Archive of Our Own

springtime, 7 

It’d all started with a head shoved in a bucket of well water. 

Your head shoved in a bucket of well water. The coldness of early spring still lingered in your small corner of the world and the shock of the icy water splashing over your head froze you into stillness. But only for a moment. 

“I told you!” he screamed. “You have to stop stealing my horse!” 

“Finders keepers!” You threw the bucket in his direction, but he was quick, jumping out of the way of the flying projectile. 

“That doesn’t count if you’re stealing!” 

“Then tie her up proper! You’re just leaving her around for the taking!” But he wasn’t listening. He was already cooing at Posey, his two year old long-haired horse, stroking her nose and leading her out of the little clearing where you had built your little escape. “And I can’t believe you carried a bucket of water all the way from town just to throw it at me.” 

“It’s because I care.” Jungkook, just a year older than you, throws the phrase over his shoulder before hopping up on the horse’s back and galloping off. The spring wind blows through his hair, and that careless, wild smile that you would come to love grows on his face as he speeds through the trees and back towards the village. 

summer, 8 

Your older brother Jin celebrates your 8th birthday with you when your parents disappear from town without notice on some unnamed business. He brings you a small, stale fruit cake that he found in the larder and drags his friends Jungkook and Namjoon along with him, all singing off pitch and off time. You try not to smile but you do anyway. Once the joy has cracked on your face, you can’t help it. You launch yourself at Jin, tackling him to the floor in a hug and destroying the cake. No one cares. It was going to taste dusty anyways. 

When things get loud at home, your mother consistently frustrated with your failure to be a daughter in the way she wanted you to be a daughter, Jin helps you slip out of your shared bedroom window. The first place you head is your secret clearing where you know you can be alone. However, when you arrive, you find a familiar figure lounging on one of the large boulders in the sun. 

A stream of summer sun cuts down through the trees and rings his dark hair in golden light. In the quietness of the clearing and the beauty of mid-summer, you could have stumbled upon a painting meant to be hung in a church. 

“What are you doing here?” you demand, hands on hips, lips pressed to a frown. He lazily lifts his head, looking at you up and down through lidded eyes. He doesn’t look surprised to see you. 

“I like it here. Thanks for showing it to me,” he grins, biting into a summer peach, spiteful grin shaping around the fruity flesh that dribbles down his chin. “I think it’ll be my new spot.” 

“I didn’t show it to you,” you say, teeth gritted. “And it’s not yours.” 

“Sure it is. Finders keepers, eh?” He sings the phrase back at you in a teasing lilt and irritation flashes through you. You snarl in anger and rush at him, pushing him off the boulder to land on the forest floor with a dull thud. 

autumn, 11 

Over the years, Jungkook’s constant irritation becomes something to rely on. You recruit him to accompany you on errands — it’s much more exciting to be annoyed than alone — and often find him bumbling around your little clearing, which, reluctantly, you now call “our clearing.” Before you know it, he’s no longer Jin’s friend. He’s yours.

“Stop punching me!” He yells at you one day after you’ve jabbed him in the ribs for the tenth time. Together you’re walking to the market, baskets empty except for a few orangey leaves which have fluttered down from the canopy above you. “I swear, don’t you have a fighting instructor to take this kind of aggression out on?” 

You stop, letting your hands fall to your sides with a huff. 

“Mother won’t let me train with her anymore. She says I have no reason to prepare for the world. That I’m just going to stay in this tiny dumb village for the rest of my life anyways, so why bother learning something I’ll never use?” 

“I’d argue that if you’re going to stay here, all the more reason to learn how to throw a good punch,” Jungkook laughs. The motion causes him to wince and he rubs his ribcage where he can tell he’s going to be bruising.

“I don’t want to stay,” you grumble, looking longingly back down the road, where the rest of the world stretches out. The more you read, the more you dream of following impulse into the forest, the more your mother tried to shape you into the perfect daughter, the more you knew you would never belong in this little village. Of course you loved your snowy home tucked away in the mountains, but still. Something unexplainable tugged at the edge of your consciousness. Something insatiable that would never be fed until you followed it to the end. 

“Well, either way, we can’t have you losing that deadly right jab.” 

You look at him curiously. “It’s not like I’m going to take up punching trees to train,” you huff. “I need someone to train with.”

“I’ll train with you,” he shrugs. “I’ll even do you one better. I can train you.” 

Your eyes widen. “Really? You’d do that?”

“It seems like a better deal to get to land you on your back everytime you decide to punch me, rather than just trying to absorb all these blows,” he says, but he’s smiling at you. 

“Thank you, thank you!” You rush towards him, wrapping him in a hug. “You don’t know what this means to me.” 

He lets his arms drop around you and gives you a little squeeze. Only for a second though, before he’s hooking his leg around yours and pushing your knee in. When your weight collapses, he’s careful to hold you up seconds before your body hits the ground, even as you squirm and scream at him. 

“If this is how it’s going to be Jeon Jungkook, I want nothing to do with you!” You say, finally wrangling yourself free from his grasp. 

He laughs. Your rage, he thinks, the way it spirals out of you, is gorgeous. 

winter, 13

It’s the first time you see it. 

Jungkook is long gone from the clearing but you’re hanging upside down from one of the low boughs of the evergreen, skirt hanging upside down, revealing layers of warm knitted stockings to the world. 

At first you think it’s all the blood rushing to your head. 

Because there, by the dark edges of the clearing, the distinctive dance of a blue fire. It licks against the dark bark of a tree before bouncing down to the snow-laden forest floor, casting a bright shadow. 

You blink once. Twice. Trying to clear the strange abnormality from your vision. But when you’ve fluttered your lashes about as much as a lady trying to impress a man who will never look at her, you haul yourself back up and jump down from the branch. 

It’s still there. 

Unmistakable. A bright blue orb floats on the edge of your clearing. 

Without thought, you skid towards it on the packed snow. It flickers for a moment before dipping up off the ground. With a light bob to its movements, it floats further and further into the forest. Gaze locked on the orb, you follow. 

The deeper you go, the more light fades from the sky. It’s getting dark and the canopy of tree tops above you is getting thicker. And yet, you continue to chase the blue light. Everytime you get close enough to touch, it flickers and jumps back from your hand. 

Is it getting warmer? It must be a side effect of your pumping limbs, but it feels like the air around you is getting steadily toastier even as the snow begins to fall around you.

It seems as if the speed of the blue light is slowing. It creeps slightly up a steep incline. Legs burning, you push up the hill too, grabbing onto large rocks and steady saplings to haul yourself higher. 

The orb seems to tease you now, as if it knows your slowness, your strain. It hovers inches away from your face as you pant from the elevation. You almost think it flickers from the movement of your breath. But every time you reach for it, it swerves out of your grasp. You slow your movements, panting, and the orb slows too, waiting for you. 

With a final push, you swing your arm out towards it. Your hand passes through it quickly, and that’s the moment everything around you changes. 

Where the world once stretched up in a steep incline before you, you are now standing atop a hill, looking down into a green valley as it snows. A flash of red. Wildflower. The quickest perfume of ripening springtime. 

You snatch your hand away and reality returns. An icy chill pricks at the edge of your awareness and it’s in that moment that you realize how high you are, you gasp. The valley drops steeply behind you, trees becoming tiny below you. 

It’s as if you blink awake. The cold suddenly settles into you. The darkness drops around you. You understand how far you are from your home and panic sears like acid through your veins. 

There’s only one name you know to call. 

“Jungkook!” 

springtime, 13

“We don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Jungkook says. He looks over at you, taking in your set jaw, the way your hands clench into tight fists at your side. He’s not sure what comes over him, but he reaches for you, takes your hand in his own and pries your fingers open. Smoothes out the fist. Still, you stare off into the dark woods. 

He had been the one to find you that winter night, curled up between the knotted roots of an ancient tree. He’s not sure what it was that prompted him to climb out of bed that night and comb through the forest, looking for you. He just woke, the dregs of your voice still ringing in his ears, knew that he had to. 

“Really,” he continues. “We don’t have to. We can stay here. You can punch me all you want.” It’s maybe the sweetest thing he’s ever said. 

“I just don’t want to go alone,” you whisper, looking at him. 

“Then you won’t.” 

He steps forward and without releasing your hand, guides you slowly into the darkness. You take a shaky breath as it covers you and softens the world. 

“See? It’s okay.” You send a stiff smile at him, even when your heart feels like it is about to pound through your chest. Together, you walk slowly through the darkening trees until your heartbeat becomes too much, until the fear rises like bile in your throat and you reach out to grip his arm. He doesn’t need you to say anything. He takes you and leads you back towards the clearing. 

You and Jungkook begin to regularly trek into the unmapped parts of the forest, at first to practice cooling your heart rate. But soon it becomes something else. Looking for the blue orb. 

Each time you venture into the darkness webbed between the trees, you are split between fear and thrill when you think back on that day. There is something out there, unexplainable, but waiting for you. Would it be the doorway into the rest of your life? Or would it swallow you whole? With Jungkook’s steady and irritating presence at your side, the answer to that question matters just a little bit less.

summer, 15. 

“I don’t know why you insist on wearing a dress.” 

You glare at him as you reach between your legs and tie up the fabric into some makeshift pants. 

“I like it, Jungkook. It’s my favorite color. I like the fabric. And it’s not like I’m always going to be in pants anyways. I might as well train with what I’ve got.” He gives you a sideways glance at your awkward positioning, hands strung through your legs and tongue sticking out between your lips as you focus. When did you grow up? He thinks. You catch his gaze. “Don’t hate on the dress.” 

He shrugs. “Fine. I’m just not used to sparring with such pretty, done up partners.”

When you’ve got your dress firmly tied, you pop up into your fighting position. 

“Shut up before I make you.” 

“Hey!” He grunts as he dogges your swinging arm. “It’s supposed to be a compliment.” 

The two of you fall into your routine, beginning with light movements meant to stretch you out and warm you up. 

“I know you’ve been taking those etiquette lessons,” Jungkook pants, throwing fist after fist. You dodge when you can and block when you must, no longer wincing when his blows hit against the bone of your forearm. Although you still bruise, you don’t mind it so much any more. When things begin to reel in your other life — the one back in the village — the precision, the focus, the pain of boxing with Jungkook takes you somewhere else. 

“I didn’t choose to. Mother insists. Says I need to learn to be a ‘good wife.’” You snort. 

“They’ll try to make you into the kind of woman they can control. They did it with my Ma, and they’ll do it with you if you’re not careful.” 

“I don’t want it,” you say through gritted teeth. “I want to go. I... want to follow whatever it is out there.” Your heart flutters anxiously at the thought. 

“Then keep practicing. Take what you need from life and leave the rest.” 

You’d never thought of it like that. In the second it takes to process it, your guard has fallen and he punches you square in the nose. Blood spurts and your hands go up to staunch the flow, but you’re too late: it’s already dribbled onto your new dress. 

“Fuck,” you hiss. “You didn’t have to hit so hard.” 

You watch it drip between your fingers and onto the muddied ground. Jungkook is quick and pulls a handkerchief from some spare pocket and cleans your hands off. 

“Your mother will be happy to hear that her good little wife-to-be has such a filthy mouth.”

You chuckle. “I’m sure anyone she marries me off to will be thoroughly unhappy with the way I am, no matter the amount of etiquette lessons my mother tries to shove down my throat.” 

“Maybe not everyone,” Jungkook says softly, before snatching the handkerchief back. 

When you look down, a red rose the size of your pinky nail has sprung up between your feet, the soft texture of velvet petals stark against the coarse texture of the dry dirt. You hadn’t noticed it there before. 

autumn, 16. 

“I’ve decided. You’re going to marry me one day.” It’s not a question. It’s a statement. Jungkook is pinned to the ground, with your hands on both of his shoulders as you sit on his belly.

“And what makes you think I want to marry you?” He counters, struggling beneath your tactical move. 

You wrinkle your nose. “Don’t get it in your head that I love you or something. I just won’t have any of the other men.” 

“Oh? And why is that?” 

“They smell.” 

“I smell too.” 

“And they’re boring.” 

“Do you know how many times you’ve told me I’m boring?” 

“All I’m saying is, you’re the only one that’ll do.” 

He smirks at you, which, it seems, is the worst thing he could do as it startles you. At that moment he kicks his legs out and you lose your balance. It’s only for a second, but he’s fast and quickly maneuvers you so that you’re now the one under him. You shouldn’t be surprised as your back hits the hard ground — and that’s not what you’re surprised by. 

Your arms are gripping his biceps for hold, his muscles beneath your fingers flickering with new strength beneath your hands. His hands, larger than they had been just a month ago. And the place where his hands meet your skin, suddenly so warm. You blink a couple of times, trying to clear your head. This is not what I should be thinking about. You squirm beneath him, doing your best to find a soft spot to kick so you can win this round, but he’s got you in a steel grip and uses it to lean close to you. 

