Chapter Text
*ੈ‧₊˚⋆° ☾⛧☽° ⋆*ੈ✩‧₊˚
All Hallows is not up for debate.
It is the most charged night of the year, a seam between worlds, a current of power strong enough to drown the untrained, and no witch worth their wand would dare ignore it.
Park Jimin is not trying to. He is not some sceptic scoffing at tradition, and he would very much like to spend the night as it was meant to be spent : brewing something ambitious enough to test the edge of his skill, communing with spirits until dawn, or even trying to carve spells deep enough to last lifetimes.
That is what All Hallows deserves, if only it didn’t also herald something else.
He sinks lower in the bath with a groan, until the enchanted bubbles kiss his chin and the steam curls against his ears. The professors’ bathing hall is cavernous, all ivory stone and silver pipes, though on a Monday most favour the speed of a shower, a spell, or whatever corner of chaos passes for hygiene in their lives.
Not Jimin.
Not tonight.
Tonight, he lets the cinnamon-and-pumpkin scent of the soaps soak into his hair, and his skin, and his lungs. He will probably reek of bakery until morning, perhaps forever, but it is mercifully calming, and he needs calm.
Gods know he will not sleep once the date looms too close.
Because All Hallows means Samhain Eve, or, as the students insist on calling it—and, disgracefully, as the faculty has given up and allowed—The Hex Gala.
A Gala that this year, by some cursed cosmic joke, is being hosted in their coven, which means the full menagerie : twinned covens from half of East Asia descending en masse, glamour piled on glamour, shadow duels in the courtyard, enchantments woven at their peak.
Which means mandatory faculty attendance, robes pressed, faces painted with perfect composure, and Park Jimin with nowhere to hide and a trauma to face.
He exhales, lets bubbles slide up his throat, and tries not to think about it, until a dozen minutes later, the door opens.
Jimin freezes, every muscle tense as voices drift in, and in a fit of sheer and undignified panic, does the only thing his stress-wracked mind can conjure, that is to say he sinks down until the mountain of bubbles swallows him whole.
It is, objectively, a terrible idea.
If whoever entered stays, he’ll have to remain here indefinitely, lungs aching and dignity dissolving into pumpkin-scented froth, and if they move closer, and if the bubbles shift, he will be revealed, and then what ? “Oh yes, hello, colleagues, don’t mind me, I was just lurking like a sea witch in seasonal bath oils” ?
He doesn’t even have his wand—left it on the bench, stupid—and can only pray to every god that whoever it is takes a quick rinse and leaves.
...
Two silhouettes.
That much he can tell—one robed ; the other undressed. Steam coils thick as fog, disguising faces, but Jimin doesn’t need the sight, he’d know this voice among millions.
“Can’t believe you’ve never tried this room before,” Yoongi says, dry as ever. “You should’ve asked. It’s a good way to unwind when the coven’s too loud. Steam’s enchanted to keep your lungs clear, and water keeps perfect temperature. No effort. You just sit and it does the work. Nice, right ?”
The reply hums through the mist, curious and blurred by the muffling bubbles, and Yoongi continues, patient in that tone he only uses when he’s halfway mentoring someone despite himself. “Oils change with the season. Cinnamon and pumpkin right now—don’t ask me why, someone on the staff council thinks it’s festive. Bubbles never fade unless you tell them to, and if you want a charm on your skin after, there’s a switch by the faucet. Any questions ?”
Jimin contemplates sinking fully under and letting fate sort him out, but fate, as ever, hates him, because the answering voice comes clearer now.
Low, and bright, and unfortunately Jeon Jungkook.
“No thanks, Professor.“
His assistant. His fucking, fucking assistant. Here. In this room. In nothing but—oh gods—probably a bathrobe, or worse, not even that.
“Actually... Why is it so empty ? Not that I’m complaining—place is gorgeous—but I figured there’d be more people.”
“Usually there are. Afternoons, weekends, it gets some use... Mondays are quiet. No one wants to linger on a Monday, you know ?” A conspiratorial pause. “Although... Mondays are when Jimin comes. Bit of a ritual for him.”
“Oh.” Jungkook again, a beat too quiet and a touch too tense. “I see. Guess he’s busy tonight, then. He looks... stressed these days.”
“True... Probably the Gala. He hates it more than he lets on.”
“What about it ?”
Yoongi, merciful at last, only clicks his tongue, “Better you ask him directly. Not mine to tell.”
“...Right.” Jungkook sighs. “Fair enough.”
Fabric rustles. A clasp snaps shut. “Anyway, I’ll leave you to it. Enjoy the bath, Jeon.”
“Thank you, Professor.”
Footsteps retreat.
The door closes.
Silence descends, broken only by the steady drip of condensation down marble and the faint crackle of enchantments holding the heat, and just like that, Jimin is officially trapped.
He hears the thunk of a cloth landing on a bench, followed by ripples spreading through water as Jungkook slips into the pool with a low pleased sigh.
Jimin cannot see him properly, yet squeezes his eyes shut.
He will not let his brain acknowledge the obvious truth : people bathe naked. He bathes naked. Jungkook, his assistant, is therefore bathing bare as a newborn too, in the same waters and—oh, cursed heavens—apparently singing.
It’s soft at first, under his breath like he’s amusing himself, but still unmistakably beautiful, all warm and golden and curling through the steam in half-formed melody, a voice too easy and too rich, as if the bath itself had summoned a siren to keep it company.
Jimin presses his forehead to the rim of the pool, every nerve a taut wire strung between despair and something much, much more alarming.
Splash.
A sigh.
Jungkook’s voice again, low and thoughtful and muttering to himself. “What’s the big deal with All Hallows, anyway...? He’s worried about it...” Another sigh, deeper this time. “Everyone says so. But why ?”
And Jimin, because he’s a stupid man who cannot stay still for the life of him, shifts just a fraction, inhales soap... and coughs.
Jungkook freezes, and the sound of his breath sharpens.
“...Is there—someone here ?”
Jimin thinks, quite seriously, that he might cry. He will.
“Oh, fuck,” Jungkook blurts, water sloshing as he scrambles upright. “A spirit—of course, on Samhain’s month—”
No, no, no—
Footsteps again. A rustle. Then he’s back, plunging into the water with purpose, wand in hand and entirely unaware of the panic clawing at Jimin’s throat.
“Reveal yourself.”
And before Jimin can so much as pray or explain, the bubbles obey.
They scatter upward in a dazzling furry, bursting into sparks of soap and steam under the spell, and vanishing into the rafters until nothing is left between them but water and silence and Jungkook staring, at the dripping hair plastered to his temples, at his wide eyes and his parted lips.
At him.
“Sir—” Jungkook sputters, eyes huge and wand wobbling dangerously in his grip. “What the—what the hell—were you doing hiding in the soap ?!”
Jimin wants to die, immediately, or at least in the next five seconds. “I wasn’t—I didn’t—” His throat burns. “Oh gods.”
“You were ! You just—what—crouched in there like a—like a bubble spirit ? Why—?”
“Because I am a moron !” Jimin snaps, voice breaking, and suddenly his face is on fire, his ears are on fire, the entire universe is on fire, and to make matters worse, his eyes sting treacherously and tears slip, hot and humiliating and mingling with the steam.
“Hey, hey—sir, no, don’t—” Jungkook jolts, then, to Jimin’s relief and mortification both, immediately dips lower into the bath so most of his body vanishes beneath the waterline. “I wasn’t—I didn’t mean—please don’t cry. I’m not mad, I promise.”
He flicks his wrist anyway, and a sudden white tide of bubbles surge back across the surface, swirling thick and fast until they shield Jimin’s chest once more.
“There. Covered. Safe. No problem. Pretend this didn’t—please don’t cry.”
For a long, shivery minute neither of them moves. The hall shrinks to steam and the hiss of water ; Jimin counts breaths like talismans until the sobs quiet to small and embarrassed hiccups, and his chest stops feeling too tight to exist.
“Sir,” Jungkook tries finally, gentle as a hand on a fevered brow, “you... why didn’t you say something ?”
Jimin scrapes air through his teeth, words tumbling out jagged. “...Because I didn’t want to be seen. A—And then it was too late, and then you were in the water, and then you were relaxing, and I couldn’t move, and it all went sideways... I thought if I stayed still, maybe the universe would erase me.”
