Pairing: Kim Seokjin x Reader (OC: female)

Genre: Graphic , explicit language, mentions of voyeurism, dom!Seokjin

Rating: R-18

Word Count: 6,371

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Marionette.

That’s what he called you. With your bones and your soul strung to his skin, you were whole and his. You moved under the heat of his eyes and you bloomed under the percussion of his heart. You were owned and controlled- without the obligation of your profession.

Marionette,

You shall dance for the sinner.

 

You reigned and you wreaked havoc under the neon. You were jubilant and you were aphrodisiac; everytime you moved, the tectonics moved with you, quaked countless men as music and hearts thumped for you.

You move your hands from your corset, teasing the hem of your lace stockings as you brace the cold metal of the pole. Your hair falls in perfect tresses across your cheeks as you twirl in your featherlike movements, a smile playing on your lips because you know your body brings a whirlwind to the club. It brings patrons and it brings money- it brings livelihood.

When you dance, you are an embodiment of desire. You move with the metronome, the rhythmic cadence of laboured breaths fluid to your hips as you slide off your pole and walk with your bottom lip between your teeth.

You hear an array of sensual voices carol in your want. It's nothing but the chirring of cicadas on a dull night for you- this is a regular, dull night for you.

‘What’s your price, doll?’

You halt at the table, move your fingers along the rim of his jack and coke as you descend your lulling, enticing gaze on the suited stranger, the platinum engagement ring on his finger laying heavy.

‘I can’t be bought, sir’, you bend, your blunt, curt whispers trickling on his skin like nectar from a honeycomb. You smile smugly as you stand up, sauntering in your heels as coos and hands reach for you.

You keep yourself untouchable and worshipable, you like authority and you like being spectated. You like being prized, never possessed.

Though you could. You could sell your body for diamonds and pearls, trade nights for Cartier rings. But you spare your flesh, become a surreality that exists like smoke and sin.

And it does not hinder their investment in you. Men pay for what can have, pay more for what they cannot. And no one could have you unless you want them to.

You prance to the music like a prey luring predators, watching lust camouflaged in tailored suits and satin ties erupt like steam from geysers. You are here only for an hour more as your presence is continually timed, making you a rare, demanded thing on all days.

The padded door of Sapphire flings open, a tall, broad and polished man making his way to one of the tables at the far end.

You walk with him locked in your sight, feeling dollar bills breeze past your body along with pretty endearments. You ignore the lights and the faces, turn them into a haze because what you see in front of you is new- and breathtaking.

His eyes shone like mahogany in the lowly-lit space, lips petal-plush pink,  cheekbones slanted and shaded and a razor-edge jaw. He skims through the choices of whiskey, fingers tapping idly against the table.

You are amazed at how he glows, remains unnerved as you run two fingers along the shoulder-seam of his navy suit, your lips curled into a slack smirk.

‘Would you like to try the specials for tonight?’, you stall your gaze lower to find his business card peeping from the pocket, ‘Mr. Kim?’

He eyes your skimpy outfit, raises a brow because he knows you are no waitress, ‘Sure.’

You slowly pull the menu away from his hand, prop yourself onto the table as you throw a leg over another, leaning into him as you your lips, ‘That’ll be me, but the topping is of your choice.’

He cranes his head to look away from you, raising a hand dismissively.

‘Just get me a bourbon, dollface.’

You pout playfully, sliding off and walking back with the glass between your fingertips. You hum as you recline against the table once more, resting your elbow and batting your lashes like you’re eyeing a plaything. You could see he’s trying to keep you out of line of sight, designating a spot forcefully for his gaze to not be torn away from.

You hear your name being called from the bar counter, ‘Time’s up honey.’

You nod at that, turn to course your fingers along his cheek in a farewell. It’s a bold move but you make it, watch him widen his eyes as you place a kiss. You place it on your fingers, not entirely on his cheek because you know how to keep people tilted on the edge. You feel his stare boring into your spine as you backtrack so you turn around, hold his gaze and a brow, watch him flush and look away. You giggle, disappearing behind the counter.

You enter your green room and start washing your cakeface, watching your skin revert to its natural tone, your eyes shrinking back to their hollow and empty state once your lenses are off. You’ve forgotten how long it has been that you’ve stopped living and started trudging, dragging yourself along your life only because you have to. You disregard that here, though. Here, you are all-powerful.