“Well, as your husband I really hope I’ll do more than ‘that’ll do.’” 

The last syllable is cut in half as you manage to elbow him in the stomach, flip him on his back, jump to your feet, and press your foot against his throat. His eyes widen in surprise. 

“You’ll do just fine.” 

springtime, 17. 

You sink your teeth into a huge bite of apple. It’s almost too much, some of the juice spilling out onto your chin. That’s the exact moment that Namjoon decides to appear in the stone archway of your kitchen. 

You smile, cheeks bursting with fruit — only to realize how ridiculous you must look. You bring your hand to cover your mouth as he approaches, dimples gleaming, shyness reverberating through the empty kitchen. 

“Hi.” 

Namjoon has grown up, you notice. His shoulders are broader. His features, more defined. He’ll make a good leader one day, you think, admiring the way his consistent gentleness mixes with the largeness of his physical presence. Although he was the middle son of the lord who presided over the village. Everyone knew that his wild older brother was not one to be pinned down long enough to run things around here. Namjoon was the anticipated successor. 

“Hey,” you say, sound muffled by the fruit you are desperately trying to chew fast enough to swallow. 

He slides a book across the table to you. 

“I heard you talking about this,” he mutters. 

“Oh?” You wipe your hands on your skirt before picking up the heavy book and flicking through the pages. “What is it?” 

When you look up, he’s already disappeared. You had read it in one night, the dregs of oil spluttering in the lamp by the time you had finished. 

The next day you are sure to tuck the large volume into your satchel as you make your way to the clearing, only to find Jungkook already waiting for you. You throw the book that Namjoon had gifted you at him and he catches it midair.

“A book? I didn’t know you could read.” 

You scoff. “Nice. It’s actually a good read.” 

The book, a collected history of your people, was old, leatherbound, and lovingly kept. The pages were worn and you could tell it was one of Namjoon’s personal copies judging by the wear and tear on the binding and the carelessly scrawled notes in the margins in his signature heavy hand. He always did cut a very untidy quill. 

It was filled with stories, ones you had heard since you were a small child whispered over fires and mugs of warmed cider. The first section described the history of the sprawling ice caves just beyond the limits of the village, carved out and mapped in magic by your ancestors. The book went on to tell of lovers, lost in the forest, playing games of hopscotch with time and space. But your favorite one was the one of your great great great great grandmothers. According to the small, fading print, your village rose from an ancient people who grew small suns within them. All year round, their chests glowed with the golden of July and the crystal warmth of snow melting off the highest peaks. And even when the heavy winters came, they shucked the animal pelts for bare skin beneath the snowy sky. 

“Come here,” Jungkook offers, scooting over on the big boulder that has become his favorite spot to lounge and patting the space next to him. “Let me read to you.” 

You haul yourself up onto the rock, leaving an inch or two of space between your bodies. However, he throws you a glance that says, What are you doing, come here, and scootches closer to you, closing the space and wrapping an arm around you. 

You can feel your heart rise into your throat in the way it does when you’re lost in the never-ending expanse of forest or when you’ve encountered a wild boar. This time though. It’s not fear. It’s something else. Something you don’t have a name for. 

“Fucking relax,” he says, giving you a light shake. “I won’t bite — well.” He turns his head and grins. “If I bite, you know I’ll let you bite right back.” 

You mime biting into his shoulder and he laughs before pushing you away slightly. 

“Hush now, it’s storytime.” 

With grace, he flips the book open to the first part. 

“Once upon a ti—” 

“No, no,” you say, taking it from him and flipping to your favorite chapter. “Read me this one.” 

He does as he’s told, not putting up a fight for once and begins to read. 

“As most good stories begin, today’s begins with the story of two young people in love.” 

You scoff. 

“Hey.” Jungkook’s eyes snap to yours. “I thought you wanted me to read this to you.” 

“It’s just… sappy.” 

“Get over it.” 

“Fine,” you huff. 

“Are you ready now? Are you going to listen?” 

“There once was a young goddess of the ice, Snær, and a young god of the sun, Sol. They came from vastly different worlds, different parentages. Snær was raised in a world of snow, ice, and cold that burned straight to the bone. Sol, on the other hand, was raised among the fiery flares of the sun: intensity so strong it numbed. 

“While their parents, the great gods of the skies, feasted one night, the two children came to play beneath the tables, moving dinner plates and eating utensils and small sparks of flame like knights on a battlefield. While the feast roared above them, the children fell into their own little world. In a life of magic and grand metaphors, the dark and quiet away from the festivities was like a whole new world.”

It’s easy to fall into his voice, you realize. The deep timber of it rolls through you and settles into your body with the kind of ease you never want to stop swimming in. 

“When the feast came to a close in the early hours of the morning, each child was called home. As they grew older, they never did forget each other. They sent secret correspondence in the night, and when they came of marrying age, they each turned to their mothers to beg for the other. 

“However, the old gods had different plans for them. Sol was meant for the lovely son of the sea king. And Snær, betrothed to the wispy shadow of the moon. However, Sol’s true desire consistently burned bright and Snær’s want ran clear as the ancient glaciers. Since the beginning, each one only held the other in their heart. 

“They ran from the searching gaze of their parents, only finding peace from the hunting dogs and burning eye of the sun in a small valley in the highest of mountains. There, they laid their home and their love alongside the humans who already lived there and welcomed the gods with open arms. 

“Together, they built a new world. See, magic lay riddled throughout the land. For years, humans had tried to tie magic, like a rope, into controllable strands that they could grasp within their hands. They wanted to use it in a way that could be harnessed, kept in the cabinet, and rolled out when needed. 

“Snær and Sol, as magical creatures themselves, knew this was not to be so. Magic itself was a living being. To tear a piece of it from the land for a single use would the magic itself, bit by bit. Instead, magic was a language. A stream to be stepped into rather than torn from. 

“Snær and Sol fell deeper in love with each other and their new home and as they passed on their knowledge and understanding onto the villagers, they realized that their magical bodies were quickly decomposing within the human realm. Snær’s icey physique couldn’t weather the warm months of the mountainous world and Sol’s summer soul fell sick with the cold each winter. 

“The answer came to Snær in a dream one day. She dreamt of a child, half mother, half father. Within their tiny body beat a tiny heart: half ice, half sunshine. Strands of golden summer intertwined with crystal ropes of deep winter. It was the moment that Snær knew that she and her beloved would never survive another year of the changing seasons. And it was the moment she knew she was with child. 

“When the child was born, Snær and Sol set about setting up their life. They knew the solace of being a god among humans and knew the distance that their child would face growing up in this strange world. As a gift to the humans who would raise their child, they bestowed a gift: Sol placed in each of their chests a small bit of the sun to warm them in winter, to bring light to the already glowing places in their life. And Snær did the same, offering a shred of the mountain’s unmelting ice as a constant and deep reminder of the magic and flow of life that was untangleable from life. 

When Snær and Sol had returned to the realm from which they were raised, their child was raised in love with people who now understood the magic mix of the seasons. Rather than pulling the magic out of the earth, the new generations of humans walked among it, bare-skinned in the middle of winter and singing with the clarity of ice in their lungs.”

When he’s done, you’re floating on cloud nine and only brought out of it as he slams the book closed. 

“I wish it were like that again,” Jungkook sighs, letting the book fall onto his chest. “Imagine it like that. Imagine how different things would be.” 

“You’re not telling me you believe it, do you?” 

Jungkook gives you a long and searching look. 

“Tell me, how do you explain everything that’s happened.” 

“I don’t know.” 

As you look up at the summer seared sky, you feel the magic of the story begin to seep out of the clearing. It had fallen around your mind like a fresh snow, blanketing everything in a sense that maybe, there was something else out there. Something you couldn’t name.

Years after you had followed the blue light into the darkness of the forest, you still hadn’t found a name, an explanation for what happened. And as time passed, it became easier to shove the memory to the edge of your consciousness, to say it wasn’t explainable… to say it wasn’t real. That perhaps it hadn’t happened at all. But Jungkook’s soft voice, leading through the story, had poked at the memory once more. 

Without it and with the fading effect of the story, the world feels flatter. If there’s any magic, it must be hidden deep beneath the earth, out of sight, out of touch. Out of reach for someone like you. And yet, still persists the sense that it should be here, coursing through the world in tendrils and rushing streams. A small voice in your mind whispers that magic is like a damned river. The question though is: is the stream merely diverted or is it building somewhere just out of reach, waiting to flood the world. 

“I don’t know where we went wrong. When things changed.” 

“It’s always this,” you say, realizing where your mind has taken you: far away again. The lilt of a slight mocking tone barely breaking through the sleepy tenor of your voice. “All the stories glorify the olden days, don’t they? They never look around to see the world for what it might really offer us, here, right now, in this moment.” 

“Well,” Jungkook chews on your words for a moment. “Don’t you think though, that something might be lost, all the way back there?” 

“Sure, but what’s the point of mourning it? It’s gone now. We can’t find a way back to it.” 

“Have you ever tried?” 

You sigh. “No, not personally.” 

“Then maybe, for all we know, there is a little shard of the past laying out there in the darkness of the woods, just waiting to help us in the modern day.” 

“I think you’re being romantic.” 

Jungkook pauses at that phrase. His eyebrow flicks up and something unreadable flashes across his face before it transforms into his famous cheeky grin. “I think I’m being adventurous.” 

You take a long look at him. You know that glimmer in his eye. It’s the one he gets right before he takes off running into the forest on some new impulse. These days, the glimmer has been growing stronger. Staying longer. You see him trying to fight it, and you wonder if he holds back from it just for you. For the fear that still rises in you as you look out into the darkness. 

“Are you going to try to find it?” you ask. 

He seems surprised at the question and takes a moment before he answers. “I suppose… if I knew how to.” Movement, shifting. He swings his legs restlessly and re-tucks a piece of hair that is already perfectly placed behind his ear. 

“Well. Don’t go running off on me now. You can’t expect me to entertain myself alone around here.” 

He laughs. “I’ll always come home.” 

You take a long look at him. 

“You promise?” 

“I promise.” 

Laid on your backs beneath the thin branches and budding leaves, the world seems to fall into the kind of stillness that makes you want to hold your breath. He turns towards you, gaze locking onto your eyes before trailing down to your lips. It lingers a moment too long. 

Only to be broken by the impatient snorting of Posey. She nudges your leg with her long nose, crossing it over Jungkook’s. The two of you break into laughter as she stares up at you with those large, brown eyes. 

summer, 18. 

“I! Can’t! Fucking! Stand! It!” Each movement is punctuated by a swinging kick or the graceful arch of your arm swinging through the air. Jungkook blocks each one as you advance on him. “I already turned him down! I don’t want to marry him!” 

“Fuck,” Jungkook hisses when you land a kick square in the chest. “Okay, okay.” He holds a hand up to stop your attack and you drop your hands to your side. 

“Mother says that I will learn to love him—” Jungkook glances up to you, his eyes sharp and searching as he rubs at his chest. 

“You’re considering it?” 

“I-I don’t know what else to do. Maybe I can learn to love him.” 

He blinks at you. Once. Twice. The silence that hangs between you prickles.

“Let me tell you something,” he says, his voice stiff. 

“Sure.” You take a drink from the canteen. 

“You know nothing about love,” he says somberly. You choke on the water you’ve just tried to swallow and look up at him, at the darkness that dances in his gaze. “You always talk about knowing the world in a thousand ways, knowing the way it calls to you, but you’re too damn afraid to actually take a step into it and make it yours.” 

Your breath stills in your throat. 

“What? How dare y—” 

“I’m telling you, you know nothing, and of course your first instinct is to push back!” Your jaw drops open at his blatant disrespect. “You really ought to learn to listen to your elders. Take some advice from someone who knows what they’re talking about.” 

It only takes you a second to recover from the spike of his words.

“Ha!” you snort, throwing the canteen in his direction. He catches it with a graceful snap of his wrist and sips from it, his eyes locked on you. “As if! Like I would take love advice from you. Other than me, the only other people you even talk to are Jin and Namjoon, so unless you’re sneaking off to the library with them for a quick smooch I highly doubt you know what you’re talking about.”

His eyes narrow as he stalks forward towards you. 

“You know nothing,” he repeats. “Not everything is like that. You don’t know what it is to want something — someone —” 

Fury flashes through you.  

“Yes I do!” 

“You don’t.”  

“I know what I want, you asshole!”

Do you though? Like the line you’d drawn a million times over in the forest — do not step beyond — the barrier between you and Jungkook is clear as day. Despite all your teasing words and playful banter and physical contact, this was a line the two of you didn’t cross. And yet it’s the line your mind keeps drawing you to: closer, closer, closer. 

