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LOVE IS NOT OVER
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Yi-Seo

There is complete calm and silence in my room as opposed to the masculine grunts, heavy breaths, and moans of passion and pleasure that filled the air until a while ago. Taehyung’s toes keep moving up and down along my foot, and his steady, hot breath fans the skin on my chest as we both lay calmly on the bed, our ankles hooked, and our naked bodies entwined intimately under the sheets.

“Taehyung-ssi,” I ruffle his hair a little, and he raises his head, looking at me eye-to-eye with a slightly dejected look on his face.

“Please call me just Taehyung, Yi-Seo,” he insists, murmuring, before nuzzling his head back down to listen to the calm beats of my heart.

I chuckle softly at that, weaving my fingers through his soft tresses. “I’ll try, although I really like calling you respectfully. But I promise I’ll try.” I assure him, and Taehyung only hums in response, holding me close against his warm body.

I guess he’s about to fall asleep going by how his breathing has calmed down and how his body is slowly going limp.

“I think I need to take a shower,” I say quietly, and Taehyung heaves a sad sigh before he rolls over onto my pillow with his eyes still closed, and he comfortably buries himself inside the sheets.

Laughing softly, I get out of bed and head straight to the bathroom, locking the door behind me. I can smell Taehyung’s earthy scent on every inch of my body as I turn on the shower and stand under it. My smile is unfading as the warm water rinses my hair and body off of every fluid trace that he left on me.

As the water trickles down my body, his every touch, stroke and kiss begins to replay in my mind; the way his eyes twinkled with so much sincerity, the way his hands handled me with such tenderness, and the way his hips and lips were rough and passionate, totally contradicting the gentleness of his hands. My skin bristles, and my eyelids fall shut when the sound of his deep male moans begins to resonate from within my head.

In my eyes, minus his alcoholism, Taehyung is everything an ideal man could be—powerful yet sensual, soft yet dominating, handsome, gentle, and empathetic. My list right now doesn’t seem to have an end.

There’s a small reddish bruise that his teeth left on my shoulder, and it shows prominently under the shower. It would most probably develop into a purple blotch tomorrow, but I smile to myself as I stroke my palm over the marking. Looking down at my body, I find a few more love bites that he has left on me in places where only he and I would know they exist. I wonder how many marks I made on him, and the thought of discovering them later makes me bite down my shy giggle.

It hasn’t been a whole three minutes of being in the shower by myself, and I can’t believe it that I already miss being in his arms. The intimacy was so carnal and natural, yet there was an undeniable sense of contentment as though a heavy longing of a million lifetimes was finally met, and there was a burning intensity that existed between us that even though it has been over an hour, my entire body feels so sensitive even to my own touch and I can still feel him all over me.

Being intimate with Taehyung was such a beautiful experience that it almost felt like we were in love, making passionate love to each other, even though it could still be too early to say we’re there yet.

But how long does it even take to fall in love? It could take years or months or sometimes even just a few minutes. But when it happens, it takes over every sense, and the feeling would be unmissable. I know that I’ve fallen hard, and I’m quite sure that I love him deeply, but I’m just too scared to admit it.

What if he doesn’t feel the same? What if the sex we had meant nothing to him more than only celebratory sex or an expression of his deep gratitude or probably just a kind of lusty physical expression in desperately breaking the fast of his abstinence? I really hope that it’s above and beyond all this.

I quickly wash my hair and body so that I can stop overthinking and rush back into the warmth of his arms to live in the moment. Just as I’m about to turn off the shower, there is a knock on the bathroom door.

Fastening a fresh, dry towel around my body, I carefully tiptoe to the door and swing it open to find Taehyung standing there, dressed in his boxers.

“Are you done showering?” He asks me, scratching the back of his head and ruffling his hair with one hand.

“Yeah, do you want to take a shower?” I ask him, smiling.

“Yeah, stay with me,” Taehyung’s alluring eyes hold me captive as he enters the bathroom and walks past me to the shower. I turn my head to look at him as he steps out of his boxers, tossing it aside thereafter.

After turning on the shower, he then stands under it, tilting his head back and allowing the warm water to fall directly over his neck and flow down his slim body.

I hop onto the sink counter, my eyes following the path of the trickling water as I take in all the beautiful details on his anatomically-perfect body, right from the prominent veins on his arms, trailing down to the small depressions on the side of his hip, further down to the strong muscles of his calves, and finally to his flat and broad feet. As I keep watching him, he comfortably washes himself using my soap and shampoo, and once all the lather is washed off, his eyes turn to look at me. He pushes out the wet hair strands from his forehead and wipes away the water dripping down his face.