‘What was that for?’, one of the dancers asked, beckoning to your unnatural act of intimacy.

You smile and shrug- your classic innate response, ‘A few more bucks when he tips?’

When you are not disintegrating your physical pieces, putting them up as show, you are reading. You are searching for peace in the spines and backs of various texts. You walk down the aisles of the library, grazing your fingertips leisurely past the yellowing pages of long-loved books. This side of you, no one sees. Between paperbacks and printed words, you are whole and new; pure to the imaginary world your mind takes flight to.

You are searching for poems today, short yet sweet verses that do to you what sometimes volumes of pages don’t. And there, caught between the tightness of two crowded shelves, is where you see him.

All brown and beautiful, golden and dressed in a leather coat, he was a vision of all the things you found hypnotizing. Caught in his own world, eyes roaming as his fingers danced along titles, he seemed to radiate pleasure, a soothing wave of tranquil blossoming from his body into yours.

You hide behind an anthology coyly, meander your gaze over each word as you wonder about the oddity of your acquaintance. You flinch, naturally, thinking this is not a place he would expect running into you. As you summarize answers, excuses and explanations to made-up questions in your mind, you hear the ebony floor creak under his boots in ceremony of his approach.

You hold your breath hoping - wishing- he has erased memories of you, that he mistakes you as any other passing stranger but he stops, towers above your timid frame as he speaks, ‘Neruda? This one has the best translations.’

He draws out a worn out book, its eroded ends symbolizing the thousands of hands and hearts that have cherished it in bygone days. You try to avoid all possibilities but end up talking to him about Alighieri and Keats, Florence and Yorkshire, and about everything weathered yet undying.

And out of all of the queries that could’ve arisen upon his reminiscence of you, he raises the most unforeseen question.

He asks you for a cup of coffee.

You are bewildered for a moment, the depth of his voice compelling you to measure your breaths, make them even and stable to keep you alive. Faltering under his steady gaze, you concede to him.

Halfway through your latte, you are certain that he has failed to recognize you.

That is, until he points out your cream stache. That is, until you chuckle softly, taking the tissue he held out for you and wipe your upper lip. That is, until he weaves his fingers together, places them on the table and looks at you with a warm smile.

‘What’s your name? I don’t assume dollface is something you’d go by in daylight.’

You cough a little, breath catching at your throat as the caffeine turns bitter in your mouth.

You force a smile as you mutter your name in your barely-there decibel. You have a passing sensation of tingling butterflies when he calls it beautiful, calls you beautiful.

He looks like a sunflower field, yellow and with the sun tucked beneath his skin, he was breaking light into your dark pieces. He is radiant and glowing and you are falling into a pit of hopeless infatuation way too blindly.

You stand up to leave because you know you can’t afford your feelings.

You know you this is hard to happen.

Your friend looks at you from her dresser table, eyes round and voice shrill.

‘What do you need so much money for?’

You rub your forehead in apathy, sighing. She keeps pestering so you tell her about your rather nasty week, about your cranky landlady and your pending rents. ‘She’ll get new tenants if I don’t pay her in three days.’

‘But’, she processes her words and you frame them for her.

‘I sent what I had to my brother. He’s-’, you stop, words getting choked before they reach your mouth. You exhale uneasily, fingers twitchy and restless.

‘He’s gambling again? For ’s sake’, she groans, getting up and placing an empathizing hand on your shoulder. She softens her tone, like you already had daggers pinned to your skin and a push too hard would rip you apart, ‘You’ve never done private rooms before, I wonder if you’ll be okay.’

‘I’ll be fine, it’s not like I’ll be sleeping with a balding businessman with three kids if told’, you rise to your feet, giving your high pony a slight flick and carding your fingers through a few knotted strands, ‘Which, by the way, is exactly what she’s doing.’

You point to a girl in a black mesh top, blowing her bubblegum and playing with her hair idly. Your friend swats you in the arm, chuckling, as you both walk out of the green room to get your tedious hours over with.

You walk with steady, slow steps, wondering who your patron is. You part the thick silk curtain, walk in with ease only to surround yourself in him, the wholeness of him. You find it inconceivable how he was shining and radiant days ago, was every honey shade of autumn and every warm breath of a cobbled fireplace.

