taeeflwrr - Tumblr blog

taeeflwrr · 28 days ago

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i wrote a whole essay of my thoughts about this piece and tumblr decided to delete it what do i do noww��😭😭

i loved it btw

WHO IS IT ─★ lee haechan

synopsis: begging you to marry him, haechan promised you the moon, the stars hanging in the sky, and a few hundred million other things. but he never promised you the most important thing — the sun. and after all, that's all you wanted.

or, alternatively ── haechan has a plan of getting his grandmother's inheritance by marrying you, promising you that everything that was about to become his would also become yours. a lavish lifestyle, the liberty of being with other people — but you only wanted him. so what happens when haechan's plan backfires, leaving you both drowning in a sea of uncertainties?

pairing: husband!haechan x wife!reader

genre: fake marriage!au, marriage of convenience!au, f2l!au, angst, mutual pining, slowburn, smut, cheating!au

featuring: [brief appearances of] nct dream, aespa's karina, red velvet's yerim, riize's sungchan

word count: 30k words

contains: fluff, angst, smut, slowburn, mutual pining, a lot of descriptive scenes (im so sorry). haechan is emotionally constipated, it takes him a billion years to realise some things. haechan is not the best husband, emotional neglect, emotional and physical avoidance. use of alcohol, cheating (mentions of, not actual scenes), smut (only between haechan and reader), oral (female receiving), unprotected sex, miscommunication, misunderstandings, rich!haechan, mentions of generational wealth and fraud, riize's sungchan (im sorry pookster), reader has a lot of insecurities and regrets.

now playing: who is it by michael jackson

series masterlist: here!

Your high heels click on the busy pavement as you make your way through the crowd. The underground ride was hell, surrounded by tired office workers and sweaty tourists, and you just hope that the good odds were on your side and your expensive perfume was still clinging onto your skin and clothes.

When Donghyuck sent you a text earlier in the morning, asking for an urgent meetup at your favourite dinner spot in town — a very busy spot uptown that is, a very busy spot that is very difficult to get into last minute, you knew that it was a serious matter. It was always a bit difficult to get in touch with him, or get a hold of him. He was busy with work, busy with dates, busy with friends, but you knew he always had the softest spot for you, and vice versa. And how could you not, after knowing each other since elementary school? He always found the most random times to be with you — be it on a random Saturday, coming over to your place to watch High School Musical for the nth time, or on a monday at noon taking you out to have lunch together during your lunch break. Or on a thursday for a friendly dinner. Like tonight.

You know how this is going to go. You’ll take your seats, get your orders taken, eat, chit chat about whatever’s too heavy on his mind for him to keep only to himself. “I’m a man of many secrets,” he once told you, “But somehow you know about ninety-five percent of them,” you can recall the genuine smile he showed you that night a few years ago.

“Hyuck!” You spot him playing nervously with the hem of his jacket, “I’m sorry I’m late, had to go home to change,” you give him a hug, and he keeps you close a few seconds more than he usually does.

“You smell nice,” he pats your back as he reaches for the restaurant door, “Let’s go inside, I’m starving,”

The atmosphere inside the restaurant brings you a sense of familiarity. The red and brown decor, the dim lightning and the candles around the tables, the faint melody played in a corner by the familiar pianist who also occasionally hums the tune, his fingers touching the keys in a gentle manner. It is so familiar to you, this is your favourite restaurant after all.

“Hate these candles,” Donghyuck grumbles as he opens the menu, setting his eyes on the wine menu. You know he always gets the same three things on rotation, and he always tries to steal food off your plate because your food choices are always the best.

“So why do we always come back?” You ask him with a smile, handing your menu back to the waiter who takes off with your orders.

“I like that guy,” he points to the pianist in the far corner of the restaurant, “He always plays some Tony Bennett tune,”

“And you like the wine,” you retort, watching as he nervously takes a sip from his glass.

“And I like the wine,” he smiles at you, but his smile doesn’t reach his eyes, which is odd — because he always lets himself go when he is around you. You know his true colours, no need to hide himself from you.

And yet you wait. You don’t ask him what’s wrong, you don’t ask him what was so urgent to actually meet you for a second time during the week, remembering very well how he took you out for ice cream after work a few days ago. You suppose it’s all about timing, and he’ll know when it’s time to tell you what’s bothering him.

For the duration of the dinner, you see him fidgeting with his fork and knife, looking at you with a glimmer in his eyes yet looking back down to his dorado as soon as you make eye contact with him. He tries to open his mouth a few times to speak, yet he closes it as soon as he notices your head perking up waiting for him to start talking.

You think you need to take matters into your own hands and force the words out of his mouth until you see him eyeing your brisket.

“Don’t even think about it,” you utter while cutting into the meat on your plate.

“Oh, please,” he cries, setting his knife down, “Just a tiny taste,” he pleads.

