the world in a rush before he let go. Launching forward and using the impulse to somersault and reach to a new trapeze, gripping on it with the back of your knees you swung back, seeing Jungkook from afar laughing and deciding to ignore it you continued as you stood back up on the trapeze. Taking a breath, you waited to reach the apex of its swing before jumping back again, turning upside down midair and not needing to look down to know Jungkook was coming back up, holding himself by his feet to the trapeze. And you fell, legs high above you and looking at Jungkook before meeting him in the middle, placing both your hands on his shoulders, leaning closer and brushing your nose against the tip of his, looking into him as he looked into you as his head tilted up and you almost brushed lips, but too quickly the movement was pushing you up and into the air.

Without the weights you felt like a bird in the air, turning and straight up into the air, which was also the entire point of the last few months of training, and as you rose opened your eyes to take everything around you. Hoseok’s voice bounced inside your head: “it is about the sublime, the heavenly, you must open and break the vein for all of us to see, you need to show pain and make it look blissful”.

The gym was completely alone now, mostly dark save for the lights burning above you and Jungkook’s trapeze set up. You both had been practicing for the past few days in a smaller version of the stages’ rigged set-up during after hours, if only to burn the choreography inside your muscle’s memory. And it was working, because you didn’t have to think about the next move anymore, neither did Jungkook.

Everything was feeling, you knew where the next trapeze would be without needing to remember, you didn’t have to turn this way to know he’d be beside you, to doubt when you let go of your own trapeze to know he would reach over and catch you, hold you, bring you against him before he had to let go. Your body had grown used to him, your lungs didn’t take a breath until he did, you didn’t jump until he was raising up his arms to catch you, and you couldn’t think without him slipping in between your thoughts. It was difficult to fight your way into the air, it was difficult as your brain might know how to move and the concept of how everything needed to look, but your body could work against it, and to discipline it took double the effort most people would think.

So, you moved up, reached further, head turning up and spotting the railing that steadied the trapeze, the railing in which the staff would have to be on to make sure nothing malfunctioned, your body floating high enough you knew with just a few more seconds you could easily grab a hold on it. But that was just a distraction, mechanics, a detail that reminded you the way the whole contraption was being supported by a few bolts and screws. So you took in a breath as your flight slowed down, counting the seconds you spent in the air as you slowly raised arms up, spread your arms up to your sides, mimicking Odette’s wings stretching them as open as you could to define the lines of your body, the expanse of your chest, the pained expression as you accepted the fate of the Prince’s betrayal, all before starting to fall back, your body spinning and smiling pleased getting back into the routine and out of your thoughts.

Brushes and lingering touches; in this scene that was as much as he could touch throughout the whole 4 minutes. And it itched you the wrong way, the way the lightest press of his fingers against you ignited a heat in your stomach, and how it wouldn’t go away no matter how long you both practiced together, spent time with each other. You came back to him one last time, to say your goodbyes, falling back once more to him, but this time you reached your arms back to him, saw him reciprocate as he tried to hold you too, tried to go reach you, only to feel the smallest brush of your fingers against each other. You saw him as you fell, saw him as you reached back up to him, saw as he tried to move down to try and prevent you from leaving him.

In the production, this is where Jimin finally comes down, dropping from two silks and unraveling down to catch you midair, to take you away from Jungkook, and make you continue a routine where he does nothing but touch you, claim you even as you tried to fight him, laugh at the Prince’s misery of seeing you that way before taken away in death. It was a depressing ending, but you liked the force behind it, and cause Jimin was nowhere near here, you dropped back down but fell to the net, bouncing off and finally settling still on top of it.

You didn’t realize Jungkook dropped off his own trapeze until his fall made you bounce back up into the air a bit, the stage permeating with both your laughter.

“Woah! Couldn’t you give me a heads up?”, you exclaimed quickly, turning back to see Jungkook heaving and face up to the ceiling besides you.

“If your eyes were open you could’ve seen me falling”, was all he replied, voice breathy and showing just how tired he was.

You sat up, turning towards him, “I’m tired too you know”.

Jungkook just hummed softly, eyes closed just like yours were a few seconds ago, and tried to catch his breath. You didn’t want to bother him either way, sitting on the net besides him and glancing back around you at the empty stadium. All the empty seats… and you and Kook had managed to sell out the place for the first few nights of performances? No way…

Jungkook’s hand quickly came up and cupped your face, your heart skipping a bit and letting out a small breath just at the brush of his touch, turning back down to him. His hand rested delicately against your cheek, thumb moving softly and brushing it absentmindedly by the look of his face. He was tired, exhausted from the sweat dripping down his forehead and making his naked chest and torso shine against the lights, and still going from sheer willpower.

“예쁜”, was what he said once he decided to break the silence.

You clearly knew what he said, having picked up a few korean words as you stayed in Seoul, but they felt almost entirely new as they were spoken from his mouth. Your cheeks flushed, biting down on your lip and realizing he was too tired to realize he spoke aloud. Raising your hand up slowly you took his, feeling him tense under your touch and looking over him as he realized what he did. His eyes widened, face getting redder but for reasons other than the workout, as it even stretched to redden the tips of his ear.

“I-I, I d-didn’t say any- umph! ”, he started, but you quickly interrupted once you leaned down and kissed him. It was very short, probably to most it would simply look like a quick peck, meant nothing. Right?

Apparently not to Jungkook, who stayed stunned for a second before sitting back up, both his hands cupping your face and crashing his mouth on yours.

Both you and Jungkook joked a lot around each other, teased each other, even flirted to an unhealthy degree on and off stage, but this wasn’t something you expected. Well, you started it but that didn’t mean you expected that either. His mouth coming onto yours with a starvation and a desire you didn’t think could hold itself inside any person’s body. But, just as unexpected, you reacted and responded to it before any doubt crept inside your brain. Hands moving back down to his shoulders, pushing him once more back down to lay on the net, moving a leg over his body and straddling his lap as you slipped your tongue inside his mouth.

Jungkook let out a groan, his hands moving away from your face and gripped on your hips, his hands urging you to grind back down at him, and very happily, you obliged. He started to give into your initiative, his mouth open and tongue curling around yours as you felt him getting harder underneath you. 

His hands squeezed your hips, urging you to press more of your weight on him and made you realize just how badly you wanted him then. He held you like he would never let go, he groaned and muffled his moans into your kiss, and tilted his head up to you as you broke the kiss, trying to follow your lips, thin strings of saliva still connecting your mouths as they were less than an inch away.

For a second, his eyes glistened and shone with worry, maybe that you’d suggest stopping, that this was a mistake and it was better for the both of you to stop while there was still some time to avoid what would definitely change your relationship completely. But he didn’t need to worry for much longer as you quickly licked your lips and moved down, starting to kiss and nip dark red marks on the skin of his neck.

Jungkook let out a soft moan, getting goosebumps wherever your breath hit him, and getting bold, shifted his hands back to your ass giving it a harsh squeeze. You bit down on his neck in response and felt him shift his hips to grind back to you as much of the net beneath you both would let him. “F-Fuck, Y/N take those shorts off now or I’ll rip them off ”, he threatened.

You laughed at his threat, leaning down and teasing more of his exposed and sweaty chest, grinding on his erection and earning more of his annoyed groans from not getting what he wanted. And instead, does exactly what he told you he’d do.

His hands came back down to your ass but this time gripping at the fabric, your eyes widening as he pulled it and easily ripped it open, the sound filling the empty space and making you laugh incredulously. “Horny little shit you can’t even take some torture”, you couldn’t help commenting as you sat back up, checking the hole he’d made out of your workout tights.

“I get enough torture with touching you all over on stage and not getting any, now get on my dick”, he replied and just as quickly teared the fabric of your underwear underneath the ruined sports shorts.

You would be mad, if not for the fact this turned you on, and that he was so desperate to have you ride him. So, you let him rip on your clothes, lifting your hips to push down his pants and underwear, noting his size with a raise of a brow and unaware that you had actually stopped to ogle at his big cock like you pretty much did with any other inch of his body, or, in this case, somewhere around eight whole inches. He was bigger than you expected and his girth alone made your mouth water.

