Serving Kim Taehyung

***************

If I had reached the cliff thirty seconds later, he would have died.

The thought settles in my mind now like a cold echo, but back then it was nothing more than a possibility waiting in the dark.

At the time, I didn’t know that.

I only felt the faint prickle of danger threading through the storm-soaked air.

I only knew someone was behind me.

A presence that didn’t belong to the forest, something too deliberate to be wind or rain.

A branch snapped somewhere in the darkness.

Sharp, clean, like a warning being snapped in half.

I stopped.

The stillness hit me harder than the rain, as if the entire forest paused to listen with me.

Rain hammered relentlessly through the canopy, drumming against leaves until every other sound blurred together. Every instinct told me to keep walking.

Instincts I usually trusted. Instincts that rarely failed me.

Instead, I listened.

Letting the storm fill the silence between my breaths.

One…

Two…

Three…

Nothing.

Nothing but the heavy pulse of rain and the faint throb of tension crawling up my spine.

Not another footstep. Not another branch. Just the storm.

You’re imagining things, Zora.

A lie I told myself often, and believed almost never.

I exhaled slowly and started forward again.

My boots sank into the softened earth, each step swallowed by mud and shadow.

The forest had been unnaturally quiet for almost twenty minutes.

Too quiet for a place that should have been alive with movement, even in the rain.

No birds.

No insects.

Not even the distant rustling of small animals searching for shelter from the rain.

Only silence.

A thick, unnatural kind that pressed against my ears like a held breath.

The kind that felt deliberate.

Engineered. Wrong.

Another gust of wind swept through the trees, sending wet branches swaying overhead.

The movement felt sluggish, heavy, as if the forest itself was exhausted from holding secrets.

My fingers twitched instinctively toward my right hip before stopping against the soaked cotton of my dress.

A useless gesture, muscle memory reaching for something that wasn’t there.

Right.

No holster.

No knife.

No pockets.

Whose brilliant idea had it been to wear a long yellow dress into the middle of a forest?

Mine.

Wonderful.

The sarcasm did nothing to warm the cold knot forming beneath my ribs.

A sharp cry suddenly sliced through the rain.

“Help!”

I froze.

The sound cut through me like a blade, too real to ignore, too desperate to dismiss.

Male.

Young.

Close.

The sound disappeared beneath a deafening clap of thunder.

The sky swallowed his voice whole, leaving only the echo vibrating in my bones.

My thoughts immediately assembled themselves.

Old habits, old training, slipping into place before I could stop them.

Distance… approximately one hundred meters.

Voice strength decreasing.

Possible injuries.

Probability of—

I blinked.

The calculation snapped like a thread pulled too tight.

A trap?

I frowned at myself.

Even my paranoia sounded unimpressed.

Seriously?

Who exactly would set up an ambush in the middle of nowhere during a thunderstorm?

I was letting my imagination run wild.

Or maybe it was simply running ahead of me, the way it always did when something felt off.

Another cry echoed through the trees.

This one was weaker.

Shorter.

My decision took less than a heartbeat.

I ran.

The forest blurred around me, rain stinging my skin as adrenaline surged through my veins.

Rain stung my face as branches whipped across my arms. My long yellow cotton dress snapped almost immediately on a thorn bush.

Riiip.

The hem tore cleanly.

“I liked that dress,” I muttered under my breath, yanking the fabric free without slowing down.

The complaint felt absurd even to me, but it grounded me in motion.

Mud sucked greedily at my boots while soaked skirts wrapped around my legs with every stride.

Each step felt like fighting the earth itself.

Absolutely impractical.

Absolutely annoying.

Completely irrelevant.

The voice had come from somewhere ahead.

The ground sloped sharply downward.

Too sharply.

I adjusted instinctively.

My body moved before thought, shifting weight, recalibrating balance.

Three shorter steps.

Shift left.

Avoid the loose stones.

My feet obeyed before I consciously realized why.

Old training whispering through muscle memory like a ghost.

Then the trees ended.

Wind slammed into me.

Cold, violent, carrying the scent of wet stone and open air.

The earth disappeared beneath my boots.

A cliff.

I dug my heels into the mud just in time, stopping inches from the edge as pebbles scattered into the void below.

My heart lurched against my ribs, a single hard beat that echoed in my ears.

They never made a sound when they landed.

My eyes swept downward.

Searching, scanning, locking onto movement.

There.

A man clung to an exposed root jutting from the cliff face.

One hand gripped the thick root.

