Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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Park Jimin liked the morning shift.

Not because it was quiet—though it was—and not because it meant fewer patrons to greet or shelving carts to process, though that certainly helped. He liked it because in those early hours, the library still felt untouched and undisturbed, as though it were something sacred left to rest.

The lights were dimmed. The air was cool. The scent of disinfectant hadn’t yet faded beneath the smell of bodies and coffee. He moved through it all with deliberate softness—sleeves tugged over his hands, footsteps muffled, hands careful against the spines of books.

The quiet held him like water.

He didn’t speak much at work, for there wasn’t ever a real need to. There were other voices for that—louder ones, charming ones like Kim Taehyung, for instance. The gorgeous, tall brunette was all lip and drama and delighted gasps behind the desk.

Jimin was different—still and precise. He was a background figure even in his own life.

He’d been told he was good at being invisible, which had never felt like a compliment.

But in the mornings, before the heat settled in and the chatter started, Jimin didn’t feel invisible. He felt… dissolved, like he was a part of the architecture. He felt as though he was someone who knew how to breathe with the walls—someone who noticed when the air freshener needed replacing, or when a chair had been pushed out of place.

Jimin liked being needed quietly, and he liked being left alone.

Or  rather, he used to. He wasn’t sure when that started to change.

“Don’t look now,” came a whisper from the front desk, “but he’s here.”

Jimin didn’t glance up. He finished scanning the return in his hand and slid it onto the cart.

“You need to be more specific.” he mumbled, eyes still trained on his work.

Taehyung snorted. “Tall, wears a black hoodie like it’s his uniform. He walks around in those lace-up boots that look like they’ve stomped someone’s heart into the pavement.”

Jimin’s pulse stuttered, but managed to maintain his composure.

“Ah,” he said softly. “Him.”

Taehyung’s grin curved slow and wicked. “Yes, Minie—it’s Library Boy.”

“I don’t have a crush.”

“I don’t recall ever saying that you did.” Taehyung leaned across the desk like a conspirator, his grin spread wide. “But if I were to write an erotica about one of our regulars, he’d be my muse.”

“You say that about the guy who brings you donuts every other week.”

“And if he brings another strawberry glazed batch, I’ll say it again to his face.”

Jimin rolled the cart away without responding, but his ears burned faintly under his hair.

He knew exactly who Taehyung meant.

The boy—man, really—was a regular. He wore dark hoodies that swallowed his frame, jeans a little too big, and heavy boots that should’ve echoed but didn’t. There was something careful about him. Something coiled. He read more than most, but never actually checked anything out. Always poetry. Sometimes fiction. Never nonfiction.

He moved differently than most patrons. Like he was used to being watched, or avoiding being watched—Jimin could never quite tell. He didn’t slouch. Didn’t fidget. He lingered like smoke.

And Jimin… noticed. He didn’t want to. He told himself it was nothing.

He was just a person who occupied the same library, week after week, without ever saying a word. Still.

Jimin’s eyes flicked toward the poetry shelves as he rounded the corner. He couldn’t help it.

The boy was there, head down, one knee drawn up on the chair, fingers thumbing slowly along the edge of a worn paperback.

Jimin turned away before he could be caught looking.

He had never spoken to him—had never even heard his voice. But the boy had left an impression anyway—the kind that clung even when you tried to forget.

Especially after that one time.

He’d been reaching for a book—something slim and high on the shelf—and when he stretched, the hem of his hoodie lifted just enough to reveal a sliver of skin. And above it: the black waistband of Calvin Klein boxers.

It was nothing. A flash. A flicker of fabric and pale flesh and branded cotton.

Jimin had turned so fast he nearly tripped over the stool behind him. He didn’t let himself look again that day. But the image stayed with him anyway.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

The return cart was unusually light. That was fine. Jimin preferred it that way.

Fewer books meant more time to shelve gently—to notice the tilt of a spine, the whisper of pages breathing against each other, the dust curling in untouched corners. He moved between rows D and E like always, his quiet rhythm a kind of grounding. Familiar. Sacred, even.

He didn’t expect anything different. And yet—

Halfway through the cart, nestled between two limp volumes of modern fiction, was a familiar weight. Inferno, by Dante Alighieri.

Not unusual. It rotated often—a favorite among poetry-drunk grad students hungry for aesthetic suffering. But when Jimin slid the worn paperback from the stack, something in his fingertips paused.

The book was closed—but imperfectly. A corner folded. The spine bowed, as if the book was still breathing. As if it had been interrupted mid-prayer.

He opened it to the crease.

Canto V.

The page warped—not torn, but softened by touch. Like it had been opened many times before. Touched the way one touches something holy. And there—slipping loose like a breath from the book’s chest—was a letter.

His pulse skipped. He looked around, casual—too casual. No one spared him a single glance.

The note was folded once, square and thick. Ivory paper, unlined. No markings on the front. Inside, the handwriting was deliberate—black ink, slanted and sharp. Neat, but not cold. There was only one line.

The light finds you even in silence. I envy it.

Jimin blinked, then read it again. And again.

There wasn’t a name, date, nor a signature. No clear addressee. And yet—

His throat went dry. His fingers tingled. The silence thickened, and he turned the note over. Blank.

For a moment, he stood motionless, spine pressed to the shelf, the soft hum of the HVAC like breath against the back of his neck.

A mistake, perhaps. A forgotten annotation. A line from someone’s private journal.

But it didn’t feel forgotten. It felt offered. It felt like the beginning of something he wasn’t supposed to touch—and yet he already had.

Jimin didn’t mention the note to Taehyung. Well, he almost did.

At the desk, he turned the letter over in his hands while pretending to scroll through the new acquisitions list. But the words felt too delicate. Too raw. Too close to something he couldn’t name.

Taehyung would make a joke. He always did. It was how he kept the air light.

But this wasn’t light.

Jimin slipped the paper into the back pocket of his cardigan when no one was looking.

He told himself it wasn’t meant for him. Probably left behind by some love-struck sophomore. Maybe even meant for Library Boy—he read a lot of poetry. Maybe someone had noticed him, too. That thought sat strangely in his chest. Heavy, and not quite jealousy— rather something knotted and unfamiliar.

That night, Jimin laid the letter on his nightstand. He didn’t reread it, but he didn’t throw it away. Two days passed as he tried to forget about it.

But the words—the light finds you even in silence—had nested in his head like a moth behind glass.

By Friday, he was exhausted from pretending not to think about it. He rolled the return cart out like always. Shelved like always.

And then he saw it.

Inferno.

Same copy. He knew it by the faint scratch on the barcode sticker.

His pulse jumped. He hesitated, then picked it up. In Canto V, yet again, another note appeared.

His breath caught. Whether Jimin could still deem this a coincidence, he was unsure. This one was folded smaller, into thirds. He unfolded it carefully, fingers cold.

You hummed while shelving in Row F today.

It was a D flat.

I keep hearing it when I try to sleep.

As Jimin stared at the page, his heart stumbled once behind his ribs. There was no way that could be a coincidence. It wasn’t just a poetic scrap. Not this time. It was observant. Intimate. Specific.

It meant someone had been watching him—closely.

He hadn’t even known he was humming,  but the stranger in the note somehow knew the pitch.

A soft sound escaped his mouth—not quite a laugh, not quite a breath. He folded the letter and tucked it into his pocket.

Then pulled it back out. He read it again.

His ears were hot. There was something wrong about how warm it made him feel. Something worse about how good it felt to be noticed.

He didn’t tell Taehyung until later.

They were sitting behind the desk, passing a bag of shrimp crackers between them.

“Hey,” Jimin said, after too long. “Do I hum when I shelve books?”

Taehyung blinked. “…What?”

“When I’m putting books back. Do I hum?”

Taehyung squinted at him. “Yeah? I mean—sometimes. It’s like… light. Wandering, perhaps? I always figured it was just part of your Disney princess vibe-thing you have going on.”

Jimin blinked. Well, okay. He’s not quite sure about the ‘Disney princess’ part, so he’ll opt to ignore that bit.

 “Do you know the pitch?”

“The what?”

“Never mind.”

Taehyung leaned in, one brow raised slightly. “Why?”

“No reason.”

Taehyung glared at him, and Jimin tried his hardest to keep his face blank. He hesitated, then placed the note down in front of him.

Taehyung blinked, then squinted as he looked down at the paper.

“What’s this?”

“Just read it.”

The brunette picked it up, unfolding it carefully. He scanned the lines once, twice. Then slowly looked up at Jimin with wide, sparkling eyes.

“Oh my god,” he whispered. “Does Minie have a secret admirer?”

Jimin rolled his eyes, but his ears were already pink again, as though they hadn’t already had enough fun heating up just minutes ago.

Taehyung leaned forward. “Are you telling me someone in this building heard your humming and identified the pitch?”

“I—I don’t know, I guess?”

“That’s practically a proposal.”

“Okay, well it’s really not—”

“D flat, Jimin. That’s your note,” he booped Jimin’s nose, narrowly avoiding the blonde’s swatting hand. “And that right there, that’s your stalker.” He pointed down at the note

“He’s not—”

“Oh, he’s stalking. Sweetly. Musically. Poetically. But still stalking.”

Jimin’s lips twitched, but he stayed quiet.

Taehyung squinted at the handwriting again. “Do you recognize it? The handwriting is very neat and pretty.”

“No.”

“This has got to be a woman’s handwriting. It’s too neat, actually. Like—I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve had to decipher men’s library card applications like they’ve written in some ancient esoteric language.”

Jimin snorted at that, shaking his head. “While I agree on that end, I don’t think it’s a woman. I don’t necessarily give off ‘I like women’ vibes.” 

“You never know, actually. A lot of ladies love beautiful boys like you.”

“Well, I doubt it for this instance, Tae.”

“Well,” Taehyung parroted, smoothing the note flat on the counter like it was evidence. “If you die, I’m putting this in the report.”

Jimin sighed. “Thanks.”

Taehyung slid the paper back toward him. “Keep it. Start a shrine.”

Jimin didn’t respond. Instead, he tucked the letter into the pocket over his chest. He didn’t reread it. Not yet.

But later that night, he pulled the letter from his shirt’s breast pocket, and reread it. And again the next morning. And again—quietly, privately—in the storage closet before his shift.

The third letter came in softly like fog.

The day had been a lot of nothing, really. The weather reported perpetual overcast, which meant the majority of students and avid readers would likely remain at home today. It was quiet, just the way Jimin liked it. A slow, peaceful Tuesday thick with drizzle, the clatter of Taehyung’s typing, and the few students who forced themselves into a chair despite the drowsiness of the day fighting valiantly.

Jimin hadn’t expected anything. He hadn’t looked for anything—or rather, something in particular.

But there it was, nestled inside Inferno, just like the previous times.

It was the same paperback copy, placed in the same spot on the rack. He stared at the spine for what felt like too long before reaching for it. The pages fell open like they were waiting. The letter inside was folded into fourths. Cream paper. Ink slightly smudged.

Jimin’s fingers felt clumsy as he unfolded it.

You always tilt your head when reading call numbers.

It’s the same motion, every time. Like you’re listening for something no one else can hear.

Jimin presses his lips together to keep from smiling, his breath caught somewhere behind his ribs. He kept reading.

The other day you helped a girl find her lost notebook. You didn’t ask questions. You just smiled and said you were glad it came back to her.

You’re the kind of person I’d write books about if I were braver.

Jimin stared, then folded the note again with careful fingers, and carried it to the desk like it was a living thing.

Taehyung was chewing on the end of a paper straw and rearranging the display of “Blind Date With a Book” titles. Without a word, Jimin handed him the paper.

Taehyung opened it. Read it once. Then again. A curious eyebrow rose.

“Okay…” he said slowly. “This is new.”

Jimin glanced away. “Too much?”

“No, it’s just… okay, wait—” Taehyung snapped his fingers. “The poetry guy.”

“What?”

“The hoodie. The boots. The silent brooding. Library Boy.”

Jimin’s eyes widened. “You think—”

“I mean, think about it,” Taehyung said, waving the note like it was a clue on a murder board. “This person is clearly here. They notice your pitch. Your shelving habits. Your gestures.”

Jimin stayed silent.

Taehyung leaned in, smirking. “And who’s always here? Sitting quietly. Never checking anything out.”

Jimin swallowed. “It could be anyone.”

“It could be him.”

Jimin took the letter back and folded it neatly. “It’s not.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I don’t want to know that.”

Taehyung's brows furrowed. “Why?”

“Because,” Jimin said quietly, “if it’s not him… I’ll feel stupid.”

Taehyung didn’t press, and for that, Jimin was eternally grateful. He wasn’t in the mood to explain to his coworker why dating was out of the picture for him. Too much explaining why he was different, too many confused eyebrows and ghosted messages. It was all too exhausting of a cycle.

Jimin tucked the letter away with the others, hidden beneath the lining of his desk drawer—corners smoothed flat from how often he’d unfolded them.

And as if it'd become his new routine, he read them all again that night.

Slowly. Like scripture.

Each line pulled tighter around his ribs, laced a little deeper into the hush of his room. By the end, his hands were quivering faintly—not from fear, but from something stranger. Something that made his skin flush beneath the collar of his sleep shirt.

When he finally set the last one down, his eyes drifted to the window. The curtains were drawn, but the glass reflected back the faint ghost of his own face—flushed, mouth parted, fingers still curled like they might hold a pen.

He wondered if someone was out there. If it was him.

And if it was…

Why the thought made his stomach tighten, his thighs shift beneath the blanket, and his breath catch like he’d just confessed something out loud.

The fourth note arrived Friday.

Rain again. Not soft this time—not drizzle—but a downpour that rattled the windows and soaked the edges of returned paperbacks.

Jimin had spent most of the morning running damage control with a blow-dryer borrowed from lost and found.

The library smelled like wet wood and carpet, lemon disinfectant, and something deeper: paper soaked too long, bloated and yellowing.

The return cart squeaked as he rolled it back, unbalanced from swollen hardcovers.

Halfway through, he saw it.

Inferno.

Same copy. Spine still bowed slightly from use. He reached for it before thinking—before breathing.

The pages opened like breath. Like confession.The note inside was folded clean. Pressed flat. A single, small crease through the center. He opened it.

You touched the spine of a book today like it might bruise under your fingers.

Do you know what that does to someone who’s watched you for this long?

Jimin’s heart stuttered.

The ink was darker this time. The handwriting slightly more slanted.

You’re so careful with everything around you. Like you’ve been taught you’re not allowed to leave fingerprints. But I see them. I see all of you. And I want to fall to my knees because of it.

The aisle felt too small, all of a sudden.

He didn’t know how long he stood there, shoulder braced against the shelves, the note trembling faintly in his grip. It had to have been for a noticeable amount of time, because Taehyung began approaching quietly, undetected to the blonde until his breath landed on his shoulder.

“Whoa.”

Jimin flinched hard. Taehyung was behind him, peering over his shoulder at the note in his hands. Jimin moved to fold it, but Taehyung snatched it gently from his grip, holding it just out of reach.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to spy,” he said, though he absolutely did.

“But Jesus, Jimin.”

Jimin looked away, his cheeks burning intensely. Taehyung read it quickly, eyes narrowing at the bottom lines. He paused before releasing a slow, low whistle.

“Oh. Okay. This isn’t admiration anymore. This is—” he glanced up at Jimin with raised brows— “This is like...next-level adoration.”

Jimin rolled his eyes, but he'd had no rebuttal.

“I’m serious. You’re not being flirted with. You’re being revered.”

Jimin snatched the note back and folded it with shaking fingers.

“God,” Taehyung muttered. “Do you think it’s still Library Boy?”

“I don’t know,” Jimin said, voice tight.

“Because if it is…” Taehyung tilted his head. “I’m starting to think you might have a cult forming.”

Jimin didn’t laugh. He didn’t say anything.

He just tucked the note into the breast pocket of his cardigan—the one closest to his heart—and walked away.

Just like the three before, Jimin didn’t return to the letter until hours later.

By then, the library had emptied. The lights above hummed low, softened to their evening setting. The circulation desk sat quiet and abandoned. Somewhere in the back, the heating system kicked on with a distant hiss.

He stood alone between two tall shelves, a warm draft curling past his ankles.

The letter was still tucked inside his coat pocket, the paper now warmed by his body heat, edges soft from handling.

He pulled it free with careful fingers. Unfolded it slowly, then read.

Once. Then a second time. His eyes lingering on the curve of the last word like it held some kind of answer. His breath came out shallow—not from fear. Something closer to recognition. Or exposure—like being seen through a keyhole and realizing you’d left the door unlocked.

It stirred something deep. Something he still couldn’t name.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

The fifth note arrived the following Tuesday. Jimin felt it the moment he picked up the book. It wasn’t heavier, not truly. But his body reacted as if it was—hands slower, pulse picking up. He knew before he turned to the page that it would be there.

And it was.

Canto V, as always.

The note had been slipped between the same lines, folded with familiar care. The edges were slightly worn, as if touched more than once. Almost like a gift that had been wrapped and unwrapped before it ever reached him.

He slid it free.

The ink was denser this time, and there were more lines. More breath between them. He braced himself before he read.

You shelve books like you’re tucking secrets into bed.

I watch your hands and want them to ruin me.

Blood roared in Jimin's ears. He leaned back against the shelf, the edges of the paper brushing his knuckles like heat.

You feel like a hymn I was never worthy of hearing.

I think about how pretty your mouth is.

Not just the shape—but the weight of it. The ache it promises.

I want to kiss you breathless.

The words reached into him like fingers. Something inside him pulled taut, trembling on the edge. His knees nearly buckled.

Would you let me worship you without a word?

Let me pull you apart, slow as dusk.

Jimin pressed his lips together. His heart was pounding.

I’d drop to my knees just to taste your sighs.

And when you come, I want it to be because of me.

Only me.

Jimin folded the note shakily. There was no way in hell he was showing this to Taehyung. He couldn’t even gather the strength to look toward the desk. Instead, he just slipped it into the deepest pocket of his coat and walked—slow, steadily—to the back hallway, where the breakroom lights flickered and the old vending machine hummed like static.

The breakroom was dim. The couch, always slightly too soft, welcomed his weight with a groan of worn springs.

Jimin sat like he was trying to ground himself.

His fingers trembled as he pulled the letter out once more, smoothing the crease as if that might ease the way his pulse surged.

He read it again. Slowly, and with purpose. Letting it settle. Letting it take root.

He shouldn’t have felt this way.

He shouldn’t be getting wet.

But he did.

The ache between his thighs was undeniable now. Not a flicker of arousal—but a slow, steady burn that made it difficult to sit still. He pressed his legs together, just barely, and the sensation bloomed.

There was something wrong with him—something twisted and aching and hungry.

But he wasn’t afraid.
He was tempted.

And worse—

He didn’t want to know who had written it.

Because if he did— he might beg.

The next letter didn’t come on a Tuesday.

Not the usual day. Not part of the pattern.