“Oh really?” He sneers. “Then tell me. Don’t be shy. What do you want?” 

He’s standing so close now. His eyes flickering between your eyes and your lips. The thought flickers across your mind: he knows exactly what he’s doing. 

“Are you even sure you want to know?” you ask, your lip curling up. 

His eyes lock on yours. He knows what you’re asking. 

“Yes.” 

Your heart nearly stops her rampant beating as the deep timber of his voice cuts through the air. Through the frozen stillness of your expectation, you move. You take a step forward, closing the distance between the two of you, and with all the courage you can muster, press your lips to his.  

It’s simple. Chaste. You’ve never done this before, and truth be told, the first time your lips meet, you can’t think about anything but the fear that climbs your throat. You pull back. 

Stillness swings between you two. A shared breath: held. Until he sighs, his breath brushing over you with the smell of winter pine. You don’t want to blink. You don’t want to move. You don’t want to let the glass of this moment drop to the forest floor between you and shatter into a million pieces. 

He takes the step towards you, hand landing on your hip, guiding you gently backwards until your back hits the hard wall of a tree. You suck in a sharp breath. He presses a hand against the rough bark above your head. Leans in. His lips brush against yours, as if he is acclimating to you, savoring you. Then, lightly, the plush of lips pressing into each other, of desire leading towards desire. 

He tastes like peach… like summer preserved beneath the ice, ready to spring back to life at the first sign of warmth. In tasting him, that thing within you that calls constantly for more, for the great beyond, it quiets. You’re not sure what to do with the space that opens in its absence, only know you want more of him. After pausing a moment, you let your arms drift up his, tracing the body you’d become so familiar with — only to find it so foreign in this new light, in this new sensation. 

When he pulls away, shyness darts across his face as he reads your features. But only for a second, as he catches the smile curling at your lip and that famous mischievous grin replaces any moment of doubt on his face. 

“Sorry. I really wanted to do that.” 

You grin. “Fuck you. I kissed you first.” 

“Did you?” Suddenly you’ve caught his attention again. 

You’re laughing against his lips before falling in again. It’s so easy to fall with him, to fall into his arms, to fall towards the warmth of his embrace, to fall in love, over and over. You’re grabbing his hips and pulling him close to you, as if you’ve done it a thousand times. But when you draw his head to yours, he pulls back just a centimeter, holding your closeness like a thread suspended. 

“So this is what you want?” He asks softly. “This is really what you want?” 

“Yes.” 

“Then don’t ever talk about marrying another man in front of me again,” he whispers against your lips before kissing you again. “I won’t have it.” 

It’s everything you wanted and suddenly the question comes to mind: is your constant magnetism towards your shared clearing and towards Jungkook more than practiced familiarity? In the moment the question is asked, it’s answered: 

You are entirely and completely ensnared within the tangles of Jeon Jungkook. 

autumn , 18

This year, autumn drops swiftly and with the cutting edge of frost earlier than usual. 

You begin to wrap yourself in more layers, much to the chagrin of Jungkook, who is constantly teasing you, fingers exploring more and more of your body. You laugh at his eagerness, pull him close. Kiss him in the way that has become so comfortable, like second nature. 

You’re waiting for him in the clearing, legs swinging off the large boulder. 

“I want to show you something,” the words brush over your ear and tickle. Jungkook hops around you, a grin painting his features. “Good. You’re dressed perfectly,” he says, eyeing your thick layers and sturdy boots. He offers you a hand and you jump down from the rock. “You have time?” 

“Always have time for you,” you grin. “I’m not sure who else would expect me to be anywhere.” 

He smiles. “This way,” he says, nodding towards the forest. 

“Really?” you hesitate, just for a moment. 

“Really. It’ll be fine, I promise. I’ve got you.” You nod and he squeezes your hand, jogging off and dragging you along. You laugh. 

You go like that for a while, your hand wrapped in his. Your chest tightens the deeper into the forest you go, but you keep bringing your attention to him, to his warmth, to the reassuring presence of him at your side. 

The world around you comes alive as you continue to climb the steep trail to the top of the mountain. Birds humming in the trees. The familiar rustle of deer trotting through the underbrush just out of sight. As you look up into the trees, the setting sun sinks like liquid gold through the darkness and down onto you, reflecting off the sun-yellow aspen leaves. It’s easier to breathe when it’s this beautiful, and when — you glance at him — when he’s by your side. 

After perhaps an hour of walking, mostly in silence, simply enjoying each other’s presence, you reach the top of the peak. 

Up here, the wind swirls swift and strong around your body. Jungkook offers a hand and pulls you up. 

“Look.” 

Your breath catches in your throat as you survey the land around you. Below you, you can see the glimmering lights of your village, tucked away neatly in the valley. Paths connect the houses like the tangles of a web. 

“I know…” Jungkook says. “I know we always talk about leaving. We talk about the world and going into it and exploring every corner of it. And…” He takes your hand and brings it to his face. You spread your fingers over the swell of his cheek. “Sometimes I think we forget that we live in a world complete in itself too. Look at that.” He pulls you close, hand wrapping around your waist as he points down into the valley. “A whole world down there. A whole world of memory and life and—you.” 

You know he wants you to look at the village, but you can’t take your eyes off him, the way his long lashes brush over his cheek, the way the corner of his mouth pulls up when he talks, the wind tugging recklessly at his long dark hair. 

“Me?” you giggle. 

“Let me be dramatic for a moment, will you?” he asks. 

“Of course.” 

“When I think about the world, traveling, learning everything I possibly can—I only want it if there’s you there too.”

As the sun begins her final descent into blue night, a wash of red and orange floods over the world. Behind Jungkook, you can see beyond your home too. The world sprawls into mountains and valleys, pockets rock and  green and changing colors as autumn sets in. Everything, you think, is so alive. 

“When you’re ready to go, let’s go. We can just leave. We can go wherever we want to. Anywhere in the world. Anywhere your heart desires.” 

You look back towards your valley. You can feel the way the beauty of that life sprawls out in your chest, and tangled in it, the dark weight of obligations and expectations set upon your shoulders. The two do not exist without each other. 

“Yes,” you say. “Soon. Soon, I promise.” 

When he kisses you, it’s with the hope of a lifetime spread before him, shining strong in his heart.

winter , 18

You keep dreaming of white roses laid into a wall of ice. Green stems and thorns prickling with life where they should be frozen into a kind of still death. 

You wake from a dream where Jungkook has picked one for you and ties it into your braid. But he doesn’t remove the thorns, and no matter how gently he tries, the prick of the flower’s barb cuts into you. Still, your eyes rest on his face. You want to tell him. 

You pull on your boots without bothering to tie the laces and shrug on one of your warmer coats. The path to your clearing is clear, but when you arrive, no one is there. 

Posey is tied to the tree though and she anxiously paws at the frozen earth. Jungkook would never leave Posey alone. 

“Where is he?” you say softly, taking the large beast’s head in your hands and stroking down her nose in the way you know she loves. She calms beneath your touch and jerks her head towards the other side of the clearing. 

Beyond the first row of young, healthy aspens, the trees stand tall and wide and dark like they’ve been swallowed by night in the middle of the day. After the first time following the blue flame, you set it in stone: Your clearing was as far as you’d go alone. Over the years, you had defined a clear line in the forest. You knew the trees that delineated the tipping point and you never went beyond that without Jungkook by your side. Even when that azure light flickered in your peripheral vision, calling to you, singing a song of something far off and wonderful, you turned your back. Walked in the other direction. 

You wait all day for him to return, the spark of your dream dimming with every hour that goes by. You stay until the sun dips low behind the highest peak and the glimmer of light that filters through the trees dims to a cool blue. 

You knew it the moment you arrived, and still you wait, eyes locked on the darkness that leaks out of the trees. The night that settles over the world tonight is lightless. Dark clouds have huddled over the horizon, blocking what you know to be a full moon and her whispering stars. When you can’t even see three feet in front of you, you stand. Take a deep breath. 

And then you lead Posey back down the path to your home, bringing her to the stables. 

Jin is tending to his horse when you open the wooden door. 

“Why do you have Posey?” 

“He’s gone,” you say coldly, leading Posey into a stable with fresh hay. She seems to know it too, hanging her head and keeping track of your every movement too as if to say, Don’t you dare even think of leaving me too.

winter, 23

Will you ever shake the cold in this hellish winter? 

You’ve been at the Yuletide celebration for near an hour now and yet the howling wind that screeched along the path on your walk to the grand hall still seems to be rattling in your bones. 

Boughs of evergreen — signifying survival and life growing strong throughout the year — are strung up around Namjoon’s family home. Smells of roasting food, the fruity rich scent of wine, and smoke drift through the air, mixing with the buzz of raucous conversation. 

Fires roar throughout the hall and yet no matter how close you stand to them, letting the flames lap dangerously close to the thick, beautifully adorned green fabric of your dress, you can’t escape the chill. The acquaintances that you have finally begun to collect over the past year come and go, several of them stopping to chat for a moment with you, before sending you a questionable and indecipherable glance, as if they know something you don’t, and then disappearing back into the crowd. 

After the last one departed, tittering a strange, “You won’t have to worry about staying warm for long,” and sending you a horrible two-eyed wink, you sigh. Even after five years, the dawning space of silence is filled with echoes of his laughter. You couldn’t rid yourself of it — not the memories, not the stretching space he left behind him — no matter how you tried. Distraction was the only way though. After you’d said hello to the last person you could tolerate in the room, you resigned yourself to spending a cold and strange Yule semi-alone and as close to the roaring flames as possible. 

That is, until Namjoon appears at your side, two cups of warm Wassail in hand and a shy smile darting across his features. 

“For you,” he offers. 

“Ah, thank you, Namjoon,” you say as he hands you the cup. 

The smell of apple and mulled spices wafts up towards you and you breath in deep, hoping the drink can do more than promise luck and a healthy harvest — and actually warm you up from the inside out. Taking a long and slow sip, you prove to be right as the robust drink brings a small amount of heat back to your blood. You sigh and press the cup close to your chest, absorbing as much of the warmth as possible.

“You’re cold—” Namjoon observes. 

“Yeah, I just couldn’t manage to get warm.” 

“Here.” In a second he’s placing his cup above the mantle — he’s tall enough to do that — and shucking off his outer most layer. Before you can think to reject the intimate offer, he’s stepping behind you and wrapping the thick fur around you. He leans down to your ear to speak. “I know it’s bad manners to keep a coat like this on inside, but what’s the cost of manners when you could be warm — and showing off the beautiful northern fabric?” 

He gives you one final squeeze of the shoulders and steps back before you. You’re a little surprised by his overt and confident kindness. It’s unlike him.

“The colors compliment you quite well.” 

Even as you flush you say, “You know very well that flattery doesn’t work on me.” 

“I know, I know. But that doesn’t mean I won’t stop trying. Unless, of course you want me to stop—”

“Ah, no—” It spills from your mouth before your instinct to hold back kicks in. “I, uh. It can be nice. I’m just not used to it, that’s all.”  

When he smiles like this, his dimples show, digging into the soft beauty of his cheeks. At first you thought the quickness of his joy was suspect, but over the past years it’s grown on you, just as he has. 

You had always seen him around growing up, but usually standing in the background dust of your antics. He was a constant figure in the household. He and Jin would disappear to the library for hours, mulling over far fetched ideas for agricultural and trading plans. They were similar in that way, always trying to do things better, easier, faster. You didn’t understand it — much preferring to move either from a state of impulse or utter sedateness through the day — but you did admire it. 

But he had changed, hadn’t he? The invisible boy from your childhood grew into a soft, strong, and quiet man and his presence, too, had grown in your life as well. 

Namjoon fit by your side like a puzzle piece — as much as you would allow him to be by your side. When Jungkook had disappeared, the little world that you had built was shattered. With Jungkook, you could wander anywhere. You could dip into the darkness of the forest and the unknown stories that lay beyond your comfort. With Jungkook gone, the world was all uncomfortable. The questions that he left behind and the unfinished plans left a large, echoing space in your life. It didn’t take long for you to throw yourself into life again, shutting down your mother’s protests when you insisted on continuing your studies “far beyond the minimum requirements of wifehood!” as she liked to remind you. Life needed redefining. Relearning. 

Thankfully, the consistent gloom you carried with you did quite well as a deterrent to the line of suitors who had begun appearing on your doorstep before Jungkook’s disappearance. You carried your grief around you like castle walls, and with all the extra space, you began to rebuild. 

You took to herbology. It was your way back into the forest, and in that way, to Jungkook’s memory. You relearned the forest from the ground up. You studied with a fervor: each plant with a story, each plant with an impact on the body. If you could read the forest like you read the books that Namjoon gave you, maybe one day you would be able to journey out into the flickering darkness with nothing to tether you to fear or to obligation. 

