It's hard to believe that the man now sitting across from you, staring you down with cutely determined eyes that contrast hugely with the cross tattoo on his cheek and the piercings in his lip, was just moments ago sucking on your neck like a vampire draining a victim dry.

Jungkook leans forward with his elbows braced on his knees and rests his head on the upturned planes of his palms. "I'll start, okay? What's your favorite color?"

You wrinkle your nose, amused but put off.

When you said you wanted to get to know him, playing the small talk version of twenty questions wasn't what you had in mind.

You answer anyways. "Orange. Don't ask me why. My turn now?"

A tiny smirk tugs up the corner of his lips. "Orange is a terrible color. Proceed."

"Why are you afraid of the rain?"

It's a long shot. There's no way he'll answer that right now, but you might as well try.

Sure enough, Jungkook's face tightens into stone, his eyes shuttering into blankness. There's no flash of emotion, or warning of the change of mood; he just shuts down, like you've pressed the power button of a machine. "Pass."

"Are we allowed to do that?" you muse. "Fine, we'll start a little easier. Tell me about the tattoo you gave me."

With a hugely dramatic sigh, Jungkook throws himself back in his chair like a dramatic toddler, instantly regretting the action when it jostles his injured shoulder. "How is that any easier? I thought we were getting to know each other? Not dragging up every skeleton in the closet. You're killing me."

"You'll live." Leaning forward, you watch closely to see the emotions playing across Jungkook's face as he thinks. There's a slight hesitance in the tight line of his brows, mirrored by his tense shoulders, but his eyes are opening up to you.

This is what you meant, when you said you didn't know him.

Both of you have been through some awful things in your life, and while you're willing to share almost everything, he's still hesitating. You don't know where he's come from, or who he is.

These are the things you want to know before you embark on some romantic journey with him. You aren't in a position to put yourself with him like that if you don't trust him fully.

At this moment in your life, you have nobody to fall back on. Putting your trust in someone who you don't 100% know is truly looking out for your welfare is a move you don't know you can risk.

In other words, if Jungkook wants this thing between you to go anywhere other than down the proverbial toilet, he's going to have to share those little secrets with you, and vice versa. You have to open up to him too, about all the discriminate details of your restrained life with your family, and even though it might be a slow process given the history between the two of you, you have to start sometime.

To your relief, Jungkook takes the new subject matter in stride and leans back, resting a hand on his injured shoulder. "I made that a long time ago. When I first became part of Bangtan, I had just gotten my own tattoo and was kind of caught up in the spirit I guess. I designed that."

That's it?

All the big deal about not giving you this tattoo, and it's just because it's an old design? As you roll that around in your brain, you notice Jungkook's shifty eyes, the way he's training his eyes on a spot over your shoulder instead of looking you directly in the eye.

As someone who's been lied to their entire life, you've finally figured out what it looks like.

He's lying.

"You're lying." The thought transitions from cognition to verbal without much effort as your irritation also rises. This is exactly what you were thinking only seconds ago, about how he's not fully opening up. "Jungkook, come on. Work with me here."

His mouth tightened along with his eyes. "I'm not lying."

"Then you aren't telling the whole truth. You're hiding something," you accuse.

A large huff of breath whooshes out of his mouth, almost in exasperation, and he gives you an unreadable look. "Listen, Y/N, I'm fine if you want to get to know me, but you're gonna have to go a little easier than this. Get to know me before your get to know who I was, okay?"

With that oddly deep statement and the haunted look in his eyes, you acknowledge that you might have been pressing a tad too hard for just starting out. "Okay," you relent. "Jungkook, what's your favorite color?"

He throws his head back and laughs, relief and amusement bleeding into the tone. When his black eyes meet yours again, they're light-hearted and bright.

"Whatever color you're wearing," he says cheesily, paired with a goofy grin full of teeth. "Can I make a request before my next question?"

You nod, and he asks, "Could we please sit somewhere softer? My shoulder is killing me."

"To the couch," you say.

"Or the bed?" He winks slyly.

"To the couch," you repeat cheerfully, as if you didn't even hear him.

Snorting, Jungkook struggles to get himself up from the chair and follows you into the living room. The two of you sit on either end of the couch, an awkward space distancing you.

"So..."

You can't help but snicker at the uncomfortable lead off from the ebony-headed man next to you. Tucking your feet up onto the couch cushion, you rotate your body to face Jungkook, the action lessening the distance between you.

Jungkook mirrors you, resting his shoulder against the softer, more forgiving surface of the couch.

The two of you exchange soft, nearly shy smiles.

Then off you go.

You can't remember who asked the first question, or who made the first joke, or when any awkward hesitation disappeared. All you know is that this Jungkook, who looks the same pierced up bad boy with his black eyes, hair, and the ink on his skin, is a lot different than the Jungkook you met back at the beginning.

He's warm and sweet and funny, and his eyes have this glimmer in them that makes you smile. It's like within a day the sullen, closed off man has gone through a massive metamorphosis into an easygoing, laid back man.

You talk for hours, about anything and everything that life could hold. The conversation never falters or turns dull, not even when you actually manage to get a meal out of the kitchen.

Jungkook is a lot easier to get along with hen he isn't trying to get under your skin.

A while into getting to know each other, the mood softens and intensifies, your voices growing softer as the day grows longer.

You talk to him about your family, the restraints and limits of your life before this. You talk to him about Jisoo, and the neglect of your father, and the cold loneliness of being totally alienated.

He talks to you, too.

"The tattoo," he says gently, following an amusing verbal montage of Namjoon's adventures with his lost passports, "-was really special to me. I designed it for a reason."

His voice is so soft, and delicate. You bite your lower lip, feeling the intensity of his voice. "What reason?"