It came on a Thursday instead—sudden, unscheduled, like a thought that slipped past the mouth before it could be swallowed.

Jimin noticed it the moment he stepped into Row D.

The copy of Inferno stood out instantly. It wasn’t crooked or out of place—but it wasn’t shelved with the precision he expected. The spine sat just a fraction off-center. Not leaning. Not obvious. But wrong enough that his hands were already reaching.

Someone had placed it there in haste.
Or maybe, with intention.

The tips of his fingers tingled as he eased it free from the shelf.

His pulse picked up. He didn’t open it there.

Instead, he walked it carefully to the back. Past the circulation desk. Past the low murmur of the HVAC. Past Taehyung, who was fielding a small crowd of freshmen looking for ghost stories and urban legends.

He waited. Then, ducked into the staff hallway with the book cradled close to his chest like it might speak aloud if he wasn’t careful.

In the shadowed silence of the breakroom, he flipped to that very familiar canto.

The note was there.
Pressed deep into the spine and folded sharply, as if the paper had been held tight between two fists.

Jimin slipped it free, the edges brushing his skin like a spark.

He unfolded it slowly, already bracing for the weight.

I truly think about your mouth constantly.

I want to kiss it until my lungs burn.

I want to fuck it until you forget your name.

He sat down. Not from grace, but necessity. His knees simply wouldn’t hold him.

The next lines blurred slightly until he blinked them clear. They weren’t like the others. The pen strokes were even darker, heavier. Ink pressed harder into the grain of the paper.

What kind of sounds do you make when you’re touched? Are you quiet even then?

Or would you let me ruin you in silence, too?

I dream about your voice and wake up with my hand between my legs.

I can’t fuck anyone else.

I tried. It felt like sacrilege.

Jimin’s hand trembled where it clutched the letter. He shouldn’t be reading this.

He should fold it shut. Throw it away. Walk straight to security. Tell Taehyung. Pretend it never touched him. But despite the warning shots firing off in his mind, he didn’t move.

Not until his thighs pressed together hard enough to ground him. Not until his fingers smoothed the crease of the next line.

I want to kneel between your thighs and beg until my throat gives out.

I want your slick on my lips. I want your scent in my lungs.

I want to worship you the way I was born to.

He folded the letter carefully, his hands shaking.

Then, just as slowly, he opened it again. This time, he read each line like it had been carved into the paper with heat.

Not ink.

Every word curled tighter inside him—coiling low, sinking deeper, until his belly was a knot of tension and need.

The air in the breakroom felt too thin. Like someone had inhaled all the oxygen and replaced it with smoke.

That night, Jimin sat on the edge of his bed with the lights dimmed low, the letter draped across his lap like silk too soft to fold.

Everything else—his phone, his planner, the book he hadn’t finished—had been pushed aside.

This was the only thing that mattered now.
The only thing that felt real.

He'd already read it five times—once during closing, again the moment he walked through the door, once in the bath, again as he brushed his teeth, and now again, in the quiet hush of his room, where the air felt thicker, charged with something just beneath the surface of thought.

It wasn’t fear pulsing through him now.

And it wasn’t guilt, not yet.

But the pressure low in his belly—the trembling warmth between his thighs, the way his lips parted without sound—felt like a kind of reckoning. A slow, simmering spiral into something that wasn’t quite shame and wasn’t quite liberation, but hovered in the space between them.

He stared down at the letter like it might speak again, like it might open on its own and crawl into his hands.

And when he slid one palm beneath the band of his sleep shorts, he wasn’t surprised at how easy it was.
How natural.
How inevitable.

His fingers found slick heat, and he gasped, body jolting softly in place.

He hadn’t even touched himself yet—not properly—but already, he was drenched.

The sound his fingers made when they moved was obscene, wet and eager. The air tasted like it, thick and salt-laced, like he’d already been claimed.

And maybe he had.

He bit his lip, reached for the letter with his free hand, clutching it like it was holy writ. The edges were soft now, worn by his thumb, one word slightly blurred from earlier touch.

I want to kneel between your thighs and beg until my throat gives out.

I want your slick on my lips.

A moan slipped past his lips, quiet and breathless, more plea than pleasure. His hips rolled gently into his hand, slow at first, rhythm barely there—testing, tracing the edge.

His fingers circled his clit with featherlight pressure, and he trembled, his whole body tilting forward like a wave about to crest.

But he didn’t stop.

Didn’t slow.

The letter stayed open in his lap, fluttering faintly with each breath, a whisper against his skin that said keep going, keep going, keep going.

You’re not just beautiful.

You’re holy.

I want to thank you in between every breath.

His eyes fluttered closed, but he forced them open again, needing to see it—to tether himself to the words, to the evidence that someone, somewhere, wanted to revere him with their mouth, their body, their soul.

He slid two fingers lower, slick welcoming the stretch. His head tipped back with a soft whimper as his hips jerked, chasing friction like he’d been starved of it.

The wet sound filled the room again. His pulse roared in his ears. His other hand gripped the letter tight, like a drowning man clinging to driftwood, and he fucked himself slowly—rhythm growing, cresting with every drag of his fingers, every imagined breath against his skin.

Let me worship. Just once.

That line—so simple, so desperate—unraveled him.

He came like it was a secret, a confession torn from the base of his spine, hips stuttering, fingers still, body curling in on itself. His thighs trembled. His breath caught. A soundless cry ghosted past his lips, as if even his orgasm needed to be silent—sacred.

He collapsed back against the mattress, heart hammering, hand still tucked between his legs as if afraid to let go.

And then—

The silence returned.

But it didn’t feel empty.

It felt like a room after prayer. Like incense still clinging to the walls. Like something had been offered up and accepted.

He didn't cry.

But his throat burned, and his chest ached in a way he couldn’t quite explain.

Not grief.

Not shame.

Something closer to surrender.

Eventually, he cleaned himself off in silence. Folded the letter gently, reverently. Slipped it into the bottom drawer of his nightstand, where the others waited like votive candles on an altar.

And to the night, to the ache still coiled in his spine, to the stranger whose name he didn’t know but whose voice was already inside him, Jimin whispered:

“Please write again.”

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

The next letter came two days later.

Jimin found it while shelving—mid-shift, mid-row—with the return cart only half empty and the late afternoon sun pouring through the high windows like warm syrup, spilling gold across the hardwood floors.

The light felt almost holy.
Too bright for secrets.

And yet—there it was.

Inferno.

His hand moved the instant he saw it. No hesitation. No flicker of doubt. He reached for the spine like it was his own name being called.

No glance around. No stolen moment.

Just need.

He slid the book from the shelf with a precision that felt rehearsed, like something in his body had already memorized the gesture.

The note was waiting. Tucked deep within the familiar crease. Folded once, the paper soft with weight.

He unfolded it with steady fingers.

You opened yourself to me.

I can tell. I felt it.

Jimin’s breath caught mid-throat.

His fingers clenched faintly around the edges of the page, as if holding too tightly might burn him—but letting go would mean losing something sacred.

I know you read my words with your fingers buried deep and your thighs trembling.

I know, because I could see the crimson flush of your cheeks as you looked around today. I know that you can feel me watching. I know that you enjoyed that sweet, forbidden release. It feels like a prayer—pressed against my chest, gasping into my mouth.

His cheeks flamed.

Not just from the words—though they struck him like lit incense—but from the memory: the way his body had unraveled, the way he let it, and the knowledge now, that he had never truly been alone.

You let me touch you without touching you.

You let me worship.

Jimin folded the letter slowly, reverently. Not to hide it, but to savor it.

There was no fear this time.
Only the bloom of something richer—something warm and guilty and giddy, like being chosen for a role he hadn’t auditioned for but was born to play.

He shouldn’t feel this way.

But he did.

And the knowing didn’t stop the thrill.

“Did you get another one?”

Jimin startled.

Taehyung stood at the end of the aisle, a stack of donation receipts in his hand and a look on his face that made Jimin’s skin buzz with warning.

Jimin slipped the note into the pocket of his cardigan, eyes fixed on the shelf.

“No.”

Taehyung raised a brow. “Seriously?”

“Maybe they got bored,” Jimin offered, voice flat, posture casual.

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah.”

A pause.

Not long.

Just long enough for something unsaid to ripple between them.

“…You seem different.”

Jimin finally looked up. “Different how?”

Taehyung squinted at him for a second, then shrugged. “I don’t know. Brighter. Or weirder. Or like you’ve been kissed by a poetry ghost and you liked it.”

Jimin rolled his eyes.
But his hand stayed in his pocket, fingertips curled tight around parchment that still felt warm.

“I’m fine.”

Taehyung didn’t push further.  Not really.
But the silence he left behind felt like a thread pulled loose.

In the confines of his dim apartment that night, Jimin didn’t curl beneath the covers.
He didn’t hide.

He stood barefoot on the hardwood floor, hair still damp from the shower, skin flushed from heat that had nothing to do with water. The letter lay open in his hands, catching the golden spill of lamplight like scripture on an altar.

And when he placed it back with the others—his small, growing shrine of sin—he didn’t bury it at the bottom.

He left it on top. Unfolded. Visible.
As if answering.

Yes, I read your words. Yes, I let you in.
And maybe—just maybe— I liked it.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

It arrived during lunch.

Not a letter. Not a book. A bouquet.

Enormous. Overindulgent. Brazen.

Thick-stemmed and lush, bursting with wild peonies, black dahlias, and roses so dark they looked soaked in blood or dipped in ink. Petals like velvet. Leaves curling at the edges like flame.

It looked like a painting. Or an invitation to sin.

And nestled among the blooms, almost bashful in comparison, was a single ivory envelope.

No card. No sender. Just that familiar weight. That telltale fold.

Jimin stared.

The library, usually smelling faintly of sun-bleached paper and wood polish, now swelled with something darker. Richer. The perfume of longing—damp petals and heady sweetness, a scent that clung to his clothes and burrowed into his throat.

His heart was already racing as he plucked the envelope free.

Smaller than usual. But the ink inside—slanted and sharp, descending like blades—was unmistakable.

He unfolded it behind the reference desk, fingers shaking just enough to make the paper flutter.

I dream of your mouth parted in pleasure. Of your thighs trembling. Of your voice—still so unknown to me—whimpering beneath my hands.

Jimin swallowed hard, an ache blooming in his chest immediately. It felt familiar, but heavier now. Sharper.

You’ve undone me.

Every time I breathe, it’s a prayer to the shape of your body. And I haven’t even seen it.

I don’t need to.

I’d crawl across glass just to be near the warmth between your legs. I’d beg to be buried there. Let me be your altar cloth. Let me catch your release like communion wine.

You’ve made me unholy with want.

And still—

I want more.

Jimin exhaled shakily. Pressed the page flat against the desk like it was trying to flee. His vision blurred at the corners, mouth dry.

He didn’t know what struck harder—the reverence, or the filth.

Because both were there. Twisting inside him. Blurring into something that made his chest tighten and his body warm and his thoughts spiral.

He could already feel it again—slick gathering between his legs, his pulse drumming just below his skin like guilt trying to claw its way out.

But this time, it wasn’t just shame.

It wasn’t just desire.

It was something darker.

A truth—or a lie by omission.

Because whoever this was—they didn’t know.

They didn’t know what he was. What he had. What he didn’t.

And soon—they would.

“Holy shit.”

Jimin jerked, the letter almost slipping from his hands.

Taehyung stood two feet behind him, eyes wide, brows raised, holding a takeout cup in one hand and a stack of documents in the other.

“You got flowers?”

Jimin’s heart stuttered. His fingers curled tightly around the paper—not enough to wrinkle it, but just enough to hide.

“I— I don’t know where they came from,” he said too quickly, voice a note too high.

Taehyung stepped closer, leaning in for a better look. “Don’t play dumb. Whoever sent these is either obsessed or wealthy.”
A beat. “Or both.”

Jimin didn’t answer.

He could still feel the heat of the letter against his palm.

Taehyung squinted. “Wait… was there a card?”

“No,” Jimin said immediately.

“You’re sure—?”

“There isn’t,” he snapped.

Too fast. Too sharp. Too late.

Taehyung’s eyes dropped to his clenched fist, the tremble he tried to hide, the flush blooming across his cheeks like a confession made of blood.

“Jimin…” His voice softened.

“It’s nothing,” Jimin murmured, backing away slightly. “Just… weird. Probably a mistake.”

Taehyung didn’t buy it—not for a second.
But he didn’t press. Not yet.

He only watched, frowning faintly, as Jimin gathered the bouquet in his arms like it might shatter if touched wrong.

As the night folded around him like a blanket, Jimin hadn't gone home to sleep.

The letter sat on his office desk—unfolded, unrepentant—lit gold by the halo of his lamp.

He read it again.

And this time, it didn’t feel good.
Not entirely.

Because now the shame wasn’t just about desire. Now it was about deception.

They didn’t know. They didn’t know what was between his legs. What wasn’t.

No perfect lines. Not the expected silhouette.
Just folds. Heat. Slick.
Just a body he’d spent most of his life trying to understand.

The fantasy—whatever it was—didn’t match the truth. He wasn’t who they thought they were praising.

And yet…

Let me catch your release like communion wine.

Jimin choked on a breath.

Not because it was vulgar, but because it was unintentionally true.

They didn’t know.
And still—

He wanted them to.

He sat down at his desk, the air still sweet with the scent of the flowers.

A pen. A blank sheet of soft paper. The tremor in his hand would not stop.

Jimin didn’t try to match the filth. Not yet. He couldn’t.
But he could be honest—careful, deliberate—just enough to let a little light in, to crack the illusion that had been built around him.

The pen hovered, then moved.

You don’t know what I am.

You’ve written me into a dream, but I’m not what you think.

If you knew, you’d likely change your mind about me.

So if what you want is some fantasy—some perfectly shaped thing you can worship without deviation—stop now. Don’t waste your devotion.

I’m not what you imagine, and I’d rather shatter your illusion now than disappoint you later.

He stared at the words until the ink dried, until they stopped looking like language and started looking like evidence. A confession, or maybe an invitation disguised as one.

Jimin folded the page with slow precision, every crease deliberate, as though he were wrapping something fragile. Then he slipped it into Inferno— Canto V, the same hollow in the spine where the others had lived.

He replaced the book on the shelf, pressing it neatly back into place, spine flush, nothing to betray the sin inside.

Then he walked away.

His heart beat hard enough to echo in his throat, and his hands still shook—not with fear, but with a strange, hollow ache.

It felt like surrender.
Like loss—like maybe, in telling the truth, he had given something up.
Or perhaps—opened the door and finally invited something in.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

The book came back the next morning.

Jimin hadn’t expected it so soon. He’d assumed it would take days—maybe longer—for a reply to appear, if one came at all. But as soon as the return cart rolled into view, he saw it: Inferno, resting near the top of the stack, right where he’d left it. The title caught in the sun like an omen. It felt like the world had brought something back to him deliberately.

His breath caught. But his hands were steady this time.

He lifted the book, cradling its weight like something precious, and flipped to Canto V.

The paper was there—folded once, clean and centered, waiting like a heartbeat pressed between the pages.

He paused, not from fear, but reverence. Then opened it.

The handwriting hadn’t changed—still sharp and slanted, still inked in confident strokes—but the first line struck like a breath stolen straight from his lungs.

I don’t know what you are, or what you have between your legs.

I don’t care.

Jimin stilled. The air around him seemed to stretch thin, the hum of the library falling away. His eyes traced the next lines slowly, like the words themselves might disappear if he blinked too fast.

Whatever it is, I want it dripping on my tongue.

I want to be ruined by it.

I want to worship you as you are. No edits. No illusions.

I care that you’re real.

That you exist.

You are my temple.

And I am already on my knees.

His fingers tightened around the edge of the paper. It felt heavier than the others—not in weight, but in meaning. There was no ambiguity left now. No illusion of anonymity or detachment. The veil had been lifted.

They knew.

And somehow—somehow—that hadn’t changed anything.
It had only deepened the devotion.

Jimin let out a slow, quivering breath. His chest ached with the effort of holding it all in: the disbelief, the relief, the overwhelming truth of it.

They knew.
And still, they wanted him.
Not in spite of what he was, but because of it.
Exactly as he was.

And for the first time since the letters began, Jimin felt something that wasn’t shame or guilt or even lust.

He felt seen.

Jimin tucked the letter into his pocket, the edges brushing against his fingertips like a secret pressed close to skin.

For a long moment, he just stood there—palm resting flat over the fabric, the ghost of ink and paper still radiating warmth through the cotton. The words lingered not only in his memory, but somewhere deeper, behind his ribs, where a quiet ache had begun to bloom.

He didn’t know what to call the feeling.

It wasn’t just desire. Not just heat or hunger or even shame.

It was permission.

Permission to be seen. To be wanted.
But more than that—to exist exactly as he was, no alterations. No corrections.

He swallowed, breath thick in his throat, and moved back toward the shelves.

The book slid into place beneath his fingers.
Carefully, gently—like shelving something sacred.

And for the first time since the letters began—since this strange game of devotion and secrecy and worship had started—he didn’t feel afraid.

He felt full.

And watched.

And powerful.

Like maybe… he had always been something worthy of kneeling for.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

Jimin didn’t mean to stay late.

There was yet another storm outside—soft rain like fingertips drumming the roof, thunder murmuring low and long in the distance— nd the campus emptied faster than usual. The fluorescent lights flickered half-heartedly overhead, humming like a hymn no one remembered the words to.

He told Taehyung to go.

Said he needed the quiet. The solitude.

That part wasn’t a lie.

Because the moment the door clicked shut and silence settled thick over the shelves, Jimin made his way to the return cart like he was being summoned.

And there it was.

Inferno.

Shelved backward again—spine turned inward like a secret begging to be found.
His pulse skipped.

Fingers tingling, he plucked it free, flipping instantly to that infamous spot.

The letter was thick. Cream-colored. Heavier than the others. The fold pressed perfectly, the weight undeniable in his palm. He didn’t wait.

Jimin barely made it to the chair.

He read it standing, just inside his office door, before stumbling mid-sentence to landly ungracefully in his seat.

I want to bury my mouth between your thighs and never come up for air.

I want to drown in whatever you give me—let it coat my lips, drip down my throat, ruin me completely.

I’d hold you open and shake beneath you—like the body isn’t meant to survive worship this deep.

I’d take everything.

Every grind of your hips, every gasp, every tremble.

I’d let you use my face like it was made for this.

If you pressed me down, I’d thank you.

If you told me to beg, I’d do it with my mouth full, eyes wet, hands shaking.

There’s no version of you I wouldn’t praise.

Let me learn you by taste.

Let me lose my name to the smell of your skin.

Let me be broken open between your legs like communion bread.

You are holy. And I am starving.

Jimin didn’t move. He couldn’t.

His chest rose and fell in slow, uneven heaves, a flush spreading beneath his skin like candle wax—molten, glowing, shameful in its bloom.

