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Taehyung was very used to cuddly Jungkook.
His boyfriend lived with the conundrum of being both an incubus and asexual, which was sort of like being a fish who liked to take long walks in the park — virtually impossible in theory.
But Jungkook was not the only incubi or succubi out there who felt little to no sexual attraction to others. There were more ace concubi out there then most people would probably assume. It was comforting for Taehyung to know his boyfriend wasn’t alone in his struggles, and it was just as comforting for Jungkook, as well; Taehyung had pictures from the pride parade they attended together in Seoul, catching the look of pure joy painted across Jungkook’s face when they saw a group of incubi and succubi pass by, the lot of them decked out in outfits of black, grey, white, and purple, and even some with shades of green, as they danced and cheered together, a few waving to Jungkook as they went.
It was easier nowadays for concubi to thrive without sexual partners. Many opted to use hormonal patches that kept their pleasure reserves semi-sated, but it was well known that regular physical contact with friends or family, and even pets, could satisfy their pleasure drive if consistent enough, especially if the contact was skin-to-skin, like hand holding.
Jungkook, even when they were still just in the dating phase, was very touchy, hugging Taehyung randomly or slinging his arm around his shoulders as they talked. Once they became official, it upped a little bit, his boyfriend unashamedly curling into his side on benches, pouting for quick pecks, and tangling their hands together and playing with Taehyung’s fingers.
Taehyung quickly got used to the mass amount of physical contact. If anything, he’d started to crave it himself, savoring the warmth and affection of his boyfriend.
But he wasn’t the only one who craved affection.
“Kookie,” he called, poking his head out of the bathroom. “It’s time to cut your horns. I need give your tail tip a trim, too.”
Jungkook looked up, frowning. “It’s eight o’clock.”
Taehyung blinked. “Yes..?”
His boyfriend blinked back at him. “It’s Kitty Time.”
Ah. Right.
See, Taehyung worked at a salon a few blocks over, but Jungkook worked from home as an IT help desk associate. That left a significant span of time where Jungkook wasn’t getting any physical contact. So when Jungkook moved in with him six months ago, Taehyung thought it’d be a brilliant idea to adopt a pet for Jungkook to cuddle during the day when he wasn’t around.
Enter Chicken Nugget, the senior cat with the scruffiest ginger coat Taehyung had ever seen, no matter how much he groomed the Molly.
Jungkook and Chicken Nugget cuddled off and on all day, but somewhere along the line, Jungkook had implemented “Kitty Hour,” which involved, as the name suggested, an hour-long cuddle at eight a.m. while Jungkook drank his coffee.
It was perfect timing for the incubus; right before he started his shift on weekdays, and while Taehyung typically still slept in on the weekends.
Taehyung was up early today, though. Knocking out ‘cubi care first thing would open up the entire day for them to do anything they wanted — Taehyung was dying to put their stashed massage coupons to good use. Maybe go on a nice movie and dinner date, too…
But alas, it was Kitty Hour, and neither Jungkook nor Chicken Nugget ever gave up Kitty Hour easily.
Taehyung watched Chicken Nugget wriggle in Jungkook’s lap, her head knocking into his chest, Jungkook patiently patting at her flank and keeping his coffee out of her waving tail’s reach.
Yeah, Taehyung really wasn’t keen on having cat scratches and a pouting boyfriend. Compromise was needed.
“You don’t have to stop Kitty Hour,” he told him, smiling a little at the way Jungkook tried to give both he and Chicken Nugget the attention they were requesting. “We can do your ‘cubi care and Kitty Hour all at once.”
Jungkook didn’t look very impressed by the idea. “…You like to sit in my lap.”
“I do, yes.”
“Nugget is in my lap.”
Taehyung rolled his eyes. “Wait a minute.” Ducking back into the bathroom, he picked up the materials he’d already laid out — a towel, a rag, his spray bottle, and the pouch he’d lovingly dubbed the “Inc-y Pouch” much to Jungkook’s amusement — before heading back out, set on his mission.