“Can you come here?” Taehyung holds out one hand to me, and I jump down from the counter, taking a few steps closer to him and holding his hand in my right hand. With the towel still tied around my body, I step under the shower with him.

The tepid water is pattering on my back, wetting the towel that’s covering me and making it heavier with each drop that it soaks up. Taehyung wraps his arms around my waist, bringing our bodies closer.

The lights in the bathroom make the surroundings appear brighter than my bedroom, and it suddenly makes me over conscious of my own body; my nervousness manifesting in the form of accelerated heartbeats.

Taehyung’s eyes move to my shoulder, and a soft chuckle leaves his lips as he caresses the love bite there by placing his palm on my shoulder and swiping his thumb over the bruise, and then he dips his neck to tenderly kiss the mark he made.

My eyes scan his neck, which is in my straight line of vision, and I find two faint little marks there. My gaze follows my fingers that lazily trail down his chest, and I notice a few more marks and scratches that I have made on him which stand out against his gorgeous honey skin.

Taehyung pushes his soaked hair over his forehead and places one hand on my chest as though evaluating the rate at which my heart is drumming within. His hand then falls to my outer thigh, slowly pushing the wet towel up. My body goes stiff, my toes curl, and my nails dig into his chest as I gulp hard when he traces the tips of his fingers over the puckered, cigarette-burnt skin on my outer thigh.

His eyes remain steady with a soft gaze as he then drags his hand under the towel, over my hip bone, and delicately feels up the patches of seared skin on my lower abdomen with the pads of his soft fingertips. His hand on my waist slides to the small of my back and holds me securely as his other hand explores the imperfections that I have been carrying around as the harsh residue from my past.

Taehyung doesn’t take off the towel or touch me anywhere else, and the way his fingers move feels as if he has memorized the exact location of these burn marks on my skin.

Tilting his head to the side, Taehyung lifts the towel a little and looks at the burnt skin on my thigh while his fingers move around the area in soothing circles. The burn marks have definitely healed a lot, but the skin is damaged beyond repair, and the marks undoubtedly stand out from the rest of my body that has fairly flawless skin.

His eyes flicker to meet mine, and the pained expression in them makes my heart wrench.

“I want to murder him for doing this to you…” Taehyung’s low and soft voice trembles, even as his hand still keeps pacifying my damaged skin.

“Taehyung-ssi,” I release my fingers from their curled position over his chest and softly pat his slightly reddened skin, “let’s not talk about him anymore, please,” I give him a small smile that somehow makes his lips quiver, and he looks away, exhaling heavily when his tears threaten to fall.

The thing about Taehyung that makes him truly precious is that he feels so much empathy for me and everyone else around him when he himself has been going through the gates of hell in his life over the past many years, and he’s still fighting against the destructive darkness that consumes him. I want to comfort him with my words, but at the moment, I’m unable to find my voice when I see his tears on the verge of spilling.

“Yi-Seo, I’m sorry,” Taehyung’s random apology confuses me. His teary gaze returns to me, and my eyebrows pinch together in confusion.

He gently pushes my wet hair out of my face, dipping his neck a little and allowing his lips to touch my forehead in a firm kiss.

“What are you sorry for?” I ask him softly, and Taehyung only responds with a lopsided smile, shaking his head a bit.

“Nothing,” he smiles and kisses my forehead again, wrapping his arms tight around me and holding me flush against his chest. “Let’s get dry and go to bed, okay?” He adds with another kiss to the top of my wet head, and I hum in agreement.

I know for a fact that he didn’t apologize for ‘nothing’. I believe this morning’s events have made him utterly guilty that he keeps apologizing for it over and over, even when I assured him that everything was good. He is still fighting the demons that overpower him time and again, and the battle is always lost by him, but I trust that it will not be this way for long.

I don’t pry him more or try to stop him from letting his emotions out in the open because I want to let him be and not force himself to appear to be okay—not when he has been silently battling every heavy emotion on his own and hiding away in loneliness for so many years now while watching his glorious life crumble to dust in front of his own eyes.

After about twenty minutes, Taehyung and I lay curled up under the warm and soft sheets on my single bed, and he cuddles up close, skin on skin, spooning me from behind. No words are exchanged, and it still feels comfortable because we have had a long and tiring rollercoaster of a day, and right now sleep is waiting to embrace us.

My mind and body feel relaxed after the shower; the warmth emanating from his body on mine, his reassuring hold, and the rocking movements of his chest against my back instantly put me to sleep.