The other desperately clawed at crumbling earth that dissolved every time he tried to pull himself higher.

His white shirt was soaked through, plastered against his frame.

Dark hair clung to his forehead.

Rain streamed down his face.

He looked up.

Our eyes met.

And for a split second, the world narrowed to that single point of connection, sharp, startling, and electric.

He wasn’t screaming anymore.

He wasn’t panicking.

He was calculating.

Assessing me with the same intensity I was assessing him.

Interesting.

Very.

The root groaned beneath his weight.

My eyes flicked across the cliff face.

Every detail sharpened, every fracture line glowing in my mind like a map.

Soil saturation.

Root depth.

Weight distribution.

Fracture lines.

The answer appeared almost instantly.

Five seconds.

“Don’t move!” I shouted.

He looked up again, rain dripping from his chin.

“I’m kind of…” His breathing hitched as another clump of dirt gave way beneath him.

“…already moving.”

“The left side of the root.”

“What?”

“Move your hand higher. Left.”

There wasn’t time to explain.

There was barely time to breathe.

He hesitated.

Then, perhaps because I sounded entirely too certain to argue with, he obeyed.

The instant his hand moved—

CRACK.

Half the root snapped away exactly where his fingers had been.

His eyes widened.

“…How did you—”

“No time.”

I dropped to my knees. Cold mud soaked straight through my dress as I crawled toward the unstable edge, keeping my weight low and feeling the icy weight of the storm press against my spine.

Another crack splintered through the cliff, sharp enough to vibrate through my palms.

The ground beneath my elbows shifted, a slow, sickening slide that warned me how little time we had.

Still stable.

For now.

Barely.

I stretched out my arm, fingers steady despite the adrenaline burning through my veins.

“Grip my wrist.”

His gaze snapped from my hand to my face, eyes wide with a mix of fear and disbelief that cut through the rain.

“You’ll fall.”

“That is not relevant.”

The words left me colder than the storm, instinct overriding logic.

His eyebrows lifted despite the situation, as if he couldn’t decide whether to argue or trust me.

“…That’s a surprisingly confident answer.”

“Grip. My. Wrist.”

A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, a strange flicker of humor in the middle of chaos.

“I’ve always wanted to meet someone who gives orders while hanging off a cliff.”

“This is an unfortunate place to fulfill your dreams.”

He laughed.

Actually laughed.

The sound was breathless, disbelieving, and wildly out of place.

Was he concussed?

Then his fingers slipped.

The smile vanished instantly, replaced by raw panic tightening his features.

His hand shot upward.

I caught his wrist, my grip locking around him with more force than I expected.

His skin was freezing, like grabbing onto ice instead of a person.

Rain turned both our grips dangerously slick, water sliding between our palms like it wanted to pry us apart.

Too much surface water.

Too little friction.

I planted both boots deeper into the mud, feeling the earth shift but refusing to give an inch.

Shifted my weight backward.

Locked my shoulder.

Braced my core.

Pull.

Nothing.

His weight dragged against gravity like an anchor.

Again.

His body rose barely an inch.

The cliff groaned beneath us, a low, ominous sound that vibrated through my bones.

Not good.

Very not good.

He noticed it too.

“I think…” he said carefully, voice tight with the effort of holding on.

“…your plan has a flaw.”

“My plan is excellent.”

“The ground disagrees.”

“I didn’t ask the ground.”

Despite everything, another breathless laugh escaped him, a thin thread of humor stretched over fear.

It lasted exactly one second.

The earth beneath him collapsed.

The root tore free.

Gravity won.

“NOW!”

He let go instantly.

Good.

Trust under pressure is rare, and it felt unexpectedly sharp in its intensity.

He trusted instructions quickly.

That made this easier.

His full weight slammed into me, a brutal collision that knocked the air from my lungs and sent sparks of pain through my ribs.

The impact stole my breath completely as we rolled backward through wet grass and mud, the world spinning in a blur of rain and darkness.

Another deafening crack echoed behind us.

Neither of us looked.

We didn’t have to.

The sound alone told the story as the cliff gave way where we’d been seconds earlier.

The section of cliff where we’d been lying only moments earlier disappeared into the darkness below.

The ground shook beneath us.

Then…

Silence.

A heavy, ringing kind of silence that made the storm feel distant.

Only rain.

Only wind.

Only the distant sound of crumbling earth disappearing into the gorge.

I lay perfectly still for two seconds, letting my senses catch up to the fact that we were still alive.

