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Some people get swept off their feet by a breeze of rose petals and a whispered confession under a Tuscan moon. I got accosted by a boy who looked like he’d been styled by a Tim Burton sketch artist and raised by a pack of very blunt vampires.
It was twelve years ago. I, Kim Seokjin—heir to a fortune that smells faintly of old silk and high-interest bonds—was attending a college party that I was far too well-dressed for. I was wearing a cashmere blend; he was wearing enough silver chains to act as a lightning rod.
Across the crowded room, I felt it. A gaze so intense I genuinely checked my pulse to see if I was about to be assassinated. There he was: Jeon Jungkook. A petite, raven-haired emo boy with an unblinking stare that screamed "I have seen the heat death of the universe and it was mid."
He didn't walk over. He stomped. It was a purposeful, heavy-booted march that parted the sea of frat boys like a tiny, pierced Moses. He stopped three inches from my personal space, looked up at me with eyes that were ninety percent pupil, and shouted over the EDM:
"YOU HAVE VERY BIG SHOULDERS. COME, DRINK SOJU WITH ME. NOW."
It wasn't a request. It was a summons from a dark deity.
I was a Seokjin of the Seoul Kims. We deal in subtleties. We deal in polite nods and three-course dinners. But Jungkook was from Busan—a place I eventually learned was populated entirely by free-thinking hippies who regarded "social cues" as a capitalist myth. His parents probably spent their weekends hugging trees and making their own surfboards out of driftwood.
So, naturally, I followed him.
He was exactly that blunt and awkward the entire night. He didn't ask what my major was; he asked if I thought ghosts could feel cold. He didn't flirt; he stared at my mouth like he was trying to calculate how many grapes I could fit in it at once.
We ended up at my place. I wasn't sure if I was taking him home or if I was being kidnapped by a very small, very determined shadow. Once the door closed, the awkwardness didn't vanish—it just transformed into a high-velocity physical collision. It turns out that when you spend twenty years being told your shoulders are your best feature, you eventually meet someone who treats them like a climbing wall.
He was all teeth, silver rings, and surprisingly solid muscle, moving with a frenetic energy that suggested he didn't quite understand the concept of "pacing." It was intense. It was chaotic. It was like being tackled by a very handsome, very muscular inkblot test. I spent a significant portion of the night wondering if he was trying to love me or consume my soul through my collarbones.
He rode me with a desperate, singular focus, moving as though he were trying to outrun the fastest Olympic sprinters, his breath coming in jagged, rhythmic gasps against my neck. Between his frantic movements, he paused only to worship my shoulders, his hands tracing the broad line of them with a reverence usually reserved for religious icons. He seemed possessed by a literal-minded greed, unable to get enough of my stamina or the thickness of me, taking everything I gave him with an insatiable hunger that lasted well into the pre-dawn hours. In the end, my generational-wealth-approved shoulders did most of the heavy lifting, pinning the emo boy to the mattress until he finally stopped vibrating and settled for a series of small, territorial bites that marked me as his permanent residence.
The next morning, I woke up expecting him to have vanished back into whatever dark, damp corner of the campus he called home. I expected a lingering scent of clove cigarettes and a sense of regret. Instead, I followed the smell of carbonized bread into my kitchen.
There he was, wearing nothing but my most expensive silk robe and three pounds of silver jewelry, staring at a single piece of burnt toast with the concentration of a bomb technician. He looked up, saw me, and didn't say "Good morning" or "That was nice." He just pointed at the sofa and said, "That’s a good sofa. I’m going to sit on it now."
He’s been there for twelve years. I’m starting to think he might never leave.
The Proposal and The Shire
Eight years into his "occupation" of my sofa, I decided to make it official. I proposed in the most Seokjin way possible: at a private gallery I’d rented out, surrounded by art that cost more than a small island.
Jungkook looked at the ring—a custom band of black gold and raw diamonds—and then at me.
"Is this a quest item?" he asked, his voice hushed.
"It's an engagement ring, JK. Will you marry me?"
