Project K001 //CHAPTER 1 TO 17

 

Project K001

Chapter 1: The Proposal

 

The room was quiet in a way that was not peaceful but ominous. The kind of quiet that lingered too long in the corners, where dust danced through a shaft of filtered sunlight, barely moving as if held in place by the gravity of unspoken decisions.

 

Outside, the sky was hazy with the glow of a winter afternoon, casting a soft gray veil over the estate. The mansion was too large, too silent, too beautiful—like a hollow shell built for secrets. The glass walls of the drawing room caught the reflection of the snow beginning to fall, but inside, the tension thickened with every breath.

 

Jeon Jungkook sat curled into the deep corner of a velvet sofa that was much too big for him. His knees were tucked to his chest, arms wrapped protectively around his legs like a small child shielding himself from a world too large. A loose, oversized sweatshirt hung off his shoulder, the pale blue sleeve nearly swallowing his fingers as he clutched a slightly tattered stuffed bunny against his chest. His dark eyes blinked slowly, unfocused, as he rocked just a little, the tiniest motion of comfort.

 

His lips, soft and tinted like strawberries, pressed into a quiet pout—not dramatic, but persistent. He wasn’t crying. He didn’t cry easily. But the silence in the room felt like it pressed against his ears too tightly, and that made the urge to cry curl somewhere low in his belly.

 

Across the room, seated in two separate chairs that faced each other diagonally, were men whose presence felt colder than the marble floor under Jungkook’s bare feet. Kim V—expression unreadable, back straight, legs crossed neatly—rested his chin against the back of one gloved hand. His eyes, dark as obsidian, didn’t stray from Jungkook’s form, not even once. Kim Taehyung sat mirroring his twin in almost every aspect, save for the subtle twitch in his jaw—like he was chewing back a sigh or words that wouldn’t change anything even if they were spoken.

 

They hadn’t said much. Not since the contract was dropped onto the lacquered surface of the table that separated them. Not since Jungkook had been led into the room like a lamb into the unknown.

 

He didn’t understand all of it—truthfully, he hadn’t understood most of what had happened in the past 48 hours. One moment, he was being told by his parents to pack a bag with his softest clothes and that there would be a long car ride and that Bunny should come with him too. The next, he was being dressed in formal silk, ushered into a court-like room, and made to sign something. They’d told him it was a storybook game. That the twins were the “princes” and that he had to be “a good boy” and “listen carefully.”

 

No one explained what marriage meant. Not in words he understood.

 

He hadn’t liked the way the man in the tailored black suit stared at him as he handed over a pen and pointed to the paper. He hadn’t liked the stiffness of the cold band that was slipped onto his finger afterward or the way his parents said goodbye without hugging him.

 

Now, hours later, he was still waiting. Waiting for someone to explain why he was here, what he was supposed to do, and whether he could just... go home. Not that he hated the place—it was quiet, and the windows were big—but it wasn’t his home. The walls didn’t smell like warm milk and old furniture, and the air didn’t carry the scent of Niki-noona’s jasmine perfume or his father’s coffee. It smelled like steel and frost.

 

He blinked again. His lips moved silently, mouthing something to himself. A made-up song, maybe. A tune only Bunny understood.

 

Across the room, Taehyung’s hand moved for the first time in fifteen minutes, fingers curling as if he were about to speak. But instead, he stood. The sound of the chair scraping back across the floor made Jungkook’s shoulders flinch, just slightly. V’s eyes didn’t move, though his gaze narrowed—he was watching closely.

 

The man—tall, built like the winter wind in human form—walked slowly toward the boy on the couch. Every step was deliberate, heels clicking once, twice, until the space between them evaporated. Jungkook didn’t lift his gaze. He stared instead at a button on his sleeve, turning it between his fingers.

 

Then, a hand appeared in his line of sight—not reaching for him, but resting on the arm of the sofa beside him. Long fingers, veined and elegant. Jungkook glanced up from under his lashes.

 

Kim Taehyung didn’t speak. He didn’t smile either. But his eyes… they were softer now. Barely. Like the way snow softens the edges of stone.

 

Jungkook blinked up at him, a flicker of confusion etched in the roundness of his features. His lips moved, forming a faint, almost soundless mumble—"C’n I go home now?"

 

The silence stretched again. Behind them, Kim V rose from his seat as well, his movement quieter than air. He approached, coat shifting like smoke around him until he stood behind the sofa.

 

And then, Taehyung did something that startled the boy more than anything else could have. He slowly, very slowly, knelt before him. Not out of weakness—but something deeper. Something even colder than command: obligation. Duty. Maybe even an unspoken guilt.

 

He reached out—not to touch Jungkook’s face or his bunny, but the hem of the blanket that had slipped from his lap. With careful precision, he pulled it back over Jungkook’s knees, tucking it in slightly as if he were draping armor over a prince.

 

The boy’s eyes widened just a little, breath catching in his throat. He hadn’t expected that. He hadn’t known someone could be so cold and warm at the same time.

 

Kim V finally spoke then, his voice low, velvet-laced steel, coming from just behind him. His words were not for comfort—they were commands spoken in the language of restraint. But his tone was softer than it should’ve been, like he was holding back a storm for the sake of the fragile creature in front of him.

 

Jungkook listened, wide-eyed and still, as he was told about the arrangement. That he would be staying here from now on. He would not be allowed to leave without one of them. That there were rules. That he was now—technically—bound by law to them both. That his name, his art, his very being was now protected, owned, and… theirs.

 

He didn’t understand all of it. The words were too many, too heavy. But he understood the tone. He understood that this wasn’t a game. That he couldn’t pout and stomp and expect to be sent home.

 

Still, he tried.

 

His lip trembled as he clutched Bunny tighter. "I didn’t ask to marry..."

 

Taehyung’s eyes shifted. That twitch in his jaw returned. But he said nothing. Neither of them did.

 

Instead, V stepped around and leaned down close, his breath ghosting near the boy’s cheek. His gloved fingers reached up—not to force, not to scold, but to brush back a single stray lock of dark hair that had fallen across Jungkook’s forehead.

 

It was such a simple gesture. Almost meaningless. But Jungkook froze.

 

He looked up into those sharp eyes, expecting cruelty, ice, maybe annoyance. But what he saw… was hunger. Not physically, not yet. But emotional. A need, ancient and silent, that settled into the pit of his stomach and made him squirm.

 

He didn’t know these men. But they were staring at him like he was something sacred.

 

Like he was a thing neither of them had expected to want—but once it was placed in their arms, they realized they could never let go.

 

The boy’s breath came a little faster now, his fingers still tangled in the fur of his bunny’s ears, clutching it as if it could explain any of this to him. He had no script for this role, no idea how to play the part of a spouse—especially not to two men who didn’t look at him like they wanted conversation.

 

And yet, despite the cold air, he felt the sudden warmth of something possessive sliding into his bones. Not cruel. Not yet. But fierce.

 

V’s voice broke the quiet again, a murmur just above a whisper. He spoke not with affection but with quiet certainty. “You’re ours now, Jungkook.”

 

It was not a threat. It was not a lie.

 

And something inside the boy—something tucked away beneath all the softness and fear—shivered not with dread… but with the tiniest flicker of curiosity.

 

He lowered his head. He didn’t agree. But he didn’t fight it either.

 

And in that fragile silence, a story began.

 

Chapter 2: A House That Watches

 

The corridor was longer than any hallway Jungkook had ever seen. It stretched forward in silent symmetry, lined with tall windows on one side and heavy black-framed paintings on the other, each piece of art unfamiliar and faceless. The soft carpet beneath his sock-covered feet muffled even the tiniest sound, like the house had swallowed every echo whole. It didn’t creak. It didn’t hum. It simply waited, and watched.

 

Jungkook walked carefully beside a housekeeper he hadn’t spoken to yet. She was polite but distant, her eyes never lingering on him for more than a few seconds. She wore a sleek black uniform that matched the rest of the staff, each one moving with the quiet efficiency of shadows.

 

He didn’t ask where they were going. He hadn’t spoken since being led from the drawing room earlier that day, when the Kims disappeared without explanation, leaving only a quiet order to “prepare the guest room.”

 

Guest room.

 

He wasn’t sure if that was supposed to mean his room. He had a ring now. He’d signed something, hadn’t he? That meant he wasn’t just a guest, right?

 

But no one said anything about sharing a bed. Or even a hallway.

 

The woman came to a stop before an enormous wooden door carved with subtle patterns that reminded him of frost along a windowpane. She opened it without a word and stepped aside. Jungkook hesitated for a moment, his fingers tightening around the bunny still nestled in the crook of his elbow. Then, without speaking, he slipped inside.

 

The room was huge.

 

Too huge.

 

The ceiling was high and vaulted, pale blue with white beams that crisscrossed like clouds trying to touch. Two tall windows reached from the floor nearly to the ceiling, each draped in navy velvet that looked soft enough to sleep in. There was a fireplace already lit, casting flickers of gold and warmth across the walls.

 

At the center of the room was a bed that looked like it had been carved out of moonlight and secrets. High and wide, with sheets tucked so perfectly that Jungkook almost didn’t want to touch them.

 

The housekeeper spoke for the first time, her voice soft and carefully devoid of expression.

 

"If you need anything, press the gold button near the door. Meals will be brought three times a day. You may explore the house, but certain rooms are locked. Do not enter any room with a black door handle."

 

Jungkook looked over, mouth slightly open as if he might ask a question, but the woman had already bowed slightly and left.

 

He was alone again.

 

Not that he minded. Sometimes, silence was kinder than people.

 

He dropped the bunny gently onto the bed and wandered toward the window, one small hand reaching up to part the curtain. The view outside was startling—an endless stretch of snow-covered forest that looked like it had been painted just for him. Not a single car. Not a single house. Just white.

 

He pressed his forehead against the cold glass and whispered, "Hi trees."

 

They didn’t answer. But that was okay.

 

He explored the room slowly. There was a dresser he couldn’t reach the top of. A writing desk with paper and gold-tipped pens. A small armchair by the fire with a quilt folded perfectly over its back. Every object looked like it had been chosen with care, but none of it felt his.

 

Still, he didn’t cry. He didn’t ask to leave.

 

He sat by the fire, curled his legs up beneath him, and listened to the sound of the flames. Somewhere deep in the house, a clock ticked. A door closed. Footsteps passed and faded.

 

But no one came.

 

And in that strange, silent house full of locked doors and eyes he couldn’t see, Jungkook felt something shift.

 

Not fear.

 

Not yet.

 

But something close.

 

—

 

Dinner arrived in a silver tray left outside his door.

 

He only noticed it because of the faint sound of porcelain clicking gently on metal, and by the time he opened the door, the hallway was already empty. No footsteps. No voices. Just a tray of steaming soup, soft rice, and a delicate set of tiny, glazed side dishes too pretty to eat. There was even a small glass of warm milk.

 

He carried the tray to the desk and sat cross-legged in the cushioned chair. The fork felt strange in his hand, too fancy. He took a tiny bite of the soup, then another. He didn’t realize he was hungry until he finished half the bowl without breathing.

 

Still no one came.

 

He bathed alone. The bathtub was so deep he could stretch his legs and still not touch the other side. The bubbles tickled his nose. He giggled once when one popped against his cheek, then remembered he was supposed to be married now. Giggling didn’t feel like something a married person should do.

 

But the room was warm, and he was clean, and the soft robe smelled like lavender. He dried his hair with a towel too big for his head and shuffled across the room with sleepy feet.

 

The fire was still burning when he climbed into bed.

 

Bunny was already waiting, his fur a little singed on one ear from too many nights spent too close to old lamps. Jungkook hugged him close, hiding his face against the stuffed animal’s threadbare neck. He whispered something to it, a mix of his native tongue and the invented language he only used when no one else was listening.

 

Something about how the room didn’t have stars.

 

And how the twins looked at him like they were made of thorns.

 

And how he missed Niki-noona’s stories.

 

Sleep came eventually. Not all at once. But like a shadow creeping gently over his eyes.

 

And the last thing he saw before his lashes fell closed was the quiet flicker of firelight dancing across the high ceiling beams—like the house was breathing with him.

 

Like it was watching.

 

—

 

Somewhere far down the west wing, past rooms too silent to name, two men stood side by side on a balcony.

 

The snow had deepened overnight. The garden below was cloaked in white, and the tall hedges cast sharp shadows under the pale moonlight. Kim Taehyung leaned against the stone balustrade, fingers loosely curled around a cigarette he didn’t bother to light. His breath clouded the air in front of him, warm against the chill.

 

“He didn’t cry,” he said finally, voice low, as if unsure it should be spoken aloud.

 

Kim V’s eyes didn’t shift from the forest. “No.”

 

“I thought he would.”

 

“You don’t know him yet.”

 

Taehyung turned his head slightly, profile cut like obsidian in the moonlight. “Neither do you.”

 

V’s gloved fingers tightened on the railing. “Not yet.”

 

They were quiet for a long time.

 

Then, Taehyung said softly, “He’s too small for this house.”

 

“He’ll grow into it.”

 

“You sound certain.”

 

“I am.”

 

Taehyung tilted his head back to look at the stars. “He looked at me like I was a monster.”

 

“You are.”

 

The younger twin gave a breathless laugh. Then, without turning, asked, “And what about you?”

 

V’s voice was colder now. “I don’t pretend to be anything else.”

 

They stood in silence again. Not as brothers, not as rulers, but as two men who had just made a decision that would haunt them for reasons neither could name yet.

 

Behind them, the house exhaled.

 

Its new heart had arrived.

 

And he was already beating differently than expected.

 

 

 

Chapter 3: Morning Echoes in a House of Stone

 

Morning came like a secret.