Obviously, Jungkook noticed you staring at his dick, a very cocky smirk decorating his features when you felt an annoying prick on the base of your neck, but you had the upper hand in this situation. Taking him in your hand you felt him tense and shudder as you gave him a quick pump, the red tip of his cock starting to bead more precum. Just when he was about to complain about you taking too long you moved your hips over him, positioning the tip of his cock to your entrance and falling back down.

“Oh my f-fucking god angel”.

Your back arched and you let out a moan as you took in his size, head lolling to the side as you got used to how his cock stretched you out. You would usually take a second, enjoy the ridges and pressure Jungkook’s cock offered whilst inside you but Jungkook had other plans, not waiting a second longer and already grinding his hips up to you. You didn’t have a second to brace yourself as Jungkook let out a moan, gripping on your hips and started to fuck his way up into your cunt.

Your heart thumped loudly inside your chest, moans turning into high-pitched whimpers as Jungkook went merciless with you, his fingertips pressing harder into your hips to surely leave an array of bruises as he used the net’s moving to his advantage and thrust faster and faster.

“Fuck, f-fuck f-fuck baby boy fuck! ”.

The nickname worked like magic, Jungkook’s eyebrows scrunching together and letting his head fall back with a loud groan. He faltered, taken aback with the cute pet name you moaned back to him and more so how much he had enjoyed it, “h-holy shit Y/N, angel your pussy is gold”.

You laughed softly, smiling at him as your heart thumped faster and faster inside your chest, picking up the pace he had dropped. You started to meet him down in the middle, whimpering out the pet name more and more as his cock slid almost all out except for the tip of him, and sinking down taking him balls deep inside you. Though, he quickly got himself together, hands shifting from your hips and to your ass again, giving your cheeks a hard spank with the palm of his hand to spur you into moving faster. And doing it again once he felt your cunt tightening around him, having noticed you liked it. 

For the rest of eternity you’d tease Jungkook on how much of an ass man he was, moving your hands down to grip at the net you both hadn’t stopped moving since your fucking began, trying to steady yourself. But that didn’t help in any shape or form, and instead, you ended falling back down onto his chest and tried to rock your hips back onto him. Feeling his chest rumbling softly with his laugh and mingling in with both your panting you slipped your hands between the both of you, finding your clit and pressing on it letting a high pitched mewl.

“S-Shit, s-shit shit shit, y-you got tighter shit”, Jungkook muttered, his voice barely above a whisper with how hard the two of you were breathing, “h-how can you be this wet for me already”.

You smiled a bit, feeling his cock reach deeper than you thought anyone would be able to without hurting you, head falling forward to his neck, hot breath fanning against his skin and getting him that much more hot and bothered over the situation. “G-Gonna cum, fuck, baby I’m gonna cum”.

That just seemed to spur Jungkook further, gripping your ass, nails burying on your skin leaving half crescent shapes as he pulled you flush against his body and started to work himself up into your cunt, “come on, c-cum for me, cum just for me angel”.

Seeing there wasn’t any reason to hold back your eyes shut as your vision filled with spots, moaning out his name louder than you originally intended to and feeling the pleasure crashed through you as he rode out your orgasm.

Jungkook didn’t cum though, he snapped his hips back up one last time before grunting and lifting you off him, breathing out heavily and moving one hand back around himself to get himself off. You, even in your post-orgasm haze, noticed, and moved your hands back onto him, taking him in your fist and tightening your grip. A small sound left his lips, mouth parting and head falling back on the net before lifting to look at your actions with clouded eyes.

You couldn’t help yourself after noticing his hungry stare, couldn’t shake the idea out of your mind as you moved your fist up his cock and rubbed your palm against his slit, hearing how he moaned out your name unabashedly, his hand coming up and gripping on your wrist. You knew he wanted you to actually jerk him off, not to edge him when he was already so close to cumming. But there was something powerful about holding his cock at the same time as you held his sanity; seeing as every twitch of your hand had him closer to snapping.

So instead, you moved down his body, fist sliding back down to his base and not catching the small curse he let out seconds before you poked your tongue out and pressed it against his slit. You picked up the taste of your own orgasm on his cock, shuddering at the realization and just parting your mouth to take him. Jungkook’s hand quickly let go of your wrist and moved to push your hair away from your face. Prompting him a better view as he gripped it away and saw you sucking on his cock.

“S-Shit even your mouth is magical angel, t-this is fucking unfair”, he muttered with a hoarse voice, gripping the back of your head still and started to move his hips up, making you take more of his cock.

You grunted at it, resisting at first not having expected he’d do that, but quickly you gave in, slacking your jaw and humming around him to indicate he could move better now.

He did, his second hand coming down and pushing your head back down his cock as he thrusted back up, and just as quickly you were starting to choke around him. Jungkook didn’t care though, he just wanted his dick down your throat as quickly as possible, his whole face red and sweaty from the combination of working with you the whole day and then fucking you. Your eyes shut, you tried to keep your mouth as open as you could for him to use, feeling him hitting the back of your throat and trying not to gag as much even if his small moans when you did made you want to keep doing it.

“Wait, why are the lights here on?”.

“Yah, maybe it’s those two again”.

“Again? Fuck no, I spot them here after hours and administration is having my ass for the electricity bill going up”.

“You better go and check then”.

The voices echoed back through the halls and into the arena, Jungkook stopping immediately when hearing others but the both of you panicking the second you both heard the conversation closer than you would’ve been comfortable with. If you and Jungkook were supposed to have left at least an hour ago, then fucking and giving him head was definitely on the ‘prohibited’ list of things you were currently committing.  

You got off him, ignoring the sound his cock made when landing on his stomach and instead worried more at your exposed ass right then before remembering you had a change of clothes in your gym bag by the locker rooms, “shit”.

Crawling off the net you didn’t realize Jungkook was following you before he had gotten to the ground and promptly lifted you up and over his shoulder. Your eyes widened, looking back at him flushed with embarrassment and whispering urgently as you heard steps heading your direction, “w-what the fuck are you doing?!”

Jungkook walked over to where he had his bag, the sound of someone sliding open the door worrying you even more and looking back to see someone starting to get in. But they never got to see the both of you, because Jungkook grabbed his stuff and ran with you hauled over his shoulder to the back exit. Right when the door was swinging you spotted the janitor entering and starting to complain about leaving the lights on.

“Holy fuck I can’t believe we did that”, you said, expecting Jungkook to drop you but instead he kept running, turning to him.

“Hey, hey, baby you can let me down now, coast is clear”, you probed at him again, turning your head and seeing Jungkook was heading to the girl’s locker room.

“… Jungkook…?”, you tried to get another reaction from him, shifting over his shoulder before he opened the door, and dropped you back to your feet. You just needed a second or so to finally orient yourself, but Jungkook had other plans as he dropped his bag and pinned you against the wall, any protest dying in your throat as he proceeded to slip his tongue down it.

You groaned, hands moving to fists to the material of his pants once more and pulling him flush against you by it. Jungkook’s hands moved back down your body, big hands resting against your waist before he slipped down to your bare ass and squeezed. Somehow getting the memo you jumped up, legs wrapping around Jungkook’s small waist as he held you up by your ass with his hands. This way, when Jungkook grinded back on you it felt worse, muffling your whimpers and relenting control to him for a second, hands moving to the back of his head and lacing with the sweaty strands just pulling him closer.

He swallowed all your moans, his tongue curling around yours and tasting off whatever you had gathered on his cock minutes before, grunting and grinding again as his erection was just painful at this point. You tugged on his strands, hearing him growl sent a shiver down your spine and goosebumps flushing all over your skin. Finally, the kiss broke, his lips were swollen and bruised from the make out, a string of saliva connecting you both before his tongue poked out and he licked it off. You moaned softly at that, which made him smile.

“Now… what shall I have you do…?”, Jungkook mused, his hands squeezing at your flesh and tugging at the ripped-up fabric, tearing it further that the only use they’ll ever serve anymore was in the trash.

“Can’t suck your dick like this baby boy”, you answered, grinding back down against his erection and smirking at the pained expression he wore for a second.