Jungkook eyed him warily as he approached. He set his coffee on the bedside table and lifted Chicken Nugget into his arms. “…Don’t crush her. She’s fragile.”
Taehyung raised a brow. “She jumped off the fridge yesterday and landed just fine. Her age hasn’t set in that much.”
"Fragile, Tae.”
Rolling his eyes, Taehyung set his collection down on the bed and straddled his boyfriend’s legs, Jungkook holding Chicken Nugget’s tail to keep it from getting squished. He set her down so she lay between them. The feline just stared at him, then tilted her head back to look at Taehyung and meowed. He gave her a quick ear scratch for her cooperation.
“Alright,” he chirped, clapping his hands and dragging his pouch closer. Nugget’s ear twitched. “Horn time. Have you noticed any tenderness or cracks?”
“Nope.”
Taehyung hummed, riffling through his tools. He drew out his two pairs of safety glasses, perching one pair on Jungkook’s nose and sliding the other on himself before uncapping his white paint marker.
“I still think these glasses are overkill, you know,” Jungkook murmured, tilting his head slightly to give him easier access.
Taehyung ignored him for a moment, eyeing and marking out the lines where he planned to cut, placed far above where the horn cores would lie inside. He capped the marker, tapping Jungkook on the nose with it before putting it away. “You say that, but you’d be complaining if you got horn dust in your eyes.” He looked down, frowning at Chicken Nugget. “…I don’t have eye protection for you, though.”
Jungkook lightly pressed against the back of her head until her face was smooshed into his shirt. She sneezed. “Problem solved.”
Taehyung shrugged. Reaching into the pouch, he pulled out his wire saw and his pack of finger guards. He put each of the guards on and unraveled the saw, slipping his fingers through the designated loops.
Once concubi hit eighteen and their second puberty set in, their horns grew fast ; the average was 3 inches of growth per month, six times the rate that an average person’s hair — also made up of keratin — grew in a month. And with those horns growing into sharp points and sometimes growing towards one another, keeping them trimmed and rounded was an absolute necessity. (Both for health and appearance reasons, but also for safety reasons. Taehyung wasn’t a fan of the idea of getting stabbed while cuddling, thanks.)
Trimming concubi horns wasn’t the easiest of processes, but thankfully, Jungkook’s horns were far from the worst they could be working with. They were relatively smooth instead of notched or banded, and he only had one spiral in his each of his horns structures, and they laid close to the base, meaning Taehyung didn’t have to worry too much botching difficult angles when cutting.
“Okay, you know the drill. Keep your head as straight as you can, but keep it pressed back against the headboard,” he instructed, leaning forward to slip the wire around to the backside of Jungkook’s horn and checking that it was placed along the line he’d marked prior.
After Jungkook made an agreeing noise, he started to pull the saw on one side and then the other, the braided wire sliding back and forth rapidly against the horn, cutting gradually into the sheath. It took a minute or so (Taehyung always went slow to make sure he was keeping the cut straight), but the tip finally came off with a quiet snapping sound, tumbling to the bed beside them. Chicken Nugget made a curious sound.
“No pain?” he asked, moving the wire over to Jungkook’s other horn.
His boyfriend just patted him on the thigh. “Nope. You’ve gotten good at keeping away from the core.”
“I should hope so,” Taehyung muttered, starting to cut into the left horn. “I’ve done this at least a dozen times by now. If you still bled every time, I’d be concerned. And annoyed with myself. Who knew your horns would bleed so much?"
Jungkook snorted. “Of course they would. It’s like the quick in Chicken Nugget’s claws, there’s blood vessels inside there. That’s why cows bleed a ton when you completely dehorn them. The horn is part of the skull, so if you completely remove the horn, you’ve got a big hole in their head that you’ve got to address. You really didn’t learn this in school?”
“Baby, I didn’t know shit about concubi when I met you. I didn’t even know there truly was a difference between antlers and horns until you told me. Your population is so small compared to humans that schools could probably care less to educate us on these kinds of things.”
