CHAPTER 18 TO 33

 

Chapter 18: A Table Between Wolves

 

The clinking of porcelain echoed softly against the high-vaulted ceilings, an elegant, tempered rhythm that did nothing to soothe the disquiet pulsing beneath Jungkook’s skin. The morning had bloomed slowly, silver light bleeding across the eastern windows and filtering through the gauzy drapes like softened suspicion.

 

He hadn’t expected to be summoned again so soon—not like this.

 

The dining hall was smaller than the grand banquet room he had peeked at on his first day. This one was intimate. Quiet. There were only three chairs set around a circular table that looked like it had been carved from the bones of the forest—smooth wood, pale and veined with the silver-gray of age. He felt like he had stumbled into something unspoken.

 

V was already seated when Jungkook arrived, unmoving except for the flick of his gaze when the boy stepped through the doorway. That sharp gaze trailed over him with the same unreadable depth it always held, but something about it today felt… weightier. Measured.

 

Jungkook bowed his head instinctively, unsure why, but felt the air tighten anyway.

 

Then another set of footsteps entered the room—slower, quieter. Taehyung.

 

Unlike his twin, who sat like a statue cast from marble and shadow, Taehyung moved like wind brushing over still water. Silent, gliding, unhurried. But today there was an edge to his silence that made Jungkook’s spine stiffen.

 

He didn’t understand why both of them were here. Together. With him.

 

Still, he obeyed the unsaid instruction. He sat. He pulled the chair back as quietly as possible and tucked himself into the curved wood, lowering his eyes as plates were set before them.

 

The silence wasn’t uncomfortable. It was dense.

 

The kind of silence that didn’t grow from awkwardness but from restraint—like sharp blades held in velvet sleeves.

 

Taehyung was the first to reach for a plate, lifting a slice of roasted pear with slow, deliberate grace. His eyes didn’t stray from Jungkook as he moved, and yet he said nothing. Didn’t offer a greeting. Didn’t even offer a glance toward his brother.

 

V, for his part, didn’t eat immediately. He watched. Sat still, hands clasped loosely before him, a slight crease between his brows that might have meant anything—or nothing at all.

 

Jungkook didn’t know what to do with his hands. He reached for the fork, then paused, fingers curling in mid-air. The table was too quiet for cutlery noise. The food looked too delicate to disturb. And he was suddenly aware of how small he looked between them—hoodie sleeves pulled over his hands, hair still slightly messy from sleep, and eyes that darted too quickly.

 

“Eat,” V said finally. One word, low and cool, dropping into the space like a stone into water.

 

Jungkook obeyed, flinching only slightly as he reached again, this time slicing into the fruit with careful effort. His movements were slow, but he was aware of every breath in the room. The way Taehyung’s eyes slid to V’s hand as it reached for a glass of water. The way V’s jaw tensed slightly when Taehyung offered Jungkook a folded napkin without a word.

 

It wasn’t just a meal. It was a balance. A test.

 

Halfway through the quiet dining, Jungkook felt his foot bump against something beneath the table. He stilled.

 

Not the leg of the table. Not a chair.

 

Warm. Firm. V didn’t move, didn’t look down, but Jungkook knew. His own ankle was now resting lightly against V’s. Skin through the thin cloth of his pants.

 

He drew it back, flustered, but not fast enough to avoid the faintest brush of contact again—intentional this time. A tap. A warning. Or a claim.

 

Jungkook swallowed.

 

Taehyung’s fork scraped gently against his plate, not loud, not harsh, but noticeable. His head tilted, eyes flickering to Jungkook’s slightly pink cheeks.

 

“You didn’t sleep well,” Taehyung said, a comment that was not a question.

 

“I—” Jungkook hesitated, glancing between them. “I had dreams.”

 

V shifted then. His first movement in minutes. He leaned back in his chair, long fingers curling around the edge of his glass. “About?”

 

The air thickened. The question wasn’t casual. It wasn’t concerned, either.

 

Jungkook hesitated. Then: “Music.”

 

Taehyung’s eyes softened, just slightly. “What kind of music?”

 

Jungkook’s voice dropped, almost shy. “The kind that’s… played when no one’s listening.”

 

A pause. A silence laced with meaning.

 

Then V stood. Not abruptly. Smooth, cold, quiet. He didn’t speak. Simply stepped away from the table, glass still in hand, and walked toward the sun-drenched window with deliberate calm.

 

The movement was more than just casual.

 

It was space.

 

Distance.

 

A warning.

 

Jungkook stared after him, unsure if he’d done something wrong. But Taehyung didn’t rise. He remained at the table, fingers drumming faintly against his knee, eyes sharp and unreadable.

 

“He doesn’t like sharing,” Taehyung murmured after a moment. “Even things he hasn’t decided are his yet.”

 

Jungkook blinked. The words weren’t sharp. But they weren’t gentle either.

 

Taehyung looked at him now, gaze a shade darker than moments ago. “And you… don’t seem to understand how rare it is to be seen by him.”

 

“I didn’t mean—” Jungkook started, then stopped.

 

Because it was true. He hadn’t meant anything. He had just… existed. Spoke. Breathed. He didn’t know when that became a provocation.

 

Taehyung leaned forward slightly now, elbows resting on his thighs. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking we are the same. He shows affection like frost on glass. I show it like hands around your ribs.” His voice dropped. “But both can suffocate.”

 

Jungkook’s breath caught.

 

The moment shattered when V turned from the window and exited the room entirely.

 

Neither of them followed.

 

Instead, Taehyung reached across the table again—not to touch—but to lift Jungkook’s half-filled glass of water, inspecting it before placing it back down precisely where it had been.

 

“I’ll see you in the library later,” Taehyung said. No inflection. No request.

 

Jungkook simply nodded.

 

And the room emptied again.

 

The rain hadn’t started yet, but the sky had already darkened—an overcast veil pressing low against the horizon, casting a soft, gray light into the hallway where Jungkook sat, legs pulled up to his chest. The marble beneath him was cold, but not unkind. It kept him grounded. Anchored. Reminding him he was still here, still breathing, still real.

 

He had picked this hallway because it overlooked nothing. It wasn’t the conservatory with its green promises, or the inner balcony where the sunlight flirted with the atrium’s stillness. It was a forgotten corridor that cut past the west wing stairwell, a hallway where paintings outnumbered visitors and time seemed to pause just long enough to catch its breath. He liked it for its silence—and today, for the loneliness that didn’t feel quite so heavy here.

 

His cheek rested against his knee. Hoodie sleeves swallowed his fingers, and the fabric tugged faintly each time he flexed them. The house had been too quiet this morning, even by its usual standards. Something beneath the surface had shifted again. A subtle tightening, as if the walls themselves had become wary of one another.

 

Jungkook wasn’t stupid, even if he played soft and small. He wasn’t blind either, though he often tried to be. He had seen the way V’s shoulders no longer brushed past Taehyung’s when they crossed paths, how the silence between them had taken on a sharper edge. And maybe it was his fault. Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he had just wandered into something that had been fraying for far longer than he realized.

 

He wondered if the twins had ever fought before.

 

Not loud fights—he couldn’t picture either of them raising their voices. But the quiet ones. The ones that felt like pulling skin from bone without drawing blood. Jungkook had always been good at reading rooms, even if he didn’t always understand the politics of them. And now, between V’s deliberate distance and Taehyung’s sudden attentiveness, something was unraveling.

 

He was the thread.

 

His brows knit together faintly, lips pursing into a pout without his realizing. He didn’t want to be the cause of anything. He didn’t want to ruin whatever unspoken thing existed between those two towering presences who looked at him as if he were a puzzle neither could put down.

 

A soft creak caught his attention.

 

He turned his head—not startled, just curious—and saw no one. Just the usual hush of wind pressing against the sealed windows. The shadows didn’t stretch differently. The paintings didn’t blink. But something inside him still shifted, as if the house had exhaled around him.

 

He rose slowly, unfolding like a note left too long unopened. His feet padded softly against the floor as he wandered, directionless but not aimless. Some part of him was seeking. Not answers, exactly. Just… reassurance. And without needing to name it, his steps led him to the place where he had found the most consistent silence. A silence that listened.

 

The library.

 

The heavy door yielded easily beneath his palm, swinging open with the quiet courtesy that had come to define the mansion. Inside, the familiar hush greeted him like an old friend. Wood and leather. Paper and candle wax. The scent of memory.

 

And there, nestled in the soft gold glow of a single reading lamp, was Taehyung.

 

He sat with the same elegance he always carried—spine straight, ankle crossed over knee, one hand holding a book loosely while the other rested against the armrest of the chair. His gaze flicked up at the sound of the door, and though his expression didn’t shift dramatically, there was something unmistakable in the way his eyes softened when they found Jungkook.

 

There was a pause—long enough to make Jungkook hesitate in the doorway.

 

But Taehyung’s voice, low and steady, reached him without needing volume.

 

“Come in.”

 

It wasn’t a command. It wasn’t even a request. It was just… space. Offered. And Jungkook stepped into it.

 

He moved slowly, almost reverently, as if the books might start whispering if he walked too fast. He didn’t speak right away. Instead, he allowed himself to stand near the edge of the firelight, eyes trailing over the spines of books he wouldn’t open. Taehyung didn’t interrupt. He returned to his book, or pretended to. Jungkook could tell his gaze hadn’t fully left.

 

Finally, Jungkook murmured, “This room always feels different.”

 

Taehyung didn’t look up, but the corner of his lip curved slightly. “Because it holds no lies.”

 

Jungkook tilted his head. “How can you tell?”

 

“Books don’t pretend to be anything they’re not.” His voice was quiet, reflective. “They either speak, or they don’t. But they never lie.”

 

Jungkook sank into the opposite chair, legs curling beneath him. His sleeve tugged again as he folded his arms around himself. He watched the flames for a while, their dance more comforting than most words.

 

“Are you angry at V?” The question slipped out before he could stop it. Not childish. Not accusing. Just… honest.

 

Taehyung closed the book in his lap, resting it on the small table beside him. “No,” he said after a moment. “But I’m not indifferent either.”

 

Jungkook swallowed around the silence that followed. He shifted slightly, fingers picking at the seam of his sleeve.

 

“I didn’t mean to make anything weird,” he said quietly. “I just…”

 

“I know,” Taehyung interrupted, gently. “You didn’t ask for any of this.”

 

The fire crackled softly between them. The shadows danced along the carved ceiling, painting them both in flickers of orange and gold. Taehyung’s gaze, when it landed on Jungkook again, was unreadable—but it wasn’t cold.

 

“You have a way of creating space where there was none,” he said, his tone softer now. “It unsettles those who’ve lived too long with silence.”

 

Jungkook looked down. He wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or a warning.

 

“Do you want me to leave it alone?” he asked, voice almost too soft.

 

Taehyung leaned forward slightly. Not menacing—just closer. Just real.

 

“No,” he said. “I want you to keep being exactly what you are.”

 

 

 

Chapter 19: Tints of Unspoken Fire

 

The mansion was quiet again, but it no longer felt like the same quiet Jungkook had come to find comfort in. It was heavier now—dense with the tension that rippled beneath every exchanged glance, every missed footstep, and every door that closed just a little too gently. The silence no longer cradled him. It observed him.

 

He had left the library sometime after noon, the warmth of the throw still clinging to his skin like memory. Taehyung hadn’t followed, hadn’t said a word once Jungkook rose from the plush armchair. But his gaze had followed, and that gaze had felt more like a tether than a farewell.

 

The corridors felt longer today, stretched by the thoughts spinning in Jungkook’s head. He drifted toward the west wing—not V’s, not Taehyung’s, but his own quarters, the one with the attached studio that had quietly become his sanctuary. The staff had furnished it modestly when he arrived: blank canvases, untouched oils, soft wooden stools, and wide windows that welcomed morning light.

 

Now, though, the room smelled of linseed oil and lemon rinds, the products of his distraction, his instinct. Paints were open, canvases half-finished—colors bleeding where they shouldn’t, brushstrokes layered with something more urgent than technique. He didn’t always remember what he painted. His hands worked from somewhere deeper, somewhere untouched by the logic of the mansion’s rhythm.

 

Jungkook wandered in without turning on the lights. The natural brightness from the high windows sufficed, casting his easel in a soft, diffused glow. He didn’t sit immediately. Instead, he padded across the floor, fingertips grazing the edge of a canvas that held only a smear of gray and the beginnings of a shadowed jawline—one he hadn’t meant to paint. One that looked, suspiciously, like V.

 

He paused.

 

The silence pressed again. This time, it wasn’t the house. It was the distance growing between the twins.

 

He didn’t understand all of it—not the glances that lingered too long between them, nor the way Taehyung’s hand tightened just a little around his fork at breakfast whenever V spoke to Jungkook. Nor how V, for all his cold exterior, had begun to hover a little longer after every meeting, as if waiting for something unspoken to be said.

 

It wasn’t a rivalry. At least not openly. There were no sharp words, no confrontations. Only a gradual pull, as if Jungkook were a thread stretched taut between two fingertips, fraying quietly under strain.

 

He finally sank into his seat before the easel. The stool creaked faintly beneath him as he picked up his smallest brush, dipped it in the muted blue that had dried just enough to darken its edges, and began adding careful strokes to a canvas he couldn’t yet name. He didn’t know if he was painting water or sky. Perhaps it didn’t matter. It was movement. That was enough.

 

The door creaked.

 

He froze, brush mid-air.

 

Not because he was afraid. But because he didn’t expect anyone to find him here.

 

V didn’t knock.

 

Of course he didn’t.

 

He stepped inside like he had every right to—like the space was his to cross, like the air between them wasn’t weighted by things unsaid. He didn’t speak at first. Just closed the door gently behind him, the faint click of it locking slipping through the hush.

 

Jungkook didn’t turn. He could feel the older man’s presence without needing to see him. It was cold and magnetic, like winter sun—distant, but impossible to ignore.

 

“You missed brunch,” V said finally. His voice was low, detached, but with a tinge of something else—something Jungkook hadn’t learned to name yet.

