Stigma Love's Algorithm [ A BTS x Reader Poly ]

Chapter 91: The Weight of Fate

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Jungkook's POV

The apartment was dark except for the distant city lights bleeding in through the tall windows-warm yellows and muted reds from Itaewon's restless streets.

They painted the walls like ghosts, flickering against the clean lines and curated calm of our home.

I sat at the edge of the couch, elbows on knees, fingers pressed against my temples, like I could somehow hold my thoughts in place if I just squeezed hard enough.

I could hear the soft hum of the refrigerator. The tick of the vintage wall clock he loved. The faintest rustle of sheets from the bedroom down the hall.

Everything else was silent.
And yet my chest was a war zone.

I hadn't cried. Not since that night.

But it felt like my whole body was made of ache. My throat tight. My limbs heavy.

My heart bruised in ways I didn't have language for.

It had been days. Days since I'd left them-Tae hyung, Y/N Noona, Jin hyung, Yoongi hyung, Namjoon hyung.

Since I'd stood in that tiny, holy orbit of theirs and felt the bond like lightning under my skin. Since I'd run.

I hadn't told him.

Hyung.

I should have.
God, I should have.

But how do you explain something like that to someone who's loved you with his entire being for more than ten years?

How do you tell your best friend, the love of your life, your first everything, the man who lit up your entire world when it was nothing but shadows-that your soul might belong to someone else too?

How do you tell the one person who's never not believed in you... that you're scared of who you're becoming?

I leaned back on the couch, staring up at the ceiling. The shadows there danced slowly, like the surface of a still lake touched by wind.

I remembered when we picked out the lighting in this place. He'd insisted on warm tones, none of that clinical white glow. "It needs to feel like a hug," he said.

He always said stuff like that.
Even now, this place feels like him.

His music on the speakers in the morning. His coffee mugs stacked slightly crooked because he's always in a rush.
His sweaters thrown over chairs.

His scent-clean laundry and bergamot and something soft and familiar I could never name.

He lives here.
But I... I've just been drifting.

A ghost in my own life.

And he knows.
He sees it.
He's always seen me, even when I wished he wouldn't.