"The Red Mark"

The night was quiet, except for the faint dripping of water outside Taehyung’s little pottery studio(CLAY & SOUL). Clay dust hung in the air, mingling with the sweet, earthy scent of wet terracotta. He had worked himself to exhaustion again — head resting on his arm, the table still scattered with unfinished clay bowls, his breath soft and uneven as if trapped between two worlds.

And then came the dream.

It was different this time. Vivid. Alive.

Taehyung was no longer in his studio but somewhere dark, cold, and endless. A man stood before him, faceless in the shadows but painfully close. Taehyung’s chest tightened when their bodies pressed together, warmth clashing with an unknown chill that seeped from the man’s skin. Their lips brushed—not quite a kiss, not quite a touch—but it made Taehyung’s heart stumble.

His trembling hand drifted across the stranger’s chest, fingertips grazing bare skin until they stopped on something strange. A mark.

Bright, burning red.

Almost kite-shaped.

Etched onto the very center of his chest like it had always belonged there.

The moment Taehyung’s fingers traced it, the man inhaled sharply, tilting his head back as though the touch alone ignited fire in his veins. A shiver ran down Taehyung’s spine—pleasure, fear, desire all tangled into one. He wanted to see the man’s face, to memorize it, to know who haunted his sleep. But before he could...

RING. RING.

The phone shattered the dream into pieces.

Taehyung jerked awake, sweat clinging to his forehead. His chest rose and fell heavily, his eyes stinging as though he had been crying in his sleep. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, startled to find real tears smearing across his skin.

Why?

Why was he crying over a dream?

The phone continued to buzz insistently. He grabbed it with clay-stained fingers and pressed it to his ear.

“...Hello?” His voice was hoarse.

“Mr. Kim? This is Mrs. Hwang,” the familiar voice of his regular customer chimed. “The vases—are they ready by tomorrow?”

Taehyung forced a breath. “Y-Yes… they’ll be done.”

He ended the call quickly, leaning back against his chair. His hands shook. His body felt heavy, and yet his chest—right where he had touched that red mark—burned faintly as if the dream had left behind a scar of its own.

“Who are you?” he whispered to the silence.

The rest of the day crawled by. Taehyung worked quietly, shaping clay that seemed colder than usual. Every scrape of the pottery wheel echoed in the room, every drop of water felt louder. He couldn’t shake the memory of that mark. It felt familiar. Too familiar, like it belonged to someone waiting for him beyond the thin veil of reality.

And that night, as the rain finally started pouring outside, the studio door creaked open.

Taehyung looked up, startled. A stranger stood at the threshold. Tall, broad shoulders hidden beneath a damp coat, raven-black hair sticking to his pale forehead. His sharp eyes glowed faintly even in the dim light, and though his presence was quiet, it pressed heavily into the air like a storm about to break.

“I’m sorry for disturbing you,” the man said, his voice deep, velvet-smooth but laced with something ancient. “I… need a place to stay. Just for tonight.”

Taehyung blinked, unsure why his pulse quickened. “Who… are you?”

The stranger gave the faintest smile, one corner of his lips curving as if he knew something Taehyung didn’t. “Jungkook,” he said simply.

Taehyung didn’t know yet.

Didn’t know that the red mark in his dreams was hidden beneath the very shirt Jungkook now wore.

And so it began.

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