 

“I wasn’t hungry,” Jungkook replied, not looking up from the canvas.

 

There was a pause.

 

“You’re not painting properly,” V said next.

 

Jungkook blinked, eyes narrowing at the canvas. “I wasn’t aware there was a right way.”

 

“There is when your hands are trembling.”

 

That made Jungkook still.

 

He hadn’t noticed.

 

He lowered the brush slowly, resting it against the lip of the jar beside him. His fingers did tremble slightly—not out of fear, but out of pressure. The pressure of being watched without being understood. The pressure of two silences pressing against him from opposite sides.

 

V moved closer. His footsteps were slow, deliberate. Each one felt like a countdown.

 

When he stopped just behind Jungkook, the latter didn’t dare breathe too loud.

 

“I don’t come here often,” V said quietly, looking around the studio. “This room isn’t... mine.”

 

Jungkook’s voice was soft. “Then why are you here?”

 

V didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he leaned in—not enough to touch, but enough that Jungkook could feel the heat of him at his back.

 

“Because you’re here.”

 

Jungkook’s chest rose, breath slow and shallow.

 

“And Taehyung?”

 

V tilted his head. Jungkook couldn’t see it, but he felt the shift of it, the change in the air.

 

“He’s always been softer,” V said. “But that doesn’t mean he sees more.”

 

It wasn’t an insult. It wasn’t even a comparison. But Jungkook felt the possessiveness behind the words—quiet, buried, but potent. As if V were staking some invisible claim, not through words, but through presence alone.

 

“I don’t belong to anyone,” Jungkook said, surprising even himself with the firmness in his tone.

 

“No,” V agreed. “But that hasn’t stopped anyone from trying.”

 

Their eyes finally met when Jungkook turned. And in that moment, the air was no longer still.

 

V’s gaze was unreadable. But beneath the cold precision of it was something older. Older than rivalry. Older than power. Something close to longing. Something dangerously close to need.

 

Neither of them moved.

 

Neither of them needed to.

 

The silence said enough.

 

After a long moment, V stepped back. “You should eat.”

 

Jungkook didn’t nod. He didn’t agree. He simply turned back to the canvas and picked up his brush again.

 

V left without another word.

 

But the door didn’t quite latch behind him.

 

—

 

Later that evening, long after the sky had faded into velvet, Jungkook found himself in the garden corridor again. He hadn’t meant to end up there. His feet had taken him on their own, retracing steps he hadn’t known were familiar.

 

He wasn’t alone.

 

Taehyung stood near the fountain, eyes on the dark water. His profile was lit by the moon, pale and steady. The quiet around him was a different kind than V’s. Not cold. Not sharp. But watchful. Soft where it could be.

 

“I thought you were reading,” Jungkook said quietly.

 

Taehyung didn’t look surprised. “I was.”

 

“And now?”

 

“I’m waiting.”

 

“For what?”

 

“You.”

 

Jungkook swallowed. “You didn’t know I’d come.”

 

“I hoped you would.”

 

There was no flirtation in his tone. No games. Just quiet sincerity.

 

 

Chapter 20: Silhouettes Beneath the Glass

 

The conservatory was quiet again.

 

A soft kind of quiet, the kind that wrapped itself around the rafters and settled low between the velvet cushions and the green-touched windows, almost reverent in how it held the space together. Somewhere outside, birds sang in the early afternoon light, their voices filtered by layers of stained glass and the slow, fragrant drift of blooming camellias.

 

Jungkook stood at the edge of the koi pond, his eyes tracing the lazy swish of orange and white beneath the surface. His hands were stuffed deep inside the sleeves of an oversized knit, cuffs falling far past his fingers. He looked like he had wandered there accidentally, but his steps had been deliberate. Each one placed as though it would disturb something sacred if he walked too quickly.

 

There was something in the air lately—an ache, like pressure before rain. And he wasn’t foolish enough to think it had nothing to do with him.

 

He had felt it in the way V had stood beside him the night before, watching the firelight play over the sharp planes of Taehyung’s face as the latter read quietly by the hearth. V had said nothing, but his silence had curled differently, as though guarding something unspoken. A shift. A wall erected not from anger, but from recognition.

 

Jungkook sighed softly, crouching by the edge of the water. The koi came closer, mouths parting in slow expectation, but he had nothing to offer. Not today. He could feel the mansion breathing around him, as though even the walls had begun to notice the ripples of attention he drew from both its owners.

 

The twins. He still didn’t understand them.

 

He had been in this house for weeks now, and not once had he heard them raise their voices. They moved like shadows along the same corridors, passed each other like reflections in still mirrors—never colliding, never clashing. But he could feel it now. The current pulling tighter. The pause in their glances. The restraint in their words when he was in the room. A dance so quiet he wasn’t sure if he had imagined it. But it was real. He felt it in the pit of his stomach every time one of them looked at him like they could see past his skin.

 

He picked up a smooth, flat stone and skimmed it gently across the water. It landed without a splash, sinking slowly.

 

Was he breaking something?

 

His brow furrowed. Not because he wanted to, but because he feared he already had. It was not a new fear. He had lived his life moving around other people’s expectations, skirting the edges of rooms, never sitting too close to the center. But here, in this place that smelled of old books and honeyed tea, where even the quiet had a name, he found himself being pulled into something he didn’t understand.

 

And they—those two men who carried silence like a second language—they kept looking at him like he was something they didn’t know how to touch.

 

The conservatory door opened.

 

Jungkook didn’t turn. He didn’t need to.

 

He knew that footfall. Knew the sound of that step, longer than his, deliberate but unhurried. Taehyung didn’t speak immediately. The rustle of his coat was the only sound as he walked the curved path to where Jungkook crouched by the pond.

 

They stayed that way for a moment—two figures in the green-dappled light, neither looking at the other. Then Taehyung lowered himself to sit beside him, his movements fluid, practiced, like someone used to waiting for answers that never came.

 

Jungkook spoke first, his voice a whisper.

 

“Do you ever wonder if you’re the one who started the fire?”

 

Taehyung looked at him then, eyebrows drawn faintly in confusion.

 

Jungkook shook his head, laughing once, quiet and self-deprecating. “Sorry. That came out weird.”

 

Taehyung didn’t smile, but there was a flicker in his eyes. Not annoyance. Something else. Something older.

 

“You think you’ve set something burning,” he said quietly.

 

Jungkook didn’t answer. He just reached out and traced a finger in the water’s surface, sending a ripple across the pond. Taehyung watched the motion, then looked away again.

 

“You didn’t light anything,” Taehyung said eventually. “You just stepped into a house already built with matches in its walls.”

 

That made Jungkook pause.

 

Taehyung continued, his tone softer now, more reflective. “We were always going to burn, Jungkook. You just happen to be the first person who looked long enough to see the smoke.”

 

Jungkook sat back on his heels, looking over at him now. “Then why does it feel like I’m the one pulling you apart?”

 

Taehyung finally looked at him fully. And this time, the silence that followed was heavy. It stretched long, not uncomfortable, but full. Weighty.

 

“Because you’re the first thing we haven’t known how to share,” he said.

 

The words landed like a stone in Jungkook’s chest.

 

He looked away quickly, swallowing around the lump in his throat. It was too much. It was not enough. It was everything he had feared and everything he needed to hear, all wrapped into a sentence spoken in the quietest voice.

 

Taehyung didn’t move closer. He didn’t reach out. But the space between them felt irrevocably smaller.

 

“I didn’t mean to come between you,” Jungkook said, voice thin.

 

“You didn’t,” Taehyung said. “You just became the place where our fault lines met.”

 

They sat there, beneath the glass dome, koi moving lazily beneath the water, shadows shifting in the corners of the room. No answers. Just the slow, inevitable realization that things had changed, and nothing would go back to what it was.

 

Jungkook closed his eyes.

 

He was the center.

 

And he didn’t know what to do with that.

 

 

 

Chapter 21: The Stillness Between Storms

 

The early morning had long since faded into a languid stretch of mid-afternoon light, the kind that fell in strips across the polished floors like brushstrokes on canvas—gentle, hesitant, almost mournful. In the upper wing of the estate, far from the rooms where voices once murmured and footsteps left shadows in their wake, Jungkook found himself curled into the vast solitude of one of the smaller drawing rooms. The fireplace remained unlit, and no candle dared to flicker in the pale quiet of the room. It was as if the walls had swallowed time whole and left only the ticking of a clock tucked in the far corner as proof that life still moved.

 

Jungkook sat on the windowsill, legs folded beneath him like a child trying to disappear into the fold of his own limbs. His sleeves, oversized and soft, bunched at his wrists where his hands clutched a book he hadn’t read a word of in nearly an hour. The title was unfamiliar, the pages dense with winding prose, but it wasn't the story that had stilled his thoughts.

 

It was the air.

 

There was something strange in the mansion today, something he couldn't name. A tension that hung not in noise, but in its absence. A chill that curled behind warm walls. He had felt it the moment he had stepped into the hallway earlier that morning—the way the staff moved quieter than usual, the way the floorboards gave under his steps as if they, too, hesitated to carry him forward.

 

He had seen both of them this morning—Taehyung and V. Not together. Not even near one another. Just flickers of each man in separate corners of the house, like ghosts haunting their own palace. Taehyung had offered a soft, lingering glance from the sunroom before turning away. And V—V had passed Jungkook in the hallway leading to the conservatory, his eyes unreadable and dark as ink.

 

They hadn’t spoken.

 

Not to each other.

 

Not to him.

 

And yet, somehow, everything about them today screamed louder than words.

 

Jungkook rested his forehead against the cold glass of the window, eyes fluttering closed as the quiet wrapped around him. He didn’t know what he had done—what thread he’d unknowingly pulled that had begun to fray the silence between the twins. But he felt it. Felt it in the way they moved differently now, like wolves circling the same flame from opposite sides of the dark. And he—soft, clumsy, and unsure—was that flickering thing in the center.

 

It wasn’t fear he felt. Not quite. It was… pressure. The slow build of something he could neither escape nor control.

 

There was a sound.

 

Barely there.

 

Footsteps. Deliberate. Measured.

 

Not staff.

 

He knew the difference.

 

He sat up straighter, heart thudding not from fear but from the strange, unspoken anticipation that always came before one of them appeared. The door creaked open—not forcefully, but with a subtlety that made it feel like it was being opened only because the silence inside was too full.

 

Kim V stepped in.

 

He didn’t fill the room in the way Taehyung sometimes did—warm like molasses, seeping into every crevice. V entered like a shadow slipping beneath a locked door. He was dressed in his usual somber palette—black slacks, a charcoal turtleneck, a watch that glinted only when the light caught it right. His hair fell slightly over his eyes, unrushed, untouched by wind or vanity. He didn’t speak. Not at first.

 

Jungkook swallowed, the book closing quietly on his lap.

 

“I thought you might be here,” V said, his voice low, almost toneless—except for the edge. That sharp, untraceable edge that always made Jungkook feel like the words meant more than they revealed.

 

Jungkook nodded, gaze flickering toward the window again, then back. “It’s quiet here.”

 

“Too quiet?” V asked, stepping closer, not quite reaching him but nearing enough that the distance felt carefully calculated.

 

“No,” Jungkook murmured, curling his fingers into the sleeves of his hoodie. “Just quiet enough.”

 

That made something shift in V’s expression. Not a smile, but not displeasure either. More like acknowledgment. Like agreement, in the way that people who rarely shared pieces of themselves could still recognize matching shadows in one another.

 

V moved toward the chair near the window, sitting with the sort of grace that was always half-imposed, half-natural. He rested his forearms on the arms of the chair, long fingers curling over the carved wood. For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

 

And then—

 

“You’re different lately,” V said, not as a statement, not as a challenge. Just... something laid between them, like a single stone tossed into a still lake.

 

Jungkook didn’t deny it. “Am I?”

 

“You speak more. You look people in the eye. You don’t flinch when someone touches your shoulder.”

 

The words weren’t cruel. They weren’t even said with particular emphasis. But they held weight. And Jungkook felt it settle deep into his chest like sand in a bottle.

 

“I don’t mean to,” he whispered.

 

V tilted his head, eyes narrowing just slightly. “Don’t apologize.”

 

“I’m not,” Jungkook corrected, softer still. “I just… didn’t notice.”

 

That brought silence again, but this time, it wasn’t hollow. V sat back slightly, studying the boy across from him, and for the first time that day, Jungkook looked back—truly looked. Into the eyes of the man who had both terrified and fascinated him from the moment they met. There was something simmering there. Not affection, not yet. But something ancient. Something like claim.

 

“You don’t have to notice,” V finally said. “We do.”

 

The “we” hung heavier than any other word.

 

Jungkook’s breath hitched slightly, but he held his place. “Taehyung is mad.”

 

“Is he?” V asked, though his tone said he already knew.

 

“He didn’t say anything. But he doesn’t have to.”

 

V leaned forward now, his elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped together. “He is not mad. He is… feeling something he hasn’t had to feel in a long time.”

 

“What’s that?”

 

“Uncertainty.”

 

Jungkook’s heart squeezed tight. “Because of me?”

 

V didn’t answer immediately. When he did, his voice was a low hum. “Because of us.”

 

Jungkook looked down, his fingers tightening against the book again. His thoughts raced with questions he didn’t know how to ask, fears he didn’t want to name. But before he could say anything, V stood.

 

He approached slowly.

 

Deliberately.

 

Stopping just in front of him.

 

He didn’t reach out. Didn’t touch. But he leaned close enough that Jungkook could feel the shift in air between them. The scent of him—leather, smoke, rain—invaded the stillness.

 

“Don’t pull away,” V said, his voice barely audible. “Not from me. Not from him. You’re already in the center of this. Whether you asked to be or not.”

 

Jungkook’s throat went dry. “I didn’t mean to be.”

 

V’s eyes softened just enough to look human. “I know.”

 

He lingered a moment longer. And then, without another word, he turned and left—his footsteps a whisper behind the closing door.

 

Jungkook sat frozen, heart loud in his ears, breath shallow. He looked down at the book in his lap, unopened and forgotten.