He tried to resist the ache building in his core, but it was too late.

His hips were already moving—slow at first, almost imperceptible—a gentle press down into the cushion of his chair as he sat, legs wide, breath caught. The old vinyl creaked beneath him, the sound too loud in the hush of the office.

Again.

Harder.

He pressed down, trying to relieve the ache, but only stoking it deeper.

Too much fabric. Too much tension. Not enough.

He rutted slowly. Deliberately. Hips rocking forward, his clit throbbing behind the layers, slick already coating the inside of his slacks. A wetness that felt sacrilegious. Divine.

The letter slid from his lap, landing on the floor like a fallen psalm.

One hand gripped the chair arm, the other slid between his legs—palm flat, pressing down, not rubbing, just claiming.

The pressure hit just right.

He gasped—a breathless, bitten-off sound—and pressed harder, grinding into his own hand like a supplicant pressed to the floor of a chapel, praying to a god that had taken form in him.

The chair rocked. The wall thumped behind him.

He didn’t stop.

He couldn’t.

He imagined a face there—below him—lips parted, gaze reverent, body trembling with the privilege of witnessing this.
Witnessing him.

He moaned into the crook of his elbow.
Sharp. Quiet. Dirty.

He was soaked now. Could feel the heat bloom into something reckless, raw. Each rut of his hips dragged him closer to the edge—the verge of something shameful, holy, unrepentant.

And when he came, it hit like a breaking wave—sudden, shuddering, unstoppable.

His body curled forward, thighs trembling, cunt clenching around nothing but want and words and the imagined warmth of a tongue where no one had ever dared to worship.

He pulsed through it.

Soaked through it.

Took it like a blessing.

And when he opened his eyes again, the storm outside had passed.

The rain had stopped.
But the thunder still echoed in his chest.

The part of him that had stayed quiet all these weeks—the part that had clenched and flushed and hidden—finally spilled loose.

“Oh my god,” he gasped, biting the back of his knuckle.

When Jimin had found himself alone in the confines of his room later that night, He fucked himself with trembling fingers while reading the words again and again, the note spread across his chest like scripture, breath caught in his throat as he whispered the stranger’s words aloud like prayer. His thighs shook, head tipping back against the pillows like he could feel the stranger there—kneeling, begging, kissing up his thighs and whispering those filthy, reverent prayers into his cunt.

He came with a whimper.

Sharp. Wet. Silent but shattering.

And when it was over—when he lay there panting, legs still trembling, fingers sticky and thighs damp—he let the letter fall onto his chest like a holy text.

It didn’t matter that he still didn’t know the man’s name. He would answer him anyway.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

The next morning, the library was sunlit and still.
Dust drifted through golden bars of light, each mote glinting like incense smoke in a cathedral.

Jimin moved between the aisles like a ghost, fingertips trailing the spines of books he couldn’t feel. Every glance toward the return cart felt like a silent plea.
Not for another letter.
For a sign.

And then—there it was.

Inferno.

He picked it up with reverent hands, breath hitching.

The paper inside was pale blue. Thinner. More delicate.
But the words —

I can’t take it anymore.

I’ve worshipped you from a distance, devoured you in words, but it’s not enough.

I need to see you.

Please.

If you’re willing—

Come to the library after close.

Aisle R. Where the shelves curve and the light barely reaches.

I’ll be waiting.

I won’t speak unless you let me.

I won’t touch unless you ask.

I just need to kneel.

Once.

Let me show you how devotion lives in flesh.

Even if it’s only once.

Jimin stared at the letter.

His lips parted, but no sound came.
The silence that filled the library was no longer comforting. It buzzed. Thick and close, like static in the lungs. The air felt different now—too warm, too dense—like every molecule had shifted to bear witness.

He looked down at the paper again, the edges trembling faintly between his fingers. Each word sat heavy on the page, a prayer and a plea in one.

The dust floating in the sunlight seemed to shimmer around him. The carpet beneath his feet softened, blurred, like it no longer mattered where he stood—only that he had been chosen.

He read the letter again. Slower, letting the words etch themselves into him like scripture carved into skin.

Come to the library after close.

Aisle R. Where the shelves curve and the light barely reaches.

I’ll be waiting.

A stranger.

In the stacks.

Not behind ink or metaphor, but in the flesh.

Jimin’s breath caught, sharp and tight in his throat.

He could feel it now—the edges of something cracking open inside him. A tectonic shift. Not loud, but impossible to ignore. Like a tide turning.

His thighs pressed together instinctively, and hiis skin buzzed.

This wasn’t fantasy anymore. It wasn’t a dream conjured in the quiet.  Not a game of anonymity and ink-stained seduction.

This was real.

There was a man waiting for him. A soul wrapped in skin and hunger and reverence, asking nothing but to kneel. To see. To praise.

Not touch—unless asked. Not speak—unless permitted. Only devotion, distilled to its rawest form.

Jimin felt like he was standing on the edge of something vast—a cliff, a flame, a divinely carved threshold between purity and ruin.

And all he had to do—was cross it.

No name. No face. Just faith.

The kind that burns. The kind that sanctifies. The kind that demands everything.

He exhaled, long and shakily.

And folded the letter back with trembling hands, the paper soft and warm from his palms.

His heart thundered with fear and knowing.

The kind that lives in your chest when something is about to change. When the ground shifts. When sin stops sounding like a warning and starts sounding like your name.

He pressed the letter against his chest, lips parted, pulse wild beneath his skin.

And somewhere, deep inside—without even realizing it—he whispered so lightly that it barely caught on the air.

Yes.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───

By the time the last light in the lobby flickered out, Jimin had already locked the doors behind him.

He wasn’t supposed to be here. The storm outside had ended hours ago, the book returns were done, the library was closed. But he lingered—coat draped over the desk chair, fingers twitching with the weight of what he was about to do.

He told himself he was just cleaning up. Just shelving a few late returns.

But the letter in his pocket burned like a brand.

Aisle R. After close. I’ll be waiting. I won’t touch unless you ask. I just need to kneel.

He hadn’t responded.

But here he was, walking the quiet corridors alone, his shoes whispering against the carpet like they didn’t want to be heard. Every fluorescent light overhead hummed too loudly. Every shadow between the stacks felt thick and waiting. The hush of the empty library didn’t scare him this time—it dared him.

He rolled the cart through the aisles, but it felt like a prop. His hands stayed loose on the handle. His eyes flicked down every row, searching for movement even as his stomach tightened with dread.

And something else.

Want.

By the time he reached the R aisle, he could barely breathe.

It wasn’t cold, but goosebumps prickled up his arms anyway. The air felt thinner here. Like something sacred had been breathing in his place.

He stepped between the shelves and stayed. Not because he had work left, but because he wanted to be found.

Silence stretched around him, long and low, until the sound of his pulse filled it. Every second passed like a held breath.

Then—

A sound.

Soft. Deliberate.

A single footstep.

Then another.

Jimin froze, one hand still on the cart. He didn’t turn; he didn’t dare. The sound grew closer, not hurried, not heavy—just steady, measured, certain.

He shut his eyes.

The air seemed to thicken, and the hum of the heater faltered.

The shadows shifted.

Then a voice.

Low. Steady.

Warm enough to melt something inside him.

“Don’t turn around.”

Jimin’s breath caught in his throat. He couldn’t have moved if he wanted to.

The voice wasn’t what he’d imagined—not the older academic he’d conjured in lonely moments, not the phantom penitent from his letters.

It was gentler. Smoother.

The sort of voice that made everything else sound too loud.

“Please,” the stranger said again, quieter now, closer. “Just for now. Let me stay unseen.”

Jimin nodded before he meant to. His throat felt too tight to answer.

A pause stretched—fragile, trembling—and then the sound of a breath, close enough that it stirred the tiny hairs at the back of his neck.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

Jimin swallowed. “I… shouldn’t have.”

A faint exhale behind him, something like a laugh buried under reverence. “But you did.”

He wanted to say because of you, but the words wouldn’t form.

The voice came closer still, a whisper that seemed to curl around the edges of his mind.

“You read every word I wrote.”

A step.

“You let them touch you.”

Another.

“You let me see you, even when you were hiding.”

Jimin’s eyes fluttered shut. He could feel warmth radiating at his back now, an invisible current radiating through the air. His fingers twitched against the spines of the books, searching for something solid. The shelves didn’t help; even the wood beneath his palm felt alive.

“Don’t move,” the stranger murmured. “Please.”

Jimin didn’t.

The air behind him shifted—the sound of cloth brushing against cloth, of someone exhaling shakily.

“You liked my letters.”

“They were…” Jimin licked his lips. His voice was too breathy, too soft. “They were too much.”

“Were they?”

He didn’t answer.

“You didn’t stop me,” the stranger said. “You read every word. You let me speak to you in ways no one else ever will.”

The voice wrapped around him. Smoke and honey. Something sinless, saying the most sinful things.

“You let me fall in love with your silence.”

Jimin’s chest tightened.

He nearly turned. Almost.

Then a hand—barely there—hovered near his waist.

Not touching yet. Waiting. The heat of it was unbearable.

“May I touch you now?”

The weight of that question melted down his spine, pooled low and hot in his belly.

Instead of answering aloud, he nodded. Once, and that was all it took.

The groan that spilled from the stranger’s lips was low and broken, more breath than voice—the kind of sound pulled from the gut, too full of hunger to be anything but honest.

His hands didn’t rush to touch Jimin the way most men might have, didn’t seize or take, didn’t dig greedy fingers into softness like it was a right. No. His hands hovered for a second longer—worshipful, trembling—before they finally eased forward and down, curving over the tops of Jimin’s thighs and sweeping slowly along the outer seams of his trousers, like he was tracing the outline of something holy.

Jimin shivered.

The contact was light at first—a brush of warm palms, the gentle press of skin through cloth—but it rolled heat up his spine all the same, blooming soft and thick behind his ribs until he could hardly tell where his pulse began and where it ended. His breath stuttered as those fingers moved lower, then up again, sweeping reverently along the shape of his hips, mapping out every subtle dip and slope with the kind of patience that didn’t belong to someone driven by lust alone.

He felt it in the way the stranger breathed.

Measured. Controlled. Almost overwhelmed.

“You feel…” the man exhaled, barely above a whisper. “Exactly the way I imagined. But warmer.”

He stepped in closer—just enough that the heat of his body kissed the back of Jimin’s thighs and hips, not yet pressing fully, not yet anchoring. His voice brushed the shell of Jimin’s ear as his hands ghosted beneath the hem of his cardigan.

“I used to wonder,” he murmured, voice low and breathy and soaked in awe, “what your skin would smell like after hours in this place. Among all this paper. All this dust. All this silence. I imagined it’d smell like quiet heat. Like old wood and midnight ink and the softness between prayers.”

Jimin exhaled shakily. His eyes fluttered closed.

The stranger’s hands, still slow and careful, slid up beneath his shirt—palms warm and reverent as they spanned across his bare stomach, fingertips dipping lightly into the hollow above his hips. The touch was delicate but anchoring, as though he were grounding himself in Jimin’s body just to keep breathing.

“I didn’t think you’d be real,” he admitted, voice cracking faintly. “Not like this. Not warm and soft and trembling in front of me.”

Jimin’s breath caught.

And then—he felt it again. That inhale.

Slow and deep, taken right from where the stranger’s mouth hovered near the back of his neck. Like his scent was something intoxicating. Something offered. Something needed.

The stranger’s nose brushed the top of Jimin’s spine as he inhaled again, deeper this time, like he was drinking him in—like Jimin’s body, his ache, was the smoke that would cleanse him.

Jimin’s jaw dropped open, silent and stunned.

Because somehow, that act—that quiet inhale, so reverent and heady and unbearably intimate—made something in him clench and burn and drip all at once. The man wasn’t even touching him between the legs yet, and still, his entire body was alive with want.

He was being inhaled like incense. Worshipped without even being seen.

“You smell like desire,” the man whispered again, voice thick with arousal. “Like ruin. Like something I’d gladly fall on my knees for.”

Jimin's pulse pounded behind his ribs, because he still hadn’t turned around.

He still didn’t know what the man looked like.

But his voice —god, his voice— it was like silk soaked in fire. Smooth, controlled, but barely holding back the cracks forming under all that need.

It was young.

Younger than Jimin expected. Around his age, maybe a little older. He could hear it now—in the slightly untrained cadence, the raw edge of reverence laced with desperation. This wasn’t some old scholar with a poet’s pen. This was someone real. Someone sharp and bright and aching—someone who had read him, wanted him, and understood him enough to wait.

“I promised I’d never touch you without your consent,” he murmured, a soft tremble in his throat as he spoke. “I’ll still keep that promise. Even now.”

His hands—still warm beneath Jimin’s shirt—stilled.

“I need to hear it again. Please.”

The breath that left Jimin’s lungs came like a gasp. He was trembling, heart hammering, heat soaked through to the bone. His thighs had pressed together on instinct, slick gathering like evidence, like confession.

The man behind him waited. Hands steady. Voice quiet.

So Jimin nodded.

Then—barely audible, voice thick with want—he said, “Yes.”

He hesitated, then added, with a breath that cracked softly down the middle:

“Please. Touch me.”

The groan that followed wasn’t a sound meant for public places. It was the kind of sound someone made when they were starving—when something they’d only ever dreamed about had finally appeared before them in the flesh, soft and pliant and gasping for their hands.

And still—the stranger didn’t move too fast.

He stepped in close, finally allowing the weight of his body to press flush against Jimin’s back.

Jimin felt it. All of it.

The firm chest. The strong thighs. The full, hard length pressed against the curve of his ass, thick and heavy through both their layers.

The breath that hit the back of his neck was shaking now. The hands beneath his shirt slid higher, curling over his ribs, holding him in place like he might vanish if touched too roughly.

Jimin moaned.

Soft. Shocked. Desperate.

Because nothing had ever felt like this.

Not the letters, not the silence, not even the slick ache between his legs.

This was what it meant to be wanted. Not just for fantasy, but for everything.

“I want to memorize you,” the man whispered, lips hovering against the curve of Jimin’s neck. “With my hands. My mouth. My tongue. Every part of me.”

Jimin couldn’t breathe.

Couldn’t think.

He could only feel.

And they hadn’t even started yet.

Behind him, the stranger made another sound—rough, strained—like he was in pain.

“I’m trying to be good,” he murmured, teeth gritted in self-restraint. “I promised I’d wait for your permission. I swore I wouldn’t take unless you let me.”

He trembled. Jimin felt it. The air between them vibrated with it.

“But please,” the man whispered, like a prayer, like a confession, “please let me have you. Let me worship you properly.”

And Jimin, dizzy with heat and soaked in his own slick, aching for something he hadn’t even seen—nodded.

A tiny motion. But it cracked open the world.

“Keep touching me,” Jimin whispered.

The sound that came from behind him was almost not human—part relief, part hunger, part overwhelming disbelief. 

His hands slid slowly up Jimin’s sides now—over his cardigan, not under—palms wide and trembling with restraint, but still careful.

Then—

He stopped.

A sudden breath. A change in tension.

Jimin blinked, confused—until he realized.

The collar of his cardigan had slipped slightly lower.

And his tattoo—hidden there all this time—was exposed to the low golden light.

A waxing crescent. A full moon. A waning sliver.

Three small phases, inked down the nape of his spine in delicate, silver-threaded ink.

Jimin felt the stranger freeze, then gasp, barely audible.

“Oh my god,” the man whispered. “The moon. You’re—fuck, you’re celestial. You’re not of this world.” He sounded like he might cry, his fingertips barely tracing the shape of Jimin's tattoo.

“Of course it would be the moon. Of course.”

He stepped back, just enough to give Jimin room.

Jimin hesitated—but then, arms shaking, he slid the cardigan from his shoulders.

Cool air kissed his skin. Silence. Reverent.

And then the softest touch—bare fingers, tracing the tattoo with trembling awe.

“I knew you were divine,” the man whispered, voice barely there. “But now I truly see it.”

He leaned in again—his lips, open and wet, brushing the full moon at the center of Jimin’s spine.

He kissed it like it was holy.

And Jimin’s knees nearly gave out.

“You’ve undone me,” the man whispered, breath against sweat-damp skin. “Let me give you everything. Let me fall to my knees for you.”

And still—

He hadn’t touched lower.

Because he was still waiting. Still holding his vow.

And Jimin, heart hammering, throat dry with anticipation, turned his head slightly.

“Take off my pants,” he whispered.

The stranger’s breath caught.

And with hands that shook—not from fear, but awe—he reached around for Jimin’s waistband, fingers gentle as they unfastened the button, drew the zipper down, and lowered the fabric slowly, reverently, over the curve of his hips. A flush spread across his thighs.

Thick silence pressed against his ears.

Then a sound—sharp, desperate. A gasp punched out from the stranger’s chest, as if he’d been struck.

“…A flower, how gorgeous,” he breathed.

The man didn’t sound confused, nor did he sound put-off. He sounded wrecked.

“Fuck—” he whispered again, falling to his knees as if in prayer. “You’re—you’re my salvation.”

And just like that, Jimin felt it too.

He was.

The silence swelled around them, thick and nearly suffocating, broken only by the sound of breath—Jimin’s sharp and shuddering, the stranger’s ragged and reverent.

Completely kneeling behind him now, the man slid his palms gently down the backs of Jimin’s thighs, wide and warm, thumbs spreading to feel every trembling inch of skin. His touch was light at first, just a gentle glide of fingertips, like he was tracing the outlines of a map he’d memorized a hundred times in his dreams.

“You’re perfect,” he whispered, voice thick with awe. “Everything I imagined… but real. Better.”

Jimin could barely breathe. His pants were pooled around his knees, cardigan long discarded, his bare thighs parted just enough to expose the flushed, glistening heat between his legs. He braced himself against the shelf with both hands, forehead pressed to the cool spines of the books as his spine curved low and his hips tilted back, presenting himself without quite meaning to—instinct more than intention.

Behind him, he could hear the stranger’s breath falter again.

“I’m going to taste you now,” the voice rasped, and it shook—barely restrained, trembling with the weight of reverence and hunger. “I need you to know—I won’t stop unless you ask me to. I’ll worship you until you make me leave.”

And then—

Warm breath ghosted over his folds.

It made him shudder violently, his thighs twitching, his chest heaving. The air was already thick with the scent of him—slick and need, flushed heat and open want—but when the stranger inhaled again, slow and deep, as if drawing in perfume straight from the source—

He moaned.

“Fuck,” he whispered. “You smell like heaven. Like truth.”

Jimin opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

He was shaking.

Then the first kiss came.

Soft. Barely-there. Just a brush of lips to his inner thigh, just below the crease where his slick had begun to smear down his leg. Then another, higher. Then the other thigh. Then closer.

And finally—finally—

His mouth pressed directly to Jimin’s cunt.

Jimin’s breath punched from his chest in a wrecked, shattered sound.

He didn’t even have time to plead.