But now he has the dark dusk of want settled in his eyes, pupils a little dilated under your presence. His lips glaze pastel ruby, soft and plump and for a fleeting moment you compare them to a haven, want to reside amidst them and submit your soul to them.

A cigarette dangles loosely between his fingertips, suit ed and tie undid, his untucked white shirt sticking to his chest. You wear your proprietary grin and watch him a raise a brow, silently encompassing that he loves the darker sides of you as much as you do, of him. The dim violet of the room shadows the curve of his smile when you take to the music, melt and mould it into your flesh and turn yourself into the reverie, the fantasy that he wants you to be.

You gleam as you increase proximity, watch him flux air from his lungs and purse his lips because you are too close, making him drop his gaze to the flexion of your limbs as you clamber onto the couch, sink your knees into the leather and settle between his thighs, ‘And we meet again, Kim Seokjin.’

His eyes wander across your frame, a lopsided grin etching itself onto his features as he simmers a groan, ‘What can I say, I don’t like you dancing for anybody but me.’

Heat hurtles off the pit of your stomach as you deny the feeling of being possessed so easily- by words and by eyes. You come across handfuls of them everyday, but he.

Oh, he.

His voice and his presence kiss your skin like fire- wild, uncontained and beyond control. His porcelain skin and his dark eyes show you both heaven and hell and somehow you crave this dichotomy, want to be medial to ecstasy and torment and let this fire turn you to ashes.

His hands find your waist and you sink deeper into the couch, closer to his chest and his thrumming heart. You stare at his whitened knuckles, his breath falling in billows at your throat. Normally, you wouldn’t let yourself be touched. No one could have you, unless you wanted them to.

And out of all the hazy decisions you’ve made in your shortlived days, your want for him flashes in technicolor clarity.

His hands move to your back and he splays his fingers, making you arch into him. You lift your head, wilting under the command of his lips that connect to yours, make quick work of erasing the last remaining traces of your chapstick. He intoxicates you worse than the strongest of whiskeys, his teeth tugging at your bottom lip, drawing out stifled gasps and sudden quivers from you.

Trailing kisses down your cheek, jaw and neck, he gives birth to a throbbing ache in your synapses, threatening you drown you in a sudden deluge of need and crave. You grab his shirt in fistfuls, whimpering and whining when he yanks your band, unties your hair and pulls away to watch your soft strands fall in messy patterns across your shoulders. He sighs, not tearing his gaze off of you as he cradles your hip, tilting his head to whisper into the crook of your neck, ‘You’re ing beautiful.’

He mouth doesn't touch your skin anymore, lingers and mimes it’s presence over you and you, in turn, mewl; replace authority with conformity because you want more of him and never have you wanted someone this gravely, like it would inaugurate destruction and you’d joyfully perish if it were to be for him.

He laughs at your meek attempts, watching you claw into his buttons and latch your fingers to his cufflinks, ‘What happened, babygirl, do you want me to you?’

Your heart jostles with your ribs, creates a rhythmic trance of ache and starve as you kiss his jaw, clutch onto him like you are nearing your flatline and stare into his eyes, pleading and begging without ever speaking. He pulls his hands away from you so you move freely, kiss the column of his neck and let your incisors sink into his soft flesh, relishing how he hisses when you on your bites afterwards, soothe them in placid laps of your tongue.

When your hand moves to his waistband he stops you, voice gravel-sharp and hoarse, ‘No’, he lifts your chin, dragging his thumb along your lower lip, ‘If I were to you it would be under the skylights and between my sheets, not in the dead of this neon.’

‘Fine then’, you muster your shaking voice and sew them into coherence, ‘Take me home.’

He leaves the couch, and suddenly goosebumps break across your skin. You feel cold and frosty, like he is taking the spring with him and leaving you high and dry in your winter. You shudder at his godlike control when he raises his voice and walks out almost immediately after, ‘Parking lot in five.’

You enter the green room stumbling and racing, tearing and ripping yourself out of your outfit. It was dark, the bulb of your dresser table flickering awake when you flip the switch. You had worn your white coat and little floral dress to the club today. You slip into it again, find it to be too bright and too beguiling for your lusting, dark mood but you turn to go, certain that it won’t be on you for long eitherway.

