Episode4

The Min estate was silent, save for the soft echo of footsteps against marble floors.

Min Yoongi had returned.

The warm hum of distant servants preparing tea and quietly avoiding the master’s path was a stark contrast to the storm brewing behind the Alpha’s half-lidded gaze. He was dressed in black—casual but expensive—and as usual, his presence alone made the air heavier.

From the outside, he looked calm. Composed.

But inside?

A slow, simmering obsession burned beneath the surface.

He didn't stop in the main wing. He didn’t pause to greet his mother, nor did he ask how the birthday banquet had gone after he’d arrived late and left early. Instead, he walked toward the farthest corridor, one the servants never entered unless ordered.

The door at the end was locked, unmarked.

He entered alone.

And behind it—was a world no one else was meant to see.

The walls were covered in photos. Hundreds. Maybe thousands.

Candid shots of Jimin at school gates. Laughing with his friends. Reading by the garden fence. Sleeping on his father’s shoulder. Wearing oversized sweaters in the winter. A blurry photo of the boy in ballet shoes, caught mid-spin. Another of him biting into a peach, unaware someone was watching.

Yoongi closed the door behind him and locked it with a practiced hand.

This was his sanctuary.

This was the shrine of Park Jimin.

In the far corner sat a shelf filled with tiny things Jimin had discarded over the years—half-used pencils, birthday party napkins, a cracked phone case. There was a sweater he once left behind at the estate. Yoongi had taken it, sealed it in a clear case, and never let it go.

He stood in the center of the room, staring at a single framed photo above the rest. Jimin, age ten, looking up at the sky, laughing with eyes closed. Yoongi had taken it himself.

“…Mine,” Yoongi whispered.

But today, the image did not bring him peace.

It brought rage.

Because he had seen the look in Jimin’s eyes at the party—the way he kept glancing toward someone else. Some other Alpha.

The crush wasn’t new. Yoongi’s sources had already told him. An Alpha boy Jimin had met months ago. He didn’t even remember the bastard’s name. Just that he had touched what wasn’t his. Helped Jimin when he fell. Gotten close.

Too close.

“Yoongi.”

The voice behind him was low, calm, careful.

Assistant Kim Namjoon stood in the doorway, having let himself in with the spare key Yoongi had given him for emergencies only.

“You came back early,” Namjoon said.

Yoongi didn’t respond.

Namjoon glanced once around the room, his eyes passing over the walls with an air of familiarity—he’d seen it before, years ago, when Yoongi first brought him here.

“I heard you skipped dinner,” Namjoon said lightly. “Jimin was asking where you were.”

That caught Yoongi’s attention.

He turned slowly.

“…He noticed?” he asked, voice quiet but sharp.

Namjoon gave a slow nod. “Of course. It’s his birthday. You’re still his fiancé, you know.”

Yoongi’s lip curled. “Don’t call me that.”

“But it’s true.”

Yoongi walked over to a stack of photos—Jimin last winter, scarf wrapped around his neck. He ran a finger over the image.

“He doesn’t act like it,” Yoongi muttered. “He acts like I’m nothing. Like I never mattered.”

Namjoon exhaled. “He’s eighteen, Yoongi. He’s allowed to question things. This bond was made before he could even talk.”

Yoongi’s eyes were shadowed. “I don’t care.”

Namjoon didn’t flinch. He’d heard worse.

“Then what will you do?” he asked gently. “Force him to accept it? Kill anyone who touches him?”

Yoongi’s silence was answer enough.

Namjoon stared. “You’re thinking about it.”

Yoongi’s hand clenched by his side. “He likes someone else. Someone beneath him. Someone who looked at him like he could be claimed—” His jaw tightened. “I should kill him. Snap his neck and leave him for the dogs.”

“Yoongi.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know you are.” Namjoon stepped closer, voice dropping. “But if you kill that Alpha, you’ll become the villain in Jimin’s eyes. Is that really how you want him to see you?”

Yoongi’s face twisted. “…He already hates me.”

“No. He resents the cage we all built around him,” Namjoon said. “But you’re not the cage, Yoongi. You were supposed to be the key.”

Yoongi laughed bitterly. “Do I look like a key to you?”

Namjoon looked around the room—at the obsession, the madness, the longing carved into every inch of wallpaper.

“No,” he admitted. “Right now, you look like someone who lost his way.”

Yoongi’s breath was uneven.

“I’ve waited for him my whole life, hyung,” he said. “I watched him grow up from afar. I stayed away to become someone he could be proud of. I thought… maybe one day, he’d look at me with love.”

Namjoon didn’t speak.

“I saw him at five, hiding behind his father’s legs. I saw him at ten, dancing barefoot in the rain. I saw him at fifteen, fighting the bond like it was a curse. And now—now he’s eighteen and looking at someone else like that person is the moon.”

Yoongi’s hands trembled.

“I am the moon,” he whispered. “I’ve always been.”

Namjoon’s voice was steady. “Then show him. Don’t stalk him. Don’t threaten the people he likes. Pursue him.”

Yoongi turned, eyes cold. “What if he rejects me?”

“Then you let him go,” Namjoon said. “Because love without choice is not love at all.”

Silence.

Long and suffocating.

Then, Yoongi turned away. He looked up at the photo again—Jimin, mid-laugh, so painfully out of reach.

“…What if I can’t?” he whispered.

Namjoon placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Then you’ll lose him forever.”

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