Chapter 3: The Past Between Us

Long before chains, before locked doors and whispered commands—there was laughter.

There was light.

There was them.

Taehyung stood under a cherry blossom tree, a camera in hand, sunlight painting soft pink glows across his cheeks. Jungkook remembered this moment as vividly as the scars on his own skin. Taehyung had been radiant that day—smiling without restraint, eyes full of warmth, like the world had never touched him cruelly.

And Jungkook… had already been drowning.

“Hold still,” Taehyung said with a playful pout, snapping another picture. “You keep moving, the photo will blur.”

“I hate cameras,” Jungkook murmured, turning his head to the side.

Taehyung clicked his tongue. “Then stop being so damn photogenic.”

Jungkook had smiled at that. A real smile. The kind that came so rarely it hurt.

They’d been friends. Just friends, in the beginning. Taehyung had transferred to Jungkook’s university in the middle of the semester, a bright storm of color and confidence. He’d sat beside Jungkook in one lecture and decided—without permission—that they would be close.

“You have sad eyes,” Taehyung had said the second time they spoke.

Jungkook had blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Like… haunted eyes. Like you’re here but not really. That’s cool. Mysterious.”

“I’m not mysterious.”

“Well, you’re not boring either.”

Jungkook had hated him instantly for how easily he broke through walls. And loved him for it just as quickly.

They spent afternoons sprawled across the library floor, studying and stealing glances. Taehyung doodled in his notebooks. Jungkook watched him. Neither of them said anything. But everything was already being written.

Taehyung didn’t know it then—but Jungkook was already obsessed.

He memorized the way Taehyung tied his shoelaces. The way he chewed the end of his pen when he was nervous. The way his eyes sparkled when he talked about music, or art, or dreams that sounded far too beautiful for someone like Jungkook to understand.

He was so alive.

So free.

And Jungkook knew—he couldn’t let that go.

Not when everything in his world was falling apart.

It was late spring when things began to change.

Taehyung had been seeing someone—a soft-spoken photography major named Minjun. They held hands in the quad. Laughed under the trees. Jungkook watched from afar, a storm brewing in his chest.

He couldn’t sleep.

He couldn’t eat.

He couldn’t breathe.

Taehyung had given him hope. Light. A reason. And now he was giving it to someone else.

One night, Jungkook snapped.

He showed up at Taehyung’s apartment, unannounced, eyes wild with something dark.

“I need to talk to you,” he’d said, voice shaking.

Taehyung had let him in. He always did.

They sat on the couch in silence for a while before Jungkook finally spoke.

“I think I’m in love with you.”

Taehyung blinked.

The room held its breath.

“Jungkook…”

“I know,” Jungkook interrupted. “I know you’re with someone. I just… I had to say it. Before it ate me alive.”

Taehyung looked down, fingers twisting nervously in his lap. “I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t want you to.”

A beat passed.

Then another.

Taehyung whispered, “You should’ve told me sooner.”

Jungkook’s heart skipped. “Why?”

“Because maybe I wouldn’t have chosen someone else.”

For a moment, hope bloomed.

Then Taehyung added, “But we can’t now. Not like this. Not when I’m with him.”

That’s when something inside Jungkook broke.

It was subtle. Quiet. But irreversible.

He waited. Weeks. Then months.

Minjun disappeared.

No one asked questions. Taehyung cried for days. Jungkook comforted him.

He held him.

He watched him sleep.

He fed the obsession until it turned into something unholy.

Until one night, Taehyung passed out from exhaustion and Jungkook stood over him, hands shaking as he whispered, Mine. Mine. Mine.

The fantasies turned into urges. The urges turned into plans. He knew Taehyung wouldn’t choose him.

So he would take him.

Back in the present, Taehyung sat on the window seat of the bedroom, staring out at the moonlight casting silver shapes across the garden. His knees were pulled to his chest, and he looked so fragile—so much like the boy Jungkook had once loved.

But this wasn’t love anymore.

This was something else.

Jungkook stood in the doorway, watching him.

“You remember him?” Jungkook asked.

Taehyung didn’t turn. “Minjun?”

A nod.

Taehyung’s voice was hollow. “He vanished. Like he never existed.”

Jungkook stepped closer. “He didn’t deserve you.”

Taehyung finally turned to face him, eyes sharp. “And you do?”

Jungkook’s jaw tightened. “I kept you safe.”

“You stole me.”

“I loved you.”

“You don’t even know what that word means.”

Silence crackled between them like a wire pulled too tight.

“You were mine before you knew it,” Jungkook whispered.

Taehyung’s hands clenched. “I trusted you.”

“And you still can,” Jungkook said, stepping forward.

But Taehyung backed away.

“You want to rewrite the past, Jungkook? Fine. Let me tell you what I remember.”

He stood now, chest heaving. “I remember laughter. I remember friendship. I remember the boy who helped me carry books and told me the stars looked like dreams.”

A tear slid down his cheek.

“And now I see a man who locks doors. Who punishes me for breathing. Who looks at me like I’m a painting he can’t wait to ruin.”

Jungkook reached out.

Taehyung slapped his hand away.

“I may be here,” he whispered. “But my soul isn’t. You haven’t won.”

Jungkook stood frozen, fingers curled into fists.

For the first time in a long while… he didn’t know what to say.

Because he hadn’t expected Taehyung to still have fire.

And somewhere, deep inside the twisted maze of his obsession—

That fire thrilled him.

Because it meant there was still something left to break.

And maybe…