Namjoon became a teacher of sorts. Guiding you through his basic knowledge of medicine and biology. And when you quickly surpassed him in expertise, he became your partner, leaving stacks of books at your bedroom door when he came to visit Seokjin, accompanying you quietly on your outings. He never questioned the invisible line in the forest that you would never cross. He was there. And that was what you needed. 

As the two of you stare into the fire, you notice him continuously glancing at you, opening his mouth, and then shutting it. 

“Is there something you want to say, Namjoon?”

His eyebrows shoot up his forehead in surprise of your bluntness. Usually you would let him sit in his own hesitation, but you’re impatient tonight. 

“Yes… actually.” 

You turn towards him giving him your full attention. 

“You have my ear,” you smile. 

“Oh, well — thank you.” His eyes flicker to the crowd surrounding you both, the way the noise rises steadily in the hall. “Maybe — maybe somewhere a little quieter. I don’t want to yell over everyone.” 

You nod, offering your arm and he takes it with ease, slipping into your grasp. He leads you along the wall and away from the grand entrance where fewer people mill. Although it’s the largest hall in your small village, it’s still quite cramped and you’re surprised to find a small pocket of privacy behind a large pillar, some small privacy away from the raucous laughter and jubilation of the celebration. 

“I know it’s not custom,” he says softly, running a nervous hand through his hair. “But I wanted to tell you before it was announced.” 

Your brow folds in confusion. 

“What is it?” 

“My father’s gone to your mother about a marriage proposal.” 

Your eyes widen. “Oh! I—” You shake your head to clear it. “I thought she had sworn off all suitors after my father passed away but, if this is what will make her happy, then I have no objection whatsoever.” 

“No, no.” Namjoon chuckles quietly. “That’s not what I meant. I mean, he’s gone to your mother on my behalf to ask for your hand in marriage.” 

“Oh.”

It’s not what you expected. 

The first thing that runs through your head: I thought I had more time. But as you look into Namjoon’s broad features, all you see is hope. Painted clear as a spring day, hope and what you think is joy spills out from him. And that’s when you realize it’s not just coming from him, it’s coming from you too, reflecting his, spilling out into the space between you. He has become your one constant in a world of uncertainty. 

“Me?” you ask softly. 

“You.” He smiles, still searching your face for something to hold onto. “Of course, if you won’t have me, I will insist my father calls off any talk of engagement.” 

Your heart tightens strangely at the thought. There is something about Namjoon — unnamable warmth swimming just below the surface of his impeccable control. Will you have him? As you look forward into your life — what is there? There are your studies, your growing love for herbology, for the forest. There is Namjoon, your constant: reliable, understandable, dependent. And there is the calling song of the world beyond what you know. You wonder if it is silly to think you could have all of that at once. 

“Namjoon.” 

“Yes?” 

“I need to know one thing.” 

“Of course. Anything.”

You don’t know how to say it. “I need to go.” 

His brow folds in confusions. 

“I know this is overwhelming, so if you need time — if you need space — We can go outside, just for a moment. I could walk you home if you really need—  “ 

“No, no,” you shake your head, putting a hand on his chest to stop his babbling. He stills beneath your touch, looking between your hand and your face. “There are things I need to do… I-I need to leave. Not now. Not today. But—” You look towards the door. “Namjoon, there’s so much out there and I need more than... this.” 

“I—” Namjoon flounders for a moment. “It’s a strange request. But if it’s what you want, that’s how it’ll be.” 

“Then yes.” 

“Yes—?” 

“I’ll marry you, Namjoon.” 

“You — you will?” He looks stunned. 

“Yes.” 

His face breaks into a smile. He sweeps you up into his hold, muscular arms wrapping tight around your waist as he spins you around. You can’t help it. A peal of laughter spills from your lips and soon he’s laughing too, joy splitting his face. Gently, he sets you down. 

“I promise you I will spend the rest of my life trying to make you happy.” 

There’s something about the way he says it. As if he’s worried you won’t be. But you’re quick to shove it off, and instead take the moment to wrap your own arms around his torso and press him into a hug. 

When you pull away he’s looking down at you, that look you’ve come to memorize from him dancing between his eyes. It’s dark and quiet and — now that you understand where his intentions lie, you see — full of longing. 

You should kiss him. 

When he goes to step away, as he always does, you keep your arms wrapped around him. He startles, but then his eyes widen. 

“Can I—” The words brush out of his mouth as if they weren’t even there, and if you weren’t standing literally pressed up against him, you wouldn’t have heard them against the noise of the joyous crowd. “Will you— I mean— Can I? Can I kiss you?” 

You answer him by pressing your lips to his. He freezes against your touch before melting, softly. His mouth is warm against yours and moves tentatively, exploring the plush of your lips. Slowly, he ghosts a hand up your side, then moves it to your shoulder. With the lightest of pressure, he presses you to him. When you move back, trying to draw him closer, draw him out, you find a surprising softness. A hesitation. As if he thinks if he moves too quickly he might break you. 

This is the first time you’ve been kissed since — well, since him. Jungkook. His name rings out like a bell in your mind, clear and as bright as a summer day. You can’t help but compare Namjoon’s hesitation to the old memory of being held in full — your desire, your love, your being. Held in entirety. You can’t help but remember the way his hands had traced up your sides, gripped you close, scraped along your skin—

No. He’s gone. You bring your attention back to the present moment, pushing the memory aside into the box you kept locked and sealed as much as possible in the corner of your mind. Bring yourself to Namjoon, his large presence, his safety, the way it’s so easy to fall into, to forget, to forget, to forget— 

A soft warmth blooms between you, and you find yourself wanting to chase it down. Wanting to push warmth into heat. But it doesn’t come. When he traces your bottom lip with a delicate tongue, your eyelids flutter open to look at his face pressed against yours. 

Could you get used to this? You grip his arms, urging him to take more of you, but he still seems reluctant beneath your touch. So you pull back. Take a deep breath. 

He blinks and you know the question written across his face: Did I do something wrong? 

You lean your forehead against his, pulling his head down so you can do so. 

Together you breathe. Together you face the future. This unknown thing — this unknown person, spiraling out before you both. 

That’s when your mother’s voice rings out across the hall. 

“Everyone! Everyone, please, we have an announcement.” 

At once your breath freezes in your chest, mimicking the silence that falls over the hall. Namjoon makes to step away from you, to rejoin the crowd, but you hold him there. 

“One more second. One more moment of peace — please,” you whisper, not knowing what you are really asking for. He looks confused, but he nods, letting his hand slowly wind around your waist. You take a deep breath, try to breathe against the confusion and untangleable swirl of feelings that moves through your chest. 

This is it. In the same moment that your future cements in your mind, it shatters around you. 

CRASH. 

An ear splitting bang rips through the hush of the hall and you jump away from Namjoon, his fingers falling from your form. Adrenaline pounds through your veins as you step out from behind the pillar, sharp eyes taking in as much as possible. 

The whole hall has fallen silent, and the grand wooden doors of the entryway hang open. 

A cloud of white snow sweeps inside with the bitter wind as ice and cold stings the once-warm air. And then a figure steps in, a long, dark cloak hung around their shoulders. 

He isn’t supposed to be here. 

Cheeks rosey and reddened from the icy winter wind that swept down from the highest peaks, dark hair brushed back and tousled, brow weathered with the kind of age that one earns rather than grows into. For a moment he looks like a stranger. 

His eyes wander around the silenced crowd, flicking from face to face until they meet yours. He settles on you, his expression scrunching into an unmistakable smile. 

“Who is—?” Namjoon asks, as confused as everyone else in the room, looking between you and the man standing at the top of the stairs. 

“Jungkook,” you say in a breath. “That’s Jeon Jungkook.” 

His name rips out of your throat with a cry — something strangled and joyous and furious all at once. You know he hears it. Agony — agony and joy — flickers across his face at the sound. You don’t know it until you’re moving, running towards him. He is too, jumping down the stairs, pushing aside old man Gilby and moving as quickly as he can through the crowd towards you. 

If you could only hold him again. To feel him again in your arms.

He’s so close. You reach for him. Fingertips brushing, lighting flame from nothing and—

A strong grip tightens around your arm and tugs you backwards, spinning you into the embrace of your mother. 

“Don’t you dare ruin this,” she whispers under her breath. You wrench your arm out of her grasp. 

When you look over your shoulder, Jin and Namjoon are pulling Jungkook into their arms, tears lighting their eyes as they clap their friend on the back.

Jungkook’s gaze never leaves yours.  

The hall bursts into celebration. Voices raised, drinks poured, fires rekindled. Questions abound: Where have you been, where did you go, why did you come back, but somehow every time you manage to catch his voice in response, he is responding cryptically, speaking of “a library” or “the path north” or “beyond the forest.” 

Your mother keeps a tight eye on you, dragging you from group to group. When you pull away, she tightens her grip on your arm again. 

“I’m going to talk to Namjoon,” you say softly. 

Appeased, she smiles and nods. Lets you go. You tear away from the small group of chatterers and drift through the crowd in Namjoon’s direction. But as soon as her gaze leaves your form, you switch directions, making a beeline for where Jungkook stands by one of the fires with your brother. 

“You.” Before he even knows you’re there, you latch onto his arm. You want to pull him away from all of this. From the noise, from the commotion. From the lingering gazes that you can’t seem to shake. From the breath that you can’t seem to swallow into your lungs. 

“Oh,” he hums as you tug him along. “Hello.”

“Hello?” You pause long enough to gape at him. “Hello?! You disappear for five years and the first thing you think to say to me is a goddamn hello?!” You continue to stomp forward, Jungkook in tow. 

“I missed this,” Jungkook sighs dreamily.

“I do not think so, Jeon Jungkook! You may have gotten away with more than your fair share of bullshit in your short little life but don’t you dare think that you’re just going to waltz in here with a motherfucking hello and call it good, I have not been through hell for a hello—” 

Jungkook tugs back on the arm you have under siege and you stumble to a halt. Before you know what’s happening, he’s pulling you into his arms right in front of everybody. His body wraps around you, enveloping you in more warmth than you’ve felt in years. It sinks through the layers of clothes, impossibly warming your skin. And...and finally you can breathe again. 

Tears begin to well up in your throat as you tighten your grasp on him. He’s real. He’s here. You fit perfectly in his arms. You want to cry at the thought. You want to stay here forever, wrapped up in him. 

“Let me look at you.” He pulls back, holding you at arms length while he traces your face with his gaze. The intensity reminds you of someone trying to commit something to memory. “You grew up without me…” He says, the same blossoming sorrow that you feel in your chest, mimicked in his tone. As if you didn’t do the same, you can’t help but think, looking at the man before you. “I missed you.” 

When tears well in your eyes — one’s you at once have no explanation for and a million explanations for — he bends down to wipe them away with the gentle brush of a finger pad.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he coos. “I’m here now. I’m not leaving you again. I came back for you as soon as I could.” 

“What do you m—” 

Jungkook’s eyes have caught on something of the outer layer that you’ve now let fall around your arms. Namjoon’s family crest. 

“That’s—” His eyes narrow as if he might see better and he reaches out to touch the embroidery emblazoned across your chest. “That’s not mine.” 

“No,” you say. “It’s not.” 

“Then—?” 

This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. You had imagined Jungkook’s homecoming one million times, lying awake at night, wondering what on earth it was that was so precious it could draw him away from the village, away from you. You had imagined returning to your clearing and finding him there, sprawled out on the boulder. You had imagined wandering beyond your line in the forest to find him swinging from a tree. You had imagined him climbing into your window at night, whispering soft words about the world beyond, promises that you could come with him, that you could leave together. This is not the reunion you daydreamed about. But it’s the one you’re getting. 

“I need to tell you something, Jungkook — so much has happened since you left—” You try to pull him away again, towards the doors or at least to a dark corner so you can speak in private, but he doesn’t budge. He has grown stronger since you last saw him. 

“I didn’t leave,” he says, frustration lacing his voice. 

“I need you to listen to me, Jungkook, Namjoon and—”  

The sound of feet stomping rattles you and you turn to find your mother standing by one of the large fireplaces, her hand laid gently on Namjoon’s father’s large forearm, and an even larger self-assured smile spread across her features. Her gaze settles on you and Jungkook and her lip twitches in something cruel.

“Everyone, everyone, please!” 

While she was a small woman, your mother commanded every room she drifted into, gait as smooth as the frozen lakes scattered around your village. Beneath her heavy robes, one might think she was floating across the stone or the snow. But in reality it was years of practice: holding her body under utter control. A coil of perfected power. 

Jungkook grips onto your arm, but before you know it, someone is pulling you away from him and towards the front of the hall. You hold onto his hand for as long as you can manage, before his grasp is ripped out of yours once more. 

