Y/N:

“Baby Girl!” Taehyung hollers after you as you skip ahead of him.

You look over your shoulder at him and smile as you swing around to walk backward, “Come on, Taetae!”

“Do you even know where you’re going?” He asks as he catches up to you, knowing very well your bad sense of direction.

“Not a clue!” You grin, looking around you, “But that makes it so much more fun.” You hold out your hands to him and your head to the side, “Come on, Oppa.”

He takes your hands in his and drapes them around his neck. He moves closer to you, resting his hands on the small of your back and moving slowly in a nonsensical pattern that you know all too well. After a while, his breath tickles your ear as he murmurs, “Are you okay with this?”

“What do you mean?” You ask, looking up at him as the two of you sway.

“You seem to tense up every time I come close to you.”

“I don’t tense up.” You say in denial.

He chuckles at that, “If you say so, Baby Girl.”

You sigh and bury your head in his neck, “I’ve really, really missed you Taetae.”

At that, he hugs you closer to him and burrows into your hair, making you feel the light, quick rhythm of his heart, “I… I…” He pulls away and laughs, “I think you may be drunk already.”

You swat at his arm, having expected him to at least return the comment, “Oh, come on Tae! I’ve only had three drinks. I’m just happy tonight.”

He chuckles and slings an arm over your shoulders, quickly leaving a kiss in your hair, “Okay, okay, Hun. On to the next round then?”

“Lead the way.”

~

As you sit with your head propped up in your hands, watching Taehyung dance in front of you in the pub, you realise it was a mistake to drive all the way into town for drinks tonight; you should have just stuck to the usual places, closer to home.

“We shouldn’t have come all this way.” You mumble, shaking your head.

Taehyung downs the last of his drink, “I thought we’d be home by eleven. Didn’t think we’d have so much fun.”

“Well, we can’t drive back like this.”

He nods and steps toward you, trying to sweep a strand of hair from your face before giving up and placing his hands on your shoulders, “We should go to a hotel.”

“What?”

He chuckles, bringing his face near, “Don’t get weird ideas… Just to sleep.” He yawns, “Its three already and I’m tired. If we take a taxi or get a driver now -which I don’t think will be easy- what time will we get back? We can’t go home so drunk in the morning. We need to sleep.”

“I don’t know, Tae…”

“Come on...” He twirls around, drink in hand, spilling slightly, “We can keep drinking and fall asleep whenever we want to, however we want to.”

He picks you up off of your chair and pulls you to him, wiggling his eyebrows as he says, “We’ve always wanted to go to a love hotel Baby Girl, now we can check it out without feeling guilty.”

“… Let’s just do it.” You shake your head with a smile.

~

Against your wishes, Taehyung books the honeymoon suite at one of the better-looking motels and when the two of you open the room door and stumble in, you turn to look at each other with crinkled noses. He laughs and dashes forward, landing on the large round bed with crimson sheets that takes up most of the room.

You close the door behind you and lean against it, sinking slightly into the plush carpet as you rest your weight, taking the room in. It smells faintly of old cigarettes; the walls are some dark colour -purple maybe- and the lights are very dimly set. In one corner, there’s a heart-shaped bathtub with an array of small colourful bottles. You walk around the room, feeling oddly detached from yourself, with the distinct feeling that you should not be here. That this is wrong. There’s a TV mounted to the wall and a stack of what looks to be ography DVDs on a shelf just below, which you breeze past to stand at the window. You push the velvety curtains apart and the view that greets you is of another flashy motel just across the way.

You sigh and as you draw them closed again, feel Taehyung lace his arms around your waist, making you start.

“It’s only me.” He whispers softly. “This not what you expected?”

“No. The room is perfect.” You say, offering a weak smile as you turn to face him.

He rolls his eyes, “It feels kinda dirty, doesn’t it?”

“No. Everything seems very clean.” You smile again, telling the truth.

“It doesn’t feel like somewhere you should be with me though, right?”

You furrow your brow and he grins, his face a perfect mask, knowing you’re trying to read him.

He lets go of you and crosses his arms, “It’s only weird if you make it that way, Baby Girl. Let’s have a drink, shall we?”

He grabs two beers and opens one for you, “Baby Girl.” He says, holding it out to you. He opens the other and takes a gulp, walking over to the tub. He climbs in, fully clothed, and looks over his shoulder expectantly at you, “Well?”

You smile, genuinely this time, and skip over to him, plonking yourself down in the left half of the heart. He nods at that and kicks his legs straight out ahead of him, crossing them over on the edge. You try to do the same but your legs are too short to reach over, so you just let them rest at the bottom of the tub. Taehyung laughs outright at that and you narrow your eyes at him, turning your body slightly so that you’re able to dump your legs over his. He winces at the force with which you do and sighs, repositioning them to be higher up on his thigh.

“You’re such a .” He mumbles playfully, shaking his head and pulling off your shoes, chucking them over his shoulder so that each lands on the carpet with a soft thud.

“So are you, Oppa.” You flash your teeth and wink, “A silly, whiny .”

Out of nowhere, he bites your knee, making you shriek and he chuckles, “What were you saying?”

“That you’re a .” You stick out your tongue and reach over to rub at the spot he bit.

He rolls his eyes again and leans back, watching as you fuss over it. He bites his lip and leans forward again, to examine it. He looks up into your eyes, “Is it very sore?”