“I didn’t ask for a tiny taste of your dorado,” you shrug, chewing on the tiny piece of brisket on your fork.

“I would have given it to you,” he whines, pointing at you accusingly.

You look at him unimpressed, yet still intrigued. He’s not being annoying about anything tonight, which is very suspicious to you. So instead of trying to get inside his head — which he’ll probably let you do later anyway, you try to make small talk, to appease the tension just a bit. “So, how was that meeting yester-”

“Will you marry me?” He says — no, asks, but in such a gentle whisper that you think your ears are deceiving you. You stop mid-chew to look at him, as if the active action of chewing would ever impair your hearing. If you heard him right, you think it’s a devious, sick joke on his behalf.

“What did you just say?” You ask incredulously, spitting the piece of meat you had been chewing on, in your napkin.

“I said,” he played with the corner of his napkin, that was now sitting on top of the table instead of his lap, “will you marry me?”

“Are you insane?” You bite back, looking at how his energy deflates even more. “Did you fall today? Did you hit your head like that one time in tenth grade?” Your questions keep on flooding the atmosphere between the two of you, and even if your voice is low in volume, he hears you perfectly.

“Listen,” he starts, and you watch as he stops himself from continuing as the waiter comes to retrieve the plates from your table. He holds a finger up in the air, silently telling you to wait, and he asks for another bottle of wine. “I know this is sudden,” he stops when you scoff, setting back into your chair, waiting for him to go on, “But this is an opportunity of a lifetime, for both of us,” he says confidently.

“How so?” He’s impressed by your apathetic tone, he thought you’d be at least a bit more enthusiastic. He’s played all the possible scenarios in his head for the past few weeks, yet these last few days have been the worst. He hasn’t slept much, hasn’t eaten much, hasn’t been able to pay attention to his regular activities and hobbies that much either. The only things on his mind were you, and as disturbing as it may sound, his grandmother.

“I would get to settle down” he points to himself before looking at your annoyed and endearing figure sitting across him at the table, “And you will have the most perfect wedding. Not to mention the fact that you can have all the money you ever dreamed of. Imagine living that lavish lifestyle, buying yourself everything you have to restrain yourself from right now. Wouldn’t that be nice?” He smiles at you like a little devil who’s ready to whisper into your ear all the advantages of his daylight delusions.

“What are you even talking about?” You are truly in disbelief, looking at him being so calm so suddenly, “How would that even be possible?”

Suddenly you are well aware of the reason of his fidgeting, and why he stayed silent for the whole night. He didn’t know how to open his mouth and tell you a bunch of crap without you throwing your plate at his head.

He shushes you, and you scoff at his stupid attempt of trying to make you come to reason. “Grandma Lee’s inheritance,” he explains calmly, playing with the table cloth.

Your eyes are the size of saucers while looking at him feigning fake innocence. You’re sure this can be categorised as fraud in so many states and countries. The worst way this could go would be this idiot turning you in for attempted fraud and him leaving with all the inheritance he pretends he’s entitled to.

When you say nothing, just staring at him like he’s grown a second and then a third head, he sighs exasperated, throwing his head back in a sign of annoyance.

“Y/n, you have to hear me out,” Donghyuck pleads, bringing his hands over his face out of frustration. Your eyes fall on his weird and crooked pinky, reminding you of his funny and equally weird childhood story about what had happened for it to become so crooked. So fresh in your mind, you already know it by heart.

“But wouldn’t it be considered — I don’t know…” you make a pause, biting on your nails, “Fraud?”

His eyebrows furrow and then a second later his features relax, yet still being able to hold an unimpressed look in his gaze. He glares at you judgementally, as if asking you if you're stupid. You have the same expression, your gaze holding his, silently asking him who, between the two of you, was the real idiot in this context. Is he stupid for proposing such a plan, or are you the idiot who can’t see anything but the faulty side of his master plan? You try to figure out to what extent it can be considered fraud, promising yourself you’d be looking into this matter later.

“How would this be fraud?” He whines, a few heads turning around to look at the two of you. Certainly, people's ears perked up at the mention of the word fraud, and perhaps Donghyuck’s loud whining had something to do with it too.

You shush him, “How would it not be considered as such?” You speak through gritted teeth, trying to convey the message to keep his voice down, for his own good.

You two are having dinner in a nice, uptown restaurant, and you really wish you didn’t have this conversation right here. You were a fool for believing Lee Donghyuck had anything else to say to you except for a stupid idea he had been letting marinate in his pretty head.

“It wouldn’t be,” he insists, “Because anywhere we go we can pass as a loving couple,” he states as matter-of-factly. “Remember that time we scammed the baristas downtown during last year’s Valentine’s Day?”

