"I-I'm your home?" I blurt out.

"Yes. Wherever you are, it feels like home to me."

He continues. "And a home is typically where one feels safe... And I feel most as ease with you."

My heart felt so warm.

"So may I come in?" Jungkook asks.

"Of course. If I'm your home, then my house is your home." I gesture to my living room apartment.

"If that makes sense." I scratch my head.

"You always make sense to me," Jungkook says, taking his shoes off and placing them on the doormat.

Can he stop with these charming one-liners?

"So what happened? You told me not to follow you." I raise my brow.

"That didn't mean I wasn't going to follow you."

The butterflies in my stomach were doing somersaults.

"Hey, your cheeks are going red." He points out. "Are you blushing?"

"Yes. Yes, I am," I honestly answer, the hellish smoke still extraditing the truth from me.

"Good. I hope I'm the only one who feel that way."

"Everything you say is so smooth. I want to learn a line that makes your heart flutter, too." I grin.

"Your smile makes my heart flutter." Jungkook gazes at me, as if I were a rare sunset that could disappear any moment below the horizon.

***

I prepare some tea for both of us and we sit on the couch.

"I'm so sorry that I left you and was so cruel. I just felt so overwhelmed with all this information." Jungkook purses his lips.

"It's okay. When I learnt of the supernatural, I freaked out, too. It was so hard to keep this all from you."

"Magic seems so amazing...but," he sighs.

"But what?"

"If magic is real, you wonder if fate and predestination is real. You start to wonder if everything is planned out for you and you truly have no control, despite how much you fight it." He shakes his head.

"We'll defy fate then," I tell him.

"You're cute."

He giggles and puts his mug on the table.

"I'm sooo tired," he yawns and places his head on the armrest of the couch.

"Me too. Do you think Satan's truth-inducing smoke had anything to do with it?"

"Definitely. My whole body feels drained." He lays down on the couch, and gently places his legs on my lap. I stand up, feeling a bit shy.

Doesn't he know the heart-hammering effect of his touch on me?

"When are your parents coming home?" He asks.

"About 12 pm. Why?"

"Good. Then, they won't know about this."

He grabs my hand then pulls me so my body is laying right next to him on the small couch, and my head is resting on his arm.

"What are you doing?" I gasp.

"Cuddling you. Or, if you don't want this." Jungkook lets go.

I pull his other arm securely around my waist, the warmth of his body soaking through his shirt to mine.

"No, I want this. I've wanted this for a long time," I finally say what's been on my mind along.

He laughs, and I feel his chest rising and falling against my back. He nuzzles my nape, his legs intertwined with mine.

It was like we had never been apart really, as we embraced with such intensity.

"Me, too."

***

"I still can't believe you chose to come to me." I'm still resting on his arm, but facing towards him, his chest pressed against mine.

"I don't have anyone else besides you," Jungkook says.

"I didn't realize you were always so alone," I realized.

"You're right... I'm always so alone. And it results in the type of loneliness that could make one go mad."

"We can be mad together," I suggested.

"You are cute. So terribly cute." He boops my nose.

"I can't believe I thought you hated me once." I shake my head.

"I could never hate you. Besides, I could never hate someone more than myself."

"Jungkook-"

"And besides you, misery is my daily company." He sighs.

"Don't say that."

"It's the truth. I've been miserable for so long."

He explains, "So many people have a dark side and pretend to be kind. They learn to imitate emotions of sympathy and use that against others.

"Meanwhile, I didn't have a dark side as a kid. I had to imitate others' darkness and act like I was enjoying it... I didn't initially, but now it feels I've created a black hole of evil inside me and I'm feel trapped inside."

I'm quiet but I listen. He continues.

"For all these years, I've only cared about keeping myself alive. Day by day, I had to survive through these horrors. My mother's eyes would be watching me from the back of my mind but I really couldn't care for any living person. Til you came along again, and now you're like an illness i can't seem to heal. I feel your presence, everywhere even when you're not there."

He gulps. "Now all my thoughts are filled with you. I worry about you so much I know it's unhealthy... When you're in danger, it feels like my whole life is thrown apart. but when you smile at me, I feel like everything's gonna be okay. I feel you're my source of happiness.

"I think about you so often that i wonder if it's even possible to care about someone else besides yourself that much. Then I wonder- is this the sensation that's called love?"

He traces my cheekbone so gently, as if he's afraid I'm just a figment of his imagination and can vanish any second.

I grab his hand.

"You're also my source of happiness, Jungkook. And if that's what love is... I think I'm in love with you, too."

His eyelids flutter close, the Satanic smoke finally inducing him to rest.

I close my eyes, the slow breathing of his chest against mine lulling me to sleep.

I have prayed for Jungkook's peace for so long...

But revealing my feelings finally gave me peace, too.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: this isn't the end! there's still a couple more chapters but it is close to the end :-0