Jungkook pressed you up harder against the wall, his hands leaving your ass and instead to his crotch, pushing his tight leggings down the iron-clad thighs of his with his underwear, and, in one smooth motion, was stretching you out with his cock.

You both moaned in unison as he was sheathed completely inside you, pleasure coursing through the both of you and soon enough you were shifting your hips down, “c-come on, don’t just stay still”.

He smiled, looking up at you with the characteristically bright doe eyes of him, his hands moving once more to your thighs to support you but started to move quickly once more. You knew Jungkook was crazy strong, with all the acrobatics you did on a daily basis and from just having him hold you up in the air… upside down, and by your ankle no less. But there was a different kind of strength behind Jungkook starting to pound into your cunt until your back arched and you had to bring a hand to your mouth to muffle all your whimpers. 

To Jungkook, the idea that you both have to be quiet now that you had almost very stupidly been caught, didn’t cross his mind. Instead, he was as vocal as ever; heavy breathing, pressed against you and snapping his hips so hard up into your pussy that the lewd sounds of his balls slapping your skin echoed around the small locker room you were in. And you didn’t have the brain cells to stop him either. Much less when he dipped his head down and started to kiss your neck and collarbones.

Shuddering from his touch, you bit down on your lip, reaching down to the shirt you had been wearing and tugging it off to fall into the floor, Jungkook eyeing your movements and smirking before he moved down, kissing the exposed skin of your chest and biting on the bra you were wearing to pull it up as his nails buried onto your ass.

The pain mixed in with the pleasure, walls gripping around his cock and making his own merciless pace falter, your name dropping from his lips in a mantra. Your body shakes, whimpering his name softly as you felt him shift and starting to hit that spot that made you look at stars as he fucked you, your head lolling to the side to catch a detail that promised to be the true downfall of you.

On his right thigh, ink coated all of his skin, the black licking up above his hipbone to hint the bigger more intrinsic piece splayed on his skin. Nothing more and nothing less than a detailed and splayed out dragon curled in and above itself on his thigh. And to make matters worse you were watching as he fucked you, watching the way his muscles flexed, the way his head dipped down to your chest to nip and mark your skin his.

Yes. That alone truly ruined you for Jungkook from now on.

Your head fell back, feeling him reaching deeper and deeper, pounding up against your spot that had your thighs shaking around him in no time, toes curling as the knot tightened on the pit of your stomach. But Jungkook wasn’t that far off, his grip on you bruising as he licked a hickey he’d left against your skin, feeling the skin bruising up and moaning as you clenched around his cock. “F-Fuck, fuck, you’re all mine angel, all mine and only mine”.

You nodded, eyes moving away from the mirror and back to him, noticing the hunger in them, “Y-Yes, yes baby, b-baby I’m g-gonna cum again”.

He smirked, his hips following the same pace, the lewd wet sounds of your lovemaking being all you heard mixed in with how you both kept panting, “Hmm? You’re gonna cum angel? Cum all over my cock again?”.

You nodded again, quicker, your eyes screwed shut in pleasure and your voice getting higher in pitch, “Y-Yes, yes baby please, please lemme cum”.

Jungkook’s voice deepened, leaning up to you and talking against your ear as he snapped up, “one condition angel, just one condition and I’ll let you cum”.

You were already at the edge of your orgasm, the heat pooling at the pit of your stomach made your whole body tense and thighs shake around Jungkook’s waist, “wh-what is it, I’ll do anything, l-let me come Jungkook please ”. 

He smirked, nipping on your earlobe and tugging it back with his teeth, a shiver running down your spine and letting out a small whine against your better judgment, “let me fill your pretty pink pussy with all of my cum”.

The mere consideration of him cumming inside you made another small whine leave your lips, head falling back and getting more turned on just clenching around him. Your breathing heavy and barely able to think straight you glanced back at him, hair sticking to his forehead and eyes blown out. He was simply so fucking hot. You couldn’t even make the words and just nodded at him quickly. 

Jungkook chuckled, snapping his hips up and hitting that spot, “cream all over my cock angel”.

Your knot snapped and all Jungkook felt was how your walls clenched around him, gripping on him with all of your warmth, it was a dizzying experience as even he lost sense of direction for a second; hearing you moan out his name loudly disregarding the idea someone might hear you and instead just hugging you by your waist against him, moving up to pound on you before he came inside with a low moan. 

You shuddered at the feeling, your body tingling from the tip of your toes and up your legs, thighs shaking as you dealt with the aftermath and Jungkook leaned heavily against you and the wall dealing with his own orgasm.

You both stayed silent for a few minutes. Maybe it was the fact you felt like an exposed fuse after the past two orgasms; maybe it was the uncertainty of where to go from now that you were both, well, in an intimate situation; maybe it was the fear of the changes this might bring. This could’ve been a one time thing, forget all about it, blame it on the pressure and endless hours you both spent with each other… Nothing had to change. Right?

Or did you want something to change. Did you want something more with Jungkook?

“W-Well, I, I’m letting you down just, just give me a sec”, Jungkook interrupted your train of thought, his hands moving down and holding you up by your thighs as he slipped out but carried you further inside the locker room, setting you back down on a counter and tucking himself inside his pants after. 

You leaned back, curling your toes and moving them to get some circulation going, looking over him and biting on your lip as you mustered as much courage as you could in that dark room “... is this a bad time to ask you out on a date?”.

Jungkook stiffened, slowly turning back to look at you, his face blank and tilting his head walking closer “Pardon?”.

You sighed, wow , he really was going to make you say it again “Date…? As in go out in a romantic fashion?”.

He walked closer, looking at you carefully and tilting his head, “you’re serious?”.

“Yes Jungkook, I’m very serious”, you answered quickly, starting to get a bit insulted that he thought this was possibly just a joke to you, “or you don’t want to?”.

“No! No I do!”, he exclaimed quickly, leaning closer to you and taking both of your hands in his, “I just… I didn’t think you’d be interested that way”.

You tilted your head, squeezing his hands back and leaning up pecking his lips sweetly, “why wouldn’t I be interested?”.

Jungkook blinked, part of his brain still hung up on that short kiss and how good it felt before processing your question before starting: “I, uh, we work together, and I bother you a lot, and things can get complicated, and I really like working with you and I don’t want our relationship at work to get weird or complicated if we fuck up in our relationship out of work cause, cause I really really like you a lot and I just think that holding your hand and making you laugh is always the best thing I can do in a day and-”.

You interrupted him by laughing, leaning back and squeezing his hands again as he flushed up to his ears, “I really like you too baby”.

That got him in a better mood, back immediately straightening and looking at you in disbelief, “really?”.

“Really”, you nodded.

“Oh shit… Oh shit I– Yes! Yes I do want to go on a date with you, I really want to go on a date with you”, he replied quickly, his smile widening and showing off his bunny teeth, eyes crinkling as he grinned.

“Then it’s a date”, you stated, smiling back at him, as happy as he was at the moment, “when should it be? I’m sure we’re too busy… When are you free baby?”.

Jungkook leaned closer to you now, his head moving down on top of yours and smiling to himself, you were pretty sure he also sniffed a bit of your hair even if it was a sweaty mess and you really needed a shower, “After opening night?”.

You nodded at him, tilting your head up and leaning forward, capturing his mouth in yours again, lips molding to his and dancing against each other as you felt him smile back. It was sweet, warm, and so much better than you could’ve ever expected. But Jungkook pulled back a bit, chuckling and looking at you shyly, “wait angel, I can’t kiss you like this, I’m ew-y, you deserve better than that if we’re starting to date”.

You snorted, leaning up once more and kissing him again, letting go of his hands and just moving your hands up his chest feeling every ripple of muscle underneath his skin. “If we’re dating I want the ugly too, the ew-y, even if you have bad breath after eating those pickle hot-dogs you like, I’ll want my kiss”.

Jungkook blushed, letting out a laugh as his heart fluttered, tilting his head down and brushing his nose up against yours, “fine, but, can we at least take a shower?”.

You smirked up at him, eyes already darkening at the prospect of seeing Jungkook washing himself in the old cold company showers of theirs, “only if there’s a chance I can finish what I started back there”.

Jungkook’s eyes widened at the small hint you gave him, biting on his lip and humming loudly, “ah… Maybe… but only if I can return the favor”.

