Bonding Desire

“Cathleen?” Where was she? They told me she was here at her lab. She was almost two hours late for our date, so I became worried and went to check on her. The whole building was pitch black, but the doors were all unlocked. She never would’ve left the doors unlocked. I went straight to her office, knowing that was the most probable place she would be. “Cathleen?” I called out once more. Her office light was on and I chuckled. She must have been so engrossed in her work that she forgot about our date. I slowly opened the door to peak inside. The sight behind the door caused fear to overcome my mind, before my vision went black and I passed out.

Cathleen

“What are you talking about? That’s ridiculous. We are not from a different world.”
“How could you forget?”
“I didn’t forget anything! How could you make something up that’s so outrageous?”
“I’m not making it up!”
“That just makes no sense Jungkook.” I felt a slight ache in my heart, and placed my hand on my chest before looking up at him, confused.
“I’m not used to you calling me by my name. It hurts a bit, but I guess I’ll have to get used to it. But if we’re not dating in this world, and you don’t remember anything, why were we in bed together?”
“Did you forget everything that happened before this morning?”
“No, I just remember you saying that we had to sleep on separate sides of the bed, but we were definitely not on separate sides of the bed when we woke up.”
“Our connection probably forced us together. Are you sure you’re not just combining your dreams with reality?”
“Yes,” he answered sternly. “It would also explain my really strong desire to kiss you.” I slowly inched away from the maknae. “Aish, don’t worry. I’m not going to.”
“You have rehearsal today, so you need to get ready.” He sighed before rolling out of bed. I laughed lightly at his behavior. His messy bed hair and groggy eyes were pretty attractive when paired with his bare torso. I felt my cheeks heat up and my heart rate increase.
“Like what you see?” I snapped my head to where he was standing. He had a playful smirk on his face as he rummaged through the drawers. Wait. We were in my room
“Yah! Stop going through my drawers your pervert!”
“What? This is my drawer! You keep the clothes I leave in your room in this drawer.”
“What are you talking about? You’ve never slept in my room before.” His eyebrows furrowed at my response. He grumbled something about being ridiculous and losing my memory as he walked out the door. My heart began to race as I heard a yelp from outside my door. I ran to open it to see the guys standing in the hallway, and Jungkook breathing heavily while clutching his heart. That explained the rapid heartbeat.
“Why are you in Cathleen’s room? With no shirt on at that.” Jin questioned the maknae. He just stood their gaping like a fish.
“You better not have tried anything with her.”
“Cathleen, you let us know if he ever does something bad to you.” I snorted at everyone’s concern, and Jungkook’s irritated face.
“We’re watching you maknae. All of us.”
“Aish! Is it so unacceptable to spend the night with my fiancé?!” All of their jaws dropped. I shot him a look that had ‘are you kidding me?!’ written all over it. He grimaced and looked at me apologetically.
“I’m sorry, but did we miss something?”
“It’s nothing. He had a strange dream last night, and it made his brain all weird.” He shot me a glare, but I just shot one back. He got himself into this mess. He should be thankful I’m at least helping.
“I’m sorry, but there’s no way you can be so messed up as to call someone your fiancé just because of a dream.”
“Don’t you guys have rehearsal? Shouldn’t you be getting ready?”
“We’re all ready. We were waiting for Kookie, but he wasn’t in his room, so we came to see if he was with you. Obviously, we were correct.”
“We found out that we can’t sleep separated,” I mumbled. Jungkook snorted, causing me to shoot another glare at him.
“I can’t say I’m surprised. Looks like this connection thing really doesn’t want you two to be separated,” Namjoon said. “But are you two ready? We have to go soon.”
“I just need to change clothes,” we both mumbled. We glared at each other before going our separate ways to our rooms. He just had to blurt out the whole fiancé thing.
An unfamiliar article of clothing was laying on my bed. I guess he really did have a habit of leaving his stuff here when he slept over. Wait, what am I saying? He’s never slept over before. He was just dreaming. I folded his shirt before picking up the grey jacket. I felt something hard in one of the pockets, and pulled it out. A ring box? I opened it up to see a matching set of engagement rings. My head began to pound as I grew weak, and collapsed on the ground. I threw the ring box across the room in fear. Memories began to pour into my mind, tears unwillingly falling from my eyes. I didn’t even hear the door slam open, or anyone come in, until Jungkook was by my side. My eyes stayed locked on the ring box as he pulled me into his arms.
“I know. The same thing happened to me. It all came back to you, didn’t it?” I weakly nodded. He really was my fiancé. I had been working in the lab late one night. We had just come across a new substance, and I was so excited about it, I didn’t want to go home. I had forgotten about our date. Something went wrong though. The substance I was working with had begun to mess with my senses until I completely blacked out. Jungkook must have come to find me and was affected by the mysterious gas as well.
“Are you guys coming or-” Jin froze in the doorway.
“Yes we’re coming,” I replied monotonously. I broke away from Jungkook’s arms and hurried to retrieve the box on the other side of the room. “Let’s go,” I mumbled. I grabbed his arm, and hurried out the door, past a concerned Jin.