 

The winter sun filtered weakly through the navy velvet curtains, casting pale gold streaks across the white duvet. The fireplace had burned low overnight, reduced to a warm hush of embers, and the once-crackling warmth had dulled to a quiet breath. Jungkook stirred beneath the thick covers, his cheek squished softly against his bunny’s worn ear. His lips were parted, breath light and even, lashes trembling with the movements of dreams that had not yet faded.

 

There was no knock on the door. No alarm. No chime to announce the beginning of the day. Instead, the house whispered awake—wood expanding softly with warmth, a distant creak in the walls, the hush of someone walking far below.

 

Jungkook sat up slowly, blinking against the morning light, his hair fluffed in all directions like a dandelion after a breeze. The too-long sleeves of his robe dragged across the bedsheets as he rubbed his eyes, legs pulling up to his chest as he looked around the unfamiliar space.

 

Everything was the same as the night before. And yet, it felt different.

 

There was something heavier in the air today. Not threatening. But waiting.

 

He slipped off the bed and padded across the cold floor, the hem of the robe dragging like a sleepy child behind him. Bunny was still tucked under one arm, its button eye gleaming in the sunlight. He stood in front of the tall mirror near the dresser and made a face—puffing his cheeks out, then sticking out his tongue, then pressing his nose up until he looked like something from a forest.

 

A tiny giggle bubbled from his throat. Then he looked away quickly, almost shy of his own sound.

 

He dressed himself slowly. The wardrobe was too tall, but someone had left a few garments on a lower shelf. Soft cotton shirts, button-ups in muted colors, slacks with elastic waists, and thick socks that looked hand-knit. All of them were far too fine to belong to someone like him. They smelled like cedar and something crisp—like snow that had been folded.

 

By the time he was dressed and standing near the door, he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to open it. He didn’t press the gold button. Instead, he turned the handle and stepped cautiously into the hall.

 

It was quiet.

 

Too quiet.

 

He crept along the corridor, passing paintings and tall windows dusted with the pale glow of morning. The walls here didn’t feel entirely still—there was a subtle hum beneath the silence, like something was watching or listening or waiting just around the next corner. He followed instinct rather than direction, turning down one hallway, then another, until he found himself near the grand staircase.

 

From somewhere downstairs came the scent of something warm—coffee, maybe. Or toast. Or cinnamon.

 

His stomach gave a tiny, hopeful growl.

 

As he descended, the house did not stop him. The walls did not whisper louder. The silence did not shatter. But something about the air changed as he reached the landing—a soft pressure that made him pause, hand brushing the banister like he might need to hold on.

 

And then—

 

He saw one of them.

 

Kim Taehyung was seated in the main sunroom, one long leg crossed elegantly over the other, a thick file folder opened in his lap. His dark hair was pushed back from his forehead, revealing the sharp cut of his brows, and a pair of gold-rimmed reading glasses perched lightly on the bridge of his nose. He looked like a prince carved from shadow and velvet, untouched by the cold.

 

Jungkook froze.

 

For a moment, he thought about turning back. Hiding upstairs until someone called for him. Pretending he hadn’t seen anything.

 

But then Taehyung looked up.

 

Their eyes met.

 

Time held its breath.

 

Taehyung did not smile. He did not frown. His expression was unreadable—a quiet mask of elegance and calculation. But something in his gaze sharpened, like he had been waiting for this moment, and now that it had come, he didn’t want to let it pass.

 

Without speaking, he set the file down on the nearby table and gestured, ever so slightly, to the seat across from him.

 

Jungkook’s steps were hesitant. Not because he feared, but because he did not know how close to get to someone made of marble. He walked with small, soft steps, holding bunny close, until he sat down with legs crossed under him in the oversized chair.

 

Taehyung’s gaze flicked to the stuffed animal, and for a second, something moved behind his eyes. Not amusement. Not judgment. Something quieter.

 

“I trust you slept well,” he said, voice a smooth baritone wrapped in velvet, neither warm nor cold.

 

Jungkook nodded, his lips parting slightly like he might speak, but no words came out. Instead, he curled a little tighter around bunny, eyes wide as he studied the older man.

 

Taehyung leaned back in his seat, folding one arm across his chest. “You may explore the house if you wish. No one here will stop you. But there are rules. Some doors are locked. For your safety.”

 

Jungkook tilted his head slightly, the light catching the soft gloss of his lips and the curve of his lashes. His fingers toyed with bunny’s ear, and when he finally spoke, it was almost a whisper, thick with sleepiness and wonder. “Do you… live here all the time?”

 

A pause. Then a small nod from Taehyung. “Yes. We both do.”

 

“We?”

 

“My brother and I. V.”

 

The name made Jungkook shift slightly, like a shiver had passed through him. He remembered those sharp eyes, the cool gloved hand, the way his presence filled the room like iron and ice.

 

Taehyung watched him closely. “You’ll get used to him.”

 

There was something oddly reassuring in the way he said it, even if the words themselves felt like a challenge. Jungkook hummed softly and leaned to the side, resting his cheek against the high armrest of the chair.

 

For a long while, neither of them spoke.

 

The fire crackled faintly behind them. A soft breeze moved the curtains. Somewhere deeper in the house, a grandfather clock chimed the hour.

 

And in that moment of shared silence, something tentative took root.

 

A thread. A beginning.

 

Not yet trust.

 

But attention.

 

Taehyung reached forward without warning and plucked a small thread from Jungkook’s sleeve. The boy stiffened, surprised, but Taehyung only held up the stray fiber like it was nothing, then let it drift to the floor. “You need smaller clothes,” he murmured.

 

Jungkook blinked, and then a smile curled at the edges of his mouth. A sly one. Mischievous.

 

“I think your house is trying to eat me.”

 

Taehyung’s brows lifted.

 

“The sleeves,” Jungkook added, wiggling one dramatically. “They keep trying to trip me.”

 

Taehyung exhaled through his nose—maybe a laugh, maybe just disbelief—and stood, moving to the side table where a tray of untouched breakfast items had been left. He poured a glass of milk and brought it back to the small table between them.

 

“For the sleeves,” he said dryly.

 

Jungkook took the glass with both hands, his lips pressing into a soft, pleased smile. “Thank you, Mister Kim.”

 

“Taehyung is fine.”

 

“Okay… Tae-noona.”

 

The words were out before he could stop them, a playful twist of tongue, and his eyes widened in mock horror as he covered his mouth.

 

Taehyung stared at him.

 

Silence stretched.

 

Then, very quietly, his lips curved. Not a smile. But a smirk. Dangerous. Amused.

 

“You’ll pay for that later,” he murmured.

 

Jungkook just giggled.

 

The thread grew stronger.

 

And from the top of the stairs, hidden behind the banister’s curve, Kim V watched it all with unreadable eyes, his gloves clenched at his sides.

 

Not yet close.

 

But getting there.

 

And he didn’t like it.

 

 

 

Chapter 4: Silent Territory

 

The mansion had too many corners.

 

Jungkook discovered that by accident. Hallways twisted in places they didn’t belong, doors led to rooms that whispered with forgotten voices, and mirrors reflected more than just skin. Some parts of the house were quiet like slumber, untouched by years, while others stirred like they remembered the past and wanted to speak of it.

 

He’d spent most of the morning wandering aimlessly, trailing his fingertips along carved wooden panels, pausing to peek behind heavy doors only to retreat quickly when the darkness beyond felt too thick.

 

Bunny never left his arms.

 

His steps were small, socked feet muffled against antique rugs. Once, he’d passed by a long hallway where every painting showed a different sky. Blue morning. Purple dusk. Bleeding sunset. Stars. No faces. Just the same cold horizon.

 

It was beautiful in a way that left his chest too full.

 

He was turning toward the grand library—Taehyung had told him he could enter that room freely—when the air changed.

 

Not the temperature.

 

The feeling.

 

It was heavier. Tighter. Like the walls themselves were holding their breath.

 

Jungkook slowed, lips parting slightly as he turned his head.

 

At the far end of the corridor stood Kim V.

 

He wasn’t leaning against the wall, nor lounging as someone might who had been waiting long. He was just there—standing in the middle of the corridor like he had risen from the shadows themselves. His posture was too still, too exact, arms folded behind his back, gloved hands disappearing into the fabric of his long black coat.

 

Their eyes met.

 

Jungkook’s breath caught.

 

V’s gaze was cold, unwavering. But not cruel. Not yet.

 

There was something unreadable in his expression, as though he was analyzing a specimen rather than looking at a person. But then Jungkook blinked—and that moment passed.

 

He didn’t speak.

 

He never spoke first.

 

Jungkook felt his fingers tighten around Bunny’s ear. “...Good morning.”

 

Silence.

 

Then, very slowly, V’s head tilted just slightly. As though acknowledging the greeting. Or mocking it.

 

Jungkook hesitated, shifting from one foot to the other. He should have walked away. Should have turned and gone toward the library where sunlight filtered through domed windows and the air smelled like old paper and safety.

 

But his feet didn’t move.

 

And V didn’t look away.

 

Instead, the older man took a step forward.

 

Then another.

 

Measured. Controlled.

 

Until the space between them narrowed with suffocating precision.

 

Jungkook lifted his chin just barely. His heart was a traitor, thudding against his ribs like a bird in a cage. His fingers were trembling, but he didn’t hide them.

 

When V finally stopped, they were only a foot apart.

 

His voice, when it came, was soft. Velvet soaked in ink.

 

“You wandered.”

 

It wasn’t a question.

 

Jungkook swallowed. “I didn’t go into the locked rooms.”

 

“I know.”

 

More silence. Not heavy. Not threatening. But thick.

 

Jungkook looked up at him, eyes wide, searching. “Am I not allowed to walk?”

 

A beat passed.

 

“You are.”

 

That should have been the end. But V’s gaze dropped to the plush rabbit in Jungkook’s arms. And for a moment—just a breath—something flickered across his face. Confusion. Disapproval. Or maybe it was something more dangerous: interest.

 

“Why do you carry that?”

 

Jungkook glanced down at Bunny. “He doesn’t like to be left alone.”

 

Another beat.

 

“Neither do I.”

 

Jungkook’s eyes snapped back to his.

 

There was no softness in the words. No invitation. But they struck deep.

 

V moved first. He stepped past Jungkook without brushing him, his coat ghosting by the boy’s side. But before he was gone entirely, his voice returned, quieter than before.

 

“Follow me.”

 

It wasn’t a command.

 

It wasn’t not one either.

 

And Jungkook followed.

 

—

 

The room V led him to wasn’t marked. The hallway turned again, then again, then narrowed slightly before opening into a space that Jungkook was certain hadn’t existed yesterday.

 

It was a lounge, though that word felt too small. The ceilings were high, painted in oil with clouds that rippled in gilded cream and grey. Velvet drapes framed tall windows, drawn but glowing faintly from the filtered light beyond. The air smelled of citrus wood and something faintly spiced.

 

A single armchair was turned toward the fire.

 

And V went there, sitting not in command, but in stillness.

 

Jungkook hovered at the doorway.

 

“I didn’t know this room was open.”

 

“It wasn’t.”

 

“You opened it… for me?”

 

V’s gaze didn’t flicker. “I opened it.”

 

Jungkook stepped inside slowly, the sound of his socked feet lost in the thick rug. His eyes trailed over shelves of unread books, crystal vases holding dried blooms, and an antique clock that ticked only every other second.

 

He stopped a few feet from the fire.

 

“Can I sit?”

 

The question didn’t feel necessary. But he asked anyway.

 

V’s eyes dragged to the empty divan near the hearth. Then back to Jungkook. The tiniest nod followed.

 

Jungkook sat.

 

Silence stretched again, soft and crackling.

 

Jungkook fidgeted slightly, then leaned over Bunny and whispered something against the stitched fur. A secret. Or maybe just comfort.

 

V’s eyes didn’t move from the fire, but his head tilted the smallest fraction.

 

“You speak to him.”

 

“He listens better than people.”

 

“You expect that from us?”

 

Jungkook considered that. His lips parted, then closed again. “No.”

 

A pause.

 

“Do you want that from us?”

 

This time, Jungkook didn’t answer. He only looked down.

 

V uncrossed one leg, then re-crossed it the other way, the movement elegant and sharp. He didn’t speak for a long while.

 

When he finally did, his words were unexpected.

 

“Your room will be changed.”

 

Jungkook’s head snapped up. “Why?”

 

“You need warmth. That wing is old. It stays cold longer than it should.”

 

“But I—”

 

“You like warm things.”

 

It wasn’t a question. It was certainty.

 

Jungkook hesitated. “Yes.”

 

V didn’t look at him, but the lines around his mouth softened a degree. “Taehyung noticed it. But I agreed first.”

 

The room filled with quiet again.

 

And then, with no warning, V stood.

 

Jungkook flinched.

 

But V didn’t move toward him.

 

He walked to the wall behind Jungkook’s divan, where a covered canvas sat atop a narrow easel. Without asking, without glancing back, he pulled the fabric free.

 

Jungkook’s breath stopped.

 

It was one of his paintings.

 

Not one of the ones he had sent. Not one from exhibitions. This was a private one—an old one. One he had hidden beneath loose floorboards in a room no one should have known existed.

 

The brushstrokes were wild. Chaotic. The image half-formed. A childlike forest with a monstrous sky above. Rage and confusion in every stroke. He had painted it the night his parents sent him away for his own safety.

 

His voice was a whisper. “How…?”

 

“It was already here,” V murmured, eyes never leaving the painting. “Before you arrived.”

 

Jungkook shook his head slowly. “It wasn’t…”

 

V finally looked back at him. And in his gaze there was something terrifyingly steady.

 

“You are not the only one who hides things in walls.”