He opens the door for you as you settle quietly into the passenger seat. His car was something vintage, something you couldn't recall the name of. The entire car smelt like him, or so you thought because, at the given moment, the entire expanse of your universe is him, likely making you see and smell him in all perception of your senses.

His is reclusive and taut during the ride, fingers pressing onto the steering wheel just like the way yours were pressing onto the seat, paradoxically giving it the shape and feel of his skin, momentarily basking in its softness until you bask in each others. He halts at the red signal, turns to you, rakes his fingers through your hair and pulls you closer. His breath fans against you when he kisses you, impatiently and fiercely, wanting to sear every intricate piece of you and swallow them in mouthfuls until you’ve given your all and he has tasted elixir in your lips.

His fingertips tickle up your knee tenderly, resting on your thigh and rubbing the warmth of his palm into the fraying, dying nerves at the edge of your skin. You let his tongue explore your mouth, let his thick, addictive moans reverberate in the secluded space when he pushes your dress up, skims his fingers past your soaked . You arch your back so that you could feel his finger better, the unending deprivation of him scraping you inside out and hollowing your sanity.

He curses under his breath when he sees you call out to him, and reluctant still, he pulls away from you, steering his gaze back on the road with his hand still on your thigh. He works his way up from there, past your midriff and your s, teasing your lips with his thumb as he cups your cheek, ‘.’

You comply, take his thumb gingerly into your mouth, relishing the sweet taste of his skin, biting weakly at the tip and it with your tongue, giggling at the way his eyes flutter as he releases a low groan, ‘ you’re going to look so good filled with my .’

Seokjin parks in the garage. Sliding into the last spot and unbuckling his seat belt. ‘Outside’, he demands, and you obey – following him into the part victorian and part modern residence. Leisurely, he saunters towards the elevators, pulls you to him when the doors ding shut. He slides his hands down your body, biting your lower lip and breathing against you. He walks you backwards, continuing to kiss while entering the foyer. He isn’t gentle, isn’t soft – so neither are you. With your bodies tangled, mouths hot and jaws aching, you somehow make it to his living room, drawing yourself away from him because the nodes of your lungs are lapsing into pain from the lack of air.

Finally the world around comes into view and you see his chrome tanned couch, his floor to ceiling windows and shelves of books and vinyl records. Everything is wooden, polished and luxe- refined and elegant just like you had always imagined him to be. Your gaze soon falls on the exhibit of mugs on the top of the shelves. You squint to focus, read a blue one say, sorry my books make me a bit shelf-ish.

No, you tell yourself as you repress laughter, this is not something you would’ve believed until you had witnessed. You find it impossible, for someone who looks like he runs the world on his fingertip, to imagine him curl up in front of his fireplace, to actually sip cider out of the same cup, chuckle at the expired, dead sense of humour.

Your disoriented thoughts race back to the void of your mind when you feel him shut the door behind you, walk up to you and press onto your back, digging into your lower hip. 

He kisses up the side of your neck, stops near your ear, tugging at the shell lightly before whispering. ‘What do you need the money for?’

You stagger for a moment, stiffen your shoulders before hasty secrets spill from your mouth.

He smiles against your skin, turns you around and traces a strand of your hair with his finger, looks at you with merry eyes. ‘Alright, I’ll pay you. Only if you’re a good girl, that is, marionette.’

You blink as he condescends, feel his cologne run with your blood and merge into your veins, your heartbeat now making a racket because there is nothing you would not do for him, atleast at this moment, in your daze of incomprehension and starvation. ‘Marionette?’

‘Yes’, he grips your waist, walks you backwards until you hit his bedroom door. Your body is lifted, your calves locked around his waist as he traces circles across the flush of your cheek, ‘Marionette. For you shall do what I say.’

You feel him grind into you in a slow, torturous rhythm, making you sink your teeth into your bottom lip so fiercely that you think you might draw blood. Your entire body is sensitized to his touch, your senses at the tip of their alertness to every move he makes. 

He raises your hand above your head, pressing your chests together as he enraptures your soul with his mouth, dragging the soft flesh of your neck between his teeth, and engraving sore, lush hickeys across your throat. Coming down to cup your , he makes you clutch onto him as he swings the door open, taking long, firm strides and throwing you onto his bed.