“You could’ve just told me to leave. I would have. I—I would never laugh at you for that.”
“You’re laughing now.”
“I’m not,” Jungkook’s shoulders hunch as if he wants to step closer but remembers the water between them. “I’m—fuck, I’m freaking out, yeah, but not because I think it’s funny. I just—gods, sir, you scared me. I thought you were a ghost.”
“Maybe I should’ve been,” Jimin mutters, and lets out a broken, wet laugh despite himself. “...I heard you sing, by the way.”
“...”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“No. That’s not... It’s just—so embarrassing. Please could you not—”
“You sing very well.”
“...What ?”
“It’s true.” Jimin wipes at his cheeks, still blotchy and still miserable, but desperate to make the point. “You have nothing to be embarrassed about. This is all—my fault. I panicked and... hid, and you—” he gestures helplessly at the bubbles swirling around them, “— you, just being yourself and singing... it was the only good part.”
At that, Jungkook’s mouth tilts into something a little shy and a little hesitant, but blooming all the same, the kind of smile that sneaks up when sunlight pierces through stormclouds, and for a terrifying second Jimin thinks he might start writing poetry just to describe it.
“Thank you, sir.”
The sight is so disarming he has to snort, more at himself than anything. On impulse—possibly contrition, possibly that other, nameless pull that has nothing to do with guilt—Jimin moves, sliding through the warm water until the steam no longer shields them but curls close between their faces, and though the change is small, barely a few metres, it’s enough for Jungkook to startle, for his shoulders to stiffen and his whole frame to flush scarlet.
For all his height, all those tattoos, all the power in his body, he seems absurdly soft here, curls falling into his eyes, undone as though Jimin’s simple nearness could strip him bare more thoroughly than the water ever could.
“Jeon.”
“...Yes, sir ?”
“Let me make it up to you. Ask me what you want, and I’ll answer.”
“Ask... what ?”
“Anything.” Jimin forces his tone to remain steady, matter-of-fact, though his pulse thunders traitorously. “For instance, I heard you and Yoongi, before you came in. If you’re curious about my... peculiarities—”
“Peculiarities ?”
“—my weirder-than-usual attitude, then. You can ask. I’ll answer.”
Jungkook hesitates, clearly weighing the offer and maybe afraid Jimin might regret it later and wield it like a weapon. “Only if you’re really comfortable. I don’t want to force you.”
“If I weren’t comfortable, I wouldn’t offer... Consider it penance for my idiocy.”
“...Alright,then... Why does the Hex Gala stress you so much ?”
Jimin huffs a laugh, something bitter and weak and echoing as he leans back against the carved edge of the pool. “It’s going to sound like a very stupid story.”
“Being vulnerable isn’t stupid.”
Jimin glances at him, caught, not for the first time, by the steadiness in his gaze, and it strikes him that his pulse is loud for reasons that have nothing to do with mortification anymore. It strikes him, in the molten quiet of this room, that he is dangerously, and irreversibly charmed.
“Still. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Jungkook grins, that boyish curve returning despite the steam and the tension, and leans just a fraction closer. “Noted. I’ll take the risk.”
And just like that, Jimin, heart hammering and mind racing, knows he’s already taken the risk himself, and yet... if he doesn’t speak now, the words will calcify in his throat and become a stone he’ll drag around until the night of the Gala forces him to stand there, stiff as a corpse while the past strolls in with a tailored robe and a smirk, and so he breathes and pushes the words out before his courage rots.
“The Hex Gala is different here... Bigger. Showier. Ireland had rituals, music, old rites in candlelight, but here it’s spectacle. Entire towers dressed in glamour, duels staged for entertainment, covens parading their brightest like trophies—everybody preening for power. It’s... a nightmare.”
Jungkook hums. “Sounds... very big. And exactly the sort of gathering you hate.”
“Yes, Jeon. Congratulations, you’ve grasped the pattern.”
“And yet ?”
“...And yet, I could endure. Annoying, crowded, but it’s part of the job and I’ve survived worse.”
“Then what’s the real problem ?”
“...Busan Coven University has been invited.” He stops. His chest feels tight. He stares at the ripples in the water until Jungkook’s voice nudges again.
“And ?”
Jimin exhales through his nose, fingers twitching against nothing but the steam. He has never been good at saying things simply, and here too, everything comes out as one sentence too long. “And it turns out I’ve only ever been in two long relationships in my life. One when I was barely more than a teenager—childish, irrelevant. And the other—the other was with is a ministry official who, unfortunately, happens to be dating one of Busan’s professors now, a charming, powerful spellcrafter, very popular, very adored, and they’ll be attending together... I even asked Namjoon to make sure, and yes. Yes they will.”
“...What’s his name ?”
“...Min Seojun.” The syllables taste bitter. Old.
“And he knows you’ll be there.”
“Yes.” Jimin presses his lips together. “And he’ll relish it.”
Jungkook doesn’t interrupt, just watches him, and somehow that’s torture, because it makes him feel like he has to keep going.
“It ended badly. He told me—quite explicitly—that dating me was the worst mistake he’d made. That I was tedious and boring. That people like me... should stay away from relationships altogether.”
Something in his assistant’s jaw ticks, but his voice stays soft. “Did you hurt him ? At all ?”
“No.” Jimin shakes his head once, and stares at the ceiling, because somehow, words burn less if he doesn’t look at anyone. “Not unless you count being myself. Too much time with my cauldrons. Too many walks in the forest. Talking too much about the theories I was working on and not enough about mundane things. Dinner parties. Politics. Small talk. Whatever normal people discuss.” His mouth twists. “Apparently, that’s a crime.”
“And now you’re afraid.”
“...Not exactly.”
“You’re afraid,” Jungkook corrects gently, “to see him thriving while you’re still here—single, and too much of a scholar, exactly as he mocked you for being.”
Jimin lets out a thin laugh, and even to him, it sounds resigned. “You’re too perspicacious for your own good, Jeon... For my own good.”
“It’s a terrible habit of mine.”
And gods help him, Jungkook is grinning even closer now, so close that if Jimin let his gaze slip lower, he’d see the cut of him beneath the foam, the way water clings to muscle and rune alike. He blushes violently, and looks away. “So. That’s it.”
“...What’s the plan, then ?”
“The plan,” Jimin sighs, “was to call in cursed. Yoongi even offered to cast one for me. Taehyung suggested poisoning both my ex and his new partner, which is wildly disproportionate.”
“Creative, though.”
“Yes, well, I said no. Which leaves me with only one conclusion : I’ll still have to face him. Both of them. The humiliation is inevitable.”
Jungkook studies him, eyes bright and searching. “...Sir ?”
“What is it ?”
Instead of words, there’s the ghost of touch : fingers brushing against his under the water. Jimin stiffens, his breath snags, and then, Jungkook’s hand curls, asking only now.
“May I ?”
“...You already did.”
A nervous laugh. “I know. But I’d like permission. From now on.”
Jimin closes his eyes. Whatever this is, it’s too much. “Fine,” he mutters, voice flat in defence of his ribs. “Do as you like.”
Warmth tightens around his hand instantly, and it’s firm, and it’s grounding, and it’s pressing, pressing, pressing, until it feels Jungkook is stitching their bones together.
“First of all,” he says, steady but with a tremor beneath, “I don’t care how charming or powerful your ex thinks he is—he’s an idiot. If he couldn’t see you, then he deserves to spend his life blind. You—” He breathes deep, then shakes his head. “You’re not boring, and you’ll never be boring, and one day, you’ll believe me.”
Jimin’s ears burn, and suddenly he’s immensely grateful for the steam masking half his face. “You always say things like that.”
“Because they’re all true.”
“...”
“Really.”
“...Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. Just... hear me out” Jungkook clears his throat, and just like that, he sounds almost hesitant. “I hope this won’t sound rude. Or like I’m taking advantage of you feeling vulnerable right now.”
“That’s... not the most reassuring preface.”
“But, maybe the best way not to be single is to not be alone.”
Jimin blinks. His heart lurches in three directions at once, and he plays dumb because that’s all he can manage. “That won’t work. Seojun knows all of my colleagues. My friends. It would be too obvious—”
“That’s not what I was offering.”
