Archive of Our Own

“Petrificus Totalus!”

You lower your wand and shoot your opponent—a weaselly little thing who bears a striking resemblance to a burnt-out candle wick—an apologetic smile as he crumples to the floor, stiff as a board.

“The Sorting Hat must have been mad, placing you in Ravenclaw,” he says, his eyes narrowing at you in suspicion as you make your way over. “It’s a wonder you weren’t sorted into Slytherin.”

You scrunch your nose in distaste. “A Slytherin? Don’t be silly.” His body goes limp as the counter-spell sinks into his chest. You grip his wrist, peeling him off the floor like a well-used band-aid. 

“Besides, your Protego was pathetic.”

Your partner shrugs, a sheepish grin lifting his sagging lips. “My Protego was perfectly fine, Y/N,” he protests, assuming his position a few feet opposite you. “I’ve been taking N.E.W.T-level Defense Against the Dark Arts for a year.”

The familiar feel of your red-oak wand seems to thrum in your hand. “Then pick up your game,” you call, deflecting his Expelliarmus with a casual flick of your wrist. “Your pronunciation makes me want to puke.”

“Steleus!” 

A particularly violent hex flies over your head, bouncing off the wall and leaving a smoking hole in the floor. You lower your shield charm for a split second, flinging a Relashio at Rotterby’s robe-clad leg. 

It tears through his defences with an odd popping sound, and you see his whole body flinch as it slams into his chest. He cries out in surprise as his wand flies across the room.

“Smooth, Rotterby!” someone crows. You roll your eyes, handing him his wand and tugging him to his feet. 

Rotterby recognises the murderous look in your eye and immediately dives for your wand. You don’t bother trying to dodge. He grips your elbow in one hand and uses the other to try and pry your fingers open to no avail.

“Dirty Gryffindor can’t even beat a sixth-year in a duel. Look at her, stomping him six feet into the ground—”

It’s a good thing the professor is absent from the room, because the Everte Statum charm that falls from your lips and barrels square into the boy’s chest is powerful enough to send him flying across the room.

You stride over and flourish your wand, pointing it directly between the boy’s eyebrows. He goes cross-eyed for a moment before directing his glare back to you. Defiant, as always.

“Park Jimin, give me one reason why I shouldn’t have you in bed vomiting slugs for the next week.”

Someone lets out a bark of laughter, followed by a flash of white light and a high-pitched shriek of surprise.

And then a shield—Rotterby’s—flares into life behind you, his bony back pressing into yours as a body-binding spell narrowly misses your head. Gathering your wits, you stagger back, spinning him around and brandishing your wand as you whirl around to face your assailant.

You.

Your first instinct is to throw up a shield, and it’s just so well that Professor McGonagall’s one-on-one lessons are working, because your half-cast Protego barely manages to block his first hex. 

His second spell—a simple Expelliarmus—is swallowed by your shield, giving you just enough time to catch your breath.

Anyone at Hogwarts could tell you that Gryffindor and Slytherin hated each other. They were like water and oil—famously so. It seemed like one of those unspoken rules, but people seemed to favour Gryffindor for various reasons; one of which was, simply, ‘Harry Potter’.

Or ‘Hermione Granger’.

Or ‘Ronald Weasley’, though that one was a bit harder to come across.

So it seemed fair that you—the infamous sixth-year Ravenclaw who’d bested none other than Rotterby, the highest-achieving Potions student in the school—could hate Slytherin for various reasons; one of which was, simply:

“Kim Taehyung.”

Nothing could ever amount to how much you hate Kim Taehyung. 

Everyone in the school—even the seventh-years—knows to evacuate the hallways if you ever chance across each other on your way to classes, or end up sitting even remotely close to one other in the Great Hall during meal times.

A wicked smirk hides in the corners of his lips, and the simple gesture is enough to have hatred bubbling up inside of you like hot tar.

Merlin, it’s all you can do to stop yourself from casting aside your wand, grabbing him by the collar of his uniform and slapping that smirk off his face.

“Rotterby,” you hiss, shoving him away like a particularly irritating fly. “Fetch Professor McGonagall for me.”

“What? Why?”

"I’ll treat you to butterbeer next time we’re in Hogsmeade.”