‘God I hate that dress’, he mumbles between his kisses, pushing your strap lower until the fabric pools on the floor and he climbs atop you entirely, unhooking and undoing your remnant pieces of lingerie like it did him offense.

A muffled grunt emanates from his mouth when he languidly courses down your body, stops to kiss the hot flesh of your s, set you ablaze when the moist tip of his tongue teases a nub, bites gently and moves to the other, pleasuring in repetitive motions. You ball the thick strands of his hair in your fists, a choked moan tumbling across your chest when he spreads your legs farther, delves into the crevice of your inner thigh, kisses his way up to your . He tastes you in gentle flicks, hums at the vibrato of your body before enlivening and fueling your adrenaline by flattening and dragging his tongue; , and teasing. 

Your walls are already clenching under the heat of his mouth, your stomach tight and your throat suffocated. You claw into his sheets, curving and grinding into him further when he presses a finger, circles your slit before entering you. You nearly cry out, trembling and euphoric under his lips and his digits when, suddenly, he pulls away, your glistening taste off his red, swollen lips and groans.

‘Now be good for me, marionette. me off and I’ll make you come’, he kisses your hip, ‘All night.’

It takes some time for the sound of your racing pulse to dissipate and his own heavy words to seep into your skin. Steeling yourself, you kneel near the bedpost. Your brisk hand works on his shirt quickly, dragging it off his shoulders as you admire how broad he was, virile and strong, muscles of his abdomen flexing when you trail tempting kisses down his body, halt near his belt and slide it past its hoops. You duck your finger beneath his trousers and his boxer briefs, yanking both down.

Your firm fingers enclose his girth in their grip, rubbing them up and back down, until he’s hissing, impatient for you. You graze your lips along the tip of his shaft lightly, kissing and moistening. ‘Like that?’ you blink innocently, eyes doe and lips pouty.

‘Yes, yes’, Seokjin stares, gaze lidded when you take him in your mouth. Lips wrapping around his , easing your head back and he groans, fingers winding their way into your hair. You let out a hum of pleasure, taking him further, letting him – because the way he moans is too ing hot.

‘Enough’, he pulls you up, guiding you back until you hit the headboard. He rests his body on you, hands needy and relentless as they roam everywhere, wanting to mould you into him. He kisses your collarbone, nipping it gently as you caress his sweat-slicked skin, ‘Tell me baby’, he offers you impulsive endearment, ’How do you want to come? By my mouth or by my ?’

All of it you it, you pause for a brief moment. You want all of that, want all of him but you swallow mouthfuls of air, the ache building at your core nearing biblical, ‘Your ’. You claw into his nape when he groans. ‘Please’, you add for good measure.

‘Thank ’, he blurts, voice strained they pass through the tightness of his chest. He reaches for the end table, tearing the foil wrapper and rolling it on. He pulls back to admire you, your soft hair falling across your shoulders as you grip onto the mattress, wet and wanting, your eloquent whines giving intricate pieces of you away to him without your knowledge.

Your hips buck when he spreads you with his knee, aligning himself and capturing your lips in a kiss as he lowers himself. His tongue explores caverns of your mouth as his teases your , draws tender circles to put your patience at the edge, make you mewl into his mouth which he swallows gleefully, intermingling them with his own passionate groans.

He buries himself to the hilt in one , stretching you and allowing you to accommodate his wide girth. He stills, gasps when he’s all inside of you in a chokehold, ‘ you’re tight, who’ve you been ing?’

No one, you think, you’ve never given yourself like this to anyone. So easily capsized, swept in desire and lust. The last time you’ve given yourself to somebody was your boyfriend in college, who is now a blur, some nameless entity. But then, the world is, because for now you see no beginning or end. You see and you feel him, and you’ve never seen or felt so whole and complete, yet so vulnerable before. Reaching up with shaking hands, you hold his face in your palms. ‘Move.’

On either side of you, he braces himself, biceps trembling in the effort not to collapse against you at the intensity of this feeling and moves in shallow s. He fumbles for the headboard when you call out to him softly, arching your head and squeezing your eyes shut. He doesn't mind the probable dents on the plaster of his wall when the headboard creaks as he pulls out to once more, hard and possessive. You gasp when he twines his fingers with yours, wanted, needed and connected, as he s into you like he sees a purpose, sees the need to achieve some kind of assurance. You wrap your legs around his waist and he pounds into you deeper that way, longer and deeper as sweat settles on his brows and he drops his forehead to yours, kissing you every so often before cursing under his breath.

