“He dies in every lifetime.

And I always love him right before he does.”

-×-×-

The first time it happened, Jungkook was too exhausted to fight it.

The day had been a blur of stage lights, rehearsals, and hollow interviews — the kind where every question is a dance, every smile is curated. He got home past midnight, showered in silence, and collapsed on the mattress still damp with sweat.

That night, he didn’t dream.

He remembered.

-×-×-

It began in heat. Not metaphorical warmth — but fire, real and roaring.

Smoke thickened around his ankles. The walls glowed orange, coughing out light and ash. Sand bit into the arches of his feet as he ran. Behind him, the world cracked open.

A palace — he thought — but wrong. Not opulent. Sacred. Wounded.

He didn’t know where he was.

Only that he had to find someone.

Ahead, through the heat shimmer, a boy was running barefoot, draped in crimson silk, long hair matted to his neck, face blurred by distance and memory.

The boy turned back once.

Eyes dark like burnt sugar.

“You’re late again,” the boy said.

“You always are.”

The ceiling collapsed between them.

Jungkook screamed.

And woke with the sound still in his throat, sitting bolt upright in his bed, heart jackhammering against his ribs. The air was cold. The fire was gone.

But the name lingered on his tongue—

“Taehyung.”

-×-×-

He didn’t tell anyone.

Not his manager, not his stylists, not even his therapist — the one on HYBE’s payroll who once said, “Memory distortion is common in sleep-deprived creatives.”

The dream returned two nights later.

-×-×-

This time:

The smell of oil paint.

The studio was dim and hot, slatted sunlight slipping in through warped glass. Jungkook sat half-nude on a stool, the fabric of his trousers stuck to his thighs, while a man painted him in silence.

No music. No small talk. Only the wet glide of brush on canvas and the occasional sound of breath.

Jungkook didn't recognize the face of the man at first. He was focused, severe, absurdly beautiful — long fingers stained blue, mouth pressed into a line that meant restraint or fear or longing.

Then their eyes met.

And Jungkook's chest hurt.

"Don't move," the man said.

Jungkook didn't.

But his heart screamed.

Some part of him knew what would happen next — that this moment was sacred and final and already broken. He knew that he would leave. That his silence would destroy something fragile.

That the painting would remain — but the boy would not.

-×-×-

Dream three was worse.

The rope bit into his wrists. Cold stone under his knees.

He was in a church, or maybe a courtroom. The line between the two blurred in dreams. He wasn’t alone. Dozens watched.

A boy knelt beside him. His mouth was sewn shut. Real thread. Real blood.

Taehyung.

He remembered the name this time. Not just the sound — the meaning.

His eyes searched the crowd. They searched Jungkook.

And Jungkook did nothing.

He didn't speak. Didn't scream. Didn't run forward.

The boy was dragged out into the snow, still silent, still looking at him.

The executioner raised a torch.

Flames took the shape of memory.

And Jungkook woke up sobbing, the scream still lodged behind his teeth.

-×-×-

They kept coming.

Dreams that weren’t dreams — fragments.

A flicker of white linen and revolution banners.

The weight of a bayonet in his hand.

Taehyung pressed against a window, whispering, “Don't forget me this time.”

Another life. Another era.

A black-and-white hospital room.

The sound of EKGs.

A final kiss.

No heartbeat.

-×-×-

In every life, it was Taehyung.

He didn’t always look the same — but he felt the same.

There was a moment in each memory when Jungkook knew:

That’s him. That’s the one.

Sometimes they touched.

Sometimes they kissed.

Once, they married.

Twice, they bled together.

Always, it ended the same way.

Always, Jungkook forgot.

-×-×-

The worst dream came days later.

It wasn’t fire.

It wasn’t betrayal.

It wasn’t death.

It was a bed.

A small apartment. Seoul. Rain on the windows.

Taehyung sat on the edge, barefoot, tuning a guitar.

Jungkook walked up behind him and wrapped his arms around his waist. Pressed his nose into the skin of his shoulder. Whispered something.

Taehyung turned, touched his face.

“You’re soft in this one,” he whispered.

“Don’t stay soft. The fire always comes.”

And then the sirens wailed.

The smoke curled under the door.

Jungkook couldn’t get it open.

Taehyung was coughing, collapsing.

The flames licked the window.

Too late.

Too late.

Again.

-×-×-

When he woke, Jungkook sat in the dark, drenched in sweat, one word pounding behind his ribs:

"Why?"

Why did he know the sound of that voice?

Why did his fingers tremble when he heard Taehyung’s name on the radio?

Why did he cry reading lyrics he didn’t remember writing?

And why, when they finally met again in a rehearsal hall—

When Taehyung stood there, calm, composed, heartbreak carved into the soft lines of his face—

Why did Jungkook feel like he was too late?

Again.