You’ve never seen someone so wispy move so fast. He’s out of the door and bolting down the hallway before the last syllable leaves your mouth.

Taehyung’s mouth twitches in amusement. “You got yourself a pet prefect?”

Your hand tightens on your wand, but your face remains impassive. “Leave Rotterby out of this.”

“Don’t get all Gryffindor on me."

“You’re just itching to get under my skin, aren’t you?”

There’s no reply. You look up just in time to catch the dusty sound of someone Apparating, and then Kim Taehyung is leaning over you, his face just inches from yours.

“And you’re just itching to get into Rotterby’s pants. It’s no secret, Y/N.”

He takes your silence as defeat and turns away, a victorious grin on his face.

But before Taehyung can take a single step forward, you catch onto his retreating sleeve, wrench him closer and jab your wand into his stomach.

Twisting it deeper until his smile starts looking a little pained, you lift yourself up onto the tips of your toes and whisper into his ear, “Like hell you’re saying something like that and getting away with it.”

Whispers erupt into life all around you. Realising how it must look—he’s so close that you can feel his warm breath settling in a pool in the dip of your collarbone—you bite down on your tongue, hard enough to distract you.

Taehyung’s voice sounds like it’s lined with sandpaper; rough, and distractingly low. You feel him smirk against your skin.

“What are you going to do, then?”

You smile, sickeningly sweet. More than one of the spectators is gripped by an irrational instinct to find cover, goosebumps springing up on their skin at the spectacle. 

“Oh, Taehyung, you’re going to be wishing you never asked.”

 Professor McGonagall is, needless to say, largely unimpressed.

After delivering a scathing lecture the likes of which you’ve never witnessed before, she’d stormed out of the Hospital Wing with a sweep of deep emerald robes, notifying Madame Pomfrey that ‘the girl is not to leave the room until the boy has awakened and been apologised to.’

Madame Pomfrey had left soon after, hastily handing you a bottle of healing potion and a note which read: 

Anteoculatia Remedy, to be used before the Winter Solstice. Do not inhale fumes (can cause hallucinations and temporary laxative effects).

Which leaves you sitting at Taehyung’s bedside, alone, while Rotterby and the other students prepare the hallways for Hallowe’en.

Rotterby had returned just as Taehyung had fallen victim to your perfectly mastered Anteoculatia hex. Personally, you thought he looked a lot less stuck up with a pair of antlers sprouting from his head, but McGonagall’s furious expression had warned you against expressing this sentiment.

A few girls from Ravenclaw had come by earlier that evening to check up on Taehyung, clutching Chocolate Frogs and scarves—as if keeping his neck warm would somehow help him un-grow his antlers. 

Madame Pomfrey had saved you the trouble of shooing them off, but you hadn’t failed to notice the envious sneers they’d sent your way.

You sigh, leaning forward to rest your elbows on the bedspread. The patient next to you—mercifully sanctioned off by a sheer white curtain—groans loudly, still smelling strongly of duck droppings and Gillyweed.

Stripping off your cloak, you peel the damp towel off his forehead and dip it into the bowl by your side. The liquid inside is murky, spirals of what look like miniature snowflakes whisking around beneath its surface—like a snowglobe trapped underwater. 

You leave the rag to soak and turn back to Taehyung’s bedridden form.

When you’re this close, it’s hard to ignore the reason why he has girls nipping at his heels like ravenous hyenas. His eyelashes are long, and dark, and thick, and you can see a lonely mole, hiding in the jut of his lower lip.

Lips. His lips are pretty too—small, pink, and shaped like a heart, though that’s only applicable when he’s not smirking at you.

He’s still a huge jerk, you remind yourself. A huge jerk with tanned skin and pretty fingers and soft-looking hair.

A strange sense of deja vu washes over you before a memory—indistinct, and buried beneath a mountain of similarly irrelevant thoughts—rises out of your sub-conscience. 

The moment you’d realised that Kim Taehyung was, yet again, in the same Potions class as you.

The moment you’d found the formula for the infamous Fungiface Potion scrawled in the back of your Magical Drafts and Potions book in narrow, fidgety chicken scratch.

The moment you’d thought, Merlin, who am I to pass up such an opportunity? As a wise man once said, once an idea is seeded, it must be sought through to fruition, as you poured the concoction into his goblet.