When you say nothing, only bringing your elbows to rest on the table, he goes on. “Listen, I know for a fact that this is going to be a success. I’ve made plans and took into account all possibilities, and I am my grandma’s favourite grandchild. This is going to work out, trust me” he explains with determination, and you almost believe his words.

Except, you still have a working left brain.

“Again,” you sigh, “How is this not a criminal act in your books?” You try to make him come to reason, but he doesn’t want to hear any of it, waving his hands around in an exasperated gesture, “And how do you even know you’re grandma Lee’s favorite? Out of ten grandchildren?”

“I may have found her will,” he answers immediately, but it comes out more like a question holding a billion uncertainties. Your puzzled expression makes him continue, “When I visited her last year for her birthday, she made me fish for those papers in her home safe. The search for it was very bizarre, like treasure hunting or something, which you’ll realise in a second, it’s very ironic,” he takes a sip of his wine, trying his best to be as serious as possible in order to make you understand how serious he is about this. “She made me look for it in her mansion, giving me easter eggs and hints about where in the house it could be. And when I found it,” his silence lingers for a while, trying to find the best way to tell you the whole story, “This may sound very bizarre, I know, but she even had a riddle for her safe code. I solved it and there was her will, looking right at me. We looked over it together, and she made sure to divide all her assets equally between all her children and grandchildren, except the few hundred million dollars she has to her name.”

You blink once. You blink twice. You double blink for the third time and he scoffs, but quickly recomposes himself, remembering the purpose of telling this whole story, “Y/n, I’m being so serious right now, you have to believe me,” he stops briefly, his fingers drumming on the table following a rhythm only he knows, “In that testament I was the sole heir to her bank account, with that one exception,”

“You need to get married,” you remark.

“I need to get married,” he confirms, laying his hands flat on the expensive cotton tablecloth nicely adorning your dinner table for two.

Your eyes fall on his crooked pinky once again, your gaze sliding to the finger next to it. The ring finger. You think it could be nice to have a gold band to embellish his beautiful and slender finger. Donghyuck seems to pick up what's going on in your mind, and even if you needed a bit more convincing, he knows you're going to agree to his plan.

And surely, you think, with a few hundred million dollars in your bank accounts, and a man as beautiful as Donghyuck to call your husband, there's nothing that could ever go wrong. Right?

And, before agreeing to his stupid plan, you sceptically make him paint the picture for you.

“We tell people we’ve been dating for a bit, because we realised we are very much in love,” he explains nonchalantly as he stabs his lava cake with his tiny dessert fork.

“I genuinely think you’re deranged. You lost the plot to your own scenario,” he looks at you all worried, a smudge of chocolate in the left corner of his mouth. His stupid big brown eyes looking into your raging ones, not understanding the accusations you’re bringing him. “How would you explain this to people? To the boys?” You set your tiramisu aside, knowing damn well he’ll make an attempt to slide the tiny dessert plate across the table and devour the sweet treat. He scoffs once again, as if you’re the one being the ridiculous one here, but he stops himself from letting any word out, letting you continue rambling on about your concerns. “Hyuck,” you start, setting your hands flat on the table, just like he did before, “I think you’re forgetting something. People know you sleep around,”

“Slept,” he retorts, raising a finger in the air as to accentuate his statement, “Haven’t slept with anyone in a while, couldn’t bring myself to, knowing I’ll soon be a married man,”

When you say nothing for the nth time this evening — out of disbelief this time, he’s sure — he goes on, “I told you I already thought of every single scenario and possibility. We’re childhood friends, it won’t be that hard for people to fall for the story of how we realised we’re made for each other. We tell them we kept it a secret for our own good, we tell them we’re madly in love with each other and that we got engaged. We get married, and I want you to think about this, Y/n, let me paint the picture for you,” he says, raising his hands in front of his figure to make a rectangle in the air, “You get to have the dream ceremony I know you’ve always dreamed of, with a big and beautiful bouquet, and the most expensive and show stopping wedding dress. Your veil will cost more than double my suit and your shoes will have rocks more expensive than my car. We then move in for a bit in my — or your apartment, until grandma Lee passes, which by the way,” he stops to raise a hand in the air, as if to assure you, “Will be pretty soon, judging by the medical report I found in her bedroom a bit back. We then buy a house bigger than Brad and Angelina’s mansion. Think of it, Y/n, we could be the new Brangelina. Wouldn’t that be nice?” He slides your tiramisu across the table and excitedly sticks his forks into it, then looks at you with a glimmer in his gaze.

His plan could have been far worse than this, you think, yet the faint reminder of the fact that the two of your are going to be in a marriage is slightly terrifying to you. You always thought you’d get married to someone you had feelings for, whom you loved, and while certainly you do love Donghyuck in a very confined way, you’re sure that it is within the bounds of a lifetime long friendship, in which the both of you have gotten to know each other almost perfectly.