His eyes — his eyes are all you see as you’re moved farther and father from him. Dark and deeper than you last remember. Full of stories you didn’t share with him. Memories you can’t even conceive of. 

Whoever drew you over to the front of the hall — Jin, you realize, who looks down at you with something indistinguishably conflicted in his eye — deposits you at Namjoon’s side. You take a shaky breath. Look up at him. He smiles down at you and slides an arm around your waist. 

Your mother takes a long, dramatic breath and begins to speak. The hall quiets, everyone’s apt attention directed towards her as she smiles fondly at Namjoon’s father. 

“I should begin, I suppose, with a thank you to all who have come to celebrate this most important holiday with us,” she says, despite it not being her home or her celebration. “Each one of you is precious to us.” Your jaw clenches with her presumption. 

“Indeed, we have much to celebrate tonight,” Namjoon’s father says, his voice deep and graveled. 

“As the year draws to a close, we can so often get stuck looking back on things which have left us, things we have lost.” She’s looking at you, her gaze drilling through you with the weight of her words. “When instead we ought to be looking forward, and to the brightness of the future.” 

Namjoon’s father opens his arms and Namjoon is suddenly moving, pulling you with him before turning to face the silent crowd. Hands on both of your shoulders, Namjoon’s father speaks with a seriousness interlaced with joy. 

“Tonight, we are thrilled to announce that my son, Namjoon, will be officially taking over my role as lord of our small paradise. And with that, this darling creature,” he gestures to you. “Will be taking her role as his wife by his side.” 

Gasps echo around the hall. 

“Really?” 

“Her?”

You blink back the shock at the reaction. Namjoon’s hand is tightening around your own — but you’re searching the crowd for the only face you know will really reassure you. 

Jungkook. He stares straight at you. Looking confused. Looking surprised. Looking like his heart has just been broken. I’m sorry, you try to say, without words, without sound. And he nods. 

Namjoon’s father and your mother continue to speak, but you swim in silence, shock sinking heavy as tar into your veins. You continue to star out at Jungkook — everything at once swims before you, only to disappear into the concrete, deadening promise of this new future. 

The flowering taste of peach, the burst of juices against a parched tongue, all the flavors of him at once until it’s dizzingly sweet, near cloying, and that unmistakable hard center. The rough cut of bark pressed up against your back. His fingers tangling so tightly into your hair: as if he were to let go of you for even a second, he would lose everything. The kind of hunger he brought with every movement, the way he gazed at you, the way he spoke of the world with a streak of sky-blue magic swirled through his excitement. 

It is as if you a a tiny fly caught in the web of your own making: threaded between your promise to Namjoon and the swirling history — and overwhelming desire — that is Jungkook. 

When everyone claps, so do you, not sure what you’re even clapping for, your attention returning to the strong bass of the man’s voice: 

“Together they will stay here and provide security and protection for our people. This is a land of strong community with strong roots, and this is the perfect pair to become the eyes and roots of this village.” 

Your breath freezes in your throat. You will stay here. 

Namjoon spins you towards him and you’re so in shock that you just stare up at him. With a swift tug, you’re pressed up against him. 

“You’re mine,” he whispers so only you can hear it, pressing his lips to the back of your hand. And your heart breaks. He’s meant it lovingly, and yet the words wrap in a vice-like grip around your heart, the slow sink of fear burning like acid as it settles into your body. 

You are passed from person to person offering hugs and gentle shoulder pats and cool smiles and congratulations to you, the soon-to-be bride. But it all blurs together in your state of shock. 

Until you reach Jungkook. 

You open your mouth to speak, to say something, to explain it all — but nothing seems appropriately portioned to the casm that’s opening wide and broad and fearful within in you. You close your mouth. 

He smiles softly though, traces the way confusion and emotion dances across your face. Then he smiles, and nods at Namjoon who lingers just a little bit behind you. 

“He got prettier since the last time I saw him.” 

You smile sadly. 

“He did.” 

“Who did what?” 

Namjoon appears at your side. 

“I was just telling her how gorgeous you got,” Jungkook beams a little too brightly. You notice the tightness at the edge of his eyes though. Namjoon laughs, clapping a large hand to Jungkook’s shoulder. “Really. I forgot how charming those dimples of yours are.”

“It’s good to have you back.” 

“Is it?” 

Silence hangs between the two men as they stare, each sizing the other’s intention up. Namjoon looks between you and Jungkook, his eyebrows raising, beginning to ask a question—

“I’m kidding.”

Namjoon lets loose a held breath and chuckles. 

“I mean it, Kook. It wasn’t the same without you.” Namjoon begins to reach for you, but his hand falters and falls at his side. “A lot has changed.”

“I can tell.” His voice strains. 

“When you’re settled — when things have calmed down—” Namjoon finally does reach for you, but rather than pulling you to his side like you can tell he wants to, he lets his fingers brush against your wrist. “You should join us for dinner.” Us. It hammers at your heart. “Tell us about your adventures. Speaking of—where were you, anyhow?”

Jungkook smiles, but there’s a tightness to his eyes. He gives the answer to you, rather than Namjoon.

“The world is much more vast and…” He pauses. Searching for the word. “Magical than we expected.”

Namjoon chuckles and slaps a hand to his shoulder for what seems like the millionth time that evening.

“As cryptic as I remember. I look forward to hearing all about it.”

With that, Namjoon does wrap a tight arm around your waist and pull you away from him, back to the other guests, the fake and perfected smiles and congratulations on your looming nuptials. The night passes in an absolute blur. You find yourself plastering on an unmoving smile, repeating the same thanks, until Namjoon looks at you, concern painting his features. 

“It’s… a lot, Namjoon,” you manage to choke out. “I’m just overwhelmed.”

His jaw clenches and you feel like you’ve done something  wrong. “Of course,” he says tightly. His arm drops from your waist. “We should talk. Tomorrow.” A bead of hope rises in your chest. Maybe there is a way— “To iron out details. For the wedding.”

“Yes,” you say softly. “I suppose we ought to.”  

Namjoon takes a long look at you. Your name brushes like a whisper over his lips. “Are you...are you happy?” 

You blink up at him. That’s not the kind of question he’s supposed to ask. Marriage, in your world, is rarely a thing of happiness. Celebration, new life, new beginnings: yes. Happiness? Rarely. Everything in this cold, cold world seemed to be merely about survival.

You might have answered his question one way an hour ago. You might have answered with hope in your voice, and your hand cupping his cheek. But now, your mind feels empty and your blood runs cold.

“I’m not… unhappy.” 

“You never were one to be captured by a man like me,” he says. “By anyone, really.” 

“I don’t know what you mean.”

He shakes his head. 

“For now — get some air?” 

“Air. Yes. And...” You reach up to unclasp the cloak he had laid around your shoulders earlier in the night. “You should take this. I don’t want to forget to return it to you.” You hand the heavy layer to him and he smiles sadly. As you begin to turn, he reaches out to grab your hand, your name slipping out again. 

“I… I really want you to be happy.” 

“I-I want you to be happy, Namjoon.” He drops your wrist with a sad smile and disappears back into the crowd. You are left alone, surrounded by everyone you’ve ever known.

It feels like a boulder has come to lodge in your throat. Any kind of joy you might have felt drains in the face of your new reality: Jungkook is back. And you are already someone else’s. 

“Mother.” Your mother turns her perfumed head your way without breaking the circle she stands in. “I’m quite… tired after all the festivities. I’m going to head home.” 

She sips slowly from her glass, eying your bright gaze and strong shoulders, well aware that your excuse is nothing more than that: an excuse to rid yourself of this company. But knowing that everyone in your near vicinity has heard your complaint, a bid for you to stay will be poorly received. 

“If you’re insistent on going home, I do ask that you bring your soon-to-be husband to escort you. Namjoon?”

“Mother, I’ll be just fine, you don’t have to—” you say lowly, but as if he is always waiting to be called upon, Namjoon is by your side in half a second, looking concernedly from you to your mother. 

“Yes?”  

“Would you mind escorting my dear daughter home? I worry, it’s awfully late and…” Her eyes flicker suggestively between the two of you. The sooner there are children the sooner my daughter won’t run. “She ought not to be out alone when it’s this late.” You can feel his solid, warm presence close beside you. 

“I would be honored t—” 

A voice speaks loud and clear over your shoulder: “Wouldn’t it be absolutely inappropriate for the soon to be wed couple to be left alone so soon before their wedding?” 

You spin around. Jungkook stands directly behind you, his eyes gleaming with that mischief you know oh-so well. But to everyone else you know his expression will read as perfectly polite and composed. 

Your mother blinks at the suggestion and glances at the townsfolk who have now turned their attention to her. They wait expectantly for her answer. 

“Of course— yes, yes, darling. I don’t know what I was thinking.” She raises her glass as if that explains it all, but you know her better than to think she’s allowed herself to even get tipsy.   

“Well in that case, I can walk her home.” 

“I couldn’t ask that of you,” you say quickly, mindful of the eyes on you from all around. You’re already stepping towards the door, the urge to run overpowering everything, but a firm hand on your wrist makes you stop. You look down. Long, tattooed fingers — those are new, you think — wrap around the bare skin of your arm. Jungkook is smiling softly at you. 

“I insist.” He grins. 

You’ve walked this path a million times before. At this point in your young life, it’s already been paved over a thousand times with memory. There, the opening in the forest marked with round stones: the way to your friend, Mai’s family home. The broad walkway glowing in the moonlight that leads to the town center. The thin, almost invisible path that, if you follow the spider web of openings in the forest, leads to your clearing. The thought pokes at your mind but you quickly shove it away: our clearing. 

The path itself holds so much too: The time you fell off of Posey and broke your wrist. Between that opening where you would hurry to the market, bundles of plants in your arms. The place you first kissed Jungkook — and the last time you kissed him too. 

It’s better not to think of these things. 

Better to walk the path before you and not imagine carving a new one into the snow. You squeeze your eyes shut as the sharp edge of that thought cuts at your chest. Take a deep breath. Steady forward, like you would remind Posey. 

Better not to look at Jungkook. Better to cling to the space where he was still gone — not when he’s here, and here, and very much here. 

But still — as you look over at Jungkook, the newness to his face, you can’t help but let the questions rise up within you. He looks at you then, eyes scanning your face for some kind of answer too: 

“Why did you leave?—” 

“—Why are you marrying him?” 

Your voices carry over each other as you speak at the same time. 

“Oh—” 

“Sorry.” 

You fall into silence again, nothing but the sound of your boots crunching on the snow to break through the deafening. This is not how you thought it would be. You didn’t imagine this wall built between you two — of hesitation, of question, of doubt. When his arm brushes against yours and lingers there for a second, you squeeze your eyes closed, take a deep breath, and reach out for him. 

He freezes beneath your touch as your fingers wrap around his arm. He looks down at your hand before looking up at you. 

“I need to know,” you say softly, your words coming out in puffs, like smoke, drifting in the air. The little cloud hangs for a second between you before disappearing into nothing, leaving only the memory of sound. 

“Yeah.” He tugs gently on his ear in the way you know he does when he’s a little bit nervous. “I guess you do. It’s… complicated.” He looks at you as if that’s enough. 

“That’s not enough,” you say point-blank. “I… need more than that. I spent five—” Your throat feels like it’s constricting on you as the past five years rise up before you. You close your eyes and wait until the lump in your throat gets a little bit smaller before speaking again. “There wasn’t a single day when I didn’t think of you, Jungkook, when I didn’t look for you. There wasn’t a single day that went by when I wasn’t looking for something… anything, a clue, a note, a reason that would lead me to you, to some explanation of you, to the reason why you could have just… left. ”

It’s not until he reaches for you, brushing the pad of his thumb across your cheek that you realize you were crying. 

“I didn’t know what to do without you, Jungkook. You just disappeared. A whole chunk of my life — you — went missing. What—” You hiccup. “What was I supposed to do?” He’s looking at you now. Really, really looking at you. “Everywhere I looked I thought I saw you, flashes of your hair, your smile, the way you walked, but every time I looked, really looked — it was never you. It was like living with a ghost without the ability to actually mourn them.” You take a long breath in through your nose before forcing yourself to look at him. His brow is folded in sincere concern. You think he might be a mirror of your emotions right now: anger, grief, pain. “You broke me, Jungkook.”

“I didn’t break you.” He trips over the last word and there’s a dark thread of sorrow in his voice. “Nothing can break you. Not even me.” 

“I—” What is there to say? Your eyes blur with tears and you let your hands fall limp at your side. With a swift movement he tugs you into his chest and wraps his arms around you. “You were my best friend,” you sniffle into his chest. 

“Am,” he corrects. You pull back enough to look up at him, the question written on your face. “I am your best friend.”

That’s when the tears really come. They stream down your face and drip down into the snow. They come silently and freeze as they fall through the air. You should be cold by now, but the only sensation in the world is the way his breath moves against you. 

