Chapter 4

The crimson thread wound around Jungkook’s finger remained stubbornly in place—tied so tightly that it seemed to have embedded itself into his skin. It wasn’t simply a string anymore; it had become an extension of his body, a visceral symbol of a pact he couldn’t bring himself to sever.

Taehyung had tied it on with a peculiar tenderness. “Now you’re mine,” he had murmured, pressing a soft kiss to Jungkook’s knuckle. That moment was recent—or distant. The passage of time had become distorted, unstable, perpetually folding in on itself whenever Taehyung was near.

At his desk, Jungkook sat beneath the sickly flicker of his office lamp. Files lay scattered in disarray, their contents—photographs, testimonies, forensic analyses—now suspect, tainted by the same moral corrosion spreading within him. The red string pulsed against his skin, alive with memory and something older, darker. Something that whispered.

Minho had grown less subtle in his suspicions. His presence hovered like a specter, a constant reminder of rules Jungkook had once believed in. The air between them was thick with unspoken accusations.

“You’ve changed,” Minho said, a cigarette dangling unused from his lips. “Want to explain how a murder suspect managed to leave an interrogation room without charges? Or how crucial evidence from Case 04-77B simply vanished?”

Jungkook didn’t respond. He focused instead on the echo of Taehyung’s laughter, which seemed to linger inside him, low and lethal, a sound that fractured logic.

That night, Jungkook returned home to find the door ajar. Instinct dictated that he draw his weapon. He did not.

Inside, the darkness was quiet—until he saw him. Taehyung, shirtless and barefoot, sat atop the kitchen counter like a creature of myth, blood smeared like a lover’s mark across his jaw.

Jungkook didn’t ask questions. He moved toward him with purpose, hands gripping hips, mouth claiming Taehyung’s in a desperate kiss that felt like confession and penance all at once.

“Why haven’t you left?” Jungkook gasped against Taehyung’s lips.

Taehyung’s grin was slow, his eyes gleaming. “Because you need me to stay.”

The kiss that followed was vicious—teeth clashing, mouths bruising, hands clawing. Jungkook slammed Taehyung back against the fridge with a thud that rattled the glass. Taehyung moaned into his mouth, breath hot and cruel.

“You want to fuck your suspect, or do you want to confess to me?” Taehyung growled.

“I want to bleed with you,” Jungkook hissed, dragging nails down Taehyung’s back, leaving red trails.

Clothes were torn. Skin exposed. Jungkook pushed him onto the counter, yanking his pants down, tongue tracing a path over pale thighs. Taehyung gasped, one hand gripping Jungkook’s hair, the other dragging a nail across his chest, just enough to draw blood.

“You like that?” Taehyung smirked.

“Yes,” Jungkook whispered, trembling.

Taehyung pushed him down, straddling him on the kitchen floor. Their bodies ground together, rutting like animals. Taehyung leaned down, licked the blood from Jungkook’s chest and bit him there, marking him.

They didn’t make love. They devoured each other. Hours passed. Moans echoed. Walls bore witness.

Later, soaked in sweat and blood and come, they lay in the bathtub. The water was tinged red, the scent of iron and sex thick in the air.

Taehyung reached beneath the water, trailing fingers down Jungkook’s stomach, to the red thread.

“You didn’t break me,” he said, voice muffled.

Jungkook blinked slowly. “What do you mean?”

Taehyung’s smile was hollow. “When you killed him. My brother. You didn’t destroy me. You created me.”

Jungkook’s throat closed. The memory. The first kill. The look in the boy’s eyes. The way the blood pooled.

Taehyung kissed him, slow and deep, tongue tasting his shame.

“You forged this,” he whispered against Jungkook’s lips. “Don’t act like you’re scared of it now.”

The next day, Jungkook burned evidence in the alley behind the precinct. The files crackled, curling into ash as the flames devoured names, faces, timelines—everything tying Taehyung to the crime scenes.

He told himself it was necessary. Self-preservation.

But deep down, he understood the truth: he was choosing Taehyung.

And in choosing him, he was also choosing the parts of himself long buried—the fractured morality, the hunger for absolution, the ache for belonging in the arms of someone just as ruined.

Minho caught him in the stairwell later. His stance was rigid.

“You’re hiding something.”

Jungkook met his gaze with a cold smile. “So are you.”

Silence followed—a stalemate thick with consequences.

By the week’s end, the case unraveled completely. Witnesses recanted. Surveillance data became corrupted. Official statements were revised or erased.

It was as if reality itself conspired to erase Taehyung’s presence.

And Taehyung? He reclined in Jungkook’s bed like a monarch watching the collapse of an empire, slicing apples with a blade that glinted in morning light.

“You should arrest me,” he mused, licking juice from his fingers.

Jungkook leaned in the doorway, coffee in hand. “Is that what you want?”

Taehyung’s expression was unreadable. “I want you to decide.”

“To turn you in?”

“To acknowledge what you are.” His eyes didn’t waver. “To admit that you belong in this. With me. In this wreckage. Or you can return to the illusion of order, to a world that never saw you.”

The thread tightened around Jungkook’s finger, pulsing with old blood and a younger version of himself—fifteen, terrified, blood on his hands.

And now: twenty-seven, aching for absolution.

He crossed the room. Each step a silent affirmation.

He stood over Taehyung—his past, his punishment, his future.

And without hesitation, climbed into bed.

The blanket fell like a curtain closing on the world they no longer belonged to.

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