The words slice clean through his excuses. Jimin’s head snaps toward him, and bites his lips. “What—”
“Go with me,” Jungkook whispers, calm but cheeks red as his thumb strokes once over his knuckles. “To the Gala. As my date.”
Jimin squeaks.
“Just for show.”
“Just for show,” he echoes, more numb than a zombie rehearsing vocabulary.
This time Jungkook does laugh, some small and self-deprecating sound. “Unless, of course, you’d prefer it to be more.”
Jimin's brain scrambles into static, and he has to remind himself—he can’t read your thoughts. He can’t read your thoughts. Only emotions.
Which is worse. Which is perhaps why he blurts out, against all reason, “Play it cool, Park. Play it cool.”
“...Sir ?”
“Nothing,” Jimin snaps, too late. This is what happens when you talk to yourself more than you talk to others, you start confusing what should stay inside and what is safe to share. “I said nothing.”
“Look—it’ll work. Because it’s not exactly a secret that I look at you the way I do.”
Jimin’s heart plummets straight through his stomach. He doesn’t dare ask what that means, doesn’t think he’ll survive the answer.
“And we wouldn’t need to fake much,” Jungkook continues, determined and oblivious to the inferno he’s lit. “We’d arrive together, stand near each other, maybe smile a little... and they’d create the scenario themselves. Saves us the effort.”
“I can’t...” It comes out thin, desperate. “I can’t use you like that.”
“You’re not using me, I want to... I don’t like seeing you this anxious over it. And I won’t stand by while some fool thinks he gets to laugh at you. Let me be there, for you.”
Jimin stares at him, as steam curls thinner between them and water trembles around their joined hands. “You’d spend the whole Gala pretending to be—”
“Pretending ?” Jungkook tilts his head, dimples threatening. “Sir, I was already planning to spend the entire night bothering you. Might as well make it official.”
And before Jimin can stop himself, before he can remember all the reasons he should never, he smiles.
Just a little.
Just enough to tighten his own fingers in return.
*ੈ‧₊˚⋆° ☾⛧☽° ⋆*ੈ✩‧₊˚
All cursed days arrive eventually, and All Hollows is no exception.
It comes the way winter frost comes to a rose : silently, inevitably, crushingly beautiful in the way teeth are beautiful right before they bite.
Jimin has no idea what, exactly, he thought might save him—cosmic malfunction ? A clerical error by the stars ? A stray comet wiping out the Divination Tower before invitations finalised ? Whatever vague miracle he was subconsciously hoping for did not materialise, and time moved, as it always does, and now here it is : the eve of spectacle. The eve of masks. The eve of humiliation, or something far more dangerous.
Namjoon certainly did not help.
He recalls the briefing two nights ago, all staff gathered in the Moon Hall while the Headmaster stood beneath the floating crest of the coven for his annual All Hallows briefing with the solemn kindness of a priest and the logistical ferocity of a general.
“Representation matters,” he’d declared. “We are not merely hosting guests, my colleagues—we are receiving fellow covens as equals. We do not posture ; we extend power with grace. We show hospitality without yielding dignity. We embody excellence without arrogance.”
Jimin had nearly hexed himself unconscious from secondhand righteousness alone, but Namjoon continued.
“We must craft an impression not simply of mastery, but belonging : that all who walk through our doors walk into a threshold of civilisation, history, and living magic. That this faculty”—his gaze swept the room—“remains the mirror in which every witch should wish to see themselves reflected.
So you will meet our sister covens with courtesy... some of you will welcome dignitaries, some will oversee ritual circles, some will escort delegations through the Exhibited Archives. All of you will be watched...
Make them wish they studied here. Shine.”
...Shine.
As if Jimin were a chandelier.
As if Seojun would see him and not smirk.
The coven itself has transformed to match the rhetoric : illusion-woven ivy curling along rafters, candleflames replaced with spectral foxfire that follows the pulse of the wards, embroidered banners unfurling like breath. It is, if Jimin were not so busy drowning in dread, undeniably breathtaking.
It smells of reverence and money and too much expectation, and beyond the walls the world has come to them : from the Tokyo Moonlight Arcana, the Busan Phoenix Court, the Taiwan Mirror Garden, the Hanoi Conclave, witch after witch and delegation after delegation spill through their gates and into the inns of the nearby villages.
The students have been entirely useless all week, as enthusiasm replaced learning.
After three failed lectures and one disastrous attempt at brewing, Jimin surrendered and dragged his classes off-campus and into the forest to “gather living reagents,” which was only technically a lesson, but spiritually a forty uninterrupted minutes of oxygen retreat.
When the weather turned, he marched them to Thistle & Bone, where Hoseok was more than happy to abduct them for half a morning, prattling on about mortar-tempered tinctures and moon-aged bark while his elven assistant tried not to combust under the workload piling up behind the counter.
“Do you see these bags under my eyes ?” Hoseok had stage-whispered at him once Jungkook and the students were elbow-deep in powdered lotus seed. “That’s not fatigue, that’s capitalism. Every witch in a eighty-kilometres radius wants ‘blessing thread’ and ‘waistline mercy hems’ because apparently death is preferable to looking bloated in a robe.”
He’d slipped Jimin a jar of marigold honey as if passing contraband.
“For your nerves, darling. Or for your tea. Or for murder. I don’t judge use cases... By the way, has the assistant kissed you yet ?”
“What the—No.”
“Tragic.”
“I didn’t come here for a survey.”
“No, but I’m running one anyway.”
Jimin had decided, quite reasonably, to remove himself from the conversation and assist Kang Hyunae with her mortar instead, because really, he loves Hoseok more than he deserves to, especially this week.
But even that sanctuary couldn't silence the storm. The Chronicle delivered its “Hex Gala Pre-Show Special” to everyone’s desks yesterday—predictions, sabotage gossip, coven-politics, and naturally, betting pools about “notable pairings,” everything from pettily-subtle to criminally blatant. The Busan column alone made his stomach twist.
He would have spiralled, truly, if not for Jeon Jungkook, soft where the world is sharp and warm where the stone is cold and whispering reassurance in small and unguarded moments as though the universe slipped him the script to Jimin’s panic.
He hasn’t said I’ll be there once since the bath, but he’s said it fifty small ways instead : a brush of fingers at his wrist, a murmur behind a stack of parchments, a stupid grin left in his teacup steam.
Jimin wears the moonstone every day now, hasn’t moved it from the hollow of his throat since his birthday, and if that means everything and nothing all at once, then let it mean that. He’s started dressing to accommodate it, to frame it, and he can’t pretend it isn’t sentiment anymore, nor win the argument with his own reflection.
Which brings him to now, standing in front of that same spiteful mirror, trying very hard not to breathe too deeply while fastening the last crescent pin at his sleeve.
The robes are exquisite and deep red, that exact shade of twilight wine poured onto velvet, dark enough to be night until light catches the fabric and star-thread constellations shimmer awake across it like embers rising from a brazier, while silver embroidery spills low along his chest and leave his throat and collarbones stark and bared to candlelight, a line waiting for a blade or an invocation.
No hiding tonight, and no armour either... or perhaps this is armour, just of a different kind.
He straightens and checks the fall of the robes again. The pendant glows against his sternum, while behind him, the mirror smirks.
“Oh, we are declaring war.”
He ignores it, slips on his gloves, and steels himself for the descent, because the truth is obvious now, even to himself : he is not dreading all of tonight.
The humiliation, yes. The politics, yes. The old wound made flesh across a ballroom, yes.
But not him. Not the moment Jeon Jungkook finds him in whatever charmed corridor fate decides, not those eyes going bright and warm and reckless, not that gentle smile that looks like he has been waiting this entire time.
He is, gods help him, looking forward to that... and that might terrify him more than anything Busan could do.
*ੈ‧₊˚⋆° ☾⛧☽° ⋆*ੈ✩‧₊˚
Three hundred fifty-six.
Three hundred fifty-seven.
He counts the steps, not that he needs to, but counting steadies him. Counting puts numbers where nerves try to bloom, and numbers are rational and numbers do not care who waits at the bottom.
He is not technically late, but he will be one of the last professors to arrive, which means theatre, and spectacle, and eyes, whether he wants it or not.
