Chapter 4 – The Name in Fire

The bell above the shop door chimed.

Jungkook looked up from the bouquet he was arranging, hands halting mid-motion. No footsteps followed. The air didn’t shift. Yet something told him that he wasn’t alone.

Then, he saw him.

V stood by the entrance, draped in a long black coat that shimmered like liquid shadow. His presence was commanding yet silent—an unnatural stillness that made the lights above flicker faintly, as if dimming in reverence or fear.

Jungkook’s breath caught in his throat.

“You again,” he said, his voice steadier than he expected.

“I said I’d return.” V stepped forward, every movement fluid like smoke curling through the air. “And I always keep my word.”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“And yet here I am.”

Jungkook moved around the counter, placing the unfinished bouquet aside. “Look, whatever you think I did, it wasn’t me. I don’t know you. This isn’t some storybook where the past bleeds into the present.”

V’s lips curled into something between a smile and a warning. “Oh, but it does. Time folds like petals, love. The past is only asleep… until something wakes it.”

He walked past the rows of lilies, hydrangeas, and baby’s breath, each bloom bowing slightly as he passed.

Jungkook’s hands clenched. “Stop calling me that. Don’t call me ‘love.’”

V paused, a flicker of something in his eyes—pain, perhaps, or disappointment. “It used to melt on your lips. Now it burns on mine.”

“I told you, I’m not the person you knew. You’ve made a mistake.”

“No, Jungkook,” V said, voice low. “You’ve just forgotten.”

A silence settled between them, so thick Jungkook thought it might smother him.

Then V turned away, his gaze scanning the shop. “This place,” he murmured. “You used to hate the smell of roses. Said they reminded you of blood.”

Jungkook blinked. “That’s not true.”

“You used to say they were too perfect. You preferred wildflowers. The ones that grew in ash, stubborn and bright. You said they reminded you of yourself.”

A shiver passed down Jungkook’s spine. “How do you know that?”

V’s smile faded. “Because you told me. In the ruins. Before everything fell apart.”

Jungkook took a shaky breath. “You're not real. You’re a dream. A hallucination. Maybe I hit my head and this is just my brain trying to cope.”

V stepped forward again, and this time, Jungkook didn’t move back. He couldn’t.

“You think dreams lie?” V said, tilting his head. “Or do they speak truths you’ve buried too deep to face?”

Jungkook’s voice cracked. “Why are you here?”

“To remember,” V said simply. “To remind. To unravel everything you tried so hard to forget.”

His hand moved, and from the pocket of his coat, he drew a small piece of scorched parchment. He held it out.

Jungkook hesitated, then took it.

It was brittle with age, edges burned. But in the center, scrawled in an elegant script, was a name:

Taehyung

The letters pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat.

“What is this?”

“Your handwriting,” V replied. “The name you gave me before you sealed me away.”

Jungkook stared at it. The name meant nothing to him, and yet… it hummed in his chest like an echo.

“I don’t understand.”

“You will,” V said. “Memories live in more than the mind. They live in blood. In soul. You can lock them away, but not forever.”

Jungkook dropped the parchment as if it had burned him. “Why would I seal you? If we were… lovers.”

V looked away. “Because you feared me. Because you were told I would destroy the world. Because you were the only one I trusted.”

Jungkook’s head spun. “This is insane. I grow flowers. I don’t fight demons or—”

“Devils,” V corrected gently. “Not demons. There’s a difference.”

“And you’re one of them?”

“I was. Once. Before I fell.”

Jungkook blinked. “Fell?”

V’s eyes glowed for a moment, as though lit by some ancient fire. “Not all devils are born. Some are made—through betrayal, through pain, through the dying wish of a heart that refused to be silent.”

Silence returned, thick and heavy.

Finally, Jungkook exhaled and said, “So what now? You just… haunt me? Stalk my shop? Tell me fairy tales?”

“No,” V said. “Now I stay close. Because your soul called to me. And whether you remember or not, you owe me a truth.”

“I don’t know the truth.”

“Then we’ll find it together.”

Jungkook swallowed, throat dry. He didn’t believe in fate or reincarnation. He barely believed in happy endings. But the look in V’s eyes held lifetimes—and something inside him, deep and hidden, shuddered with recognition.

“I don’t trust you.”

V nodded. “You didn’t back then, either.”

He turned, began to walk toward the door, then paused. “The black rose. Don’t cut it. Don’t move it. It’s tied to both of us now.”

Jungkook opened his mouth to respond, but V was already gone.

That night, Jungkook didn’t sleep.

He sat by the window, staring at the garden bathed in moonlight. The black rose stood at the center, unmoving, as if guarding something sacred.

He thought of the parchment. Of the flames. Of the kiss in the dark that flickered through his dreams like a candle nearly out.

Taehyung

A name he had never spoken… but one that tasted familiar.

Jungkook brought a hand to his chest, where his heart beat too fast.

And in the silence, a voice whispered again:

"You were the only one I trusted."