And the time you’d spent sitting in exactly the same place as you are now, trying not to burst into laughter at the vibrantly coloured mushrooms infesting every single inch of his face.

“Anapneo,” you mutter, tapping his Adam’s Apple with the tip of your wand, almost mispronouncing the incantation as a breath of laughter tickles your throat. His eyelashes flutter, then fall still. “Reparifors.”

The antlers are gone, as far as you can tell. Nodding in satisfaction, you stand and begin to gather your books into your arms, picking up your pace when you hear the shrill ringing of Professor Flitwick’s voice echoing through the hallway outside.

“Rotterby—Rotterby, your pants! Oh, dear, I’m thoroughly disappointed that you have gone and forgotten the anti-defecation charm—”

The door to the Hospital Wing is famously secure; fire-proof, charm-proof, and beast-proof. Hagrid-proof too, if the incident last year involving a baby dragon, a piece of rotting beef and second-degree burns was anything to go by.

Admittedly, it’s not Rotterby-proof, because the boy comes barrelling through the double doors with a shout, slamming them closed and sinking to the floor with his back to the door.

You unfreeze, forcing your mouth closed.

“Rotterby?”

The boy in question looks up, his face flushed pink with adrenaline. Your eyes drift from his face to his clothes. There’s what looks suspiciously like pixie excrement staining the usually-immaculate material of his robe, and the hem is drenched in a foul-smelling substance that washes over you like a tide of putridity. 

“Y/N,” he calls cheerfully, picking himself up off the floor and making his way over to you. “You wouldn’t believe what the twins did with their Weasleys’ Wildfire Whiz-bangs –”

You hold out your hand before he can get too close, gagging at the aroma of rotting eggs. “Portable Swamp?”

“You said it.”

Twirling your wand in your hand, you manage a tight smile. “You’d imagine they shoved it down your throat, with the way you’re smelling,” you mutter, shaking your head. “If you’re looking for Madame Pomfrey, she left for the Potions wing a few minutes ago—”

Rotterby grins. “What makes you think I came here for her?”

You pause, squinting. Surely you’d heard wrong. “Pardon?”

“Come with me.”

“Rotterby, I—”

“Y/N?”

As if from a distance, you hear something fall onto the blankets with a wet-sounding squelch.

All of a sudden, Taehyung is awake and there’s a hand wrapped around your wrist.

Your body tenses as you prepare yourself to jerk away, but then Taehyung’s other hand snakes around your waist and pulls you backwards onto the bed and into his lap. His mouth is too close to your ear, and his hands are feverishly hot. 

You feel his voice rumble in his chest as he whispers, “Please,” and the way he says it—as if the plea is riding on the remnant of a breath—is enough to make you pause.

Dragging your eyes away from where Taehyung’s hand is resting around your waist, you look up at Rotterby. 

He’s staring at you like you’ve gone crazy, a bright red blush turning his face the same colour as his Gryffindor robes. His finger comes up to point at Taehyung, who hasn’t made a move to remove you from his lap.

“You two—Y/N, are you—”

“We’re dating.”

We’re dating.

We’re... dating?

Your eyes widen, fastening onto his face with the speed and accuracy of a heat-seeking missile. Taehyung’s doesn’t notice; he’s too busy relishing the gobsmacked expression on Rotterby’s face. 

The wispy boy’s eyes flicker from you to Taehyung, to the door and then back. He seems incapable of forming a coherent sentence. “I—you mean—”

“We’re dating,” Taehyung repeats, pinching your waist before you can open your mouth to deny him. Your brain is working in overdrive, rendering you speechless as Taehyung continues, “and you’re interrupting us.”

Rotterby narrows his eyes at you, and something in your expression must have given something away. His face goes stony. 

“I don’t believe you. Blackmailing Y/N? Really? Look, Taehyung, I know your brain practically lives in your dick, but you can’t just do that to every single girl who might just catch your teenage hormonal fancies—”

You hear his sentence end in a choked gargle, and swivel around to glare at Taehyung.

Only to have Taehyung’s arms tighten around your waist, pulling you closer until you can see the flecks of dusty gold in his irises, and you only have half a moment to gather your thoughts and place your hands on his chest—to shove him away and reassure Rotterby that it was all just a joke, obviously—before he leans in.