“I’m so sorry.” 

He holds you long enough that all the mornings that you woke in a cold sweat, calling his name, the taste of his dream self still lingering on your tongue, all the nights spent spinning around the purgatory of countless explanations — they come to still. And the warm, glowing golden presence of him, here, wrapped around you begins to seep into your mind. Until it washes over the years. Doesn’t erase them. But tints them with his unique flavor. 

“I never meant to leave you.” He finally speaks, his voice breaking. “It never… It wasn’t my choice. When I saw it at the edge of the clearing, I thought I might follow it far enough to see the direction it wanted to lead me and then turn back and wait for you. I thought it would be like what happened with you.” His breath shudders through his chest and you wrap your arms tighter around him, squeeze him as tight as possible. Your turn to remind him: I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. “I didn’t realize that the first moment I stepped into the woods that everything would change.” 

“As soon as I stepped into the darkness — everything was different. It was summer, but there was snow on the ground.” 

“That’s — that’s what I saw too.” 

“I had no idea where I was. I had no idea how to get back.” He takes a deep breath, collecting himself. You keep your arms wrapped around him but take a step back to look into his eyes. They’re distant. “I tried everything. But everything was foreign. There… there are people there. They took me in. They tried to help me get back. They… taught me things.” He lifts his hand and you trace the dark ink set into his skin. “Nothing worked.” 

“Then how on earth did you manage to get back?” 

He chuckles darkly and shakes his head. “I… I thought I heard you. I thought I heard you calling my name.”

“What?” you breathe. 

“It had happened before. At first it was all the time — I thought I was going mad, your voice in my head, calling out to me. I always tried to follow it. But nothing changed. After a while it became distant. Muffled. But tonight. Tonight it sounded clear. Like a bell, ringing in my ear. As soon as I heard it, I took off. I didn’t stop running until somehow, I was there,” He gestures at the keep at the top of the hill, still glistening with the lights of the night’s celebration. “In front of the doors. And I knew, somehow, you were inside.” 

Your breath chokes in your throat as you study his face before throwing yourself back into his arms. 

“Jungkook.” His name sounds mangled on your tongue and his arms tighten around you. “I have no idea what any of that means, but…” The tears come quicker. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I couldn’t get to you. I tried. I promise I tried. I had thought you left but.” You begin to stumble as the grief rises up in you again. You shove it down. “I am so happy to have you back. I don’t know. I don’t know what I did without—” 

“Shh,” he hushes you, hands brushing up and down your back, soothing you. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m here now.” 

“I promise you, I won’t let you go again. I won’t. I can’t,” you sniffle into his chest.  

He stills and you look at him. 

“But,” he smiles sadly. “I was too late, wasn’t I. You’re already someone else’s.” 

Your heart stops in your chest. 

“I— that—” 

“It’s okay. We still have time,” he says. “We can still fix this. I promise.” His eyes set into hardness. There’s no disuading him from his course of action. “But it’s late. And it’s so damn cold here. We should get you home.” 

“I’m not cold at all,” you mumble. It’s true. You’re oddly warm. 

He takes a step away but doesn’t let go of your arm, tugging you along. You begin to walk. We can still fix this. The cryptic words roll over in your mind again and again. Jungkook holds you close to his side and you walk together as if nothing has changed, in silence, breathing in the sense of the other’s presence. 

Where the paths split. One leading to your home. The other leading deeper into the forest. 

Jungkook begins to turn down the path you are so familiar with, but you are frozen still as if the warmth of your feet had stuck you to the firm snow below you. It only takes a second for him to notice your absence and he turns back. 

“Are you coming—” 

“They would have me marry him in a fortnight.” 

He stops. 

“That’s not--that’s not how it works. It’s a year-long engagement. It’s always a year-long engagement.” 

You shake your head and he approaches, reaching for your hands. How had you been freezing earlier in the night, but now the blood that courses through you is as hot as a July day. 

“We have time. We don’t have to rush anything.” 

“We have no time, Jungkook,” you say softly, shaking your head. “With you back, they would have me marry him in a fortnight.” As distant as you tried to make yourself from her, your mother knew you too well. She knew your attachment to Jungkook. She knew that his reappearance was the only thing standing in the way of her perfectly made plans to raise her child to a position of status. She would move quickly and with precision to make sure that nothing would endanger this marriage. 

You can see the way his mind reels. 

“If I had known…” 

“If you had known, what then?” You can’t help it. The anger that you thought you had reckoned with is rising up within your chest. It slips into your voice. “You wouldn’t have left? You would have come back earlier?” He blinks back at you. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, that’s not fair, I know you tried—” 

“So marry me instead.” He looks so hopefully at you, his eyes set wide and open — it almost takes you right back to all of those childhood years spent together. 

Your heart leaps at the thought. You imagine a home with him, warm and full of fire and light, and built right at the edge of your shared clearing. You imagine him, wrapped up all around you, every day, every night. His sweetness, his flame, his love, him, yours—

You hiccup at the thought. 

Why are you stalling? It’s everything you ever thought you wanted and yet something, something catches in your chest. Asks you to hold back. To wait. 

You look at Jungkook. In the silence, his hope hasn’t faded. Not one bit. It still shines bright and serious. But there’s something else there. He too, knows you too well. Knows when your mind is busy.

“Jungkook, I—” 

 “Shh. It’s okay. It’s okay. I know it’s a lot. You don’t have to say yes tonight. You don’t have to say yes, at all. We can figure this out later.” 

You squeeze your eyes shut, reaching for him, tangling your hand in the fabric of his cloak. 

“I’m so confused.” 

“What do you want?” 

You blink at him. 

“What?” 

“I said, what do you want?”

It’s been so long since someone asked you that the words ring foreign in your ears. 

“I won’t convince you of anything,” Jungkook says, brushing a large bundle of flakes from your cheek. It’s begun to snow, and you look up at the sky, grey and dark and speckled with the falling crystals. “I won’t answer for you. I won’t tell you what you should want. You need to say it, you need to know it.” 

“Jungkook—” you laugh. “That’s kind. That’s good. But it’s such a goddamn big question.” 

“Then break it down. It doesn’t have to be what you want for eternity. Make it smaller. Think… Tonight. What do you want for tonight?” 

You look down towards the path that leads you home. 

“I don’t want to go home.” 

Jungkook grins. “There you go. What else. What else do you want?” 

You look around. “I want… I want to stay outside. I want to be in the snow.” 

“Good, good. Keep going.” 

You take a step back, away from where your home will be glowing with warm light in white banks of snow. You take a step back, towards where the forest turns deeper, darker. “I… want…” You point towards the darkness. “That way. Let’s go that way.” 

“Even better.”

He lets you take the lead. You walk slowly at first, checking behind you to make sure that he’s following, that he’s close behind. There’s still a voice in your head that is worried that if you take your eyes off of him for more than a minute that he’ll disappear from the earth again. He seems to note this and catches up to you, letting a hand come down lightly on your waist. 

“It’s okay. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” You can’t help it. You breathe a sigh of relief. “So. Now. Do you want to walk all night or—” He grins down at you. “Is there something else you want?” 

You don’t miss the edge of his words, the meaning, the want that he’s finally letting rise up inside him. You feel it too. The warmth that blossoms in your whole body whenever he stands this near. The way your breath catches in your throat everytime he looks at you. It’s as if no time has passed at all. 

You are still as madly in love with Jungkook today as you were the day he disappeared. 

This time, when the winter air catches in your throat, you don’t turn away from Jungkook. You stare up at him. Let your gaze trace down from the dark, warm brown of his eyes to the pink plush of his lips. 

You let him catch you looking. You even lean in a little bit, you let your grip tighten on his arm, let his hand begin to twine around your waist— and just when he begins to lean in, you let go of him. And with a whoop of glee, you take off, boots skidding lightly on the packed down snow of the path. 

“Hey!” Jungkook calls. “What the hell do you think you’re doing!” 

“Running!” you yell over your shoulder. “I want to! I want to run! Catch me if you can!” 

He laughs, full bodied and warm, the sound spreading far through the forest. 

You know these paths so well that you just let your body take you where she will. Don’t think. Just run. In the second you think where you are going, you know. 

“I’ll race you to the clearing!” 

When was the last time you let yourself run like this? Abandoning the composure you thought would keep things easy for so long, arms pump at your side, lungs sucking in cold breath after cold breath. There is something to this kind of movement that sings of freedom. When was the last time you felt like this? 

With Jungkook. The last time you tasted the unbridled whir of joy and freedom spinning through you was the last time he was here. With him, you can always have this. Not at arms reach, not after your next accomplishment, but here. Now. 

“It’s not fair!” he calls out from behind you. “You had a head start!” 

“And you have those long legs! Do better!” 

On impulse, you turn off the main path onto one of the trails you know will lead you up one of the peaks. It’s the long way back to the place you spent your childhood, but it’s where your chest is tugging you. 

Jungkook lets out a whoop as he takes the sharp turn to follow you. 

“You don’t even want to know what I’ll do with you when I catch you,” he pants behind you. 

You can feel his breath, so close it burns hot against the small slip of skin that lays exposed on your neck. 

“I’d like to see you try!”

He’s a second away from catching you when you throw all of your weight behind your legs and push harder up the steep slope of the mountain. You’re not sure where all the energy comes from. In your mind’s eye a flash of something you didn’t expect: blue light glowing strong within your chest, spurring you forward. 

It burns bright and warm within your chest. It sinks into your veins. It lights you alive. 

Your legs burn, but when you feel the brush of his hand against your arm — the spark of that touch — and you push harder, widening the distance between you and Jungkook, that streak of childish competitiveness burning bright.  As you come up upon the lip of the hill that should look down into your clearing, you slow, laughter taking over you. 

When was the last time you just — didn’t think? Just moved through the world, unbidden? 

As you step up to the top of the hill, a new kind of silence falls around you like a blanket. Too quiet. The creatures of the forest should be sighing in their sleep now. The wind should be rustling through the branches. Jungkook should be right behind you, his footsteps and breath smashing through the forest. But he’s not. An impenetrable stillness stretches out around you. 

You whip around, expecting to look down the hill you just climbed, but instead a wall of rock stares back at you, cold and heartless. It leans over you as if it’s bound to fall and you stumble back a pace, barely regaining your balance before you fall. The pace of your heart feels like it stutters to a halt. 

“Jungkook?” you call softly, acid building in your throat. The sound only bounces right back towards you. 

No, no, no. That same feeling from that winter day in the clearing. He’s gone. 

You squeeze your eyes shut in the face of the terror that washes over you. Try to take a steading breath. Dig your nails into the flesh of your palms. Jungkook, please, don’t be gone. Don’t be gone again. I can’t — I can’t —  

Your name echoes off the rock and you spin. 

There. Standing tall, stumbling a little. The thought — How did he get all the way over there? — barely pricks against your mind before you’re moving, calling. 

“Jungkook!” 

You both run towards each other, feet slipping in the wet snow. You’ve somehow taken a wrong turn, somehow ended up here in this… strange place. 

As you’re about to reach him, your foot slips on something and the arm that had reached out for him is now flailing through the air. He grabs it, but instead of pulling you back up to your feet, you’re still slipping, pulling him down with you and tumbling down a steep but snowy hill. 

As if on instinct, he reaches for you, pulling you to his chest, wrapping his body secure around yours as you roll as one down the hill. It isn’t graceful, the way your bodies bump down the hill, end over end, you desperately trying to grasp onto anything that might slow your fall. 

By the time you finally come to a stop at the bottom of the hill, you are thoroughly covered in fine white powder. It has painted your clothes entirely white and tangled into your hair. 

You’ve fallen on top of Jungkook, your hands clutching his shoulders, one leg sprawled out to the side — an emergency brake, if you will. He lays beneath you, breathing hard, eyes blinking wide, hands gripping your hips tight to his body. 

“Oh,” you breathe. 

“That was—” 

“Unexpected,” you finish. 

“—Yeah.” 

The word is barely a sound and more like a breath, flowing over you. Adrenaline burns through your veins, lighting everything in stark contrast to the numb buzzing in your mind. Colors seem sharper. The air, warmer. And Jungkook’s touch — fingers pressed to the fleshy bits of your sides, chest rising rhythmically beneath you — well, his touch is nothing less than completely encapsulating. 

Every voice that has been trained into you and picked up from what you should be doing screams that you should stand, brush off the snow, give Jungkook a nice firm handshake, and walk yourself home. 

But there’s something else alongside the chorus of shoulds: 

What do you want? 

It’s less of a voice. It’s more of a feeling. A collection of memory, warmed by Jungkook’s presence. The taste of fruit bursting on your tongue. The thrill of the chase. The steady pounding of your heart so rooted in the ground beneath your feet. The timbre of Jungkook’s brings you back.

