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

Chapter 108: Confessions, Cranes & Cosmic Chaos

But he's still there.
Looking right at me.

No fear.
No hesitation.
No masks.

Just Taehyung.
Warm. Solid. Brave.

"You're not too much," he says, and this time, it's a whisper I feel in my bones.

"You're... just right. For us. For me."

God.
My heart does something ridiculous. Painful. Beautiful.

I try to hold it in. That rush of emotion.
But it spills anyway.

"Hyung..." I say, voice cracking.

"I hurt you. Before. When all this soulmate stuff started... I didn't know what to do with it. I didn't know how to do it."

He blinks. Eyes softening even more, if that's even possible.

"I was scared," I admit.

"Of losing Hobi hyung. Of losing who I was. Of being swallowed up by all these connections. I was selfish. I pulled away. I made you wait. I made you hurt."

"You didn't make me do anything," he says gently.

I shake my head, breath trembling.

"But you did wait. And I don't know how to thank you for that. You've always been there-just... quietly waiting. Even when I was too wrapped up in fear to see it."

Tae hyung leans his forehead against mine. A soft hum between us. Like he's breathing me in.

"You were never selfish," he says.

"You were just scared. So was I. But I never stopped... hoping."

He leans back just slightly.

Reaches into the blanket wrapped around him. And pulls something from the pocket of his sweater.

I look down.
And my heart fucking stops.

It's the paper crane.

The one I made for him on our first date.

Stupidly folded out of a receipt for bubble tea because I'd forgotten how to flirt and panicked at the table.

He had laughed and called it 'my tiny warrior crane.'

It's still intact.

Creased, faded, carefully smoothed-like it's been opened and refolded a thousand times.

"I've had it with me ever since," he says, voice quiet and a little shy now.

"In every bag. Every jacket. Every court date. Every night I didn't think I'd make it through. He made it with me."

I stare at it.
Then at him.
And I break.

The tears come before I can stop them.

Not loud. Not ugly.
Just silent and sudden.

My hands cover my mouth, but my shoulders shake.

Taehyung hyung watches me, panicked.

"Kook-hey. Hey, I didn't mean-"

"No, it's-" I choke out a laugh through it.

"It's good. God, Hyung. You kept it. You actually... kept it."

He nods. Eyes shiny now too.

"Of course I did. It was from you. It is you. You were with me even when you didn't know how to be. And I... I wanted to hold on."

I let out a wet breath. "You're everything, you know that?"

He just smiles.

And it's the kind of smile that could rebuild a world.