 

Jungkook stared.

 

And V didn’t say anything else.

 

He stepped away from the painting, back toward the door. “You may stay here. As long as you like.”

 

The implication was clear: he would not return to the room while Jungkook was in it. A gesture of space. A gesture of something like care—but filtered through power.

 

But just before leaving, V paused beside the doorframe.

 

“Bunny may stay too. But if he listens, he must learn not to speak of what he hears.”

 

Jungkook turned slowly to look at him.

 

The door shut.

 

And the fire whispered on.

 

 

 

Chapter 5: Glass Warmth

 

The walls of the mansion never echoed, but they remembered. Taehyung had always believed that. He had grown up within these halls of carved stone and chilled elegance, memorized the patterns of the carpets before he knew the alphabet, and learned to hold his breath when emotions stirred too loudly. But it wasn’t the silence that concerned him now. It was the shift.

 

He noticed it the moment Jungkook reappeared near the solarium, arms wrapped tightly around his rabbit, lashes lowered over his expressive eyes. It wasn’t sadness that clung to his shoulders—it was a quiet stillness. A contemplative hush that felt too large for such a small frame.

 

Taehyung had been reading, or pretending to. The morning had faded behind frosted glass windows, and the warmth of a slowly setting sun filtered through the curved walls of glass that shaped the solarium. Ferns rustled softly with the indoor breeze, and the air smelled faintly of citrus blossoms. Yet the moment Jungkook stepped into view, the warmth shifted.

 

He closed his book slowly and watched from the corner of his eye. The younger didn’t notice at first—he merely drifted, almost as though sleepwalking, and settled onto the window bench nestled between two great potted palms. His head bowed slightly as though listening to the rustle of leaves or the murmured secrets of the afternoon light.

 

Taehyung waited a beat. Then another. He allowed the space between them to settle naturally, not forcing his presence forward. Jungkook needed time, but he also needed not to be left alone. That much, Taehyung had already started to learn.

 

Eventually, he rose and made his way over—not quietly, not loudly. Just enough for Jungkook to hear and not be startled.

 

“I don’t think the sun has ever looked quite so golden in this room before,” he said, his voice like warm fabric—woven with intention, lined with gentleness.

 

Jungkook looked up slowly. His gaze didn’t startle like it had days ago. But it didn’t shine with mischief either.

 

“It’s softer now,” Jungkook replied after a pause, his words clinging to the air like threads of thought. “Like it’s tired from burning too bright.”

 

Taehyung felt something stir inside him—an ache that had no name. He sat beside the boy, leaving just enough distance for comfort but not so much that it felt impersonal. His shoulder hovered in Jungkook’s periphery. His presence was a silent offering.

 

“And yet, it still gives warmth,” Taehyung murmured, glancing toward the window. “Even when it’s tired.”

 

Jungkook’s fingers curled slightly around Bunny’s ear, and his lips parted in thought. “Some things still try to glow. Even when they want to disappear.”

 

The words landed like feathers between them, soft but profound. Taehyung turned his head slightly to observe Jungkook’s profile—the gentle slope of his cheek, the shadow beneath his lashes, the small furrow between his brows that hinted at something deeper.

 

“Did you speak with my brother today?” Taehyung asked, not demanding, not prying. Simply unfolding curiosity with care.

 

Jungkook blinked. His body stilled.

 

He nodded once.

 

Taehyung noticed the shift immediately. The way Jungkook’s lips pressed tighter, the way his rabbit was held a little closer, as though the encounter had carved something open inside him that he hadn’t yet named.

 

“What did he say?” Taehyung asked, though his voice carried no weight of expectation.

 

For a long time, Jungkook didn’t answer. Then, finally, he murmured, “He told me not to leave Bunny alone.”

 

A smile touched Taehyung’s lips, not out of humor but something deeper—an understanding of the strange tenderness buried beneath his twin’s impossible cold.

 

“He has a peculiar way of showing care,” Taehyung said, eyes glinting with something unspoken. “But he notices more than he lets on.”

 

Jungkook turned to him slowly, brows furrowed. “He didn’t say it like... like he meant to be kind.”

 

“No,” Taehyung agreed, voice dipping into softness. “He never does. But meaning lives beneath silence in this house. It has to.”

 

The quiet settled again, but this time it was warmer. The glass walls of the solarium cradled the last light of day, and Taehyung leaned back slightly, letting his arm rest along the top of the bench. Not touching Jungkook, but close enough that if the boy leaned—just slightly—it would be there.

 

“You look tired, little one,” he said after a moment, tilting his head.

 

“I’m not,” Jungkook replied, though his voice lacked conviction.

 

“You don’t have to be strong here,” Taehyung murmured, eyes still on the golden sky. “Not with me.”

 

Jungkook was quiet for a long moment, then he whispered, “I’m not strong. I just don’t know where to put all the feelings.”

 

“That’s alright,” Taehyung replied. “I have room. For all of them.”

 

This time, Jungkook looked at him fully.

 

And for the first time since stepping into the mansion, his lips curved—not into a smile, not quite. But into something softer. Something real.

 

Later, when the sun had fully disappeared and the sky turned navy with early night, Taehyung invited Jungkook to dinner—not with words but with an extended hand, warm and open in the dimming solarium light. Jungkook took it without a word, his smaller fingers curling instinctively into the gentle strength of Taehyung’s palm.

 

They walked together through the hallways, their joined hands a secret pact only the walls were allowed to witness. In the dining room, only a third of the long table was lit, candles flickering above porcelain and silver. The distance across the empty chairs felt too formal, too stiff, so Taehyung quietly pulled Jungkook’s seat closer, angling it beside his own with no explanation.

Jungkook blinked at the gesture but said nothing. He only sat down, a soft hum escaping his lips as the scent of warm broth and honeyed bread filled the air. Taehyung watched him more than he ate, memorizing the way his lips puckered slightly when he blew on his spoon, how his fingers still clung to Bunny even as he reached for his water glass.

When Jungkook dripped soup onto his sleeve and tried to hide it under the table, Taehyung didn’t scold. He simply reached over with a folded napkin and wiped the spot clean, his movements smooth and without fanfare. His hand lingered just a second too long against Jungkook’s wrist before withdrawing.

Jungkook noticed.

He also noticed that whenever he looked away, he could feel Taehyung’s gaze resting on him again. Not burning. Not prying. Just...watching. As if daring the world to interrupt.

By the time dinner ended, the candles had burned low, and the night outside was complete. Taehyung stood first and offered his hand again. Jungkook took it.

There were no questions.

No need.

He was led back through the silent halls, their footsteps muffled against the rugs. When they reached the threshold of Jungkook’s room, Taehyung didn’t speak. He merely placed his hand on the doorframe, fingers splayed as if marking it.

Then, quietly, he reached down and brushed his thumb over Jungkook’s cheek—not in affection, not quite. More like a silent warning to the walls.

This space was claimed.

Jungkook understood it.

And when he closed the door behind him, he leaned against it for a long moment, staring into the soft darkness of his bedroom. His fingers curled tighter around Bunny.

He didn’t smile.

But he felt it.

And that was enough.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 6: Velvet Silence

 

The air in the mansion thickened as the sky surrendered to night, velvet shadows unfurling across stone and silk like silent witnesses to something unspoken. Kim V stood before the wide arched window of his private study, unmoving, as if carved from the same obsidian dusk outside.

 The heavy crystal tumbler behind him sat untouched on the mahogany desk, the whiskey within shimmering faintly in the light of the solitary desk lamp. But it wasn’t the drink that preoccupied him. It was the shift. The almost imperceptible change threading through the very bones of the estate.

The mansion, long used to silence, had taken on a new kind of quiet. Not the empty hush of polished formality but something breath-like. Something alive. And V, who had learned from a young age to interpret nuance from silence, felt the disturbance settle deep within him like a crack in glass.

It began in the pacing of the staff—too careful, too aware. The head maid no longer walked past the east hall with her usual brisk cadence. The gardener hummed under his breath now, pausing longer than necessary beneath windows with drawn curtains. And his twin, Taehyung, had grown impossibly subtle in his movements—always arriving moments before needed, always speaking with gentler inflections, always watching someone.

Jungkook.

A presence that floated quietly through their home like the scent of ink or the whisper of a brush on canvas. V had not intended to notice. But he did. In the stillness of a room once left undisturbed, he caught the faint clatter of brushes, the trailing melody of a half-hummed tune, the whisper-soft pitter of bare feet navigating marble.

He turned from the window at last and left the study without a sound, footsteps disappearing into the thick carpet of the west wing. His route did not need direction. His body knew.

The hallway here curved slightly, lit by lamps ensconced in delicate glass, the light spilling gold across pale walls. V moved past the old portraits and closed doors with mechanical grace until he reached the guest suite that had quietly, gradually, become Jungkook’s haven.

He didn’t knock. The door was not fully closed.

He pushed it open.

The boy sat on the rug beside the window, bathed in golden lamplight. An open sketchbook lay before him, fingers smudged in black charcoal as he traced the outline of something undefined. His stuffed rabbit—silent, ever present—rested by his knee, its glassy eyes fixed toward nothing.

“You’re still awake,” V said, his tone level, cool as silk smoothed against skin.

Jungkook did not startle. He didn’t even look up immediately. “It’s too quiet to sleep,” came the soft reply. “Everything here listens.”

V stepped inside and closed the door behind him with a decisive click. He crossed the room with slow, deliberate steps, eyes cataloguing the boy’s surroundings—the disarray of pencils, the smudged paper, the faint scent of citrus and ink clinging to the air.

“You prefer noise?” he asked, voice low.

“I prefer places that don’t pretend they aren’t lonely,” Jungkook murmured. His words were soft, but they cut like chilled wind.

V’s expression did not shift. He lowered himself gracefully onto the edge of the velvet chaise beside the boy, elbows resting on his knees as his gaze narrowed, not in suspicion—but in interest. Deep and dissecting.

“My brother seems to amuse you.”

Jungkook shrugged slightly, tracing a shadowed arc on the page. “He listens. And he doesn’t ask questions like they’re weapons.”

“You assume mine are?”

Jungkook turned then, eyes lifting. They didn’t sparkle with mischief. They shimmered with defiance.

“No. But you ask like you already know the answers.”

There was a pause. It stretched, long and languid between them. Then V reached out—not to Jungkook, but to a discarded charcoal pencil beside him. He turned it between his fingers thoughtfully, as if it might reveal something about the boy it had served.

“You work with shadows,” he observed. “But you don’t hide.”

Jungkook tilted his head, fingers curling around the edge of the paper. “Maybe I just don’t see why I should pretend I’m not broken.”

The words hung in the air, strangely fearless.

V leaned back slightly, resting one arm across the chaise’s armrest, gaze steady. “Everyone’s broken. The difference is how well they hide the pieces.”

Jungkook’s lashes fluttered downward. “And how many they’re allowed to keep.”

V’s jaw shifted. Barely. But his silence changed shape—thicker now, heavier. The kind of silence that didn’t accept vulnerability as a weakness. The kind that remembered everything.

“I assume you find comfort in fragments, then,” he said.

“I find comfort in what isn’t trying to be whole.”

V regarded him for a long moment. Then, he rose, setting the pencil down beside the sketchbook. He walked toward the window and drew the curtain back slowly, revealing the moonlight pouring across the garden paths below.

“Come here.”

Jungkook hesitated. The command wasn’t forceful. It was certain. Not an order, but a magnetic pull. He stood slowly and padded over, bare feet soundless. V didn’t touch him. He didn’t need to.

“Do you see it?” V asked, motioning toward the moonlit path.

Jungkook peered down, eyes narrowed. “What?”

“The garden fox,” V murmured. “It comes when the world is sleeping. It always moves like it owns the shadows.”

Jungkook spotted the sliver of red-brown fur darting across the stones, tail high, body low.

“It doesn’t hide,” he whispered.

“No,” V said. “It doesn’t have to. No one dares touch what moves like it belongs.”

The weight of the words settled between them, and Jungkook turned his head slightly, watching V instead of the fox.

“Do you move like that?” he asked.

V’s lips barely curved. “I don’t move. I make others still.”

The admission wasn’t cruel. It was a truth. And it stirred something low in Jungkook’s chest. Something curious. Something reckless.

He reached forward then, brushing his fingers along the windowpane, leaving faint smudges behind.

“You don’t like mess,” Jungkook said.

“I don’t tolerate chaos.”

“But I bring both.”

V turned toward him fully now, eyes piercing in the silver-dark. “And yet I haven’t removed you.”

Jungkook blinked. His voice came low, playful. “Is that supposed to scare me?”

“No,” V said, stepping closer. His breath ghosted across Jungkook’s temple. “It’s supposed to warn you.”

Jungkook didn’t move away. “Of what?”

“That even I haven’t decided what to do with you.”

And there it was.

The danger. The tension. The quiet warning hidden in velvet words.

But it was not fear that Jungkook felt.

It was something darker. Warmer.

Something that curled in his stomach and sparked behind his ribs.

He turned his face up just slightly, eyes meeting V’s.

“Then I’ll decide for both of us,” he said, voice nearly a whisper. “You’ll keep me.”

V didn’t flinch. Didn’t smirk. But the corner of his mouth twitched—as if surprised. As if he hadn’t expected to be seen so clearly.

“Careful,” he said at last. “Possession runs in our blood.”

Jungkook’s eyes glittered. “So does longing.”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty.

It pulsed.

As though the mansion itself held its breath.

And then V stepped back, his presence retreating just enough to break the pull. “Go to sleep, Jungkook.”

Jungkook didn’t protest.

But as he climbed back onto the rug and pulled his rabbit close, he watched V leave through half-lidded eyes, the door clicking softly behind him.