I fiddled with the ring box the whole car ride.
“So you guys are really engaged?”
“And from a different world?”
“I don’t know. Something just doesn’t feel right about it all. I have the memories, but something is just off about them,” I explained.
“That’s how I felt when I first remembered, but it explained the whole connection thing, so I just went with it.”
“Well you can’t wear your rings in public. It would be chaotic if anyone saw them and put two and two together. Knowing our fans, they would be spotted within seconds of getting out of the car.” I sighed. He was right, but I felt empty without it on my finger now that my memories were back. Jungkook must have felt the same.
“Hyung, if it’s going this far already, we’re going to have to announce it to the public eventually.”
“I agree, but it’s not that widely accepted for an idol to get married, especially at 20.”
“Are we technically 20 though? We could be like really old in the other world.”
“Seeing as you were just engaged, I doubt you were that much older. Plus, this isn’t that world. You’re in this world now, and in this world, you’re both 20.”
“Hyung-”
“Kookie let it go. You know he’s right.” He sighed in defeat. “Give me your necklace." He took off the long necklace he always wore underneath his shirt. I pulled his ring out of the box, and slid it on to the chain before handing it back to him. “There. Now you can wear it without it being seen.” I pulled off my necklace and did the same thing. “It wouldn’t very good if your male manager was seen with a diamond ring on his left ring finger. A bit too feminine if you ask me.”
“Thank you Jagi.” I threw him a warm smile.
“You seemed really disappointed about not being able to wear the ring. You know what would happen if you did though.”
“The fans would go crazy.” I nodded.
“Oh great they’re talking all telepathically again,” Jimin groaned. Everyone laughed at his whining.

“Cathleen do you have your disguise?” I nodded as the car came to a stop in front of the Big Hit building. The only masculine clothing I had was Jungkook’s hoodie and hat that he had left in my room. I slipped on the hoodie, and tucked my hair into the hat, before slipping my sunglasses over my eyes.
“Are those mine?” he smirked. I rolled my eyes. “Better hope none of the fans recognize that hat or that hoodie. I’ve worn them in public before.” My eyes widened. “Don’t worry I wasn’t photographed in them, and it was around last year when I last wore them,” he added after seeing my face pale. “You ready?” I nodded before stepping out of the large black van. We walked towards the doors to the building without any suspicions.

A couple weeks later

“What do you mean she’s been found out?!” Jin questioned, trying to hold back his outrage. PD-nim tossed the newspaper from that morning onto the coffee table. All it took was reading the headline to figure out what it was about.
“They’re seriously trying to say they’re together just because they were the only two wearing necklaces that one day? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. There’s no way people would believe that. Plus, they think she’s a guy.”
“Well, see for yourself.” We scrolled through the comments of the online article.
‘Who does that whore think she is trying to take our pure Kookie’
‘I knew it was a girl all along. You can tell by the way she walks.’
‘She was wearing his sweatshirt and hat too. I remember it from last year. He wore it at the airport on the way to their concert in Japan.’
‘Who’s gonna be next on her checklist? Is she going to make her way up the maknae line, and then hit up the hyungs last?’
Jungkook pulled my gaze away from the screen before I could read anymore.
“Those aren’t true at all. You know that. Every last one of those comments is a lie.”
“Oh here’s one that is somewhat positive.” We all looked at the screen.
‘I think I can speak for many of the armies out there. We just don’t want to be left in the dark and lied to. Just hold a press conference explaining everything and introduce her to your fans. We want to support you, but how can we when we’re being deceived?’
“She’s got a point,” Namjoon said.
“Guess that settles it. We’ll hold a press conference explaining everything. You won’t have to pretend to be a guy anymore, or hide your relationship.” We looked at each other and nodded. It was for the best.
“How much are we revealing?”
“Nothing about the bond,” Jungkook demanded. “That is a secret that can’t ever be revealed to the public. Along with our engagement.”
“We aren’t engaged until you get on one knee and ask,” I scoffed.
“I already did it once, why do I have to do it again?” He whined.
“I didn’t agree to anything in this world,” I smirked. He groaned. Everyone laughed at our small banter.
“You two really are something,” PD-nim chuckled.
“I always said they could have their own reality TV show with how much they bicker at the house,” Jin smirked.
“We do not bicker that much!” We shouted simultaneously. Jin raised an eyebrow.
“You should’ve seen them when they first met,” Jimin added.
“Let’s just say that sparks were flying,” Taehyung smirked.
“I don’t think I've ever seen Jungkook so heated before that fan meet.”
“I don’t think I've ever met such an outspoken fan before that fan meet,” Hoseok snorted.
“All right, we get it,” Kookie groaned.
“Are you sure? Should we continue?” Taehyung teased.
“You know, I was thinking maybe I should cook dinner tonight,” I pondered out loud.
“All right! We’ll stop! Just please don’t cook.” I smirked.
“We should head home though. It’s getting pretty late.” We all agreed with Namjoon.

The car ride home was mostly silent. My hat and sunglasses were finally off, and I was cuddled up with Kookie in the back of the car. We were finally free. I didn’t have to pretend to be someone I wasn’t anymore. I still wanted to discover more about our past, but I wouldn’t let it get in the way of my life in this world. I couldn’t just shake this suspicious feeling, but it didn’t seem that urgent. I didn’t need to worry about it too much for now.

Unknown

“What’s new?”
“They’re releasing their relationship to the public, but nothing about the bond or the engagement.”
“Are they still looking into their past?”
“Jungkook doesn’t seem to be as interested in it anymore, but I know the girl is suspicious about something.”
“Keep an eye on her. She’s the brains of the duo.”
“Do you think she’ll figure out that it’s all fake?”
“I don’t know what she’s capable of. Just watch her. Try to throw her off if she tries to figure something out, or finds something suspicious.” I nodded. We had to keep them together no matter what.

Notes