For several long seconds after everything ended, the office remained completely silent. The faint hum of the building's electricity had returned when the power came back earlier, but inside Taehyung's office the air still felt heavy, as if the room itself had witnessed something it did not quite know how to process.
Jungkook was the first to move. He stepped back from the glass table slowly, running a hand through his already messy hair as he tried to catch his breath. His chest was still rising and falling faster than usual, the adrenaline of what had just happened refusing to settle.
Across from him, Taehyung was still seated on the edge of the table. His hair had fallen slightly over his forehead, and his usually perfect composure looked thoroughly disrupted. For a moment he stayed still, staring straight ahead as if trying to collect his thoughts.
Then he stood up abruptly. The sharp movement made Jungkook glance up. Taehyung grabbed his trousers from the floor beside the desk and pulled them on with quick, irritated movements. The entire time his expression remained cold and controlled again, as if he had already begun rebuilding the walls that had completely collapsed only minutes earlier.
Once he had buttoned them, he turned toward Jungkook and glared. It was the same intimidating glare Jungkook had seen in meetings, the one that made employees straighten their posture instantly. The only problem was that Jungkook could still clearly remember what Taehyung had sounded like a few minutes ago.
The memory flashed across his mind without permission, and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop the corner of his mouth from lifting. Taehyung noticed immediately.
"Do you find something amusing?" he asked sharply.
Jungkook raised both hands in surrender. "No."
Taehyung's eyes narrowed. "You are smiling."
"I am not."
"You are."
Jungkook forced his expression back into something neutral, though it required far more effort than it should have. Taehyung huffed under his breath and turned away, reaching for his shirt that had ended up half hanging off the back of his chair.
He slipped it back on quickly, fingers moving faster than usual as he buttoned it. The faint redness across his neck had not faded yet, though he clearly hoped Jungkook would not notice.
Unfortunately for him, Jungkook noticed everything. The room felt strange now. Just half an hour earlier they had been arguing, throwing sharp words at each other with barely hidden hostility. Now they stood a few feet apart in the aftermath of something that had completely blurred the line between anger and attraction.
Jungkook shifted awkwardly. "So…" he started.
Taehyung immediately cut him off. "Do not."
Jungkook blinked. "Do not what?"
"Do not attempt to start a conversation about this."
Jungkook frowned slightly. "You think we should just ignore it?"
Taehyung finally looked at him again. His expression was composed again, but there was still a faint tightness in his jaw. "Yes."
Jungkook stared at him. "We just had sex on your desk."
Taehyung inhaled sharply. "You could at least have the decency not to say it out loud."
Jungkook rubbed the back of his neck. "I am just saying it feels weird pretending it did not happen."
Taehyung walked around his desk, picking up a stack of papers that had fallen earlier during their activities. He began organizing them with far more focus than the situation required.
"It was a mistake," he said calmly.
Jungkook felt something tighten in his chest. "A mistake?"
"Yes."
Taehyung placed the papers down and straightened them neatly. "It was the result of poor judgment caused by heightened emotions."
Jungkook stared at him. "That is a very corporate way to describe what just happened."
Taehyung ignored that. "You will go home now," he continued, his tone returning to the firm authority Jungkook knew from the office. "Tomorrow we will both return to work and behave like rational adults."
Jungkook crossed his arms. "And that means?"
"It means," Taehyung said, finally meeting his eyes again, "this never happened."
The words hung between them. Jungkook studied his face carefully. Taehyung looked perfectly composed again. His shirt was buttoned, his posture straight, his expression controlled. But Jungkook noticed the small details. The slight flush that had not completely faded from his ears. The faint tension in his shoulders. And the fact that he had not once looked directly at Jungkook for longer than a few seconds.
"You are terrible at pretending," Jungkook said quietly.
Taehyung froze. "Excuse me?"
"You look like someone just insulted your entire family."
Taehyung's eyes flashed. "That is because someone apparently believes this is a situation worth discussing."
Jungkook let out a soft laugh before he could stop himself.
Taehyung stared at him in disbelief. "You are laughing."
"I am not."
"You are absolutely laughing."
Jungkook shook his head, trying to calm himself. "I am just saying… you are acting like none of this happened."
"Because it should not have."
Jungkook tilted his head slightly. "Really?"
"Yes."
"Then why do you look so angry?"
Taehyung opened his mouth to answer. Then stopped. For a brief moment something soft flickered across his expression. Something far less controlled than the cold professionalism he was trying so hard to maintain. He looked away again.
"That is none of your concern."
Jungkook watched him for another second before sighing softly. "Fine."
He grabbed his bag from the chair. "I will go."
Taehyung did not respond. Jungkook walked toward the door, but before leaving he paused and looked back once more. Taehyung was standing behind his desk again, pretending to review documents that he clearly was not reading.
