Chapter 4: The Rules of Obedience

The morning sun filtered dimly through the thick curtains, casting dusty gold streaks across the floor. In this place, even daylight felt artificial—muted, caged, like everything else Jungkook kept under lock and key.

Taehyung sat cross-legged on the carpet, eyes lowered, body still aching from the previous night. The collar around his neck itched, but he didn’t dare touch it. Not without permission.

He had learned that the hard way.

The click of polished shoes on marble warned him of Jungkook’s arrival before he entered. The door creaked open, and Taehyung instinctively straightened his spine.

“Good,” Jungkook murmured from the doorway. “You’re learning.”

Taehyung said nothing. Silence was safer than defiance.

Jungkook stepped inside, holding a clipboard. He sat across from Taehyung on the edge of the bed and dropped the clipboard between them.

“I’ve decided,” he said smoothly, “that you need structure. Chaos only leads to rebellion. So from today on, you’ll follow a schedule.”

Taehyung looked up. His lips parted, but no sound came.

Jungkook tapped the top of the paper. “You’ll wake at 7. Bathe. Eat. Stretch. I’ll allow reading time. One hour. Then obedience training.”

Taehyung’s stomach twisted.

“Obedience training?”

Jungkook smiled. “You’ll learn to follow without question. Not just physically, but emotionally. You’ll learn how to speak, how to kneel, how to beg the way I like.”

Taehyung flinched. “You’re not training a dog.”

“No,” Jungkook said softly. “I’m taming a soul.”

The room where training took place was cold, stark, clinical. Mirrors lined the walls so Taehyung could see himself from every angle. There were no windows. Only silence. Only Jungkook’s voice.

“Eyes down,” Jungkook commanded.

Taehyung obeyed.

“Speak when spoken to.”

“Yes, Jungkook.”

“Address me properly.”

Taehyung’s jaw tightened. “Yes… Master.”

Jungkook circled him slowly. “Much better.”

The first lesson was posture. Taehyung was forced to kneel for hours, back straight, arms behind him. If he slouched, Jungkook corrected him—with a strike of the cane or a tug on the chain.

“You fight with your body,” Jungkook said, walking behind him. “Even now. But that defiance is only temporary.”

Taehyung’s knees throbbed. His muscles shook. But he held on.

“I’m not broken,” he whispered.

Jungkook leaned down beside his ear. “Not yet.”

Meal times were silent affairs. Jungkook sat at the head of the long dining table, reading files and watching Taehyung from over the rim of his glass. Taehyung was only allowed to eat after permission was given, and he was never served more than what Jungkook deemed “sufficient.”

The rules piled up like stones on Taehyung’s chest.

He could no longer enter a room unless called.

He wasn’t allowed to look at Jungkook unless granted permission.

He wasn’t allowed to touch himself.

And if he disobeyed even once—he was punished.

Some punishments were physical.

Others were crueler.

That night, Jungkook brought Taehyung to the red room again—but this time, he didn’t tie him up.

He simply whispered, “Strip and kneel.”

Taehyung hesitated.

Jungkook’s eyes darkened. “Do you need help remembering your place?”

“No,” Taehyung said quietly.

He undressed slowly, every inch of exposed skin feeling like surrender. When he knelt before Jungkook, naked and trembling, his heart pounded so hard he thought it might burst.

Jungkook reached down and stroked his hair. “You’re learning to be beautiful in your obedience.”

Taehyung wanted to spit in his face. Instead, he kept still.

Jungkook knelt behind him, arms sliding around his waist. “You hate me. I know. But hate is still attention. Still passion. I can work with that.”

Taehyung closed his eyes.

“You’ll never win,” he whispered.

“Darling,” Jungkook chuckled. “I already have.”

Days passed.

Taehyung began to feel time slip away. His body responded to commands before his mind could catch up. He no longer questioned the leash, the touch, the rules.

But the rage still burned deep inside.

One night, Jungkook came to his bed.

Not to punish.

Not to train.

Just to hold him.

Taehyung lay stiff beneath him, unsure of the sudden gentleness.

“Do you know,” Jungkook murmured against his neck, “why I chose you?”

Taehyung turned his head away.

“You were sunlight. Untouched. You walked like the world owed you beauty.”

Taehyung trembled.

“And I wanted that light for myself.”

Jungkook’s fingers tangled in his hair.

“But now, I want more.”

Taehyung asked, his voice hoarse, “What more is there to take?”

Jungkook pulled him closer.

“Your love.”

Taehyung laughed bitterly. “You can’t force that.”

“We’ll see.”

The next morning, Taehyung broke a rule.

He looked Jungkook in the eyes without permission.

It was deliberate. A silent act of rebellion.

Jungkook froze.

Then smiled.

“You’re going to regret that.”

Taehyung didn’t flinch. “I already regret everything.”

Jungkook dragged him back to the red room. But this time, he didn’t use toys.

He used words.

He described in detail how he would remake Taehyung, how he would strip away every piece of who he used to be. How, one day, Taehyung would crawl to him willingly—begging not for freedom, but for touch.

“You’ll come to need me,” Jungkook whispered, cupping Taehyung’s face.

Taehyung shook his head. “Never.”

Jungkook smiled, eyes soft with obsession. “Then I’ll keep going… until you do.”

That night, Taehyung cried silently in the dark.

But he didn’t pray to be saved.

He prayed to forget what it felt like to hope.

Because hope was the cruelest cage of all.

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