For a moment, he simply looks at you with those black eyes. Then, "It was for a girl."

A girl?

Your gut sinks in utter disappointment.

Hoseok forced Jungkook into giving you a tattoo made for another woman. No wonder he hated giving it to you so much.

"Oh," you whisper, trying to keep any emotion out of your voice. "I didn't realize. What's her name?"

Obviously, as Jungkook grins smugly, you don't do a very good job of disguising that tinge of jealousy in your tone.

Blessedly, Jungkook chooses not to comment and continues on. "Not a specific girl, necessarily, but the girl that I decided was 'the one', you know?" A wistful smile creeps across his face, and you imagine that he must be reliving the passion and feeling from when he created the tattoo. "It was going to be for the woman I loved enough to share even this life with."

A lump lodges in your throat watching him, seeing the softness in his eyes and the curve of his mouth, and knowing that the special tattoo he crafted in anticipation for his future love is now...

On you.

A woman who he doesn't love, and even used to hate.

As guilt begins to creep up to form a pit in your stomach, you pick sullenly at the cushion of the couch. A tiny piece of fiber poke the skin of your fingertip, paralleling the tiny jab of hurt in your chest. Isn't that just too selfish?

How can you be hurt when the one who should be hurt is him?

You took his freaking tattoo away from the love of his life, for goodness sake.

"Hey," says Jungkook in a feather-light murmur.

His fingers reach out toward you, slipping under your chin so he can tilt your reluctant gaze up to meet his.

"You know, Hobi hyung forced me into  letting go of that tattoo," he says. "I'll admit I've been a little bitter about it. But now I'm starting to see..."

Your breath catches in your throat, the guilt disappearing within seconds at the sound of his musings. "See what?"

His touch slips away from you, but it doesn't diminish the humming current running electric from you to him, and back again. Jungkook's eyes have this way of capturing you, making you fall into the black depths and never resurface.

"I might be starting to see why hyung knew that tattoo had to go on you, Y/N," Jungkook says in words that fall out smoothly from his lips like watered silk. "He's got that crazy intuition, you know. Maybe he knew what I needed before I did."

A vision of Hoseok's knowing eyes sears through your mind, haunting in their omniscience.

Maybe Hoseok knew what you all needed.

The tattoo splayed on your hip almost burns with the admission, reminding you what a crucial roll it's played in getting yourself caught up in this web of events.

As if he can feel it burning too, Jungkook's eyes drift down to the curve of your hip and linger there. His fingers twitch ever so slightly before they reach out for you again, going directly to the spot where your tattoo begins.

All of the oxygen whooshes out of you at the first touch, and remains gone as he traces the tattoo by heart, the heat of his fingers going from hip to thigh in a swirling motion along with the stem of your flowers.

Then, somehow, the two of your are close enough to touch on the couch, your legs crossed in front of you, facing each other criss-cross applesauce like two nervous preteens who lost at Spin the Bottle.

"I want to kiss you, princess," he says, and his hand finds yours where it rests limply at your side. "-but not until you're ready."

He squeezes your fingers, gently.

His grip on your heart is a little more firm.

As you stare at the man who's just spent the better part of a whole day talking to you just so that you'll feel more comfortable with him, you try to remember why you backed him off in the first place.

He's making an effort, a good one at that.

No, you don't love him, but maybe you do trust him more than you realized.

Isn't this the man who's defended you endlessly from all the familial villains who've followed you out of the endless black pit of your old life?

Sure, he chased you up a tree once and he was really mean to you, threatened you with an (unloaded) gun, accused you of being a spy, and he also kidnapped you ...

Oh, wait.

Yeah, those things were pretty bad.

Anyways, it was after all that when he defended you, so he has softened toward you since the beginning.

And now he's willing to wait on you.

"Hey, Jungkook?" you whisper.

"Hm?" is his reply.

You take a deep breath to calm your nerves, lean forward, and kiss him.

Right there, on his cute pierced lips.

It's just a tiny, inexperienced peck of course, but still a kiss. It's still your lips against his soft ones, for the barest hint of a moment, and the mixing of your breaths as you draw away from him sweetly.

Jungkook's black eyes are massive and startled.

"You kissed me," he breathes. "You gave me your first kiss!"

Smiling shyly, you pause for a minute to consider why that statement sounds so weird to you.

What is this little thing nipping at your consciousness from the back of your mind?   

All at once, amid the disbelieving silence of Jungkook trying to process that you've just kissed him, it hits you.

"Wait," you say. "No, that's not right. Incorrect. Ddaeng."

Jungkook blinks. "What?"

"I forgot something that's rather vital," you mumble sheepishly. "Just a bit important. Not life-altering. I think."

All this spiel about your first kiss being so magical and special, and you completely forgot.

You're the biggest idiot on this whole hecking planet.

Jungkook's eyes narrow in suspicion, face tightening in preparation for the impact. "What? What did you forget?"

You brace for it too.

"Um...Jungkook...I don't think you're my first kiss."

[A/N]
Unedited
GUYS IM SORRY IWASSICKAND BUSYANDMYLIFEWASCRAZYANDKSNDBJAJWKDNBEJE
I love you guys and I'm so sorry.

Anyways, I have a huge, huGE, HUGE announcement for y'all.

Nini congrats on your boyfriend.
ALSO

BE READY

FOR

BLOOD INK THE WEBTOON

This is still in the works, and the first chapter should be uploaded sometime next week. Sarah (the artist) and I are both really excited to bring this to you guys. This is her first Webtoon, and mine too (obviously) so this is kind of an adventure for both of us😋
Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed, and I hope y'all have an amazing week.
❤️PB