Because the moment Jungkook tasted him, the world broke.

It wasn’t slow after that. Not gentle. Not anymore.

Because the stranger moaned against him—loudly, like he’d just been given salvation—and then dove in with the hunger of a man dying for water.

His tongue licked deep from the start, a slow, firm drag through Jimin’s folds, tasting slick like it was sacred. Then again, this time flatter, heavier, pressing into the slick heat, lapping like he’d forgotten his own name and would never need it again.

Jimin screamed.

His knees buckled, and he barely caught himself on the shelf, fingers splaying wide as he gasped, “Oh my god—fuck—fuck—”

The stranger groaned again. Not from Jimin’s reaction—but from the taste.

“You’re divine,” he rasped, pulling back just long enough to pant against soaked skin. “I could live here—I will live here—fuck, let me stay.”

He didn’t wait for permission.

His mouth was back on Jimin instantly, tongue plunging between folds and circling slow around his clit, sucking softly, then harder, his moans loud and raw like Jimin’s pleasure was his. He buried his face in it—into him—like he needed it to breathe. Like this was church.

“Oh my god—” Jimin sobbed, arching his back, thighs trembling violently as the stranger sucked harder now, tongue relentless, chin soaked.

“You’re shaking,” the man murmured against him, voice low, wrecked, mouth still flush to cunt. “You’re falling apart already. So responsive. So fucking good.”

And then he doubled down.

Tongue dragging deep and slow. Lips sucking, licking, working Jimin’s clit with aching precision while one hand slipped up to spread him wider, thumbs parting swollen folds with trembling reverence, as if this was a gift he’d never be worthy of.

“You were made for this,” he whispered between licks. “Made to be praised. Let me give you everything.”

Jimin sobbed again—his legs quivering so hard it felt like the whole shelf might collapse with him. His head fell forward, mouth open, panting, sweat rolling down his spine. The stranger never stopped. His mouth moved like it knew every sweet spot by instinct, like he’d been practicing in his mind since the moment he started writing those letters.

It felt like devotion.

Religious in its thoroughness. Ritualistic in its rhythm. Each flick of tongue, each pass of lips over heat and slick was a prayer, a hymn, a plea for closeness. Jimin’s thighs were soaked, his body shaking, his moans punching out of him one after another.

“Fuck—oh fuck—I can’t—I’m gonna—”

“Yes,” the stranger moaned. “Come for me. Bless me with it. Show me how much you need this—show me how holy you are—”

His tongue swirled fast and relentlessly, focused on Jimin’s clit, tight circles that made Jimin cry from the pressure. One hand came up to press lightly against his lower belly, steadying him, grounding him, as if to hold the moment in place.

And then—

It hit.

Jimin came with a scream so high and broken it cracked in his chest. His legs gave out. His thighs clamped around the stranger’s face and he kept licking through it, groaning into Jimin like it was his own release too.

Slick poured down his thighs.

The stranger lapped it up like nectar. Like rain.

“That’s it—oh my god—that’s it,” he panted, moaning against trembling skin. “You taste—fuck—you taste like everything I’ve ever needed—”

The room tilted, and a whimper caught at the base of his throat.

His cheek pressed to the worn spine of a book he couldn’t name, and his knees shook where they barely held him up. He tried to move—tried to shift, to say something, to stop the ache that had begun to bloom behind his eyes—but then—

The stranger moaned again.

Low. Ragged. Filthy.

And dragged his tongue up through Jimin’s soaked folds like he couldn’t bear to stop.

Jimin sobbed. Actually sobbed.

Because he was still so sensitive—raw from the first orgasm, trembling from the overload—and yet this man—this voice, this body, this heat—was still there, still pressed between his legs like worship was a compulsion, like pleasure was his only religion.

The stranger didn’t rush—didn’t speak anymore.

He just licked.

Slow and heavy at first—long, languid strokes that started low and ended with soft, fluttering pressure to Jimin’s clit, each one drawing a fresh gasp from his lips, a fresh tremble through his spine. Then—deeper. More insistent. His tongue pressed inward, parting him again, tasting and drinking and moaning like it sustained him.

And still—Jimin couldn’t see him.

Only feel.

Only hear.

Mouth. Fingers. Breath. Praise.

And it was killing him.

His knees buckled again. He reached blindly, bracing a hand flat against the bookshelf as his other arm tried to press back, to cover himself—only to be caught gently at the wrist. A hand held him there, not firm but sure. Not demanding, but requesting.

Let me see.

Let me taste.

Let me stay.

Jimin let the hand stay.

He let the fingers slip splay wide across his belly, hold him open as the man behind him groaned softly and mouthed at his entrance like he was addicted now. Jimin could feel it—the desperation, the reverence. The weight of someone who’d longed for this far longer than made sense, who had built him up in silence and was now trying not to fall apart with his tongue inside him.

The stranger’s breath was uneven now.

He was trembling.

The mouth at his pussy moved sloppier now—wetter, faster—tongue curling and flattening and flicking with need so potent it crackled in the air between them. He licked through slick and aftershocks like they were salvation.

And then—two fingers, sliding in slowly.

Jimin gasped, arching, spine curved like a bow as the stranger buried them deep—knuckles to the hilt, curling up and in like he already knew exactly where Jimin would break again.

“Oh god—” Jimin whimpered, voice hoarse. “I—can’t—”

“Yes, you can,” the man rasped into him, voice raw. “You will. You’ll come again—so hard—so fucking sweet—please let me—let me taste you when you fall apart again.”

Jimin sobbed again. His thighs trembled.

The fingers began to move in slow thrusts, deep and steady. They curled with purpose—precision—as that hot, wet mouth returned to his clit and sucked, soft and greedy, until Jimin forgot how to hold himself up. His body rocked back into it, his hips moving on their own accord—desperate to chase what was already dragging him under.

The sounds were obscene.

Slick. Wet. Sticky.

Each pass of the stranger’s fingers made fresh slick gush out. Each groan into Jimin’s pussy made it worse. And each thrust curled just right—again and again and again—until Jimin was shaking so hard he thought his body might fracture from the inside out.

“Fuck—fuck—oh my god—” he gasped, mouth open, panting now, tears clinging to his lashes.

His toes curled in his shoes. His grip on the shelf went white-knuckled. His body clenched around those fingers like it couldn’t bear to let go.

And still—that voice.

That voice that sounded young. Wrecked. Grateful.

“You’re unreal,” the stranger groaned, fingers working deeper, mouth dragging another moan from him. “You’re divine—do you know that? No one—no one will ever deserve you, not like this—”

Jimin shattered.

It wasn’t a climax—it was a detonation.

His body seized.

A wail ripped from his throat, raw and high and broken.

His thighs slammed shut around the stranger’s head again, but the man didn’t stop. If anything, he groaned—moaned—and kept licking, kept sucking, kept fucking him with those perfect fingers until Jimin collapsed forward, shaking from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet.

It went on forever.

Heat. Clenching. Crying. Soaking.

He came again. Again.

The overstimulation was blinding—but he didn’t tell him to stop.

He couldn’t.

He just sobbed his way through it, trembling, wrecked, held together only by the hand splayed over his stomach, holding him steady like the man behind him already knew Jimin wouldn’t be able to stand otherwise.

And when it was finally over—

When the last flutter of aftershock wrung itself from his spent body, leaving him limp and panting and folded over like a leaf in the wind—

The stranger finally stilled.

He withdrew his fingers slowly, and kissed between Jimin’s thighs once more.

“I’ve dreamed about this,” the stranger whispered, voice still wrecked with awe. “But nothing could have prepared me for you.”

Jimin said nothing.

He couldn’t.

There was nothing left in him. No shame. No fear. No thought. Just sensation. Just heat. Just the slow realization that no one—no one—had ever made him feel like this.

Like his pleasure was the only thing in the world worth living for.

Jimin's breath came in shallow waves, spine curved, body trembling, still leaning helplessly against the shelf like it was the only thing keeping him upright. His thighs were slick, the air cool against flushed skin, every nerve still vibrating with the aftershock of being so thoroughly—devoutly—consumed.

He wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that.

The stranger knelt behind him in the quiet dark, breathing softly, reverently, as though Jimin’s body had just rewritten the laws of god and gravity.

After a few seconds, there's a shift of motion. Gentle. Careful.

Jimin felt warm hands slide along his inner thighs, parting them just slightly to press a final kiss there—just above the place he’d worshipped with tongue and lips and trembling devotion. The soft press of that mouth made Jimin’s knees nearly buckle. He barely managed to hold himself steady.

And as if unable to resist, the stranger leaned in and licked—a long, reverent stripe up the slick heat dripping from him.

Jimin gasped.

It was obscene. 

The soft sound the man made—half a groan, half a sigh—spoke of pure satisfaction. Like he’d tasted divinity and would never forget it.

Then came the sound of fabric—the subtle rustle of something delicate being retrieved—and Jimin blinked down, dizzy and wrecked, just in time to see it: a flash of pale silk, a handkerchief drawn from the stranger’s pocket.

But more than that—

A glimpse of ink.

Just beneath the pushed-up sleeve of his hoodie, where the fabric had ridden higher in the movement, Jimin caught the edge of black tattoos snaking along the man's forearm. The lines were clean, sharp, curling over muscle in a way that made his breath catch.

He didn’t see enough to know what the image was. Just enough to want.

The stranger didn’t seem to notice Jimin’s stare.

He only reached between his legs again—tenderly, respectfully—using the silk to wipe away the mess he’d helped create. The cloth moved gently, cupping him, cradling him, absorbing everything that had leaked down his thighs without a word. Every motion said you deserve to be cared for. To be cleaned. To be cherished.

When he finished, he didn’t throw the cloth away.

He folded it.

Tucked it away into his hoodie pocket like a relic.

And then, with such care it made Jimin’s throat ache, he helped him redress.

The stranger slid Jimin’s underwear up first, easing the fabric gently over sore, tender skin. Then his trousers—tugged them up over shaking thighs and hips, pausing only to fasten the button and draw the zipper up with aching precision. His hands were warm, steady, trembling only slightly as they moved—almost like he was afraid he’d ruin the moment if he breathed too hard.

As the final adjustment was made, the stranger leaned in once more, his lips brushing the back of Jimin’s neck with a reverent sigh.

“Thank you,” he whispered again, as though Jimin had given him something sacred.

Jimin swallowed hard.

“You didn’t…” he began, voice hoarse, breath unsteady. “You didn’t come.”

A pause. The man behind him went utterly still before he let out a breath—soft, stunned, almost scandalized.

“That wasn’t the point,” he said, voice low and earnest, as if even considering it was wrong. “I wasn’t here to be given anything.”

Jimin frowned faintly, still dazed, and murmured, “But I—”

“You let me serve you,” the stranger said quickly, reverently. “You let me touch you. Taste you. Feel you fall apart around my mouth. That’s more than I ever imagined.” His voice dipped lower, tinged with something close to awe. “You don’t owe me anything. Your pleasure is mine.”

Jimin’s lips parted.

He felt dizzy.

Not just from the overwhelming heat of what had happened, but from the devotion in the man’s voice. Like he’d been blessed. Like he would be grateful for this for the rest of his life.

He hadn’t even seen the man’s face.

He didn’t know his name.

And still, the air between them vibrated with something that couldn’t be undone.

The stranger didn’t touch him again. Didn’t kiss his shoulder. Didn’t graze his spine.

He simply lingered there—just behind him—as though trying to memorize the scent of his skin one last time.

Then, softly, reverently:
“Goodnight… my salvation.”

Jimin didn’t move. He kept his eyes closed, one hand still on the bookshelf. He listened to the shift of footsteps. The soft hush of retreat. Each step lighter than the last.

Until, at last, the aisle fell still again.

And the silence returned like smoke.

Jimin waited another moment before he moved—before his legs gave out and he sank slowly to the floor, back pressed to the shelves, hand still trembling against his thigh.

He wasn’t crying, but something deep inside him felt shaken.

Ruined in the most sacred way.

When he finally opened his eyes and looked down at his hands—his wrists, his stomach, the fabric of his shirt still rumpled from being pulled aside—he saw the faint imprint of the stranger’s touch everywhere.

And in the hollow between his legs—

Still slick.

Still wet.

Still full of heat and ache and the ghost of a tongue that had worshipped like it was religion.

He leaned his head back against the spines behind him, dazed.

And whispered, to the empty aisle—

“…What the fuck was that?”

Chapter Text

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

It had been twenty-one days since the stranger touched him.

Not that Jimin had intended to count—not at first—but each day lodged itself into him like a splinter beneath the skin, impossible to ignore. They marked time not just in passing, but in sensation: the hollow echo of absence stretching inside his chest, the low simmer of unsatisfied need that curled beneath his skin, the persistent flicker of memory that replayed itself in stolen moments like an incantation. He didn’t just remember the man—he remembered the heat, the ache, the adoration. The reverent way he touched, like Jimin was something more than human. The weight of his mouth between Jimin’s thighs, the way he had gasped into him, trembling with awe, desperate to taste again and again. The echo of those moans haunted him—soft, broken things whispered like prayer, like surrender, like devotion made carnal and holy all at once.

And then he was gone.

No letter the next morning. No flower. No token tucked between pages. Not even a ghost of ink left behind.

At first, Jimin tried to rationalize it. Maybe the man was overwhelmed. Maybe guilt had clawed its way into his chest and made him run. Maybe it had been a mistake. A moment of heat, not of meaning. He’d let himself believe that, even as his hands hesitated over the return cart, even as his eyes tracked every movement in the library, hoping for a sign—for anything.

But the days dragged on. And with each one, the silence began to rot.

The ache sharpened into something crueler. It wasn’t just absence anymore—it was abandonment. It was desecration. It was being touched like a god, worshipped like something eternal, and then discarded like a fantasy that never mattered. It left him gutted and furious and starved.

And worst of all, no one knew.

Not even Taehyung.

He tried to carry on. To pretend that nothing had shifted, that he was still the same. But his body gave him away—in the restless twitch of his fingers, the way he lingered just a little too long in the religious section, brushing his hands across the spines as if they could still hum with memory. He found himself returning to the place where it happened, feet guided there like muscle memory—the very spot where he’d once been fucked open by an anonymous mouth and voice. Now it felt cold. Echoing. Like a cathedral stripped of its altar, walls ringing with silence.

“You’ve been off lately,” Taehyung said one afternoon, his voice too casual to hide the concern beneath it. “Like… in a constant daydream—a haze? Is that the word? But like, not in a good way. Did something happen?”

Jimin looked up from where he was re-shelving a collection of essays and offered the smallest shrug, keeping his expression smooth. “Just tired.”

But inside, he was unraveling.

Then something caught the corner of his eye—a glimpse.

It happened in an instant, so fast Jimin nearly convinced himself he imagined it. He was at the reference desk, halfway through scanning a stack of returns, when someone passed by the fantasy shelves and caught his peripheral vision—tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a thin hoodie with the sleeves pushed to the elbows. It was nothing unusual. Just a patron.

But when the man reached for a hardcover near the top shelf, the fabric of his sleeve rode up—just an inch—and Jimin froze.

There. Along the inside of his arm. A tattoo.

Not clearly visible. Not detailed. But enough —just enough—to send a jolt through Jimin’s chest, like a thunderclap splitting open the sky. Lines he couldn’t quite make out. A shape half-familiar. Something about it rang inside him like a bell.

His breath caught. His pulse stuttered.

It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. Library Boy? The same man he’d crushed on quietly, admired from afar in the quiet way only a librarian could? The one who asked for fantasy titles with a shy smile and smelled faintly of clean wood and old cologne?

But now, in that sliver of skin—that glimpse of ink—Jimin’s memory blurred: the strength of arms around him, the way fingers felt against his hips, the way that voice had groaned into his neck like it was all too much for him.

It was probably a coincidence.

It had to be.

But something inside him—primal, furious, wanting—uncoiled like a whip.

He turned sharply and fled behind the stacks, heart slamming like a drumbeat, thighs pressed together as if that could do anything to cage the fire inside.

He hated himself for hoping.

For wanting.

For aching like this.

For waiting—twenty-one goddamn days.

And what had he gotten? Nothing. Not a word. Not a trace. As if that night—that sacred, filthy night—had never happened at all.

No. No more.

That night, long after the library had closed and Taehyung had gone home, Jimin sat alone behind the desk, elbows braced on the worn wood, a blank sheet of paper before him like a confessional page. He stared at it for a long time, fingers curled tight around a pen, throat dry, heart bruised with silence.

It hurt to write.

It felt like swallowing pride—like setting fire to his own altar just to see if anyone would come running.

But still, the words came.

They weren’t soft. They weren’t romantic. They were carved like scripture, blunt and brutal and heavy with demand.

Come back to me.

Is this how you show your devotion to your god?

You defile them and then abandon them?

When it was done, he stared at it— thighs clenched, face hot with fury and humiliation and the sharp-edged thrill of it.

It wasn’t a plea.

It was judgment.

He folded the letter with aching precision, slipped it into his pocket like a curse, and moved through the darkened stacks until he reached the one he’d chosen— Dante’s Inferno, of course. Canto V. The old page. The sacred number.

His fingers lingered on the spine for a moment —then he opened it, slipped the letter into place, and returned the book to the shelf like it was a ritual offering.

Except this time, he wasn’t offering forgiveness.

He was offering consequences.

And as he turned to leave, the bracelet at his wrist caught the light—gold, gleaming, a symbol of everything he still didn’t understand.

He walked out of the library without looking back.

But alone in his apartment, curled into bed with his thighs pressed together and his eyes wide open in the dark, he whispered into the stillness, into the weight of silence that had become unbearable:

“I dare you to come back.”

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

He nearly missed it.

The morning had been unusually busy—donation bins to sort, emails to answer, Taehyung rattling off his weekend plans while shelving oversized art books with one hand and sipping a lavender matcha with the other—and Jimin had almost tuned it all out entirely. His body moved on instinct now: carts to shelves, returns to scanners, eyes flickering toward the religious section more often than he cared to admit.

He wasn’t expecting anything. Not really.

Not after twenty-one days of silence. Not after the ache that had eaten through every corner of his resolve.

But then—something. Not in the return cart, not nestled between the usual spines of Inferno. 

It was pure instinct that made him pause in front of the second poetry shelf. That same low pull, warm and persistent, that had always guided him toward the sacred and the profane alike. His fingers drifted—past Eliot, past Donne, past the annotated copy of Inferno he’d handled so many times the spine had begun to fray.

And then—there it was.

Purgatorio.

Tucked in without ceremony. Older print. Spine cracked. Edges curling.

He hadn’t touched this one in months.

But now, something about the way it leaned slightly askew on the shelf— too clean, too purposeful—called to him. He reached out and slid it free, the pages creaking softly as they opened, dust blooming like breath between the covers.

And there— nestled in Canto III— was a single sheet of paper.

Folded once.

No flower. No marking. Just the familiar weight in his fingers, already twitching as he unfolded it.