Grinning you nodded, leaning back up one final time and kissing him deeply, slowly, knowing there would truly be no sleeping for either one of you tonight. 

The music took a jarring halt, the sound of string instruments stopping abruptly left an empty space all around the stage as Jimin heaved and pulled your body back up to the trapeze he was on, steadying you from the upside down position you had been in before Hoseok had yelled at the both of you to stop.

“Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong! ”, Hoseok yelled to the both of you, flinching at the last word as he slammed a pamphlet he had been holding to the floor.

Jimin groaned stressed, his head falling back, reaching over to hold his arm before he lost his balance and fell down.

“Where is the passion?! Where is the cockiness?! Where the hell is the sexual tension between the two of you?!”, Hoseok started, “Y/N, you were mechanic, I need you to think less on making everything perfect and feel Jimin, touch him, drag your nails on him if you have to but you need to show us you touch him intimately ”.

This, you knew. Odile, black swan… She was the epitome of lust and sex, the dark lady, the one that was pure seduction and stealing pure Odette’s prince from under her nose by pretending to be her. Black and white. The whole point of Odile was to highlight the purity and passion in Odette, all by showing the rapid and furious flame that motivated Odile: to make Odette fall.

“But... Jimin, you’re hesitating, you aren’t feeling Y/N at all, it’s like you’re blocking her out. You’re avoiding her touch, you can’t even look at her for too long in the middle of the performance... fuck just, ugh”, Hoseok’s voice died down, you had to strain your hearing to catch what he was saying, “this is a you two problem, stay late, and sort your fucking problems with the routine, with each other”.

You sighed, your chest was heaving and leaning back just looking back down to the ground where Hoseok was, “we don’t have time for this, and you know it!”.

“What I don’t have time for is getting stuck in a part of the show that didn’t make me lay awake at night in worry you both will fuck it up! I saved that stress for the last act and now I have to feel it for this one as well? Stay late, I’ll take Namjoon and the directors, stay late and perfect that or else”.

Whenever Hoseok was angry, it was scary. And it was safe to say that he was definitely angry. Who could blame him, with the way something that with Jungkook you’d perform in your sleep, was now taking you more than a week to get down in a manner the choreographer would like. But it was weird, to try and perform so closely with someone that wasn’t Jungkook after all those months, after that night, after his funeral and even after your escapades with what you thought was his ghost. It was weird to be touched and held by someone else so soon after you’ve lost them, didn’t you get time to grieve? Or, could you even grieve him when you still saw him every few weeks?

“Y/N?”, Jimin called out your name softly, snapping you back out of your train of thought as you looked back at him.

He was clearly exhausted, black hair sticking to his forehead as beads of sweat ran down his neck. He had been pushing himself all day, pushing himself to match your every breath and lift you into the air, to catch you as you fell and help you enchant the audience. He had to be there to mirror the allure Odile meant to the audience and to himself.

Odile was sin, people might think she meant evil, and maybe she did, but she presented feelings stronger and much more violent than Odette could ever hope to convey. Odile was a taunt, a slap in the face, a middle finger flung out a car window to an asshole. Odile was the provocation to do something that brought consequences, she was temptation; she was an act of war.

And Odile had come fairly easy to you around Jungkook, with the months of flirting and provocation, with the thrills of his calloused fingertips brought onto you any time he brushed your skin. It was easy to convey a dark desire for him in the air whilst you practiced and performed in front of the staff, because the movements weren’t something you thought of doing, they were simply something you did.

The choreography was full of dares, risks, involving you to work on your own a lot as you first entered the stage besides Rothbart but you were soon to be let go by him, cause he was only supposed to be escorting you into the ball held by the queen, the same Rothbart who orchestrated and planned for Odile to trick the Prince in swearing his love for her and not Odette, the actual Swan Queen. So from a piece of silk hanging from the ceiling you were supposed to twist yourself into knots until a trapeze with the prince finally got to you, letting go at just the right time as he caught your spinning body by the ankle and held you in the air to be admired.

And you were done with that, you knew how to do it as easily as you could count one-two-three. And technically, you also knew the choreography with Jimin. You knew what to do, knew the timing for every step, and you could predict the drops in the orchestra so that every snap and landing fell in tune with the music.

But it felt wrong . Off, weird. Whatever you’d like to call it, it just wasn’t right anymore. You weren’t feeling the same thrills as you once were. No, no. Those were excuses, excuses to not performing well in your job. You managed to overcome the hardest part inside the set already, you managed to perform the Angel flight with Jimin, whilst attached to a few too many safety harnesses, and right now it was just this.

“Y/N”, Jimin tried again, leaning closer and shifting the trapeze you were both on for a second, “if you want to talk… we can talk”.

Jimin, always so nice, one of Jungkook’s best friends and not just only a coworker, he was mourning just like you… maybe even more.

You shook your head, your body shifting closer to Jimin as he sat back down on the bar you were both on, “it’s nothing out of the ordinary… I just miss him, and I hate I can’t get this down”.

Jimin hummed softly, his head nodding slightly as he moved back closer to you, “I get that, I, well, I really do”, he looked back down at the ground, so high above people simply looked like ants. “I’ve heard a lot of other aerialists complaining about you”.

Just that statement left a sick feeling in your stomach, feeling worse as Jimin started: “She already knows her part, she knew all the moves and has the outfits all done, what is she taking so long for?”. Jimin scoffed in the middle of it, glancing at you and just making his voice shrilly as he mimicked the awful things you’d also heard going around: “She comes here to our city, spends a few months working with one of the best and gets selected as the Prima? I bet she fucked Hoseok, or Namjoon, or even sucked old toad Bang PD-nim off just to land the part–”.

“You know I didn’t do any of that”, you interrupted, needing to defend yourself from such hurtful comments even if he was saying them to make fun of them.

“It was her fault Jungkook fell, and now Jimin has to learn all of his parts and try not to die by being her partner” , Jimin finally finished, looking back at you. His eyes were sincere, downturned and showcasing the physical and emotional drainage he’d been going through the past few months like you.

“I know that’s not true, and I know you weren’t at fault with what happened to Kookie… we were both there, remember?”.

“Of course I remember, I can’t seem to forget it, I can’t seem to forget his face”.

“Neither can I”, Jimin added, a silence settling between the two of you as everyone below started to leave, the both of you in your own little world up above in the air.

“He was my best friend, and I couldn’t get to him, because I couldn’t risk saving him and not myself, think he would’ve hated me for the rest of his life if I had”.

You nodded, as you recalled the accident, the way everything went down, “It was inevitable. I don’t think he blames anyone for what happened since it was an… accident”.

Jimin’s smile was bittersweet, looking back down at you, “I know him since he was 14 you know? He came here and we studied together, we lived together, I think we’d still be living together if not for the dorms the company provided for each one of us…”

He sighed, shaking his head and watching as the last person left, “I know it’s weird to act like this with me, I know you two were a thing…”.

Your eyes widened, glancing back at Jimin completely unaware that he knew the fact, “come on, you agreed on going on a date, he obviously wouldn’t shut up about it.”.

You both laughed, recalling those times better, “ah, of course that brat wouldn’t, god I was actually looking forward to that date…”

“He was too, he was talking about running away with you in the opening act party after the performance, said that way he was already obligated to look his very best and didn’t have to rent a suit”.

Chuckling you smiled, recalling Jungkook’s face, his crinkled eyes when he smiled, the small dimples on his cheek as he did so. Everything about him was washed in a pink-yellow color, but there was a tinge of sadness from having lost him too soon that would always weigh on your chest.

Jimin, taking notice of your sadness, and feeling like it was his fault, takes your hand, smiling and leaning down kissing your temple softly, “let’s start from the static trapeze? Where there’s not much swinging around and I just help you?” Jimin started, “it’s the quickest we go in the whole choreo and I think if I get a hang of it, we can finish quicker”.