Breathing? Yes.

Conscious? Yes.

Broken bones?

…

Negative.

Good.

The word steadied me, a quiet confirmation that my body still obeyed even if the world didn’t.

I pushed myself upright.

The movement dragged fire across my ribs, sharp enough to blur my vision for a heartbeat.

A sharp pain stabbed through my ribs.

Deep and pointed, it warned of damage beneath the surface.

Bruised.

Possibly cracked.

Functional.

Acceptable.

Pain was information, inconvenient but manageable.

My eyes immediately returned to the cliff.

Instinct pulled them there, searching for any new threat, any shift in the unstable earth.

Another section collapsed.

A slab of mud and stone sheared away, vanishing into the darkness with a hollow roar.

Instability continuing.

The entire edge looked ready to peel away like wet paper.

“We need to move.”

I stood first before offering him a hand.

My balance wavered, but I forced stillness into my posture.

He accepted it and climbed to his feet, still breathing hard.

His grip was warm despite the cold rain, grounding in a way I didn’t expect.

Then his expression changed.

His eyes sharpened, focus narrowing with sudden concern.

His eyes fixed on my side.

“You’re bleeding.”

I looked down.

The sight registered slower than it should have, as if my brain had decided to prioritize everything else first.

A thin line of crimson spread through the rain-soaked yellow fabric.

The color looked almost black in the stormlight, stark against the ruined dress.

“Oh.”

“You didn’t notice?”

“I noticed.”

“You just said ‘oh.’”

“I was acknowledging the observation.”

My voice sounded too calm, even to me.

He stared at me.

A long, bewildered stare, like he was trying to categorize me and failing.

“…You’re very strange.”

“I’ve heard worse.”

“No, I mean…”

His brows knit, confusion deepening.

He looked genuinely confused now.

“You just pulled a complete stranger off a collapsing cliff.”

“Correct.”

“Predicted exactly when the ground would give way.”

I blinked.

A small, involuntary pause, the kind that betrayed more than I wanted it to.

“I did?”

“You literally told me to move my hand two seconds before the root snapped.”

“Oh.”

The word slipped out again, softer this time.

Another pause.

“I suppose that was fortunate.”

He looked at me as though trying to solve a puzzle.

His gaze lingered too long, searching for answers I couldn’t let him find.

“I don’t think fortunate is the word I’d use.”

A deep crack rolled through the cliff again.

The sound vibrated through the ground, a final warning.

This time, neither of us hesitated.

“We’re leaving,” I said.

“For once,” he replied, brushing mud from his soaked shirt, “I completely agree.”

He reached for my arm.

The moment his fingers pressed against my sleeve, pain shot through my ribs so sharply my knees nearly buckled.

White-hot and sudden, it was enough to steal my breath.

“Whoa.”

I caught myself before I could fall.

Barely. My hand dug into the wet earth for balance.

“I am fine.”

“You almost collapsed.”

“I corrected the situation.”

“You almost became the situation.”

“I…” I paused.

The truth pressed against my tongue, unwelcome.

“…That is a fair assessment.”

For the first time since I’d found him, he smiled properly.

It wasn’t strained or panicked. It was real, warm, and unexpected.

It wasn’t the tight smile of someone hanging from a cliff, but a completely real one.

It reached his eyes.

It softened them, even in the stormlight.

Somehow, that seemed stranger than everything else that had happened tonight.

Stranger than the cliff, the fall, the pain, because it felt directed entirely at me.

I bent to retrieve a torn piece of my dress caught beneath a rock.

The fabric clung stubbornly, soaked and heavy.

The movement sent another stab of pain through my side.

This one was sharper and deeper, like something shifting wrong beneath the skin.

My breath hitched.

He noticed immediately.

His posture changed, turning alert, attentive, and almost protective.

“Hey.”

I straightened too quickly.

The world tilted for half a second.

“I said I’m fine.”

“You also almost passed out.”

“I merely experienced temporary instability.”

“…Temporary instability?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a very fancy word for losing your balance.” He laughed quietly.

A low, warm sound that cut through the cold.

“You talk like every sentence has been approved by a committee.”

“I do not.”

“You absolutely do.”

“I simply choose my words carefully.”

“You’ve never once used a contraction.”

“I’ve used…”

I stopped.

My mind flicked back through the conversation and came up empty.

Had I?

“…Irrelevant.”

“There it is again.”

“What?”

“‘Irrelevant.’”

“I don’t say it that often.”

“You’ve said it four times.”