“Please let me kiss you — before you’re someone else’s.” 

He’s so close. 

“I don’t want to be anyone else’s, Jungkook.” Speaking it aloud cements it as truth. 

Delight sparks in his eyes, mixing with that mischievous glint you know so well. With a kind of slowness, as if he’s worried he might startle you, his hand comes up to cup your chin. He strokes his thumb over your bottom lip and it parts at his touch. 

Someone else’s. Someone’s. 

The words come to your lips before you even know what they really mean: “Jungkook. I don’t want to be anyone else’s. I don’t want to be anyone’s.” 

“Then—” His eyes sparkle and he grins as he searches for the words. “Then don’t be mine. I’ll be yours.” 

Jungkook kisses you, mouth pressing to yours with the lightest of pressure. It’s the ghost of a touch — the whisper of everything that’s come before you and everything that is yet to come. He stills then, his breath moving slowly through him, and pulls away, tracing your face with his gaze. 

His kiss leaves you wanting. It fans the warmth burning your abdomen into a low flame. His face hovers just a centimeter away from yours and you look at him. Really, really look at him. 

He’s changed. It’s true. Time has weathered away at him — you can feel a new weariness in his heart, one you don’t remember from before. But there’s also more to him now. Strength. Wisdom. Something that flickers in an awful reminiscence of the flame you once followed into the darkness of the forest. 

You kiss him again, this time letting the want warming your belly rise to your throat. Your lips crash into his, and you open your mouth, inviting him closer. It’s a push and pull, teeth nipping at lips, tongue exploring mouth. He responds by doing the same, chasing your mouth, chasing you. He tangles his hand in your unruly, snow caked hair and pulls you closer to him, another hand pressing against your upper back. It’s as if, despite how close your bodies are, he needs you closer. 

You know it should be impossible, and yet you feel as if you can feel his heart beating against your chest: a mirror of your own wild pace. 

You have one hand at his collarbone, fingers mindlessly sliding along the sensitive skin there. Your other hand is in the snow beside his head, supporting your weight. It should be freezing cold by now, going numb. But instead your fingers hum with gentle warmth, the same kind that is radiating out from your chest. 

When you finally pull away, it’s to catch your breath. The world has fallen into stillness, and all is quiet except for the sound of the pair of you breathing hard. The full moon above (the moon? It had been cloudy earlier…) slices down through the darkness and lights Jungkook’s features. His cheeks and ears bloom with red and his lips are already beginning to look pinkish and swollen beneath your attentions. His eyes, wide, full of— full of —

Love. 

“Jungkook—” He stills. 

As you begin to pull back to take him in more fully, you notice a flash of green in the corner of your vision. You sit up suddenly, and Jungkook follows you, worry wrinkling his brow. 

“What—” 

There. Across the snow, a tree stands. Long, thin branches spout from an ancient trunk, arcing down in a gentle curve. Thin, sharp leaves bud from it, glowing green as gems. They look new, as if just sprouted in the early weeks of spring. The tree sways as if caught in a breeze, although the air around you stands still. 

At the base of the trunk, a circle of red-brown soil. Wildflowers and stray strands of deep green pop up. 

How is a tree in mid-bloom in the middle of winter? 

That — and the fact that you are covered head to toe in snow and yet you are dying to get out of all of these layers. 

You had felt out of place before. Like you had missed something, miscalculated the way through the forest. But you didn’t take a wrong turn. You know you didn’t. 

“I thought—” You look around wildly, hand gripping Jungkook’s shoulder. “I thought we went up the hill.” 

“We...we did.” He glances around. “Ah, fuck.” 

“Where are we?” 

He runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “We’re here.”

“Here?” 

“Here.” 

Oh.

“We’re stuck again, aren’t we.” 

“No, not necessarily. If you were the thread back… If you were the thread here…” Jungkook’s jaw clenches as he thinks. “I don’t know. I don’t know. You, you. My first thought is that then there must be some kind of way back with you.” 

“And what if we didn’t go back.” 

He looks at you, surprised. 

“If we stayed?” 

“If we stayed.” 

He blinks for a moment.

This is not your world. This is not your home. This is foreign land, written by unknowable rules, unscraped history. 

It should be terrifying.

But instead, breath once held releases. Exhale. Breath moves in. Out. Without your bidding. It feels like you are watching as your body unravels: jaw unclenching, ribs relaxing, shoulders dropping, tension dissolving in your abdomen. There is a sense that you have been holding yourself to the image of another person, to another’s expectation all your life. 

It should be terrifying. It should feel like the end of the world, your life collapsing around you. 

And in a sense, it is. But rather than being crushed beneath it, you are freed by it. 

Here, you are no one’s daughter. No one’s fiance. You feel as if your past is being scrubbed clean from your skin, your soul. What remains? 

You imagine one day it might be repopulated with things you don’t even have names for: new strength, new passion, new memory. But for now, the neutrality of it all sings in sweetness. 

There is no Namjoon. No impending marriage. No promise of residence to sign away on a dotted line. No mother. No expectant village. It’s just you. The quietness that sings in your chest. And this. Jungkook, still sitting between your thighs, his breath rising steadily as he watches you. Patience, adoration, in his gaze. 

Between you hangs a thread. An unspoken knowing. 

“I don’t want to go back,” you whisper, leaning towards him again, taking his face between your hands. “I don’t want that life. I want... to stay with you.” 

“Really?” a grin splits his face. 

“Really. You,” you press your lips to his grinning ones, once, chastely, before pulling back and staring into the dark warmth of his eyes. “You. I want you.” 

Sat in Jungkook’s lap, it’s easy for him to wrap his arms around you and pull you back down to the ground, letting your combined weight fall into the comforting embrace of the snow. 

The kiss is all hands and teeth, exploration and fire. 

You open your mouth as if to say something, but your voice stills in your throat as Jungkook slips a leg between yours, the muscle of his thigh pressing tightly against your center. Your eyes widen in the shock of the sensation. A gasp slips from your lips, only to catch and transform into a hiccup as Jungkook uses the new position to flip you onto your back. 

You land with a huff, a familiar move from your fighting days, and can’t help the giggle that spills from your lips as memory — and delight — spring up in your chest. Slowly, a smile spreading across his face, he lowers himself down to you, letting his chest meet yours once again and slides his leg close between yours. A shaky breath slips from your lips as his thigh notches between your legs and presses to your core. Even through all the layers of your clothing you feel him. Feel the warmth that blooms from every point of contact, even here, on the longest night of the winter. 

Hands on either side of your head, he keeps himself just far enough away that you can’t reach his lips. When you try to pull him down to you again, he resists. 

“Jungkook.” It comes out as more of a whine than you expected and he grins. 

“What do you want?” 

You don’t have to think about it. “I want you to kiss me.”

He leans down, pressing his lips to your cheek. He holds it for a second and you reach out to grasp onto his arm. Ever so slowly, he mouths his way to your lips, but never quite kisses you.  

“More,” you somehow manage to say. “Don’t tease me.”

His mouth glides along the angle of your chin before taking your bottom lip between his, watching the mix of pain and pleasure in your eyes, and finally, finally kissing you. 

If the last kiss was passionate, this one is slow and burning with the heat of searing coals. Your bodies melt into each other, and he finally comes to rest his full weight atop you. Hands tangling in hair, fingers drawing patterns on the other’s body— when he nudges his thigh against your center, your hips buck up, chasing the sensation. 

Oh. Oh. 

The warmth of the world is too much, the fire in your abdomen feels like it might sear through you. 

“It’s too hot,” you gasp against his lips and he pulls back immediately. “I need this off.” You pull at the collar of your thick outer layer. You’re sweating, dying to get out. “Help me? Please?” 

Jungkook sits back to give you enough space to do so, but he freezes as your hand meets his arm. You could very well unbutton your own cloak. Jungkook knows this. 

Slowly, he reaches for the top button. One by one, he slips them open, revealing the green pattern of your dress underneath. When he gets to the base, he brushes his hands across your shoulders and the cloak falls to the snow around you. 

The air swirls around you and you take a deep breath. 

“I’m still too warm,” you say softly. The implications of your words are clear. 

He swallows heavily. 

“Are you sure?” he asks. 

“I’m sure — I’m warm. I’m burning up.” 

Jungkook’s gaze drifts over the flushed area of your chest. You take his hand and bring it to your collarbone. Carefully, he traces his fingers against it, his touch like a whisper against your skin, trailing down until the stiff edge of your corset. 

“Never saw you wearing one of these before.” 

“I guess you could say my style sense has changed a little since you left.”

“How good is your right jab in this kind of garment?” 

“Perfectly good,” you chuckle, “If you’d like a demonstrat—” The words are quick to die on your tongue as his fingers trace against the swell of your breast. You suck in a quick breath.

“Later. You can show me later.”

With care, he undoes the top clasp. Then the next. 

The stiff garment loosens around your torso. Eyes locked on his, you reach for the hem of your dress, and begin to pull the fabric up and over your head, leaving you in nothing but a thin, white slip buttoned up the front. 

“I want to see you too,” you say, courage rising in your chest. 

He smiles down on you before shucking off his cloak and heavy shirt. At this point, the two of you are swimming in a nest of clothes. 

His chest is covered in new ink. 

Visions of the mountains, scenes from your clearing, a map of the village, a creature you don’t have a name for. 

You reach up to trace over a familiar figure with their back turned. 

“These are new.” 

“They are.” He reaches for your hand, grasping your fingers between his much larger ones. He draws your hand downward towards the center of his chest. There, black ink radiates outwards. There’s a kind of weight to the image that the other one’s don’t have. A depiction of presence, and at the same time empty space. “This one. This one is you.” 

“Me?” 

“How it felt to be gone from you.” 

Your eyes flick up to his and you see it. The loss. The anxiousness. The space of love, emptied, but unable to be filled by another. You trace around the shape with your nail. 

“This is how it felt.” It’s both a question for him, and a statement for yourself. “This is what it was for me too.” He nods, your gazes saying everything that needs to be said. I know. I’m sorry. With a gentle hand at the base of your neck, he guides you onto your back. 

You watch Jungkook’s face as you lay back against the snow. He’s concentrated. Careful. Holding back. 

“You can touch me, Kook,” you say softly. Your chest heaves against the fabric of your dress. “Please, touch me.” 

He grips your waist, spreading one palm wide before slowly sliding it up to cup your breast. He runs a finger over the rising bud of your nipple, hidden beneath a last layer of fabric. You suck in a shaky breath as he circles around it and rolls it between his fingers. His movements are filled with tenderness and strength. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers. 

“You— you too,” you say. You’re not sure how, but every additional moment you spend with Jungkook seems to shine brighter than the last. He, too, seems to glow with a new light as the seconds tick by. 

“Me too? That’s it?” he chuckles. “You’d think five years of pining would give you a chance to think of something more… specific to say.” 

You snort. “And ‘you’re beautiful’ is meant to be the poetic love poem of the century?”

“No,” he smiles. “I’ll be reciting the poetic love poem of the century, later. When I’m a little less… distracted.” His gaze flickers over your body, laid beneath him. 

“You were always shit at poetry anyways,” you murmur, reaching out for him, pulling him down to you. “Maybe it’s best I continue to distract you.” 

“I can get behind that plan,” he breathes against your lips. 

He settles his weight against your body and your legs spread, making room for him to settle between them. When he kisses you, he takes the lead, moulding your body, your movements to his. As the kiss deepens his hips begin to press into yours — and you push back. You can feel his hardening length through the cloth of his pants as he presses it against you. Rather than sating anything though, the movement only inspires a hunger within you, one that deepens with every grind of his hips. 

You sing his name against his lips and he smiles into the sound. 

“I want you,” you whisper. 

“Do you?” 

“Of course I do,” you say. “I never stopped wanting you.” 

“And I, you.” 

You melt against his touch, kissing him with all the warmth of summer. 

“Please, Jungkook.” 

You do and don’t know what you’re begging him for. You know you need him closer, need to feel his skin against yours, his body wrapped around yours, within yours — and yet there’s something else there, a want twisted like a shard of ice with the warmth of your desire. Unnamable. All it cries for is more. All you know to do is to whisper: “Closer.”  

Even though he’s already rid you of the rest of your clothes, he still asks: “Can I take this off?” 

“Yes,” you say, nodding eagerly. 

Bare against the snow, your body reels in confusion of the sensation. The snow, rather than cold, feels neutral against your skin. Feels soft, like a blanket, crumpling beneath you. 

“I should be cold, shouldn’t I?” You ask as he kisses down your neck. 

“I suppose you should.” He speaks between each movement before pulling up for just a second to tell you: “Even after five years I am still figuring out the rules and reality of this world.” 