Only then did the smallest smile brush across his lips.

Because even in silence—especially in silence—he had felt it.

The cold attention. The careful proximity. The heat hidden beneath precision.

And he knew, without being told, that the glass-man was already watching too closely to stop.

And he liked it.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 7: Smoldering Glass

 

The morning sun filtered through gauzy drapes, illuminating the mansion in pale, ghostly hues. It slipped across polished banisters, caught in the high beams of vaulted ceilings, and finally found its way into the east wing where Jungkook’s bedroom remained mostly untouched by time. The world outside stirred with the softness of dawn, but within the walls of the estate, time moved differently—warped by luxury and laden silence.

Jungkook awoke curled on the edge of his wide bed, his bunny cradled to his chest, a faint wrinkle between his brows. Dreams clung to him like smoke—fragile, lingering. They had not been frightening, but they had left him restless, images of glass eyes and quiet footsteps lingering like distant memories.

He rubbed his face with the back of his hand and sat up slowly, allowing the cool air to settle against his skin. The silence of the mansion greeted him as always. It was not cold, not unkind—but deliberate. It waited. Watched. Every polished surface and gilded edge seemed to acknowledge his presence without welcoming it, a castle filled with unspoken rules he was still learning to trace.

Today, however, there was something different threading the air. Something invisible but undeniable. A shift in the tempo of stillness, a murmur that didn’t belong to the wind. It made his skin prickle lightly, the kind of alertness a rabbit might have in an open field.

With his bunny held tight against his chest, Jungkook padded softly across the room and slid his feet into house slippers. The corridor was quiet when he opened the door, his steps muffled by the thick Persian rug beneath him.

His sleeves, too long for his arms, brushed his fingers as he moved, making him appear even smaller, more lost in the grandeur of the home. Staff moved with practiced discretion, their presence barely felt, but Jungkook sensed their awareness. Not in words or gestures, but in how their glances darted away too quickly, in how they paused just long enough to take note of him before moving on.

He didn’t care for their assumptions or curiosity. He was used to being observed but not truly seen. The only difference was that in this place, everything felt exaggerated. The stares, the silences, the tension. As if the walls themselves held breath.

What caught his attention more than the hushed routine of the staff was the man standing just beyond the breakfast salon—the long frame of Kim Taehyung, leaning in effortless posture against the arched doorframe, his silhouette cut like marble in the gentle sunlight. A steaming cup of black coffee rested in one hand, the other casually tucked into his pocket. His presence exuded a calm control, one that did not ask for attention yet drew it like a flame lures shadow.

Jungkook’s steps slowed as he approached, not out of hesitation but due to the odd flutter that rose in his chest. Taehyung’s gaze had found him the moment he emerged from the corridor—as if he had been waiting, or worse, expecting him. There was no smile on his face, yet his expression was not cold. Rather, it was unreadable, a carefully composed mask with the faintest tug at the corner of his lips, as if caught between amusement and contemplation.

Without speaking, Taehyung gestured subtly with his head toward the room beyond. Jungkook glanced past him into the salon, where a small but elegant breakfast had been laid out—fresh fruit, tea, thin pancakes dusted with sugar, and a selection of preserves placed with mathematical precision.

Jungkook entered first, the atmosphere inside warm and quiet. He set his bunny on the bench beside him, folding his sleeves back carefully before reaching for a piece of toast. It was only then, once he was settled, that Taehyung joined him, lowering himself into the chair opposite with slow grace. The silence between them remained unbroken, though it was not uncomfortable. It had a pulse, a rhythm that felt oddly synchronized.

Jungkook took his time with his breakfast, chewing thoughtfully as he let his gaze roam—over the tall windows, the delicate porcelain, and finally back to the man who watched him with the steadiness of a tide. Taehyung stirred his coffee once, twice, then set the spoon aside without a clink.

There was something unusually intimate in the way Taehyung observed him. Not intrusive, but attentive. Protective, perhaps—but in a way that didn’t declare itself. His eyes lingered on Jungkook’s hands, the fine smudge of charcoal under one fingernail, the way his fingers curled slightly as he reached for the preserves. It was as though Taehyung was memorizing things without letting anyone notice.

After a while, Jungkook broke the silence with a quiet breath, not words, but a sound that marked the moment. He turned his face slightly toward the window, where sunlight made halos on the glass.

"You don’t like mornings," Jungkook finally said, not looking at Taehyung, but stating it like a truth he had known for a while. His tone was simple, soft, yet laced with understanding.

Taehyung didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he leaned back in his chair, regarding the boy through half-lidded eyes. There was a flicker of surprise in his stillness, as if he hadn’t expected Jungkook to speak—but the curve of his lip deepened ever so slightly, approval hidden beneath the layers.

“When it’s quiet,” Taehyung said, his voice low and measured, “mornings are tolerable. You make them quieter.”

Jungkook blinked at that, the corners of his mouth twitching as though he might smile but changed his mind. He looked down at his plate, then up at Taehyung again, this time holding his gaze a little longer.

“There’s quiet, and then there’s stillness,” he murmured. “You and your brother… you’re both still.”

Taehyung’s brow lifted ever so slightly, a quiet amusement playing in his eyes. “Stillness isn’t absence, Jungkook. Sometimes it’s what remains when everything else is gone.”

That answer made Jungkook pause. He let it settle over him, like one of the long silences he often found comforting. The kind that said more than words.

It was Taehyung who shifted first, reaching slowly toward Jungkook—not to touch, but to lift the edge of his sleeve. The motion was careful, precise. He rolled the fabric back just enough to reveal Jungkook’s wrist, slender and pale, before letting the cloth fall again.

“You wear your sleeves too long,” Taehyung said, but the comment wasn’t criticism. It felt more like an observation laced with something deeper—something that didn’t name itself.

“I like hiding in fabric,” Jungkook replied, his voice lighter now, almost playful. “It makes it harder for people to see what I’m feeling.”

Taehyung hummed low in his throat, then rose from his seat with deliberate calm. He walked slowly around the table until he stood behind Jungkook, his presence close enough that Jungkook could feel the subtle warmth of his body. For a moment, he did nothing—just existed there in that nearness, a quiet boundary drawn not by distance, but by silence.

Then, with gentle fingers, he reached forward and adjusted the collar of Jungkook’s robe, smoothing it down without a word. It was a gesture that felt instinctive, and oddly intimate—neither commanding nor hesitant.

Jungkook held very still, breath shallow. It wasn’t fear. It was something closer to awe—of being seen, attended to, not as a fragile thing, but as something singular. Taehyung’s fingers brushed the side of his neck just briefly before retreating.

“You don’t have to hide,” Taehyung said at last, his voice a soft echo behind him. “Not here.”

And though Jungkook didn’t reply, the flush that rose to his cheeks, the way he gripped the edge of the table just slightly tighter—those said enough. The silence returned, not empty, but filled with a presence that neither questioned nor demanded.

It was the kind of silence that grew roots.

And in that stillness, something began to shift—slowly, invisibly—but with weight. A tension that wasn’t cruel, a possessiveness that didn’t announce itself, a bond that deepened without touch.

Smouldering.

Like glass in fire.

Chapter 8: Glass Boundaries

 

The late morning light was sharper now, casting crisper angles across the mansion’s expansive walls. The hush that followed breakfast lingered like mist, softening every sound yet thickening the air with something unspoken. Somewhere in the garden beyond the east wing, birds called faintly, but even their voices seemed to understand the rhythm of the house—slow, watchful, unhurried.

Jungkook sat at the edge of the greenhouse terrace, cradling a mug of milk between both hands, his knees pulled loosely to his chest as he rocked very slightly. The soft cotton of his sleeves pooled around his wrists again, freshly changed into a pale blue jumper with cloud-stitched embroidery—something delicate and warm. The air smelled of earth and damp stone and the faint floral whisper of late-blooming orchids just beyond the glass.

Today, he had been told gently by one of the older house staff, was to be a quiet day. No meetings. No guests. No interruptions. He could do as he pleased.

But the freedom tasted unfamiliar. Like a flavor too sweet, leaving the tongue confused.

The greenhouse had quickly become one of his safe places, not because he asked for it, but because it reminded him of something his body remembered—moist air, filtered light, the quiet breath of things that grew without demand. It was solitude without pressure, silence without suspicion. No one disturbed him here. No one except Kim V.

A quiet shuffle at the threshold made Jungkook’s ears perk up even before he lifted his eyes. The way the glass door slid open with deliberate care told him it was not a servant. Servants never lingered when they came. They were quiet, swift, functional.

No, this step was slower. Almost hesitant.

Jungkook didn’t turn around immediately. He let the silence fill the space between them, like the air thickening before a summer rain. His fingers tightened minutely around the warm mug, anchoring himself.

“Why here?” V’s voice was a low baritone, unhurried and controlled, but beneath the surface there was something grainy—like glass beneath silk.

Jungkook tilted his head slightly but didn’t answer right away. The sound of V’s steps approaching across the greenhouse tiles punctuated the quiet in calculated intervals. When the older man came into view, he wasn’t looking directly at Jungkook but at the orchids lining the far wall, hands tucked into his pockets, the fit of his dark suit stark against the natural warmth of the garden.

“I like it,” Jungkook murmured finally, voice soft like the brush of silk. “Things don’t stare here. They just grow.”

V’s gaze flicked toward him at last, unreadable. He didn’t respond, but his attention settled on Jungkook now with the weight of full awareness. It wasn’t scrutiny. It was observation. Like watching a flame dance too close to silk curtains.

Jungkook looked down into his mug, then took a slow sip, the milk lukewarm now. He felt the older man’s presence without needing to meet his eyes—cool and composed but undeniably near. The way the sunlight filtered between the leaves caught faint lines of shadow across V’s cheekbones, softening the harshness without removing it.

“Your jumper,” V said after a long pause. “It’s new.”

A quiet blink. Then a slow nod. “Niki-noona picked it. She said it looked like sky.”

“You trust her.”

It wasn’t a question, but it held the shape of one.

Jungkook’s fingers tightened just slightly around the mug. “She’s nice to me. Not because she has to be. Just because she is.”

V didn’t say anything for a long time. The silence stretched—not uncomfortable, but dense. Like the space between two mirrors facing each other, infinite and close.

He moved then, only slightly. Reaching forward, he plucked a fallen petal from the bench beside Jungkook and rolled it between his fingers, his movements precise. “There are many people who are nice when watched.”

“And you’re not?” Jungkook asked quietly, not as a challenge but with a gentle curiosity that held its own tension.

V’s eyes met his then. Still. Deep. Glinting with something unreadable.

“I don’t believe in being nice,” V replied, voice low and steady. “I believe in being deliberate.”

Jungkook tilted his head again, like a puzzled bird. “Then why are you here?”

There was a flicker in V’s gaze. The faintest change. Not enough to name, but enough to feel.

“Because you are here.”

It was said with such simplicity that it struck harder than anything poetic might have. Jungkook blinked once, lips parting slightly. The answer didn’t rush through him. It sank. Settled.

V didn’t touch him. He didn’t sit beside him. But he remained there, unmoving, as if his presence itself was a boundary neither of them knew how to cross just yet—but both had quietly acknowledged.

The sunlight shifted again, painting golden squares across the glass walls. Jungkook looked away, but his mind had snagged on those words. Because you are here.

A leaf fluttered down from the potted tree beside them, landing without a sound between their feet.

They didn’t speak again for some time.

Later that afternoon, Jungkook wandered through the south gallery, the soft patter of his socks against marble tiles the only sound until he noticed the small wooden easel leaning against the far wall—his easel. Not the big one from the art room. This one was different. Smaller. Simpler. Familiar in a way that ached.

There were pastels beside it. And a stack of linen-paper.

He hadn’t brought it here. Nor had he asked for it.

A small note was pinned to the top sheet, written in an elegant hand.

"Paint only when you want to. No one will watch."

There was no name. But the shape of the handwriting was precise. Cold. Beautiful. Like the man who had said nothing else but made Jungkook feel everything with silence.

Jungkook stared at the note for a long time, then traced a finger gently across the edge of the paper, the texture catching against his skin.

Possessiveness didn’t always roar. Sometimes, it whispered through small acts. The kind that took up space in the heart without asking permission.

That evening, at dinner, Taehyung noticed the new softness in Jungkook’s eyes.

And across the table, V met his twin’s gaze for only a fraction of a second—silent understanding shared in a look sharper than glass.

Whatever had shifted in the greenhouse, neither of them acknowledged aloud.

But Jungkook’s fingers lingered longer on the silverware V passed him. And V’s gaze followed him a moment too long when he left the table.

And when night came, and the mansion fell into hush once more, Jungkook stared out his window, bunny hugged to his chest, and whispered under his breath into the velvet dark.

“Because I am here...”

 

 

 

Chapter 9: Velvet Strings

 

The night left behind a trace of silver frost, glittering faintly on the balcony rails outside Jungkook’s bedroom. When he pressed his cheek to the cold glass, he could see the twin shadows of two crows perched on the naked tree just beyond the courtyard wall. They didn’t move. Just sat. As if waiting.

 

The mansion was still. Unusually so. Even the morning staff moved more carefully than usual, their steps softened, their murmurs hushed like the calm before a storm—or perhaps, the aftermath of one.

 

Jungkook wasn’t sure which it was. He only knew that he woke up feeling something in the air had shifted again. It wasn’t loud. Not dangerous. But present. A change in current beneath an otherwise still lake.

 

He padded softly into the corridor, wrapped in an oversized hoodie that hung past his thighs, bare feet barely making a sound against the polished wood. His bunny was held close, ears drooping against his shoulder. There had been a dream—fragmented and filled with blurred edges—something about painting with rainwater and V’s voice murmuring in the background like an echo he couldn’t hold.