-×-×-

Somewhere in the city, in a quiet apartment that smells like incense and regret, Taehyung writes in a locked document called:

“The Grimoire of Pain.”

And he types the same line he’s written in every life before:

“He always forgets.”

Present Day — Seoul, South Korea, 2025

POV: Jungkook

The walls were sweating.

Not literally, of course, but it felt that way.

The studio was too warm, the kind of stale heat that clings to skin long after the air conditioner’s hum has faded. Jungkook rolled his neck, pulled the collar of his black hoodie away from his damp throat, and exhaled hard.

The rehearsal floor stretched out before him, mirror-walled and softly lit, one of HYBE’s older practice rooms tucked deep in the west wing. At this hour, it was empty. Silent. His favorite kind of sacred.

2:14 a.m.

The red glow of the clock on the wall throbbed like a heartbeat.

It was always this time when the weight set in.

He turned back to the mirror. Let his body move, not with choreography this time, but instinct. Breath. Habit. Ghosts.

He’d danced this freestyle so many times now, he’d stopped knowing what it meant.

But tonight… his hands felt wrong.

Every movement started too late. Ended too soon. His body twisted through the motions like it was chasing something just out of reach.

He was used to perfection. But this?

This was like dancing underwater. Like mourning something you couldn’t name.

He stopped mid-spin, fists clenched.

The silence pressed in.

That was when he felt it.

The shift.

A chill, not from the air, but from the mirror itself. A second pair of eyes. A shape not belonging to him.

He froze.

Turned.

And saw him.

The man stood just inside the door, barely lit, dressed in all black.

Face shadowed by a low-brimmed cap, fingers gloved, back relaxed against the frame like he’d been there for hours.

Jungkook didn’t know him.

But his heart knew something. It kicked once, hard. A strange pulse. Recognition without reason.

The stranger took a step forward.

“I thought this room was empty,” he said.

His voice was deep, quiet. Polite, but not shy. The tone of someone who didn’t speak often, but when he did, you listened.

“It usually is,” Jungkook said, voice hoarse from disuse. “But it’s fine. You can stay. If you want.”

The man nodded once. Stepped in. Let the door whisper shut behind him.

He walked past Jungkook without a second glance and sat on the old piano bench by the corner wall.

No sound. Not even footsteps.

He was light, too light for the world around him.

Jungkook turned away, unsettled, but not enough to leave.

He pressed play on his tracklist and tried to move again. His limbs resisted.

The presence behind him was too loud in its silence.

The music felt wrong now. Too thin.

He stopped it halfway through.

Turned back.

The man had taken out a small notebook. He was writing in it, head down, pen moving with eerie fluidity.

Jungkook took a breath. Crossed the floor.

“Are you a producer?”

“No.”

“Songwriter?”

A pause.

“Yes.”

That voice again. Quiet. Unreadable.

“You write for HYBE?”

The man didn’t answer right away. He looked up.

And Jungkook saw his face.

The air in the room shifted. He took a step back without meaning to.

Those eyes.

He couldn’t describe it, but they didn’t belong to a stranger. They looked like they had seen him before. Not recently, deeper than that. Like they had watched him sleep a thousand nights. Like they had mourned him. Buried him.

Dreamed him.

“You alright?” the man asked.

Jungkook blinked. “What?”

“You looked like you saw a ghost.”

“Maybe I did.”

The man smiled, faintly.

They sat in silence after that.

Jungkook didn’t leave. He didn’t ask for a name. He didn’t even ask why his hands were trembling.

Instead, he found himself watching the stranger’s hands move across the page.

The pen glided smoothly, like it was remembering rather than creating.

“Do you only write for idols?” Jungkook asked after a while.

“I write for whoever forgets me.”

Jungkook furrowed his brow. “That’s… poetic.”

The man shrugged. “Not really.”

Something shifted again. Subtle. Heavy.

“Do you believe in past lives?” he asked suddenly, flipping a page.

Jungkook hesitated.

“…I don’t know.”

“I think you do. Or you will.”

“I’ve been dreaming weird shit lately,” Jungkook admitted, watching the man’s eyes carefully.

The pen stopped.

“What kind of dreams?”

Jungkook licked his lips. “Fire. Paint. Screaming. A boy. I don’t know.”

“Was the boy beautiful?”

“…Yes.”

“Did he always die?”

Jungkook froze.

The man’s voice was gentle. Not teasing. Not curious. Just… sad.

“You dreamed about me,” the man said, softly.

It wasn’t a question.

Jungkook’s pulse stuttered. He opened his mouth, then closed it.

The man stood slowly, slipping the notebook back into his pocket. He crossed the floor until they stood an arm’s length apart.

Jungkook didn’t move.

He felt like moving would wake something he couldn’t contain.

“Your soul remembers before your mind does,” the man whispered. “That’s why it hurts. That’s why it always hurts when we meet again.”

“Who… are you?”