He didn’t read it standing.

He couldn’t.

He sank slowly to the floor right there in the poetry aisle, the words blooming in his vision like fire, like blood, like something holy unburied.

My god, my god, my god—
I’m sorry.

I didn’t mean to leave you.
You don’t know what it did to me—touching you. Being inside you. Drinking from you like I was parched. I haven’t slept. I haven’t breathed. Not without tasting you again in the dark.

I pass you in daylight like I’m not the man who dropped to his knees behind a library shelf and came undone at your throne. I didn’t think I was worthy of coming back. I didn’t think I deserved to. I thought maybe you’d see it as sin.
That I’d tainted something divine.

But you wrote to me. You summoned me.
And so here I am—on my knees again.

Tell me when. Tell me how.

Let me earn you. Let me serve until my throat is raw and my fingers go numb. Let me make you come so hard you forget your own name and remember only mine.

My god. My divinity. My altar and ash and flame.

Please—Let me be yours again.

Jimin stared at the letter for a long time.

His knees ached against the hardwood. His hand shook around the paper’s edge. His eyes were wide, unreadable, flickering over each line like they held weight far beyond ink.

There was no signature. There never was.

And yet— the voice was unmistakable.

This wasn’t just an apology.

It was worship.

It was longing, guilt, reverence— spun into something darker, needier, the kind of yearning that didn’t just ask to be forgiven, but begged to be punished.

Slowly, breathlessly, Jimin folded the letter.

Slid it into the pocket of his cardigan with the same fingers this man had kissed and held and shaken against just weeks before.

That night, he didn’t sleep.

He lay curled on his side, gold bracelet heavy at his wrist, eyes locked on the ceiling as silence rang in his ears like psalms. His cunt ached—not just with need, but with memory. His body remembered what it meant to be worshipped, to be licked open like sacrament, to be touched like scripture. And now, his skin burned for more.

By morning, he didn’t need to think about it.

He already knew. It was time to write again.

He returned the next morning with a letter of his own.

It was shorter than the others he’d written, but no less potent. No longer biting. No longer cold. There was warmth to the ink now— still sharp, still commanding, but no longer laced with disdain.

Only hunger. Only control.

You may serve.
But don’t presume forgiveness.
If you want to kneel at my altar again—prove you belong there.

He slipped it into Purgatorio, Canto III. And then he waited.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

The rosary came first.

It arrived wrapped in linen, tucked inside a box small enough to fit in Jimin’s palm. There was no return address. No sender’s name. Just the cream-colored box and a note tucked beneath the lid.

He waited until he was alone in the breakroom to open it, heart already kicking hard in his ribs. The note was folded precisely, almost reverently, and the edges were softened by handling, like it had been held. Pressed. Maybe kissed.

For the hands that guided me to divinity. Let them find solace in something worthy of your touch.

Jimin lifted the rosary from its bed of tissue paper.

It wasn’t traditional. No crucifix. No saints or silver filigree. Instead, the beads were jet-black and matte, warm under his fingers, smooth as water-worn stone. At the center was a small charm in the shape of a flame, etched so finely it looked alive. He didn’t recognize the design, but it pulsed like meaning—like the sharp weight of belief just beneath the skin.

He ran his thumb over the beads and swallowed, the shape of his throat aching with something nameless. His other hand clenched tightly around the note.

"Was that in the mail?" Taehyung’s voice made him jump.

Jimin turned, hiding the box behind his back. “What?”

“That little box. You looked like you just opened the Ark of the Covenant.”

“It’s nothing,” Jimin said too quickly. “Just something I ordered.”

Taehyung narrowed his eyes. “Since when do you order prayer beads?”

“They’re not prayer beads.”

“Sure. And I’m a humble librarian with no nose for drama.”

Jimin rolled his eyes, but the note was already crumpled in his hand. His pulse pounded beneath the charm.

The second gift came four days later.

It wasn’t subtle.

It was a basket—massive, lush, and overflowing with impossible things. Rich red pomegranates, figs so ripe they wept, clusters of jewel-toned grapes, dark cherries, soft golden pears, passionfruit split open like lips. Tucked among the fruit were bottles of rare wines, the kind Jimin had only seen in luxury catalogs. Nestled deeper: a few cheeses, honeycomb sealed in glass, dried rose petals, and something wrapped in silk that turned out to be handmade chocolate, dark and bitter.

The whole thing looked like a feast left at a shrine. Like an offering to some pagan god of love and ruin.

Taehyung gasped so loudly Jimin dropped the packing slip.

“Who the hell is sending you Dionysus’s snack cart?”

“I—don’t know,” Jimin lied, and his cheeks flamed.

“That’s not a gift. That’s a coronation. Are you secretly fucking a senator?”

“Taehyung—”

“I’m serious! Should I be worried? Is he married? Dangerous? Tall?”

Jimin didn’t answer. Just pressed his lips together and pulled the basket toward him by the handles, fingers faltering as they brushed over something nestled just beneath the silk chocolates.

A note.

He unfolded it with care, hidden beneath the counter as Taehyung wandered off, still muttering about how he’d never even been gifted a tangerine.

The handwriting was the same.

I ache to feed you. To fill your mouth with sweetness and your body with warmth. To nourish every part of you that aches. Let me give what I can, until you are full—sated, satisfied, spoiled with pleasure. You are deserving. Always.

Jimin folded the note and tucked it into his cardigan, his fingers brushing the earlier one still hidden in the lining.

He didn’t take the basket home. Not all of it. But he did slip the pomegranates and the honey into his bag.

The third gift was jewelry.

Not delicate. Not subtle.

Jimin found the package in his locker, and his hands shook when he lifted the lid.

Inside was a coiled arrangement of body chains—fine golden threads that glimmered in the light, nearly weightless, cool against his skin as he traced them. There were loops for thighs and hips. Chains for waist and chest. Small gold clasps, polished to a shine, glinting like promises.

The letter nestled inside was folded smaller than usual. Inked with purpose.

Your body is already perfect, but I dream of seeing it wrapped in gold. Let me worship your skin with my eyes, my hands, my mouth. Let me kiss the places these chains touch. I want to watch them shake with you when you come. I want to hold them as you ride me, each link singing with movement, with you.

Jimin read it twice before he could breathe again.

He didn’t even hear Taehyung approach.

“Is that—”

Jimin slammed the lid shut so fast he nearly caught his fingers.

“Jesus, Jimin,” Taehyung whispered. “You’re blushing. Is that lingerie?”

“No.”

“It’s a sex thing.”

“No.”

“Don’t lie to me! You’re blushing like a schoolgirl and hiding gold from me like it’s cursed treasure!”

Jimin bit his cheek and said nothing. Taehyung crossed his arms.

“You know I’ll find out, right? You know I’m an Aries and a meddler. This isn't over.”

Jimin waited until Taehyung left to peek into the box again.

He took one piece out—the delicate chain that wrapped around the chest and collarbone—and held it against his body. Just for a moment. Just to feel.

His nipples pebbled. His thighs pressed together.

He didn’t wear it to work the next day.

But he didn’t put it away either.

And finally, the key.

It arrived in the smallest box yet.

Inside: a delicate golden chain, and a small, antique-looking key hanging from it. Ornate. Elegant. Clearly not meant for any real lock.

There was no note.

Not until he lifted the velvet lining.

Tucked beneath was a square of paper, smaller than a business card.

This is yours. To wear. To use. When the time comes— You’ll know what it opens.

Jimin stared at it for a long time.

Then, slowly, he looped the chain around his neck.

The key rested against his collarbones, cool and quiet.

But something inside him buzzed like it had just found the lock.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

Taehyung cornered him behind the front desk.

It was subtle at first—just a too-long look, a slight twitch in his brow as he watched Jimin unwrap a fig from its wax paper packaging with an almost reverent touch. The library was quiet, the hum of the lights overhead muted by rain tapping gently against the high windows. The kind of late afternoon lull that usually passed in peace.

But today, the silence felt strained.

“You’re not even gonna pretend anymore, huh?” Taehyung said.

Jimin blinked up at him, fingers pausing over the delicate fruit. “…What?”

Taehyung raised a brow. “Come on. The rosary? The gold? The fucking fruit basket from Mount Olympus? And now you’re walking around with a literal key around your neck like some gothic virgin bride?”

Jimin flinched—just barely—and straightened the papers in front of him like they’d needed adjusting. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Taehyung leaned in closer, voice low but not gentle. “You do. And I’ve tried—tried so hard—not to pry. But it’s getting weird, Jimin. You’re not sleeping. You’re not eating. You walk around with your head somewhere else, and don’t think I haven’t noticed you checking the return cart like it’s the fucking Ark of the Covenant.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” Taehyung snapped. “You’ve been weird for weeks, and now you’re collecting anonymous love offerings like some decadent little deity. And the worst part?” He paused. “You’re glowing.”

Jimin’s breath caught.

Taehyung’s gaze softened, only slightly. “I mean it. You’re… flushed. Open. Like whatever’s happening is giving you something you didn’t even know you were starving for.”

Jimin turned away. “So what if it is?”

“Jimin.”

“No.” His voice was sharper now—a hiss, low and crackling with heat. “Don’t ruin this for me, Tae.”

Taehyung froze.

“I don’t need your concern. Not now. Not when—” He swallowed hard, eyes wide and blazing. “Not when I finally feel seen.”

The words hung heavy between them. Like incense smoke. Like confession.

Taehyung backed up a step. “Okay,” he said quietly. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

Jimin looked away, chest rising and falling too fast.

Taehyung lingered for a beat longer, then turned, his footsteps soft as he moved back toward the sorting cart, giving Jimin the space he’d asked for.

But not before glancing back once, eyes unreadable.

And Jimin—Jimin gripped the edge of the desk with shaking hands, the key cold against his chest, and tried not to drown in the swell of it all:

The gifts. The longing. The worship. The weight of being wanted like this.

Like he was something divine.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

The night he decided to take the photograph, the city was quiet.

Too quiet.

Rain had passed hours ago, leaving the air heavy and damp. The streetlight outside his apartment window glowed through the film of condensation, painting gold streaks across the floorboards. Jimin stood there for a long time—naked, shuddering faintly, the cool air licking over his skin as if testing his resolve.

The jewelry lay before him on the bed like offerings.

The body chains. The golden waistpiece. The key.

He touched each one slowly, reverently, like a priest blessing relics before mass. The metal was cold at first, shocking against his skin, but the longer he handled it the warmer it became—absorbing his heat, his pulse, his intent. When he finally slipped the chains on, they felt alive. The strands draped across his collarbones and ribs, kissed his stomach, looped around his hips until every breath he took made them glint faintly in the low light.

He wasn’t sure when worship had become reflection—when he stopped feeling like a man and started feeling like something carved from desire itself. Each ring of gold clung to him, every charm pressed into his flesh until the pattern of it burned there, beautiful and obscene.

He looked in the mirror.

The man staring back was unrecognizable. His lips were parted, eyes dark, chest rising slow and deliberate as if each breath was a confession. The key at his throat gleamed like a mark of ownership—or divinity. He couldn’t tell which anymore.

His hands moved on their own.

One slipped up to cradle the key. The other drifted lower, brushing over the chain that circled his waist, following its line down to the dip of his stomach, to the place where it pooled into the hollow between his thighs.

He gasped.

It felt holy—the cool drag of metal against heat, the sound of his breath catching in the silence. For a moment he imagined the stranger’s voice—the whisper, the plea, my god, my divinity, my sanctum and flame—and his knees nearly buckled.

That was when he reached for the Polaroid.

He’d left it on the dresser weeks ago, a remnant of something ordinary—parties, friends, normal life. But tonight it felt like ritual. He set it up carefully, angled toward the mirror, and stepped back until his reflection filled the frame.

The chains shimmered in the lamplight. His skin glowed gold.

He parted his lips. Tilted his head.

One hand on the key. The other low, between his legs, fingers ghosting over slick heat just enough to make the jewelry sway slightly .

The camera clicked.

The flash was brief, white, silent—a burst of light like revelation.

When the film slid out, Jimin caught it by the edge, heart pounding so hard he thought it might bruise his ribs. The image developed slowly, colors bleeding into shape: skin, gold, the faint outline of his hand. The anonymity of it made it worse—the face blurred just enough to remain untouchable, unknowable.

He stared at it until his breathing slowed.

Then, with a trembling hand, he took a pen from his desk and scrawled along the white border:

Still hungry?

He pressed his lips to the corner of the photograph—a kiss instead of a seal—and slid it into an envelope along with a small scrap of paper, the ink bleeding slightly where his fingers still gripped like a lifeline.

You begged for mercy.

I will consider granting it just to you.

He left before dawn.

The library was still dark, the world outside muffled in fog. His heels clicked softly against the tile as he moved through the stacks, the key at his throat cool against his skin beneath his shirt. Every sound—the echo of his steps, the creak of the return cart—seemed amplified, as if the building itself was holding its breath.

He reached the shelf without hesitation.

Purgatorio.

The spine was cracked, the cover familiar. He pulled it open to the canto that had been waiting for him all along and slipped the envelope inside, pressing the page flat with careful fingers.

Then he paused.

For a single heartbeat, he imagined the moment the stranger would find it—how those hands, those gentle, reverent hands, would lift the photograph from the paper like it was a sacred artifact. How his breath would falter. How his body would ache. How he would kneel again.

The thought made Jimin’s lips curl into a faint, dangerous smile.

He closed the book, slid it back into place, and whispered to the quiet stacks,

“Let’s see how far your faith can go.”

Then he turned and left, the sound of the key at his chest brushing softly against the fabric of his shirt—the only sound left in the still, waiting dark.

The moment he left the library, the panic began to bloom.

It was small at first—just a pulse of unease beneath his ribs, easy to ignore as the morning wind slid down the back of his neck. But as he crossed the quad, the feeling grew sharper, spreading like static under his skin.

The image of the book haunted him. Purgatorio. Sitting there under the muted library lights, the envelope tucked inside like sin bound in scripture. He could see it too clearly—someone else finding it, some unsuspecting student or colleague flipping to that page and seeing him.

Naked.

Bound in gold.

Eyes heavy with want.

The thought made his stomach twist violently.

By the time he reached home, his hands had barely begun to settle. He tried to tell himself it would be fine—that no one ever read Dante this early in the semester, that the morning staff would overlook it, that it would sit there untouched until the right hands found it.

But he didn’t sleep that night. Not really.

Every creak of the building made him flinch. Every passing car made his heart jump.

What if Taehyung saw it?

What if he didn’t?

He spent the next day restless, shelving in silence, moving like a ghost through the aisles. He tried to focus on anything else—the quiet rustle of pages, the faint hum of the air vents—but his eyes kept flicking toward the return cart, the poetry aisle, the corner where Purgatorio usually lived.

Nothing.

By noon, he thought he might be sick.

And then, at 4:23pm, when the sun dipped behind the storm clouds and the library lights flickered gold—he saw it.

The book sat on the top of the cart.

Its spine slightly out of line.

Waiting.

Jimin’s throat went dry.

He glanced around first—Taehyung at the front desk, two students whispering near the computers—and then crossed the floor, careful and unhurried, though every step felt like his heartbeat might give him away. He reached for the book, fingers brushing the worn cover, and pulled it gently into his arms.

It was heavier this time.

He didn’t check there. Not yet.

He walked, steady and polite, through the side hallway and into his office, shutting the door behind him before letting out the breath he’d been holding.

Then he opened the book.

The envelope inside was already smudged. The edges soft, fingerprints faintly pressed into the paper like someone had gripped it too tightly. His ribs tightened like they’d been cinched from the inside. His hands spasmed as he pulled the letter out and unfolded it.

The handwriting was… ruined.

Gone were the graceful curves of the calligraphy, the deliberate control. This was raw. Jagged. The ink darker in places where the pen had pressed too hard, streaked in others where the words had blurred—as if written through shaking hands.

The first line alone made Jimin’s pulse stutter.

You shouldn’t have done that. You shouldn’t have shown me that.

I can’t stop shaking. I can’t stop seeing you.

That gold—the key—the chains—the way your hand—fuck—

I can’t breathe.

You knew what it would do to me. You knew I would break. You don’t understand.

I’ve been good. I’ve tried to be good.

I tried to wait. I tried to be patient. But you—you gave me proof. You gave me your body when I wasn’t ready to survive it.

You want devotion?

You have it. You have everything.

My hands shake when I touch a page now because I remember how your skin looked in candlelight. My mouth burns because I can still taste the gold.

You’ve ruined me.

I want to ruin myself more.

Please.

Please.

Please.

Let me see you again.

Just once.

Let me fall apart at your feet. Let me adore you like you're the only prayer I've ever known.

I’ll beg until you tell me to stop.

I’ll kneel until my knees bleed.

I’ll do anything.

Just—Please.

The last please was smudged—so deeply pressed into the paper that the mark nearly tore through it.

He sat there for a long time after reading the letter—too long.

The air in his office felt heavy, pressed close around him like the breath of something living. The fluorescent light hummed faintly overhead, and the golden key around his neck gleamed each time he moved. He could still feel the stranger’s desperation in his hands, the way the words had pleaded, how the ink had bitten into the page like prayer turned punishment.

Jimin read it again.

And again.

Each repetition made something new unfurl in his chest—not pity, not concern, but a dark, low ache of satisfaction. The same kind that came from seeing someone crawl. From knowing their need ran deeper than language could hold.

It should have frightened him.

It didn’t.

Instead, something slow and electric began to coil beneath his ribs—not fear, but power.

Raw, unholy power.

He thought of that night: the chains on his skin, the flash of the camera, the way the gold had burned against him like proof. He thought of the letter now lying before him, written by a man undone. A man begging. A man who would do anything.

And in that moment, Jimin understood what it meant to be wanted beyond reason.

To be worshipped.

To be obeyed.

The thought spread through him like a fever.

He stood, pacing once, twice, the edges of his skirt whispering against his thighs as he crossed the room. Every rational thought dissolved into the hum of his heartbeat. He wanted to see it—to test the devotion he’d inspired, to watch this stranger crawl through the dark for him again, trembling, shaking, reverent.

By the time he sat back down, he was already reaching for paper.

The pen felt warm in his hand. His handwriting flowed slowly, deliberately—not the hesitant scrawl of his early replies, but something smooth and certain, a god writing commandments in ink instead of stone.

To my devoted one,

Two nights from now, the library will be closed for maintenance.

The lights will be off.

The doors locked.

The internal cameras shut down until morning.

If your faith is true, you’ll find a way inside.

Enclosed, you’ll find the master key.

Consider it a test—of obedience, of devotion, of what you’re willing to risk for me.

Come after eleven.

Do not speak my name.

Do not touch until I allow it.

Prepare service.

Be ready for your god.

He read it twice, lips parted, breath shudderinging with something that wasn’t quite disbelief. The words didn’t even sound like his anymore—they sounded larger, like something that had been waiting inside him all along, too divine and too depraved to stay hidden.