And then Taehyung pushes his lips onto yours for all of three seconds before pulling back, his eyes dark and hooded.

What?

“Believe me now?”

And Rotterby drops into a dead faint.

 “Isn’t that Y/N? Isn’t she dating that Slytherin—”

“Rotterby saw them making out in the Hospital Wing—”

“A Ravenclaw and a Slytherin—”

“I told you they were going out! You should’ve seen the way he was looking at her—”

“I swear they almost kissed during Defence Against The Dark Arts! She was all up in his face and flirting—”

The rumours spread like wildfire.

Blocking out the voices proves ineffective, and you’re highly doubtful that Professor McGonagall would approve of you casting Silencio charms at anyone who dares utter your name and ‘Kim Taehyung’ in the same sentence.

Entering the Great Hall for dinner with swollen lips and no cloak on had been a mistake.

One of your friends hadn’t even possessed the decency to look surprised. She just took her plate, stepped over the table, pushed the occupant of the seat opposite you off the bench and stared, all the while forking potato after potato into her mouth.

The rest plagued you with questions, practically standing on their chairs in eagerness. More than one goblet of butterbeer fell victim to the chaos, drenching a poor bystander’s robes in lukewarm liquid.

Other than that, nobody seemed to notice your swollen lips or the flush in your cheeks or your odd taciturnity or Taehyung’s unusual absence.

Long story short—they did.

According to Madame Pomfrey, Taehyung had left the Hospital Wing shortly after, on the condition that he’d go straight back to his dorm to rest.

The news had arrived like a breath of fresh air; at least you could enjoy the festivities to the best of your ability without Taehyung fanning the flames with his big, stupid mouth.

Pulling the rim of the pointed witch’s hat over your eyes, you knock on the next dormitory door. A wicker basket hangs from the crook of your elbow, full to the brim with Chocolate Frogs and Sugar Hexes. A single jumbo-sized Skiving Snackbox rests on top, courtesy of an exceedingly drunk, exceedingly generous Hagrid.

The door swings open to reveal a frizzy-haired girl with as many freckles on her face as stars in the sky. A tattered Hufflepuff scarf hangs from her neck. She smiles cheerily. “It’s a glorious evening, isn’t it?”

You consider smiling back, and quickly decide against it. “Definitely could have gone better, in my case. Trick or treat?”

The girl’s smile falters as she bends her knees, peering beneath the rim of your costume.

Your eyes meet, and she straightens up with a little, “oh,” of realisation.

“You’re the Ravenclaw girl. Y/N?”

“That’s me,” you reply, smiling a bit at the girl’s taken-aback reaction. “I guess I’m no longer inclined to feel surprised when someone recognises me.”

She shakes her head. Her hair imitates her movements like a cloud of chocolate mousse. You watch it in half-rapture. “Oh, you’ve just had a bout of rotten luck. It happens, trust me. Here,” she says, digging through her robe and handing you a bottle with a surreptitious wink.

It’s labelled, simply: Amortentia.

You cock your head to the side in confusion. Her mouth quirks up in an impish grin. 

It’s the last thing you see before the door clicks shut and you’re left to wonder what on Earth this Amortentia stuff is.

It’s probably just some botched potion that’ll turn me into an otter or something, you think, slotting it into your basket without a second thought. You’re not eager to try it out. Maybe Rotterby would act as your guinea pig. Who knows what he’d do for a sip of butterbeer?

Your feet come to a halt in front of the next door. You eye it cautiously; there are some wicked looking incisions engraved in the wood, as if someone’s tried to clobber it down with a spiked mace. In the centre is a Slytherin badge, glued onto the wood with a pinch of unidentifiable goo.

You knock once, and so softly that it’s more of a brushing of knuckles against wood.

Silence.

You steel your wavering nerves and knock again.

Silence.

Another minute passes without an inkling of sound from the other side of the door, and you’re ready to outright bang your head against the wood when it suddenly swings open.

Taehyung is holding the door open in mild annoyance, his hair plastered to his head and a thin cotton shirt that’s turning translucent with sweat. His eyes, swollen with sleep, are hidden behind a pair of thick, round glasses.

Your eyes linger for a second too long before you remember why you’re here. The boy standing in front of you is the epitome of ill health, and despite yourself, you don’t want to keep him from recovering in bed any longer than you have to.