"I accept the secondary objective," he whispered, then immediately hissed at the waiter who tried to offer us champagne.
Our wedding was a blur of silk and black lace, but the honeymoon was where the true chaos lived. Jungkook is obsessed with The Lord of the Rings. He treats the books like holy scripture and the movies like a long-lost family documentary. Naturally, he demanded we go to New Zealand. Not for the five-star resorts in Queenstown, but to live in a literal hole in the ground.
We spent two weeks in a reconstructed Hobbit-hole in a forest. I, Kim Seokjin, heir to millions, spent fourteen days ducking my head so I wouldn't get a concussion from a circular doorframe. Jungkook was in heaven. He wore a gray cloak the entire time, refused to wear shoes because "Bilbo didn't," and spent his evenings vaping 'Pipe-weed' flavored juice while staring at the stars.
"Hyung," he said, sitting on a mossy rock one night. "I would have followed you into the fires of Mordor. But this hole is also good. It has zero direct sunlight."
"I'm glad you're happy, Frodo. Can we please go back to a hotel with a shower tomorrow?"
"Not yet," he muttered, clutching a wooden staff he’d found. "I haven't seen any Orcs."
The Surrogacy Journey: A Study in Miniatures
When we decided to have children, the process was as high-stakes as everything else in our lives. Our surrogacy journey was a two-year saga of legal paperwork, medical appointments, and Jungkook trying to convince the doctor that we should play heavy metal to the embryos so they would be "born with a high resistance to fear."
We ended up with two children: Maya and Minho.
Maya, now seven, is a terrifyingly accurate duplicate of her father. She has his big, doe eyes, his ink-black hair, and a complete lack of social anxiety. She doesn't cry when she falls; she just stares at the ground with a serial-killer intensity until the ground apologizes. She only wears black, she prefers to sleep in a "fort" made of blankets under her bed, and she has already mastered the low-level hiss.
"Maya, say hi to the neighbor," I’ll say.
Maya just narrows her eyes and makes a sound like a punctured tire.
"She likes him," Jungkook will explain from the shadows of his hoodie. "It’s a friendly hiss. High frequency."
Minho, our five-year-old, is my saving grace. He is a "Mini-Jin." He has my arched eyebrows, my penchant for puns, and a deep appreciation for the finer things in life—namely, organic apple juice served in a crystal cup. He spends most of his time trying to fix his father’s "disheveled" appearance.
"Appa," Minho told Jungkook yesterday, poking at his ripped jeans. "There is a hole. I will get the tailor."
"It's fashion, Minho," Jungkook grunted.
"It is a tragedy," Minho replied with a heavy sigh, sounding exactly like my mother.
The Fifth Member: Bam
Then there is Bam. We adopted the Doberman shortly after Maya was born, mostly because Jungkook felt the house needed a "guardian of the gate."
Bam is a hundred pounds of muscle and zero brain cells. He is essentially Jungkook in canine form. He doesn't bark at intruders; he just stands in the hallway and stares at them with unblinking, dilated pupils until they feel a deep, existential dread and leave on their own accord.
Bam refuses to sleep in a dog bed. He must sleep across our feet, acting as a living, breathing weighted blanket. He is deeply confused by the existence of glass doors, frequently walking into them with a loud thunk and then looking around as if the door was the one at fault.
"He’s a shadow-hound," Jungkook says, scratching Bam behind his floppy ears. "He is attuned to the spirit world. He can see the ghosts of my ancestors."
"He's staring at a moth, Jungkook."
"A ghost moth," he insisted.
The Gothic Domesticity
Fast forward to the present. We are twenty years into this "experiment," and the data is inconclusive.
I am forty, Jungkook is thirty-seven, and we have somehow acquired a life. We have two children who have inherited my face and his complete lack of a volume knob. We have a Doberman who thinks he's a ghost-hunter.
Jungkook remains a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a double-XL black hoodie. He lives off three things: vapes, black clothing, and me. Mostly me. His need for my physical presence borders on the biological, like a deep-sea creature that requires a specific thermal vent to survive. If I am in a room, he is within three feet of me. If I move to the kitchen, I hear the thump-thump-thump of his oversized boots following.