You nodded, sitting up straight and waiting for Jimin to tell you he was ready, seeing him swinging down on his knees to hang upside down like a bat, both arms up to offer his hands to you. Remembering how it started you held his hands, slowly shifting your weight and falling back down into the air. Your eyes remained closed, feeling the shift of Jimin’s hand against your own, felt the way his breathing changed once he had to use his own strength to hold you up. Before, with Jungkook, you never felt him strain over it, not to say that Jimin was weak at all, but Jungkook made it feel like you were as light as a feather to him, barely breaking into a sweat as you pirouetted. With Jimin, he had to work hard to make it look that way, get used to your body and its every curve.

And, quickly, you started, not needing the music, and instead both of you counting the pace inside each of your head. Jimin lifted you slightly, giving you enough of an impulse as you lifted your legs both above your head, bending one by the knee and feeling yourself in the air the millisecond Jimin let go of you. This was part of the routine, to shock the audience, and people might mistake it as the actual hard part in the show; but this one took more trust and coordination between partners. 

And there it was, your leg straightening high up above you, feeling how Jimin’s fingers quickly brushing from your thigh, behind your knee and then gripping on your ankle to hold you again. Back arching you posed in an arabesque, taking one quick breath as Jimin pulled you back up to him, his arms wounding around your waist and turning you to the public. Jimin’s hand moved up your body, and you couldn’t help to pick up the difference between him and Jungkook. It wasn’t so much their physical difference, in which they were many, but the way they had both approached you as partners.

As Jimin helped you pull back up for you to get on the trapeze as he sat up to join you, pulling you close to his body just when you broke free to drive him mad, falling back down in the air and having him react quickly to catch you with just his feet. Even if he hauled you back onto his lap, to which you replied by bending back on his knees, feet pointed as he leaned down for a kiss that wouldn’t be, you felt the hesitation in his very breath. 

You felt it because he stopped himself from getting close to you, because even if he was touching you, he wasn’t feeling you. And because, if you ever thought of calling him out for it, you were sure that it would make him even more self-conscious on his performance. How were you supposed to tell him that he wasn’t doing it like it was supposed to be? How Jungkook managed to do flawlessly when you were both together? You couldn’t, you were sure you couldn’t, because Jimin was trying to keep you away for some reason.

You shifted again, holding him by his hand and, mirroring the way you were supposed to go up by the final act, you fell back down. You jumped back, out into nothing and felt Jimin let go. But just as fast, Jimin had flipped upside down, his ankles wrapped around the rope holding the trapeze, and reaching behind him to grab your hand. The movement was quick, could injure an artist not experienced enough as Jimin was pulling you up by your one hand, he might as well injure your shoulder by the strength it took, but it was something you had practiced for. Straight below him, one arm up as you raised your leg up and he switched to hold you from it, pulling you into him again and arm wrapping beneath your knee. Now upside down, you spread your arms behind you, toes pointed straight as an arrow, your head falling back and taking in a few breaths before Jimin was pulling you back to him again.

You both breathed heavily, seven full minutes of non stop moving in the air, most of it with either one of you upside down, was exhausting. Laughing a bit as you leaned back, “t-think Hoseok would like that one better?”.

Jimin shrugged, holding onto the trapeze’s rope for stability, “w-who the hell knows what Hobi hyung likes at this point”.

You laughed nodding, looking back over him, “you have a point there”.

But Jimin smiled and continued, “God I think the only thing Hoseok likes these days is whatever crap Suga and Joon are talking to him about, I swear, he looks at me and wonders why the hell I wasn’t the one that fell”.

Your eyes widened, not able to ignore a comment like that “Don’t you say that, don’t you ever fucking say that!”.

Jimin jumped slightly as you yelled at him, blinking and looking back at you, “ah, I took it too far”.

You nodded at him, slightly glaring, but mostly because he thought so little of himself. “You can’t treat yourself like that, you can’t hope for something like that to happen to you, not even Jungkook would’ve liked that”.

Jimin scoffed, “I bet he would if he knew I’m touching his girl all day”.

“Jimin!”.

Jimin turned to you again, clearly regretting ever saying that, and obviously upsetting you more, “I… Sorry”.

You sighed loudly, glancing down and seeing the net, how inviting it was, but you had only practiced once, and there was still more of the choreography for the two of you to get down on… You couldn’t just leave; it wouldn’t be professional. “Just, don’t say anything like that again, and I never got to be his girl either Jimin”.

“… But you pretty much were”.

You shook your head, “we weren’t, it was just, I shouldn’t have involved myself with a coworker to begin with, it wasn’t smart of me and I paid the price for getting my hopes up with him too quickly”.

“But you don’t regret it?”

You turned your head, looking at how he was looking at you, “no, I don’t”.

Jimin smiled a bit again, the corners of his mouth turning but you knew there was now an unshakable sadness within the two of you in the situation, “Jungkookie… He got a crush on you fairly quickly, he told me how he heard a bell go off inside his head when you first met, and that he kept doubting on how to approach you about it because you were working together”.

You listened to him, not sure why but you liked hearing what other people said about him, mainly because you had known Jungkook for so little you were running out of moments to feel melancholic over.

“I thought he was nuts, crushing on his partner just, I don’t know, days after meeting you? Minutes? Hours? It felt so far-fetched, but the way he talked about you, I guess I couldn’t help it and caught some of those feelings myself…”.

You weren’t shocked, maybe a little, but you really weren’t processing what he meant, what it implied, more so what it could’ve been to mourn the loss of his best friend but also see the way you were mourning someone so dear to your heart at the same time. “Jimin… I, I don’t know about that”.

He nodded slowly, “I know, and, well, I don’t think I’d want to try anything, I wouldn’t like to become your rebound, or, well, I don’t want to replace him when he left too much of a hole… everywhere”, Jimin sighed, his eyes closing and head falling back to reveal the smooth skin of his neck. He was just breathing, just, thinking, and he looked so much more beautiful than you would ever believe in being.

But he was in pain, just as you were. Jimin was trying to fit in the places Jungkook had left behind, to make sure the show goes on without actually taking any time off to grieve because… well, the company had given you both enough time, and you had to get back to your lives even if that meant facing the ghost of Jungkook every single day. Leaning over you raised your hand and cupped his face carefully, tilting his face down and seeing the slight question in his eyes before you pressed your mouth to his.

You initiated the kiss, but he was the one that led it, his lips molding to yours as he softly and tenderly kissed you back, holding your hand over his face and leaning closer just breath mingling and sharing the same space. You were also the first to pull back, looking over him and noticing the same confused and sad look on his features, leaning up and kissing his cheek sweetly and chastely once more, lips barely brushing his skin, as you tried to move on.

“So, what now?”.

“Now… we make sure we do it perfectly, for him”.

You had just come out of your first presentation as the Black Swan in front of the opening audience, and right after, you were rushed to your dressing room by other people in the staff. A lot had happened already, clearly you and Jungkook had already met as Odette and the Prince during the second act, and as soon as you left backstage to get ready for the following scenes, Bang PD himself had come down and congratulated you both in the more innocent and ‘fated love’ choreography, and stated he was very excited to see the ending.

Needless to say, that just felt like more pressure in both of you. But right now, there were other concerns, heading back down to your dressing room and shutting the door, glancing at yourself as you knew you had time yet. The Black Swan, you adored the outfit deeply.

Because this was still an acrobat show everything had to be tight and close to the body to ensure safety. There was even to take into account the chalk you had to powder on your hands and the bandages you had to tie under your feet to get a better grip on the trapeze. But even so, Taehyung had done a fantastic job in making sure the black leotard cut deeply between your breast, and your back completely exposed to show the movements you did that aided the illusion of being a bird; not to mention, all of it tastefully adorned with an array of black feathers to make it seem as they were growing from you. Even the makeup added to the illusion, your eyes hidden behind heavy black shadow and your lips a smudge of carnation.

Sitting down in front of the mirror you started to get lift off the black crown from your head, leaving it down and checking your hair if it was still staying in place and away from your face, exchanging it quickly for a white one that was made with feathers and pinning it safely behind your head, grabbing a makeup wipe immediately after and getting any hint of black out of your face as quickly as you could so you could reapply a more ‘natural’ look.

 In the middle of reapplying the simple shadow, you hear your door being knocked. Quickly you checked the clock hung on the wall, but you still had some time left, heading over and opening to see it was Jungkook.