The tip of Jungkook’s left horn fell away, bouncing against Chicken Nugget’s back. The Molly squirmed with a disgruntled mew. Taehyung dropped the wire saw into his lap, clenching and unclenching his fists to relax them after holding them in such a tight position.
Jungkook took the saw and set it to the side. He didn’t sound impressed. “One day they’ll have to, but for the time being, I’m more than happy to be the one to teach you all of these things.”
Taehyung hummed. “Good, because I’ll need to know if I want to be with you for the rest of my life.” He reached up, running his thumb over the flat top of Jungkook’s trimmed horn. “I want to be able to always take care of you like you do for me.”
Jungkook’s answering smile was shy, his gaze falling downwards. Chicken Nugget wiggled, seeking attention that he readily gave her. “…I’d like that.”
Taehyung smiled at the light ruddy flush over his cheeks and ears. “Then you’d better get me a ring one day, pretty boy,” he teased, reaching into his pouch and pulling out his horn files.
Jungkook’s pointed ears perked a little, something Taehyung had found both fascinating and impossibly endearing when they’d first met. “We wear cuffs on our horns when we marry. Some ‘cubi get replicas as their partners rings, if you’d like that.”
He brought the coarser file up to Jungkook’s horn and buffed at the hard edge of the cut top. “I don’t think I’d mind whatever the ring looks like, baby. I’d be happy even if you gave me an onion ring.” He smiled at Jungkook’s quiet giggle, Chicken Nugget’s purrs echoing him. “I didn’t know concubi used cuffs, though.”
“Mhm. Your eyes are immediately drawn to a ‘cubi’s horns, right? So for our ancestors both far and recent, it was thought that the bigger the horns a concubus had, the more intimidating they were, and thus the more powerful or desirable they were. Adorning horns with jewelry showed wealth, sometimes as a way of making up for what some concubi lacked in size — yes, I’m fully aware how dirty this sounds, please stop snickering and bare with me.”
Taehyung paused in wiping down his horn with the rag he’d sprayed wet, smiling apologetically. “Sorry, baby.”
Jungkook took his hand off of Chicken Nugget’s head for one moment to squeeze his hip. The feline loudly voiced her complaint. “You’re fine. Anyways, wearing jewelry on the horns was already normal, so when marriage practices were becoming a thing, many started to wear wide cuffs at the base of the horns, typically made with flashy materials like gold or studded with shiny gemstones. Not only did it just draw more attention to them, but it also symbolized being claimed and tied to your partner as though chained together with cuffs. Some even cuff themselves together for a duration of the wedding ceremony to go along with that concept.”
“Are they only a symbol for marriage?” Taehyung asked curiously, switching the his less coarse file. “I’ve seen you wear, like, cuff bracelets and earrings.”
“No, they have other meanings. I mean, the cuff style of jewelry originally became popular amongst concubi mostly out of convenience and practicality; cuffs are easier to maneuver on and off of our horns and tails, and that aesthetic spread to things like our necklaces, bracelets, conch piercings and such.
“But it kept that specific shape because of culture. The first concubi were polycerates. One set of horns was the the ones we have now that tend to grow upwards,” he tipped his head down as if to gesture, “and then the others that grew backwards and then forwards like rams.”
Taehyung made a noise of understanding. “Like a Jacob sheep?”
“Almost exactly like that. Over time, those horns were lost for one reason or another, but the circular styles of our jewelry reflect the wide spirals of the second set of horns and what they stand for.”
Taehyung tilted his head. “And that is..?”
“Purity.”
Taehyung stared at him blankly. “…Funny.”
Jungkook laughed. “No, I’m serious. Concubi define purity differently than humans do. Sex is a huge part of the lives of the vast majority of concubi, so it’s taken extremely seriously, and because of that, our purity is defined by our intentions in our sexual relationships. An incubus or succubus who brings harm to their partner or partners without consent, whether it be by rape or by forcing involuntary pregnancies, are labeled as impure and thrust out of concubi social circles.”
“So it’s super serious,” Taehyung murmured thoughtfully, going back to filing. “Would concubi consider it a higher crime than murder, then?”
