The city looked different after midnight.
Not quieter—just more honest.
Taehyung shoved his hands into the pockets of his oversized bomber jacket as he and Jimin pushed deeper into the neon-poisoned street leading to the club. Smoke curled into the air like violet ribbons, drifting up from alleyways and the mouths of strangers. The music thrummed under the pavement, rattling through Taehyung's bones.
Jimin bumped his shoulder. "You look like a kicked puppy. Smile at least once before we go inside?"
Taehyung scoffed. "I'm here, aren't I? That's enough smiling."
But even as he said it, something restless fluttered in his chest—something he didn't want to name. Something that had started a few months ago, something that made him feel out of place in his own skin.
Inside, the club swallowed them whole.
Lights slashed in purple and crimson, smoke drifted low, and bodies moved like one giant pulse. Taehyung rarely felt intimidated by crowds—he had a reputation at school, after all—but tonight he felt… observed. Not by Jimin, and not by the strangers brushing past.
From deeper inside the room, something tugged at him.
Someone.
A shadowed booth in the corner. A shape leaning back like he owned the room. Taehyung caught only a fragment—a jawline, an arm draped over leather, a set of sharp eyes glinting through the haze.
A chill crawled up Taehyung's spine, but before he could look again, Jimin grabbed his wrist.
"Dance with me, you menace," Jimin yelled over the music.
Taehyung rolled his eyes but let himself be dragged in.
They spun through the crowd, laughing, moving, letting the night swallow them whole. For a moment, Taehyung forgot the weight in his chest.
But every few seconds—every time he blinked—he felt those eyes again.
That stare.
It wasn't until much later, when the club lights flared toward closing time, that Taehyung finally saw him clearly.
A man—young, striking, impossibly calm for someone in a room full of noise.
Black clothes, tattoos brushing the edge of his sleeve, midnight hair falling over sharp eyes.
Eyes that met Taehyung's like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Something inside Taehyung stuttered.
The stranger didn't smile. Didn't flirt.
He just looked—steady, assessing, almost amused.
Taehyung's throat tightened.
Their worlds collided for one suspended heartbeat—
—and then the music cut, the crowd shifted, and Taehyung lost sight of him completely.
The night ended there.
But the memory didn't.
Not for a single second.