I have never seen him in direct sunlight. If the sun hits him, he doesn't sparkle like a Cullen; he just hisses and retreats further into his "Gaming Cave," a room that smells like blue razz ice and expensive leather. I once tried to open the curtains while he was eating cereal. He looked at me with such betrayed, dilated eyes that I felt like I’d just tried to salt a slug.
"Hyung," he croaked, shielding his pale face with a tattooed hand. "The sky-fire. It burns. Why would you unleash the orb's wrath upon me?"
"It’s 10:00 AM, Jungkook. The kids are at soccer practice. You need Vitamin D."
"I have you," he muttered, returning to his bowl of pitch-black cocoa puffs. "You are my Vitamin D. You are my everything. Close the portal to the hell-dimension, or I shall perish."
"It's a window, JK. A window."
"A portal of suffering," he corrected, his voice muffled by his hoodie. "Tell the offspring I love them from the shadows. Tell them their father was a brave man who died in the Great Living Room Illumination of 2024."
The Fae Theory
My friends think he’s charming. My mother, surprisingly, loves him, mostly because he treats her like a high-level NPC who gives out legendary loot. He once sat through a four-hour tea ceremony with her, speaking only when she offered him a biscuit, at which point he bowed ninety degrees and said, "This tribute is acceptable, Matriarch."
But I am convinced Jungkook might be Fae. Or at least, he was swapped at birth by something that doesn't understand human metaphors.
He is extremely literal-minded. I once made the mistake of saying, "Jungkook, I’m dying for a coffee." He stopped what he was doing, grabbed his car keys, and drove 90mph to the nearest Starbucks, returning with a triple-shot espresso which he tried to pour directly into my mouth while checking my pulse.
"You are not dying today," he whispered intensely, his eyes wide and unblinking. "Drink the bean-blood. Fight the reaper, Seokjin."
"I was just thirsty, Jungkook!"
"Inaccurate language leads to tragedy," he replied, already retreating back into the shadows of the hallway.
Then there’s the hissing. It started a few years ago. If another man stands too close to me—be it a barista, a colleague, or the poor bastard who tried to sell us solar panels—Jungkook reacts. He doesn't get jealous in the way a normal man does. He doesn't puff out his chest. He just leans in, reveals a surprising amount of canine teeth, and makes a low, guttural hissing sound that vibrates in the other person's marrow.
"Jungkook," I hissed back, dragging him away from the PTA president. "Did you just hiss at Mr. Choi? He was asking about the bake sale!"
"He was vibrating at a frequency I didn't like," Jungkook replied, adjusting a silver chain that looked suspiciously like a restraint. "Also, his shoulders were inadequate. They were an insult to the very concept of anatomy. I felt it was my duty to warn him that he was in the presence of a superior specimen."
"You can't hiss at people because they have narrow shoulders, JK!"
"Watch me," he said, then immediately hissed at a passing pigeon.
The Socioeconomic Stratosphere
Our backgrounds shouldn't work. I grew up in a house where we had a specific fork for fish, a specific spoon for sorbet, and a specific aunt whose sole job was to judge everyone's posture. My family is "Old Money." The kind of money that doesn't talk because it's too busy being invested in offshore wind farms.
Jungkook, meanwhile, comes from a family of Busan free-thinkers. His mother is a semi-professional interpretive dancer and his father once tried to pay for a new roof with "vibes and a very sincere poem." They regard "shoes" as a capitalist cage and "schedules" as a form of spiritual violence.
When I brought him home to the Kim estate for the first time, I was terrified. My father sat him down in the library—a room filled with first editions and the suffocating weight of three hundred years of expectations.
"So, Jungkook," my father said, peering over his gold-rimmed glasses, looking like a man who had personally signed the Declaration of Independence. "What are your intentions for my son? What is your five-year plan? How do you intend to contribute to the legacy of the Kim name?"