Jungkook made a sound of affirmation. “We do. It probably sounds odd from a human perspective, but to us, if you’re attacked and killed, at least your pain ends. You’re relieved of it. But if you’re sexually assaulted or abused, that trauma sticks with you. On top of all the smaller things that may be triggering from that point on, like smells, you have the issue of possibly being triggered by sex or even simple intimacies that you would have been fine with before. And when you’re a concubi who lives off pleasure, something most concubi gain through sex, that means your health is potentially put at risk.”
“So the concubi version of purity culture really boils down to keeping everyone healthy.”
“Exactly. If we let everyone run around practicing unsafe sex, you’d have a shit ton of trauma and sickness, which would probably breed infighting. Our communities would crumple. That’s why the vigilantes prosecute offenders harshly.”
Taehyung took in a breath and sighed. His hands hurt. “This conversation has gotten a bit wild, but yes, okay, tell me about the vigilantes.”
Jungkook made a soft, sympathetic but amused noise in the back of his throat, almost like a coo. “This is about the wildest tradition our culture has, I promise. Vigilante concubi are basically ‘cubi who have been secretly appointed by our matriarch. Offenders are targeted by those vigilantes and their horns get broken off near the base — which obviously is bloody and not fun and very illegal, but it brands them for what they’ve done and tells other concubi that they need to keep an eye on them so they can’t do it again.”
Taehyung frowned, wiping his files off with his rag. “Understandable, I guess. I mean, you’re right, that’s definitely assault, but… they did worse, and if it’s tradition, too, what can you do about it? It’s not like they’re killing them.”
Jungkook nodded. “It’s not great by any means. The vigilantes don’t even want to; they can’t tell their families or friends they’ve been appointed, because if the law ever does become a problem and word somehow spreads, they risk being arrested. But they do it because it sends the message needed to the rest of the community, that behavior like that won’t be tolerated. And it’s better than what it could be — in old legends, offenders were impaled through the eyes by their own bottom horns.”
Taehyung cringed at the mental image as he put the files away. “That’s… morbid.”
“It is,” his boyfriend agreed. “Some people assume that we concubi all use sex as a manipulation tactic or as a power trip. They don’t realize how much weight it holds for us, and how quickly we will drop a community member if they break their purity, even if it hurts to cut ties with someone we’re close to. That isn’t something that started recently. It’s gone back centuries.”
Taehyung hummed as he pulled his nail clippers and glass file out from his pouch, acknowledging his words. He took Jungkook’s right hand in his own, tracing the series of thin black lines tattooed along each of his middle knuckles like rings or tally marks. “While you’re teaching me things… You never did explain to me what these are.”
Jungkook followed his eyes, making a little ah sound. “They’re my milestone tattoos. The tradition is a little rarer nowadays, but my family still follows it.” He wiggled his fingers. “The idea is that every time you reach a milestone as a concubi, you get a new line tattooed to represent it. We start tattooing them at sixteen.”
Careful to let Taehyung continue cutting his nails, he pointed with his other hand. “Our first line is for our horns reaching a height of six inches. It typically happens around age sixteen, so it basically marks a young ‘cubi progressing towards their maturity.
“The second line marks our second puberty, when our pleasure drive sets in at eighteen. My third line I’m missing.” He tapped the empty space between the lines. “It‘s to mark your first, uh… first intercourse? Back in the day, families would arrange for two consenting coming-of-age concubi to do the thing together, but that’s not really accepted anymore because it feels kind of creepy, consenting or not, so now it can be achieved at any time.”
Taehyung set the clippers down on a now-sleeping Chicken Nugget’s back, picking up the nail file. “You aren’t, like, looked down on for missing a mark, right?”
Jungkook smiled. “No. Like I said, a lot of concubi don’t even follow this tradition anymore, and even for those who do, it’s pretty normal for someone to be missing a mark. Missing the third mark in particular might be uncommon, but it’s not really a big deal. I could get it if I wanted to, anyways. I just chose not to — it didn’t feel right to. I’ve seen a few other asexual ‘cubi on social media replace their third mark with a line or heart that’s purple like our flag, so I’ve been considering doing that, but…” He shrugged. “There’s no urgency.”