 

And for the first time since arriving in the mansion, he wasn’t sure if the quiet was his sanctuary anymore—

 

Or the eye of a storm waiting to swallow him whole.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 22: The House That Hums

 

 

He’d woken in the middle of the night, not frightened, not confused, but… excitement. His hair was a tousled mess against the pillow, cheeks flushed, lashes damp from sleep. The storm outside hadn’t been loud, but there was something about it—something that pulled at the corners of his soul. His body, fully adult, curled into itself with the ease of someone far younger, his mind fluttering into that softer, lighter place that existed only when he felt safe enough to let it through.

 

Little Koo.

 

By morning, the house knew something had shifted, even if no one said it aloud. The staff moved carefully, quietly baffled by the sudden warm scent of honey and paint drifting down the hallway that led from Jungkook’s room. One housemaid swore she heard giggles—soft, mischievous giggles—punctuated by the sound of bare feet padding across the polished floors. She had looked, of course, but the hallway had been empty.

 

Kim V was the first to feel it.

 

He stood at the head of the east wing corridor, watching a tiny trail of something—was that… glitter?—catch the faint morning light and sparkle briefly before vanishing. He didn’t follow it. Instead, his gaze shifted toward the sunroom. The door was slightly ajar. Light spilled through it in slow, golden waves. He said nothing, but his posture shifted.

 

Inside, Little Koo sat cross-legged on the floor, his oversized hoodie sleeves flopping over his hands as he painted with fingers instead of brushes. There were sheets of watercolor paper scattered like flower petals around him, each one smeared with playful, vivid colors. A jar of strawberry jam sat nearby with an uncapped lid, and occasionally, Jungkook dipped a pinky into it—not to eat it, but to smear a line of jam next to a streak of yellow paint.

 

He giggled at the mess.

 

When the door creaked wider, Koo didn’t startle. He turned, his eyes round and wide and absolutely glowing.

 

“Daddy!” he squeaked, in a voice that was breathy and warm like sunshine through curtains. “Koo make sun for Daddy!”

 

V’s frame stiffened for half a second—not in shock, but in some strange, inward awareness that something inside him was melting. That name… that innocent, unthinking trust poured into one word. He’d never been called anything like that before.

 

He stepped inside. Quietly. Like approaching a frightened bird—but there was nothing afraid about the way Jungkook looked at him. In fact, Little Koo leaned forward, proudly lifting one of the smudged papers toward him. The “sun” was a chaotic swirl of gold and orange, a thick stripe of glitter running through the center like a lightning bolt.

 

“You made this for me?” V asked, kneeling down. His voice was lower, softer. He didn’t look away from the artwork.

 

Koo nodded eagerly, his eyes sparkling. “Yuh-huh. ‘Cause Daddy look like the sun when he wear gold shirt! You shiny.” Then, as if it explained everything, he added, “Koo likes shiny.”

 

V didn’t smile. Not in the way others might. But the corner of his mouth twitched. And he reached out—not to touch Jungkook, but to straighten the edge of the paper he held, as if preserving it. “It’s beautiful,” he murmured. “Just like you.”

 

At that, Little Koo beamed. He leaned forward, suddenly bold, and pressed a sticky, paint-smeared kiss to V’s cheek before pulling back with a giggle. “Koo’s Daddy now. No takesies backsies.”

 

V’s body froze.

 

It was absurd. It was childish. But something about that innocent declaration—made without agenda, without fear—felt heavier than any vow he’d ever heard. There was no teasing tone. Just absolute belief. As if Jungkook’s heart had declared it truth and the world must now rearrange itself to obey.

 

And oddly… V didn’t mind.

 

—

 

By the time Taehyung returned from his morning call—a rare instance of stepping into the outer estate offices for a virtual board check-in—the entire west wing of the mansion felt off. He noticed it in the hallway carpets first. Petals. Real petals. Strewn like a flower girl’s path to nowhere. His brow furrowed, elegant and barely visible, and he quickened his pace.

 

He heard the laughter before he saw the source.

 

In the library—his sanctuary—there was music. A soft humming that didn’t come from speakers, but from someone. And then he saw them.

 

Little Koo was seated in the center of the library’s massive rug, legs swinging, hands wrapped around the ankles of a large plush rabbit that clearly did not belong to the house’s original decor. Beside him, V sat in one of the reading chairs, a long white smear of paint on his sleeve. He was watching Jungkook with a stillness that felt alive. Not distant. Not calculating. But observant. Present.

 

Taehyung entered silently, but Jungkook saw him instantly.

 

“Dada!”

 

It hit him like a wave. That name. Warm. Inviting. Pure. Jungkook scrambled to his feet, rushed to him barefoot, and threw his arms around his waist. The hug wasn’t tight or dramatic. It was natural. Like coming home.

 

Taehyung blinked down at him, stunned for only a moment, then—without thinking—his arms folded around the smaller form.

 

“Dada missed Koo?” Jungkook asked, peeking up at him with wide, expectant eyes.

 

There were no defenses left.

 

“Yes,” Taehyung said, brushing a thumb beneath Jungkook’s chin. “Very much.”

 

—

 

As the day wore on, the mansion felt less like a sculpture and more like a living thing. Little Koo had a way of touching everything—not just objects, but air, routine, energy. He danced through rooms like a ribbon of mischief. He stole cherries from the kitchen while making puppy eyes at the chef, who somehow forgot all kitchen etiquette and gave him more. He painted a picture directly onto the glass of the conservatory door and insisted it stay “forever ever.”

 

Even the staff who had once walked quietly down halls now found themselves holding in soft laughter.

 

But what no one knew—what not even Koo seemed aware of—was how deep the change ran in the twins.

 

V, once known for icy stares and untouchable silence, now paused when he walked past the drawing room. He didn’t enter—but his hand would rest on the doorframe, waiting for the sound of a giggle or a soft footstep before he moved on.

 

Taehyung, usually composed and effortlessly elegant, had begun to bring small things home from the office wing. A set of watercolor pencils. A ribbon that matched Koo’s favorite hoodie. A pair of socks shaped like bunnies that he claimed were “for comfort” but never wore himself.

 

And Koo… Koo thrived.

 

In the warm embrace of two people who never said what they felt but showed it anyway, he bloomed like a spring flower after too long under snow.

 

But night always comes.

 

And sometimes, even in joy, the shadows grow long.

 

—

 

That evening, when the rain returned with heavier hands, Koo wandered. Not in mischief, but in thought. Something deep inside him—still young, still unsure—felt the faint ache of being too happy too fast.

 

He found himself in the east hall, the corridor where moonlight came through tall windows and turned the floor into silver.

 

Taehyung found him there.

 

He didn’t ask what Jungkook was thinking. He didn’t need to.

 

Instead, he stepped beside him, close enough to share his warmth, and murmured, “When you feel too full, it’s okay to rest.”

 

Jungkook blinked up at him, lower lip wobbling just the tiniest bit. “But if Koo rests… will Dada and Daddy still be here when Koo wakes up?”

 

The question shattered something.

 

Taehyung dropped to one knee, hands bracketing Jungkook’s arms, his forehead lowering to touch his.

 

“We’re not going anywhere,” he whispered. “You are not a dream after all.”

 

Koo didn’t speak.

 

He just clung to him.

 

And down the hallway, unseen, V stood in silence, a glass of untouched wine in hand, watching the two people who were slowly becoming his everything.

 

He didn’t step forward.

 

Not yet.

 

But the next chapter of this story—written not in ink, but in touch, in breath, in belonging—was already turning.

 

 

Chapter 23: Echoes in Bloom

 

The morning after the storm was unreasonably gentle. Soft sun spilled across the frost-dappled windows, painting the mansion in amber and lilac, like the sky was trying to apologize for the chaos it had spilled the night before. The household stirred slowly, and somewhere deep in the eastern wing, muffled footsteps padded against heated marble floors—unhurried, unbothered, and entirely out of rhythm with the usual quietude that had ruled the estate for years.

 

Jungkook, or rather the version of him who’d taken over during the storm—the small, pouty-lipped boy with wide eyes and a dangerous amount of charm—was awake far too early for someone who’d cried himself to sleep. Dressed in oversized socks that slouched around his ankles and a long-sleeved shirt that reached mid-thigh, he roamed the halls like a phantom with pockets full of mischief. One hand clutched a small plushie with faded fabric ears, the other smearing condensation on the glass panes as he paused to watch birds fluttering just beyond the greenhouse.

 

The mansion had changed.

 

Or maybe it hadn't, not really—but it felt different now, somehow. No longer an endless corridor of silence and restraint. Now, it breathed softer, as though bracing for the unpredictable storm that was Jungkook’s little self.

 

“Dadaaa…”

 

The soft whine drifted into the morning air as he turned the corner toward the main drawing room, toes barely making a sound. His voice was syrupy, thick with sleep and that inflection of naughtiness that danced just beneath innocence.

 

Taehyung, who had been seated on the velvet chaise by the tall window, turned his head slowly—hair still tousled from sleep, shirt only half-buttoned over loose slacks. He had been reading again, though the book lay open on his lap, pages catching light like wings.

 

At the sight of the younger boy, something unfurled quietly across Taehyung’s face. Not a smile—not yet—but a softening. As if a tight string had been plucked loose behind his sternum.

 

“You’re here,” he murmured, voice deeper in the morning, rich like warmed honey.

 

Jungkook did not answer. Instead, he walked straight toward him with all the gravity of a five-year-old on a secret mission. When he reached Taehyung’s knees, he simply lifted both arms upward, expectantly, plushie hanging limp from one hand.

 

Taehyung exhaled, barely a sigh, and set the book aside. He didn’t ask. He didn’t tease. He simply reached down and lifted Jungkook into his lap with practiced ease, settling him against his chest like it was the most natural thing in the world.

 

“Dada cold…” came the mumbled complaint as Jungkook curled tighter, cheek against the hollow of Taehyung’s collarbone.

 

“You’re always cold,” Taehyung replied, voice gentler now, one hand threading through sleep-mussed hair. “Maybe because you don’t wear pants.”

 

“Don’t like pants,” Jungkook huffed. “Scratchy.”

 

The corners of Taehyung’s lips quirked slightly as he adjusted the blanket over them both. He didn’t press the conversation. Instead, he let the silence stretch—comfortably this time—as his fingers moved in slow, grounding patterns through Jungkook’s locks.

 

Across the hall, just past the open archway, Kim V had been standing unseen for some time. A sleek black turtleneck clung to his frame, sleeves pulled over his hands as he leaned against the polished column. His expression was unreadable, as always—but the flicker in his gaze wasn’t. Not jealousy, per se. Something older. Something feral.

 

The softness Taehyung allowed himself in these moments had always been reserved. Exclusive. Rare. And now, Jungkook—his Jungkook—curled so easily in Taehyung’s lap, fit so seamlessly into the space that once belonged only to stillness.

 

Still, V didn’t interrupt. Not yet. Instead, he watched.

 

Watched as Taehyung tilted his head slightly and murmured something soft that made Jungkook giggle quietly. Watched the way Jungkook’s fingers curled against the older man’s shirt, fisting the fabric like a child clinging to safety. Watched the subtle tension in Taehyung’s jaw whenever Jungkook shifted too close to certain vulnerabilities.

 

And something inside V burned low and dangerous.

 

—

 

Later that morning, the three of them found themselves at brunch.

 

It was an unspoken agreement, not a scheduled event. V had taken his seat first, as he always did—spine straight, shoulders draped in a long black coat, one hand idly holding a cup of dark coffee as though he’d never known a restless night. Taehyung arrived second, now dressed in something cleaner, more buttoned, but still with a kind of ease that clung to him since morning.

 

Jungkook trailed last.

 

This time, he looked more grown. Not entirely out of his little space—but enough that he’d replaced the plushie with a sketchbook and dragged a hoodie over his shirt. His lips were still pink from where he’d chewed them unconsciously, and his eyes darted between the twins like he could feel something humming in the air between them.

 

He didn’t sit immediately. Instead, he hovered near the table, staring at the pastries with silent longing.

 

“Pick one,” V said smoothly, not looking up. “You’ve been eyeing the strawberry tart for three days.”

 

Jungkook’s ears pinked.

 

Taehyung said nothing, but he watched V from the corner of his eye—watched the casual claim embedded in the observation, the way his voice alone marked Jungkook’s habits like territory.

 

Jungkook sat between them this time. The seat had not been pre-selected, but it seemed inevitable somehow, like gravity had already chosen it for him.

 

“I want that one,” he said finally, pointing at the tart.

 

Taehyung reached for it before Jungkook could. Placed it gently on his plate. And then, without a word, used the tip of his fork to cut it into perfect thirds.

 

He slid one to Jungkook. Another to his own plate. The last he left untouched.

 

Jungkook blinked. “That’s mine.”

 

“It’s shared now,” Taehyung said quietly, sipping from his tea.

 

Across the table, V’s lips curved ever so slightly. But the tension didn’t fade. It coiled tighter.

 

“Are we rationing desserts now?” V said, voice smooth but colder than before.

 

“No,” Taehyung replied, matching him in tone. “We’re sharing.”

 

Jungkook looked between them. Felt the shift. The invisible pull that tied both men to him and set them against each other in ways they would never admit aloud. He chewed his pastry slowly, eyes wide.

 

He didn’t understand all of it. Not yet.

 

But he understood enough to know that he’d somehow become the flame—and they were the moths, circling in slow, dangerous spirals.

 

—

 

The afternoon was filled with quiet tension.

 

Taehyung retreated to the library, again. V disappeared into his wing. Jungkook, left to wander, found himself slipping into one of the art rooms—the ones he had not yet claimed but had always felt like echoes of him waiting to be filled.

 

There, he opened his sketchbook and drew.

 

Not the twins. Not the mansion. Just… the feeling of being watched.

 

Eyes. Lines. Shapes that hinted at faces and walls and breath held too long.

 

He didn’t realize how long he’d been working until a shadow fell across the page.

 

V stood behind him.

 

No words. Just a presence. Cold, silent, and devastatingly focused.

 

Jungkook looked up slowly, and for a moment, he expected scolding. Or questions.