He folded the note carefully, placed the golden spare key between its pages, and sealed them together in a plain white envelope. His hand lingered on it longer than necessary. It felt heavy in his palm—heavier than any sin he’d ever imagined committing.

But when he slid it into Purgatorio the next morning, the guilt didn’t come.

Not really.

If anything, he felt lighter.

Freer.

Like he’d finally stepped fully into whatever version of holiness he’d been chasing since that first letter found him.

When he left the stacks, he didn’t look back.

The key was gone by sunset.

And two nights later, so was he.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

The library was silent—so silent it felt like the walls were holding their breath.

Outside, the city hummed faintly—the low, constant thrum of cars and distant streetlights—but within these walls, nothing stirred. No creak of shelves, no whir of the central air, not even the soft buzz of fluorescent bulbs. The lights had been shut off hours ago, and the quiet felt heavier for it.

Jimin slipped through the side entrance a few minutes past eleven, key still warm from the tight clutch of his hand. His pulse thundered in his ears. Every step echoed down the hall, loud and reverent, his shoes striking tile like the sound of a procession.

He didn’t need to see to know where to go.

The air carried him there—the faintest trace of something sweet and unholy: candle wax, wine, and smoke.

The scent deepened as he reached the back of the library, toward Aisle R, the aisle that had long since become something else between them—a memory, a site, a temple.

The door to the maintenance alcove was slightly ajar. The lock had already been undone.

He pushed it open.

And the world changed.

The small nook—once nothing more than a storage recess tucked behind the far wall—had been transformed. Every surface glowed gold in the flicker of candlelight. Dozens of tall, thin ceremonial candles—the kind used in churches, meant for vigil or prayer—burned in wavering rows, wax running down their sides like melted tears.

The air was thick with oil and smoke.

The scent of myrrh. Frankincense.

And something sweeter, sticky, almost cloying.

At the center of it all was an armchair.

He recognized it immediately—one of the old reading chairs discarded from the main floor years ago, worn leather split along the seams. Only now, it was unrecognizable.

Its surface was covered—every inch—in torn Bible pages. Some yellowed with age, others freshly ripped, still smelling faintly of ink and pulp. They’d been pasted down in overlapping layers, sealed with oil that glistened under the flames. Verses clung to the curves of the armrests, the seat, the high back—Genesis, Psalms, Song of Solomon, Revelation—all reduced to an offering.

And on the small table beside it, as though completing the altar, lay a spread of gifts.

A bowl of dark figs and pomegranates, split open, their red interiors glistening like blood. A bottle of wine—expensive, foreign—half-drained, its cork lying in the puddle of its own spill. A silver platter of grapes, blackberries, slices of pear. The air around them smelled heady and ripe.

A chalice stood beside them, already filled.

With what, he didn’t want to guess.

Jimin’s breath hitched.

He took a step forward.

The key around his neck brushed against his shirt and rang softly—a sound so small it felt sacrilegious.

For a moment, he thought no one was there.

Jimin moved farther into the room, the soles of his shoes whispering over the oiled floor. The heat from the candles brushed against his skin, close enough that it felt like breath. When he reached the chair, he stopped. A  man was kneeling beside it—his head bowed, body turned slightly toward the seat like a devotee before an empty throne. The slick sheen of oil caught the light, and beneath it, Jimin could see the faint shimmer of muscle, the rise and fall of breath that shook with restraint.

“Do you see?” he whispered—voice hoarse, low, and almost reverent. “I made it ready for you.”

Jimin let the silence linger until it felt heavy enough to bend the air. Then, quietly, he asked,

“Tell me… aren’t you afraid of damnation? What you’re doing here is beyond sacrilege.”

The stranger lifted his head.

For a moment, the room seemed to tilt. The candlelight caught his face—sharp cheekbones, soft mouth, dark eyes glimmering with something that looked too much like devotion—and Jimin’s breath stopped in his throat. He knew that face. Knew the quiet slope of that jaw, the faint mole near his lip, the tousled hair that always looked like he’d just stepped in from the rain.

It was him. Library Boy.

The boy who sat for hours in the corner table under the skylight, never checking out a single book. The one who sometimes looked up just as Jimin glanced his way, eyes meeting for a second too long before sliding away again. The one Jimin had half-convinced himself he’d imagined wanting, because someone that beautiful didn’t belong to him, didn’t even exist in the same world.

And now—here he was.

On his knees.

“I’m not afraid,” Jungkook said. His voice was hoarse, low, as if every word scraped against the inside of his throat. “Damnation doesn’t frighten me. Not anymore.”

He rose onto his knees a little higher, enough for the candlelight to catch the gold chain around his neck, the small lock resting against his collarbone. His eyes never left Jimin’s. “If it means serving you—if it means touching heaven for even a moment—then let the rest of me burn. My soul, my name, my body—it’s all yours.”

The words landed like a blow.

Jimin’s hand tightened around the back of the chair, knuckles whitening. His pulse hammered in his ears. He should have felt horror, maybe pity—but all he felt was heat. A flush spreading through him, wild and uncontainable, twisting into every hollow of his chest. The image of Jungkook kneeling there, shining with oil, eyes dark with faith, was more than any prayer he’d ever known.

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he whispered, though the tremor in his voice betrayed him.

“I do,” Jungkook said. “You’re my god, Jimin.”

And hearing his name—his real name, not written, not whispered through paper, but spoken aloud for the first time—made something inside him break open.

Jimin took another step forward. Then another. Until he stood directly before him—so close he could see the sweat beading at Jungkook’s temple, the twitch of his jaw, the way his breath caught and shuddered in his chest.

The scent of oil rose between them—frankincense and amber, sweet wine and smoke—clinging to Jungkook’s skin like devotion made flesh. His hands were still at his sides, curled into twitching fists, not daring to reach.

Jimin looked down at him.

This boy—this man— had written to him, dreamed of him, broken for him. Had built a shrine from torn scripture and lit it with flame. Had begged to be his, offered everything, his soul, his silence, his shame. And now he knelt here, eyes glassy, lips parted, body coated in offering.

Jimin reached out.

His fingers found the curve of Jungkook’s jaw, slow and unhurried, like he was tracing the edges of something holy. His thumb brushed over a flushed cheekbone, and Jungkook leaned into the touch as though starved for it—like it hurt to be touched but would hurt more not to be.

The oil made everything slick. Warm. Intimate.

Jimin dragged his thumb lower, past the quivering line of Jungkook’s mouth, then lifted it—shining— to press against the center of his tongue.

Jungkook moaned. Quiet. Grateful.

Jimin’s voice was soft, but there was no mistaking the command in it.

“Your name.”

Jungkook’s eyes fluttered closed. His lips wrapped around Jimin’s thumb like he’d been waiting for this moment his entire life.

When he finally spoke, it was choked, reverent.

“Jungkook.”

A pause.

Then, again—like he needed Jimin to hear it properly. Like the syllables themselves meant nothing until they were spoken in front of him, like confession.

“Jeon Jungkook.”

Jimin exhaled through his nose, something unreadable passing behind his eyes. The name echoed in his chest like a bell, deep and low and final. He didn’t say it back. Not yet.

Instead, he pulled his hand away—slow, lingering—and dragged oil from Jungkook’s cheek down the line of his own wrist. Then he turned, moving toward the chair with regal precision, lowering himself into it like it was a throne built just for this moment, and he the god it had been made to honor.

His legs parted.

His back straightened.

His voice, when it came again, was no longer soft.

“Then show me, Jungkook.”

A beat.

“Prove your devotion.”

The silence between them grew heavy, thick with expectation, until Jungkook moved—slowly, reverently—shifting forward on his knees like a man approaching divinity. The candlelight painted golden arcs across his skin as he lifted his hands, fingers brushing at the hem of Jimin’s robe.

He paused, breath ragged, waiting for permission.

Jimin gave it in silence—a tilt of his chin, a narrowing of his eyes.

And then Jungkook began.

Layer by layer, he peeled Jimin open—slow enough to savor it, slow enough to feel each breath catch in his throat. He pulled apart the soft cardigan, revealing bare skin and gold, chain by chain, finger by finger, as if each clasp undone might earn him grace.

He kissed as he uncovered—collarbone, sternum, the soft plane of Jimin’s stomach, the delicate links of jewelry lying against his skin. His hands failed to steady as he worked the fabric  down Jimin’s arms, moaning softly when he found nothing but panties underneath. The air itself seemed to shudder with him—as though the room had become a church and the altar had revealed itself.

Jimin remained still, expression unreadable, head tilted just slightly as he watched Jungkook bare him like a treasure.

And when Jungkook finally fell to his hands again, he slipped Jimin’s shoes away as if they hadn’t been there to begin with. Then, with his forehead pressed to the floor, his breath hitching in something dangerously close to a sob—his mouth landed soft on the top of his foot.

Jimin flinched.

Not visibly—but something in him stuttered, caught between breath and disbelief, his whole body tensing with a shock so deep it rooted in his spine. He’d expected reverence, yes. Kneeling. Worship. But not this. Not this.

The press of warm, damp lips against his skin.

The scrape of Jungkook’s teeth over the arch of his foot.

The low, reverent moan—like a prayer—when Jungkook sucked his toes one by one into his mouth, slow and shameless, eyes fluttering shut as though savoring communion.

Jimin’s thighs shook.

He hadn’t meant to react. Hadn’t thought he would. But suddenly he was soaked—embarrassingly, shockingly wet—thighs clenching as slick gathered between them, thick and hot and unrelenting.

No one had ever—

No one had ever done this to him.

Not even close.

He watched, helpless and fascinated, as Jungkook took his time—tongue swirling between his toes, mouth sliding sloppily down the side of his foot, lips dragging over bone and skin like each part was hallowed. The heat of it, the filth of it, the devotion— it made Jimin’s head spin.

“This is filthy,” he whispered, barely recognizing his own voice. “It’s depraved.”

But Jungkook only moaned louder. Gripped his ankle tighter. Pressed his face harder to the curve of Jimin’s arch like it was scripture he had to taste.

“It’s sacred,” Jungkook said, voice breathless. “You don’t understand. Everything about you is sacred.”

And maybe that’s what did it—that breathless confession, that unapologetic declaration.

Because something inside Jimin snapped—or maybe unfurled—and in that moment, soaked and stunned and utterly worshipped, he believed him.

He wasn’t just aroused.

He wasn’t just wanted.

He was being exalted. Treated like something divine, something untouchable, something that a man might beg to sin for—just for the chance to kiss the place his heel met the floor.

Jimin let his head fall back. Let his legs fall open.

His other foot moved slowly, deliberately, gliding down Jungkook’s chest slick with oil.

Jimin let it trace over muscle, over ribs and stomach, pausing at the waistband of the man’s sweats—already soaked through, already clinging like a second skin. He pressed down gently at first, just to feel it—the hot, thick outline of Jungkook’s cock beneath the fabric, straining upward with such force that it twitched under the ball of his foot.

It wasn’t just hard.

It was wet.

Soaked.

Jimin’s toes curled.

Even through the barrier of cotton and oil, he could feel the heat—could feel the way precome had already dampened the fabric. When he curled his foot slightly, dragging his toes along the length of it, he felt it leak. The head throbbed against his sole like it was begging to be milked. The heat of it seared into his skin, branding him through layers.

He pressed harder.

And Jungkook choked on a moan—muffled around the toes still stuffed in his mouth—as his hips jolted up in blind, grateful instinct.

Jimin arched a brow.

“Oh?” he breathed, his voice silk-wrapped sin. “There you are.”

The weight of Jungkook’s cock beneath his foot was obscene—too large, too needy, too willing to rut against him without a hint of shame. The fabric squelched softly as Jimin rolled the arch of his foot along the length of it, the oil only making it easier, slicker, filthier. He could feel everything—the twitch, the swell, the trail of wetness left behind with every grind.

“You’re already soaking through,” Jimin murmured, lashes low. “You’re humping my foot like it’s a blessing.”

Jungkook groaned, wet and low and guttural, like the sound had been ripped from somewhere too deep to name. His mouth stayed latched to Jimin’s toes, kissing and sucking and whining around them like they were a sacred offering—like if he worshipped hard enough, maybe Jimin would never take them away.

And Jimin— Jimin watched it all.

The man’s eyes glazed over with reverence. His sweat-covered skin shining in the candlelight. His cock pulsing beneath Jimin’s foot like it might burst if deprived too long.

And he loved it.

He loved the power, the filth, and the sacred shame of it—that he could be touched like this, kissed like this, used like this, and still be adored like a god.

“Keep sucking,” Jimin whispered, grinding his foot again— harder this time, slower. “And maybe I’ll let you come with your face at my feet like the good little disciple you are.”

Jungkook whimpered. Begged into the skin of Jimin’s foot like a man starved, his hips jerking again, body writhing in the dark like he couldn’t take another second of it.

And Jimin—flushed, head spinning with glory— let him.

“Take off your clothes. Now.”

Jungkook froze.

His mouth, still hot and wet around Jimin’s toes, before letting them slip free with a reverent gasp. He sat back on his knees slowly, eyes wide, breath caught somewhere between worship and disbelief. Oil shimmered across his face, his lips still parted, the shine of it clinging to his chin like anointed honey. The light from the flickering candles threw golden halos across his hair, casting shadows across his sharp jaw, his trembling throat.

And then—he moved.

He reached for the hem of his hoodie with shaking hands, fingers fumbling as he peeled it upward, revealing inch after inch of golden skin—the kind of skin that looked sculpted from sun and sweat, stretched tight over muscle and bone. The first thing Jimin saw were the tattoos.

Just like before—in the library aisles, in flashes through rolled sleeves and hoodie cuffs—there they were again. Dark lines. Sacred symbols. Script and pattern and pain, winding over shoulder and collarbone, crawling down his sides and biceps in careful, holy ink.

But now? Now there was no hiding.

Jimin’s lips parted, breath catching as more and more of the stranger was revealed, as if a veil was being lifted from something divine. His suspicion was confirmed—Library Boy. The one Jimin had watched for over a year in silence. The one he dreamed about in moments of solitude, the one he never dared speak of aloud.

His hoodie hit the floor.

Then came the shirt underneath—white, damp with sweat and clinging to his abs like devotion. Jungkook pulled it off with a quiet groan, revealing a chest broad and heaving, dusted in ink and muscle, his ribs rising and falling like prayer.

Jimin swallowed.

He said nothing, but his eyes moved—slow, deliberate—drinking in the beauty of him. The way the tattoos framed his body like armor, the way his nipples pebbled under the air of the room, the way his skin flushed the deeper his shame grew. But even beneath all that… he was obedient. Unwavering.

He reached for the drawstring of his sweats.

And when they came down—Jimin forgot how to breathe.

His cock was huge.

Obscenely thick, flushed deep red at the head, veins running up the shaft like vines up a church wall. It stood heavy against his stomach, the tip already leaking, sticky precum slicking the curve of his abs as though he’d been dripping since the moment he entered the room.

Jimin felt wetness pool again between his thighs, panties ruined, soaked straight through.

Jungkook didn’t speak. He only kneeled there—naked, tattooed, magnificent—with his arms behind his back like a penitent offering.

And Jimin, voice quiet but shaking with something hungry and terrible, stepped forward until their breath collided.

“You could ruin me,” he whispered. “You could destroy me on that cock alone.”

Jungkook’s breath hitched.

“But here you are,” Jimin went on, reaching out to touch his jaw, thumb stroking over the damp, heated skin of his cheek. “Still begging. Still kneeling.”

Jungkook nodded—once, desperate.

“Why?” Jimin asked, tilting his head. “Why me?”

“Because,” Jungkook choked, voice hoarse with restrained need. “You’re everything. You’re not just my desire—you’re my divinity. If I died right now, I’d be holy just for having touched you.”

Jimin nearly moaned.

The power. The reverence. The way this man—this perfect, god-built creature—looked at him like salvation.

And he wasn’t done yet.

Jungkook didn’t speak. He only knelt there—naked, tattooed, magnificent—arms behind his back, thighs spread just slightly, his cock flushed and leaking where it lay heavy against his abdomen.

But Jimin’s gaze… it didn’t stop there.

It caught on something else.

Dangling from Jungkook’s neck, nestled between the curves of his collarbones and the dark ink trailing down his chest, was a golden lock—small, delicate, unmistakable. It shimmered in the low candlelight like something hallowed. Familiar.

His breath stuttered.

It was the twin to the key around his own neck, the one he’d slipped on days ago, the one he hadn’t taken off since—thin and beautiful on its chain, like a secret.

And now… the lock was here. Waiting.

Jimin’s pulse kicked. His fingertips brushed the edge of his own key as if drawn there by gravity, by fate, by something holy and unspeakable.

“You—” he breathed, voice cracking.

You planned this.

You knew.

You’ve belonged to me this whole time.

Jungkook raised his eyes slowly, trembling and wide.

Jimin stepped forward like something moved by instinct, his key swinging gently between them. He reached out—didn’t even think—and caught hold of Jungkook’s lock. Ran his thumb over it. Pressed his fingers to the warm skin beneath.

The lock glinted. Solid. Heavy. Real.

His key would fit.

And when it did—when he connected them, slid his key home and tugged—it would click shut like a collar. Like a vow. Like worship made flesh.

Jimin’s voice dropped to a whisper.

“You wore my lock to our temple,” he murmured. “Like you knew you’d leave in chains.”

Jungkook’s breath shuddered, and he nodded—eyes flooding, lips parting in reverent desperation.

“Please,” he whispered. “Chain me to you. Take everything.”

Hands trembling, he reached up and unclasped it. The chain slithered over his collarbone and pooled in his palm like a blessing or a curse. Slowly, he leaned forward, bare but for his panties, the gold chains clinging to his skin like oil, light flickering across his stomach and thighs from the candles that bathed the room in holy glow.

He didn’t ask. He didn’t speak.

He slipped the key into the lock—

And gasped.

It didn’t open.

It latched.

A sharp click echoed through the room, final and binding. The chain between them shortened, cinched, became taut with meaning. What had once been a mere adornment was now a leash.

Jimin stared, heart thrumming. Jungkook didn’t move—he only knelt, eyes wide, lips parted, chest rising and falling like he’d been branded.

And then, slowly, reverently—he reached for the oil.

He poured it over Jimin’s stomach, drizzled it down his thighs like an offering, let it pool where the candlelight caught it, thick and golden. His fingers rubbed it in gently at first, spreading it in circles, smoothing it over Jimin’s hips, around his waist, up his ribs and across the fragile curve of his belly. Jimin’s breath hitched, then caught entirely as Jungkook picked up the candle.

It was long. Thin. Ceremonial—the kind they lit at altars, pure white wax already warm from the fire burning behind them.

“Say stop,” Jungkook whispered. “Anytime. Anywhere.”

Jimin said nothing. He just tilted his chin up and spread his thighs a little wider.

Jungkook sucked in a breath like it hurt.