Taehyung squeezed one of his hands, and Jungkook happily squeezed back.
“The fourth line,” he continued, “is our ‘fast.’ Right before we turn nineteen, we have to spend an entire week with an unfulfilled pleasure reserve. No sexual activity of any sort, not even simple pleasures like hugs or holding hands. It’s a sucky experience, but it’s to teach us to recognize what an empty pleasure reserve feels like, and to test how our individual bodies respond to that in a safe environment. I was lightheaded by the fourth day of my own fast, and I almost fell down the stairs on day six because I got so dizzy. I think my dad about had a heart attack.” He snorted.
Taehyung could easily imagine that. He’d never met Jungkook’s father, but from what he’d heard, the man was faint-hearted. Horror movies were apparently banned in the Jeon household.
“For our fifth line, we earn the right to it on the day of our nineteenth birthday. We have a celebration with family and friends that doubles as a coming of age ceremony. Everyone gets up at dawn, and the clan matriarch will hold this small ceremony where you prick your finger with a needle and press the blood against a piece of horn that your family will have saved from one of your first horn trimmings. It’s, like, filed down to be about the size and shape of a small puck and has your name engraved or written on it. Then you place it into a wooden box containing all your current clan members’ own horn cuts. When I was younger and told about it, I thought it sounded really cult-y, but when it actually happened, it was… intimate, in a weird way. It’s kinda comforting, knowing my blood, a part of me sits with my parents’ and brother’s and all of our family friends’. Maybe it’s a just an instinctual thing.”
Jungkook trailed off his (informative) rambling, looking down at his hands again, and Taehyung couldn’t help the way his lips twitched at the startled expression on his boyfriend’s face when he realized Taehyung was done filing and had started painting his nails, black polish glinting. “…Oh.”
“Mm. I didn’t wanna disrupt you. You’re cute when you get all explain-y.” He slid the slick brush over Jungkook’s pinky, following the pointed but rounded nail shape that Jungkook preferred. “That’s four out of five tattoos that you have. Are there any more you can get? Or is reaching five the end.”
Jungkook tilted his hand to keep the dark polish from ending up on Chicken Nugget’s orange coat. “There’s three more main ones you can earn — getting married, having your first child, and actively participating in a ceremony or ritual like the wedding or burial of another clan member. I know some ‘cubi create their own goals to be marked, so their thumbs are tattooed, too, though those are usually marked by a little circle rather than a band. My parents got marks together for purchasing their first house.”
“You could do that once we’re settled in Busan,” Taehyung mused as he screwed the nail polish closed.
Jungkook stopped checking his nails for stray paint, raising his gaze to frown at him. “Huh? You have an actual, like, go-outside job here, though. And your family.”
“And your family is in Busan,” Taehyung threw back lightheartedly. He unfolded the towel, laying it over the cat in their laps and digging out his scissors and comb. Chicken Nugget’s ear twitched in her sleep. “Plus your entire clan. I know meeting me kind of threw a wrench in your plans, but I’m quite sure I remember you saying living in Daegu was a temporary thing, babe.”
“That was before I met you. I’m more than happy to stay in Daegu.”
“I know you are. But I also know you miss being around your clan all of the time. Gimme your tail.”
Jungkook’s tail plopped into his waiting hands. “I do, but don’t drop everything you have here just so I can go home.”
Taehyung took the comb in hand, quick and easily brushing through the tuft of hair that tipped his boyfriend’s tail. “I wouldn’t be dropping everything, silly. Sure, it might take a little while to get to work again, but I have decent credentials, I’m sure I can find a salon to hire me. Knowing you, you’d probably hassle your poor family into paying me to cut their hair for the time being.” Taehyung poked his cheek teasingly as he switched to his scissors.
Jungkook didn’t look convinced. “ Your family would still be here, though.”