Three hundred fifty-eight.
He exhales and the breath is not steady.
Empty corridors give way to thinning ones, then to pockets of students adjusting sleeves and spriting, and before he has braced properly, the entrance hall yawns open at the foot of the main staircase.
It is both familiar and strange, like walking into his own school and someone else’s entirely. Autumn-forged light spills over parquet and polished obsidian tiles, foxfire lanterns bloom in slow swells of amber and copper across frescoed walls, and Illusion-built leaves drift perpetually overhead in looping spirals.
Faculty line the left arc of the chamber, while students crowd the right, glittering in anticipation and chattering as they cast hunger-eyed glances at the enormous carved doors leading to the grounds, all waiting for the sister covens to arrive, for triumph, and for scandal.
He descends another step, then another, still counting and counting and scanning the crowd for somewhere to hang his anxiety on, until he finds them : Yoongi, sharp as a winter prayer in abyssal black, Hoseok, molten bronze woven into every fold of his robes and laughter already curving at the corner of his lips, and between them... Jeon Jungkook, talking animatedly, head tilted and mouth forming words Jimin can’t hear, unaware for a heartbeat, and then aware.
Whatever joke he had been spinning falters, dissolving mid-syllable, and the noise of the hall blurs around them as his gaze locks onto his.
There are different kinds of gazes in the world. Jimin has known the ones that strip, those belonging to men who look through you, and reduce you to a trophy and a story to tell later. This one does the opposite : it builds a whole cathedral around you.
Three more steps.
Jimin goes weak in the knees and bites the inside of his lip, wills his face into composure, and raises two fingers in what could generously be called a wave, or less generously, a small and mortifying signal of existence.
The movement is small but it catches some student’s eyes then and another’s, until murmurs flare and gasps bloom too fast to brace for and half the hall is looking at him.
“Is that—?”
“Gods—Professor Park—”
“He looks—”
“saw him first, I swear to Selene—”
Jimin would very much like to remind them that they’re all overdressed and destined to spill something ruinous down their fronts before dessert, that by midnight, half will be asleep in stairwells and at least one will be hexed into shrubbery, and that they can stop fainting like Regency widows, but before he can gather the scowl for it, Jungkook is already moving and threading through the rows.
He comes to a stop on the lowest stair, looks up, and bows, that old-fashioned gesture no witch bothers with anymore, an anachronism in a world too modern for reverence, and yet somehow, on him, it isn’t absurd at all.
It’s beautiful.
“Sir,” he says, “you are—” His throat works around the word before he finds it—“unthinkably stunning.”
“...That’s dramatic,” Jimin mutters, breath thinner than he’d like. “Even for you, Jeon.”
“Maybe. But judging from the way the coven is currently losing its collective mind, I hardly think I’m alone in my assessment.”
Jimin attempts a scoff and fails. “You... cleaned up acceptably.”
“Acceptably ?”
Acceptably sounds ridiculous, of course. It’s unfair how good he looks, that bruised-violet suit, the precise shade of dusk before night surrenders to stars, the unbuttoned shirt, the hair falling in soft waves, the ears pink as sunrise...
“...cleaned up very well, then.”
Jungkook’s smile could power several exorcisms. “May I ?” he asks as he offers his arm with ceremony and a tremor.
Jimin huffs, like he is resigned, like he is long-suffering, like it is not exactly the thing keeping him upright, and loops his hand through. “If you’re going to play the gentleman halfway, Jeon, you might as well commit. What’s the point otherwise ?”
“Oh I plan to... Entirely.”
They cross the room toward Yoongi and Hoseok, though Jimin barely registers half the people staring, only the warmth pressed steady at his arm and the quiet pattern of his assistant’s breath keeping time with his own.
“All Hallows blessing,” he offers when they reach them.
Yoongi’s mouth lifts. “Likewise. And for the record,” his eyes travel down then up again, clinical and impressed and deadly, “if this is how you’ve been dressing alone all these years, I demand a refund on my friendship.”
“Told you the coven was losing its mind,” Jungkook beams.
“Collapsed, Jeon,” Yoongi scoffs. “ Fallen. They’ll be stepping over corpses.”
Hoseok fans himself theatrically. “Truly, Jiminie, you’ve never looked better weaponised in your life.” He leans in. “You realise half the duelling bracket is now going to try and show off for your attention tonight ?”
“Absolutely not. I am not—encouraging—”
“You could always enter the bracket yourself and crush their egos wholesale... Efficient.”
“I attract enough spectacle wearing this robe, thanks... No need to add spellfire and theatrics.”
“You say that,” Jungkook murmurs, low and warm against him, “as if you don’t know everyone here would dress like this every day if they looked even half as good as you do right now.”
“...Jeon.”
Yoongi watches them for one long and too-quiet beat, something like pride flickering behind the steel, but already he’s arching a brow. “Remind your assistant that the rest of us will die of jealousy before these doors even open, Jimin.”
“Oh, I don’t need the reminder professor,” Jungkook answers without missing a beat. “I have eyes.”
And Jimin has ears, and heat pooling up his throat, and the urge to strangle them both with invisible mist. Before he can, Hoseok strikes again.
“You’ll dance, won’t you ? You never do. But I think this year might... persuade you.”
“...I—I don’t know. I haven’t agreed to anything of the sort.”
“Not yet,” Jungkook adds, and it’s not a tease, merely a promise waiting for a moment to unfurl.
“And Tae will drag you if no one else does,” Hoseok singsongs.
Jimin follows their gazes towards Taehyung waving madly from across the hall, already halfway toward them in a blur of silver-sheened silk... but then Namjoon’s voice rolls through the air.
“Coven of the Burning Spire. On this All Hallows Eve—when the veil thins and all threads of magic run nearer to the root—we welcome our sister covens. Tonight is not only tradition, but threshold : a night of remembrance, revelation, and right accord between households of craft.”
Jimin focuses on breathing, on keeping his shoulders from curling inward and on not replaying—
“You’re tedious, Jimin.”
“You make everything heavy.”
“You don’t know how to live—being with you felt like suffocating in a library.”
Stop.
Namjoon gestures skyward and the enchanted ceiling ripples like ink disturbed in still water.
“May the Spire stand as hearth, not spectacle. May our skill be offering, not vanity. Let there be elegance without cruelty, power without pettiness, and honour without pretense.”
He means it, as he always does, and Jimin—gods—wishes he could inhabit that meaning as easily as words.
The final seals lift with a thunder-soft crackle, sigils peeling away from the door, and just like that, the world beyond howls in, wind-kissed and cold and smelling of rain and the tidal roar of arrival : boots thudding against stone ; bells of ceremonial charms shaken loose from travellers’ cloaks ; languages spiralling through the hall—Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Mandarin, arcane dialects half-sung and half-prayed—but the translation enchantments flutter like small birds through ears, and suddenly there is nothing foreign about the words at all, only immediacy and presence.
Others crane for a view of the procession spilling from the night into the coven’s light, but Jimin watches his hands instead, fixes on them the way drowning men watch their own reflections in a pond, like if he memorises them well enough, maybe he will belong inside them again.
Jungkook bends toward him, and his voice is low : “Tell me when you see him.”
Jimin’s throat clicks. “...Mmh.” Not a yes, but not denial either, and that’s the best he can give, at least until fingers tip his chin up and he has no other choice but to look forward.
“Don’t make yourself small, sir. Not tonight.”
“I’m not—I just—”
A silhouette breaks through the crowd.
Five minutes since the doors opened, if that, and Jimin does not need to see the face to know. The posture is enough : the casual tilt of a jawline he once traced by candlelight, the careless grace of someone who’s always known he’s being watched, and a face sculpted for audiences angled toward someone else’s shoulder.
He recognises the exact moment his lungs forget how to be lungs, and Jungkook, emotional seer or simply himself, feels it instantly. His eyes cut toward the pair, then back.
“Ah. So it’s that one.”
“...Yes.”
Annoyance flashes hot across his face, unguarded for one flare of a heartbeat before he catches himself and softens again the moment he sees Jimin watching.
“Don’t panic,” he whispers. “I’m not about to hex anyone. I’m merely... deeply unimpressed by the ornament you once mistook for a person.”