 

But instead, V stepped closer and said, in a voice that wrapped around the room like velvet, “I want to see what you won’t show anyone else.”

 

Jungkook’s fingers tightened on the sketchpad.

 

And for the first time, his voice was small, but not childish. Just honest.

 

“I don’t know which ones those are.”

 

V didn’t blink. “Then let me find them.”

 

The silence stretched between them, crackling. Something in it felt dangerously intimate. Possessive.

 

Jungkook did not hand the book over.

 

But he didn’t walk away either.

 

Instead, he let V sit beside him. Close enough that their knees touched. Close enough that the heat of his breath made the back of Jungkook’s neck prickle.

 

They didn’t speak again for hours.

 

But they didn’t need to.

 

In the spaces between their silence, something deeper took root—unseen but undeniable.

 

And the stillness of the mansion, once revered like a cathedral, cracked just a little more under the weight of the boy who had begun to rewrite its every wall.

 

 

Chapter 24: Velvet Chains

 

The silence that settled after Jungkook’s shared afternoon with V was far from the usual hollow quiet of the mansion—it was weighted, sultry, rich with the breath of something unspoken. As dusk crawled over the windowsills and bathed the corridors in deep plum hues, the house didn’t go still.

 

It watched. It listened.

 

Jungkook wandered that evening, not in his little space, but not quite grounded either—floating somewhere in between. The sketchpad still clung to his fingers, corners curled from his grip. His hoodie was slipping off one shoulder, revealing a pale patch of skin and the delicate jut of his collarbone, and his lower lip was raw from all the nervous chewing he hadn’t realized he’d been doing since the library.

 

He didn’t know what V had meant when he said, “Let me find them.”

 

Did he mean the drawings?

 

Or… the pieces of Jungkook he kept hidden even from himself?

 

He passed a mirror in the hallway and stopped, just for a second. His reflection looked back—a beautiful, haunting contradiction of soft youth and hollowed maturity. He tilted his head.

 

Who was he in this house?

 

The little boy with a plushie?

 

The feral secret with blood on his hands?

 

The husband neither twin had publicly claimed?

 

He was all of it, wasn’t he?

 

But the longer he lingered in the still hallway, the more the doubt crept in.

 

Maybe he didn’t belong at all.

 

A creak down the corridor pulled him from the spiral.

 

Taehyung.

 

Tall, elegant, barefoot. Dressed down in a silky black robe, sleeves falling to his wrists, hair still damp from a shower. His presence pulled Jungkook back into the world like gravity—soft and irresistible.

 

“You’re awake late,” Taehyung said, his voice low and careful, like it knew Jungkook was on the edge of something fragile.

 

“I couldn’t sleep,” Jungkook whispered, eyes falling to the floor.

 

Taehyung took a few steps closer. “Want to talk?”

 

Jungkook shook his head.

 

Taehyung hesitated. But only for a moment. Then he reached out—slowly, deliberately—and tugged the boy forward by his wrist, his grip strong but not forceful.

 

He led Jungkook down the corridor, past the moonlit arches, into the twin’s private sitting room.

 

The air in there was heavier. Muskier. Like warm bourbon and cedarwood, soaked into velvet and old memories. The low light caught Taehyung’s profile in hues of bronze and gold. He didn’t let go of Jungkook’s hand until they reached the couch.

 

When they sat, it was close. Their legs touched. Their fingers brushed.

 

Taehyung glanced down at the sketchpad still clutched to Jungkook’s chest.

 

“You drew again,” he said softly.

 

Jungkook only nodded, not trusting his voice. Something in his throat was too full.

 

“I used to paint,” Taehyung murmured suddenly. “Before everything got… loud.”

 

Jungkook blinked, surprised.

 

“I didn’t know,” he whispered.

 

“No one does.” Taehyung’s voice was distant now, gaze turned toward the window. “I stopped when I was fifteen. My father called it a waste of time.”

 

There was silence for a moment.

 

Jungkook’s fingers gently loosened around the pad, and he turned it, opened to the page he’d drawn just before V arrived. It was a portrait of the mansion—fractured, dreamlike. The house bent and twisted around a single shadowy figure with two faces.

 

Taehyung stared at it for a long time.

 

“That’s… us,” he said, almost breathless.

 

Jungkook gave a tiny nod.

 

“Why are there two faces?”

 

“Because you love me,” Jungkook said simply, “but you’re scared to show it.”

 

Taehyung went completely still.

 

Jungkook bit his lip, realizing what he’d said. But he didn’t take it back.

 

Because it was true.

 

The older man let out a slow, unsteady breath, and then, without a word, reached out and touched Jungkook’s cheek. Just barely. His thumb ghosted across his skin, over the soft bow of his lips.

 

And then his voice—cracked and low—“You are the most dangerous thing that’s ever happened to us.”

 

“I’m not dangerous,” Jungkook whispered.

 

“You are,” Taehyung said, leaning closer, breath brushing his ear. “Because I want you in ways I don’t know how to survive.”

 

Jungkook’s breath hitched.

 

And then there was no space left between them.

 

The kiss came like thunder—sudden, deep, hungry. Taehyung’s lips claimed his with a possessive pull that left no room for doubt. His hand slid to Jungkook’s nape, fingers threading through his hair as he tilted the boy’s head to deepen the kiss.

 

Jungkook moaned into it, soft and needful, fingers fisting Taehyung’s robe as their mouths moved in desperate sync. There was no teasing. No restraint. Just heat and want and the crumbling of walls too long kept standing.

 

Taehyung pulled him into his lap without breaking the kiss, strong hands guiding Jungkook to straddle him, knees on either side, chest flush against chest. The robe parted, and warm skin met warm skin. Jungkook whimpered at the feel of it, hips shifting instinctively, seeking friction.

 

“You feel it, don’t you?” Taehyung breathed against his lips. “The pull…”

 

“Yes,” Jungkook choked, “but—”

 

But his voice cracked, and something shifted again.

 

In a blink, his eyes grew wider, softer. His lip wobbled.

 

“D-Dada…”

 

Taehyung froze.

 

The boy in his lap had shifted.

 

The sudden emergence of his little space came like a wave—overwhelming and vulnerable. The confident, teasing Jungkook melted into something smaller, his hips still, his body curling slightly into himself, unsure and needy.

 

“Dada, it’s too much…” he whimpered, trembling.

 

Taehyung’s heart thudded painfully against his ribs.

 

He wrapped his arms around the boy, pulling him tight against his chest. His voice dropped instantly into something calmer, steadier.

 

“Shh… It’s okay. Dada’s got you,” he whispered, rocking him gently. “You’re safe, baby. You did so well…”

 

Jungkook sniffled, curling tighter against him, face pressed to his throat.

 

“Wanna be close…” he mumbled.

 

“You are, sweetheart. You are.”

 

In the doorway, V stood once again—silhouetted in shadow. This time, his expression wasn’t hidden. And the flicker of raw jealousy in his eyes wasn’t subtle.

 

He had watched Taehyung kiss Jungkook.

 

Had seen the boy straddle his brother, heard the moans, and then—seen the switch. The little space emerge, fragile and trembling, curled in Taehyung’s arms.

 

And it broke something in him.

 

Because he had wanted that moment.

 

Wanted it since the first time Jungkook called him Daddy in a cracked, sleepy whisper.

 

V stepped forward slowly.

 

Both Jungkook and Taehyung turned.

 

“Daddy…” Jungkook said, voice so soft it was nearly a breath.

 

V’s entire body stilled.

 

Taehyung’s eyes darkened but said nothing. He didn’t release Jungkook. He just watched, muscles tight with some emotion he refused to name.

 

V moved to the couch, sat beside them—close, predatory.

 

“Come here, sweetheart,” he said.

 

Jungkook looked between them, uncertain.

 

“Dada…?” he whispered.

 

Taehyung let out a soft breath, brushing his hair back. “It’s okay. Go to him.”

 

Slowly, Jungkook slipped from Taehyung’s lap and crawled into V’s arms.

 

And the moment his body touched V’s, the older man exhaled like he’d been holding his breath for weeks.

 

He cradled Jungkook tightly, hand possessively gripping his hip, mouth pressing against his temple.

 

“Mine,” he whispered. “You drive me insane.”

 

Jungkook melted instantly, nose buried in his shoulder.

 

“Love you, Daddy,” he mumbled, half-asleep, completely safe.

 

And there it was.

 

In that small moment, all the coldness shattered.

 

Because between the two men who never allowed themselves to need, Jungkook had become the sun.

 

And they were orbiting helplessly.

 

 

Chapter 25: The Center of Their World

 

The dawn that poured over the mansion was thick with silence—not the haunted kind that once echoed between stone walls, but something newer, weightier. There were no hushed footsteps or distant staff murmurs. No chirping from the garden birds that Jungkook always found so amusing. Just a hush. As if the whole estate was holding its breath.

 

In the master bedroom, sunlight scattered across tangled sheets, warm skin, and half-opened lips.

 

Jungkook lay nestled between them—his head resting on Taehyung’s chest, one leg thrown across V’s thigh. He was small in that moment. Not just in his little space, but small, in the way that made both twins look at him with something beyond fondness. Something primal. Possessive.

 

Taehyung had his arm curled around Jungkook’s waist, hand splayed against the younger's soft belly. V’s fingers were gently stroking Jungkook’s hair, brushing it out of his eyes with the kind of tenderness no one would believe him capable of.

 

They hadn’t spoken much the night before.

 

After the switch, after the kisses, after that shared breath of something far too intimate… silence had replaced words. But not distance. No, they had held him tighter. Let him sleep between them like he was their anchor.

 

He stirred now.

 

A soft, sleepy whimper left him, followed by a tiny pout as he nuzzled closer to Taehyung’s chest.

 

“Dada…”

 

Taehyung’s breath caught.

 

A part of him still wasn’t used to the title.

 

Another part—one far more dangerous—was addicted to it.

 

“Yes, baby?” he whispered.

 

“‘M hungry,” Jungkook mumbled, eyes still closed.

 

V’s chuckle was quiet and low. “Of course you are.”

 

Jungkook’s pout deepened as he burrowed under the covers.

 

“Wanna pancakes. With chocolate chips. And lots of s’rup.”

 

Taehyung smiled faintly, leaning down to press a kiss to Jungkook’s temple.

 

“You’ll get your pancakes,” he murmured. “Come on, let’s get dressed.”

 

Jungkook whimpered. “Nooo. Dun wanna wear pants…”

 

“You’re not going down to the kitchen naked, baby,” V said dryly, though his voice carried clear amusement. “Unless you want to give Mrs. Yun a heart attack.”

 

“‘M not nakey,” Jungkook argued with a sleepy frown, tugging the sheets up. “I got Daddy's shirt on.”

 

That made both men pause.

 

Taehyung tilted his head. “You’re wearing V’s shirt?”

 

Jungkook nodded proudly. “Smells like him.”

 

V’s lips curved into a smug smirk as he looked over at Taehyung.

 

“I win.”

 

Taehyung narrowed his eyes. “It’s not a competition.”

 

“Isn’t it?”

 

Jungkook watched them from beneath the sheets, eyes fluttering open, wide and glassy.

 

“‘S not a game…” he whispered, so softly they barely heard.

 

That single phrase stilled the air.

 

V looked down at him, the smirk gone.

 

“No, baby. It’s not.”

 

Jungkook sniffled.

 

Taehyung was already pulling him gently into his arms again. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. We’re just teasing. You’re not a prize. You’re… you’re ours.”

 

That calmed him a little. His eyes fluttered closed again as he nodded against Taehyung’s chest.

 

Later that morning, the atmosphere at the long breakfast table was dramatically different from the gentle warmth of their shared bed.

 

Jungkook sat between them, freshly dressed in a soft oversized hoodie (gray with little cartoon bears across the sleeves) and thick socks that skidded a little when he walked. His lips were glossy from syrup, a bite of pancake perched precariously on his fork.

 

Mrs. Yun had outdone herself.

 

The table was full—fluffy pancakes stacked high, whipped cream shaped into roses, butter melting over warm toast, and golden honey glistening in its glass jar.

 

Yet, tension buzzed beneath the surface.

 

V had his phone in hand. Taehyung had a laptop open beside his plate.

 

And Jungkook was watching them.

 

They hadn’t spoken a word since they sat down. Only brief glances. Subtle. Calculated.

 

Jungkook knew.

 

They were avoiding something.

 

“You’re going somewhere,” he said suddenly, voice quieter than the clink of cutlery.

 

Both men froze.

 

V looked up first. “We have meetings.”

 

“Important ones,” Taehyung added. “We need to leave by noon.”

 

Jungkook chewed slowly, eyes never leaving theirs.

 

“You didn’t tell me.”

 

V sighed, setting his phone down. “We weren’t hiding it, sweetheart.”

 

“But you didn’t say it either.”

 

Taehyung reached for his hand across the table. “We didn’t want to overwhelm you. Yesterday was a lot. We thought—”

 

“You thought I couldn’t handle being left alone?” Jungkook asked, voice still sweet, still soft—but with that dangerous little edge curling at the corners.

 

“No,” V said slowly, “we thought we needed to be careful.”

 

“With me?” Jungkook blinked.

 

“With us,” Taehyung corrected.

 

But the words didn’t seem to soothe him.

 

Because in that moment, Jungkook realized something brutal.

 

The twins still hadn’t let go.

 

Of control. Of fear. Of the trauma they’d buried deep under suits and boardrooms and marble floors. They were loosening—but not entirely.

 

And he—he was both the cure and the threat.

 

He stood up slowly, setting his fork down with deliberate grace.

 

“I don’t need babysitting,” he said. “I’m not made of glass.”

 

V’s jaw tensed. “We know.”

 

“Do you?”

 

He looked at them then—really looked—and something in his eyes burned.

 

“I may look small. I may act soft. But I’m the one you married. The one who walked into your quiet warzone and didn’t flinch.”

 

Taehyung’s gaze darkened.

 

“You’re right.”

 

“I know.”

 

The silence that followed was scorching.

