No Strings Attached | Min Yoongi x OC

1 ♡

She crosses the room, hands me the shirt. Our fingers brush; her skin is warm. Then she bends to gather her clothes from the couch, slips back into them piece by piece. The rustle of fabric fills the silence where words should be.

When she's done, she comes to kneel in front of me. Her eyes search mine, steady and unguarded.

"You gonna be okay?" she asks.

It would be easy to tell her the truth; that I don't know what okay even means anymore. But I just nod. "Yeah," I say, the lie soft and familiar.

She smiles then, small, real. Leans in and presses her mouth to mine. It's not a goodbye kiss, not really. Just a promise that she was here, that this happened. When she pulls back, her thumb brushes my jaw once before she stands.

"I'll see you next time."

The door clicks shut behind her.

The room feels too big again, and every part of me wants to call her back. But I just sit there, staring at the space she left behind, trying to pretend that the echo of her presence isn't the only thing keeping me company.

The air is heavy with the faint trace of her perfume and something else that's just her. It sits on my skin like the echo of a song that won't end. I pull the sheet tighter around my waist and sit there until the silence starts to feel too loud.

The shirt she'd been wearing lies at the edge of the bed. When I pick it up, it's warm, soft with the shape of her shoulders. I put it on because it's closer than anything else. The cotton smells of whiskey and her perfume and underneath that, something sweeter, clean and human. I never noticed how much I know that scent.

Her glass is still half-full on the table. The ring of condensation around it stains the coaster. I should throw it out, but I don't. Instead, I drink what's left, and it tastes like the same whiskey I'd bought to forget the noise in my head.

The room looks exactly as it did before, but it isn't the same. The bedsheets are still tangled from where she sat up, the curtain pulled slightly from when she checked on me. Little pieces of her scattered through a space that was never supposed to hold anyone.

I find my phone, check out of the room without a word to the front desk. Habit. Routine. Pretend this was nothing.

By the time the elevator doors open to the lobby, the mask is back on. Sunglasses, hood, silence. The kind of armor that keeps the world from asking questions.

Daehwan is already waiting outside. He opens the door, nods once, doesn't speak. He never does unless I start it. The city hums around us; neon reflected on wet pavement, someone laughing too loudly down the street. I slide into the back seat and watch it all blur past.

I should feel emptied out. Usually I do. But tonight it's different. There's something sitting behind my ribs that won't settle. The ghost of her kiss, maybe. The way she said see you next time like it was a promise, not a habit.

I turn my face toward the window and breathe out slow. My shirt still smells like her. Sweet, familiar, impossible to ignore.

For a man who never stays, it's strange how much it feels like she's the one who left something behind.

The elevator of my building hums as it climbs. The motion should calm me; it usually does. My building smells like polished stone and late-night deliveries, the kind of clean nothingness I like. But even here, away from the hotel, she's still everywhere. Her scent clings to the collar of the shirt, faint and sweet, a quiet reminder that I wasn't alone a few hours ago.

Inside, the apartment is dark except for the skyline seeping through the windows. Shoes off. Jacket on the hook. Routine movements performed by muscle memory, each one supposed to peel the night away. It doesn't. The silence follows me in.

I pour water from the dispenser, drink half of it, then lean against the counter. The place looks untouched, like no one really lives here. Maybe that's why it felt so easy to lose myself somewhere else. Maybe that's why her staying hit so hard.

I catch myself in the reflection of the glass wall; barefoot, shirt half-buttoned, hair a mess. The fabric moves when I breathe, and that same scent rises again. It's stupid how comforting it is. I should take it off, wash it, erase her from it. Instead, I just stand there, inhaling.

The clock on the stove blinks 4:12 a.m.
Too early to start working, too late to sleep. The usual hours when everything that's been shoved aside comes back around.

I walk to the couch, sit, elbows on my knees. The city hum outside fills the gaps. I think about calling her, about saying something meaningless just to hear her voice. You home? Get back safe? But that would turn this into something we never agreed it was. So I don't.

Eventually I peel the shirt off and toss it onto the back of the couch. My skin feels colder without it. I stare at the ceiling, trying to imagine what she's doing now. Maybe nothing. Maybe she's already asleep, peaceful in a way I can never seem to be.

When I finally stretch out on the bed, the scent still lingers on my hands. I press my palms over my eyes until the light patterns fade behind them. There's a small ache sitting just under my sternum; part confusion, part curiosity, part something I don't have a name for yet.

Sleep doesn't come easy, but when it does, it smells faintly of her.