“Oh—” you say. “Well, I—”

The words are stolen from your tongue as he wraps his lips around your nipple. After circling his tongue around the hardened bud, he scrapes his teeth gently against the sensitive flesh. The pleasure that shoots through you is unknown and yet everything you’ve ever wanted to know. 

“Fuck,” you hiss, your hand scraping up his back to tangle in his hair. 

“They never did mangage to erase that filthy vocabulary from you, did they?”

“Never,” you grin, the word ending in a gasp as he switches to your other breast.

As he continues to grant his attention to your bosom, you let one hand slide down between the two of you until they come to tug at the waist of his trousers. 

“Can — can I?” you ask. 

He lifts his head enough to nod eagerly before returning to licking and sucking at your nipple — only to freeze as you slide your hand beneath the fabric and wrap your fingers around his already hardened length. 

“Keep going,” you urge, hand beginning to pump up and down the length with just enough pressure to tease him. 

“Where did you learn to do that?” Jungkook hisses. 

“You’d be surprised what inspiration you can find in the dusty corners of a library,” you giggle. His eyebrows shoot up his forehead and you know what he’s going to ask. You speak before he can even voice the question. “Books, Jungkook. In books.”

With a secret smile, he lowers his head back to your breast, slipping the overly sensitive nipple into his mouth before letting his teeth graze over it. You too, continue your ministrations, letting your wrist swirl and pump at his length, savoring the way his breath stutters against you, the way his hips pump into your hand until he’s just mindlessly mouthing at your breast. 

“Please — okay, ah!” he gasps. “I’m going to —” 

His much larger hand comes down to wrap around your much smaller one, stilling your movements. 

“That’s enough,” he says, and you stop. A thrill shoots through you at the slight command to his voice. “I can’t, I don’t want—” 

“Then what do you want.” 

He laughs, running a hand through his hair. His cheeks are red with pleasure, eyes darkened by desire. 

“You want to know?” 

You grin, mischief flickering in your gaze. 

“Of course I want to know.” 

He leans close enough that the words ghost over your lips. “I want you.” The words slip so easily off of his tongue and you shiver — but not from any sense of cold. “I want to be inside you. I want to feel you cum around me.” 

You nod, smiling as you tug at the band of his trousers. “Good. Take them off.” For some reason, as if your moans and sighs of pleasure, your promises of your desire — all of that — wasn’t clear enough to him, he seems surprised. “Unless you want me to—” 

He smiles down at you as he loosens and shucks his pants off. 

Cock now freed, he slips between your legs again. The head of it rests against your center and a tremble runs through your body at the new sensation. Both of you finally bare for the other, both of you revealed to the world. He seems to be holding himself away from you, hesitant to impose himself on you. 

You remind him again: “Jungkook, please, closer,” and with your word, he happily slides closer, the length of his cock pressing against your dripping folds. You suck in a sharp breath at the sensation, the head pushing against your clit, sparking pleasure through your abdomen. Still, it’s not enough. 

When he kisses you, you push your hips to meet his, to push his length as close against you as possible. As his tongue flicks out against your lips his hips adjust a little, sliding against you. You both groan at the sensation and when you meet his movements, the two of you move leisurely against each other, letting the warmth build in the space between. 

After a particular swivel of his hips, you gasp into his mouth and his hips stutter in surprise at your pleasure. 

“Jungkook, please,” you whisper. “Fuck me.” 

“Are you sure, we don’t have to, we can—” 

“I want it — I want you, please.” He searches your face. “Don’t make me wait any longer.” 

He reaches down between you, wrapping his cock in on tattooed hand and guides himself to you. When the head nudges against your entrance, you buck your hips up, chasing his cock. 

“Needy,” he murmurs. 

“For you, always.” 

He grins and leans down to kiss you before beginning to slide into you slowly. 

You moan and he swallows the sound like honey. He bites down on his lip, as if to contain himself. He allows you to begin to adjust to the stretch of him before slowly sliding in, looking down to watch as his cock disappears inside you, inch by inch. When he’s all the way in, he pauses, making sure you’re alright. Your walls flutter around him and he groans. 

“You’re so wet — you feel so good.” 

“Please, move, Kook,” you say. The stretch is delightful, filled with warmth and pleasure and something else, too. 

Jungkook pants — not from the exertion of his movements — but from the concentration it takes not to cum inside you immediately, cock spurting burst after burst of cum into your cunt. He does his best to collect himself. 

Slowly, he begins to withdraw from you. He can feel your arousal coating his cock, spilling down the length of it and dripping onto his balls. The pleasure of it is so much he thinks he might drown beneath it. As he picks up his pace, you whine and wrap your arms around him. 

He looks down at you, your eyes squeezed shut in what he thinks is the same kind of pleasure. 

“Look at me,” he says. Your eyes snap open and you take him in. Concentration pressed into his brow, features reddened, desire written across his face. Your eyes lock onto each other as you begin to move as one, bodies speaking without words, singing an ancient song. 

The sounds that slip from his mouth — moans and deep breaths and low words whispered only for you — are the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard. They echo in your skull, they erase everything from your mind. The more his pleasure seems to build, the more yours does too. 

When he lowers his lips to your neck, you bare yourself to him, tilting your head to the side so he has better access to you. His teeth nibble gently at first, but as you urge him on, they catch on the skin. As your breath quickens, he sucks it into his mouth, letting the skin bruise gently before releasing. 

Marking you. Marking you as his. 

He covers your neck and chest in love bites and marks, loving the way the pattern rises to the surface in perfect contrast with your skin. You encourage him, desperate to mark him yourself, but he’s greedy, covering your skin, assuaging you that you’ll do the same, but “Later.” 

Your hand twists into the roots of his long hair — it’s so much easier to do it like this when it’s this long — and you tug a little bit, relishing in the gasp that slips from his lips. You want to tangle yourself so closely, so dearly into this man. More. 

You push your hips back to his, taking him deeper. And he grunts in satisfaction. 

Watching the way you take your own pleasure, chasing it down, defining it so precisely in one moment, so wildly in the next, sends a thrill up Jungkook’s spine. He has seen you in so many forms: presentable, furious, giddy — the list goes on — but never like this. Never so wrapped in sensation, in the present moment. 

You have taken expectation and stomped it into dust. You have shed the skin of what you ought to be, and the person beneath is stunning, glimmering in the light of new life. 

When his fingers meet your clit, you gasp. His touch is gentle and rhythmic and lights a new flame within you. You gasp and buck up against him. More, more, please. As if he can read your thoughts, he picks up his pace, adds a bit more pressure to the circles he draws around your clit. 

It’s like chasing the cobalt light again. It feels like it rises from your chest, tangling with your breath, spreading out into your limbs inch by warm inch. It glows, a sun within you. It has filled your body — filled you until you must be glowing blue with it — filled until bursting—

You swear you see it flicker in the space between you and Jungkook. Blue so rich it’s almost purple, sparking light lightening but lingering with the soft glow of dawn. 

Your pleasure breaks like a bough snapped from a tree, splintering and splitting into shards. You gasp, back arching. Jungkook holds you through it, his thrusts slowing just enough to help you ride your pleasure out as long as possible. As you clench around him, walls throbbing around his cock, he can’t hold on any longer. Finally, finally, he spills within you, spurt after spurt painting your walls white with his cum. 

He collapses on top of you, the weight of him warming you, spilling into you, settling into a clear and crystal glow. You hum in satisfaction — in happiness — and joy burbles through him at the sound of it. 

He tugs you close, tucking you perfectly into his side before pressing his nose to your hair and breathing deep. You’d forgotten about this. The way he used to always do this. 

“Are you smelling me?” You don’t stop the giggle that rises in your chest. 

He stiffens. “No.” 

You twist back towards him, just enough to press a kiss to his chin. “It’s okay. It’s sweet… I… I missed it.” 

He freezes. “You knew I was doing it before?” 

You laugh. “You’re not as sneaky as you think you are, my love.” 

“‘My love?’” 

“...Yes.” you say slowly. “Do you not— should I not—?” 

You fall into silence as Jungkook stares at you. 

“You love me?” 

“I tried so hard not to love you, Jungkook,” you whisper. “I really did.” 

“I suppose I’m just that irresistible.” 

“Shut up,” you laugh. “I’m being serious. Let me be serious for a moment.” 

His laughter fades to a warm smile. “I’m serious, I’m serious. I promise.” 

You lean forward, taking his lip between your teeth and biting down just enough to elicit a gasp from him, but not hard enough to hurt him. “You and your annoying little brain are absolutely irresistible. I spent all this time thinking that if I tried hard enough I could erase you. That I could fill the void that you left with something, someone else.”

You see the ghost of a thought flit across his face. 

“But I can’t. I tried and I can’t and — I don’t want to keep trying to push this away anymore.” 

He’s silent for a moment, taking you in.   

When your name slips off of his lips, it is filled with the kind of sweetness that is absolutely and irrevocably his. “Marry me,” Jungkook whispers, as if the loudness of his voice might break the words he carries. As he speaks, his voice becomes stronger. “Marry me, really. I mean it. I have spent every day of the past five year wondering what I possibly did wrong to live a life without you. And now, now that you’re here with me… I made my mind up the day I got stuck. You’re it. You’re it for me. Marry me.” 

 “I don’t want marriage.” His face falls, but before he can turn away you are grabbing his hands and sweeping them close to your chest, pressing them to your mouth with small kisses. “I don’t want it with anyone. I don’t want to be… had in that way. Not now. But…” You close your eyes. Take a deep breath. “Just because I don’t want marriage doesn’t mean I don’t want you.” 

“There is nothing about you that I could turn into twine to keep in my cupboard,” he sighs against your skin. “You are meant to be witnessed and held and loved — but never captured. Never named. Never made into something understandable.”

“If you had asked me when I was 18,” you chuckle, a note of sadness flitting through your thoughts. “I would have said yes.” 

“I wonder sometimes,” Jungkook says slowly. “If only we could turn back time.” 

You smile sadly. You’d thought it too. Every night, almost. How many times had you played out a dream where you brought yourself back to that last moment together and continued forward, begging him not to go out into the forest without you? How many times had you rolled out a future with Jungkook in your mind: marriage, children, a perfect life. Your mother’s perfect life.

That’s not life now though. 

“We can’t,” you say. It’s not meant to be devastating. It’s meant to be hopeful, but you know he doesn’t feel it that way. You press a kiss to him before you speak again. “We’re not meant to.” 

“I suppose so,” he sighs. 

“Instead, imagine everything before us now.” 

He looks up to you, a slow smile spreading across his face. 

“What do you mean?” 

“A whole life. Nothing to hold us back. No one to tell us how to live, how to be, how to love. We can be anything.” 

“You are already everything,” he whispers before capturing your mouth in a kiss. Everything before this moment seems to blur together as his lips move against yours so slowly they seem to sing, We have all the time in the world. 

You pull him as close to you as possible and deepen the kiss. 

“I love you,” you whisper. No one is around to hear it, but still, you want him to know the words are only for him.

“I love you too.”

The snow continues to fall down around you and you look up into it. You had always loved the snow, but here, your breath still falling heavily, laying beneath it, you understand why. 

When it falls, everything gets quiet. The sounds and movements of the world fade to nothing beneath the touch of the little crystals, as if their soothing coolness answers the neverending reel of questions spit out into the world. In place of the bustle, the world begins to hum, softly, in her own, unchallenged song. It’s the kind of quiet that you could spend the whole rest of your life whispering into and it would be loud enough. The world too, is washed clean. Erased of her sins, of her missteps. Life itself becomes easier, beneath the snowing sky, softer. Easier to swallow. In a way, living beneath a snowy is like constantly being held by the sky. 

Held by Jungkook.

His arms are wrapped around you, and yours around him. His eyes have fluttered closed and his breath moves through him evenly. Even with sleep clouding his mind, his brow is pressed in concern. You take your thumb, smooth out the crease, and listen as he sighs against you. You smile softly. 

After years of wishing for sleep, you hold it at arms length, blinking down at Jungkook as the snow continues to fall like a blanket around you. You don’t want sleep to wash over you in her tender darkness — just yet. There’s a part of you that wonders: if you fall asleep if you’ll wake again, the snares of your former life wrapped tightly around your limbs. If this new world will vanish to nothing more than a sweet dream the moment you close your eyes. 

But instead your mind reels: all that stands behind you in the past. All that stands before you, unknown and unnamed. In the face of all of it, you take a breath. Dragging the thin mountain air into your lungs. It’s always felt clearing to you, with its lightness and the crisp cut to every breath. 

In. Let the coldness settle into you. Out. Let go of the coiled and burning snake in your belly. 

In. Imagine the snow falling, collecting within your body, frost easing the burn of your worries. Out. The snow melts. Leaves you underneath. The reminder that this, this is freedom. The world sprawling and unknown before you, speaking a gentle greeting, a soft hello.