“Sort of. My grandparents have all passed, and my siblings are both planning on moving out and away soon. I love my parents, but we just aren’t close.” Taehyung shrugged. “Besides, family is important to me, but not in the same way it is for you. You grew up in a neighborhood that had all your relatives and close family-friends in it. You get homesick at the drop of a hat. I’m used to my family being a bit more spread out. I mean, I grew up living with my grandparents instead of my mom and dad, you know? I spent four years in Seoul pretty much on my own, and I probably would have stayed there if my grandfather hadn’t gotten sick. Moving to Busan really wouldn’t be that much different compared to Seoul.”
“I know that. I just…” Jungkook squirmed uncomfortably. Taehyung paused in his snipping to avoid accidentally catching the skin of his twitching tail. “Can I be honest?”
Taehyung frowned, noticing the tightness in his shoulders. “Of course you can, Jungkook,” he soothed. “Did I overstep?”
“No! Well, kind of? But we’re still getting used to living together and being around each other all the time. You’re learning just like I am.” Jungkook rubbed his hands together nervously. Taehyung’s eyes flicked down, watching for smeared nail polish, before flicking back up to his face.
His boyfriend cleared his throat. “Okay. Yes, I originally intended to go back to Busan before we met, and yes, I would love to move back and bring you with me. But you sound like you’ve already made up your mind without even talking to me about it.”
“And that makes you feel anxious?” Taehyung guessed.
Jungkook nodded. He looked almost ashamed. “Sorry.”
Taehyung tickled him under the chin like he would Chicken Nugget, trying to get him to raise his head. “Hey, you don’t ever have to apologize for letting me know you don’t like something. If you’re allowed to tell me you don’t like hands in your pants,” Jungkook snorted, “then you’re more than allowed to tell me any other grievance you have.”
He cupped his cheeks, rubbing his thumbs over the skin like an apology. “You’re right. I’ve already thought about it a lot and planned, but I haven’t talked to you about it much, have I?” Jungkook shook his head. “My brain moves so fast sometimes, I forget that what’s old news for me may be new information for you.”
“I don’t mind it usually,” Jungkook murmured. “I like the spontaneous dates that you forget to tell me you planned, and coming home to a random cat on the couch wasn’t that bad. It’s just with the really important stuff that affects both of us together that it makes me feel uneasy.”
Taehyung smiled guiltily. “Chicken Nugget was arguably a very important thing. You could have been allergic to cats. Or hated them.”
“True. You lucked out,” he teased.
“No more bringing home pets without at least calling you first. And I’ll work on talking to you about these things instead of just assuming you know or agree.” Taehyung started to go back to carefully cutting Jungkook’s tail hair, but stopped, shaking his head and laughing a little to himself. “How silly are we?” he mused. “Talking about getting married and then having a misunderstanding in the same sitting.”
“I don’t think it’s silly,” Jungkook disagreed softly. “Relationships aren’t simple. We’re going to have little and big bumps in the road. I think we’re doing pretty well for moving so quick.”
Taehyung tilted his head, wiping hair from the scissor blades. “Are we really moving that fast?”
“We’ve known each other for only a little over a year, babe.”
He blinked. Was that true? They’d met at the salon in early March, made it official in late May, moved in together in January… and it was July. “Oh. Damn.” Blinked again. “I already want to marry you, what the fuck?”
Jungkook giggled, leaning forward and nuzzling into the crook of Taehyung’s neck. Probably hiding his blush, he thought. “We have all the time in the world for that,” Jungkook mumbled against his skin. “But good, because I really love you.”
Taehyung sighed contentedly, setting his scissors down. He wrapped one arm around Jungkook’s shoulder and reached the other hand up, scratching at the scalp behind his horn and listening to the near purr he got in response. “I love you, too.”
Chicken Nugget suddenly meowed loudly, the towel on top of her shifting and spilling dark hair as she wiggled, demanding attention.
Taehyung laughed, Jungkook’s own amused huff warm against his neck. “Yes, I love you, too, Nugget. The loves of my life.”