Then he began.

The candle slid slowly across Jimin’s collarbone, down the hollow of his throat, tracing a line of warm wax that made his skin shiver. It dipped between the valley of his ribs, skirted around his nipples, dragged across the soft dip of his navel. Jimin writhed. Moaned. Arched.

He was slouched low in the chair now, worshipped down into it—body half-melted into the seat, legs parted and draped over the matching footstool, the entire posture of him lazy and obscene, like some ruinous god waiting to be fed. His golden key still dangled from Jungkook’s chain like a leash, locked into the man’s chain with a click that had left Jimin breathless—a delicate, decadent chain now pulled taut every time Jungkook leaned forward to mouth at his skin.

And then Jungkook dragged it down, lower, between the glittering chains that looped his hips—

Lower still.

The candle brushed over the thin silk of Jimin’s panties. Right over the soaked center. Jimin choked on a gasp, legs twitching around the footstool where they were now propped, bare feet gleaming in the flickering candlelight.

“Please,” he heard himself whisper—unsure who the plea was for, god or devil or man.

The candle dipped again, trailing oil-slick circles around the damp cotton between his legs. Jungkook stared—utterly entranced—his lips parted, eyes flicking up to meet Jimin’s like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“You’re soaked,” Jungkook breathed, his voice gone raw. “You’re—God, you’re dripping, I can feel it through the fabric—”

He pressed the candle harder.

Rubbed slow, tight circles.

Jimin’s mouth fell open. His hips jerked.

“Take them off,” he gasped. “Take them off—”

Jungkook did. With shaking hands, he peeled the panties down, reverently, mouth open like he was witnessing something divine.

And Jimin—slouched in that throne-like chair, covered in gold and oil and sweat—spread his legs, arched his back, and pulled hard on the leash between them.

Jungkook let out a noise like a prayer—choked, wrecked, obedient—and leaned in.

The candle returned to its path, this time bare against Jimin’s folds, dragging slow and deliberate through the slick, circling his clit, teasing mercilessly until Jimin was gasping, trembling, fists clenched in the arms of the chair.

And then Jimin did the unthinkable.

He spread his legs wider.

He didn’t speak—didn’t need to. Just tilted his hips in silent offering, that spoiled-leisure tilt of the hips that turned worship into war.

Jungkook blinked—once, hard—his jaw gone slack, and his breath caught loud in his throat like he’d just witnessed something sacrilegious. His eyes darted to the candle in his hand—long, thin, gold-wrapped—then back to Jimin’s glistening thighs.

“You…” His voice cracked. “You want—?”

Jimin nodded.

Then, sharper: “Do it.”

Jungkook froze, stunned.

Then nodded—wild and eager—and gasped, actually gasped, when the tip of the candle slid past the yawning into Jimin without resistance, like his body had been waiting, wet and open and aching for something to fill it. The man’s hand trembled just barely, before stilling itself. The leash pulled taut between them as he knelt closer, caught between awe and desperation.

Jimin moaned—a real sound now, bitten off and low, muffled behind the back of his wrist. His hips twitched as the smooth wax pushed deeper, and the pressure made his head fall back, eyes squeezed shut.

What the fuck am I doing?

He could barely breathe.

This was blasphemy—beyond blasphemy—a church candle, consecrated and blessed, now sunk into his dripping cunt like it belonged there. No one in their right mind would ever do this.

Which meant that Jimin wasn’t in his right mind anymore.

He was gone. Slipping. Spiraling down some divine drain, oil and want slathered across his thighs, his body no longer his own. He wasn’t human here. He was something more. Something worse.

And Jungkook—

Jungkook was moaning now, too—because of him—gasping praises between kisses as he bowed his head and began to suck at Jimin’s clit, mouth greedy and hot, open and panting as his tongue rolled in slow, aching circles while his fingers fucked the candle in deep.

It was too much.

Too much heat. Too much pressure. Too much worship.

Jimin arched hard against the seat, a sob cracking out of him as his spine bent like a snapped bowstring. He yanked the chain leash on instinct—a sharp, violent tug that made Jungkook groan low against him, the boy’s lips never leaving his clit even as his hips stuttered forward, his cock clearly aching against the frictionless air.

Jimin’s toes curled.

His fingers clawed at the fabric of the chair, and his chest heaved, sweat dripping down his sternum like spilled anointing oil.

And still, Jungkook didn’t stop.

Didn’t stop fucking him open with the candle. Didn’t stop licking him like salvation lived in the taste. Didn’t stop moaning the filthiest prayers into his soaked flesh.

And Jimin—

Jimin realized, as he teetered on the edge of something holy and hellish all at once—

He never wanted him to stop.

The chair creaked under the weight of Jimin’s arch—his body virtually a shrine, arms quivering from the strain of holding himself open. His legs splayed shamelessly, thighs slick with sweat and oil and the wet heat Jungkook coaxed from him with every slow drag of the candle and every suck of his lips.

He was ruined.

Unmade.

His mind barely clung to language anymore, thoughts dissolving into moans and heat and unbearable pleasure. The only thing grounding him was the gold leash between them, stretched tight between his fist and Jungkook’s throat.

“More,” Jimin heard himself whisper—half sob, half command.

Jungkook obeyed like a man possessed.

He slid the candle in deeper—slow at first, savoring it, watching the way Jimin’s body gripped the wax like it had been made for him. The boy’s mouth never left his clit, tongue fluttering against it as if the rhythm were ritual, each stroke a line in a prayer only Jungkook could chant.

Jimin’s moans turned wrecked.

His hips bucked helplessly now, chasing the candle’s rhythm, whining high in his throat when it wasn’t enough—when even the flick of that eager tongue couldn’t keep up with the rising, unstoppable wave inside him.

And Jungkook—holy god, Jungkook—he just moaned with him.

Mouthed praise you, praise you, praise you into the flesh of his cunt between every suck and kiss and gasp.

The candle twisted. His walls fluttered.

Then Jungkook started rocking it. Just the subtlest back-and-forth—shallow and rhythmic—as his lips latched tight around Jimin’s clit and he sucked with abandon, desperate, obscene, so grateful to be here.

It hit like revelation.

Jimin’s orgasm ripped through him like judgment day—spine bowing so hard it lifted him from the chair, every muscle locking as his mouth fell open in a silent scream. The leash went taut again—a brutal pull from his fist—and Jungkook groaned at the tension, shuddering visibly as if being yanked by his god gave him life.

The candle slipped halfway out as Jimin convulsed around it, pussy fluttering and dripping around the wax, his thighs trembling where they framed Jungkook’s head. The boy didn’t dare move. Just kept kissing, worshipping, murmuring mindless, devout nonsense into the mess between Jimin’s legs as he rode the aftershocks—each word a droplet of praise spilled like wine.

Jimin slumped.

Collapsed into the chair, boneless, barely breathing—one arm slung over his eyes, the other still loosely fisted in the leash chain like a god too wrung-out to relinquish power.

His chest heaved.

His skin glowed.

And beneath him—kneeling still, mouth slick, sweat glistening down his tattooed neck—Jungkook stared up at him with eyes blown wide. Ravished. Star-struck.

Worshipful.

The candle still glistened in his hand, soaked with Jimin’s arousal.

He looked like he was waiting for a command.

Jimin slowly lifted his head, lips swollen, voice hoarse.

Jimin barely moved.

His skin glowed under the candlelight, glistening with sweat and oil and pleasure, his chest rising and falling like he’d just survived something cataclysmic. The gold leash dangled from his fingers. His legs still sprawled wide on either side of the footstool, inner thighs slick with wetness and trembling with the aftershocks.

Jungkook hadn’t moved, either.

He stayed knelt, reverent and still, holding the wax taper like it was something sacred. His lips were swollen from sucking, chin shiny with wetness. His breathing was uneven. His cock—flushed, thick, painfully hard—twitched visibly where it curved against his stomach, completely neglected, completely ignored.

His eyes never left Jimin’s face.

And then—without needing to be told, without breaking the spell of their gaze—Jungkook brought the candle to his mouth.

Jimin watched, transfixed, as the boy dragged his tongue up the taper’s length.

From the base of the handle all the way to the end that had been buried inside him, still gleaming with slick.

He licked it like communion.

Long and slow. Lascivious. Worshipful. His eyes never blinked, never flicked away—just stayed locked to Jimin’s like he wanted him to feel every moment of it.

When he reached the top, Jungkook wrapped his lips around the tip and sucked.

Soft, sinful.

A quiet moan escaped his throat—more grateful than lewd, like he’d been blessed by the taste. His tongue flicked out again, chasing every drop like it was honeyed wine, and when he finally pulled back, he cradled the candle to his chest like something holy.

Jimin’s breath hitched.

His thighs clenched around the footstool, toes curling.

His voice was a rasp. “You’re insane.”

Jungkook smiled—slow and dazed and so full of devotion it made Jimin’s stomach twist. “Only for you.”

Then—as if remembering his place—he bent forward and kissed Jimin’s ankle. Then his shin. Then the inside of his knee.

Working his way upward with a kind of quiet, ruinous awe.

Jimin could barely breathe.

This boy—this man—was beautiful. A vision. Every inch of him was cut from stone and desire and lunacy. His tattoos shimmered under the candlelight. His cock leaked freely now, drooling onto the wooden floor without shame. And that goddamn golden lock still hung from his neck—swaying slightly, waiting.

Jungkook is still trembling when Jimin shifts.

His thighs shine with oil. His mouth glistens with sin. His cock twitches helplessly against his stomach, flushed dark and weeping, heavy with denial and need. He looks like something broken open—something that’s been gutted and left bare, eyes glassy, lips bitten, chest heaving with worshipful desperation.

And yet still, still he kneels. Still, he waits.

Jimin steps closer. The chain connecting them clinks lightly, golden and fragile as divinity itself, and when he reaches for Jungkook’s chin, the boy looks up like he’s seeing heaven again for the first time.

“Sit,” Jimin murmurs, voice wrecked but clear, nodding toward the chair.

Jungkook scrambles to obey.

He doesn’t even hesitate—just sinks into the oil-slicked seat like it’s a throne, wide-eyed and reverent, fingers twitching at his thighs as if afraid to touch the very air Jimin moves through. He’s panting now, helplessly hard, cock twitching against his abs, already leaking from the feast of Jimin’s body and the sweat of his own devotion.

But still, he waits.

Jimin’s knees press into the floor like he’s at an altar, palms sliding reverently up Jungkook’s thighs—gliding over the oil and sweat that coats his skin. He’s never done this before. Not like this. Not in worship. Not when he’s the one kneeling—lips parted, breath trembling, gaze fixed on a cock that should be carved into a cathedral wall, not standing hard and leaking between the legs of a man who looks at him like he’s god.

And yet—here he is.

Jungkook is silent above him, but not still. He’s shaking—trembling all over, abs flexing with every stuttered breath, fingers wound in the arms of the chair like he’s afraid he’ll fly apart if he lets go. His chest rises and falls in frantic rhythm, glistening in the candlelight. The golden lock still rests against his throat like a consecrated weight, and Jimin—Jimin still wears the key.

Jimin doesn’t rush. He wraps one hand around the base of Jungkook’s cock, just to feel it—thick and hot and so heavy in his grip, his palm barely able to hold it all. The head is flushed, wet with precum, twitching against the air like it’s searching for the heat of a mouth it knows will welcome it. Jimin strokes once, then again, dragging his thumb along the leaking slit—and watches Jungkook’s whole body shudder, his thighs spreading wider.

He leans in, lips brushing the crown of it first, mouthing at the head before flattening his tongue and licking a slow, decadent stripe up the underside. Jungkook moans—loud, raw, desperate. The sound vibrates through Jimin’s spine like lightning.

He does it again, just to hear him.

Then takes him deeper.

The stretch is perfect. The taste—rich, slightly bitter at the tip but sweet beneath, his own slick still coating the base from where Jungkook had ground against Jimin’s foot minutes before. Jimin moans around him, low and quiet, sinking deeper until his throat tightens—until Jungkook’s cock is cradled in heat and wetness, pulsing on his tongue.

Jungkook whimpers.

“Fuck— my god—” he chokes out, and his hips twitch, but he doesn’t thrust. He doesn’t dare. He grips the chair like it’s saving him from damnation and throws his head back, mouth parted in a silent cry.

Jimin bobs his head slowly, hollowing his cheeks, letting drool slip down his chin. He pulls back with a pop, catches his breath, then sinks again—deeper, wetter, slower, dragging the tip against the back of his throat before swallowing around it. He listens to every sound Jungkook makes like a symphony, hungry for more.

He stays there for long minutes—worshipping with mouth and tongue and spit, until Jungkook is shaking, until his thighs tremble and his voice breaks on a sob.

When he pulls off, he does it slow, watching Jungkook’s cock slide free, glossy with saliva and twitching from the attention.

“Please,” Jungkook whispers, voice hoarse. “Please, I’m— I’ll die—”

“You’ll wait,” Jimin says softly.

He rises—slow and deliberate—and stands right in front of Jungkook, practically hovering, his slick thighs bracketing Jungkook’s trembling legs. 

Jimin doesn’t sit right away.

He makes Jungkook beg.

Standing before him like an altar come to life—body aglow in flickering candlelight, oil sheen casting gold across the curves of his chest, his thighs, the elegant dip of his waist—he watches the trembling man on his knees with a gaze that could ruin saints.

“Beg,” Jimin whispers, voice lazy and thick, like syrup over heat. “You want to fuck your god? Use your voice.”

Jungkook’s whole body shudders. His cock is flushed, leaking, twitching between his thighs—red and desperate, so painfully hard it looks like it could break from the strain.

“I want you,” he chokes, eyes already wet. “Please, I need you so much— I’ll be good, I’ll worship you properly, please just let me—”

“Let you what?” Jimin interrupts, cocking his head, one foot lightly pressing against Jungkook’s knee, pushing him lower. “Say it. Say exactly what you want.”

“I want to be inside you,” Jungkook sobs. “Please, let me fuck you— let me feel your cunt around my cock— please, my god, please—”

Jimin smiles slowly. Cruelly.

“Good boy.”

He climbs into the armchair with elegant control—not a single movement wasted, not a single breath rushed—until he’s straddling Jungkook’s lap. And then, slowly, agonizingly, he reaches between them and guides Jungkook’s cock to his entrance.

The head catches on the slick heat of him, and both of them still for a breath.

Then Jimin lowers himself—inch by devastating inch.

Jungkook moans like he’s dying.

The stretch is unbearable—tight and slow, the thick weight of him pushing Jimin open with aching, perfect pressure. Jimin gasps, fingers digging into Jungkook’s shoulders as his walls flutter and clench helplessly around the intrusion.

“Don’t move,” Jimin whispers, breathless. “Just feel how I wrap around you.” And Jungkook does—body trembling, eyes wide, reverence etched into every inch of his face.

It feels too good—too full—like being split in half by something divine. Something meant for ruin.

“Oh my god,” Jungkook gasps, hands fisting in the chair cushions, too afraid to touch, too afraid he’ll snap and ruin everything. “You’re so— you’re so fucking tight, I can’t— I can’t— I’ve never—”

Jimin huffs out a quiet laugh, eyes lidded and heavy as he sinks deeper.

“You’ll live.”

And he takes all of him. Until he’s seated fully—stuffed with every last inch of that thick cock, pressed so deep that it makes his thighs quiver and his toes curl. He doesn’t move. Just clenches—once—and watches the way Jungkook twitches, body already quaking beneath him.

“You like that?” Jimin murmurs, leaning close to purr against his ear. “You like being used like this? Just a cock for your god to sit on?”

Jungkook whimpers, head falling back against the cushion.

“Please… move. Just a little— I can’t— please—”

But Jimin doesn’t move—not really. He shifts his hips in lazy, torturous circles, grinding down just enough to make Jungkook’s breath catch and his whole body seize. Jungkook moans loud, mouth open, flushed chest heaving with the effort of restraint.

And then Jimin rides.

Slowly. Intentionally.

The rhythm is deep and measured—long drags of that thick cock inside of him, squeezing and milking and fluttering around every inch. Jimin rides him like a throne—like he was built to be sat on and filled up.

“Oh my god,” Jungkook moans again. “You feel— you feel like heaven, you’re so wet— so perfect— your pussy is— fuck—”

“Shh,” Jimin whispers, running his fingers through Jungkook’s hair, hips still moving in that slow, perfect rhythm. “Just feel it. Just take it.”

And Jungkook does.

He takes everything—every clench, every bounce, every slick sound echoing through the candlelit chamber like worship music. His hands shake, his breath stutters, his tears fall, and it only makes Jimin move harder. Faster.

As Jimin bounces harder, the slap of skin-on-skin echoing around them like the pulse of some holy drum, he leans forward again, lips brushing the shell of Jungkook’s ear.

“Is this all you’re good for?” he pants. “Just a cock for me to ride until I’m satisfied?”

Jungkook sobs, eyes wide and wet, head tipping back against the chair as his hips jerk up helplessly in rhythm. His voice cracks.

“Yes—yes, that’s all I am—just a cock for you, for your pleasure—for my god—fuck—use me—please—use me—”

Jimin clenches down hard, his walls spasming around that thick length still rutting up into him, and the cry that rips out of Jungkook’s throat is otherworldly.

“You’re mine,” Jimin whispers. “My disciple. My offering. My cock.”

“I’m yours,” Jungkook chokes, nails digging into the chair, his whole body trembling beneath him. “Your cock—just your cock—meant to fill you—serve you—please, please let me serve—”

Jimin braces a hand on Jungkook’s shoulder, the other on the back of the chair, and begins to bounce in earnest—fucking himself on that perfect cock with sharp, wet slaps of skin, each movement dragging a sob from Jungkook’s throat.

“You’re gonna cry for me?” Jimin pants, lips brushing his ear. “Is it too good for you? Too much?”

“Yes,” Jungkook gasps, face wet, jaw slack. “I can’t— I can’t hold it— you’re so good— I can’t stop coming— it’s building— fuck— you’re a god— you’re my everything—”

The words make Jimin clench, make him moan through his teeth, still riding, still punishing. His own orgasm threatens at the edge of his spine, the inside of his thighs soaked with slick and sweat and devotion.

And when he feels Jungkook start to unravel, trembling like he’s about to collapse under it all, he stops—just for a moment—and grips Jungkook’s jaw.

“Do it,” he says. “Show me how you worship.”

That’s all it takes.

Jungkook moves.

He stands—with Jimin still impaled on his cock—muscles trembling, one hand braced behind Jimin’s back and the other at his waist. And then he fucks up into him with the power of a man possessed.

Jimin screams—head falling back, nails dragging down Jungkook’s shoulders as he’s taken hard, every stroke deep and brutal and just right.

It’s too much. It’s perfect.

Jimin clings to him, moaning his name, his praise, his absolution.

“You’re so strong— fuck— you feel so good inside—”

“Let me come,” Jungkook cries. “Please— please, let me come inside— let me fill you—”

And Jimin breaks.

