They met wrong. Jungkook was there to collect a debt from the opera director. Taehyung was there late, practicing, because Tchaikovsky didn’t care about business hours.
Jungkook kicked the door open, gun drawn. Taehyung didn’t scream. He just lowered his bow, eyes steady, and said, “You’re interrupting the crescendo.”
No one ever looked at Jungkook like he wasn’t a monster first.
So he came back. Said it was “business.” Sat in the back row every night, drowning in the way Taehyung’s hands shook when he played something sad. Taehyung started leaving him coffee. Black, no sugar. “You look like someone who forgot how to sleep.”
Jungkook didn’t know gentle. So he protected. Rival threats never reached the opera house. Taehyung never asked about the bruises on Jungkook’s jaw. Jungkook never asked why Taehyung started writing songs that sounded like gunshots and heartbeats.
Then they took Taehyung to get to Jungkook. Left him in an alley with a split lip and a warning.
Jungkook found him, picked him up like glass, and bled velvet for the first time.
“You should stay away from me,” Jungkook said that night. “I ruin everything I touch.”
Taehyung pressed his unbruised cheek to Jungkook’s racing heart. “Then ruin me,” he whispered. “But do it carefully.”
That was the night Jungkook chose. Not the throne. Not the blood.
Just Taehyung.
_To be continued....