Jimin huffs, and it’s uneven, and it’s small. “You’re too protective. You’re already doing more than enough by—” His voice cracks. “—by being here.”
“I already told you, I want to be here. And wanting to protect you is not some great burden I’m stoically shouldering for charity.”
“It’s not your job... I should be able to handle at least a little of this myself. I’m your superior, and I’m older—”
Jungkook snorts under his breath, then quietly prises Jimin’s fingers from his arm, one by one. “That is the most bullshit cluster of nonsense I’ve ever heard from you yet, sir.”
“I—”
“If I cross a line tonight, you tell me, and I’ll stop. Immediately... But I am not dulling myself down to make him easier for you to endure. If I am your date, I am your date properly.”
Before Jimin can respond, his hand slides around his waist, firm and secure and drawing him closer until heat floods every nerve from spine to ribs.
“Y-you—this is—”
“Entirely above board, yes. I fully intend to play my role with enthusiasm.”
“...I am—choosing to let that pass,” Jimin hisses and gasps, “—only for tonight.”
“Oh ?” Jungkook smiles against his ear. “You shouldn’t sound so certain, you may end up liking it... I know I already do.”
A laugh slips out of Jimin, all breathless and scandalously fond, even as Namjoon passes before them, flanked by the heads of the arriving covens, aura still ablaze and ushering them toward the inner hall for the festivities.
The doors to the grand ballroom crack open, and Jimin whispers back, barely holding onto composure : “Come on, Jeon, before you say something else catastrophically stupid.”
Jungkook squeezes his waist once. “I’m afraid that ship has sailed. You really should have learned by now—I never stop saying stupidities.”
*ੈ‧₊˚⋆° ☾⛧☽° ⋆*ੈ✩‧₊˚
“Jimin !”
His name, launched too bright and too familiar across the room, sharpened with that terrible false warmth he remembers all too well.
Jimin turns, and already Min Seojun stands too close, velvet-coated arrogance and self-satisfaction wrapped into a single immaculate silhouette holding tight onto another one.
He doesn’t look happy to see him, he looks eager, and he looks hungry.
“Gods, it is you,” he goes on, smiling like an executioner with flowers in his teeth. “I’d heard rumours, but I didn’t think you were actually here tonight... You look—” his eyes drag down, slow and appraising and smirking “—different.”
Once upon a time, that tone meant affection... now it rings and rings and rings, until there’s nothing left but a wound.
“Seojun.” Jimin inclines his head, because protocol is a leash even when it chokes. “Welcome to our coven.”
“Oh don’t be so stiff,” Seojun laughs, already dismissing the greeting. “It’s been ages. You never wrote... I thought you’d vanished into some cauldron permanently.” He gestures to his companion. “This is Yoon Hyunwoo, head of Spellcasting in Busan’s eastern division. Quite brilliant... Quite sociable. And this—” a flickering hand, mildly patronising “—is Park Jimin. We... go way back.”
Hyunwoo offers a polite nod and Jimin forces one in return.
“How have you been ? I imagine you’ve been keeping busy... the same as always. Still living in your little tower and breathing in jars ? Is that why we never see you at any inter-coven events ? Or is socialisation still too taxing ?”
“I— I’m Head of Advanced Potioncraft now. So, yes—a fair amount of responsibility... I like my job.”
“Oh, I know,” Seojun purrs. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you enjoy anything else... Except maybe I should amend that—” his gaze flickers down Jimin’s robe again “—you’re finally dressing like you want attention. Very... daring. Risky look for someone who used to hide behind three layers of wool.”
He laughs, and Jimin feels heat crawling up his neck again, not the pleasant kind Jungkook left there earlier, but the slow and corrosive burn of humiliation.
“Have you been seeing anyone ? ...Or is it still just you and your cat ? No shame—some people find fulfilment differently, and you always did prefer a good thesis to a warm body.”
He smiles the smile of a man who still believes cruelty makes him fascinating.
Jimin’s pulse stutters and the old instinct to retreat claws at him, to beg Namjoon for an excuse and vanish before the past finishes undressing him in public, when a warmth appears at his back.
“Oh—apologies,” Jungkook’s voice cuts clean through the noise. “I seem to have walked in late. I was getting us drinks.”
He hands Jimin a glass of spiced wine before he so much as acknowledges the other two, but when he does, it is slow and deliberate, and the temperature drops half a degree.
Seojun looks him up and down, and in that flicker of an instant, Jimin sees it : the calculation, the dismissal, and the faintest curl of distaste.
It’s a mistake. Jungkook may be young, but there’s nothing meek about him, not the breadth of his shoulders, not the calm ferocity in his eyes, not the quiet and unyielding confidence that Seojun has never learned how to handle.
“And you are...?”
Jimin finds his voice, formal by reflex. “This is Jeon Jungkook. My assistant. And my—” He hesitates, not from shame but from how strangely real the word feels in his mouth, poised and trembling—
“—Jimin’s date,” Jungkook finishes for him, warm and crystal clear and lifting his glass in a casual salute. “A pleasure,” he adds, extending precisely enough courtesy to be formally unimpeachable and personally insulting. “I’ve heard absolutely nothing about you.”
Seojun stiffens. “I was—important—” his eyes flick to Jimin “—to him.”
“Was, yes. That past tense is working awfully hard.”
Hyunwoo coughs into his hand. Seojun ignores him.
“How long ?”
“Long enough,” Jungkook replies before Jimin can flounder. “And not long enough, if you ask me.”
The words wrap around Jimin, safe, safe, safe, and he doesn’t know if it is relief or dizziness or something unbearably tender, but Jungkook angles himself closer, thumb rolling and stocking small circles against his waist again and again, obvious enough for Seojun to see it and hate it.
A little ember of peace catches inside Jimin’s chest, and a breath he’s been holding for years finally starts to release.
“...Life is full of surprises, I suppose. Jimin finally found someone patient enough to tolerate his intensity, huh ?”
Jungkook tilts his head. “I’ve never had to ‘tolerate’ it. Quite the opposite, I happen to consider myself lucky.”
“...Well. Do enjoy it while it lasts. He can be—”
“A treasure ?”
“...I was going to say ‘demanding,’” Seojun snaps.
“I certainly hope so,” Jungkook replies, lightly and almost pleasantly, like they are debating tea flavour rather than Jimin’s worth. “I’d be terribly disappointed if he didn’t start demanding more from me soon. I’ve a great deal to offer, and it would be a shame if he never made use of it.”
Jimin chokes and turns a shade of red the human spectrum was never meant to witness.
Seojun blinks. “You... want him to be more demanding ?”
“Oh yes. Desire is clearest where it’s asked for, not merely endured.”
Jimin tries, weakly, to interject : “Jeon—”
But Seojun talks over him. “I don’t—Jimin was always more timid than that. All passion in theory, never much in practice.”
“With all due respect, that sounds far more like a failure of partnering than a lack of passion.”
There’s a beat that lasts, and a tremor at his ex’s jaw.
Hyunwoo, perhaps sensing the growing static, scrambles for another topic. “Ah—Professor Park,” he blurts, “I actually read a transcript of your moonflight trails. You were nationally ranked in broom circuits, weren’t you ? And your paper on Astral Catalysts in Combat Alchemy—really beautiful work. I assumed you’d be a star in the bracket tonight.”
Seojun laughs sharply. “Hyunwoo, darling—Jimin doesn’t duel. Too visible. Too many eye contacts... He prefers observation to participation.”
Hyunwoo, poor man, winces.
Jimin clears his throat, calmer now or maybe simply braced by that warmth steady at his side. “Indeed, I have no intention of duelling tonight.”
“See ? ...Pity, though. I’d have enjoyed beating you properly. Symbolism, you know ?”
Jungkook scoffs, and it is as soft as it is unmistakable.
Seojun’s gaze sharpens. “Something amusing ?”
“A little,” his assistant shrugs. “Confidence is charming. Especially when it’s poorly calibrated.”
“And what exactly is that supposed to mean ?”
“Only that if Professor Park did enter, there wouldn’t be a bracket left by dessert.”
“...You sound very sure of yourself.”
“I am.” Jungkook smiles a silk-lined blade of a smile. “But don’t worry. I’ll enter for him. Someone has to add another trophy to his mantle—there’s still a spare corner between the peer commendations and the Cursed Excellence Award.”