 

As he passed the grand staircase, he caught the faint notes of a piano. Not a melody, not quite. Just slow chords—deliberate, searching. A tune unsure of itself. The sound pulled at something inside him. It wasn’t curiosity exactly. It was closer to recognition.

 

Drawn like thread pulled by invisible fingers, Jungkook descended the stairs, trailing along the edge of the bannister with the tips of his fingers brushing the carved wood. He passed the lounge where the light from a tall window spilled gold across the marble floor, and followed the tentative music to the sunroom—doors partially open, revealing a figure seated at the grand piano inside.

 

Taehyung.

 

Not dressed for the day yet, still in deep charcoal loungewear that looked almost regal against his skin. He sat hunched slightly, long fingers moving across the keys like he was coaxing something out of silence. His eyes were not focused on the instrument though. They stared past it, lost in something faraway.

 

Jungkook lingered in the doorway, the hem of his hoodie pooling around his thighs, bunny now hanging by one arm at his side. He didn’t announce himself. He just watched.

 

Taehyung’s fingers paused a moment. Then, without lifting his gaze, he pressed the next chord—a warmer one. Richer.

 

“I didn’t know you played,” Jungkook murmured eventually, his voice soft and oddly shaped in the air, as if it had tiptoed in without permission. He stepped into the room, careful not to break the strange tranquility. “It sounds… like something trying to remember what it used to be.”

 

A faint breath escaped Taehyung’s lips—half a laugh, half a sigh. His fingers didn’t leave the keys.

 

“I don’t. Not properly,” he replied, the words slow, deliberate, and weighted with something deeper. “Sometimes I just press what feels right. Most days it doesn’t. Today... it almost did.”

 

Jungkook moved closer, drawn not just to the music but to something underneath it. Something heavy and vast that he didn’t fully understand but instinctively leaned toward.

 

“I liked it better when you weren’t thinking so hard,” he said softly, now just a step away from the piano bench. “The part before you knew I was listening.”

 

Taehyung’s eyes lifted at that, and for the first time that morning, they met. Still quiet. Still unreadable. But something in the line of his shoulders shifted—like recognition.

 

“You listen too carefully,” Taehyung murmured. “Like you’re trying to hear what I haven’t said.”

 

Jungkook tilted his head slightly. “Maybe I am.”

 

There was no challenge in his voice. Just gentle honesty, like a mirror being held up.

 

Taehyung turned back to the piano and played another series of chords—this time steadier, like a rhythm forming. The room filled with it. That low, full sound wrapping around them like velvet.

 

“Do you like the music?” Taehyung asked without looking at him again.

 

“I like that it’s not trying to impress anyone,” Jungkook said, slowly circling the piano until he sat on the edge of a low chaise nearby, legs tucked beneath him. “It sounds like you’re talking to yourself.”

 

There was a pause. Then Taehyung’s hands left the keys.

 

“I usually am.”

 

Silence stretched again, but it wasn’t empty. It was the kind of quiet that held everything unsaid. Jungkook toyed with the edge of his sleeve, his thumb rubbing over the stitched cloud near his wrist.

 

“Why today?” he asked. “Why does it almost feel right today?”

 

Taehyung leaned back slightly, resting one elbow on the body of the piano. His gaze drifted to Jungkook, lingering a moment too long to be casual.

 

“Because you were in the house when I woke up.”

 

The admission landed softly, but it wasn’t light. It settled between them with weight. Jungkook’s eyes widened slightly before dropping to his lap, heat blooming quietly beneath his cheeks.

 

“Oh.”

 

Taehyung said nothing more. He didn’t need to. The air had already changed again.

 

It was Jungkook who broke the silence this time, his voice smaller, unsure. “Does that mean… you like having me here?”

 

The way Taehyung stood from the bench was slow, deliberate. He didn’t step close, but he didn’t have to. The space between them tightened without him moving at all. When he finally answered, it was with a voice so low Jungkook almost didn’t hear it.

 

“It means something about the silence feels different now. Like it’s full instead of hollow.”

The moment hung between them, ripe and tender. Jungkook looked up again, wide eyes searching Taehyung’s face for something unnamed. What he found there wasn’t overt. It was shadowed, restrained. But it pulsed with quiet intensity.

“Taehyung…” he whispered, voice trailing.

But Taehyung had already turned toward the window, hands sliding into the pockets of his robe. His profile was composed, unreadable, yet his voice—when he spoke again—held something softer.

“You should finish your milk before it cools. The staff left a tray for you in the reading room.”

Jungkook stood reluctantly, fingers tightening around his bunny’s floppy arm. His steps were slow as he moved to the door, and when he paused at the threshold, he glanced back once more.

“Do you want me to come listen again tomorrow?” he asked.

Taehyung’s response was quiet, almost too quiet.

“If you don’t, it might not sound right again.”

And just like that, the velvet string between them tightened—soft, invisible, but undeniably there.

Jungkook left the room with a soft flush across his cheeks and a thrum in his chest he didn’t quite have words for. Not yet.

But something had begun. And even if they couldn’t name it, it was already playing its quiet song.

 

 

 

Chapter 10: Silent Echoes

 

The following day dawned not with sunlight, but with the whisper of rain.

 

It had begun just before sunrise, a soft drizzle threading its way through the gray hush of the sky, leaving the world cloaked in a gentle gloom. The mansion’s garden, usually glowing with morning dew, looked dreamlike behind the fogged glass. The rosebushes bowed under droplets that clung to their petals like unshed tears.

 

Jungkook awoke slowly, blinking into the gray light that painted faint shadows across his ceiling. The air was cold against his cheeks, and for a moment, he didn’t move. He simply listened. The sound of rain always made the silence feel heavier, more thoughtful—like the world itself had paused to think.

 

The events of the day before still clung to his skin like leftover warmth. The music. The soft, unspoken things passed between glances. Taehyung’s voice, calm and low, brushing against his ears like a velvet ribbon. It hadn’t left him. Not through sleep. Not now.

 

He stretched under the thick comforter, curling slightly before shifting to sit up. His bunny was still tucked beside him, one ear flattened under the pillow, the other resting against his arm. Jungkook reached over and gently pulled it free, cradling the worn plush to his chest as he padded across the cold floor, hoodie falling just below his knees.

 

A breakfast tray had already been placed on the low table near the fireplace—porridge with cinnamon and fruit slices arranged into the shape of a sleepy sun, along with a cup of warm milk that steamed gently in the chilled air. Someone had lit the fire in the early hours; its glow pulsed quietly, softening the gloom of the morning.

 

But Jungkook didn’t eat right away.

 

Instead, he moved to the window and leaned his forehead against the glass, watching the droplets race each other to the sill. His breath fogged the pane slightly, and he drew a tiny circle with his finger, then pressed his thumb into its center. There was comfort in the silence. But also, a weight. A pull.

 

It didn’t take long for him to abandon the tray and slip quietly into the hall, drawn once more by the stillness of the mansion—its wide corridors muffled by carpet and rain. He wandered barefoot, his steps soft and deliberate, not because he feared being caught, but because the quiet felt too sacred to disturb.

 

The piano room was empty.

 

So was the lounge.

 

He passed a few staff members along the way—each offering him a polite bow, though they did not stop him. By now, it seemed they had accepted that Jungkook moved on his own rhythm, like a soft wind brushing through the corners of the estate. Present, but never disruptive.

 

When he reached the eastern wing, a subtle difference in the air made him pause. The door to the study—one of the twins’ private spaces—was ajar. Faint lamplight glowed from within. He hesitated, fingers curling slightly at the hem of his sleeve.

 

A voice reached him then. Low. Cool.

 

“Are you going to stand there all day, little one, or come in?”

 

Jungkook’s breath caught.

 

It was V.

 

The calm gravity of that voice—sharp yet unhurried—slid across his skin like satin laced with steel. It didn’t frighten him. But it rooted him to the spot for a beat too long.

 

He stepped inside.

 

The study was a cocoon of dark wood and warm light, shelves lined with leather-bound volumes and quiet secrets. V sat behind the desk, fingers steepled, watching Jungkook with eyes that held neither amusement nor annoyance—only cool interest, edged with something unreadable.

 

Jungkook stood by the doorway, bunny cradled close, his hoodie sleeves covering his hands entirely. The fire crackled faintly in the corner, the only sound aside from the rain.

 

“I didn’t mean to intrude,” he said softly, eyes lowering.

 

V gestured toward the armchair across from him, a single motion that felt more like a command than an invitation.

 

“You’re not intruding. This house is yours too now.”

 

That word—yours—echoed louder than it should have.

 

Jungkook padded forward, climbing into the chair with folded legs, shrinking slightly into the fabric. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.

 

V regarded him for a moment longer, then reached for a small remote beside him. A soft click, and classical music began to play from hidden speakers—low, rich, unobtrusive.

 

“You wander,” V said eventually, his gaze still locked on Jungkook. “Even in the rain. Even without direction. Like mist.”

 

Jungkook blinked slowly, unsure if it was criticism or observation.

 

“I like the quiet,” he murmured. “And… the rain makes everything feel softer. Like it’s okay to be slow.”

 

V’s lips curled, barely.

 

“You speak in riddles, little one.”

 

“I just don’t know the right words sometimes,” Jungkook admitted. “So I use the ones I have.”

 

V leaned back slightly, still watching. The lamp behind him cast golden shadows across the edge of his jaw, and his expression—though composed—carried something taut underneath.

 

“You met my brother alone yesterday,” he said, the words neither sharp nor casual. Simply placed, like chess pieces.

 

Jungkook’s fingers curled more tightly around his bunny.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Did he touch you?”

 

The question was sudden, but not lewd. Not cruel. Just precise. A surgical slice through the haze.

 

Jungkook’s cheeks flushed instantly, eyes wide.

 

“No,” he said quickly. Then, softer, “He played the piano. I listened.”

 

V hummed—a low, thoughtful sound.

 

“And what did you feel?”

 

Jungkook didn’t answer right away. He looked down, one finger tracing the fabric at his knee.

 

“I felt… warm,” he whispered eventually. “Like something important happened, but I don’t know what it was yet.”

 

V’s fingers tapped once against the armrest. Then stilled.

 

“It’s dangerous,” he said, eyes narrowing slightly, “to feel things you don’t yet understand. Especially with people like us.”

 

Jungkook looked up, met his gaze.

 

“Then maybe… I want to understand.”

 

The room stilled again, the quiet pressing against their skin. Outside, the rain thickened.

 

And just before the silence could grow unbearable, V stood, circling the desk with slow, deliberate steps until he reached Jungkook’s side.

 

He didn’t touch him.

 

But he bent slightly, bringing their eyes level. His gaze searched Jungkook’s face with careful intensity, like he was memorizing the contours of something too fragile to hold.

 

“Be careful, Jungkook,” he murmured. “Some strings, once pulled, don’t let go.”

 

And then he straightened and left the room.

 

Jungkook remained in the chair long after the door closed behind him, fingers ghosting over the place where V’s gaze had just been.

 

Outside, the rain continued.

 

But inside, the echoes lingered.

 

 

 

Chapter 11: Rain Lace

 

The mansion remained wrapped in silence even as the rain began to thin into a soft mist. Somewhere past midday, the fog drifted low across the glass garden dome, painting the sky with translucent strokes. The world outside felt far away, like a distant canvas blurred by time.

 

Jungkook didn’t emerge for hours.

 

The study still held the ghost of V’s voice, and it clung to the sleeves of Jungkook’s hoodie like perfume—subtle, haunting, and impossible to forget. He had returned to his room, curling back beneath the covers, the bunny plush tucked into his arm as if the worn fabric could absorb the weight pressing into his chest.

 

But rest wouldn’t come.

 

Not when the mansion itself breathed around him.

 

Not when something inside him had shifted again—another string drawn tighter by a look, a word, a warning that didn’t feel like a threat but like a mark.

 

The knock was gentle.

 

Not tentative. Not forceful. Just deliberate enough to let Jungkook know that someone stood beyond the heavy door, waiting without pressing.

 

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

 

Because the door opened a moment later, slow and careful, the sound of it barely disturbing the quiet room. Jungkook turned his head on the pillow, gaze heavy-lidded as he watched the tall figure cross the threshold with practiced grace.

 

Taehyung.

 

His hair was slightly damp, as though he’d stepped in from one of the open terraces. The scent of petrichor clung faintly to his coat, blending with something richer beneath—amber and ink and something unnameable. He carried no umbrella, no tray of food, no excuse.

 

Only presence.

 

He paused a foot away from the bed, his eyes not moving immediately to Jungkook but to the soft sprawl of the covers, the forgotten sketchbook on the floor, the pair of slippers facing inward beneath the dresser as if placed there by someone who never intended to use them.

 

When he finally looked at Jungkook, his gaze was quiet but direct.

 

“You haven’t eaten,” he said, not accusing, but certain.

 

Jungkook didn’t nod. He didn’t shake his head either. He simply blinked up at the ceiling for a moment before speaking, voice hushed.

 

“I wasn’t hungry.”

 

Taehyung said nothing. Instead, he crossed the room to the window and pulled the curtain aside with two fingers, allowing a filtered light to spill across the floor. The mist outside made the world look like a watercolor—the trees soft-edged, the sky more suggestion than sky.

 

“I saw you in the east hall earlier,” Taehyung said finally, his voice as even as the rain. “You were with him.”

 

It wasn’t a question. Not really.

 

Jungkook’s breath hitched softly.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Did he say something to frighten you?”

 

“No.”

 

Taehyung turned then, fully, and his gaze landed on Jungkook again—searching, though not unkind. He stepped closer, only stopping when his knees touched the side of the mattress.