You find it immaculate, find him to be some kind of ensemble and his sighs the best piece of poetry you’ve ever read. Your heart pounds against his harmoniously, trying to break your ribs and resurrect you into something divine in his arms.

He burns sour in your throat and he settles bitter in your chest, the feeling of him merging into the marrow of your bones pains you because you find him etching himself into you without him even knowing. You are flitting, you are nobody after tonight and were nobody before tonight but the way he s you into his mattress, crying out his moans, you feel he has known you all his life, given you feathers from his wings to make you fly.

Your walls throb and clench amidst your thoughts, and you spasm, crying in all earnest, ‘I’m not gonna-’

‘I know, I can feel you’, he kisses your neck, nuzzles into the crook and holds onto you tighter so that you don’t dissemble under the vigour of your es, ‘Come for me baby.’

At the wake of his words, your toes curl, your body coiling around his girth and you turn into a livewire, your building swift like a wildfire. Your hands squeeze his shoulder blades, nails digging into his skin and lips parted in a silent scream as your breath catches in your lungs. The nerves in your body become raw, sensitive things- every touch and taste and sound heightened as your body starts to quake until you are hollow. He kisses your nose, your lips and your forehead, riding his own to completion.

He doesn't pull out of you immediately, lays limp and still and rests himself above you completely, engulfing you in his totality and your hair tenderly as you both bask in the aftermath of your heat.

He wasn't joking about the skylights, for upon craning your neck and observing with the clear vision of your subsided lust, you see a plethora of stars overhead, all twinkling and majestic, with them above you and you under them. Somehow, in the beauty of the skies, you find he didn't just want , he wanted to make love to you and this you cannot fathom- cannot believe how transcendent he makes his crave for you look and how beautiful his fingertips make your skin feel.

You feel your tire-ridden eyes become heavy, sleep threatening to take over you so you debate whether you should gather your clothes, take your leave because that’s what you had agreed to do. But you suddenly don't want to part with him just yet, want to adore his flushed cheeks and his messy hair, falling into his gleaming eyes and how he’s looking at you the same way, finding your thoughts quite loud to go unheard.

It’s when he quietly snakes a hand around your waist, envelopes you in his blanket and mutters drowsily with his face buried in your neck like he has been living with you since the dawn of time, that your shoulders rivet, your breath hitches and you feel your body quiver.

‘What do you want for breakfast? I make world-class pancakes.’

You button your coat, the lingering taste of maple syrup still sweet at the back of your throat. Seokjin was nowhere in the room ever since you’ve woken up, only a plate of delicious pancakes on the bedside table awaited you, with little flowers that looked utterly romanticized. You don't give it much thought, hasten your movements and walk outside to find him snuggled on his couch with a cup of tea and the newspaper, wearing a simple tee and black shorts. He sees you at his doorway, beckons at you with a warm smile and asks you over to him.

You sit beside him, hands on your knees as you stare at the blue and magenta tendrils in the sky outside. He holds out an envelope towards you and you mouth an oh, taking it but watching it deflate between your fingers. You are perplexed for a moment, you feel no money, penny or cent of any kind and the envelope forms a heavy ball at an end. You rip it open and a set of keys fall on your lap and its not just any key.

They’re his keys.

Your mind whirls violently, confusion taking a toll on your frame as your brows shoot up questioningly, hoping this is not some sick joke.

He simply smiles, gaze fixated on you like he's seeing past your flesh, like he’s searching for hidden pieces of him in the twinkle of your eye and in the depths of your soul, ‘Move in with me.’

You gasp, unable to contain the very disturbing distortion your expression takes, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t think I follow?’

He chuckles softly, tilting his head as the sunrays scamper under his skin and shine with him, likely to turn him into something as celestial as itself, ‘So marionette didn’t strike a chord?’

You shake your head in complete apathy, trying to figure out his very vain way of speech.

He sighs, turning to face you completely as he takes your hands in his, jerking them up and down as if to awaken you, ‘University of performing arts? Batch of 2011?’

You associate and link faded patches of your memory, revving the gears in your mind and suddenly it strikes you. That smile, those eyes and that petname- there was no way you couldn't feel connected to him in the first second of your acquaintance.