“Do it,” he hisses. “Come inside. Defile your god. Plant your seed in me— give me a fucking demigod.”

Jungkook shouts, body locking, cock pulsing violently inside of him as he comes. Thick, hot spurts flood Jimin’s cunt, leaking out around the seal of their bodies even as Jungkook keeps thrusting through it, riding it out until he’s empty.

Jimin comes with him—shuddering, pulsing, everything white-hot and tight and endless—muscles clenching around Jungkook’s cock, crying out as his orgasm tears through him like divinity.

They collapse back into the chair—a mess of oil and come and flickering candlelight.

And around Jungkook’s neck, the golden leash glints in the firelight—still locked, still sacred.

Still his.

The air around them was heady with sweat and oil and the unbearable scent of sex, thick enough to suffocate. His limbs trembled, his thighs glossy with slick and dripping seed, and still—still—Jungkook remained hard inside of him, thick and pulsing, like his cock didn’t know how to quit. Like it hadn’t just emptied once already. Like it didn’t care that Jimin was panting and sore and barely upright in the armchair they’d turned into an altar.

“Still so hard for me?” Jimin rasped, voice shredded, clinging to the last shreds of composure as his chest heaved with each breath. His head lolled back against Jungkook’s shoulder, voice thick with disbelief and dangerous hunger. “You just came in me… and you’re still this hard?”

Jungkook whimpered behind him.

Jungkook was glassy-eyed, mouth parted, flushed all the way down his chest. “I know,” he panted, voice cracking as he looked up at Jimin in awe, almost afraid to move. “I—I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me—my cock, it’s—” he whimpered, eyes fluttering shut. “It’s broken. Ruined. All it wants—” He pressed his hips forward helplessly, grinding deeper. “All it wants is you. I’m ruined, I—fuck, please—”

That snapped something loose inside Jimin. A dark thrill, molten and greedy, licked up his spine and settled between his legs again like a second tide.

“Say that again,” Jimin whispered, leaning in as his fingers slid along Jungkook’s jaw.

Jungkook whimpered. “It’s yours. I swear—my cock doesn’t want anything else. I—It’s ruined. You broke it. It only wants your pussy, your body, your voice—I’m nothing without it, without you—”

Jimin felt like he’d been broken apart.

He was still shaking when he let his body slide off Jungkook’s lap, legs barely steady enough to stand as slick dripped down his inner thighs, down to his knees, pooling on the page-littered floor beneath them. Jungkook’s hands chased him on instinct, but Jimin just turned—slow, languid, divine—and bent forward over the armchair’s high back.

It was almost too much.

His body shook, hips canting high, thighs trembling as he braced against the velvet with both arms. Come trickled down the back of his thigh. His panties were nowhere to be found.

And his voice—

“Then use it,” he said. “If you’re only a cock for me, then come prove it.”

And then he was behind him again, gripping Jimin’s hips with reverent hands, shaking as he rubbed the head of his still-hard cock through the mess between his legs, moaning at the way Jimin was so slick, so open, so wrecked—and still so goddamn tight when he pushed inside again.

Jimin sobbed. It was too much. It was perfect.

Jungkook’s hips were relentless—his pace brutal and uncoordinated from the start, like his body was moving without his mind. He fucked into Jimin like he’d die if he stopped, like his cock needed to stay inside him to survive. His fingers left bruises in Jimin’s hips. His breath came in gasps. Jimin cried out, moaning, gripping the armchair with white knuckles as his body rocked forward with every deep, frantic thrust.

“You own me,” Jungkook choked out. “You own my cock—you own all of me—please, please let me come again—let me fill you again, I’ll give you everything—”

“Shut up and fuck me,” Jimin gasped, delirious. “You wanted to serve, didn’t you? Then do it. Do it.”

The sound of skin slapping against skin echoed through the room like thunder, lewd and wet and furious. Jungkook held Jimin down with one hand splayed between his shoulder blades, the other snaking low to press tight, perfect circles into his clit—like he remembered exactly how to undo him.

“You’re mine,” Jungkook choked out, voice wrecked and ruined. “This pussy—this sacred fucking pussy—made just for me—” His rhythm stuttered, his hips snapping harder. “You were made to ruin me. I’m nothing without you—please, let me come again, let me fill you, I’ll give you everything—”

Jimin keened.

He was barely upright, barely sane. His fingers scrabbled at the leather, his slick-smeared thighs quaking, and when he reached behind himself—fumbling, desperate—and yanked on the golden leash at Jungkook’s throat, the man snapped.

Jungkook cried out, ragged and hoarse, hips stuttering as he bucked wildly, chasing release with the desperation of a man possessed.

“Come in me,” Jimin gasped, eyes rolling back. “Do it again. Flood me. Fuck your cock into me like it’s the only thing you know how to do—”

“It is!” Jungkook sobbed, shaking, every muscle straining. “It is—it’s all I’m good for—serving you, filling you, breaking for you—”

And then he did.

He came again with a strangled scream, his whole body seizing as he pumped hot, thick streams of cum deep into Jimin’s cunt, hips still grinding as if he could push it deeper, imprint it into Jimin’s womb like a seal of ownership. Jimin broke with him, screaming through his teeth, spasming around him in a second brutal climax that left them both boneless.

Jimin collapsed forward, gasping, the slick squelch of overstimulation nearly too much.

And still Jungkook stayed sheathed inside, his forehead resting between Jimin’s shoulder blades, both of them trembling in the aftershock of something that felt like divine punishment and salvation all at once.

Jungkook stayed inside of him for a long time, both of them breathing like they were trying to re-learn how. The room smelled like oil and wine and the thick, heady aftermath of pleasure, torn scripture scattered across the floor like the petals of a desecrated offering.

Jimin’s legs twitched where they draped over the side of the chair, his body loose and boneless, still leaking the evidence of Jungkook’s devotion down his thighs.

And yet, it wasn’t over. Not entirely.

Jungkook pressed a kiss to the center of his spine. Another to his shoulder. Another just behind his ear.

Then, reverent and quiet, he slipped out of him and turned Jimin gently in his arms.

“Let me clean you,” he whispered, voice hoarse.

He moved with delicate care, gathering soft cloth and warmed water from the offerings he’d brought, dabbing gently between Jimin’s thighs, wiping away the mess he’d left with a reverence that made Jimin ache all over again. It wasn’t about arousal anymore—it was worship, truly. The same way you’d cleanse an altar before kneeling at its base.

And when he was done, when Jimin’s body had stopped spasming and his breath no longer caught with every shift, Jungkook sat back into the sticky, oil-slick leather armchair and pulled Jimin onto his lap.

They sat there in silence, tangled and bare, the smell of wax and sex still clinging to the air.

It was Jimin who kissed him first.

He leaned in slow, then let their mouths press together like it meant everything. Because it did. It was soft and unhurried, deep and aching, and Jungkook kissed back like it was the one thing he’d been waiting for all his life.

When they finally pulled apart, Jimin stayed close, their noses brushing.

“There’s no going back now,” he said quietly.

Jungkook didn’t hesitate.

“I’d never want to.”

Jimin exhaled shakily, something hot curling in his chest.

He looked down at the chain still locked to Jungkook’s neck—his key dangling at the center—and traced the line of it with one hand.

“You’re mine now,” he murmured.

Jungkook’s smile was slow and holy. “Always was.”

Outside, the wind whispered through the library eaves.

Inside, beneath the golden glow of flickering candlelight, they sat—god and disciple, oil-slicked and holy, pressed together like sin incarnate. 

Jungkook was the first to speak, voice barely more than a breath.

“I saw you the first day I came in. Just… sitting behind the desk.”

He swallowed, resting his cheek against Jimin’s crown like it might anchor him.

“You were quiet. Didn’t even look at me. But I couldn’t stop looking at you.”

Jimin hummed low, fingertips tracing lazy circles across Jungkook’s ribs.

“Why me?”

“I don’t know,” Jungkook said honestly. “You looked like you belonged to another world. Something holy. Like if I reached for you, I’d burn.”

Jimin shifted in his lap, eyes still closed, voice barely audible.

“That’s not love.”

Jungkook didn’t argue.

He pressed a kiss to Jimin’s temple—slow, deliberate.

“No. It’s stronger than love.”

He paused.

“It’s worship.”

Jimin’s breath hitched, but Jungkook kept going—voice rough and reverent.

“It’s ruin. It’s devotion. It’s knowing I’d follow you anywhere, do anything, so long as I get to serve you. Love you. If you’ll let me—I’ll spend the rest of my life kneeling at your feet.”

There was no pleading in his voice. Only certainty.

And something about that shook Jimin more than any desperate confession could have. It wasn’t obsession anymore. It was something colder. Older. A vow.

Jimin lifted his head, finally looking into Jungkook’s eyes. They were shining, unwavering.

“You’re not afraid of me?”

Jungkook smiled, slow and sure.

“No,” he whispered. “You’re the only thing I’ve ever been sure of.”

Jimin was quiet for a long time.

His head rested against Jungkook’s shoulder, but his voice came out small, wary—a wound beneath the softness.

“Have you done this before?”

Jungkook blinked, lifting his head slightly.

“Done what?”

“This,” Jimin said, gesturing faintly to the room, the oil-slicked air between them. “Obsessed. Worshipped. Left letters and offerings like some devout thing. Am I just… another?”

The question landed like a stone in Jungkook’s chest.

He sat up straighter, arms tightening around Jimin with something almost like insult—his voice cutting through the hush with heat.

“No.”

Jimin stilled.

“You were the first,” Jungkook said firmly, like a promise. “And you’ll be the last.”

His breath wavered as he spoke, hands curling against Jimin’s back.

“There was no one before you. No one even close. I didn’t know I could feel this way until you looked at me—until I couldn’t look away.”

His voice cracked, but he didn’t stop.

“You weren’t part of a plan. You became the plan. The altar, the end, the god I didn’t know I was waiting for.”

Jimin stared at him, something unnameable rising in his throat—grief or gratitude, he didn’t know. Only that it felt enormous. Shattering.

And when Jimin kissed him again, it wasn’t chaste.

It was messy—filthy—drawn from some bottomless well of hunger neither of them had words for. Tongues sliding, mouths open and hot, lips swollen and wet. Jungkook moaned into it, hands gripping Jimin’s waist like he needed to anchor himself, like if he let go, Jimin might vanish into ash and candle smoke.

Their noses brushed, breath tangled, spit slicking their chins as the kiss deepened and deepened until it wasn’t even about pleasure—just need, raw and aching and endless.

Jimin chased the taste of himself on Jungkook’s tongue, moaned low in his throat when Jungkook suckled on his bottom lip like a starving man.

It was ruinous. Reverent. A desecration and a prayer all at once.

And when they finally slowed, when the kiss gentled into soft, open-mouthed exhales—they stayed close. Breathing each other in. Foreheads pressed together, hearts still thudding too hard to be called calm.

“I was made for this,” Jungkook whispered against his lips.

Jimin let his eyes flutter closed. Let himself believe it.

If damnation meant this—if being worshipped meant being loved so entirely—then maybe he could be divine after all.

Chapter Text

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

By all accounts, Jimin was back to normal.

He arrived on time, restocked the shelves with meticulous care, and no longer seemed haunted by something unspoken. If anything, he seemed… lighter. Peaceful. Almost joyful in the way his fingers danced along the spines of books, how his voice curled gently around greetings and goodbyes. He laughed more with Taehyung, let himself be teased without shrinking.

But behind the calm, something had shifted—not undone, only deepened. Quieted.

There was no unraveling now.

Just devotion.

“God, you’re glowing,” Taehyung said one morning, half-teasing as he leaned against the return cart, eyeing Jimin like he might split open and spill all his secrets. “Is it a new skincare routine? Or did you finally get laid?”

Jimin just smiled, lips curved in that soft, unreadable way. “Something like that.”

Taehyung squinted at him. “Wait. No. Don’t tell me it’s that guy you used to stare at. The one with the hoodies and the eyes and the…” He gestured vaguely at his own face. “You know, him. Library Boy.”

Jimin didn’t answer.

He didn’t have to.

Because just then, he walked in.

Still quiet, still devastating. Dark curls loose around his temples, collar pulled up slightly over his neck, hands in his jacket pockets. His eyes found Jimin in an instant, like they always did now—without hesitation, without shame. Just heat, quiet and low-burning, behind every step.

He approached the desk and slid forward a single book.

Paradiso.

“I’m returning this,” Jungkook said softly.

Jimin took it without a word. Their hands brushed. Warm skin, familiar weight. The gesture so casual and private, it might’ve been obscene.

Taehyung stared. “Oh my god, it is you two. No wonder you’ve been floating around like some beatific saint all week.”

Jungkook smiled, eyes flicking to Jimin. “He’s a good influence.”

“Pfft. On you?” Taehyung shook his head. “He’s always been like this. I was starting to think he was secretly a monk.”

Jungkook let out a quiet, reverent sound. “Not anymore.”

Taehyung laughed. “Alright, alright, library card?”

Jungkook nodded and pulled his wallet from his back pocket.

He flipped it open. Slid his ID across the counter.

And there—tucked behind the laminated plastic, barely visible but undeniably there—was a single polaroid.

The corner stuck out just enough to see the flash of skin. Gold chains draped across a bare chest. Hair tousled like hands had been threaded through it. Jimin’s parted lips, wide eyes, the unmistakable wet gleam at the apex of his thighs. Captured forever in grain and light, bound in the frame like a relic—a god in worship’s grip.

Jungkook didn’t flinch. Didn’t move to cover it.

Taehyung blinked, mouth parting—but Jimin stepped forward before he could speak, sliding the book off the counter with practiced ease.

“I’ll shelve it,” he said, his voice the calm at the center of the storm.

He turned without waiting for a response, the book tucked under his arm, spine cool against his palm. And Taehyung, still processing, turned toward Jungkook again —only to find him already watching Jimin walk away, expression so full of awe it bordered on something feral.

“You’re in so deep, huh,” Taehyung muttered, but it wasn’t really a question.

Jungkook smiled, soft and unrepentant.

“I’d kneel forever if he let me.”

Jimin turned away before his smile could give too much away.

The book cradled in his arms like scripture, he slipped back into the hush of the shelves —his breath steady, his pulse anything but.

Jimin walked slowly.

Not because he had to, but because he wanted to savor it.

The quiet hush of the aisles, the soft weight of the book in his hands. The air felt warmer somehow—heavier—like it remembered. Like it was waiting.

He stopped before the shelf where everything had first unraveled—or maybe, finally begun.

The Inferno was long gone.

This was Paradiso.

The final threshold.

He slid the book from under his arm, opened it carefully. There, nestled between the pages, was a letter—cream-colored paper folded once. He lifted it like a relic and unfolded it with careful hands.

The handwriting inside was deliberate. Every line carved like a promise.

My god,

Everything I am, I lay before you.

My body. My heart. My soul.

I will never ask to be saved.

I only ask to be kept.

I am your worshipper

Jimin stared at the words, heart aching in a way that felt… divine. Sacrilegious. Inevitable.

And wrong.

So fucking wrong.

The boundaries between them were nonexistent. This was obsession. Madness. Worship twisted until it broke the spine of anything real. There was no name for this —no rules, no safety net, no god but the one standing above the flames.

Even now, a small voice in the back of his mind whispered this is dangerous. This is not love. This is obsession twisted into something that doesn’t care for survival. 

It was a sickness. A cult of two.

It was too much. It was everything.

He slipped the letter back into the book, closed it gently, and pressed it against his chest for just a moment longer—just long enough to feel it burn through his shirt and into his skin.

Slowly, he shelved it right where it belonged.

He stood there for a moment in the quiet— breathing in the weight of it all, letting it settle in his bones—and then turned.

Walked back into the light.

The rest of the evening passed in a blur.

The front desk was closed. The final lights dimmed. The last cart rolled into the back office. Taehyung’s laughter bounced gently between the shelves, and Jimin let it. He smiled when prompted. Replied when asked. Played the part he used to play so effortlessly—the quiet librarian, polished and whole.

But the flame still burned under his skin.

It always would.

The key turned with a soft click, and the heavy front doors of the library groaned shut behind them. The autumn wind whispered through the trees, curling dry leaves across the stone steps. Jimin pulled his cardigan tighter around himself, breathing in the scent of old paper and candlewax still clinging to his skin.

Taehyung stretched with a yawn, arms over his head.

“Another night, another round of lonely souls searching for knowledge and love through microfiche.” He grinned at Jimin and nudged him with an elbow. “Unlike you, apparently.”

Jimin raised an eyebrow, noncommittal.

“I mean, come on,” Taehyung went on, voice lilting with mischief. “First the mystery admirer, now Library boy—oh, I’m sorry—Jungkook actually dropping by the front desk with heart eyes?” He wiggled his brows. “And you practically floating around the library like some… blessed saint of overdue returns.”

“I’m not floating,” Jimin muttered, heat rising to his cheeks.

“No? Could’ve fooled me.” Taehyung bumped into him again as they descended the steps, gaze flicking around. “So, where is he tonight? Hiding behind a bookshelf with rose petals? Waiting in your bedroom with a sonnet and a $400 fountain pen to write his declarations of love with?”

Jimin scoffed, biting back a smile, glancing up from where his eyes had been trained on the ground.

From across the street, just beneath the haloed glow of a streetlight, a figure stepped out from the shadows.

Jungkook.

Clad in a dark coat, black hair tousled from the wind, eyes fixed only on Jimin. He moved slowly, deliberately, until he reached the edge of the curb.

Taehyung’s teasing trailed off.

Jungkook didn’t say hello. He didn’t nod, didn’t smile. He simply reached out his hand to Jimin—palm up, waiting.

And then, softly.

So softly it felt wrong to hear it aloud,

“You look like the moon tonight.”

The streetlight buzzed faintly overhead. Jimin didn’t speak. His breath caught.

Taehyung froze beside him.

There was a stillness that followed—not awkward, but venerate. Heavy.

It was like stumbling upon a congregation mid-prayer.

Jungkook’s eyes never left Jimin’s. His voice, when it came again, was hoarse with something worshipful.

“I was beginning to wonder if I’d only dreamed of you.”

Jimin stepped forward, silent, until his hand met Jungkook’s. Fingers lacing. A quiet kind of possession.

Taehyung blinked. Looked between them once. Then again.

“…Okay,” he mumbled, backing away with wide eyes. “I’ll just… go. Goodnight.”

He turned so fast he nearly tripped on the curb, muttering to himself as he vanished down the block—something about ghosts and full moons and not getting involved in whatever that was.

Jimin didn’t laugh.

He didn’t speak, either. Just stood still in the golden hush of the lamplight, his fingers tight around Jungkook’s hand, like he’d been waiting too long to be touched again.

When Jungkook leaned forward, he didn’t ask.

He just kissed Jimin’s knuckles.

As if kneeling would’ve been redundant.