“You intend to win ? For him ?”
“Oh, I intend to win because of him. The ‘for’ is merely the decorative bow on top.”
Another beat of brittle silence, and with it, Hyunwoo suddenly finds profound interest in a nearby ceiling fresco. Jimin would share the fascination, really, if not for the hand now sliding slow along his shoulder blades with a grounding rhythm that traces the line between what was and what is.
At last, Seojun nods, too sharp to be calm. “Well. We shouldn’t monopolise your time.”
“You shouldn’t,” Jungkook agrees. “But we’ll see you both at the tournament later, won’t we ?”
Jimin hears the subtext, and everyone else hear it louder even :
I’ll meet you there.
I’ll bury you there.
And I’ll do it while holding his hand.
“Yes... I suppose we will.”
Jimin inclines his head once more, polite as a closed gate. “Enjoy the evening.”
“...Of course.”
They turn, Seojun leading and Hyungwoo trailing like a man desperate for escape, and the moment they vanish into the crowd, Jimin lets out a shuddering exhale.
Beside him, Jungkook doesn’t move away, simply softens as his hand gentles its pressure, sliding down until it soothes rather than shields. He’s close still, but not crowding anymore, warm without demanding warmth back.
“You’re safe, sir,” he murmurs. “He doesn’t get to take up space inside your ribs anymore...
You did well.”
“I said three words,” Jimin breathes, still dazed.
“Then they were three perfect ones.”
He turns to argue, to insist that those words meant nothing without Jungkook’s presence, that without him he would have folded, bitten his tongue, and let himself be devoured, but when he meets those eyes, the protest dies on his tongue, because in those immense eyes there’s no triumph and no pity, only the kind of tenderness people wear when they’re looking at something fragile they have no intention of breaking.
And maybe, Jimin thinks, that’s the rarest magic of all.
“...Thank you,” he says instead.
“For what ?” Jungkook smiles, half-soft and half-wicked. “I haven’t even started ruining heaven for you yet.”
*ੈ‧₊˚⋆° ☾⛧☽° ⋆*ੈ✩‧₊˚
Time behaves strangely after the confrontation, and the next hours slip like silk through fingers, not fast, but continuously, and Jimin barely has time to think.
The buffets are endless, obscene, and excessive, some cursed temple of gluttony set out in silvered tiers : whole geese lacquered in pomegranate reduction, floating citrus charms cooling bowls of oysters, towers of sugared apples taller than a first-year, chocolate conjured into fox-shaped bonbons... six separate tables devoted solely to bread. Between that and the liquor fountains bubbling like ill-behaved cauldrons, Jimin quietly estimates a third of his departmental funding has been boiled, glazed and roasted for spectacle.
Students are already nauseous, and professors not far behind.
To his right, Yoongi has finally stopped pretending not to adore Hoseok. Jimin observes it with the weary delight of a man whose two most stubborn friends have been orbiting one another for half a decade. They are touching now, Yoongi’s hand resting heavy on Hoseok’s wrist as they share a plate of candied lotus flowers. It feels momentous, and he’s ninety percent sure it’ll feature in the Coven Eye tomorrow with a five-lantern scandal rating.
Good. It was about time someone in this building got something before the next geological era.
To his left, Jungkook appears to be on a personal campaign to commit flirtation grand larceny, one line at a time. Subtlely, if there was ever any, is dead : every smile is molten, every touch is grounding and unnecessary, every joke is engineered with surgical precision to land squarely in Jimin’s bloodstream, and it works horrifically well. Jimin has stopped expending energy on denial and is now simply trying not to faint.
All Hallows thins every boundary, magic and mood and restraint, and so staff and students mix freely while the hall itself stretches twice its natural length, breaching the laws of architecture through spells devouring mana like wildfire. It’ll hold for three nights, Jimin knows who built the anchorwork, and it will not fail.
The students at the table in front of him, the one who sprinted for these seats the moment he and Jungkook sat down, are chattering relentlessly about how “faculty dinners should be like this every week,” and how “being near instructors might inspire them.”
Jimin does not believe a syllable of it, but he nods vaguely and lets them prattle and occasionally drag visiting coven students into the debate to spar verbally while he sips stormwine and Jungkook check on him, often and always gentle :
“Still alright ?”
“Yes,” Jimin answers every time, even when his gaze strays toward the far end of the hall where Seojun holds court like a preening peacock, beccause each time, he looks away quicker than before. The glances shrink, and the sting dulls.
Jungkook nods every time too, as though Jimin has just performed heroics, and somewhere between lantern refills and the third tray of crème-filled pastries, something traitorous unfurls in Jimin’s chest.
It’s not exactly warmth, because it’s something hungrier than that, some ache that tastes of tomorrow, and suddenly he’s wondering what it would be like to date someone like Jungkook for real.
Would he cook ?
Would he drag you onto a broom at midnight to kiss above the treeline while stars spin under your spine ?
Would he kiss like he speaks ?
Would he praise like he breathes ?
Would he be as ruinously gentle as his hands feel at his waist ?
He doesn’t escape the thought. He drowns in it.
By the time the tables vanish and the buffets migrate to the perimeter walls, the band at the dais picks up something pulsing and bright, live instrumental dissolving into rock phrasing and colourburst enchantments and notes blooming around the chandeliers.
Lights dim.
The centre floor clears.
Some of the crowd tumble toward the courtyard bonfires and All Hallows rites—scrying bowls, charm-forging, ancestral whisperwork—but the pulse of the night stays here, thrumming through parquet.
Across the room, Namjoon is chasing down prank-happy first years who have transfigured a decorative gargoyle into a heavily opinionated harpy currently insulting guests, while Yoongi and Hoseok have moved to the floor, dancing beautifully and almost offensively compatible. If they do not kiss by midnight, Jimin will hex Cupid personally.
It takes a fair amount of time before he realises Jungkook is staring at him, heavy, heavy, heavy.
“What,” he manages and glares. “Do I have something on my face ?”
“Just trying not to perish, sir. You’re very bad for my health—I’m weighing immediate collapse as an option.”
“...That sounds like a personal problem.”
“It is. And also yours... Because this is agony, standing here when we could be dancing and eclipsing every other couple in the room.”
Jimin narrows his eyes. “You’re not in agony Jeon... and we’re not a couple.”
“Right,” Jungkook sighs dreamily. “I keep forgetting.” He does not look like a man who forgets anything. “And I,” he adds, just a breath later, “would kill to change that.”
“...C-change what ?”
“Your mind. Or, at minimum—your location.” He gives a small theatrical shrug. “On the dance floor.”
Jimin rolls his eyes, desperately and defensively. “If I humour you and agree, what exactly do I get in return ?”
“Anything you want, sir. I told you—I wasn’t bluffing with your ex.”
The floor seems to tilt.
One dance.
It should be nothing.
It should be harmless.
It should not feel like teetering on the rim of something ruinously good.
He looks down, and inhales once through his teeth.
“...One dance.”
Jungkook lights from the inside. “You won’t regret it.”
“I’m already regretting it.”
“No you’re not.” He offers his hand. “Be brave, sir.”
Jimin takes it, and Jungkook laughs—the sound of summer light as he leads him toward the floor.
The song isn’t a love ballad, thank the heavens, but it might as well be, because for a seconds, no one is looking at the musicians. The room knows. The room watches. And Jimin feels it with every step and turn, the collective hush of oh gods, Park Jimin is dancing with someone.
It’s funny, he thinks distantly, how nerves can feel like drowning and flying at the same time.
Jungkook lifts their joined hands, the other still at his waist and warm through the fabric. “You can relax, sir. I’m not going to twirl you into a pillar unless you request theatrics.”
“I’m perfectly relaxed,” Jimin lies.
“You’re about as relaxed as a hunted deer.”
“...Jeon, don’t start.”
“Graceful deer,” Jungkook corrects, unbothered, “very beautiful deer, but absolutely convinced the forest will eat him alive.”
Jimin makes a strangled sound halfway between a cough and an oath. “...You are exhausting. I should have never hired you.”
“I think the way you blush is exquisite.”