“I have not.”

“You have.”

“I disagree.”

“You keep disagreeing with facts.”

“I disagree with your interpretation of the facts.”

He stared at me for a second before another laugh escaped him.

This one was softer, almost disbelieving.

Rain softened into a steady drizzle beneath the thick canopy.

The storm’s rage faded, but the tension in the air didn’t.

It should have felt quieter.

Instead, the silence pressed against the back of my neck.

Heavy, watchful, and wrong.

Wrong.

Something still felt…

Wrong.

Without thinking, my gaze swept across the tree line.

A slow, practiced scan—left, right, behind—searching for movement.

Left.

Right.

Behind us.

Nothing.

Still…

Nothing.

But the quiet felt too deliberate, too heavy to trust.

“You keep doing that.”

I looked back at him.

His gaze was sharper now, studying me with an awareness I hadn’t expected.

“Doing what?”

“Checking over your shoulder.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You just did.”

“I was observing the surroundings.”

My voice stayed even, but my pulse didn’t.

“In every direction?”

“I appreciate nature.”

“In a thunderstorm.”

“Nature exists regardless of weather.”

He folded his arms.

Rain dropped from his sleeves, but his focus didn’t waver.

“I honestly can’t tell if you’re joking.”

“I wasn’t aware I was supposed to.”

Another gust of wind rippled through the trees.

This one was colder, carrying something that felt like a warning.

A cluster of branches swayed.

Not because of the wind.

Because something had moved through them.

It was a subtle shift, too controlled and intentional to be accidental.

My eyes snapped toward the sound.

Gone.

Nothing.

The emptiness felt staged.

“…Did you hear that?” I asked quietly.

He listened.

For several long seconds.

His expression stayed open and unguarded, entirely unlike mine.

“No.”

“I probably imagined it.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I rarely am.”

The truth slipped out before I could stop it.

The answer came out before I could filter it.

I quickly added,

“I mean… after nearly falling off a cliff, I’m sure my imagination is just…”

I waved vaguely.

“…Doing imagination things.”

He blinked.

A slow, confused blink that almost made me smile.

“…Doing imagination things?”

“I’ve had a very long evening.”

“Clearly.”

Another crack echoed from somewhere behind us.

The cliff.

Still collapsing.

The sound rolled through the forest like a final countdown.

His expression turned serious again.

“We really need to get moving.”

I nodded.

“Agreed.”

I took one step.

Then another.

The third never happened.

The forest tilted violently sideways.

The world lurched, colors smearing into streaks of green and grey.

No.

I was tilting.

My vision blurred at the edges, and my legs suddenly refused to respond the way I needed them to. Exhaustion hit all at once. It was heavy and dragging, as if my body had finally decided it was done pretending.

My legs simply…

Stopped cooperating.

Before I hit the ground, strong arms caught me.

Warm and steady, anchoring me against the spinning world.

“Oh no.”

I looked up.

His face hovered above mine, rain sliding down his jawline.

He sighed.

“You passed the temporary instability stage.”

“I did not pass out.”

“You were halfway there.”

“I was conducting an involuntary balance test.”

“…Is that what we’re calling it?”

“It seems appropriate.”

“You make excuses faster than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“They’re explanations.”

“They’re terrible explanations.”

“I concede that point.”

He shook his head with a smile.

A tired, amused smile that softened the tension between us.

“I can’t believe you’re admitting that.”

“I value accuracy.”

“You really are impossible.”

I tried to stand again.

My knees disagreed.

They buckled instantly, refusing to obey.

He watched the attempt fail.

Then, without another word, he bent down.

One arm slid beneath my knees.

The other wrapped carefully behind my back.

His touch was gentle and deliberate, mindful of every injury I tried to hide.

The ground disappeared beneath my feet.

I stiffened immediately.

Instinct flared, sharp and automatic.

“I can walk.”

“I’m sure you can.”

...

“I can.”

“I believe you.”

“Then put me down.”

“I’m going to disappoint you.”

“You are.”

“I know,” he said, adjusting his grip carefully as he stepped over fallen branches. His movements remained steady despite the uneven ground, as if he’d already memorized the rhythm of carrying me.

“I’d rather you be annoyed with me than unconscious in the mud,” he added more quietly, the softness in his voice slipping through before he could hide it.

“…That is reasonable,” I admitted after a pause, the words leaving me slower than intended, dragged down by exhaustion.

“I’ll take that as permission.”

“It wasn’t permission.”