 

Jungkook turned without another word and walked toward the stairs, hoodie swaying around his thighs.

 

V let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

 

Taehyung closed his laptop. “We have to bring him in.”

 

V’s gaze snapped to him. “What?”

 

“Into the business. Not the mafia part. Not yet. But… he needs a role. A position. Something.”

 

V rubbed his jaw. “That would be chaos.”

 

“It’s already chaos,” Taehyung said with a bitter laugh. “He is the chaos.”

 

There was a pause.

 

And then V said, “Alright.”

 

But the look in his eyes was dangerous.

 

Possessive.

 

Because if Jungkook was going to step into their world—

 

He’d belong to them in every possible way.

 

 

 

Chapter 26: The Glass Door

 

The day rolled forward like a beast half-asleep.

 

The twins had gone. Their black car vanished through the mansion gates just after noon, a flurry of silent guards following discreetly behind. The house, left in their wake, returned to its usual quiet—but now, it wasn’t the stillness Jungkook had once tiptoed around.

 

Now, it scraped at him.

 

He paced the upstairs corridor barefoot, toes brushing the plush rugs lining the hallway. A mug of lukewarm cocoa sat forgotten in his palm, and the sleeves of his oversized hoodie had slipped far past his knuckles, swaying like cloth wings as he moved. His face was expressionless, but his eyes flicked toward every shadowed edge, every unopened door.

 

He hated the quiet now.

 

Not because he feared it—but because he no longer belonged to it.

 

It had changed. He had changed it. With storm-born sobs and syrupy kisses, with whispered “Dada” and giggling “Daddy” and curling into their arms like he had always been theirs. And now, they were gone again—retreating into their suits, their secrets, their empire.

 

Jungkook paused before the massive floor-to-ceiling window at the end of the hall, the glass cold against his palm as he pressed it there. Outside, the garden was green and lush, but it felt distant—like watching someone else’s dream. His reflection stared back at him faintly, haloed by the gentle afternoon light.

 

Soft.

 

Delicate.

 

Beautiful, even.

 

But beneath the surface—

 

Something else stirred.

 

A familiar darkness. One he hadn’t called forth in weeks. One that wasn’t born from storms or trauma, but from him.

 

Jungkook tilted his head slowly.

 

“Maybe they do need a reminder,” he whispered.

 

And with that, he turned, cocoa abandoned on a side table, feet carrying him swiftly toward the east wing of the mansion.

 

The studio.

 

The door was still locked—of course it was. No one else dared enter. The guards were instructed to leave it untouched, and Mrs. Yun cleaned around it like it was a shrine.

 

Jungkook pressed his thumb against the biometric panel. A click, then a soft hiss as the door released.

 

It opened like a secret spilling itself.

 

Inside, the air was different. Thicker. Filled with color and scent and the lingering electricity of creation. The high glass ceiling spilled light onto rows of canvases, half-finished pieces, charcoal-dust-covered floors. There were smudges of paint on the wooden panels. Crumpled sketches on the ground. A single stool stood in the center—surrounded by chaos, yet untouched.

 

His sanctuary.

 

His storm.

 

The moment Jungkook stepped in, something shifted in his posture. The playful sway of his hips straightened. The sleepy softness in his eyes sharpened. He pulled the hoodie off, letting it drop to the ground, revealing a sleeveless black tank clinging to his lithe frame. His fingers flexed.

 

He was no longer the little boy hiding between two giants.

 

He was Koo.

 

He painted for hours.

 

Not in gentle strokes—but with furious hands, sweeping across canvas after canvas. Crimson bled into ochre. Black slashed across ivory. There was no sketching. No thought. Just raw feeling made physical.

 

He painted them.

 

Not as they were—but as he felt them.

 

V, with his cold stare and silken danger, shadowed in deep maroons and oil-black. A single hand stretched outward—not open, but waiting.

 

Taehyung, warm but coiled like a serpent at rest. His form less defined. Gold threaded through darkness. His eyes—always his eyes—bleeding emotion.

 

And him. Caught in the middle.

 

Porcelain white skin kissed with bruises of touch. Mouth half-parted. Eyes glinting with mischief. Chains not binding him—but adorning him.

 

Beautiful. Sinister. Loved.

 

By the time he finished, sweat clung to his spine and his hands were trembling.

 

The paintings were messy. Incomplete.

 

But they pulsed.

 

They felt.

 

And that was all that mattered.

 

It was evening when he finally emerged from the studio.

 

Mrs. Yun looked up from the hallway, clearly startled. Her eyes flicked to his paint-smeared arms and bare shoulders, her lips parted to speak—

 

But then she saw his face.

 

Calm. Unapologetic. Eyes slightly glazed with exhaustion, but lips tugged into a satisfied smirk.

 

“Dinner, Jungkook-ssi?” she asked gently.

 

He nodded. “Upstairs.”

 

She bowed slightly and disappeared toward the kitchen.

 

Jungkook padded back toward the master suite, trailing red footprints along the marble.

 

The twins returned past sunset.

 

Exhaustion clung to their suits like an extra layer. Both wore it differently—Taehyung with his usual grace, movements slower but fluid. V looked sharp still, but his eyes burned red from hidden tension.

 

They were met by a butler and several guards—but no Jungkook.

 

“He asked for dinner to be sent to your room,” the butler reported. “He’s been upstairs for hours.”

 

The brothers exchanged a glance.

 

It was V who spoke first. “Was he upset?”

 

The man blinked. “Not exactly, sir. But… something in his expression…”

 

Taehyung’s brow furrowed. “What?”

 

“He looked… different. Still sweet. But… colder.”

 

They found him in their bed.

 

Not curled up like usual. Not tucked between plush pillows with bunny socks and pouty lips.

 

He was lying on his back, legs slightly spread, head tilted against the pillows. The lamp was dimmed. Jazz played low from the speakers. His arms were still smudged with dried paint. And on his bare collarbone—two small smears of gold pigment.

 

He didn’t look up when they entered.

 

Didn’t smile.

 

Didn’t speak.

 

Just sipped from a wine glass, dark eyes trained on the ceiling.

 

Taehyung crossed the room first. “Koo?”

 

Jungkook’s eyes shifted lazily toward him, expression unreadable. “Daddy.”

 

V moved to the foot of the bed. “What’s going on, baby?”

 

Jungkook smiled now—slow and dangerous. “I painted.”

 

“I can see that,” V muttered, gaze running down his chest. “You didn’t wash up.”

 

“I didn’t want to,” he replied. “It feels like… armor.”

 

There was a pause.

 

Then he set the wine glass down and sat up, the comforter pooling around his waist.

 

“I want to see your world.”

 

Taehyung blinked. “What?”

 

“I want in. Not just in your bed. Not just in this house.”

 

“You don’t know what you’re asking,” V said immediately, voice tightening.

 

Jungkook tilted his head. “Don’t I?”

 

“You want the business,” Taehyung said softly. “You want to be involved.”

 

“I am involved,” Jungkook said. “You just haven’t admitted it yet.”

 

The air snapped like a wire stretched too thin.

 

“I won’t go public. I won’t be a face. But you can’t keep me in a glass box.”

 

Taehyung stepped closer. “This isn’t about control, baby. It’s about protection.”

 

Jungkook reached out then, catching Taehyung’s hand. Pulling him down gently until their foreheads pressed.

 

“I don’t need a cage to feel loved.”

 

Taehyung’s fingers trembled.

 

Behind them, V remained silent. Watching. Calculating.

 

Jungkook pulled back just slightly and looked toward V.

 

“I want to start slow. Help with the gallery. Handle Koo’s releases. Choose commissions. Maybe even curate my own collection.”

 

“You want to run your own business within ours,” V said, finally speaking again. “From inside our home. Protected.”

 

“Yes.”

 

There was a beat.

 

Then another.

 

And then V gave a single nod.

 

“It’s yours.”

 

 

 

Chapter 27: Tangled Threads in Velvet Quiet

 

The day unfurled slow and heavy, as if the walls of the mansion had soaked in the residue of Jungkook’s storm-lit emergence the night before. It clung to the velvet drapes, whispered through the tall corridors, and warmed the ancient wood floors with a strange hum. Not the kind of tension that frayed—it was too soft for that. But it pulsed gently under every breath, like a secret waiting to be spoken.

 

Morning had been a whirlwind of new energy. Jungkook, tangled in oversized fleece and laughter, had drifted into his little space without resistance. He had woken tangled between two broad, steady bodies—Dada’s warmth at his back and Daddy’s scent already faded from the pillow near his cheek. Yet the scent lingered, like ink pressed too deep into parchment, unable to be scrubbed away.

 

Jungkook had clutched the hem of Taehyung’s shirt like a child, refusing to let go as breakfast arrived in the sunroom. A soft-padded tray balanced on the wide upholstered bench, filled with bite-sized fruit skewers, syrup-drenched pancakes in neat, tiny stacks, and a warm bottle of almond milk served in a vintage bottle with two handles—like it was made just for him.

 

He had bounced in place, eyes wide with wonder, before whispering his delight to no one in particular—then declared loudly, “Dada, sit here!” while patting the floor beside him.

 

Taehyung had obeyed, no protest, no hesitation. He sat cross-legged like it was the most natural thing in the world, his long legs folding beside Jungkook’s tiny frame.

 

“Only if you eat first, Koo,” Taehyung murmured gently, leaning forward to tuck a wild strand of hair behind Jungkook’s ear. “You didn’t touch dinner last night.”

 

Jungkook pouted, puffing his cheeks, but relented the moment he was offered a pancake shaped like a bear. His eyes rounded. “It’s me!” he squeaked. “Bear Koo!”

 

V had entered quietly halfway through the meal, sleeves rolled back neatly to the elbows, his cologne a little sharper than usual—musk and something clean, like cold water sliding over stone. He hadn’t said anything at first, just knelt behind Jungkook and curled his fingers under the boy’s chin.

 

“You didn’t greet Daddy this morning,” he murmured low against the shell of Jungkook’s ear.

 

Jungkook had frozen for a heartbeat, syrup dripping off his lower lip, then giggled. “Hi, Daddy,” he whispered, softer than a prayer. “Koo was sleeping. Dada said shhhh.”

 

V didn’t press further. But his hand stayed curled loosely at the nape of Jungkook’s neck even as he leaned forward to steal a piece of fruit from the tray.

 

—

 

Now, hours later, the mansion was quiet again, but in a different way. Not cold. Not lonely. It was a fullness of hush, one that filled with movement—the tiptoe of socks on polished stairs, the flutter of curtain hems in a lazy breeze, the soft rustle of sketch paper being dragged across a desk in a study that hadn’t been used in years.

 

Jungkook had found it by accident.

 

He had skipped away from the solarium after Taehyung fell asleep with a book across his chest, cheeks still flushed from too much sun. Koo’s little fingers had traced over the lines of Taehyung’s jaw, then carefully—very carefully—he had covered Dada’s face with a napkin from the table and declared him “sleepy ghost Dada.”

 

Now, barefoot and humming under his breath, Jungkook crept through the west wing—Daddy’s wing—and into the forgotten room.

 

The study smelled like ink and cedar. The fireplace hadn’t been lit in years, but the scent of old warmth lingered. The air was thick with paper and the heavy silence of unread books. He tiptoed inside, nose scrunching, before his eyes landed on something that drew him like gravity.

 

A sketchpad.

 

Worn, leather-backed, its corners frayed. He pulled it down with both hands, cradling it like treasure. Then curled himself into the window nook, legs drawn up, as he flipped open the first page.

 

The drawings weren’t professional. They weren’t perfect. But they were achingly familiar—birds, pressed flowers, a small boy curled in sleep under a blanket of stars. Each sketch carried a softness that bloomed through the lines, as if drawn by someone who didn’t know they were bleeding beauty into the page.

 

“Koo’s bird,” he whispered softly, finger tracing over a sketch that looked just like the dove from the greenhouse ceiling. “Daddy draws?”

 

But it was then—quiet as silk sliding across satin—that the door behind him clicked shut.

 

V leaned against the doorframe, watching.

 

His gaze wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t cold, either. It was unreadable in the way mist is—shifting, evasive. The sleeves of his shirt were still rolled up. His hair slightly mussed, like he had dragged his hand through it one too many times.

 

“You weren’t supposed to find that room,” he said, low.

 

Jungkook looked up, blinking innocently, sketchpad still clutched in his lap.

 

“But it called Koo.”

 

V’s eyes flickered. He crossed the room in four slow steps, never raising his voice, never making a demand. When he reached the nook, he didn’t scold. He crouched beside the seat and looked at the pad, then at Jungkook.

 

“That was mine. A long time ago.”

 

Jungkook’s fingers tightened on the pages. “Can Koo keep it?”

 

V didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he leaned forward, his voice lower now—molten steel beneath velvet.

 

“If you keep that… you owe Daddy something.”

 

Jungkook tilted his head. “Like what?”

 

“A kiss,” V said simply, “right here.” He tapped his cheek.

 

Jungkook blinked. Then giggled and launched forward, arms wrapped loosely around V’s shoulders as he pressed a syrupy, soft-lipped kiss against the man's cheek. “Mwah!” he chirped. “Koo’s kisses are magic!”

 

V closed his eyes for a moment, jaw tightening subtly.

 

“You shouldn’t say things like that if you don’t mean them,” he murmured, more to himself than Jungkook.

 

But Jungkook, in his little space, only smiled wider.

 

“Koo always means kisses,” he whispered.

 

—

 

By the time dusk curled low across the marble floors, the mansion felt different again. Taehyung awoke alone, his napkin ghost-mask discarded beside him. Jungkook was nowhere in sight.

 

But he knew—he felt—the boy’s trail through the house. It was in the faint sound of humming down the corridor, the way staff giggled softly as they passed. It was in the way V didn’t join him for evening tea.

 

Taehyung stood in the atrium for a long moment, fingers curled around the back of the velvet armchair, until Jungkook burst in from the left hallway wearing one of V’s silk shirts—far too large for his frame—and nothing else beneath.

 

He skidded to a stop in front of Taehyung, barefoot, cheeks flushed, and shouted, “Dada! Look! I’m a silky ghost!”

