Min Yoongi || Neighbor next door

The week had been a whirlwind of new experiences, and by Saturday night, {User} felt a warmth she hadn't expected to find so quickly in the bustling anonymity of Seoul. She had made friends—real ones, the kind who laughed too loudly and danced without care. The party at the club had been a kaleidoscope of neon lights and thrumming bass, her friends' drunken antics painting the evening in shades of silly, joyful chaos. Life, in that moment, felt beautiful. It felt like the beginning of something wonderful.

If only she had known what waited for her in the shadows.

The morning had started with a sour note. Rushing to work, she had stepped into the elevator only to find him there—her neighbor, the one with the cold eyes and the even colder demeanor. He stood in the corner, a dark silhouette against the metallic walls, his attention fixed on his phone as if it held the secrets to the universe.

"Good morning," she had offered, her voice carrying the remnants of her village warmth.

Silence. He didn't even blink.

{User} felt a flicker of irritation. She had been raised to believe that kindness cost nothing, yet this man seemed determined to hoard his like a miser. As the elevator doors slid shut, sealing them in together, she turned to face him.

"Why are you so rude?" she asked, her tone direct but not unkind. "I said good morning."

He continued scrolling, his thumb moving lazily across the screen. The indifference was almost theatrical.

She scoffed, the sound sharp in the small space. "Cold monkey," she muttered under her breath, the insult slipping out before she could catch it.

The air shifted. His thumb stopped. Slowly, with a deliberateness that made her stomach tighten, he looked up. His eyes were dark, unreadable, and they locked onto hers with an intensity that made her breath catch. He pocketed his phone and took a step towards her. Then another.

{User} instinctively stepped back, her shoulders meeting the cold metal of the elevator wall. He kept coming, closing the distance until he was towering over her, close enough that she could smell the faint, clean scent of his cologne mixed with something else—something metallic. He placed one hand on the wall beside her head, effectively caging her in.

"Is that what you think I am?" His voice was low, a gravelly whisper that sent an involuntary shiver down her spine. "A cold monkey?"

She swallowed hard, her heart hammering against her ribs. Her throat felt dry, her words trapped somewhere between her lungs and her lips. Up close, she could see the faint shadows under his eyes, the tiny scar near his brow. He was beautiful in a dangerous, broken way, like a storm she should run from but couldn't help watching.

"I—" she started, but the elevator dinged, the doors sliding open to the bright, mundane lobby.

The spell shattered. {User} ducked under his arm and bolted, her boots clicking frantically against the marble floor. She didn't look back, but she could feel his gaze on her back, a weight that followed her all the way out the glass doors.

She shook it off, burying the encounter beneath the distractions of the day. By evening, surrounded by her friends and the pulsing energy of the club, the strange moment in the elevator felt like a distant dream. She danced, she laughed, she drank. She wore a chic ensemble that made her feel powerful—an off-white cropped top with dramatically draped bell sleeves that cascaded like wings when she moved, paired with a light-wash denim mini skirt featuring a folded-over waistband studded with rhinestones that caught the strobe lights. Her knee-high off-white leather boots, with their pointed toes and delicate gold buckles, added a final touch of dangerous elegance.

It was the best day of her week.

When the night finally wound down, {User} bid her friends goodbye with hugs and promises to text when she got home. The air outside was cool, a relief after the stuffy heat of the club. She pulled out her phone to call a cab, but the network was dead. No signal. She sighed, glancing down the street. Her apartment was only a twenty-minute walk. This was Seoul, a safe city. What could happen?

She started walking.

Five minutes in, a prickle of unease crept up her spine. The streets were quiet, the streetlights casting long, distorted shadows. She glanced over her shoulder but saw nothing. Just paranoia, she told herself. But the feeling persisted, gnawing at her instincts. Women's intuition, her mother had always said, was never wrong.

Her footsteps quickened. Behind her, the echo of footsteps quickened too.

Her heart lurched. She stole another glance back and saw them—three figures, dressed in all black, moving with purpose. They weren't just walking. They were following. Hunting.

Fear, cold and electric, flooded her veins. She broke into a run, her boots slapping against the pavement, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Behind her, the footsteps thundered in pursuit.

She rounded a corner, her lungs burning, and then—

A hand clamped over her waist, yanking her sideways into the shadows of a narrow alley. She opened her mouth to scream, but a low voice, familiar and terrifyingly calm, whispered against her ear.

"Walk. Normally. Like you know me."

Her eyes flew up, and in the dim light, she saw his face. Yoongi. Her cold, stoic neighbor. His arm was wrapped around her waist, pulling her close to his side as if they were lovers on a midnight stroll. But his other hand—

Her gaze dropped.

A pistol. Black. Unmistakable. Held low against his thigh, hidden from view but ready.

