CHAPTER 1: THE HUNDREDTH GOODBYE

...Taehyung POV...

It’s the blood that never changes. That’s the first thing I notice, every single time, before anything else. Before the sound of shouting fades, before the smell of smoke or rain or dust hits my nose, before I even register where we are or what year it is—it’s there, warm and thick, soaking through my shirt, sticking between my fingers, seeping into the lines of my palms like it was carved there a hundred lifetimes ago.

You know this, don’t you? You’ve watched it happen just as many times as I have. You’ve stood right there, just out of the edge of my sight, and seen me kneel, and seen him fall, and seen the light go out of his eyes while I hold him so tight my ribs ache. You’ve counted them too, haven’t you? One hundred. Exactly one hundred times I’ve held this same body, felt this same weight turn heavy against my chest, listened to this same breath stutter and stop, over and over and over again, until I can’t tell where the memory ends and the present begins.

Some lifetimes it’s a blade in his back. Some it’s poison in his veins. Some it’s fire, or flood, or a bullet meant for me that he stepped in front of without even thinking. It doesn’t matter how it happens. It doesn’t matter what world we’re in, what names we carry, what lives we build together before it all breaks. The ending is always the same. Always him. Always me. Always in my arms.

This time it’s rain. Cold, stinging rain that washes the blood off his skin but never off my hands. We were running. I don’t even remember what from anymore—some war, some rival, some mistake we made when we were too busy laughing to look over our shoulders. He stumbled. He looked back at me, and smiled, that soft, lopsided smile that has broken my heart in every single language that has ever existed, and then he crumpled, and I caught him before his knees hit the mud.

“Taehyung,” he says. His voice is so quiet I almost miss it under the storm. His hand comes up to my face, fingers brushing my cheek, and they’re already so cold. “Don’t look like that. Please don’t look like you’re about to break.”

How else am I supposed to look? I want to scream. I want to shake him until he stops being so gentle, until he stops acting like this is just a temporary goodbye, like I won’t have to spend another hundred years wandering alone waiting for him to find me again. But all that comes out is a broken whisper. “Why does it always have to be you? Why can’t it ever be me instead?”

He huffs a soft, wet laugh, blood bubbling at his lips. “Because you’re the strong one. You always have been. You’re the one who remembers to look for me when I’m lost.” His thumb brushes the tear I didn’t even feel fall. “I’ll find you. I always do. No matter how long it takes. No matter how far apart we land. I promise.”

And then his hand falls. And his eyes stay open, fixed on mine, like he’s trying to memorize every line of my face so he doesn’t get lost next time. And he’s gone.

Just like that.

I don’t scream. I don’t cry. Not this time. I’ve done those things enough for a thousand lifetimes. I just sit there in the mud and the rain, holding him, while the water runs over us both, and I count the beats of my own heart—one, two, three—because his has already stopped.

You’ve seen me do this too, haven’t you? You’ve seen me sit like this for hours, for days, until my legs go numb and people come to pull me away. You’ve never said anything. You’ve never stepped in. You’ve just watched.

That’s when I hear it. The footsteps. Slow, steady, familiar. So familiar it makes my teeth ache.

A hand rests on my shoulder. Warm, firm, exactly the way it has been in every life. Exactly the way it was when we were children hiding from thunderstorms, when we were teenagers sneaking out to watch the stars, when we were adults building empires side by side.

“Taehyung,” the voice says. Soft, sad, perfectly calm. “I’m so sorry. There was nothing any of us could do. Fate is cruel like this.”

I don’t look up. I keep staring at Jungkook’s face, at the way his hair sticks to his forehead, at the faint scar on his jaw that he got in our third lifetime when we fell off a cliff chasing fireflies. “Fate,” I say, and my voice sounds like it belongs to someone else. “Is that what it is?”

“Of course it is.” The hand on my shoulder tightens just a little. “Some things are written before we’re even born. You can’t fight what’s meant to be. Jungkook… he was never meant to stay.”

That’s what they always say. Every time. In every lifetime. Those exact same words, spoken in that exact same tone, like they’re reading from a script they’ve memorized perfectly.

This time, though, something shifts. Deep in my chest, somewhere under all the grief and the numbness, something clicks. A memory I didn’t know I had, faint and faded, rises up like smoke. Fate doesn’t leave footprints. Fate doesn’t remember what it said a hundred years ago. Fate doesn’t watch from the shadows every single time.

I finally lift my head. I look at them—at the face I’ve trusted longer than I’ve trusted my own. At the eyes that have looked back at me through every age, every war, every loss. They look sad. They look sorry. They look exactly like they always have.

But I notice it now. The slightest tremor in their fingers. The way their gaze flickers, just for a second, to Jungkook’s body, and there’s no grief there—only relief.

I look down at my hands again. Stained red. I’ve washed them a thousand times, in rivers and lakes and oceans, in snow and wine and clean water, and the stain never goes away. I always thought it was grief. I always thought it was just how it felt to love someone who was always taken too soon.

But what if it’s not? What if it’s proof?

You see it too, don’t you? You’ve seen it all along. You’ve seen where the blade really came from. You’ve seen who whispered the lies that led him to the cliff, who poisoned the water he drank, who told him to step in front of that bullet. You’ve seen who stood just one step behind, every single time, and made sure there was no escape.

Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me believe it was just bad luck? Why did you let me break over and over again, thinking I was fighting something I couldn’t see, when the thing I should have been fighting was standing right beside me all along?

They squeeze my shoulder one last time, then pull back. “Come on,” they say. “We need to go. It’s not safe here. We’ll give him a proper burial. We’ll take care of everything.”

I nod. I don’t say anything. I stand up, slow and stiff, and lift Jungkook carefully into my arms—just like I have before, just like I will again if I don’t stop this. I follow them, step by step, through the mud and the rain. My eyes never leave their back.

For the first time in one hundred lifetimes, I’m not looking for Jungkook in the next world. I’m looking for the reason he can never stay in this one.

For the first time, I don’t feel like crying. I feel something else, something cold and sharp and bright, unfurling in my chest like a flower made of glass. Revenge.

It’s not fate. It’s not destiny. It’s a choice. Made over and over again, by someone who thought I’d never notice. Someone who thought I’d keep crying, keep following, keep being the broken thing they needed me to be.

But I’ve held death in my arms one hundred times. I know what it sounds like. I know what it looks like. And I know when someone is calling the shots.

I glance back, just for a second, toward the empty field where we left the fight. Toward the shadows where you’ve been standing all this time.

You know what comes next now, don’t you?

The script is changing. And this time, I’m the one holding the pen.

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