Present Day – Seoul, 2025
Jeon Jungkook's POV
It always starts the same.
Rain.
Gunfire in the distance.
And the sound of someone crying.
I'm lying in someone's arms, cold metal pressed to my chest. There's blood, but I don't feel pain. Only warmth. A voice calls my name — no, pleads it.
"Jungkook..."
And then I wake up.
Every time.
---
The city outside is quiet when I sit up in bed, chest heaving, sweat sticking my shirt to my skin. It's 3:47 a.m. I've had this dream for six months now. Always the same images, always the same voice, always that name.
"Taehyung."
I don't know who he is.
I've never met a Taehyung in my life.
And yet, when I whisper his name, it tastes like home.
---
I drag myself out of bed, throw on a hoodie, and head to my studio.
Painting helps.
Most nights I don't sleep anymore. Instead, I paint the man from the dream — soft eyes, delicate hands, white hanbok stained with ash and blood. His face is still a blur, but I know the feel of him.
The kind of presence that wraps around you like a silk thread and strangles you when it's gone.
---
Later that day, I visit the National War History Museum.
It's for a commission — a mural for the centennial of the Resistance. But something about the exhibit room makes me stop breathing.
A glass case.
Inside: a faded white ribbon, ink-stained paper, a bloodied moonstone necklace.
My fingers twitch.
The paper catches my eye. A letter. The name nearly rips my chest open.
To: Kim Taehyung
From: Captain Jeon Jungkook
Dated: October 1910
What. The. Fuck.
---
"Are you alright?" a voice asks softly.
I turn.
And there he is.
The man from my dreams — in flesh.
Same lips. Same eyes. Only now, he's wearing a black turtleneck and silver-rimmed glasses, holding a clipboard and blinking at me like he's seen a ghost.
Maybe he has.
"Have… we met before?" he asks.
My mouth goes dry. "I—don't think so."
But my heart says otherwise.
Because even though I've never heard this man's voice in real life before...
…I've died in his arms a hundred times in my sleep.
---
Flashback – Joseon, 1910
Taehyung's POV
The war took everything.
My family. My home. My name.
But he gave me back something I never thought I'd find again—love. The kind that hides between glances and blooms in silence.
I still remember the night we sat under the moonlight. His hands were trembling when he tied the necklace around my throat.
"If I die," he whispered, "find me. In the next life. Find me."
And I promised.
But promises are cruel things in war.
---
Back to 2025 – Seoul
Taehyung's POV
When I saw him standing in front of the exhibit, my chest tightened.
He looked exactly like him. From the paintings in my dreams. From the sketches I've drawn since I was fifteen.
Jeon Jungkook.
The name written on the bloodied letter I've kept hidden for months.
I don't know how I know it's him. But when his eyes met mine — the world tilted.
Like the past just remembered how to breathe again.
---
To be continued...
Word count: ~1,050 words
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