Marionette, he called you that ever since you were in college. He called you that because whenever he saw you perform he would say you looked like you had strings attached to you, like you weren't even real and you danced to the music like the puppet dances to the puppeteer, perfectly and unmistakably. You were his marionette and you were young and utterly, foolishly in love.

‘Kim Seokjin- oh my’, you bring your hand closer to cover your mouth, before drawing the same away to cup his cheeks, ‘Jinnie! That explains the mugs!’ you sigh seeing how different everything about him is now, saving that little rut, ‘You know they’re not funny right?’

He seemingly melts in your palms, deeming you with his soft, honey eyes. ‘Hey, don't question my very high comedic understanding, alright?’

You giggle softly, regarding his incredulous transformation over the years.

‘You’ve changed so much- I couldn't even recognize you’, you admire how his poofy cheeks were gone, his round glasses now discarded and his lean figure now masculine and sculpted. You feel ancient grooves in you flutter and ache, reminisce how you had once learned this man and now years later, you haven't even recognized the underlying adoration he still fosters in his gaze.

He nods, kissing your palm and pulling you closer, ‘You haven't changed a bit, though, you’re just as beautiful.’

You crease your brows then, trying to connect the dots, ‘How did this happen?’

Seokjin exhales into your hands, resting his head on your shoulder. He is pained and you know that, so you wait until he stumbles upon the right words and emotions.

‘You were my first love, my first girlfriend, my first everything- I had a foreseen a future for us, you know? Then suddenly’, he clears his throat but you know he’s breaking, ‘You dropped out of college in your second year. No last words, no calls, no letters- you left me nothing. I know you lived with your brother but your apartment was locked and you just- vapoured into thin air. For six years Y/N’, Seokjin draws his head back, eyes moist and sad, ‘For six years I haven't slept well, for six years I’ve been looking for you and for six years I’ve been loving you.’

‘I tried to look you up everywhere, until one of my batchmates visited Sapphire. Told me he saw you there’, he laughs emptily, heartbroken and vague, watching you wear various shades of agony, ‘And the next thing I know, you’re getting me whiskey.’

You sniffle a tear, his shirt and slowly letting your scattered pieces amend in his embrace, ‘I’m sorry, Jin. Life- life’s been rough.’

‘Shush’, he pulls you to him, caresses your back as you rest your head on his chest, hugging him completely so that his scent wraps you too, ‘Don’t worry baby. We’ll get you out of this mess. I talked to that friend of yours before I met you in the private room. I’ll track your brother down and rehabilitate him.’ You look up at him and he grins, all genuine and toothy, ‘As for your landlady, she can shove her rents up her because I’m not letting you go, never again.’

You feel his shirt dampen under your sobs, so you hide your face in your hands, choke out words, ‘Why are you doing so much for me? Even after I hurt you?’

He tugs at your hands, traces circles on your cheeks and wipes the tears pooling at your chin. He kisses you softly, relishes your whimper and bops you on the nose.

‘Because, ever since I was eighteen, I’ve never liked you dancing for anybody but me.’

You stare at him, enshrined in the abstract kind of faith he was weaving around you. ’Jin.’

He chuckles, shrugging his shoulders playfully as you are straddled in his lap, ‘And I mean hey, atleast you haven't been ing others.’

You laugh, into his skin and into his heart, becoming one and becoming his as you lock eyes, ‘That’s a positive, yeah.’

Sinful, you think. It was sinful of him to make you feel so undeserved to this kind of love, unfathomable and immortal, making you see colours of a rainbow when you’ve seen yourself in nothing but monochrome.

You think perhaps he had spent days under the skylights, wishing upon all of the stars and living amidst fabrications of you, yearning you from miles apart- seconds, hours and years of longing, never touching.

Sinful, you had always thought, to sell yourself, but now that you sell yourself to happiness, to a miracle, you succumb to that very sin, let it burn and blaze you, wrap you in its flames around you and cradle your ashes.

You, hence, succumb to him, throw your arms around his neck and submit to him like you are submitting to both heaven and sin, without regrets and with love.

He smiles against your skin and you silently resolve to make him your sun and orbit around him, always. Make him your spring and become his cherry blossom, always. Make him your sinner and become his sin, always.

You exhale.

Marionette,

You shall dance for the sinner.