 

“He has a way of pressing too close without ever touching,” he murmured. “It’s how he sees if someone will flinch. Or run.”

 

Jungkook swallowed, lashes lowering.

 

“I didn’t flinch.”

 

That pulled the faintest breath of a smile from Taehyung. Not amused. More… relieved.

 

“I didn’t think you would.”

 

Then silence. Not awkward. Not heavy. Just full.

 

Taehyung reached down slowly, his fingers brushing the edge of the comforter before pulling it back just enough to seat himself at the edge of the bed. His presence did not crowd the space. But it shifted it. Warmer. More solid.

 

Jungkook’s fingers toyed absently with the ear of his bunny.

 

“He said some strings, once pulled, don’t let go.”

 

Taehyung’s brows twitched faintly. He leaned back on his hands, gaze tipping upward toward the ceiling.

 

“He would say that,” he mused. “Because he doesn’t know how to let go himself.”

 

Jungkook turned his head slightly.

 

“But you’re different.”

 

Taehyung didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice was quiet, more personal than Jungkook had ever heard it.

 

“No,” he said. “I just hold on differently.”

 

The confession bloomed in the air like a candle lighting in fog. Jungkook felt it more than he understood it, the meaning threading itself through the knots behind his ribs. Taehyung had not touched him. Not once. And yet, every word, every look—every breath shared across that short distance—felt like a fingertip on his skin.

 

“I don’t mind being held,” Jungkook whispered, surprising even himself.

 

Taehyung looked at him then—not sharply, but wholly. With all the weight of a man who rarely looked directly unless he meant to say something.

 

“You say that,” he murmured, “but you only let yourself be held by what you can still outrun.”

 

The words cut. Not cruelly. Just true.

 

Jungkook sat up slightly, the covers falling into his lap, his sleeves pulled past his hands. He hugged his bunny tighter.

 

“Maybe I don’t know what it’s like to be caught.”

 

Taehyung leaned forward slowly, the motion fluid, his hand rising—not to touch Jungkook, but to reach out and brush one finger lightly over the bunny’s fabric ear.

 

“That,” he said softly, “would be your first mistake.”

 

Their eyes held.

 

And in that fragile balance of breath and silence, something gave way—just slightly. Not a fall. Not yet. But the ground beneath them shifted.

 

Jungkook didn’t move when Taehyung finally stood.

 

But his hand, still warm from where it had hovered near Jungkook’s, left a quiet trail of heat behind.

 

“I’ll have something brought up,” Taehyung said, voice returning to its composed register. “Warm milk. And bread with honey. You like that, don’t you?”

 

Jungkook nodded slowly, heart thudding against the inside of his ribs.

 

“Yes… noona used to give me that at night.”

 

Taehyung paused at the door.

 

“Then let it be a memory worth keeping.”

 

And then he left.

 

The room was quiet again.

 

But Jungkook no longer felt alone.

 

The mist had lifted slightly outside, and through the softened glass, the garden’s winter roses blinked awake under the faded light.

 

Something had begun.

 

And whatever it was, it no longer cared to wait.

 

 

 

Chapter 12: Silver Quiet

 

The morning after Taehyung’s quiet visit brought with it a clarity that was almost too soft to name. The skies remained gray, but the rain had ended. Droplets clung to the edges of the ivy outside Jungkook’s window, each one catching the morning light like a memory hanging on too long.

 

Jungkook sat curled on the window seat wrapped in a thick knit blanket, one hand absentmindedly stroking the seam of his plush bunny’s ear. The warmth of the milk from the night before still lingered somewhere in his chest, not because of the taste—but because of who had sent it, and the way his name had been spoken with such delicate care, as though Taehyung had been afraid to break something inside him.

 

And maybe he was.

 

Because something in him had begun to crack—softly, like frost melting at the edge of morning.

 

He hadn’t heard the door open. The soft click of it slipping shut was the only indication that someone had entered, and by the time he turned his head toward the sound, the quiet footfalls were already crossing the room.

 

Kim V did not walk like a man who needed to be noticed. His steps were soundless, his presence folding into a room with the inevitability of dusk. He wore black today—nothing particularly sharp, just well-cut slacks and a long wool coat that framed his tall figure like shadow.

 

Jungkook didn’t speak. He only watched.

 

V stopped a few feet from the window and said nothing at first, his gaze fixed not on Jungkook, but on the glass pane that reflected the morning’s dull gray light.

 

“I once heard someone say that still mornings were the most deceptive,” V murmured, voice low and unhurried. “Because quiet is never empty. It’s always waiting for something.”

 

Jungkook didn’t reply immediately. He curled his legs tighter beneath the blanket, the plush bunny pressed into the curve of his stomach.

 

“Waiting for what?” he asked finally, his words gentle but tinged with something curious.

 

V’s gaze slid toward him then—measured, dark.

 

“For a decision. A change. A storm, maybe.” He moved closer, but slowly, as though giving Jungkook the choice to stop him. “Or perhaps, for someone to stop hiding.”

 

The words landed with a quiet weight. Not cruel. Just deliberate.

 

Jungkook blinked, eyes drifting to the silvered garden beyond the glass. The frost had softened into dew, and the vines shimmered faintly.

 

“I’m not hiding,” he said after a moment. “Not really.”

 

V’s lips curved—barely. “No? Then what do you call it, little one, when someone walks in silence through every room, speaks only when pressed, and curls themselves around old toys like armor?”

 

A flash of defensiveness rose in Jungkook’s chest, but it flickered out almost as quickly as it came. Because V wasn’t mocking him. His voice held no amusement—only observation. Precision without malice.

 

Jungkook tightened his hold on the bunny.

 

“I call it... breathing without being watched.” His gaze returned to V, softer now. “I’m not used to being seen this much.”

 

V let out a low hum, stepping nearer until he could lean one hand against the window frame, close enough for Jungkook to feel the shift in air, but not close enough to touch.

 

“You weren’t hidden, Jungkook. You were veiled. Kept behind glass, perhaps, like your art.”

 

The name made Jungkook’s eyes widen slightly. He drew in a quiet breath.

 

“You know?” he whispered.

 

“I know many things,” V replied, though his tone lost none of its softness. “But I knew the moment I saw that unfinished canvas in the north sunroom. The hands that painted that couldn’t be borrowed. They were born.”

 

Jungkook’s mouth parted slightly, heart knocking once, hard. He hadn’t thought anyone in the house would recognize his work. Not even Taehyung had spoken of it. And yet here V stood, his gaze unwavering, his truth spoken without ceremony.

 

“You didn’t say anything,” Jungkook murmured.

 

“There’s power in silence,” V said. “Sometimes, the louder truth is the one we let others find on their own.”

 

He moved then, just enough to draw the heavy curtain back a few inches more, allowing the gray light to spill further into the room. Then he glanced back at Jungkook.

 

“But if you truly weren’t hiding,” he continued, “you would have signed your name.”

 

Jungkook looked down at his lap, where the blanket pooled like melted snow. The plush bunny’s ear was clutched too tightly between his fingers.

 

“I don’t... I didn’t want it to be about me.”

 

V’s eyes narrowed slightly, thoughtful. He crouched then—not to Jungkook’s level, but lower, resting one knee to the floor as if observing a work of art.

 

“It already is about you,” he said, “even when no one knows your name. The world has been looking at you for years, Jungkook. You’re the only one who hasn’t joined them.”

 

The words stole the breath from his lungs.

 

V didn’t move to touch him, but the weight of his gaze was its own gravity. It pinned Jungkook in place—not in fear, but in knowing. In truth.

 

“And now?” V asked, voice gentler. “Are you ready to be seen?”

 

Jungkook’s throat tightened. For a moment, he could only stare at the frost-kissed glass, the image of his own reflection barely visible.

 

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But... I think I want to learn how.”

 

V stood slowly, not abrupt. His hand reached for the edge of the curtain and pulled it fully aside, revealing the whole of the misted garden. Then he stepped back.

 

“Then start by seeing the morning,” he said. “It’s the first one you’ve claimed since arriving here.”

 

Jungkook blinked, surprised.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“You’ve watched the house more than you’ve lived in it,” V said simply. “This is the first time I’ve seen you choose to look out instead of in.”

 

He turned to leave, his coat brushing the frame of the window as he moved. But at the door, he paused.

 

“I’ll be in the west gallery. If your hands feel like painting today, I’ve made sure the light will follow you.”

 

And then he was gone.

 

Jungkook sat motionless for a long time.

 

Eventually, his feet touched the floor.

 

—

 

The west gallery was bathed in pale, forgiving light. Large windows stretched along one side, with aged velvet drapes tied back just enough to let the sun spill across the marble floor in a hush of gold and silver.

 

Jungkook stood in the doorway, breath caught somewhere between awe and hesitation. Someone—V, likely—had moved one of the large easels to the center of the space and placed a clean canvas upon it. Nearby sat a cart of paints, brushes arranged with care, and a pale linen apron folded neatly on the bench.

 

He stepped inside slowly, the plush bunny left behind in his room. Here, he would not need it. Here, something else had begun to bloom inside him—something hesitant, but eager.

 

He slipped the apron over his head. His fingers lingered at the strings, tying them behind his back with an awkwardness that softened when he turned toward the canvas.

 

His first stroke was hesitant. Then another, and another—each more certain than the last.

 

Time passed without measure. There was no clock ticking, no one speaking. Just the scratch of brush against canvas and the deepening colors forming under his hand. He didn’t realize V had returned until he felt a shift in the air behind him.

 

V said nothing. He stood with his hands folded behind his back, gaze on the canvas.

 

Jungkook didn’t turn.

 

He just said softly, “This one isn’t for sale.”

 

“I assumed it wouldn’t be,” V murmured.

 

They stood in that stillness for a while, and when a maid passed by the open doorway, V’s head tilted slightly. She froze, sensing the command in his silence, and stepped back without a word. The door clicked gently shut.

 

Jungkook’s fingers tightened around the brush.

 

“You didn’t have to do that.”

 

V’s voice was low. “No one disturbs a living work of art.”

 

A long breath shivered through Jungkook’s chest. He didn’t answer. But he didn’t stop painting either.

 

 

 

Chapter 13: Lingering Notes

 

The scent of oil paints still lingered on Jungkook’s fingers when he returned to his room that evening. It clung to the ridges of his fingerprints, nestled beneath his nails—faint but stubborn, like the memory of warmth that refused to leave him. He paused just inside the threshold, closing the door quietly behind him, his bunny cradled in the crook of his elbow. The house was quiet, save for the faint ticking of the antique clock on the wall and the distant rustle of winter wind pressing against the windows.

 

He hadn’t noticed how long he’d spent in the west gallery until the light outside had begun to dim. No clock had marked the time; only the gentle hush of the sky shifting from gray to blue to deeper shadow. And yet, something inside him had begun to stretch for the first time in weeks—like a cat curling into its own comfort. The silence there had been different. Not the suffocating stillness he was used to in unfamiliar places, but a cradle-like hush, laced with V’s presence, delicate as lace but undeniable.

 

After hanging the linen apron neatly by the easel and covering the half-finished canvas with a clean drape, Jungkook had padded back down the corridor alone. He hadn't expected to see either of the twins again so soon. Not after V’s lingering presence in the gallery. Not after the silence they had both worn like tailored suits for days. And yet—there was something new in the air. A note of warmth barely audible but deeply felt.

 

When he stepped into his room, the first thing he saw was the tray on his nightstand.

 

Two cups.

 

One warm milk. One strong, dark tea.

 

No note. No knock. No sound.

 

But the message was clear.

 

They had noticed. Both of them.

 

And perhaps more importantly—he had been remembered.

 

Jungkook approached the tray slowly, his eyes softening as he reached out to curl his fingers around the warm milk. The cup was still radiating heat, freshly placed. Someone had known he would be back around this time. Someone had cared enough to prepare it.

 

He sat on the edge of the bed, kicking his legs slightly as he sipped the milk, the bunny tucked beneath his arm like a promise of safety. For a long while, he simply let the quiet settle around him, letting the warmth travel through his chest. His eyes grew heavy—not from sleep, but from the strange weightlessness that followed being seen, even wordlessly.

 

It was later, when the moon had risen higher in the ink-blue sky and the curtains stirred with the soft push of wind, that he heard the click of the door.

 

Soft. Hesitant. Familiar.

 

Taehyung entered without a word, his presence low and steady like a hum beneath the silence. He didn’t look surprised to see Jungkook still awake. Perhaps he had counted on it.

 

He was dressed in dark slacks and a loose cardigan, his hair slightly tousled as though he’d run his fingers through it one too many times. There was a tiredness in his posture, but not the kind that asked for rest. It was more like he had spent the evening fighting with a silence of his own and had finally decided to walk through it.

 

Jungkook blinked up at him from where he sat on the bed, bunny still cradled, cup nearly empty now. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.

 

Taehyung’s eyes moved across the room—over the drawn curtains, the untouched tea, the slight smudge of paint still clinging to Jungkook’s knuckle. When he finally crossed the room, it was with slow, deliberate steps. He didn’t sit beside him. Not right away. Instead, he reached down and gently lifted the cup from Jungkook’s hand, placing it back on the tray as if handling something precious.

 

Then, without asking, he pulled the heavy knit blanket from the foot of the bed and draped it over Jungkook’s lap. His fingers brushed Jungkook’s knee as he did, lingering for just a second longer than necessary, the contact light but intimate.

 

When he finally sat down beside him, their shoulders didn’t touch—but the space between them buzzed as though they did.

 

“I saw the canvas,” Taehyung said, and though his voice was quiet, it filled the room like a low piano note. “The one in the west gallery. You didn’t sign it.”