“I almost kissed you five times during your work as Odile, can you stop being a tease around me?”.

You laughed and went back to the mirror, working quicker as you noticed Jungkook had changed already to his next and final scene outfit. Where he was the royal prince no more and just wearing some tights and leaving his chest exposed. The tattoos on his arm and shoulder on full display even if he had two black bands wrapped in his hands and curling up his arms.

“Glad you didn’t, we still are a secret you know”.

Jungkook hummed softly, shutting the door and walking closer kissing your cheek, “not a secret, just not official yet… and I have to say, I have our date spot ready”.

Your eyes widened, your smile widened, turning to him as you were done with the makeup and he leaned closer to help you out of your clothes, “well that was fast, have you been thinking about it a lot?”.

“More than I’d like to admit”.

You laughed again, leaning close and kissing him again, “you’re really cute you know”.

Jungkook just grinned cheekily at you, his little dimples on full display as he helped you out of the black outfit and into the white leotard that had some billowy fabric attached to your waist and arms, “Yes, I do know, I doubt I would’ve made you fall for me if I wasn’t cute even to a little degree for you”.

You snorted, hands coming up and fixing up the placements in the leotard, fluffing up the white see-through fabric around you and bringing your foot up to take off the bandages, “brat”.

Jungkook just leaned close, his hands replacing your own and helping you further to get ready, “you haven’t seen just how bratty I can be yet Angel”.

“Why do I have a feeling I’ll regret that?”.

A loud Elmo laugh filled the room as you were finally ready, both of you were ready. And seeing there was a bit of time left, and your muscles were still hot for the final act, you didn’t see it to waste more time trying to stretch or stay away from Jungkook.

So, you leaned closer, leaned up on your toes to him, and pressed your mouth against his. Jungkook answered immediately, his hands coming down to your hips and walking the both of you forward before he was pinning you against the vanity and biting down on your lip.

You both probably shouldn’t be doing this, you had like fifteen minutes before someone came over and called you back to go onstage and wrap up the whole show… Yet… Yet he felt so good.

Raising your hands back down you gripped on his hips, letting him lift you up to the vanity, just spreading your legs wider for him as he got between them and wasted no time in grinding against you.

“G-God, you better not be teasing me I can’t go out dressed like this with a boner angel”.

Just hearing that made you stop and torture him further, but you also wanted him inside you again. Smirking you brought your hands forward, thumbs hooking on the fabrics of his pants and underwear, quickly pulling them down. “Then don’t give me a reason to tease baby boy”.

At the name Jungkook moved a hand up, cupping your sex and adding pressure making you on instinct grind back down on him, “Is eating you out a good enough reason?”.

You bit down on your lip, head swarming with desire as you looked back at him, just feeling yourself getting even wetter at him getting his head between your thighs, “I guess”.

But Jungkook was already on it, pushing you back against the mirror and helping you move your stage outfit and underwear aside to get direct access to you. Your hands wound up in his hair, shuddering as you saw him kneel back down and hold your thighs to keep them spread open for him. And you complied easily, not ashamed to be under his hungry stare, instead felt your knees already weak from how he licked his lips and dived into you.

His mouth worked on you like a starved man’s after being presented with a full-course buffet. Lips latching as he easily found your clit and sucking on it soundly before flicking it with the tip of his tongue.

Your head fell back, overwhelmed by him as your toes curled and you had to bring one hand up to muffle your moans in case anyone walked past your room. But your other hand was still laced with Jungkook’s black hair, moaning as you tugged on the strands and pulled him closer to which he just answered by moaning louder against your cunt.

Jungkook moved in between flicking your swelling nub in a motion he noticed got your thighs to shake and had to keep apart with his hands so you didn’t squeeze his hand with them, and slow torturing circles to edge you even if you had no time to be edged. Truth was you wanted him to stop teasing you with this and just go on with it.

“B-Baby come on; w-we don’t have the time for this”.

Jungkook reacted by just slowing down some more, pulling you closer as you tugged on his hair again, his mouth opening and tilting his head up to see you as he flicked and pressed the flat of his tongue on your bundle of nerves.

You whimpered softly but didn’t break eye contact with him as you wanted to commit the view to memory. Jeon Jungkook, his hair still sweaty from all the previous acts he had to perform in, dressed like a prince out of a fairy tale, sunk onto his knees, eating your pussy and worshipping you wholly as he did so.

Without noticing, Jungkook had moved his hand up your thigh and was quickly pressing two of his tattooed fingers against your entrance, and, with no warning whatsoever, pushed them inside you. There was something in the air between you, something that filled in the space with electricity as your back arched against the mirror and you felt Jungkook curling his fingers against your walls. Quicker than you yourself could imagine, Jungkook was starting to unravel you thread by thread with simple strokes of his fingers and tongue. Something in your head kept screaming that you shouldn’t be doing this now, and also how Taehyung would never let either one of you forget that you’d had sex while in costume, yet that didn’t matter at all then.

Instead, Jungkook kept dragging his tongue against your clit, electrifying your whole body like a wire, making the coil in the pit of your stomach grow taunt as his fingers pumped quickly in and out of you. A mess, that’s what the both of you were making, a mess right there on top of a vanity, fogging out the mirrors, and making you whimper softly as you tugged harshly on his hair and with your other hand grip at the wood beneath you. “F-Fuck! F-Fuck, fuck fuck J-Jungkook, baby boy, shit you’re being so good I’m gonna c-cum”.

Just those three words made him stop all actions, and immediately pissed you off. Your eyes narrowed back down at him but before you could even open your mouth to complain Jungkook straightened, grabbing you by the hips and flipping you over to your stomach. Eyes widening you met his gaze up through the mirror. His hair fell back down partially covering his eyes, and his lips looked swollen and shiny from eating you out, a string of your arousal on them before he quickly licked them clean.

“We need to do this quickly remember Angel”, his voice was rough, and all you could do was stare back and spread your legs further apart for him as he lined up with you, “I’m pretty sure you’re wet enough to take me now”.

You nodded, feeling him positioning himself between your legs, his cock against your entrance, saw his jaw tensing as he rubbed against your folds and coating himself with your juices before thrusting inside you quickly. Without waiting for you to get used to the stretch, to his girth, he quickly slid out of you. You gasped softly, head falling forward and breathing became labored as just as quickly he started to snap his hips back onto you.

His pace was brutal, loud, and messy. You were sure anyone standing a good four feet to your door could probably tell what was happening, but still you tried to keep quiet for the sake of not making the situation worse. Your knot kept tightening, heat pooling between your thighs as Jungkook kept moving, knowing it wouldn’t take long for you to cum and instead glancing back at him.

Jungkook looked immersed in the pleasure, mouth agape and his eyebrows scrunched together as he gripped on your hips to keep himself moving. He was so hot, and it was so hot to look through the mirror at how he kept fucking you that you couldn’t help but clench back around him. He definitely felt it, grunting lowly and eyes opening to look back at you, and without a warning bringing the palm of his hand down on your ass. Again, he didn’t seem to care how loud of you were.

You yelped softly, feeling the stinging heat on your cheek before he was massaging right over the spot, “f-fuck now I really regret not having stopped and made you go out there with a boner”.

Jungkook laughed, sweaty and leaning back down over your body as he kept up the pace, as he kept palming your ass, “shut up, y-you love my cock just as much as I love your pussy angel”.

You grunted a bit, the heat emanating from his body onto you making not just the room, but even your head, starting to get steamy, “l-love? Isn’t it a bit too s-soon for that?”.

“With the way you keep clenching around me, the way you keep drenching my thighs with your arousal, I know you love my cock”.

Well you couldn’t really deny it if your body was showing him all that, and honestly, you didn’t want to deny that, because you were sure at this point it was more than just loving the sex, it was him. Yet you didn’t voice any of that out, instead, moaning his pet name softly and letting your head fall forward, “s-shit, s-shit baby boy I’m g-gonna cum for real”.

Jungkook’s hand moved off your ass and slid beneath your body, pressing his finger quickly against your clit as he leaned forward and kissed the spot behind your ear, his voice husky and low as he talked but looked at you through the fogged up mirror, “cream on my cock temptress”.