Not that you’d ever say that aloud.

“Y/N.”

“Oh,” you say, inwardly cringing at how stupid you sound. Your face feels warm. “Trick or—”

Taehyung snorts, and you wonder how it’s even possible to sound sarcastic when he’s practically drowning in his own perspiration. “Why do you look like you’ve seen a gho—never mind. So? What’s up?”

You hold out the basket purposefully, averting your gaze when you discover that you can’t meet his eyes without experiencing a non-lethal panic attack. 

“Trick or treat, Taehyung. Remember? Muggle Hallowe’en tradition?”

“Trick or what?”

“Treat.”

“You mean you’ll play pranks on me if I don’t give you candy?”

You’re not sure where this conversation is heading, but a headache has started to pound on the inside of your skull and it’s getting increasingly difficult to ignore. You blame it on Taehyung. 

“That’s the gist of it.” 

Everything is Taehyung’s fault if you think about it hard enough.

“Then... trick, please.”

Trick...?

“Oh,” you say, for the second time that evening.

Taehyung settles against the doorframe, looking down at you with half a smirk. He doesn’t seem bothered by how he may as well be walking around naked, with how well that shirt is faring against his sweat.

The silence feels heavy, squeezing the air out of your lungs. Your brain scrambles for something, anything, and settles, promptly, on the one thing you manage to remember.

Revenge.

“Move.”

“What?”

“I’m coming in.”

You invite yourself inside. Taehyung moves aside without a word, standing resolutely at the foot of his bed, expression inscrutable.

You let your feet guide you until you’re sitting on his bed, facing him. Your basket lands on the ground with a heavy thump as you cross your arms, nibbling at your lip thoughtfully. Taehyung waits, his light breathing the only source of sound in the room.

“Well?”

Revenge it is. But first... 

“Why did you lie?”

Taehyung blinks, and you could have sworn something in his face shifts for a split second before he defaults back to that infuriating half-smirk. You wonder whether it had been a trick of the light.

“Because I wanted to. Rotterby is a spoilt brat, and whoever rammed that stick up his ass earns my wholehearted thanks,” Taehyung admits. “Plus, I thought it’d make it impossible for you to ignore how in love he is.”

Restraint has always been your defining feature. The ability to keep a level head, McGonagall had reminded you, over and over, is an ability that is underestimated and undervalued by most. Level-headedness is a wizard’s greatest weapon, whether in an argument or in a duel to the death. 

McGonagall’s words had been proven right countless times over the years. Fights, you learnt, are to be won with brains, not brawn.

So why do you feel like this problem—namely, Kim Taehyung—can only be solved with a knuckle sandwich to his stupid, vindictive mouth?

The atmosphere turns silent—the kind of silence that reminds you of a snake stalking its prey; serpentine as it winds itself around your neck—as you engage in an intense stare-down, neither of you willing to drop their gaze.

But after what feels like a century, you’re tired of playing this game. You have better things to do with your time, and sharing your breathing space with Kim Taehyung has grown cumbersome.

So you get up, traverse the short distance between you and punch him.

Perhaps you had intended to do it with your fist, but somehow you end up doing it with your mouth.

You push yourself up onto the tips of your toes and smash your lips to his, just like he had just a few hours ago.

That’s all it is; just mouth against mouth, and then you draw back.

Taehyung’s lips are red and puffed, and he seems to be experiencing difficulty processing what you’ve done. All he seems to be capable of doing is standing there, staring at your mouth.

And for all of the encroaching five seconds, you think you’ve won this game.

Evidently, you’ve never been so wrong in your life.

Taehyung suddenly steps forward and shoves you in the shoulder—hard. You stumble backwards, your breath snagging in your throat as Taehyung crashes your lips together again.

And it’s all well and good that you came prepared, because as soon as you find yourself kissing him back, you find out that you’re anything but prepared.

He doesn’t give you the time of day to recover the meagre remains of your thoughts. His lips leave yours, instantly finding your neck, and your hands are flying to his shoulders and you’re suddenly unsure about whether you want to wrench him closer or jerk him away.

He answers that question for you, his arm snaking around your waist to pull you closer until all of him is being crushed flush against all of you. His hands are restless, resting for no longer than a second in a single place, and it’s driving you positively insane.