 

Taehyung blinked slowly. His jaw tightened. Then—without a word—he stepped forward, knelt, and wrapped the boy in his arms, pulling him flush against his chest.

 

“You are going to be the death of us,” he whispered into Jungkook’s hair.

 

And Jungkook, warm and wriggling, giggled back.

 

“Koo likes when Dada says silly things.”

 

—

 

As night fell and the mansion lit up one antique bulb at a time, both twins found themselves in the conservatory again—Jungkook sprawled across their laps, clutching a sketchbook filled with new lines.

 

His world had changed.

 

So had theirs.

 

And in the quiet, with no one else to see, Taehyung laced his fingers through V’s on the back of the sofa, over Jungkook’s curled form.

 

Nothing was said.

 

But everything… everything was shifting.

 

 

Chapter 28: Buttons, Breaks, and Bruised Boundaries

 

The morning tiptoed in quietly, draped in the pale gray of passing clouds. Rain had come sometime before dawn, tapping gently against the windowpanes like a reminder that the world outside still moved. But inside the estate, time seemed to drip differently. Slower. Thicker. Like warm honey sliding down porcelain.

 

Jungkook stirred slowly beneath the mountain of silken blankets tangled over the fainting couch in the conservatory. The sketchbook still lay against his chest, one hand gripping it tightly in sleep, the other curled like a kitten’s paw near his cheek. His long lashes fluttered once—twice—before he blinked awake, nose twitching.

 

His lips parted in a yawn so wide it nearly folded him in two. “Dadaaa…” he mumbled, voice syrupy and hushed, the lilt of his little space still heavy in his tone. He wasn’t sure which one he was calling for. Maybe both. Maybe neither. Maybe the sound just made him feel less alone.

 

The cushion beneath him shifted.

 

Not a dream. Not a memory. A warm, heavy thigh—broad enough to cradle him without question—rested under his side. When he tilted his head, sleep-bleary and confused, his vision cleared just enough to recognize the delicate gold threading of V’s robe.

 

Daddy.

 

V sat with one hand at his temple, fingers massaging gently, as if he were nursing a headache he hadn’t spoken aloud. His eyes remained closed, but his other hand was tangled absently in Jungkook’s hair, the motion slow and mechanical.

 

“Koo hungry…”

 

The words fell out without thought, barely above a whisper. His stomach grumbled just in time to add weight to his plea.

 

V didn’t answer immediately. But his hand stilled. And then, with measured calm, he murmured, “You said that three hours ago. You fell asleep before I could feed you.”

 

Jungkook blinked, slow and unsure, before sitting up and rubbing his eyes with the back of his wrist. “Still hungry now…”

 

V opened his eyes then, just barely. The warm gray was darker this morning, more stormcloud than silver. “Go wake your Dada. You’re not climbing all over me while I’m still trying to tame this migraine.”

 

Jungkook frowned at that. Not because of the dismissal. But because Daddy had used the you’re tone again. The one that placed a gentle fence between them. Not cold, but not warm.

 

“Koo can be careful,” he offered meekly. “No bouncing. Just cuddle.”

 

“You bounce even when you promise not to,” V muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Go on.”

 

Pouting, Jungkook slid off his lap, trailing silk and sleepy sniffles like a shadow. The floors felt cold under his feet. Daddy didn’t say another word.

 

—

 

The east wing was warmer. Always was. Maybe it was Taehyung’s presence. Maybe it was just coincidence. Either way, Jungkook padded toward the master suite with familiar comfort, his toes curling on the plush rugs.

 

He didn’t bother knocking. Didn’t have to. The door was already cracked, and soft music filtered through—classic jazz, low and humming like it lived in the bones of the house.

 

Taehyung sat on the edge of the bed, only halfway dressed—white shirt unbuttoned, long legs clad in tailored slacks, hair still damp from a shower that left the room smelling like sandalwood.

 

He looked up just in time to catch Jungkook mid-tiptoe.

 

“Well, well. Did the ghost boy escape from Daddy’s side again?”

 

Jungkook’s pout reappeared. “He said no cuddles.”

 

Taehyung raised an eyebrow. “Did you ask gently?”

 

“Koo whispered,” he insisted. “And Koo’s belly said grrrrr!”

 

That drew a low chuckle. Taehyung stood, smoothing the hem of his shirt down. “Let’s go fix that before your tummy scares off the staff again.”

 

He held out a hand, palm up. Jungkook took it immediately, weaving his fingers between Taehyung’s like a child gripping a balloon string.

 

—

 

The kitchen staff had learned, by now, to expect chaos whenever the littlest resident entered. But the sight of two Kims flanking a sleepy, silk-draped, bed-headed Jungkook was still rare enough to draw a few startled stares.

 

Taehyung moved with quiet authority, directing the head chef to prepare a brunch tray of miniature portions. He lifted Jungkook onto the marble island himself and tucked the silk robe tighter around his small frame.

 

“Don’t even think about jumping off that counter,” he warned softly, brushing a kiss to the crown of his head.

 

Jungkook beamed. “Dada kiss make tummy feel better.”

 

Taehyung paused at that, eyes crinkling. “Does it?”

 

“Koo likes kisses. And pancakes.”

 

“Then you’re in luck.”

 

—

 

Thirty minutes later, Jungkook sat cross-legged between the twins in the reading parlor, a tray balanced precariously on his lap as he attacked a bowl of whipped cream-topped fruit. Taehyung was sprawled sideways on the couch beside him, nursing a coffee. V sat opposite, legs crossed, flipping through morning reports on a sleek tablet.

 

The air between them was… civil. Too civil.

 

Jungkook sensed it—something thick and unsaid. Not anger. Not yet. But not ease, either. There was too much awareness. Too much calculation in the glances they exchanged.

 

He stuffed a strawberry in his mouth and kicked his foot lightly. “Why no talking?”

 

V looked up. Taehyung glanced over the rim of his mug.

 

“What do you mean?” Taehyung asked.

 

“You two’re quiet. Like library quiet.”

 

V spoke next, tapping something on his screen. “Some mornings need quiet.”

 

Jungkook squinted, suspicious. “You fighting?”

 

“No,” Taehyung said.

 

“Yes,” V muttered under his breath.

 

Jungkook’s eyes widened. “Koo didn’t do it!”

 

Both twins turned at that.

 

V sighed. Taehyung leaned forward, brows drawing down. “Do what, bunny?”

 

“Make you mad. Make the air weird.”

 

Taehyung’s heart cracked slightly at the honesty in that voice. “No, sweetheart. This isn’t about you.”

 

“But I sit in the middle,” Jungkook whispered, poking his chest. “Koo always in the middle.”

 

V closed the tablet with a soft snap. “And you think that means you caused the tension?”

 

Jungkook nodded slowly.

 

Taehyung moved first. He reached over, slid the tray off Jungkook’s lap, and pulled him into his arms. “Listen to me, Jungkookie,” he murmured against his hair. “You are not the problem. If anything, you’re the only softness in this house.”

 

V stood, walked to the window. Silence.

 

Jungkook sniffled. “But Daddy don’t cuddle today…”

 

“That’s not your fault either.” Taehyung kissed his forehead. “We’ll fix it. All three of us. Just give Daddy a little time.”

 

—

 

Later that night, Jungkook curled in his nest of blankets on the velvet chaise, peeking out toward the empty doorway. V hadn’t come back after dinner.

 

Taehyung had tucked him in gently, stayed until his breathing evened—but even then, Jungkook kept one ear tuned toward the hallway.

 

“Daddy…” he whispered, voice small. “Koo sorry you headache.”

 

The words hung in the air like dust in moonlight, unanswered.

 

But he didn’t stop hoping.

 

Not yet.

 

Chapter 29: Trouble in Silk and Whispered Forgiveness  M

 

It was still dark when the storm returned—not with thunder this time, but with a steady drizzle that kissed the windows and roof tiles in quiet percussion. The scent of rain had become something familiar over the last few days. Like wet leaves and unspoken things.

 

V hadn’t slept in the master bedroom.

 

Jungkook had stirred several times during the night, half-dreaming, half-waiting for the familiar creak of the door, the low rustle of robes, the soft scent of sandalwood and shadow. But it never came. Daddy never came.

 

And this time, it hurt.

 

By morning, the sky remained overcast, the kind of gray that made it impossible to tell what time it was unless you looked at a clock. Taehyung was already awake, standing near the window in his robe, coffee untouched, brows drawn with a tension he hadn’t yet named.

 

Jungkook lay on the couch in the corner of their shared suite, cocooned in one of Taehyung’s oversized shirts, hair a wild halo of soft curls, pout etched deep into his lips.

 

He didn’t speak.

 

He didn’t giggle or ask for kisses or nuzzle into Dada’s neck.

 

He just… looked.

 

And Taehyung, observant as ever, noticed. He walked over slowly, sat beside him, and let the silence stretch before speaking.

 

“Koo,” he said softly, brushing a lock of hair from the boy’s eyes, “don’t go quiet on me now.”

 

Jungkook turned his face toward Taehyung’s palm. “Daddy doesn’t want me anymore.”

 

The heartbreak in that single sentence nearly unraveled Taehyung. His chest ached with how softly it had been spoken—more acceptance than complaint, more resignation than pain.

 

Taehyung didn’t answer with words. He simply pulled Jungkook into his lap and wrapped him up tightly, letting the younger bury his face in his shoulder like he used to do during the early days.

 

“Koo doesn’t like when Daddy’s mad,” came the muffled voice.

 

“He’s not mad, bun. He’s…” Taehyung paused, searching for the right word. “Scared.”

 

“Of me?”

 

“No.” Taehyung kissed his temple. “Of himself.”

 

There was a long pause. And then Jungkook pulled back enough to look into his eyes. “But why?”

 

Taehyung hesitated, smoothing his hand over Jungkook’s thigh where the shirt barely covered. “Because when you came, things started changing. And Daddy doesn’t like change. He likes knowing everything—predicting it. Controlling it.”

 

Jungkook frowned. “But Koo’s not a storm.”

 

“No, bunny,” Taehyung whispered, brushing their noses. “You’re the sun after one.”

 

—

 

By midday, Jungkook had a plan.

 

He waited until Taehyung had gone to check on the estate staff, then slipped into the hallway in one of his softest, sheerest robes. A pale lavender number with tiny stitched stars and long flowing sleeves that brushed his knuckles. His hair was freshly brushed, cheeks faintly flushed from warming by the fire.

 

He made his way toward the south wing, where he knew V had retreated after their argument two nights ago.

 

The door to the study was slightly ajar. Of course it was. V never closed things fully—he liked exits. Jungkook peeked inside and saw him.

 

There he was. Sitting behind the massive desk, shirt rolled to the elbows, fingers cradling a glass of something amber and expensive. His tablet was on the desk, but he wasn’t looking at it. Just staring at the rain-smeared window.

 

Jungkook pushed the door open gently. No words. Just a sound. A soft squeak of bare feet on marble.

 

V didn’t look at him.

 

But he didn’t tell him to leave, either.

 

Jungkook padded closer, standing before the desk with his fingers curled in the sleeves of his robe. “Can Koo come in?”

 

V’s jaw twitched. “You’re already here.”

 

“Daddy mad at Koo?” he asked, voice barely a breath.

 

V finally looked at him. Eyes tired. Too tired. “No.”

 

“You no cuddle,” Jungkook pointed out, pouting.

 

“You’re not a toy, Jungkook,” V said softly. “You’re not here to entertain us when we’re in the mood.”

 

The words stung. But Jungkook didn’t flinch. “Koo know that. Koo just wants Daddy happy.”

 

“And what makes you think you have to make me happy?”

 

“’Cause…” Jungkook came closer, crawling onto the edge of the desk like a slow-moving cat. “Koo loves Daddy.”

 

V’s breath caught.

 

Jungkook sat cross-legged, silk flowing around him, fingers tugging at the buttons of his robe until his chest peeked through. “And when Daddy don’t smile, Koo gets sad too.”

 

V sat back, eyes narrowing slightly as he took in the sight. “That’s not fair, Koo.”

 

“What isn’t?” Jungkook blinked innocently, leaning forward until their faces were close.

 

“That you’re using that voice. That look.” V’s tone was tighter now. “You don’t even know what you’re doing.”

 

“I do,” Jungkook whispered, letting his fingers drift across the desk until they touched V’s hand. “Koo knows Daddy likes when he’s soft. And needy. And bad.”

 

V gripped his wrist suddenly, not hard, but firm enough to still him. “You think I want you to be bad?”

 

Jungkook nodded slowly, smile curling. “Just a little.”

 

The tension snapped. Not completely. But enough for V to stand, circle the desk, and lift the boy right off it. Jungkook gasped, arms wrapping around his shoulders as V carried him toward the chaise in the corner like a man on a mission.

 

He dropped them both into the cushions, sprawling Jungkook across his lap, fingers moving over silk and skin as if to check he was real.

 

“Tell me again,” V murmured against his ear, brushing his lips along the lobe. “Why are you here?”

 

“Koo missed you.”

 

“And?”

 

“Koo wanna fix the quiet.”

 

V kissed his throat, then lower, pulling the robe apart with careful fingers. “Then don’t speak for a while, bunny. Let me listen to you instead.”

 

Jungkook gasped softly when V’s arms tightened around him, the man’s hands large and possessive, spreading across his waist like they were meant to mold him into place. The robe slipped from his shoulder, exposing a pale sliver of skin that V traced with slow, reverent fingers.

 

“You always wear the softest things when you want something,” V murmured against Jungkook’s neck, voice low and gravelly with tension he hadn't let out for days.

 

Jungkook, breathing lightly, tilted his head to the side in silent offering, his lashes fluttering like wings. “Koo always soft for Daddy,” he whispered, a playful lilt in his voice even as his pulse fluttered beneath V’s lips.

 

The chaise they fell into groaned beneath their weight, the fabric of Jungkook’s robe pooling like water around his legs. V kissed down his neck, slow and deliberate, letting the boy feel each press of his mouth, each shift of his breath. It was possessive, not rushed—a quiet reclamation of something he’d nearly pushed away.