The world tilted. The cold monkey, the man who ignored her existence, the one with bruised knuckles and a guitar that wept—who was he really?

Her questions clawed at her throat, but before she could voice a single one, Yoongi's grip tightened, and he steered her forward, his voice a low command.

"Keep walking. Don't look back. And whatever you do, don't run."

The men behind them were still coming. And the man beside her, the stranger she thought she knew, was her only shield.

The afternoon sun hung low in the sky, casting long golden fingers of light through the narrow gap between their apartment buildings. {User} had just returned from the market, her canvas bag heavy with fresh vegetables and a small pot of basil she couldn't resist buying. The old woman at the stall had reminded her of her grandmother, and saying no had felt like a betrayal of her village roots.

She was fumbling with her keys, the bag slipping from her shoulder, when she heard it—a low, pained hiss followed by a string of curses so quiet she almost missed them.

Her head turned instinctively.

There he was. Her neighbor. The cold monkey himself. He was leaning against the wall near the stairwell, one hand pressed against his ribs, the other clutching the railing with white-knuckled intensity. His face, usually a mask of stoic indifference, was twisted in pain. A dark stain was spreading across the side of his black shirt—wet, glistening under the fading light.

Blood.

{User}'s bag hit the ground. The basil pot shattered, soil scattering across the concrete like a tiny, ruined garden.

"Hey—" she started, stepping towards him without thinking. "You're bleeding. You need—"

"Don't." His voice was a razor, sharp enough to cut her off mid-step. He straightened, forcing his face back into that familiar, cold mask, but she saw the wince he tried to hide. "Go inside."

"You're hurt," she pressed,因为她 was {User}, and she had never learned how to walk away from something that needed help. "Let me call someone. A doctor. Or—"

"I said go inside." He pushed off the wall, intending to walk past her, to disappear into his own apartment and bleed in silence like he always did. But his body betrayed him. His knees buckled, and he stumbled, his shoulder slamming into the wall.

{User} moved before she could think. Her hands caught his arm, steadying him. He was freezing to the touch, his skin clammy, and she could feel the tremor running through his muscles. Up close, she saw what she had never noticed before—the faint scars along his jaw, the exhaustion etched into the lines around his eyes, the way his pupils were slightly too dilated.

"Let go," he growled, but there was no force behind it. His voice was fraying at the edges.

"You're going to bleed out in this hallway," she said, her tone firm despite the fear fluttering in her chest. "And I'm not going to let that happen. So either you let me help you, or I'm calling an ambulance and making a scene."

His dark eyes met hers, and for a moment, the mask slipped. She saw something beneath the ice—something raw and tired and achingly human. Something that looked almost like surprise, as if no one had ever insisted on helping him before.

"You don't know what you're involving yourself in," he said quietly.

"Then tell me."

He stared at her for a long moment. The silence stretched, heavy with unspoken things. Then, slowly, he let out a breath—a surrender.

"Fine." He nodded towards his apartment door. "But you're going to regret this."

{User} didn't let go of his arm. "I've regretted a lot of things in my life. Helping someone isn't going to be one of them."

She helped him inside, the door clicking shut behind them, sealing her into a world she didn't understand—a world of blood and secrets and a man who played guitar like he was mourning something he'd lost long ago.

And somewhere in the back of her mind, a small voice whispered that nothing would ever be the same again.

The universe, {User} had decided, had a very specific sense of humor when it came to her love life. Or rather, her lack thereof. Back in her village, romance had been simple—her father bringing her mother wildflowers, stolen glances across the rice paddies, promises whispered under moonlight. In Seoul, romance was apparently a cold-shouldered man who played guitar at dawn and pretended she didn't exist.

But today, the universe had decided to escalate from "cold shoulder" to "full-frontal chaos."

It started with the cat.

{User} had been coming home from work, tired but content, her mind drifting to the leftover kimchi jjigae waiting in her fridge. She was fumbling for her keys when she heard it—a pitiful, desperate meowing coming from somewhere near her neighbor's door.

Her heart, that traitorous organ that loved all creatures great and small, immediately melted.

"Hello?" She crouched down, peering into the shadows near the stairwell. Two enormous green eyes stared back at her. The cat was small, scruffy, and looked like it had been through a war. It meowed again, louder this time, as if personally offended by its own existence.

"Oh, you poor baby," {User} cooed, reaching out. "Are you lost? Are you hungry? Do you need—"

The cat bolted.

Not away from her. Into her neighbor's apartment.

The door, which had been slightly ajar, swung open under the cat's desperate push. And {User}, because she was {User} and because her body moved faster than her brain when animals were involved, lunged after it.

"Wait! Come back! I'll get you some—"

She tripped over the threshold.

