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Taehyung pressed the back of his hand against his forehead and wiped away the sweat gathering on the line of his blonde hair, only for more to replace it immediately. His pulse hammered unevenly in his throat, and his lungs burned from breathing too hard and fast.
Across from him, the man stood motionless, no visible tension or heavy breathing, watching him with the kind of bored patience that ticked Taehyung wrong.
He should have paid more attention. His opponent was a few inches shorter, but it meant nothing. He wasn’t trying to overpower Taehyung recklessly, despite being more experienced. He simply kept advancing little by little, closing in on angles, trying to rush Taehyung into making mistakes. It felt less like fighting and more like being slowly manoeuvred somewhere Taehyung did not want to go.
Taehyung flexed his fingers once, then moved first, feinting high before trying to slip around the shorter frame and force an opening near the side.
A hand cut into his path before he could complete the movement, forcing him to twist away and redirect his momentum. Taehyung threw a quick strike toward the ribs instead, only to feel it intercepted before it could land.
But he had gotten the confirmation he was looking for.
As he quickly skipped back a few steps to regain distance, Taehyung mentally reviewed the last skirmish and compared it to the previous ones: his opponent consistently redirected before countering, leaving his right side slightly more open whenever Taehyung attacked from an angle.
He inhaled slowly, visualising his strategy, then moved again, faster this time. A feint upward drew the expected reaction, and there – just for a fraction of a second – the right side opened exactly the way he had anticipated.
Taehyung lunged immediately–
The trap closed at once.
The opening disappeared so quickly that it almost felt humiliating. The other man pivoted with ease, catching Taehyung’s arm and using the momentum against him before he could pull back. A sharp impact slammed into his midsection hard enough to force the breath from his lungs, not enough to truly damage him yet, but enough to stagger him off-balance and send warning through his entire body.
Taehyung tried recovering immediately, twisting away before a second strike could reach him, but the punch was already there.
Driven by instinct, Taehyung jerked his forearm upward just in time to intercept the strike before it crashed directly into his face. The impact ripped a sharp hiss through his teeth as pain shot from his arm to his shoulder. The sheer force behind it shoved him sideways–
Click
Yoongi rolled his eyes and lowered his fists with obvious annoyance, letting out a long, exhausted sigh.
Taehyung turned slowly, glaring murderously over his shoulder.
Jungkook stood at the mouth of the alley with one hand in the pocket of his dark coat and the other holding a loaded handgun aimed directly at Yoongi’s head. Evening light played with his black hair and the sharp lines of his face. He looked calm. Completely calm.
Completely insane.
Taehyung’s eye twitched.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” he snapped.
Jungkook’s expression didn’t change. “He almost hit your face.”
“We are training!”
“Your point?”
Yoongi gave another sigh, longer this time, then dragged a hand down his face. “I don’t fucking care if you are the boss, Jungkook. If you point a gun at me one more time during training, I’m sending Mimi after you.”
Jungkook’s expression turned mildly offended.
“You wouldn’t.”
“I absolutely would.”
Taehyung snorted despite himself, rubbing absently at his throbbing forearm while Jungkook finally lowered the gun a few centimetres, though not nearly enough to qualify as reasonable behaviour.
“Enough for today,” Jungkook said.
Taehyung stared at him in disbelief. “You need to shut up.”
“Make me.”
Taehyung immediately took a step toward him. “How about I stuff your mouth with–”
“That’s enough,” Yoongi cut in flatly. “Fuck him later, but don’t fuck with me during my training time.”
Taehyung clicked his tongue, muttering curses under his breath while Jungkook’s expression dared Taehyung to contradict him, an expression that usually made even the most seasoned criminals tremble. He looked entirely unapologetic about interrupting combat training because his boyfriend had almost been punched in the face.
Unfortunately for him, Taehyung had long since lost the instinct for self-preservation around Jungkook specifically.
“I’ve got this,” Taehyung argued. “I blocked it.”
“With your bones,” Jungkook replied immediately.
“It still counts,” Taehyung said between gritted teeth.
“No, it doesn’t.”
Yoongi stepped between them before the argument could restart, visibly done with both of them. “The point was for you to learn how to avoid getting cornered by someone more experienced. Which you did, briefly, before you decided to attack the most obvious trap I’ve ever set in my life.”
Taehyung pouted. “It wasn’t obvious.”
“It was embarrassing.”
Jungkook nodded once in agreement. “It was.”
Taehyung looked personally betrayed by that. “You’re both insufferable.”
“And you,” Yoongi said dryly, “need to stop looking at every opening like it’s personally inviting you in. People smarter than you will bait that every single time.”
“You could’ve just said good job,” Taehyung replied, genuinely offended.