 

Jungkook shifted, his brows lowering just slightly. His fingers tugged at the edge of the blanket as he answered—not with a sentence, but with a barely-there shake of his head. He didn’t look at Taehyung, but he didn’t pull away either.

 

There was a pause. Not uncomfortable. Not quite. More like a breath held between one step and the next.

 

“You should,” Taehyung murmured then, his voice even softer now. “Even if no one sees it. Even if it’s only for you.”

 

Jungkook’s fingers stopped moving. His head tilted just a little, eyes flicking to Taehyung’s face as though trying to read something hidden there. The older man didn’t look back at him, but the corner of his mouth was curved—not in a smile, but in something quieter, more reverent.

 

“It reminded me of rain,” Taehyung continued. “Not the storm kind. The quiet kind that makes everything feel softer. Like something blooming underground.”

 

Jungkook’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. Slowly, carefully, he leaned his head against Taehyung’s shoulder, the bunny still squished gently between them. It wasn’t an act of boldness—it was instinct. Natural. Like flowers turning toward sun.

 

Taehyung didn’t move for a moment. Then he exhaled, almost soundlessly, and tilted his head slightly so that his cheek rested against Jungkook’s crown.

 

Neither of them spoke for a long time.

 

When Taehyung finally moved, it was only to reach down and adjust the blanket again—tucking it more securely around Jungkook’s legs, the motion slow, protective. Not possessive in a nameable way, but undeniably exclusive.

 

As though this quiet moment was not to be shared with the world.

 

As though this space—this small hush between them—belonged only to them.

 

And though no words named it, Jungkook felt it echo like a velvet chord strummed deep in his chest.

 

That night, long after Taehyung had left and the tea had gone cold, Jungkook stood at the window and looked out at the garden below.

 

Somewhere in the dark, the wind stirred the branches, and the shadows leaned closer to the house.

 

He lifted a paint-smudged finger and traced a small curve onto the glass—a signature made only of breath and silence.

 

His name was never spoken.

 

But something had been claimed.

 

 

 

Chapter 14: Silent Threads

 

The dawn that followed was slow and pale, brushing against the mansion windows like shy fingertips pressing against old glass. Light did not pour in—it crept. Quiet and unassuming. Much like the shift that had begun to settle between the three of them.

 

Jungkook stirred before the sun had fully risen, his lashes fluttering like the wings of a moth against his cheeks. The blanket Taehyung had tucked around him was still heavy on his legs, and his bunny lay curled up beside him, its fabric ear slightly creased from the press of Jungkook’s fingers in sleep. For a moment, he lay still, simply listening to the hush of the morning. There were no footsteps in the hall. No voices. Only the muffled throb of wind across the eaves and the warmth of something unspoken still lingering in the room.

 

He hadn’t dreamed. Or if he had, it had been soft and shapeless—like fog curling between branches. Yet, his heart felt oddly full, as though the night had given him something intangible but real. He pressed his palm lightly to his chest, not to still it, but to acknowledge it.

 

Then, slowly, he sat up.

 

The day moved gently around him. Jungkook dressed in the soft cotton hoodie Niki had packed in his trunk—one that still smelled faintly of linseed oil and lemon balm—and stepped into the hall barefoot. The floor was cold but familiar now, like an old friend who didn’t ask questions.

 

He passed the east corridor without meaning to and wandered into parts of the house he hadn’t noticed before. A pale shaft of light spilled from an open door at the far end of a wing he didn’t recognize. Drawn by curiosity, he padded closer, peering into the sun-drenched space within.

 

It was a conservatory—walls of glass and soft ironwork vines climbing over aging windowpanes. The air smelled faintly of jasmine and something earthy, like the breath of spring trapped beneath frost. Plants grew thick along the edges, in pots and troughs, spilling green and white and pale purple across every surface. And in the middle of it all, beside a low bench shaped like a sleeping lion, sat V.

 

He wasn’t doing anything grand. Just sitting, one ankle crossed over the other, a leather notebook in his lap and a pencil balanced between two fingers. His expression was unreadable as always, eyes fixed on a page Jungkook couldn’t see. But his presence felt vast—like the pull of gravity.

 

Jungkook hesitated at the threshold, fingers curling around the frame of the door. He didn’t speak. Didn’t shift. Just breathed, allowing the moment to stretch until it acknowledged him.

 

V didn’t look up right away. But then, slowly—deliberately—he turned his head and met Jungkook’s eyes. There was no flicker of surprise there, no polite greeting. Just a steady, unreadable gaze that flickered once over Jungkook’s frame, pausing momentarily at his bare feet, then rising again to meet his eyes.

 

The moment stretched.

 

Without words, V uncrossed his legs and set the notebook aside, his gesture as fluid as a ripple over water. Then, with a tilt of his chin that was more command than invitation, he gestured to the space beside him.

 

Jungkook moved.

 

He padded quietly across the tiled floor, heart ticking a little faster. Not with fear—but with something more elusive. Something that shimmered just beneath the surface of his skin. As he approached, V shifted slightly to the side, making room for him without a word.

 

They sat in silence for several minutes, the only sounds the rustling of leaves and the occasional birdcall from beyond the glass. Jungkook glanced sideways at V, noting how the older man’s lashes cast soft shadows on his cheeks, how his fingers idly traced the spine of his closed notebook. There was something meticulous about the way he held himself—like he measured every breath before he took it.

 

“You were painting yesterday,” V finally said, voice low and smooth, his words threaded between the morning hush. He didn’t look at Jungkook as he spoke.

 

Jungkook nodded slowly, unsure if the man expected a reply. But V continued regardless.

 

“Do you often lose track of time when you work?”

 

There was no accusation in the tone—just quiet curiosity, like he was turning over a stone to see what lay beneath.

 

Jungkook’s fingers brushed against the hem of his sleeve, eyes drifting toward a nearby orchid. He responded softly, his words tangled with the scent of jasmine, “Sometimes. It feels like the world gets quieter in front of a canvas.”

 

V didn’t smile, but something in his posture eased, just slightly. He reached for a small leaf that had fallen onto the bench beside him, twirling it absently between his fingers.

 

“You prefer silence,” he murmured. It wasn’t a question. Just an observation.

 

Jungkook tilted his head, thoughtful. “Not always. Just… the kind that doesn’t need filling.”

 

A pause. Then V set the leaf down carefully on the notebook’s cover. “That kind of silence is rare.”

 

And just like that, the air between them shifted.

 

Not dramatically. Not with fire or fanfare. But like a string being gently tugged at both ends, drawing them closer in the quiet, until even the space between their shoulders began to hum.

 

V’s fingers brushed against Jungkook’s wrist, just once, as he reached behind him to adjust the edge of his coat. But the touch lingered—intentional or not. And Jungkook felt it like the echo of piano keys in a vast hall.

 

He didn’t pull away.

 

They remained like that for a while longer, two figures beneath a glass sky, the sun rising slowly through frosted panes.

 

And though no declarations were made, no lines were drawn or names spoken, the air around them pulsed with something unspoken and quietly possessive—like territory being claimed without war.

 

V’s voice came again, softer now. “If you ever return to the gallery… leave the door open.”

 

Jungkook turned to him, expression unreadable.

 

V met his gaze, and this time, he held it. “So we don’t forget you’re still inside.”

 

There was no teasing in his tone. No softness either. Just fact, shaped like care.

 

Jungkook’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, his voice barely more than breath as he responded, “Alright.”

 

And when they stood, eventually, it was V who stepped aside first, his hand brushing lightly along Jungkook’s lower back in a gesture that should have felt insignificant—but didn’t.

 

They parted without words.

 

But in the echo of their footsteps, something had been said nonetheless.

 

Chapter 15: Fracture of Stillness

 

The hallway was hushed again. Not like the night before, when silence had been a balm, but this time it was tight, held together by threads that trembled like spider silk under breath. Taehyung stood by the window at the far end of the corridor, a book in his hand—though his eyes had not touched the page in some time.

 

He had seen the shift. Felt it in ways that unsettled his calm, ways that dug beneath his cool exterior and coiled around the hollowness he often mistook for peace. It was in the way the morning light clung to Jungkook’s skin when the younger one passed him in the hall—lighter than usual, as if some invisible hand had untied a knot in his chest. And it was in the way he smelled faintly of earth and conservatory warmth. V’s wing. V’s world.

 

Taehyung’s fingers curled tighter around the leather-bound novel he hadn’t turned a page of in twenty minutes. His mind, usually a landscape of tidy control, felt uneven—like water rippling beneath a frozen lake. He had always shared everything with V, from empire to silence, but Jungkook… Jungkook was different.

 

The hush around him did not break when footsteps padded near. The carpet softened each sound, but Taehyung recognized the rhythm of them—gentle, uncertain, as if the one approaching was trying not to disturb the air itself. He closed the book slowly, without looking away from the garden view below.

 

He didn’t move away from the window. He let Jungkook come closer, sensing the nearness of his presence before hearing a word. That strange, warm presence that somehow made the air feel fuller.

 

When Jungkook finally stopped beside him, close enough that the sleeve of his hoodie brushed against Taehyung’s hand, it was not speech that greeted him first—it was breath. A quiet inhale. Slight, almost shy. And then Taehyung tilted his head, his voice low, calm.

 

“You woke early,” he murmured. The sentence was a gentle observation, not a question.

 

Jungkook hesitated, then nodded, the faintest movement of his head. “Couldn’t stay still.”

 

There was a pause. A heavy one. Not uncomfortable—but full of things unsaid. Taehyung finally turned, just enough to take him in. Jungkook looked like he always did—large hoodie, sleeves past his hands, eyes too big for his face—but there was something in his posture today that made him seem older. Not in age, but in the way people carried their sadness.

 

“You walked through V’s side this morning,” Taehyung said, gaze lingering on the way Jungkook’s hair curled slightly at the ends, still messy from sleep. “Did he show you the gardens?”

 

Jungkook’s eyes flickered up briefly, unsure whether to lie. But he didn’t. “Yes. There was a room with a glass ceiling. And birds. I liked it.”

 

Taehyung gave a soft hum of acknowledgment. He didn’t comment further, though his thoughts churned quietly beneath the surface. He didn’t ask what V had said. Or what V had done. But the possessiveness that licked at his ribs now was not born of competition. It was something deeper. Quieter. Like the way one grows used to a certain kind of silence—and then fears losing it.

 

Without prompting, Jungkook asked, “Do you go there, too?”

 

“Not often,” Taehyung answered honestly. “I prefer quiet libraries. Still water.”

 

“I like still water,” Jungkook said, softly, and Taehyung felt it again—that inexplicable flutter that came from being seen in such a quiet way.

 

—

 

Later that day, it was Taehyung who suggested lunch. Not in the formal dining room, but on the inner balcony overlooking the atrium, where filtered sunlight fell like thin ribbons through the skylight. He did not ask. He simply waited by the staircase until Jungkook passed again, then motioned with his eyes, barely a tilt of his chin.

 

The staff brought their food to the low marble table beside them. Taehyung sat with one leg crossed, watching as Jungkook folded into the opposite seat like a shadow curling into itself. He didn’t reach for the cutlery immediately—just stared at the plate, nose scrunching faintly.

 

Taehyung reached forward first—not to correct him, but to rearrange the small bowl of fruit closer to Jungkook’s side.

 

“You like sweet things,” he said quietly. “So eat them first.”

 

Jungkook blinked, as if startled by the accuracy. Then, almost instinctively, he offered a small smile—not wide, not childlike, but soft. Real.

 

“I didn’t think you noticed,” he murmured.

 

“I notice everything,” Taehyung said. Then added, after a pause, “At least… the things I want to.”

 

They ate in companionable quiet, with only the occasional clink of forks and the distant hush of wind slipping down the glass dome above. There was no need to fill the space with sound. And perhaps that’s what made the moments stretch—full and slow like honey.

 

After lunch, Jungkook wandered. He didn’t run, didn’t flit through corridors like a guest in borrowed time. He walked with unspoken permission, his fingertips trailing along cool wooden banisters and carved door frames. The mansion was a memory come to life—filled with rooms that whispered and walls that held secrets too delicate to name.

 

When he stumbled into the library by accident, he paused in the threshold.

 

Taehyung was already inside.

 

He didn’t look up right away. He sat in one of the deep chairs near the fireplace, long legs stretched out, a worn copy of something unreadable in his hands. There was a candle lit nearby, its scent woody and dry. Jungkook hesitated. But something in the angle of Taehyung’s posture—relaxed but alert—made him step inside.

 

“Didn’t mean to come here,” Jungkook mumbled, eyes on the floor.

 

Taehyung looked up now, and his gaze was not surprised. “But you did. That’s enough.”

 

Jungkook stepped in further, wandering past shelves until his fingers skimmed the spine of a book with a dark red cover. “Do you read a lot?”

 

Taehyung’s voice came without delay, steady. “Only when I want to remember things I’ve forgotten.”

 

Jungkook turned that over in his mind. “Like what?”

 

“How silence can be comforting. How people once spoke without raising their voices. How not all stories have to be told to be real.”

 

Jungkook lowered himself into the other chair across the fire. He didn’t speak for a long time. But when he did, it came as a whisper of confession.

 

“I used to hide in libraries. When things were too loud.”

 

Taehyung nodded once, as if he already knew. Then he said nothing. But his hand moved—a silent invitation. He placed his book on the table and reached to pull a soft woolen throw from the side of his chair. He didn’t drape it over Jungkook. He simply laid it near him. Close enough to choose.

 

Jungkook watched the gesture, then slowly pulled the blanket into his lap. The weight was reassuring.