“It was close enough.”

“It was acknowledgment.”

“See?” he said.

“What?”

“Committee-approved wording.”

I looked away. “…Perhaps.”

The admission felt small, almost reluctant, but it still tugged the corner of his mouth upward.

“There she is,” he said lightly.

“What?”

“A normal answer.”

“I have given several.”

“No,” he said, smiling faintly, “just a few interesting ones.”

His tone held a quiet amusement, the kind that made it clear he wasn’t mocking me, just noticing.

For a while, we walked in silence.

Or at least, silence for him.

For me, everything kept slipping in and out of focus.

The world blurred at the edges, shapes dissolving before I could fully register them.

Branches. Shadows. Light between trees.

Each detail flickered like a faulty signal, there one moment and gone the next.

Each time I tried to focus, it slipped away again.

My body felt exhausted. Deeply, painfully tired.

The kind of tired that seeped into bone and breath, making every movement feel borrowed.

My ribs ached with every breath, and my eyelids refused to stay fully open.

“Are you still with me?” he asked after a while, his voice dipping lower, gentler.

“Yes,” I answered automatically.

A pause.

“…Barely,” he added, his tone threaded with concern he didn’t bother hiding.

“I am simply… tired,” I corrected.

“Yeah,” he said softer now. “I think you’ve earned that.”

Something in the way he said it settled strangely in my chest, warm and unexpected.

That sentence lingered strangely.

We kept moving.

The forest slowly began to thin, and warm light flickered ahead through the rain.

A soft, golden glow cutting through the darkness like a promise.

A structure.

Shelter.

He let out a quiet breath. “I thought we’d be stuck out here all night.”

Relief softened his shoulders, even as he kept his grip steady around me.

I tried to focus on the lights, but they kept blurring.

Distance… was it far?

No.

Don’t calculate.

Too tired.

“Hey,” he said gently.

My eyes drifted toward him again.

“You’re bleeding more than you’re admitting,” he added, his gaze flicking to my side.

“I calculated—” I started, then stopped.

The numbers slipped away before I could reach them.

“I mean… I think you might be right.”

“There you go,” he said softly.

His voice lost its teasing edge, replaced by something steadier, something that felt like reassurance.

“Just stay with me a little longer.”

“I am,” I murmured.

But even I could hear how thin my voice sounded, how far away it felt from my own thoughts.

And for the first time, I realized my voice wasn’t matching my thoughts anymore.

Everything was slowing down.

The sound of rain softened.

The forest dimmed into a muted blur.

The weight in my body grew heavier.

My head tilted slightly against him without me noticing.

His arm tightened instinctively, holding me upright without a word.

“Almost there,” he said.

“You’ve done enough.”

I wanted to respond.

I didn’t manage it.

My grip on his shirt loosened slightly, then tightened again out of habit.

A small, unconscious plea for stability.

“…Don’t sleep yet,” he added quietly.

“I’m not…” I tried to say.

But the words blurred together.

My eyelids lowered halfway.

Then more.

The warmth of his jacket cut through the cold rain, and the rhythm of his steps became steadier than my thoughts.

Each footfall felt like a lullaby my body was too tired to resist.

“…just for a second,” I murmured without meaning to, the words slipping out like they belonged to someone else.

“Hey,” he said softly, noticing the shift, his voice closer now, as if he’d leaned in without realizing it.

But I didn’t answer properly anymore.

My head rested lightly against his shoulder, the movement unintentional, instinctive, the kind that only happened when the body stopped pretending it wasn’t exhausted.

He hesitated for a moment, then spoke again, quietly, almost like he wasn’t sure if I would hear him.

“You know…”

His voice dipped lower.

“I don’t even know who saved my life tonight.”

My eyelids fluttered, barely open.

“So…” he continued, breath warm against my temple,

“I’m Kim.”

There was a pause, soft, careful, and almost shy.

“Kim Taehyung.”

The name settled somewhere deep inside me, not as recognition, not as memory, but as though something quiet and invisible clicked into place, a thread tightening in my chest without warning.

My lips parted before I could think.

“…Taehyung,” I whispered.

Barely a sound.

Barely a breath.

But enough.

His steps faltered for just a heartbeat, as if the way I said his name reached him somewhere he wasn’t prepared for.

But I didn’t see his reaction.

Because the moment the name left my mouth, the last thread of consciousness slipped from my fingers.

The lights ahead blurred into gold.

The rain softened into nothing.

And I fell asleep in his arms.

***************