“I could’ve,” Yoongi deadpanned. “But then you would have believed it, and the reality is that you need at least another month before you even think about learning anything more elaborate than a fist fight.”
A silence that wasn’t silence fell in the alley, where the shadows of the night stretched in time with the dying sun. Taehyung flexed his aching arm again, still glaring at Jungkook beneath sweat-damp hair, while Jungkook looked entirely satisfied with himself despite having threatened the head of his own active forces with a loaded weapon.
Yoongi looked at both of them with profound regret.
“We are, indeed, done for today,” he said, raising a hand imperiously to block Taehyung's protest, betrayed by his sharp inhalation.
Yoongi turned on his heels, heading for the other alley exit, muttering, “I miss sniper assignments.”
By the time Yoongi finally disappeared around the corner, Taehyung had closed the distance with Jungkook in long, furious strides.
“You can’t interfere every time things stop looking pretty,” Taehyung snapped. “That defeats the entire purpose.”
Jungkook pushed himself off the wall he had leaned against, expression unreadable. “The purpose isn’t for you to get hurt.”
“The purpose is for me to learn to avoid being hurt, idiot,” Taehyung countered.
It wasn’t that Jungkook disapproved of the training itself. He had approved it personally, if anything. Taehyung knew that. In their world, surviving meant learning quickly, and Jungkook would never leave him defenceless. But there was a difference between agreeing logically and enjoying the reality of it, and Jungkook had never been particularly reasonable when it came to Taehyung.
Especially not physically.
“You were actually going to shoot Yoongi,” Taehyung said, amused now more than irritated.
“I may have considered it,” Jungkook said, shrugging.
“You’re insane.”
Jungkook tilted his head slightly. “You like that about me.”
Taehyung clicked his tongue but didn’t deny it. Because the truth was, Taehyung understood that particular kind of insanity perfectly. He understood obsession. Possessiveness. The thrill of someone dangerous losing all his composure over you specifically. It sent a pleasant rush of adrenaline curling beneath his skin.
Jungkook stepped closer, gaze still fixed on him. “You looked pleased when Yoongi almost cornered you.”
Taehyung blinked once. “What?”
“You heard me.”
A slow grin pulled at Taehyung’s mouth despite himself. “Are you jealous of Yoongi now?”
“I dislike watching people touch – or try to – what’s mine.”
Taehyung’s pulse kicked harder against his throat. He should probably have backed off then. But because he had never once in his life respected a warning sign, he smiled wider and stepped even closer until barely any space remained between them.
“You know,” Taehyung murmured, leaning forward until his lips ghosted Jungkook’s, “most people would probably be concerned hearing you say things like that.”
“Most people aren’t you,” Jungkook replied slowly, his voice dropping low.
“That’s true.” Taehyung tilted his head slightly. “I think it’s hot.”
Something dark flickered in Jungkook’s eyes at that. The next second, Jungkook grabbed his wrists without warning. The movement was fast enough to pull a surprised gasp from Taehyung, though not from fear. Never fear. Jungkook’s hands wrapped firmly around his pulse points as he stepped forward at the same time, forcing Taehyung backwards until bricks met his spine with a soft impact.
Heat climbed instantly up Taehyung’s neck.
Jungkook pinned Taehyung’s wrists against the wall next to his head, boxing him in effortlessly.
“You enjoy this too much,” Jungkook growled.
Taehyung looked at him through damp strands of blonde hair, breathing unevenly for reasons completely different from training. “Watching you lose your mind over me? Absolutely,” he said sultrily.
Jungkook stepped even closer, pressing their bodies together, enough that Taehyung could feel the bulge straining Jungkook’s trousers press into his own. The tension between them had shifted completely now. Arguments with Jungkook always seemed to become this eventually: pushing and prodding turning into touches and growing heat, until neither of them remembered where the argument had started, and all that mattered was the unbearable desire to fuck into oblivion.
“What now?” Taehyung asked when the only reply he got was Jungkook’s eyes dropping onto his lips and staying there, hypnotised.
“Now,” Jungkook said, leaning forward to press an open-mouthed kiss on Taehyung’s neck, eliciting a soft moan from him, “you stop smirking like that before I forget we’re still outside.”
Taehyung hummed knowingly, tilting his head to offer the whole expanse of his neck. “Want to take this somewhere more private then?”
Jungkook nipped at the golden skin with his teeth before straightening. Taehyung felt a thrilling shiver run down his spine at the darkness that had swallowed the brown of Jungkook’s irises.
“I think you were saying something about stuffing my mouth to make me shut up. You do that, and then I’ll stuff you the way you like it.”
Taehyung licked his lips, feeling the smile stretch low and dangerous on his mouth as his insides clenched in expectation.
“Sounds like a plan.”