 

Outside, the sky shifted. Pale gold bleeding into softer blue. Neither of them moved. Neither of them spoke. But something, quiet and unspoken, grew roots in that moment. Something that would not be named yet—but felt.

 

And Taehyung, in his silence, let it grow.

 

—

 

Dinner came as a whisper of silver and porcelain, served in a dining room that stretched wide beneath a chandelier of ancient glass. Both twins were already seated when Jungkook arrived, ushered in gently by one of the house attendants who spoke in hushed tones and left without another glance.

 

V sat to the right, clad in charcoal gray, his eyes dark and unreadable beneath the soft lamplight. Taehyung, across from him, looked as he always did—composed, elegant—but his gaze followed Jungkook in a way that had not been there before. It wasn’t possessive in name. It was something more complex. A knowing. A quiet claiming.

 

Jungkook took the seat between them, neither close nor far from either side, though it felt, somehow, too narrow. The space crackled faintly with the friction of glances and unspoken things.

 

 

 

Chapter 16: Evening Embers

 

Dinner was not announced with formality. There was no grand bell, no array of footsteps, no stiff-laced ceremony beckoning them into place. It came instead like a hush turning warmer—a subtle shift in the light, the slow draw of evening shadows deepening as golden hour faded behind velvet drapes. The sky beyond the dining room’s vast glass wall had bled into a palette of indigo and soft crimson, the garden lights blooming to life like stars echoing the hush inside.

 

Jungkook was already seated when the twins arrived—not by instruction, but by instinct. A soft pull in his chest had led him to the long, low-lit table where only three places had been set. The candles flickered in tall, glass holders, their flames reflecting off polished cutlery, catching against crystal. The scene was elegant without trying. Heavy with silence, but the kind that breathed.

 

V entered first, his silhouette sharp against the gold of the hallway beyond. His hair fell slightly forward, a wisp of shadow over one brow, and his eyes swept over the room before settling—not on the arrangement or the food—but on Jungkook.

 

He didn’t speak. He never did first.

 

Taehyung came next, quieter, as though the floor welcomed him in reverence. His eyes held none of the storm from earlier—only a quiet fire that seemed older than time, gentle and watchful. He took the seat across from Jungkook, while V claimed the one beside him.

 

The positioning was not a coincidence.

 

Dinner began with small plates, the staff moving soundlessly in and out like ghosts. Dishes of delicate flavor—braised fish, creamy roots, soft bread soaked in rosemary oil. Jungkook ate with small bites, his gaze dipping often to his plate, but never staying there long. He could feel them. Both of them.

 

V was composed, knife moving with eerie grace, his fingers resting lightly on the curve of the wine glass. Taehyung, by contrast, moved slower. Less polished, but no less refined. His fingers occasionally tapped against the edge of his plate—absently, like music lived under his skin and begged to spill.

 

No one spoke for several minutes. But tension coiled between them, low and dense.

 

Jungkook shifted in his seat, his oversized sweater slipping slightly down his shoulder. V noticed. So did Taehyung. But it was V who reached first—not for Jungkook, but for the carafe of water near him, pouring it carefully into the boy’s half-empty glass.

 

“You’ve barely touched your drink,” V said, voice as smooth as the surface of the table, eyes never leaving Jungkook’s face.

 

Jungkook blinked, caught. “Didn’t realize.”

 

Taehyung’s gaze flicked to V, then back to Jungkook. “He’s tired. The conservatory takes more from him than he thinks.”

 

The statement was soft, but layered.

 

V’s fingers paused on the stem of his glass. “Then he should be guided better next time.”

 

Jungkook lowered his gaze again. The weight of their attention was heavy—but not suffocating. It filled his lungs differently. Like a hand pressing over his chest to feel if his heart was still beating.

 

“I liked it,” he murmured eventually. “The birds. The light.”

 

Taehyung’s lips curved—not quite a smile. “You speak like someone who’s lived in shadows too long.”

 

“I have,” Jungkook admitted.

 

Silence bloomed again, but this time it wasn’t empty. It throbbed, slow and pulsing, like something alive.

 

The main course arrived. Jungkook didn’t remember the name of the dish—some tender meat glazed in deep spices—but it smelled warm. Familiar. He let the taste roll over his tongue, savoring the way the twins ate in silence beside him.

 

And then, unexpectedly, V leaned closer. Not in a way that broke boundaries—but in a way that said he had none.

 

“You didn’t flinch when you touched the hawk,” he said. “Even the staff won’t go near it.”

 

Jungkook blinked, spoon pausing near his lips. “It didn’t feel dangerous.”

 

V tilted his head. “Danger rarely does. Until it decides to be.”

 

Across the table, Taehyung placed his fork down. His eyes were not cold—but they burned. “He’s not a danger to be measured.”

 

“No,” V agreed. “But he’s still something sharp beneath the softness.”

 

Jungkook’s fingers curled around the napkin in his lap. He didn’t understand why his chest felt so full. As if these quiet words were building something inside him—a shape not yet formed.

 

Dinner continued in silence. The clatter of silverware. The hush of cloth napkins unfolding. Jungkook focused on his plate, grateful for the distraction of food, but the tension swirled like slow smoke. V poured wine with a precision that felt deliberate, his fingers lingering on the bottle as he passed it toward Taehyung. Their eyes met briefly. A pause. Then the glasses clicked.

 

When Jungkook reached for the water, two hands moved at once—V from the right, Taehyung from the left. They both stilled. Briefly. A second too long.

 

Taehyung yielded first, drawing back with a polite nod. V’s hand lingered for just a breath more before retracting.

 

Jungkook didn’t speak. But he felt it. The quiet weight of something circling around him. Something territorial.

 

As the courses changed, the mood did not. But there were glances. V’s hand brushed against the edge of Jungkook’s plate when adjusting the cutlery. Taehyung’s foot, deliberate or not, stayed just within distance beneath the table. Their touches were never bold. Never inappropriate. But they were there. Measured. Precise.

 

And Jungkook, in his quiet way, felt seen. Not just watched—but noticed. Known.

 

As dessert came—berries layered in cream—V reached forward and gently plucked a piece of mint from Jungkook’s plate.

 

“You don’t like garnish,” he said, not asking. Stating.

 

Jungkook’s lips parted. He hadn’t said that aloud. Not to either of them.

 

Taehyung’s voice followed, low and even. “He doesn’t like when sweet things are buried. He prefers them honest.”

 

Their eyes met again. Not sharp. Not friendly. But full.

 

Jungkook, suddenly aware of every inch of the space he occupied, lowered his gaze. But the corners of his lips curved—not in mockery, not in shyness—but in a quiet, blooming thing he didn’t dare name.

 

He didn’t know what this was yet. What they were yet. But in that room, between two men who barely spoke aloud what burned behind their eyes, he felt something grow.

 

And as he finished the last bite of dessert, he knew: the silence was only just beginning to fracture.

Soon he noticed something—thin slices of citrus cake with a glaze that shimmered faintly in the candlelight—it was Taehyung who reached over this time, placing a fork near Jungkook’s hand.

 

“Try this one as well. It’s less sweet than you expect.”

 

Jungkook obeyed without hesitation. The fork slipped into his mouth, and his eyes widened slightly at the taste—subtle, with a floral note he couldn’t name.

 

V’s voice came again, low. “He reacts like a canvas first touched by color.”

 

Jungkook looked between them. “Do you always talk like this?”

 

“Only when it matters,” Taehyung said, and V simply nodded.

 

They sat for a long time after dinner, drinks untouched, the world outside turning to night. The dining room remained dim, flickering shadows dancing against their profiles. Jungkook could feel the pull between the two older men—not spoken, not declared—but there. Present in how V’s fingers occasionally tapped against his glass, in how Taehyung’s eyes kept drifting back to Jungkook’s hands.

 

He excused himself eventually, the chair sliding back with the barest sound. Neither twin stopped him. But when he reached the doorway, Taehyung’s voice followed him—not a command, not a request.

 

“Don’t sleep with the windows open tonight. The wind’s shifting.”

 

Jungkook nodded. But he also knew—without knowing why—that if he did open them, someone would notice.

 

And maybe that was the beginning of it.

 

Not love. Not yet.

 

But possession disguised as concern.

 

And Jungkook, who had spent most of his life running from leashes—found himself curling quietly into the feel of it.

Chapter 17: Shifted Gaze

 

The moon had climbed higher by the time Jungkook was finally left alone in his room, the delicate hush of the house wrapping around him like a familiar blanket. It wasn’t silence he feared—he lived most of his life tucked within the folds of it. But tonight, silence echoed differently. It carried weight, a soft press to the back of his neck, a sensation that reminded him of unseen eyes and words unspoken.

 

He stood by the tall windows, his fingers curled against the fabric of the drapes, barely brushing them aside as he looked out over the garden. The glass reflected his silhouette, faint and flickering, caught somewhere between the dim light of his room and the silver thread of moonlight outside. He could still feel it—the heaviness of the dinner table, the quiet way V’s gaze had lingered on his hands when he had reached for the wine glass, the way Taehyung had leaned in slightly whenever he shifted in his seat.

 

They hadn't spoken much during the meal. Yet every movement, every brush of their eyes against his skin, had been heavy with meaning. Jungkook wasn’t sure what that meaning was, only that he felt like something fragile placed between two ancient forces. Like a flickering candle being shielded from opposite winds.

 

He touched his cheek. It felt warm still, though there had been no physical contact.

 

Lowering himself onto the edge of his bed, Jungkook let his fingers wander across the silk of his bedsheets. They felt too fine, like they belonged in someone else's life. Someone elegant. Controlled. Not someone like him, who still sometimes mixed up which shoe went on which foot, who kept a crumpled sketchbook under his pillow like a child hides sweets.

 

He sighed, folding himself into the bed not under the covers, but above them, curled on his side, hoodie still on, the sleeves pulled over his hands. He didn't want to sleep. Not yet. Not with so many voices whispering in the hollows of his thoughts.

 

**

 

Morning came slowly.

 

It crept through the curtains in pale threads, washing the room in muted gold. Jungkook stirred when the warmth touched his face, blinking blearily at the ceiling. For a moment he stayed like that, unmoving, uncertain of what time it was, or whether he even wanted to know.

 

But then he heard it—the soft rustle of the door, not the grand main one, but the side one, the one only staff used when they came to deliver clothes or notes or things he never really asked for.

 

He sat up, rubbing at one eye. "Who's there?" he mumbled, voice still caught in sleep.

 

No one answered. Only a faint click of porcelain meeting wood. He rose slowly, bare feet padding across the floor, and peered around the edge of the wall to find a tray left by the reading nook. Breakfast. Not just breakfast—a gentle arrangement of croissants, fruit, and a small teapot with honey on the side.

 

His brows pinched. No staff had ever left honey before. He picked it up, turning the small glass pot between his fingers. The lid had a tiny label stuck to it. A single letter: T.

 

Jungkook felt his pulse shift.

 

He didn’t eat right away. Instead, he opened the window, letting the spring air touch his skin. It smelled of dew and rosewood, of something warm beneath something sharp. The conservatory, maybe. Or the scent of V’s suit jacket when he had leaned in last night to correct Jungkook’s placement of the fork.

 

Breakfast was quiet.

 

He sat on the rug instead of the armchair, legs crossed beneath him, hoodie sleeves still falling into the butter. He didn't care. He licked honey off his thumb and thought of Taehyung's eyes—the way they looked when they lingered too long.

 

He finished the tea and took the empty cup with him into the bathroom. The mirror caught him off guard again. Sometimes it did that. Made him remember he looked like this now—adult, pretty, complicated. Not the boy who used to crouch on cold tiles and draw ghosts on the foggy glass with his pinky finger.

 

"You're too soft for this," he whispered to himself.

 

But the eyes in the mirror didn't believe that anymore.

 

**

 

Later that morning, he wandered.

 

Not toward V's wing or Taehyung's library, but somewhere else—a part of the mansion he hadn't explored yet. The hallways there were quieter, older. The floorboards creaked slightly, not from age, but from memory. As if they remembered every footstep that had ever passed across them.

 

The room he found was filled with instruments. Not displayed ones—real ones. Used ones. A cello leaned against the wall, its strings loose. A baby grand piano sat under a dust cloth, corners soft with wear.

 

He approached the piano slowly. Lifted the cover. Pressed one key.

 

It sang.

 

Just one note. But it made his heart jump.

 

He played a second. Then a third. Then a chord. It wasn't perfect. His fingers were a little shaky. But he played like someone remembering a dream. The notes filled the room slowly, rising and falling like breath.

 

And he didn't know that someone else had entered until the last chord faded.

 

"You're not supposed to know how to play that," came a voice—soft, even, but laced with interest.

 

Jungkook turned sharply. V stood just inside the doorframe, jacket folded over one arm, hair slightly disheveled like he’d just come in from wind.

 

Jungkook looked back at the keys. "I don’t. Not really. I just… guessed."

 

V moved closer, steps slow, deliberate. "You guessed right."

 

Jungkook shifted on the bench. He felt it again—the press of attention. Not heavy. Not cruel. Just precise. Like V could see all the things he hadn’t said yet.

 

V sat beside him, not touching, not crowding, but undeniably close. He looked at the keys. Then at Jungkook. "You remember sound well, don’t you?"

 

Jungkook nodded. "It stays in my fingers."

 

A long silence stretched.

 

Then V reached forward and played a chord. Deeper. Stronger. It trembled through the floor.

 

"Then keep playing," V said, not looking at him.

 

And Jungkook did.

 

They stayed there for a long time, neither looking at the other. Just shadows and notes, quiet breath and shared space. And outside, the mansion held its breath.

CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO CONTINUE...

 https://novelreadingislife.blogspot.com/2025/05/chapter-18-to-33.html