The night was heavy with rain, the windowpane rattling like fingers tapping against glass.

Taehyung lay in bed, the sheets tangled around his trembling legs. His throat was dry, his mind a haze of terror and longing.

The old clock on the wall ticked slow, each second like a drumbeat counting down to the inevitable.

He knew he should run. Move. Fight.

But he didn't.

He stayed perfectly still, eyes squeezed shut, pretending to sleep.

The cold crept in first, a slithering mist that made the air brittle. Then, the whisper of footsteps—soft but certain—crossing the worn wooden floor.

Taehyung's heart thudded painfully, each beat screaming wake up, run, escape.

But a part of him—the part that still wore his wedding ring even after the funeral—ached for the familiar presence.

A shadow leaned over him.

Breath—cold as the grave—brushed his cheek.

"Mine."

The voice was a raspy, broken thing.

Yet somehow, it still sounded so much like the man he had loved. Loved beyond reason. Beyond sanity.

Tears slipped from the corners of Taehyung’s closed eyes. His fingers clutched the sheets so tightly his knuckles whitened.

"I waited," the voice murmured. "Waited for you to call me back. But you didn't."

Taehyung couldn't help it. He opened his eyes.

And there he was.

Jungkook.

But not the Jungkook he remembered—this was a ruined thing. Skin pale as paper. Lips tinged blue. Eyes—once warm and brown—now black, endless voids that held nothing human.

Still, he was heartbreakingly beautiful.

"J-Jungkook," Taehyung gasped.

Jungkook's lips curled into a sad, feral smile.

"You remember me."

He reached out and cupped Taehyung’s face. His fingers were cold, but gentle. Possessive.

"You're thinner," Jungkook murmured, thumb tracing Taehyung’s hollowed cheek. "Fragile. You need me."

"No," Taehyung whimpered, but the word had no weight.

"You do," Jungkook said, his voice dropping to a low growl. "You always did. That's why I'm here."

Without warning, Jungkook leaned in, pressing his lips to the sensitive skin of Taehyung’s throat.

The kiss turned into a bite, sharp and deep. Taehyung cried out, a broken, breathless sound, but he didn't move. He couldn’t move.

Pain bloomed—sharp, searing—and then faded into a twisted, aching pleasure.

When Jungkook pulled back, a thin trail of blood glistened down Taehyung’s neck.

"You belong to me," Jungkook said, voice like a prayer.

"Ashes to ashes. Flesh to flesh."

He kissed the blood away tenderly, like a man worshipping a shrine.

Taehyung sobbed silently, torn between horror and an unbearable yearning.

"I'll never leave you again," Jungkook promised, climbing into bed and pulling Taehyung against his ice-cold body.

"You’re mine. Even in death."

Taehyung wanted to scream.

But all that came out was a broken whisper:

"Please... stay."

And Jungkook smiled.

A smile that promised he would never let go.

Not even if Taehyung begged him to.

Not even if it meant dragging him into the grave with him.

Morning came sluggishly, filtered through grimy curtains and the dull ache of too many unanswered questions. Taehyung sat on the edge of the bed, his hands trembling in his lap. The wound on his neck throbbed—a sharp, pulsing reminder that the night before hadn't been a dream.

He pulled back the collar of his shirt to study the mark. It wasn’t just a bite. It was deep, angry, almost ritualistic. Bruised edges framed two punctures, and a faint halo of gray spread beneath the skin. The ache wasn't just physical. It was inside him—a longing, an emptiness that called out to the night.

He hadn't imagined Jungkook.

And now he couldn't escape him.

The apartment, once a haven of shared laughter and cozy evenings, now felt like a mausoleum. The photos of their wedding still hung on the wall: Taehyung in white silk, Jungkook beaming beside him under a halo of roses. He'd never taken them down, even after the accident. He couldn't. Jungkook had always been the love that defined him.

But now love had returned as hunger.

The doorbell rang.

Taehyung flinched, heart leaping to his throat. He hadn’t seen anyone in weeks. He padded barefoot to the door and opened it slightly, just enough to peek through the crack.

It was an old woman from upstairs. Mrs. Yoon. She peered at him with wary eyes.

“Taehyung, dear. You alright? You look pale.”

He forced a weak smile. “I’m fine. Just tired.”

She nodded, though her gaze lingered. “Heard some noises last night. Strange ones. Almost like crying… and someone else talking. Thought you were alone, dear.”

Taehyung said nothing.

After she left, he bolted the door and sank to the floor. He knew what he had to do.