The man tilted his head.

“You always ask that,” he said. “Every time.”

He reached out.

And for a moment, his fingers brushed Jungkook’s jaw. The touch was featherlight—barely contact. But it knocked something loose behind Jungkook’s eyes.

Suddenly:

Screams.

Burning.

The sound of bells.

A knife at his throat.

A kiss in the rain.

A locked asylum.

A lullaby in a language he didn’t know.

The scent of sandalwood.

The sound of Taehyung saying his name like a prayer, like a curse.

Jungkook staggered.

The man caught his elbow gently. Kept him upright. Didn’t say a word.

When Jungkook looked up, the man’s eyes weren’t just sad.

They were old.

He let go.

“You’ll start remembering now,” he said.

“Wait—” Jungkook grabbed his sleeve. “What’s your name?”

The man looked down at the hand on his coat.

He didn’t answer.

Then, softly, without anger:

“You’ll forget again tomorrow. You always do.”

He turned.

And left.

Jungkook didn’t move for a long time.

When he did, it was only to walk back to the mirror, barefoot, heart still racing.

He stared at his own face. Touched the spot where the stranger had grazed his skin.

In the glass, his reflection flickered.

For half a second, he wasn’t alone.

A second boy stood behind him, dark hair loose over his shoulders, lips parted, eyes full of firelight and sorrow.

Jungkook turned,

No one there.

Back in the corner, the old piano bench creaked softly.

A notebook sat on it.

Jungkook approached slowly. Picked it up.

There was only one thing written on the last page:

“He always forgets.”

Year: Forgotten (Ancient Desert Empire)

Setting: A vast golden palace at the edge of rebellion

POV: Jungkook’s Dream (Past-Life Self)

-×-×-

 “You came to me with blood on your hands and I still kissed your palms.”

“What does that say about me?”

The dream began with heat.

Not the kind of Seoul summer humidity that clung to your collar and made your skin glisten, no, this was ancient heat. Dry. Sacred. The kind that curled beneath the fingernails and whispered of salt and war and gold. The kind that remembered.

Jungkook stood barefoot in a corridor of rose-colored stone. Every inch of the palace was carved with gods older than language. He couldn’t read them, but somehow he knew their names.

This is the place.

The thought was not his.

He looked down. His hands were tan, calloused. Soldier’s hands. There was dried blood beneath his fingernails. He didn’t remember why.

The wind outside cried with sand.

He was waiting.

For someone.

Then,

Footsteps.

Soft leather against ancient marble. The scent of myrrh and crushed poppy. A shadow stretching down the corridor.

And then he saw him.

Taehyung.

But not the Taehyung from the studio. Not the man in black.

This one was clothed in white silk, loose and flowing, cinched at the waist with a bronze clasp shaped like a lion’s fang. His hair was longer, falling past his shoulders in delicate waves, half-bound by a red ribbon. His eyes,

Gods.

They were the same.

Even now. Even here.

“You’re late,” Taehyung said.

Jungkook didn’t speak.

His throat hurt. Like he’d shouted too much. Like he’d screamed someone’s name through fire and ash.

“I had to come alone,” Taehyung added. “They’re watching the eastern gate.”

Still no answer.

Taehyung took a step closer. The light behind him etched gold across his cheekbones.

He was impossibly beautiful. And impossibly calm.

“Will you tell me,” Taehyung said softly, “how many you killed today?”

Jungkook blinked.

“I—”

“You always say ‘I don’t remember,’” Taehyung murmured. “Then you touch me like your hands are clean.”

Silence.

They stood there, two ghosts in a corridor of forgotten gods, while the world held its breath.

Then Taehyung reached out.

His fingers grazed Jungkook’s wrist, featherlight.

It was enough.

The flash came violently,

Flames leaping from a temple.

Steel crashing against bone.

Screams.

The red-soaked banner of a fallen house.

Taehyung pulled away slowly.

“You’ll dream of this later,” he said. “In another life.”

“Why did I come?” Jungkook asked hoarsely.

Taehyung tilted his head, brows softening.

“Because you always do.”

Then he turned.

Walked down the corridor, hips swaying like music lived in his bones.

Jungkook followed.

They slipped into a side chamber lit by oil lamps. Sand covered the floor here, wind had pushed it through the cracks in the stone.

There was no furniture. Only the stone altar at the center.

Taehyung turned and faced him.

His expression was unreadable.

But his voice, when it came, was not.

“You will betray me before sunrise,” he said. “But not yet.”

Jungkook stepped forward. “How do you know?”

“I dreamed it.”

And still, he came closer.

Jungkook raised a hand, hesitated, then touched Taehyung’s cheek. Warm. Too warm.

Their eyes locked.

Taehyung whispered, “If you kiss me now, it’ll taste like fire.”

“I don’t care.”

“You never do.”

And Jungkook kissed him anyway.