Not holding back, you felt the wave of your orgasm hitting you hard. Your body shaking slightly underneath Jungkook and just feeling him move as he rode out your high, but, also chasing his own as his moans got louder and breathier against your ear, arousing you further even as you calmed down and heard him whimpering your name before he finally came inside you. You stayed still for a second, just feeling Jungkook falling back on top of you, leaning down and nuzzling on your neck before kissing the tattoo on your nape and finally sliding out.

Without a word you both realized that you were going to get fucked by Hoseok if you were late, Jungkook quickly helping you down and getting his own pants into control as you reached for a tissue and cleaned him off from your thighs as best to your ability, but really, time was against you. You got the outfit in place, helped by Jungkook who sat everything back into its original position and even aided you a bit to touch up your makeup as you touched up his; both of you also trying not to make out in the middle of it either cause you couldn’t afford more setbacks.

Honestly, that was the hottest quickie you’d ever have with anyone, and when you glanced back at Kook you didn’t speak, just laughed at the awful but great timing the both of you shared.

“God where were the two of you?!”, was the first thing Seokjin muttered, having been in charge of all actors remembering their positions when the acts and scenes began, reviewing the script to make sure it all flows smoothly.

“Who cares, who the fuck cares”, complimented Hoseok, walking forward and grabbing you by the waist, “come on, the balanced trapeze set is already secured, get to your position now, Jungkook, start getting your ass up those stairs!”.

Jungkook only did a soldier salute, gaining a few laughs from you and other dancers nearby, walking to you and kissing your cheek softly, “we’ll do great”, and heading back to where he was needed.

You laughed, cheeks flushing slightly and glancing around feeling the other guys’ stares on you, “what?”.

“Nothing, nothing let’s just go, we don’t have time”.

And that ended the conversation, humming softly and following the others, as you went from under the stage where there would be an opening that would elevate you up and next to the trampolines, turning to Hoseok as you started to feel the jitters and Taehyung, who was already down there waiting for you did the finishing touches on the white swan dress.

“You’ll do fine Y/N, we’ve practiced, even after hours, this will be just like all our other performances from last night”, Hoseok started, giving you a box of chalk for you to dry down your palms and be safer during the performance.

You nodded, spreading the white powder on your hands and down your arms, turning to Taehyung who just raised an eyebrow at you in question but continued, “yes, just, ten minutes of the flight with Jeongguk and then Jimin comes down and it’s over”. 

Hoseok nodded, helping you go through it again, the step-by-step, as the crowd above your head started to move and get quiet, the curtains must be drawing right that second. Taehyung stood up, turning your face to his and just letting him do the finishing touches on your makeup.

You had to look angelic, pure, and also make it impossible to tell you had been fucked from behind against a mirror just minutes before. This was about a passionate love, a doomed love, a heartbreak, death.

“She’s ready”, Taehyung said, standing back up as you stood immaculate to begin.

“Great, let’s start”, quickly Hoseok takes out his walkie-talkie, pretty much telling Suga to get his ass up on stage and start the orchestra, turning to you and leaning close, kissing both your cheeks in the air, “break a leg”.

You nodded, smiling a bit and getting back on the platform, people rushing around you, taking in two, three breathes and straightening as you were elevated to the stage.

There was one single stage light aiming down at you as you glanced back up, the orchestra playing the soft melody of The Dying Swan by Camille Saint-Saëns, but which was most definitely modified by Suga to fit the performance best. Your back facing the audience shifted, lifting your arms in a fluid movement, imitating a swan’s flight and stepping on the trampoline you started to lift yourself up. The music quickly drowned out the sounds of gears shifting as the complicated trapeze lowered down, standing still by the time you reached the apex of your height and spotted Jungkook high above you on top, standing on one of the trapezes.

Just as practiced, the Flight began, and your worries melted away, instead, you simply focused on the task at hand. As you flew higher into the sky thanks to the trampoline, you met with Jungkook, reaching your hand up just as he reached down for you. Your hands clasped one another, the sound muffled by the concert of violins shifting the music back to the classical Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky, all of it followed by a single clarinet and a harp, introducing the delicateness within the choreography. You looked at Jungkook for a brief second as you got up to his height, seeing him looking at you with wonder in his eyes as he helped you lift you up in the air.

It was a magical feeling, to float further up in the air, to forget that gravity was a thing and instead suspend yourself as music surrounded your every sense. Your eyes closed, head tilting back as you raised your arms besides you, raised one of your legs behind you, and felt the audience stir in their seats as you became suspended on the air, held up by nothing but your own hard work. Feeling weightless you knew that the hardest part was yet to be done, but the beginning was done, and you could rest easy knowing nothing bad would happen.

Quickly the earth claimed you, gravity pulling you back down and moving wholly by instinct as you twisted in midair and found a trapeze beneath your feet. Immediately you felt it giving under your weight, and knowing you wouldn’t be able to stay there for much longer continued the choreography Hoseok had made, heading to the next trapeze and making sure your every movement highlighted how weightless you were; every turn and contortion a symbol of Odette finally letting go to anything that held her back on earth.

Slowly the music reached the B-Minor tone that it had been avoiding ever since Odile first appeared, bleaching the atmosphere in sad tune and reflecting immediately upon Prince Siegfried’s emotions as he realized his mistake. And this was a sad scene, it was the two of you regretting everything that had transpired, how his mistake by swearing his love to Odile ensured Odette’s death. Falling back down you met him at last, his body bending over the trapeze, legs out and straight as you landed on his feet and felt him propel you back into the air. You weren’t actually avoiding each other; you were avoiding the confrontation that would spring between the both of you as you kept performing with each other.

But you could only do so much, and finally you started to meet Jungkook in the trapeze, fell back down for him to catch you, letting him help you move back into the air and also watching him follow your own gestures by acting out his pain and longing.

You fell face down into Jungkook, seeing him position as he wrapped both his feet against the ropes holding a trapeze, shifting down the whole structure in the move but comfortably swinging back up to meet you. Your hands moved down to rest on his shoulders, his arms crossed over his chest as he titled his head up to you, mouth brushing against your lips in a small kiss for the audience to awe softly to before you impulse yourself back into the air.  

The violins, cellos, french trumpets, cellos and every instrument worked to bring in the seriousness of the scene, giving strength to both you and Jungkook as you performed to it, more than ever met back down and longed to touch each other for longer, to have him hold your body as he had the Odile, but it was impossible, and even the trapeze setup made it impossible for the two of you to stay too long on one side as it threatened it to fall down. And just then, when the audience was tricked that this would end happily for them both, that what was waiting at the end of the partiture wasn’t death but a happy marriage, Von Rothbart came down, unwinding himself in a fabric of black silk.

Jimin, body hugged by a black leotard decorated in feathers, his black hair slicked back and his face donned by make-up Taehyung had done, black feather motifs drawn around his eyes and making him look like a true villain when Jimin was probably more like a cute little cat in real life. He came back down, his body untangling from the fabric and just in time expertly wrapping the fabric around his calves to stay up, ready to claim his victory.

You and Jungkook acted accordingly to your roles, him trying to reach you as quickly as he could, his body swinging and flying in the air; flaunting all of his talents as his body spun and he caught the trapezes without much effort. But it was too late, the music in crescendo as Jimin grabbed you from midair and pulled you to him.

But something happened, something happened that shouldn’t have happened. And it secured a terrible accident from becoming unavoidable.

The silks that were supposed to be secure for you and Jimin, for him to trap you and convince you that you were done for just seconds before you had to fall off  the air and say your final goodbye to Jungkook, had become undone. Both yours and Jimin’s distress came immediately, improvising in a span of milliseconds as Jimin let go of you and Jungkook rushed over to catch you.

You fret as you fell through the air, glancing back up helplessly as Jimin’s eyes widened in panic seeing how he had managed to swing into a trapeze, but you were too low to catch anyone. Heart beating against your chest you were too afraid to even look back down at the floor that was surely getting closer at a speed far too fast for your liking, your whole body buzzing with not only the adrenaline of working, but the fear of not being able to escape the inevitable.