Your hand tightens on his shoulder when he brushes his lips against your collarbone, a fully unintentional half-gasp escaping your mouth.

You dislike the fact that you’re the only one who’s coming undone.

You dislike the fact that despite every single fibre in your body telling you no, you’re a Ravenclaw and he’s a Slytherin, you’re you and he’s Kim Taehyung, you can’t stop chasing after the poison of his lips.

You dislike the fact that Taehyung is winning at whatever twisted game you’re playing, but you’re a second too late in reaching that realisation because Taehyung seems unusually intent on backing you up onto his bed, his hand sweeping the line of your collarbone, inching upwards, languorously, tangling in your hair.

You’re forced to stand on your toes to keep up with him as his lips meet yours again and again, tinged with the flavour of sunlight and butterbeer and victory. Your hands dance their way across the bridge of his collarbone and up the sloping arch of his neck, finally coming to rest on the strong line of his jaw.

You’re positive that the heartbeat you’re feeling beneath your palm is his—doubling, tripling in pace, mirroring yours—and it’s enough to fill you with a sense of wild recklessness.

So before you can persuade yourself out of it, you catch his bottom lip between yours and bite.

For curiosity’s sake, nothing more.

A single expletive bubbles out of his mouth, joined by a low, strangled groan and a breathy, “Fuck, I only have so much self-restraint, Y/N,” that sounds nothing short of desperate.

And it takes a Herculean amount of willpower not to do it again, to tease him back, to finally have a chance in a losing battle. 

Wrong again.

A flash of teeth, a stab of pain, and then Taehyung is leaving the bruise on your neck to darken.

You feel his smirk curl against your lips like smoke.

How he even has the audacity to act smug is beyond your understanding.

“Fuck you.”

“Trust me, Y/N, I’m trying to—”

The discovery that nothing works better to shut Kim Taehyung up than kissing him has you pressing your foreheads together, your lips barely touching his—a ghost of contact—and it’s like a double-edged blade because you want to close the distance as much as he looks like he wants to return the favour.

But then Taehyung is pulling back, somewhat reluctantly, and the battle is over far too soon.

Somewhere along the way, the collar of his shirt has slipped off his shoulder, exposing the sharp angle of his unmarked collarbone. 

He bumps your foreheads together, a boxy smile illuminating his features when a little cross sound tumbles out of your mouth.

His voice is husky and raw—enough, apparently, to have shivers sprinting up and down your spine.

“I think I’m in love with you.”

 The potion turns Rotterby into a rat.

Taehyung doesn’t stop laughing until Rotterby transforms back, grabs your hand and threatens to kiss you in front of the whole school.

Rotterby spends the next few weeks in the Hospital Wing, vomiting slugs.

 One Year Later...

Taehyung knows you haven’t been sleeping recently.

Taehyung also knows that you won’t tell him unless he threatens you at wand-point.

Your side of the room—he shares a room with you now, much to Professor McGonagall’s horror—has been mostly silent for the past few weeks, except for the occasional rustling sound of a turning page, or the scratching of your quill on parchment.

Of course, he’s asked you to take breaks in between intensive studying sessions. And you have been, albeit grudgingly. However, he’s not sure whether a two-minute nap counts as a break, but you’re approaching breaking point and Taehyung doesn’t want to be within your immediate vicinity when your sanity snaps in half.

Something else he’s learned about you: you’re extremely volatile in situations where you’re placed under a lot of stress. Being overly affectionate when you’re stressed is like hugging a ticking bomb; there’s no telling when you’d explode and take everything around you to pieces.

So on the fourteenth night before N.E.W.T examinations, when Taehyung hears you pad over and crouch by his bed, your entire frame hunching forward with the last vestiges of exhaustion, he’s taken completely by surprise.

A flicker of bare, pale skin, a glimpse of tousled hair, and then you’re weaving your body into the loose circle of his arms, the warmth of your skin contagious.

It doesn’t help when he realises you’re wearing only a very large white shirt that he realises, belatedly, is his—which is, by the by, completely irrelevant—and a pair of pyjama shorts.

Taehyung screws his eyes shut and tries not to groan—a low, breathy sound—as you cuddle closer, carrying the usual soft scent of vanilla and jasmine.