Time slowed. She saw the floor approaching. She saw a pair of black socks. She saw, with dawning horror, that the socks were attached to legs, and the legs were attached to a certain cold monkey who was standing in his kitchen, holding a cup of coffee, wearing nothing but sweatpants and an expression of profound, soul-deep exhaustion.

She crashed into him.

The coffee went flying. The cat screeched. {User} let out a sound that was somewhere between a yelp and a dying whale. And Min Yoongi, the man who had never once acknowledged her existence, found himself flat on his back on his kitchen floor with a strange woman sprawled across his chest and lukewarm coffee soaking into his hair.

There was a long, terrible silence.

Then, from somewhere near the refrigerator, the cat meowed.

{User} scrambled off him so fast she nearly headbutted the counter. "I—you—the cat—there was a cat—it ran in—I was trying to—" She was gesturing wildly, her face the color of a ripe tomato. "Your door was open! Why was your door open?! Do you always leave your door open?! That's dangerous! Anyone could just—"

"Anyone did," Yoongi said flatly, still lying on the floor.

She stopped. Opened her mouth. Closed it.

He sat up slowly, coffee dripping from his silver hair, his expression unreadable. The sweatpants. The bare chest. The faint scars she could now see tracing along his shoulder. {User}'s brain short-circuited in at least three different ways.

"I'll pay for the coffee," she blurted.

"You'll pay for the coffee," he repeated, deadpan.

"And the... floor. I'll clean the floor."

"The floor."

"And I'll get the cat. I'll definitely get the cat."

As if on cue, the cat—that furry demon of chaos—darted between them and disappeared into what she assumed was his bedroom.

{User} stared after it in horror.

Yoongi stared at her.

"I don't like cats," he said.

"Everyone likes cats."

"I don't."

"You're wrong."

The words left her mouth before she could stop them. She froze, expecting the ice, the cold shoulder, the silent dismissal. Instead, something flickered across his face. Something that, on anyone else, might have been mistaken for amusement.

"You're bleeding," he said.

{User} looked down. In her dramatic tumble, she had scraped her elbow on the edge of the counter. A thin line of blood was trailing down her forearm.

"Oh," she said faintly. "That's... that's fine. I'll just—"

She took a step back and promptly slipped on the spilled coffee. Her feet went out from under her. She grabbed for something—anything—and found purchase on the edge of his sweatpants.

Which she pulled down.

Time stopped.

{User} lay on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, her hand still clutching the waistband of Min Yoongi's pants, which were now around his ankles, revealing a pair of boxer briefs with little cartoon cats printed on them.

The cat-print boxers.

The cat. In his bedroom.

The irony was not lost on her.

Slowly, very slowly, she released the fabric and covered her face with both hands. "I'm going to move to a different country," she whispered. "I'm going to change my name. I'm going to become a goat herder in the mountains and never speak to another human being again."

Above her, Yoongi sighed. It was a long, weary sound, the sigh of a man who had seen too much and was now adding "neighbor saw my cat underwear" to his list of traumas.

"The cat," he said, "is not mine."

"It's in your bedroom."

"It broke in."

"So did I."

He looked down at her, still sprawled on his floor, still mortified, still covered in coffee and shame. And then—impossibly—the corner of his mouth twitched.

It wasn't a smile. Not quite. But it was close.

"You're a disaster," he said.

"I'm aware."

Another pause. Then, with a gravity that made her want to sink through the floor, he extended a hand.

"Get up. You're cleaning the floor, remember?"

{User} took his hand. His palm was calloused and cold, but his grip was steady. He pulled her to her feet with surprising strength, and for a moment, they were standing far too close, her hand still in his, the chaos of the past five minutes settling around them like dust.

The cat meowed from the bedroom.

"I'm keeping the cat," she said.

"It's not yours."

"It's in your apartment. That makes it partially mine."

"That's not how ownership works."

"It is now."

Yoongi stared at her. She stared back, chin lifted, defiant despite the coffee stain on her shirt and the blood on her elbow and the fact that she had just pulled down a stranger's pants.

And then, for the first time since she'd moved in next door, Min Yoongi spoke more than three words to her.

"You're insane."

"Thank you."

"That wasn't a compliment."

"I'm choosing to take it as one."

He shook his head, but she caught it again—that almost-smile, hidden beneath the ice. He turned away, grabbing a towel from the counter and tossing it at her.

"Clean the floor," he said. "Then get the cat. Then leave."

{User} caught the towel and saluted. "Sir, yes, sir."

He walked towards his bedroom, presumably to put on pants that didn't have cats on them. She watched him go, her heart doing something strange and fluttery in her chest.

The cat meowed again.

"Don't worry," she whispered to it, dropping to her knees to mop up the coffee. "I think he likes us."

From the bedroom, Yoongi's voice drifted out, flat and unamused.

"I heard that."

{User} grinned.

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