Closing your eyes you prepared yourself from the inevitable, hoping for the hit with the ground to be quick enough so as you don’t feel anything, like a snap of your neck, something of that sort and not for you to wait in agony until you were gone. You had no hope for anything else and just, with surrendering yourself to it, opened your eyes to see the stage above you. Your heart leapt into your throat as you saw Jungkook falling to you, nothing holding onto him and just reaching down to grab your hand.

You reached back up to him, startled at what he was planning and quickly, just as his hand clasped your arm, and yours clasped his, you realized what he had been thinking about. Your eyes swelled up with tears, felt as he fought the air, fought the force that was pulling you down under, and bended his body to push you up. And he had, his body strength mixed with yours pivoting you back up into the air, doing so flawlessly in the strange angle as you had worked on this movement for months, and just like that, you were rising up into the air quicker than you ever had, flying up as you saw Jungkook crash down like Icarus when defying the sun. The crowd had gasped, tears were floating around you and coursing down your cheeks as you saw his bright eyes pale with fear, saw as he smiled and mouthed a last message to you, all before the lights turned off.

The word abruptly was swallowed in black, the music had completely stopped, and only your desperate scream for him broke the hearts of everyone that was witnessing the inevitable.

You breathed heavily as you laid back on the mattress, hearing the second of silence before the room erupted in an applause, even the staff that had been in position to ensure your safety on landing down on the mattress all started to clap. You smiled, eyes shutting and bringing your hands up to cover your face as you let out a happy scream of joy, completely elated as you could finally rest from the first performance and how you knew it had all gone out perfectly.

         Hoseok was the first to reach down and help you stand up, helping you get on your feet and raise your way back up to the stage, looking back up as you heard and saw the crowd starting to stand up the moment you were in their view. A beam of light came down on you just as Jimin went back and joined you, the whole corps of dancers and acrobats joining you back up on the stage. You’ve done it, you’ve done it and done so perfectly, Jimin was smiling widely and quickly moved his hand down to hold yours. The crowd cheered for the orchestra, Suga getting up having been the conductor and waving at the crowd, then for the dancers that helped maintain the illusion of the Queen’s Ball, and the swans. that through difficult and intricate choreographies had managed to show geometric patterns in the air.

         They cheered for Von Rothbart, and finally, you and Jimin stepped forward, the light following the both of you as you bowed deeply to the crowd. Standing straight and already feeling your eyes swelling with tears of pride, a bitter sweetness from having come through all the odds and finally managing to perform it successfully. Without realizing it, Jimin quickly picked you back up, sitting you down on his shoulder and grinning back up at you in a sweet yet mischievous smile.

         You laughed, glancing back at the audience, the crowd of strangers, saw the flowers being thrown at the stage for you as you got more praise than you ever had in your life after a performance, raising your arms in victory just when the curtains were finally drawn.

Jimin dropped you carefully back on your feet, his eyes crinkled by his smile and just hugging your body close as you both jumped around still fueled by adrenaline.

“We did it, we actually did it and it was perfect!”, Jimin exclaimed.

You nodded, leaning away just in time to tilt your head back and prevent any single tear to start trailing down, “God, oh god I can’t believe we managed it”.

“Well believe it”, Hoseok said, stepping back inside the stage with you, smiling widely and eyes shining with pride and exhilaration, the other company staff following suit behind him as they all kept doing their jobs, even Namjoon was at the back and heading to all other artists to congratulate them on their job, “you did amazing, we deserve to have sold out the whole show, for tonight and for the next following weeks, but I will need you to go out there and always do better than the last show”.

You nodded, filled with pride and just letting go of Jimin to go to Hoseok, your arms wounding themselves around him and burying your face on the crook of his neck, “thank you, thank you so much”.

Hoseok stiffened at the beginning, but after almost a year of knowing each other he had come to look at you as a little sister, hugging you back for a second before he leaned away and kissed both your cheeks, “don’t thank me, thank you for working through it”.

 You nodded, trying to fight all of your tears and then letting go just when Taehyung came rushing through the door, and, spotting you and Jimin, ran straight and tackled you hard enough that you both fell back into the ground in a fit of laughter.

“TaeTae I still need to cool down! I can get hurt!”.

“You were both so prettyyyy , so good, god I never want to stop doing your costumes”, Taehyung’s head was buried against Jimin’s chest, probably ruining the same costume that he had to redesign for Jimin and had both his arms hugging you from the waist so that he pulled you snuggly against the other two men.

“Tae, we stink! We need to go to the after party for all our contributors! Let us go I need to shower at least!”.

Taehyung, reluctantly, started to let go of you, and then stood up helping you and Jimin off the ground, “Sorry, I know but just… you guys looked really good, almost as good as when –“, he shook his head, “you look great, um, Y/N I left your dress for the party in your dressing room, Jimin I’ll help you get out of that one since it’s tricky”.

Jimin poked at Taehyung, saying and muttering he was a perv that earned him a death stare and soon enough he was running out and to the backstage dressing rooms they each had; Taehyung running behind him and inches away from catching him. They were both simply being the typical best friends not caring of what others might think about their close friendship. You laughed at it, finding it comforting that some things really stayed the same and just turned around, thanking the staff for their hard work and compliments, waving at some of the girls dressed as swans and some interns and background dancers as well, just starting to find your way back.

You walked back to your room, unsure what you would find once you got there and just smiling to yourself and then kindly at the others whose paths you crossed. Seeing your name on your door and taking a quick breath you opened it, somehow expecting someone else to be behind it. But as the door turned, you were just presented with the dressing room assigned to you, vases of flowers and cards, presents and boxes of gifts scattered all around. You frowned, having expected to at least see Jungkook on this final night, to talk to him again even if you hadn’t been sure if it had all gone on in your head or was actually real. But you did want to talk to him. To see him.

Sighing as you walked back inside, shutting the door behind you and locking it you saw the hanger with a golden long dress on it with a box of a pair of heels sitting on the ground. You crouched back down and spotted a small note with a cute message from Taehyung on top of the box, even with a few doodles of funny faces. Laughing you took the dress off the hanger and walked back to your vanity.

Draping the dress over your chair you first started to let down your hair, taking out the bobby pins that had kept your locks away from your face as you danced, untangling the tiara that sat on top of your head and leaving it in front of the mirror before then reaching back to start taking off the leotard. It was quite simple to get in and out of, so you quickly stepped out of it, leaving it folded neatly on the vanity and starting to undo the bandages wrapped on your feet, you sat back on your chair, flexing and unflexing your feet, rolling them at the ankles to loosen up the muscles before glancing back at the mirror.

There you were, sweaty, tired, and beaming with pride at your accomplishments, the makeup hadn’t budged and your hair fell freely instead of having been pressed to a neat style. You turned your face, looking at yourself and smiling albeit sadly as you remembered what had happened the last time Jungkook and you were here. You turned your head back down to your lap, looking over your hands and letting out a shaky breath before raising your head to look back at yourself in the mirror and push forward to the next step.

But something quickly caught your attention, your eyebrows raised as you saw something similar to the door behind you shutting silently. But you had just locked it, to change, to give yourself a private moment with yourself before starting to wash the sweat and grime off you and get ready for a party. You had locked the door. You were sure of that.

You turned around, glancing around the room as a small shiver run down your spine, eyes widening at what it might’ve been you stood up, no care at all about how you stood there in underwear, and instead started to go through the bouquets of flowers and presents, searching through it to find something that might stand out. Just as you had predicted, there had been something here that hadn’t been here when you first stepped inside the room. There, in the middle of all the other vases, stood a blow black vase of tiger lilies. The orange flowers with their black spots stood out amongst all the roses and tulips, all the sunflowers and pansies. They were Jungkook’s birth flower, a flower he had tattooed on his forearm, a flower he claimed meant ‘please love me’.

Slowly you leaned down, pressing your face against the blooms and breathed in their scent, smiling at the familiarity of it, feeling as if Jungkook had picked them specifically for you and had come here to deliver them. You glanced through it, spotting a small folded card and felt your heart thrumming in your chest, bringing it up and unfolding it. The tears you had fought to keep in quickly started to pour out.

“You are my true euphoria angel; next time we meet I promise to make it to our date… All my Love, Jungkook”.