He doesn’t say you’re exquisite, but the sentence hovers there anyway, and Jimin decides it wise to look anywhere but at him, which unfortunately means directly at his collarbones, then his throat, then the faint glow of runes licking gold along the cut of his suit.
Terrible decision.
His hand tightens slightly, and Jungkook notices. He doesn’t lead aggressively, the way men often do when they want to display a partner, he leads like a tide pulling shoreward : sure and steady and attuned, and Jimin realises his body trusted before his mind caught up.
“Breathe, sir. I have you.”
The last time someone used those words on Jimin, they were a lie, tonight though, they do not sound like one.
“If you keep saying things like that, people will think we’re actually—”
“Dating ?”
“...Yes.”
“We are dating.”
“No we aren’t. This is pretend.”
“Speak for yourself,” Jungkook laughs under his breath. “You might be faking but I’m not. I’m having a marvellous first date.”
“You—”
“You said yes to a dance, and a dance is a date. I didn’t realise I had to submit paperwork first.”
“...This whole thing is absurd,” Jimin mutters, even as his pulse feels wrecked.
Jungkook leans in, voice low enough to make the room disappear for a second. “Most good things are.”
“I didn’t say this was good.”
“No. And you don’t have to.”
Jimin looks at him properly then, and gods, does he look incandescent... The man is beholding him with the sort of reverence that feels underserved and undoing all at once, and it is so simple and staggering Jimin can’t hold the gaze for more than a few seconds.
“You’re staring again,” he says, quiet now.
“I know.”
“Why.”
“Because I’m trying to commit every second of this to memory—in case you never let me have a second dance.”
“...I—I didn’t say there wouldn’t be one.”
Jungkook stills for a moment, as if the words landed somewhere he didn’t dare hope for, then his smile returns, and it is as gentle as it is stunned.
“Then I’ll count that as the single greatest victory I’ve had all year,” he murmurs. “...Jimin.”
The name, just his name, with no title and no buffer... it hits him like a nerve struck raw.
“W-what ?”
“I’m very happy. Right now... With you.”
Jimin’s breath breaks. He doesn’t know what to answer, nothing sharp will come, nothing cautious and nothing neutral either, so instead he whispers the only thing that doesn’t burn to ash in his mouth :
“...I don’t hate it.”
And because the universe cannot stand to let tenderness breathe for more than twenty seconds, a great bronze chime rings overhead and a staff voice booms through an enchantment :
“All participants in the duelling bracket : please make your way to the courtyard. Spectators, seating wards now open.”
Jungkook glances toward the archway leading out into the lantern-lit night, then back to him with a grin that borders on feral. “There’s my cue.”
Jimin makes a face. “You don’t have to actually do it.”
“Oh, I absolutely do.”
“There is no need—”
“There is glorious need, in fact. I told your ex I would adorn your mantle with a trophy and I refuse to become a liar in the first fortnight of courting you.”
Jimin nearly combusts. “I told you already—we are not—”
“Not yet. But I intend to have savage momentum.”
“Gods—You are—the most—”
“Just admit it, sir. You’d be disappointed if I were tame.”
It is, unfortunately, and disastrously, and tragically true. Jimin swallows. “You do not need to ‘prove’ anything to me.”
“I know,” Jungkook nods. “But I need to prove something to him, and to anyone who still thinks they get to decide your worth... And I want to be the kind of man who stands next to you and makes people think, of course.”
The crowd begins to move toward the courtyard, torches flaring as doors swing open to the autumn night, and Jimin turns to follow, still hand-in-hand and no walls left standing.
“...you already are, Jeon.”
Jungkook’s steps falter with that, but neither of them speak and maybe it’s enough that way, walking until the cool air greets them and hundreds gather to witness. Only then does Jungkook release his hand, take it again properly, and lift it to his lips.
“Wish me luck ?” he asks against his knuckles.
Jimin tries for dryness but the words come out warmer than intended. “You hardly need it.”
“Not for the duel,” Jungkook smiles. “For you.”
And with that and a bow, he steps back and turns toward the duellists’ circle where contestants gather to register their names.
Jimin finds the raised spectator seats on autopilot and sits, halfway through relearning how to breathe when Taehyung slinks into the chair beside him.
“Well, well, well,” he purrs, crossing his arms and leaning back with all the smugness of a cat witnessing divine chaos, “aren’t we suddenly living the romance serials ?”
“...Not now.”
“Oh especially now.” Taehyung grins. “First dance, hand-kiss, public vow of conquest—next thing I know he’ll build you a shrine in the potions corridor.”
“He is just—” Jimin gestures vaguely toward the sigiled arena. “—being theatrical.”
“Sweetheart. That boy is not performing—He’s orbiting and ready to commit religious heresy for the privilege of fixing your gloves.” His friend nudges him with one elegant shoulder. “And if you don’t believe me, look at your own damn face.”
“My face is fine.”
“Your face,” Taehyung counters, “is three heartbeats away from engraving his initials into a tree... He kisses your hand and our local ice shrine stops breathing, and I am somehow meant to believe this is pretend ?”
“I—I wasn’t—”
“Sure. Tell yourself whatever you need to keep from combusting.”
Jimin clicks his tongue and looks away, steadying himself on the warmth that has not yet faded from where Jungkook touched him.
A thousand eyes are on the duelling circle, but his are only on one fighter, and that realisation, that quiet and terrifying shift sinks into before the bracket even begins : he wants him to win.
Not for pride.
Not for spite.
For the sheer and dizzying fact that Jungkook said he would, because of him.
And Jimin wants that promise to become truth, just as he presses a hand to his stomach, where butterflies are flying wild and multiplying, a whole impossible ecosystem of them.
*ੈ‧₊˚⋆° ☾⛧☽° ⋆*ੈ✩‧₊˚
The first waves of duellists take the field.
Names are announced and sparks bloom : two students spar with all the chaos of youth, a visiting witch from Tokyo charms her opponent’s sleeves to knot together mid-hex, and the crowd howls with delight, but Jimin barely registers them.
There’s too much noise, too much glittering energy, and the weight of the night presses behind his ribs, until Jungkook steps into the arena.
Just like that, the world focuses again.
He doesn’t walk so much as prowl to the centre circle, shaking out his wrists and tilting his neck until it cracks, and for the briefest instant his eyes lift straight to Jimin.
The whistle sounds ; his opponent casts first.
A smart caster might start by gauging strength ; a reckless one might strike to dominate. This one charges straight in, elemental flare bright and powerful, but Jungkook doesn’t move.
He absorbs the spell, wand lifting as runes flare along his forearm like a sleeping constellation waking into wrath, and redirects it in a single breathtaking arc of light folding back on itself until the strike implodes.
A ripple of gasps sweeps through the crowd and Taehyung whistles low. “Oh hello. Someone’s been holding back.”
Holding back ? Jimin thinks dimly, because this isn’t mild competence or convenient talent. Jungkook isn’t just skilled ; he is coiled precision and the kind of quiet mastery that terrifies the unprepared.
The opponent tries again, sweeps runic air-blade angling for flank, and still Jungkook doesn’t bother dodging. He lifts two fingers, murmurs under his breath, and the spell shatters like brittle crystal.
“He’s toying with them. That’s... foreplay.”
“Tae—”
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
Jimin clamps his lips shut.
It doesn’t take long anyway. A few spells later, Jungkook lands one clean strike, elegant, non-lethal, and perfectly measured, and the impact blows his opponent backward ten paces, out of the circle.
Match over.
Courteous bow.
Applause detonates.
…
Before Jimin can even process it, a velvety weight lands into his lap.
“...Bell.”
The Marquis curls, smug and imperious, then bends his head back to stare at Jungkook’s retreating figure. “Well,” the familiar’s voice threads through his mind, “at long last you have chosen someone with a spine.”
“I have not—chosen—”
“I didn’t say you confessed to it. I said you chose him. Your soul’s faster than your mouth, darling. Always has been.”
Taehyung leans over with a grin. “Hello, Your Furry Highness,” he says, unable to hear the telepathy, but recognising attitude when he sees it. “Come to supervise ?”
Bellamy flicks one ear, the universal sign for you are tolerated, be grateful, then glances up at Jimin again. “Your heartbeat jumped two full octaves watching him fight. Shall I call a medic or a priest ?”
“You are profoundly unhelpful.”