You’re lying, but nod with a frown, pouting and he draws his thumb over it a few times. He looks to you as if to ask if it’s okay and you shake your head. He sighs and drops a couple of kisses in place of his thumb, which has moved around to caress the back of your knee. That spot is sensitive to his touch and he should know it well, though when he checks if you’re still ‘in pain’ you see no trace of knowledge on his face and just nod so that he doesn’t do it again.

“So, who’s this mystery girl you’ve been seeing?” You ask lightly, taking a sip of your beer.

“Mystery girl?” He asks, looking confused with a cigarette dangling between his lips.

“The one you spoke of at college. You said there was a girl on your mind. Is she not the one you snuck out to go see before Jimin came over the other night?”

“Oh.” He lowers his lighter without lighting the cigarette. “Truthfully, there isn’t anyone.” He stares at the lighter, “I only said I was with a girl because I didn’t want you to know I’d been drinking alone all day.” He looks over at you with a sheepish smile before quickly looking away and finally lighting his cigarette.

It dawns on you that your friend has been struggling with something, right under your nose, for what seems to be a long time, without you knowing and you scold yourself for having been so selfishly wrapped up in your own feelings since things went south with Inho; and you feel sick with the thought that you really hadn’t been a good friend to him since then, even though he’d consistently supported and cared for you when you were having a hard time.

“Taehyungah.” You murmur delicately, “What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing.” He looks at you again, “Really.”

“Tell me.” You ask, moving closer to him.

“I swear, I’m fine.”

You squish him over to sit next to him in his side of the heart, “What’s going on?”

He looks at you, really looks at you, as if considering telling you everything he’s been holding in, but once again he slips that familiar mask on and puffs on his smoke, saying nothing. You reach out and touch his cheek and he rests his head in your palm, letting his eyes flutter closed for a moment. You his hair and feel him relax further into your touch, so you lay his head on your shoulder, holding him close to you in a sort of foetal position, absentmindedly running your hands through his hair and eventually, he wraps his arms around you too. Though you want him to open up to you, you know he’s always had trouble talking about his feelings, so for tonight at least, you’ll let him be.

“Don’t think I don’t expect some answers in the near future.” You warn.

“Thank you.” He breathes the words against your neck, kissing the flesh once, his lips lingering perhaps a second too long. With his cigarette now put out, he finds your hand and interlaces your fingers with his, but it doesn’t feel weird to you. None of it does. It only feels right, and tonight, after seeing him this way, you don’t feel the need to question why.

After some time, the two of you start your joking up again and, feeling your buttocks go numb, trade the bathtub for the bed and your empty cans for full ones. You lie on your backs, staring up at your reflections in the cheap mirror on the ceiling. It distorts your appearances somewhat, but not dramatically so -just enough for you to muse at it.

Taehyung lights up another smoke and you watch in wonderment as the foreign, concentrated cloud that leaves his mouth diffuses into the air and bonds with it, becoming one as they dance around each other.

He rolls on to his side to look at you, “Your hair turned out lovely…” He takes a drag and exhales, “And I didn’t think you could get any prettier.”

“You’re such a charmer.” You roll your eyes. “Complete with the cigarette and everything.”

“You think it makes me more charming?” He challenges, since you usually have nothing good to say about him smoking.

You shut your eyes, having put your foot in your mouth, “Ordinarily I would say no. Smoking is super-duper bad for your health Tae, but… I’m too tipsy to really think about that now. Now… Now this smoke is filling up my head and it smells so y, like some cool mint drink on a hot day and I just want to -want to…” You sigh, “I don’t know what I want to do, but it makes me want to do something.”

“You want one?” He asks, box at the ready.

“What? No, I’ve never smoked Tae. You know that.”

Looking down at you, he breathes the menthol vapour into your face, saying, “You could have a puff of mine if you wanted… Or I could just pass you the smoke…” He suggests.

“How?” You ask softly, propping yourself up on your elbows.

“Just… Try to it, okay?” He asks before taking a drag.

“Wait, wh-”

You’re cut off by the urgent pressing of his mouth against yours, and he breathes the smoke slowly into yours but you’re confused by what’s going on so you pull away with a burning throat, coughing.

“What the hell, Tae?” You shriek, sitting up.

He chuckles, “You’re supposed to inhale the smoke as I give it to you.”

“You could have told me it involves kissing!” You whack his chest.

“It’s not kissing. I’m a pretty good kisser -You would know if I were trying to kiss you.” He says in a panicky huff, running his hand through his hair, “I just pushed some air into your mouth -like in CPR.”

You try to glower at him but can’t stay serious, “Well, still you gave me a fright.”

“I've already told you," He speaks in a heavy tone, "We’re here to drink and sleep. I’ve got no other intentions.”

“Really?”

“Yeah..." He shakes his head, "You want another go at it?”

You bite your lip in contemplation and give the tiniest of nods. A devilish grin lights up his face and he brings his face to yours, hovering above you for a second before softly touching his lips to yours. You open yours to him and he fills your mouth with the tickling hot minty smoke which leaves a cooling sensation where it your throat.

He pulls away, his deep voice murmuring in amusement, “You closed your eyes…”

You meet his soft, intense gaze and watch his lids resist the urge to flutter shut as you slowly exhale the smoke into his face.

He bites down on his lip and brushes your hair from your face, “, you’re so hot…”

Your head is heavy with his scent, distant memories and scenes from your dreams that fill you with an intense need that builds within you; and it feels as if it could devour you if you don’t do something.

You press your hands to his chest and he starts to move off you.

“No.” You breathe, your voice a strangled, urgent whisper as you tug at his shirt. His pupils seem to consume his soft, brown irises which he closes to you as you reach up and press your lips to his. “I want you."