He needed answers. He needed proof.

That night, he set up an old camcorder in the corner of the room. A relic from their honeymoon days, its battery barely held a charge, but it would have to do. If Jungkook came again, he would capture it. Capture him.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, Taehyung dressed in his old sleepwear—the one Jungkook used to love. He lay in bed, body tense, every nerve on fire with fear and expectation.

The air grew still. Cold.

Then…

Movement.

He felt the bed dip. Heard the whisper of fabric.

“Why are you filming me?” Jungkook’s voice was gentle, but laced with warning.

Taehyung turned his head slowly.

Jungkook was there.

Not a ghost. Not quite human. But solid enough to touch.

“I need to know,” Taehyung whispered. “If you’re real. If this is a curse or a second chance.”

Jungkook leaned down, resting his forehead against Taehyung’s.

“It’s both,” he murmured. “But it was your love that kept me tethered. Don’t you see? I didn’t come back to haunt you. I came back to keep you.”

Taehyung’s breath hitched.

Jungkook’s hands roamed his chest, his touch cold but firm. “And you’re already changing, Tae. The mark… it’s just the beginning.”

“Changing into what?”

Jungkook smiled. “Mine.”

Taehyung didn’t sleep after that night.

Even as the sun poured through the curtains the next morning, its golden light could not wash away the cold grip around his heart. The camera sat silently in the corner of the room, blinking its dead red eye. He didn’t need to replay the footage. He already knew what it captured. The way Jungkook had appeared—impossibly there, impossibly gone—and the way Taehyung had collapsed after, shaking, marked.

Jungkook was real.

But not alive.

He sat at the kitchen table, his hands cradling a chipped mug of tea he couldn’t bring himself to drink. The steam had long since faded, leaving only a bitter scent of dried leaves and regret. Across from him, the chair that used to be Jungkook’s stood empty. Yet somehow, it felt like someone was sitting in it—watching. The silence between them stretched, thick with memory.

There was a new sensation growing inside him. It started in his chest, a heaviness that pressed on his lungs like hands, unseen but insistent. His hands shook more often. His skin paled until the veins beneath were visible like ink beneath parchment. The scar on his neck, once faint, had begun to darken by the hour. It wasn’t healing. It was spreading. Crawling across his collarbone in delicate black lines like roots from a poisoned tree.

By the fourth day, he could no longer hide it.

His coworkers texted, asking if he was okay. He didn’t reply. He didn’t go outside. He stopped answering the door. Shadows moved differently now. Mirrors blurred when he passed them. And every night, Jungkook returned.

Each visit left Taehyung weaker, but also more entangled. Jungkook wasn’t just biting him now. He was claiming him. Touching him. Speaking to him in half-whispers, brushing fingers down his spine, lips against his ear. Things Taehyung barely remembered come morning, yet they echoed in his bones.

Things like:

“You’re mine, Taehyung. There is no afterlife without you.”

“When I died, I waited at the threshold. You never called me back. So I came.”

“Our love is stronger than death. It must be fed.”

On the fifth night, Taehyung tried to resist. He barricaded the windows with heavy furniture, spread salt around every doorframe, recited protective chants found buried in haunted forums run by insomniacs and witches. He burned sage until the apartment reeked of ash and desperation. His voice cracked from chanting. His eyes stung from smoke.

It didn’t work.

Jungkook appeared anyway.

More beautiful than ever. More monstrous.

He stepped through the salt like it was nothing, his form flickering as if pulled between two realms. His eyes were the same—those endless pits that once held love, now burning with something deeper, darker. Possession.

“You don’t understand,” he murmured, cupping Taehyung’s face with ghost-cold fingers. “You’re not being haunted. You’re being chosen.”

Taehyung sobbed, trembling. “I didn’t ask for this. I just wanted to grieve.”

Jungkook's lips, ice and memory, brushed his cheek. “But your grief summoned me. You kept me alive in your heart. You fed me with your tears.”

That night, the bond deepened.

Jungkook didn’t just bite.

He pressed his palm to Taehyung’s chest, and a mark appeared—black and veined, right over his heart. It pulsed in sync with Jungkook’s touch. Taehyung screamed, the sound swallowed by shadows.

When he woke, the mark remained.

So did Jungkook, curled beside him, breathing slow, as if sleep had found even the dead.

“Soon,” Jungkook whispered, fingers threading through Taehyung’s hair. “You won’t need to breathe without me.”

Taehyung clutched his chest.

And for a moment, he wondered if he already couldn’t.