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

Chapter 116: Echoes of a Former Home

The group laughed, but not everyone looked amused.

I didn't notice right away, too caught up in the comfort of a voice from home.

___________________________

Taehyung's POV

Dinner had started warm-golden lights above us, music low and jazzy in the background, wine glasses half-full, laughter like scattered petals across the table.

I had been helping Joon hyung adjust the lighting earlier, muttering something about making the place feel like a Wes Anderson frame, and he rolled his eyes in that fond, knowing way.

But now? That softness was shifting.
Like silk suddenly catching on the edge of a thorn.

I knew the moment it happened.

It wasn't loud.
It wasn't even obvious.
But it was there.

Jimin leaned in toward Joon hyung during dessert, voice just low enough for Y/N noona and Gab to hear, "Were they ever a thing?"

Yoongi hyung, who sat close enough to catch every word, didn't say anything.

Just took a long sip of wine, the corner of his mouth twitching like he was biting back a comment-and maybe something sharper.

Joon hyung, of course, handled it with grace. His voice was calm, diplomatic.

"No. But that doesn't make it less annoying."

I didn't mean to glare across the table.
Not exactly.

But I couldn't stop watching how Gab leaned into noona's side, close enough that their shoulders pressed together, while he scrolled through photos on his phone.

Her laugh snapped out, full and unfiltered, as she pointed at the screen. "You better not share that!"

"I already uploaded it to the cloud. It's immortal now," he whispered, grinning like a kid with a secret.

From the other side of the table, I saw Jin hyung's grip tighten around the stem of his wine glass-knuckles paling, even as he wore that perfectly smooth smile, the one he uses in courtrooms and awkward family dinners.

Jooon hyung went quiet, and that always meant his brain was busy. Too busy.

Calculating something behind those eyes like the wheels were spinning just a little faster than usual.

Yoongi hyung kept close to the conversation but never leaned in.

His eyes were sharp, like he was parsing a code none of us knew how to read yet.

Me? I kept stroking Wacha's fur, her soft purr vibrating against my thigh where she had perched beside me like a sleepy little queen. But I wasn't looking at her.

I was watching them. Watching Gab's stupid floppy hair and how he used it like some kind of armor.

Watching Y/N noona's eyes light up the way they always did when she talked about home.