 

Jungkook mewled quietly when V’s teeth grazed the edge of his collarbone. His fingers found V’s chest, clinging there, delicate but needy.

 

“Did you miss Daddy?” V asked, lips brushing his skin like silk.

 

Jungkook nodded, cheeks flushed and eyes bright with something between tears and want. “Lots. Koo felt empty without you.”

 

V’s grip around his waist tightened. “I should’ve come to you sooner.”

 

Jungkook leaned in, brushing their noses together. “You came now.”

 

There were no rushed movements. No impatient pulling or frantic touches. Everything V did was slow—palms sliding beneath soft fabric, knuckles grazing thighs, mouth worshipping the curve of Jungkook’s shoulder. He guided Jungkook gently backward until the boy was laid out against the chaise, breath hitched, lips parted, robe completely undone and forgotten.

 

One of V’s hands brushed through his hair, cradling the back of his head as their foreheads touched. He kissed him there—on the space between brows, then the tip of his nose, then finally, his mouth.

 

The kiss was deep but tender. Tongue sliding against tongue in slow rhythm, breath mingling, sighs melting into one another.

 

“Mine,” V murmured between kisses. “You always were.”

 

Jungkook giggled softly, wriggling beneath him just enough to make mischief. “Koo never left.”

 

V smiled into the kiss, hand trailing lower, exploring every inch he’d missed, mapping it like something sacred. When Jungkook gasped again—this time, higher and breathier—V shushed him with a press of lips to his temple.

 

“Just feel,” he whispered, “Don’t think. I’ve got you, bun.”

 

Outside, the rain slid down the windows like melting glass.

 

Inside, warmth returned to the walls.

 

And for the first time in days, neither of them felt alone.

 

Not with words.

 

But with warmth. Skin. Sighs.

 

Afterwards, Jungkook lay curled on V’s chest, humming contentedly. His fingers traced slow shapes on the older man’s stomach, still glowing from the afterburn of intimacy and whispered apologies.

 

“Daddy,” he murmured sleepily, “Koo feel better now.”

 

V didn’t speak. But his hand stroked Jungkook’s back gently, rhythmically, like a man who’d remembered how to breathe again.

 

And from the doorway, hidden just out of sight, Taehyung watched with arms crossed and eyes soft.

 

He didn’t interrupt.

 

Not this time.

 

But tomorrow, he’d remind V that the three of them weren’t just surviving anymore.

 

They were learning to love.

 

Together.

 

 

 

Chapter 30: Whispers in Silk and Stone

 

The sky outside had turned a pale, honeyed gold by the time Jungkook’s feet found their way toward the eastern wing—one he rarely visited alone. The halls here bore quieter sounds, hushed footsteps of staff fading into corners, and a luxurious, restrained elegance that felt closer to Kim V’s quiet world than Taehyung’s warmth. But today was not about either twin.

 

It was about him.

 

Or rather, the strange, aching rhythm he now carried in his chest. Something that pulsed in the spaces between glances, in the friction of fingertips brushing over porcelain teacups passed too close, in the breath that hitched when V adjusted Jungkook’s collar without a word, or when Taehyung lingered just a moment too long at his doorframe with an unreadable look in his eyes. There were no declarations. Not yet. But he felt it. He felt them.

 

And something inside him—an emotion curled like a flame against his ribs—wanted more.

 

He paused near the tall glass doors that led into the velvet-draped salon. The curtains had been pulled halfway, allowing threads of afternoon sunlight to streak across the plush carpet. Dust danced like fireflies in golden shafts of light. Beyond, he could hear low murmuring—voices. Deep. Familiar. Both twins.

 

He shouldn’t interrupt. But he did.

 

The door gave way soundlessly as he stepped in, barefoot, his too-long sleeves brushing against the silver handles as he moved.

 

They were seated across from one another. V in an armchair shaped like a shadow—his back arched, fingers steepled beneath his chin. Taehyung sprawled more loosely, one leg over the other, a glass of something dark cradled lazily in his palm. Their conversation ended the moment Jungkook entered. The silence that followed was not hostile—but neither was it welcoming. It was... observing.

 

V’s eyes flicked to him first. Slow. Calculated. The kind of gaze that unwrapped a person without touching them.

 

“Did you need something?” V’s voice was soft. Almost too soft. Polished like glass.

 

Jungkook’s fingers curled into the hem of his hoodie as he approached. “I wanted to sit. That’s all.”

 

Taehyung’s eyes were less guarded. Warmer, perhaps, but still laced with an undercurrent of something unreadable. He reached over, moved a velvet cushion to make space beside him on the low couch.

 

“You don’t need to ask for space,” Taehyung said, his tone carrying that familiar gentleness laced with something just beneath—a note of subtle possession.

 

Jungkook sat, close enough that his shoulder brushed Taehyung’s arm. V’s gaze lingered on the contact but said nothing. He simply leaned back, folding one leg over the other with calculated grace.

 

There was a tray between them, half-finished tea, slices of plum, a few cubes of cheese. Jungkook reached out for a piece without thinking. The moment he touched the silver tongs, two things happened in sequence.

 

V shifted forward and said, “Not that one.”

 

And Taehyung’s hand moved at the same time to gently nudge the tray, bringing a different plate closer to Jungkook’s reach.

 

Neither of them looked at each other. The air was suddenly thick with unspoken things. But Jungkook felt it—the twin threads of attention pulling at him from both sides, threading beneath his skin like silk cords tugged taut. He froze, eyes flickering between them.

 

“Why not that one?” he asked softly.

 

V’s answer was immediate, crisp. “It’s soaked in brandy. You wouldn’t like it.”

 

Taehyung added, “You only eat what you trust.”

 

It wasn’t the words themselves—but the way they spoke them. As if they had already agreed on this long before Jungkook arrived. As if they had catalogued every one of his preferences and were now quietly locking horns over who would voice them first.

 

The rest of the afternoon passed like that.

 

Small gestures. Quiet possessiveness.

 

V straightened Jungkook’s sleeve when it fell too far over his fingers, but didn’t speak. Taehyung draped a light shawl over his shoulder when the sun dipped, muttering something about chills in the room. When Jungkook’s fingers brushed the edge of the tea cup, both reached forward at once—one to hold the saucer steady, the other to shift it into his reach. Their hands touched. They didn’t flinch. But Jungkook saw it—felt it.

 

The tension had changed. No longer distant or cold. It was something else now.

 

It followed him even as he excused himself later, murmuring something about sketching in his room. He needed to breathe. To think. But the moment the door to his space closed behind him, Jungkook didn’t move to draw. Instead, he stood at the center of the room, hands trembling slightly—not from fear, but from the sheer pressure of being wanted.

 

By both.

 

In ways neither of them said aloud.

 

—

 

That night, he didn’t fall asleep right away.

 

He wandered instead—down the west hall where the lanterns glowed dimly, flickering like old memories. A low hum of thunder echoed in the distance, not close enough to threaten rain, but enough to press against the glass windows like a heartbeat. The hush of the mansion at night wasn’t as cold anymore. It pulsed.

 

He ended up near the grand piano room—empty, echoing with stories. As he stepped inside, he was surprised to find one of the twins already there.

 

V.

 

He stood by the window, hands in the pockets of his midnight-blue robe, the collar of it slightly undone, revealing the pale line of his throat. He didn’t look startled to see Jungkook.

 

“You walk quietly,” V said, voice low, velvet-soft in the vast room.

 

Jungkook stepped in further. “You don’t sleep?”

 

“Rarely. Not without reason.”

 

Jungkook swallowed. “What would be a reason?”

 

V turned then. Fully. His eyes were darker tonight. Reflecting candlelight and things unsaid.

 

“You,” he said simply.

 

The word hung in the air like incense smoke.

 

V didn’t move to touch him. He never did. But the air between them shifted, drew taut with the pull of a string not yet plucked. Jungkook’s breath caught as he stepped closer—close enough to smell V’s cologne, dark sandalwood and rain. There was a moment where neither moved, but the tension danced like lightning between them.

 

Then, suddenly, V reached out—not to pull him in, but to gently brush a curl away from Jungkook’s forehead. The touch was featherlight, but it burned.

 

“You feel too much,” V murmured.

 

“I know,” Jungkook whispered.

 

V’s hand didn’t drop. His fingers lingered at Jungkook’s temple, thumb ghosting along the slope of his cheekbone. It wasn’t possessive. It wasn’t rushed.

 

It was reverent.

 

And then, V leaned forward—not to kiss, but to rest his forehead lightly against Jungkook’s.

 

“You shouldn’t be in the middle,” V said. “But you are.”

 

Jungkook’s hands slowly rose, fingers fisting into V’s robe, clutching it like a lifeline. “I didn’t ask to be.”

 

V’s voice was barely a breath. “You didn’t have to.”

 

They stood like that for what felt like hours. Close. Not touching more than that. But everything in them unraveling.

 

And from the doorway, unseen, a figure watched.

 

Taehyung.

 

His expression unreadable.

 

His heart no longer quiet.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 31: Between Two Fires  M

 

The soft hush of his slippers on the marble was the only sound Taehyung made as he stood in the shadow of the arched doorway, hidden by the delicate drapery that separated the music room from the rest of the hall. He hadn’t meant to come here—not at this hour, not with the weight in his chest—but something had pulled him. A thread, invisible but firm, leading him to them.

 

And now he couldn’t move.

 

Because before him stood the boy he had once thought was fragile—too delicate, too precious to ever belong to the coldness of this house—pressed quietly into the arms of the twin who mirrored Taehyung’s face but not his soul.

 

And V… V was touching him.

 

Not the possessive kind of touch Taehyung sometimes allowed himself to fantasize about in guilt-laced silence. No—this was gentler. Reverent. His brother’s forehead rested against Jungkook’s, their forms wrapped in silence and something else—something deeper.

 

It hurt.

 

Not the kind of pain that burned outward, but the kind that twisted beneath the ribs and settled in like frost. Taehyung’s breath hitched quietly as he took a step back, and the soft shift of his foot on the floor finally gave him away.

 

V didn’t move immediately. He only turned his head slightly, just enough for the shadows to reveal the faintest curve of his mouth—one that looked neither smug nor satisfied. It was… understanding.

 

Jungkook’s eyes snapped open, wide and glistening, and the soft gasp he let out was all Taehyung needed to hear to realize he hadn’t known.

 

He hadn’t known Taehyung was watching.

 

Taehyung didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to.

 

His silence was louder than anything he could’ve shouted.

 

He turned and walked away.

 

—

 

By the time Jungkook had scrambled out from V’s reach and chased him through the hall, the echo of footsteps felt unbearably loud in the still mansion.

 

“D-Dada!” His voice cracked as he called out, steps clumsy over the polished floor. The nickname slipped out without warning. It tumbled from his mouth in a broken, breathless plea as his little space cracked at the seams under the tension. “Dada, wait! Please—don’t—don’t go away...!”

 

But Taehyung was already pushing open the door to his own wing. The heavy wooden slab groaned in protest as he paused mid-step, back turned, body stiff.

 

The nickname hit him like a storm.

 

Jungkook had never called him that outside the soft cocoon of little space. And yet, here it was, floating into the rawness of midnight like a confession.

 

He didn’t turn around.

 

Not until Jungkook reached out and grasped the back of his silk robe.

 

The soft tug was everything.

 

Taehyung stilled.

 

And finally, slowly, he turned to face the boy standing there in nothing but a too-large hoodie and trembling eyes.

 

“Koo…” Taehyung’s voice was hoarse. “Don’t do that. Not when I—” He cut himself off, dragging a hand down his face as if trying to erase the expression that was threatening to rise.

 

“I d-didn’t know you were there,” Jungkook whispered. “I didn’t know, Dada. I wouldn’t… I didn’t mean for you to see—”

 

Taehyung looked down at him.

 

At those big, watery eyes and the way Jungkook clutched his sleeve like a lifeline. His lips were trembling. His whole body was.

 

But what broke him wasn’t fear. It wasn’t even guilt.

 

It was that nickname, uttered like a desperate apology. So raw. So open.

 

And suddenly, all the walls he’d built began to shake.

 

He reached out—not gently, but not harshly either—and pulled Jungkook forward by the waist, tugging him flush into his chest with a force that knocked the wind from both of them.

 

“You drive me insane,” Taehyung murmured into the crook of Jungkook’s neck. “Do you even know that?”

 

Jungkook gasped, half in surprise, half in relief, and clung to him harder, his fingers fisting into Taehyung’s robe like he might vanish if he let go.

 

“I just—” Jungkook hiccuped, “—Daddy was already there and I didn’t mean for him to—”

 

Taehyung cut him off with a hand gently cupping the back of his head. “Don’t explain. I know how he is. I know how you are.”

 

He pulled back just enough to look down at him. The tears clinging to Jungkook’s lashes glittered like crystals under the lantern light.

 

“Just tell me one thing,” Taehyung whispered. “Did you want it?”

 

Jungkook’s breath caught.

 

His lips parted, eyes searching Taehyung’s for a long moment as his lower lip trembled. But there was no lie in his bones. Not anymore.

 

“I didn’t stop him,” Jungkook finally admitted. “But I didn’t know how to say yes, either.”

 

It was honest. Painfully so.

 

And Taehyung understood it.

 

He reached down slowly and cupped Jungkook’s cheek. “Then let me teach you how to say yes. With me first.”

 

Before Jungkook could say anything, Taehyung leaned in—not for a kiss, but for something infinitely more dangerous: intimacy.

 

His lips brushed the corner of Jungkook’s mouth, then his cheek, then just under the line of his jaw. Gentle, unhurried. His hands never roamed too far, never crossed any lines—but the way his breath ghosted over Jungkook’s skin, the way his body pressed in with reverence and heat—it set Jungkook’s nerves alight.

 

The hoodie slipped off one shoulder.

 

Jungkook didn’t pull it up.

 

His hands gripped Taehyung’s waist tightly as he whispered, “D-Dada…”

 

And Taehyung hummed, nuzzling the spot behind his ear. “There’s my boy.”