Jungkook didn't blink. He looked around the room, spotted a 16th-century suit of armor in the corner, and pointed. "I like your metal man. Can I put a cigarette in his visor? He looks like he’s had a long day."
My father was silent for a full minute. I was ready to call a moving van. Then, my father let out a booming laugh. "He’s honest! He’s a total weirdo, but he’s honest. Seokjin, finally you’ve brought home someone who isn't trying to sell me a hedge fund."
Jungkook didn't care about the money. He still doesn't. He once used a priceless Ming vase as a place to store his spare vape pods. When I pointed out the vase was worth more than a mid-sized sedan, he just shrugged. "It’s a ceramic hole, hyung. Holes are for putting things in. Don't be so attached to the material plane. It’s bad for your aura."
The Question of Love (and Insatiable Need)
The strangest part is that, after two decades, I’m still not entirely sure if he likes me in the way humans like each other. His affection is more like an addiction.
He is insatiable. Not just in bed—though God knows my "generational wealth" stamina is the only thing keeping up with his "raised-by-vampires" libido—but in every aspect of life. He needs to touch me. Always. If we are watching a movie, he isn't just sitting near me; he is draped over me like a heavy, black, strawberry-scented rug.
"JK, I can't breathe. You weigh a ton."
"I am anchoring you to this dimension," he would murmur into my collarbone. "If I let go, you might drift away into the sky-fire. I am doing you a favor. Be grateful for the weight of my devotion."
He doesn't do "I love you." He doesn't do flowers. He does... things.
Last month, I had a mild cold. I woke up at 3:00 AM to find Jungkook sitting at the foot of the bed, wearing a night-vision headlamp, staring at me.
"Are you still alive?" he whispered.
"Yes, Jungkook. It’s just a sniffle."
"I have prepared a ritual," he said. He then produced a bowl of soup that looked like it contained several types of unidentifiable moss and a single, very shiny pebble. "Drink. It was blessed by a woman in Busan who claims to be a mermaid. It will purge the weakness from your blood."
"Jungkook, is this a rock?"
"It’s a healing stone, Seokjin. Don't be literal. It’s tacky."
Last week, I was sitting on the porch, watching Bam chase his own tail in the yard. The sun was setting, casting a golden glow over everything. Jungkook actually ventured out—covered in a tactical poncho, three layers of SPF 100, and sunglasses so dark they probably allowed him to see into the future. He sat next to me, his knee pressed firmly against mine.
"Jin-hyung," he said, his voice low and gravelly, like a shovel hitting dry earth.
"Yes, JK?"
"Your shoulders," he whispered, reaching out to grip one with a hand that was more ink than skin. "They’re still very big. They are the only stable thing in a collapsing universe. I wish to be buried in them."
I looked at him. He was staring at me with that same unblinking, serial-killer intensity from twenty years ago. The sunlight caught the silver in his lip ring. He looked strange, awkward, and utterly terrifying. He looked like a man who would gladly burn down a city if it meant he got to keep using me as a pillow.
"Is that your way of being romantic?" I asked, leaning my head against his.
He took a long, dramatic pull from his vape, blew a cloud of 'Unicorn Sparkle' smoke into the evening air, and nodded once. "It is a factual statement of my appreciation for your physical geometry and my eternal desire to consume your time and energy until the sun finally dies."
"I love you too, you weird little goth," I sighed.
He hissed—but a happy hiss. A soft, content sound that vibrated against my ribs.
Sometimes I think he might be into me, but it’s hard to say. I suppose I’ll give it another twenty years and see if he finally makes a move. Until then, I’ll keep buying black laundry detergent, warding off the sky-fire, and letting him ride me like he’s trying to win a gold medal in the Olympic "Husband Destroyer" category. He’s obsessed with the broad stretch of my shoulders, often gripping them as if they’re the only thing keeping him grounded, while whispering about his eternal devotion to the "Jinconda"—his personal, terrifyingly literal name for the part of me that apparently does its own brand of world-destroying every night.
After all, big shoulders come with big responsibilities. And Jungkook is a very, very big responsibility.