Forbidden Desire | J.JK

9

Alexa

I throw my bag into a corner and let myself fall onto my new bed.

This was an awful idea.

With a determined sigh, I began stripping the bed of its dark linens that Jungkook had picked for his guest room. The black sheets slipped off the mattress with an eerie ease. I reached into my bag and pulled out my favorite set of purple sheets. Maybe if I unpacked, I would feel more at home in this nightmare. Next, I turned my attention to the pillows. With a swift motion, I tossed them off the bed, one by one. The impact of each pillow hitting the floor seemed to release a bit of tension that had been building within me. I tugged on the corners of the sheets, ensuring they were snugly fitted to the mattress. That was a start. I chucked two pillows at the headboard and followed them onto the bed.

The shock from Jungkook's proposal to me to stay with him at his place was wearing off and instead the panic for me actually accepting his offer were coming to the forefront. Hurt inched across my body and seized my heart in a vise grip. I wonder if he only offered me this because he felt responsible to do it due to the promise he gave Jimin or if he really cared about me.

My mind was consumed by a whirlwind of thoughts, each one reinforcing the notion that I should sever all ties with this man. My current thoughts were even more proof of why I shouldn't spend more time with this man. Why I should leave his apartment and never come back. Clearly, he was messing with my mind.

As soon as Jimin comes back from the military, I'm gonna have to talk to him about getting married, that much was clear. During my first year in Seoul, I hinted towards marriage a lot but Jimin only said that he was never the marriage type and couldn't imagine himself getting married so young. I tried to understand him—I really did—but I just couldn't see how us living together like an actual married couple could be any different than us really getting married. Perhaps my outbursts towards his rejections could have been handled with more care. But it just didn't make any sense to me.

I let go of the topic and only once mentioned it last year again. He hadn't said no—he'd just said, "Not yet."

"You like the room?" A voice calls me back from my thoughts.

I rolled over and sat back against the headboard. "It's okay."

Jungkook leaned against the doorjamb, his arms crossed, looking at the black sheets bunched into a ball next to the bed. "I just washed those."

My eyes follow his gaze, landing on the sheets. "I have no doubts about that. I just feel more comfortable in my own stuff."

I look over the room. Like nearly everything else in Jungkook's apartment, this room, too, was decorated in mostly black furniture.

"You need some color in your life."

He furrowed his eyebrows. "There's nothing wrong with some black."

"You call this 'some'?"

He rolled his eyes before stepping around my belongings on the floor and pulling open the curtains. Light flooded into the small room. He turned away from the window, which had a view of the building next door. He stared at me as if he was in deep thoughts.

"Stop that," I called to him, my voice laced with a hint of irritation.

"What?" He replied a bit startled.

"Stop brainstorming ways to get on my nerves while I'm here."

A mischievous grin spread across his face, revealing a set of perfectly aligned teeth. "But it's, like, one of my best skills," he retorted, his voice dripping with playful sarcasm.