Jungkook hesitated. Then he spoke quietly. "You did not sound like it was a mistake earlier."
Taehyung's hand froze on the paper. But he did not turn around. After a moment Jungkook opened the door and left the office. The door closed softly behind him. Taehyung remained completely still for several seconds. Then he slowly set the papers down.
His jaw tightened as he leaned both hands against the desk, staring at the surface where everything had happened not long ago. For someone who had just declared the entire situation a mistake, his mind refused to let it go.
Jungkook did not remember the walk back home very clearly. He knew he had left the building, taken the familiar streets toward the bus stop, and eventually reached his small apartment like he always did. But the entire journey felt strangely blurred, as if his mind had been somewhere else the whole time.
Because it had been. He caught himself smiling once while waiting at the traffic signal. At first he did not even realize he was doing it until an older man beside him gave him a curious look. Jungkook quickly straightened his face, clearing his throat awkwardly.
But the moment he started walking again, the smile returned. He replayed the scene in his mind again and again. The fight. The sudden kiss. The way Taehyung had tried to act cold afterward, glaring at him as if nothing had happened.
And yet Jungkook could still remember every small expression that had slipped through Taehyung's carefully built composure. The sharp inhale when Jungkook had pulled him closer. The way his voice had softened without meaning to. The brief moments when his usual arrogance had completely disappeared.
Jungkook rubbed the back of his neck as the memories returned with embarrassing clarity. It had been his first time. That thought alone should have made him panic more than it did. Instead, what lingered in his mind was something else entirely.
Taehyung's face. For someone who had spent the entire evening pretending it was a mistake, Taehyung had not looked disappointed. If anything, the expressions Jungkook remembered most clearly suggested the opposite. That realization made Jungkook grin again as he unlocked the door to his apartment.
Even later, when he finally lay down on his bed, sleep did not come immediately. The memories kept returning in fragments, making his chest feel strangely light. When he eventually drifted off, the faint smile on his lips never quite disappeared.
Taehyung had not moved from his chair for nearly twenty minutes. He was left all alone after Jungkook left, the faint city lights outside the large glass windows reflecting softly across the room. His desk lamp was still on, casting a warm circle of light over the scattered papers that he had been pretending to read earlier.
Pretending was the key word. Because Taehyung had not processed a single line. His mind kept returning to the same moment over and over again. The argument. The sudden shove against the table. The reckless kiss that had clearly not been planned by either of them. Jungkook's stubborn expression when Taehyung tried to provoke him. The heat of it, the lack of control that had followed.
Taehyung leaned back slowly in his chair, pressing two fingers against his temple as if that might quiet the storm in his head. How had he allowed that to happen? Not somewhere private. Not in a moment carefully chosen. But in his office, of all places. On the very desk where he usually conducted meetings with board members and executives.
It was ridiculous. Completely irresponsible. And yet the more he replayed it in his mind, the harder it became to push the memory away. His fingers tapped once against the desk before he suddenly froze. The cameras.Taehyung straightened immediately.
Of course the building had security cameras. The hallways, entrances, and several sections of the office floor were monitored. His own office had a small camera placed discreetly near the corner of the ceiling. It had been installed years ago for security reasons.
His stomach tightened slightly. If that footage still existed, it could not stay there. Taehyung quickly opened the security system on his computer, typing his credentials with practiced speed. The interface appeared after a moment, showing the recordings from the different cameras across the office floor.
He located the file from earlier that evening. His hand hovered over the mouse for a brief second. Then he opened it. The screen flickered before the recording began playing.
At first it was just the argument. The two of them standing across the desk, voices raised even though the video had no sound. Taehyung watched himself speaking sharply, watched Jungkook's frustration build with every passing second.
Then the moment happened. Jungkook suddenly stepped forward, grabbing him and pushing him back against his table. Taehyung's breath caught slightly. He had intended to skip past it. Instead he kept watching.
On the screen the two of them moved closer again, the tension between them painfully obvious even without sound. The confrontation that should have ended with someone walking away instead turned into something completely different.
Taehyung leaned back in his chair slowly, his gaze fixed on the screen. His ears felt warm. Watching it now, from the outside perspective of the camera, made everything feel strangely unreal. And yet the expressions were unmistakable.
Jungkook's stubborn determination. And his own complete loss of composure. Taehyung swallowed lightly, his fingers tightening slightly around the mouse. He should delete it.
That had been the entire reason he opened the recording in the first place. Instead he found himself replaying a short portion again, his expression growing more flustered with each passing second. The room felt warmer than before. Taehyung exhaled quietly, leaning back further in his chair as the realization settled uncomfortably in his chest. Deleting the footage suddenly seemed much harder than he had expected.