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I have no idea how we both managed the entire night on my small single bed, but when I woke up this morning, my neck started hurting badly. It would probably be the same with him because, just like me, Taehyung also seems to have slept in the same position all night.

Wiggling a little, I manage to sit up in bed with my back to Taehyung, and I crack the stiffness in my neck, hissing and squeezing my eyes shut when a sharp twinge of pain shoots through my nerves.

There’s a soft ruffling sound from behind me, and I look over my shoulders to see Taehyung’s body stir under the sheets as he yawns and stretches his arms above his head before he squints open his eyes.

“You’re up already? Ouch!” The smile that formed on his lips is flipped into a wince, and he grips the side of his neck as he bolts up in bed.

“My neck hurts too. I’m sorry. My bed is too small for us,” I reply groggily as I turn around to sit down facing him in a cross-legged position.

“Aaah,” Taehyung growls and tilts his head from side to side, frowning, and then his eyes open to look at me. “Hereafter, we’ll sleep in my bed. It’s much bigger, but your sheets are softer, and it smells nicer here,” he smiles sweetly despite the killer neck pain that’s tormenting him.

“I’ll bring these over,” I nod my head, smiling as I lean forward to kiss him when Taehyung does the same.

With our lips still connected, he drags himself closer to me and holds my hands in his hands, rubbing soft circles at the back of my hands with both his thumbs before slowly intertwining his fingers with mine.

“Yi-Seo,” he whispers, pulling away while looking down at my hands, “I hope I wasn’t too impulsive last night,” Taehyung’s gaze slowly lifts to meet mine, his dense eyebrows lifting in doubt, and the action creates a few creases on his forehead.

“I wanted it too, Taehyung-ssi. Nothing was out of impulse,” I reassure him, gently squeezing his hands a little, and he sends a comforting smile my way, nodding.

He lifts his hands to gently hold my face as he stares deep into my eyes and my soul, and I can feel my stomach twisting itself into knots that grow tighter when our eyes stay locked, and I just realize that we both are stark naked.

“Yi-Seo, I love you,” Taehyung’s confession in his velvety voice makes my skin bristle, and my heart picks up pace, but before I could respond, he presses his lips to mine, completely stealing away my breath and my words. “You don’t have to say it right away,” he whispers against my lips, pecking it once, and then again before leaning back and slowly licking his lips.

I bite down on my lip and lower my gaze to my hands, trying hard to tame the blush that is creeping onto my cheeks and my whole body. I’m having a hard time raising my head and looking into his eyes after his confession.

He feels the same too?

Taehyung’s confession, though a heartfelt one, is a vaguely bitter reminder of my harsh past. Jungkook confessed his love to me the morning after we first had sex, and I didn’t keep him waiting more than ten seconds to respond with my confession. I don’t regret that I did because I truly was in love with him.

But now, I really need some time to climb past the mountainous hurdle of all the mental trauma and confidently allow someone to reside inside my heart. It most definitely is Taehyung because I know that I love him a lot, and he has already invaded my thoughts to an unimaginable extent. But confessing right now would certainly be an impulsive thing to do, and I’m not the one to make the same mistake twice.

I also feel a rising need to tell him to think about it and not be rash in his confession, but there is so much honesty in his eyes, and he seems entirely sure of himself and the powerful words he just uttered that it almost makes me want to give in and confess my love as well. I hold back though, wishing I had the kind of confidence and solidarity in my thoughts and words like he does.

“The court is at 11.30, three hours from now,” I deflect the topic in a totally different direction, and my voice comes out feeble and shy. My eyes are still shying away from meeting his soul-piercing stare.

“Yeah,” Taehyung’s menacingly low voice causes an eruption of goosebumps on my body, and my heart races when he firmly holds my hand and tugs me forward.

He roughly wraps the sheets around our bodies to cover our lower halves and pulls me onto his lap, and I have to peer down to look at his eyes.

“I have something to tell you,” Taehyung’s eyes slowly drop from my eyes to my lips, and then they move back to my eyes.

“I can’t wait to know what it is,” I lock my hands around his neck and bring our foreheads together while his hands swipe down my spine, and then he hugs me tight by warmly nuzzling the side of his face to my chest. I hold him close to me, reveling in the comforting warmth that our bodies exchange.

We keep dragging the minutes in bed, not wanting to leave each other’s arms until my stomach lets out an embarrassingly loud grumble. After getting dressed, we both decide to have breakfast and head over to Taehyung’s home to spend some time together before leaving for court.

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I love these after-sex chapters, the emotions, the conversations, and everything about them.
😍😍💕

Published on : 02/21/2023