 

The words unraveled him.

 

Jungkook’s knees buckled slightly, but Taehyung caught him, arms steady and sure, holding him against his chest like something precious.

 

“You’re mine,” Taehyung whispered. “Let him have his silence. But when you need someone to speak your name like a prayer, it’ll be me.”

 

That night, Jungkook didn’t sleep alone.

 

He didn’t sleep much at all.

 

But for once, it wasn’t the storm keeping him awake—it was the feel of steady arms around his waist, and the heat of a heart that beat just for him, whispering promises against the skin between his shoulder blades.

 

And deep in the other wing, Kim V sat by his window, the moonlight cutting across his face in sharp lines.

 

He didn’t try to stop it.

 

Not yet.

 

Because some wars were fought in silence.

 

And some lovers didn’t need to speak at all to know they were bleeding.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 32: The Morning After the Storm

 

Sunlight leaked in golden slivers across the vast canopy of Taehyung’s bed, cutting through the silk curtains that had tangled and half-fallen during the night. The sheets were a mess—twisted, tossed, riddled with the kind of warmth that lingered long after touch. But it wasn’t the golden light that woke Jungkook.

 

It was the absence.

 

The subtle shift of air as a weight left the bed.

 

He blinked open slowly, lashes heavy with sleep, and his arm reached out without thought, fingers curling around cool linen where Taehyung’s body had been. For a moment, panic twisted in his chest—raw and sharp—until a voice reached him.

 

“I didn’t leave,” Taehyung murmured, standing near the open window with a steaming cup of something dark between his hands. His robe was untied, hanging loose over his bare chest, and his hair was damp from a quick shower. “I just needed to… think.”

 

Jungkook swallowed, sitting up slowly, the sheets sliding down his shoulders to pool in his lap. He was still in the oversized hoodie—wrinkled now, slipping dangerously low off one shoulder—and nothing else. His thighs peeked from beneath the hem, bare and dusted with faint, sleepy flush.

 

Taehyung’s eyes flicked to the sight for the briefest moment.

 

Then he looked away.

 

“You’re not mad?” Jungkook asked quietly, voice laced with lingering vulnerability. “About last night?”

 

Taehyung didn’t answer right away. He sipped his drink, then exhaled softly.

 

“I’m not mad,” he said finally. “But I’m… aware.”

 

“Of what?”

 

Taehyung turned to him slowly, sunlight casting delicate shadows over the sharp lines of his face. “That you still don’t know how much you affect us. Him. Me. This house.”

 

Jungkook’s lips parted, but Taehyung stepped closer, his cup set aside on the table.

 

“You bring storms, Jungkook,” he said softly, sitting on the edge of the bed beside him. “You walk in, wrapped in softness and chaos, and everything shifts. You’ve made the silence scream.”

 

He reached out, brushing a strand of hair from Jungkook’s forehead, thumb trailing down his cheek.

 

“I should hate it,” he whispered. “I should push you away.”

 

“But you won’t…” Jungkook’s voice trembled with unspoken hope.

 

“No,” Taehyung breathed, leaning in until their foreheads touched. “No, I won’t.”

 

The moment held them suspended—neither kiss nor distance, just the hum of breath and need swirling like smoke between them.

 

And yet…

 

A knock shattered the stillness.

 

Three polite raps. Controlled. Cold.

 

Taehyung pulled back slowly, body already stiffening as he stood.

 

Jungkook’s heart sank.

 

Because he knew.

 

It was V.

 

—

 

Downstairs, the mansion’s atmosphere shifted again—like two storms meeting mid-sea.

 

Kim V stood in the study, one hand in his pocket, the other curled around a thin crystal glass of blood-red wine far too early for morning.

 

He didn’t look up when Taehyung entered.

 

But he knew.

 

“You held him all night,” V said flatly.

 

Taehyung didn’t pretend. “I did.”

 

“And now what?” V’s tone was unreadable. “You think he’s yours?”

 

“I don’t think, hyung. I feel. And I’m not the only one who does.”

 

Silence.

 

The kind that cracked mountains.

 

V set his glass down carefully, then turned with slow, calculated grace. “He calls you Dada. He calls me Daddy. And do you even realize what that means?”

 

Taehyung’s jaw flexed. “Do you?”

 

There was heat now. Not the kind that burned, but the kind that simmered beneath the surface of men who had been at war without ever raising swords.

 

“We’re dividing him,” V said finally, stepping closer. “Bit by bit. And you know what happens when you stretch something fragile between two hands…”

 

Taehyung’s voice was low. Dangerous. “He isn’t fragile.”

 

“He’s not built for our kind of chaos,” V snapped. “And if you force him to choose, it’ll break him.”

 

“Then don’t make him choose,” Taehyung countered. “Let’s not turn this into a game of wins and losses. You were the one who first held him. I was the one who made him feel safe. We both have blood on our hands now.”

 

For a moment, V looked at him. And beneath the frost of his gaze was something wounded. Something lost.

 

And maybe… something afraid.

 

“I’m not sharing him,” V whispered, voice thin with something Taehyung had never heard before—uncertainty.

 

“You already are.”

 

—

 

Jungkook wandered the hallway like a ghost.

 

He had tried to stay upstairs, curled in the nest of blankets that still smelled like Taehyung, but the house felt too quiet. Too cold. And the thrum of unease in his chest grew louder with each tick of the antique grandfather clock.

 

His bare feet padded against the marble as he reached the top of the staircase—then froze.

 

Voices.

 

Low. Sharp. Familiar.

 

He crept closer, breath held.

 

“…if you make him feel like a possession, he will run,” Taehyung was saying. “And he won’t run to me. He’ll run from us.”

 

“I know what I’m doing,” V’s voice growled. “I know how to keep what’s mine.”

 

Jungkook’s heart stuttered.

 

He turned and walked away before he could hear more.

 

He didn’t know where he was going.

 

Only that he couldn’t stay.

 

—

 

The garden had always been quiet. Untouched. But today, as clouds rolled back and sunlight bathed the hedgerows in dew-glow gold, Jungkook found himself crouched beneath the old willow tree, arms wrapped around his knees.

 

His mind was a mess. His heart even worse.

 

He didn’t understand what he was supposed to feel.

 

Loved?

 

Pulled?

 

Possessed?

 

All he knew was that the warmth of Taehyung’s arms, and the way V had cupped his face with almost painful gentleness… it mattered.

 

He mattered.

 

And maybe that was the most terrifying part.

 

Because if he mattered this much to both of them, what would happen when they could no longer agree on what to do with him?

 

“Why’re you cryin’, Koo?”

 

The voice made him jerk upright.

 

A new one.

 

Female.

 

Jungkook blinked through his tears, and there, crouched beside him in black boots and a grey coat, was—

 

“Noona…?”

 

Niki Park smiled gently, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Told you I’d come check on you this week, remember?”

 

His assistant.

 

His only friend in the outside world.

 

And right now, perhaps, the only person who didn’t see him as something to win.

 

He burst into tears and launched into her arms.

 

And for the first time in weeks, Jungkook felt small—but not trapped. Held—but not possessed.

 

It was a beginning.

 

But beginnings always come with endings trailing close behind.

 

And somewhere, behind dark windows and glassed-in secrets, two men stared out at the garden from opposite ends of the house, their hearts pounding in sync for the same boy.

 

Neither of them knew what the next move would be.

 

But they both knew one thing.

 

They couldn’t lose him.

 

Not now.

 

Not ever.

 

 

 

Chapter 33: The Stranger Within the Walls

 

The sun had risen higher by the time Jungkook managed to breathe without trembling, his small form nestled against Niki’s coat as if she were a life raft in the storm of his thoughts. Her hand remained cradled gently at the back of his head, stroking his hair with the easy familiarity of someone who had watched over him since before he could remember how to watch over himself.

 

“Do you wanna talk about it, Koo?” she murmured softly, tipping his chin just enough to look into his flushed, watery eyes.

 

Jungkook shook his head, lip trembling. “They’re fightin’,” he whispered, and though his voice was that of his little space—muddled, innocent, soft—it carried the weight of everything he didn’t yet understand. “Be-because of me…”

 

Niki’s brows pulled together, and she tucked his face back into her shoulder with a soothing hush. “No, sweetheart. You didn’t make them fight. That’s not your fault.”

 

He sniffled, rubbing his nose against her coat. “It is… D-Dada held me… Daddy was mad…”

 

A pause.

 

Niki stiffened slightly, but recovered quickly. “Koo,” she said gently, brushing back his curls, “who’s Dada and Daddy, hmm?”

 

He blinked at her, wide and wet-eyed, like the question confused him. But his mouth opened slowly, and the words came as if they had lived in his chest for years.

 

“Dada is Tae-Tae. He warm. Soft.” A small smile cracked through the tears. “He held Koo. Rubbed Koo’s back. Hummed… like mama used to…”

 

Niki’s breath caught.

 

“And Daddy?” she asked carefully.

 

Jungkook’s cheeks flushed even pinker. He looked down shyly. “Daddy’s… big. Smells like smoke and mint. Touches soft-soft… but makes Koo feel fuzzy here.” He tapped his chest with two fingers.

 

There was silence for a moment before Niki chuckled, though it was tight with something she didn’t say aloud. “Sounds like you’ve got quite the complicated home life.”

 

Jungkook nodded solemnly. “Koo lives with them now. But they don’t smile. They used to be quiet-quiet. Then Koo came. Now they’re loud.”

 

She kissed his temple. “Maybe you were the noise they needed.”

 

Just then, a shadow fell across them.

 

“Miss Park.”

 

Niki looked up, instantly straightening, though her hand didn’t leave Jungkook’s back.

 

Kim V stood a few feet away, hands in his coat pockets, his expression unreadable. “A pleasure,” he said, voice smooth but distant.

 

Jungkook felt Niki’s spine stiffen subtly behind him.

 

“Likewise, Mr. Kim,” she replied calmly. “Jungkook and I were catching up. It’s been a while since I last saw him in person.”

 

“You arrived unannounced.”

 

“I’m his assistant,” she said simply. “He’s my responsibility.”

 

V’s jaw flexed, but his voice didn’t rise. “He’s under this house’s protection now.”

 

Jungkook’s eyes darted between them, tension rippling through his limbs. Niki noticed, her hand squeezing his waist gently.

 

“I didn’t come to challenge your authority,” she said after a moment. “But you should know something, Mr. Kim. Koo doesn’t understand the value of what he brings to the world. He needs care—more than most. Love. Structure. Safety.”

 

Her eyes hardened slightly. “Not tug-of-war.”

 

The air between them crackled.

 

But before anything more could be said, Taehyung appeared behind V, his eyes immediately seeking Jungkook.

 

When they landed on him—curled into Niki’s arms, lip quivering—Taehyung’s entire face changed.

 

“Jungkook…”

 

The boy flinched.

 

Just slightly.

 

But it was enough.

 

Taehyung crossed the garden in three strides, crouching beside them and reaching out instinctively. “Sweetheart, what happened? Did something hurt you?”

 

Jungkook’s eyes fluttered toward him, hesitant. “You… and Daddy… f-fighting…”

 

Taehyung cursed under his breath and reached to cup his cheek. “No. No, baby. Not like that. We just—adults say things sometimes when they don’t know how to… fix things.”

 

“Are you gonna send me away?” Jungkook asked in the tiniest voice.

 

Both twins froze.

 

And something in Niki’s eyes turned protective—sharp.

 

“No,” Taehyung said immediately, voice cracking. “God, no. Never, Jungkook. You’re staying here. With us.”

 

V finally moved, coming to stand just behind them, his presence large, looming.

 

“Do you really want to stay?” he asked softly.

 

Jungkook turned to look up at him—at both of them—and in that moment, something incredibly clear rose from the turmoil inside him. He didn’t need to understand all the emotions, or the rules of adult love, or the burden of names like Dada and Daddy.

 

He only knew that when he woke up in a storm, their arms were the only safe places he wanted to be.

 

“I want both,” he whispered. “Don’t wanna choose.”

 

Taehyung looked away, swallowing hard.

 

V’s face cracked—just barely—and something wounded flashed in his eyes.

 

And then V did something unexpected.

 

He knelt beside Taehyung, lowering himself to Jungkook’s level. “Then we’ll try,” he said, voice hushed. “We’ll try to stop making you feel like you have to.”

 

Taehyung looked at him, stunned.

 

V didn’t glance his way.

 

But he reached for Jungkook’s hand.

 

And Taehyung reached for the other.

 

Jungkook let out a shaky breath—and held them both.

 

—

 

Later that evening, the house breathed again.

 

For the first time in weeks, dinner was shared at the same table.

 

Jungkook sat in the middle, his hair damp and brushed neatly, dressed in a soft ivory sweater that Niki had picked out for him while gently scolding both twins into giving him space to clean up. They’d watched from the doorway, silent as Niki babbled to him, cooed at his hair, fixed his sleeves. He looked younger like that—small, but radiant.

 

Taehyung served him soup himself, placing the bowl down with a fond, shy smile. V cut the crust from his toast without a word and passed it over on a gold-rimmed plate.

 

They didn’t speak much to each other.

 

But they tried.

 

And when Jungkook kicked his legs under the table, giggling softly when both their knees bumped into his at the same time, a rare spark of ease flickered between the two men.

 

Later that night, in the plush dim of the lounge, Jungkook yawned quietly, stretched across the long sofa like a spoiled kitten. He was still sleepy from the emotional storm, blinking slowly at the two shadows standing across from each other, just a few feet away.

 

They weren’t arguing.

 

Not tonight.

 

Just watching him.

 

“We need to talk,” V said finally, voice low.

 

Taehyung nodded.

 

But neither moved.

 

Jungkook yawned again, curling into a pillow, and mumbled, “Dada… Daddy… come sit…”

 

And just like that, the tension cracked.

 

V sat on his left.

 

Taehyung on his right.

 

And when Jungkook snuggled into both their arms, one cheek to V’s chest and one hand wrapped in Taehyung’s shirt, neither man moved.

 

Because there were no sides anymore.

 

Only the space between.

 

And it belonged to him.

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