“I am basking,” he replies, curling deeper into his lap. “Don’t ruin this for me.”
“Weren’t you the late one only minutes ago ?”
“I would’ve arrived earlier, but a gaggle of fourth-years were sobbing into the hedgerow about how ‘Professor Jeon is criminally gorgeous tonight, and I wished to witness their collapse.”
The announcer calls the next round, then the next, and then finally... Seojun.
He enters like a stormfront, polished and vicious and theatrically composed, exactly as he’s always been, and the crowd reacts with something between admiration and fear. His stance is sharp, his aura runs cold, and Bellamy’s fur bristles instantly.
A low hiss rattles in Jimin’s mind. “Parasite.”
Taehyung glances down. “Your cat just tried to hex him by glaring. I respect it.”
Jimin shrugs ; there’s no point pretending otherwise. Bellamy’s loathing is almost an institution, and the Marquis has been known to dislike every man Jimin ever brought home, but Seojun inspired something animal and immediate. He remembers, with a sour prickle behind his ribs, the night Bellamy had met him : the familiar had launched himself at the man’s cloak, shredding wool to ribbons, claws raking seams and leaving ragged and fuming holes in a suit that had cost a small estate. Bellamy came away with the taste for blood and scandal ; Seojun walked off, ice-smooth and furious, and the two never bothered with civility again.
The match begins.
Seojun doesn’t duel so much as attack a concept. There is no economy, no measured exchange, only show and maim. His spells are angled to humiliate and expose his opponent’s mistakes in flame and splintered air, each strike is calibrated to bruise pride before it lands on flesh, and just like that precision is replaced by cruelty, artistry by vanity, and still the crowd cheers.
Bellamy’s claws flex into Jimin’s robes. “He hasn’t changed. All venom, no virtue.”
Jimin can’t argue. He watches, stomach folding, as Seojun finishes the bout with a towering blast of gilded runes that detonates the air and throws the opponent off his feet and across the sand with more force than the match calls for. The victor bows, slow and smug, as if savagery were a courtesy, and the applause that follows feels obscene.
“I would prefer to bite him.”
“You tried...” Jimin mutters aloud. “And you’re not alone.”
Taehyung side-eyes him. “Cat translation or homicide fantasy ?”
“Both.”
On the field, Seojun casts a glance toward the spectators and searches the stands until his gaze finds Jimin, as if even now, years later and worlds apart, he still needs to make sure he is watching.
He is, but not with longing, and not with ache... not anymore, not when Bellamy hisses and Taehyung winces beside him, not when the silver light of the Moon rests against his kin, cool and clean and his again.
Jungkook is waiting his next bout.
Seojun is waiting to be admired.
And Jimin is no longer waiting to survive this.
He’s waiting to witness it.
*ੈ‧₊˚⋆° ☾⛧☽° ⋆*ੈ✩‧₊˚
Jimin tries to look straight ahead as they walk, but his focus keeps buckling inward, retracing and replaying the evening the way a hand presses against a bruise to test if it still hurts.
It does... and it also glows.
The corridors are near-empty now, save for a few drunken stragglers weaving through torchlight and a visiting scholar wrapped in a cloak that definitely isn’t theirs, lanternlight dimmed to an amber hush and footsteps echoing soft over polished stone. Somewhere much farther off, muffled music still thrums—the tail-end of whatever cursed ballad the revelers haven’t yet collapsed under.
He doesn’t know how it became this late, only that Jungkook left the arena half-laughing and half-adrift in adrenaline after the final duel and pressed the trophy, still warm with magic, into his hands without fanfare, just a murmur against his wrist : as promised.
It sits in his blood still, the memory of grit and spellfire and the collision of two men who refused to yield. Jungkook and Seojun circling each other like mirrored starfalls, power drawn taut as bowstring, the air between them trembling. Seojun striking bright and brutal, Jungkook striking precise and unshakeable, and that final exchange, that fatal arrogance when one reached too far and the other did not.
He saw it then, that flash in Jungkook’s face : not triumph but judgement, something older and colder and wiser than any twenty-something assistant has a right to wear, and Seojun was on the ground before he understood how.
Jimin’s lungs remembered how to move only when Jungkook bowed, and everything after that is haze, the cheering, the falling petals, someone clapping Jungkook on the back... Taehyung maybe saying something supremely inappropriate and Bellamy vanishing the moment the duel ended to attend some familiar rite.
All of it drowned under that spreading warmth Jimin thought had wintered over years ago, a warmth that apparently answers only to him.
Now it’s just them, him and Jungkook walking side by side in quiet that feels too heavy and too light. Their steps are unhurried and far too slow for two men allegedly heading to bed, but Jimin doesn’t push the pace, delays it even—the arrival, the goodbye, the return to solitude—and Jungkook, blessedly, does not mention it.
They reach their corridor at last, dimmer and narrower, where the glamour thins and the night feels suddenly achingly mortal. Their doors stand side by side, only a few paces apart, and what should be comforting feels almost unbearable.
Jungkook stops with him, turning and still wearing that impossible sunrise-soft smile.
“Did you... actually like the evening, sir ?”
Jimin fidgets with his sleeve, and his voice, when it comes, is barely above the hush of the walls. “...Maybe. Define like for me.”
Jungkook huffs a little laugh. “There it is.”
“There what is ?”
“The moment you stop pretending I would’ve done any of this for anyone else.”
Jimin drags a hand down his face. “You make it very hard to know what to do with you when you talk like this.”
“I know. But I also know you’ll figure it out.”
“I’m simply not... good at this.”
“Well, I’m excellent,” Jungkook’s tone drops to something quieter even. “So I’ll bridge the gap until you catch up... You should also be proud of yourself, sir. You were perfect tonight.”
“...Hardly.”
“You were yourself. Which I am rapidly discovering is my favourite state of perfection.”
Jimin mumbles something very articulate, sounding suspiciously like “oh shut up,” and Jungkook tilts his head.
“Pardon ?”
“Nothing... Just—I should sleep.”
“Of course. You had a long night. And All Hallows isn’t over.” He pauses, searching his face. “I’ll be right here through the rest of it, if you still want me to be.”
The thought should make him wilt, but it doesn’t—not if it’s like tonight—and Jimin gaze catches on the healing welt at his assistant’s throat. “...He hit you there.”
Jungkook reaches up and brushes it as if he had forgotten entirely. “Barely. It’s superficial, don’t—”
“It isn’t,” Jimin murmurs, stepping closer before he can think himself out of it and fingertips brushing the mark. “Hold still.”
A pulse of warm magic spills from his hand, all soft and golden and smelling of cedar and stars, and the skin seals beneath it.
Jungkook inhales at the contact, a tiny hiccup of breath, and colour rushes to his cheeks. “...Thank you.”
“Mmh... You should be more careful.”
“But you keep healing me... So I think I’ll survive.”
Jimin hesitates, something small and terrified and luminous in his chest. “Can I—” He stops. “Touch you. Properly, I mean.”
Jungkook goes very still. “Yes,” he answers immediately. “You can touch me whenever and however you want to.”
What an Idiot.
What a beautiful idiot.
Jimin nods once and rises on his toes, leans in, and presses a careful kiss to his cheek, barely there and barely safe, and yet, and yet, and yet, scorching anyway and lingering just long enough to breathe against the shell of his ear :
“Happy All Hallow, Jeon.”
He pulls back slowly, caught for a moment in the wide wreckage of those eyes, before he can’t bear the risk of staying another heartbeat. He retreats, steps back through the doorway, and closes it between them before courage or reason can abandon him entirely.
The door clicks shut.
On the other side, Jungkook’s breath stutters audibly in the hall, and inside, Jimin leans his head against the wood, robe still on and moonstone cool against the heat of his chest, and the laugh that escapes him is low, and helpless, and radiant.
He lets it echo through the quiet, lets it fade, and when the silence settles again, pushes off the door and stumbles toward the mirror. His reflection meets him there : pink-cheeked, dazed, eyes bright as spellfire.
He falls back onto the covers, trophy discarded beside him and a smile spreading unrepentant on his face he cannot wipe away...
...not after Jeon Jungkook looked at him like that.
*ੈ‧₊˚⋆° ☾⛧☽° ⋆*ੈ✩‧₊˚