Despite what the various books and dramas and movies had led him to believe, there hadn’t been a light-bulb, Eureka! moment when he realised that his feelings for you had transgressed that thin line between love and hate. 

No definitive ‘Before’ or ‘After’. 

He just knew that he wanted to share the exclusive right to kiss you wherever and whenever he damn pleased, and for the rest of the foreseeable future, preferably.

Taehyung is very much in love with you, and he likes knowing that you feel the same way, whether you're in the mood to show it or not.

For an autumn night, the air is strangely warm.

After a while, he feels you shimmy closer, seeking that elusive warmth that he reserves purely for moments like this. 

Your face is buried in his chest, and he can tell that you are still awake, because your hands are tracing patterns on the back of his hand, and you keep yawning into the cloth of his sweater.

Alright, he thinks to himself. This isn’t too bad. I can deal with this. Right?

Then he hears you make a tiny, barely audible sound of contentment, and Taehyung can’t help but pull you closer and bury his nose in your hair to hide the uncomfortable heat in his face.

He hates—and loves—how you still have this effect on him, even after twelve months of dating. He hates—and loves—how you’re still blissfully unaware of it. He hates—and loves—how your smiles, your dumb jokes, and your bumbled attempts to surpass him can make him grin like a complete and utter idiot.

Taehyung feels your entire body seize up in surprise, and then you whisper, “You’re awake?”

“Right,” Taehyung murmurs sarcastically. “Climb into my bed and expect me not to notice—”

He pauses mid-sentence as you sulk unhappily, mumbling something about how you’ve been doing it since ‘forever’ and how he shouldn’t be surprised if he wakes up tomorrow with a toad stuffed up his left nostril.

And for a single second in a teeming river of hours, it feels like everything in the world has just stopped.

Then the tip of your freezing cold nose presses against the feverishly warm skin above his collarbone and he has to stop daydreaming and start trying to cover the forthcoming gasp of blank shock with a very unconvincing fit of coughing. 

Stifling a curse, he cranes his neck and scowls at the top of your head.

“Y/N.”

“Kim Taehyung.”

Taehyung can tell you’re starting to fall asleep, because you’re starting to slur your words and it sounds kind of stupid—in an adorable way.

He can’t believe he just thought that.

“Feeling sentimental?”

You chew your lip.

“Tae?”

Merlin, she’s cute. The rare appearance of that nickname has Taehyung peppering butterfly kisses onto your hairline. You squirm a bit, but make no substantial effort to free yourself.

“Hmm?”

“Thanks.”

Thanks.

Who would have thought?

“You’re seriously...”

He watches your eyes flutter closed.

A new smell; subtle, but all the sweeter because of it. Juniper and lily-of-the-valley. That’s new. 

He decides that he likes it.

“What about me?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re wasting my time. I need to sleep and you’re being obnoxious.”

“That,” he murmurs into your hair, “is exactly my point. You, Y/N, happen to be the most insufferable girl I have ever had the displeasure to meet.”

“Likewise. Besides, that isn’t exactly breaking news.”

“Y/N, have I ever told you that you are exceedingly clingy?”

“Firstly, Tae, I’m not clingy. Secondly, you’re a lousy body-warmer.”

“You’re also pretty cute when you’re well-fed, you pig.”

He grunts when you bump your head against his chest, your cheeks flushed with sleep and embarrassment—an interesting mixture of both. You inhale lightly, your arms wrapping around his torso.

“Good night, Tae.”

And that is how Rotterby and his girlfriend – the fluffy, freckled Hufflepuff girl that you’d met last Hallowe’en – find you in the morning, with your head buried in Taehyung’s chest and the latter’s chin resting peacefully on top of the nest of ruffled black hair.

 “Go on! Oh, just look at them... they’re so cute...”

“I can’t—she’ll murder me. Did you see what happened yesterday when the twins teased her for wearing his scarf? She almost wiped them off the face of the Earth—”

“Oh, come on, Rotterby. You’re such a wimp.”

“I’ll do it if you kiss me.”

“You are my least favourite greaseball.”

“Within all reasonable doubt, I think I have the right to request—”

“There. Now do it, or I’ll hex you into next week.”

Pi-pi.

Ka-chick.