He sees you getting too much into your own head, and snaps his fingers right in front of your nose, like he’s always done since you were children. “What’s bothering you?” He asks, his tone genuine.

“What about…” you bite your lip, too afraid of hearing something you don’t really want to be hearing, and you’re not sure what kind of answer you’re trying to avoid. “What about dating?” You finally ask, and he waves his hand to dismiss your worries.

“Don’t worry about it,” he goes back to the tiramisu he’s put aside when he saw your concerned scowl, “Unless our families and friends find out about our dates, we’re free to see whoever we please and like,” you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding, straightening your posture.

And then you see him, grinning at you like he’s the devil, “So what’d you say?” He stands up slowly from his chair across the table, and just as slowly he reaches for something in the right pocket of his slacks while still grinning.

And before you can actually register what is about to happen, you see him sprinting to reach your side, kneeling down in front of you and opening a stupid, black suede small box that — you think once he opens it to reveal its content to you — holds the Hope Diamond.

“Y/N,” he says your name, and you make a very big effort to tear your gaze away from the ring inside the small box he’s holding, “Will you marry me?”

And with a Tony Bennett tune in the background, with a diamond as big as your fist, and a man as handsome as Donghyuck kneeled in front of you, a man who’s promised you the world just a few minutes back, how could you ever refuse?

“Yes, yes I will”

“You’re what?” Chenle and Mark scream simultaneously, sitting in pure shock on the carpeted floors of Jaemin’s apartment.

You glared at Donghyuck, who was standing next to you, looking all offended by his friends. He grabbed your hand and raised it to his lips, kissing it gently. His fingers interlocked with yours, “I said,” he showed your hand to his friends, “We’re getting married,” his eyes softened while looking at you. Dang it, he’s a very good actor, you thought.

“How- how did this happen?” Mark stutters, his voice cracking. Chenle reaches for your hand to look at your engagement ring, and his eyes bulk out of their orbits.

“What the fuck, Hyuck?” He glared between you and Donghyuck, his friends, and the rock on the ring. “Did you guys see the size of this rock?”

“Yes, whatever, it’s the size of your head,” Donghyuck rolled his eyes, and you don’t have time to giggle at his joke as he pulls you gently by the arm towards the empty loveseat. You sit on it, and he pulls a chair close to your seat.

You look around at his friends. The energy in the room fluctuates and changes based on who you look at, Mark being still in shock, Chenle keeps looking at your hand, Jeno congratulates you, and Jaemin's displaying a huge grin that’s plastered on his face. The different reactions feel overwhelming to you, and you imagine how bad it will be when you break the news to your and Donghyuck’s families if his friends reacted this way.

“I knew it, you guys,” Jaemin claps his hands and shakes his shoulders in excitement, “I knew you guys were together!” He cheers, looking around the room, encouraging the others to join his happiness.

Donghyuck averts his eyes and clears his throat, fidgeting a bit in his seat. “Yeah, we were meant to be,”

“But how long have you guys been together?” Jeno asks with caution, his eyes a bit lost as he lets you know his curiosity and concerns.

“A few months,” you reply, “but we’ve known each other for so long that we feel we’ve been together forever,” you explain, moving your hand. You smile, amused noticing Chenle’s eyes still looking at your hand, straight at your engagement ring.

“It’s been a bit,” Donghyuck says, “Right after Y/n’s birthday party,” he smiled, his hand reaching behind you to pat your back, which made you straighten your posture immediately. The sudden contact, his warm hand burning its print on your back. The nerves and stress of breaking the news of your supposed engagement to the people you care the most for makes a light shimmering coat of sweat veil your skin. You recompose yourself quickly, not expecting the sudden contact.

You look at the people around the room. Except for Chenle, who’s still looking at your hand and then at Mark who’s still shocked by the sudden news, Jaemin is the only one who beams with joy.

“We’re very happy for you,” Jeno brings a hand to his chest, reaching forward in his seat as he tries to get closer to you and your supposed fiancé, “It’s just that it’s very sudden news,”

“Extremely happy,” Mark comments, smiling at you and then looking at his best friend, “It’s weird that we didn’t notice,”

“Talk for yourself,” Jaemin barks back with an upset tone, which makes you burst out laughing, “I’ve been plotting and scheming for a very long time,” he shuts up as soon as Donghyuck glares at him. He smiles back at his friend, and then he winks at you with a knowing smile.

Out of all of Donghyuck’s friends, you felt Jaemin and Chenle to be the closest to you. They were his friends from college, and you met them countless of times during the last few years and for occasional meet ups, but you definitely felt that Chenle and Jaemin were your friends too. Mark was awkward at times, but he always took care of you whenever Donghyuck left the club with some lady hanging off his arm, leaving you behind in the club with his friends. Jeno always lets you win during game nights. While Donghyuck tries everything in his power to cheat at every game and to corrupt Jaemin and Mark to join him in his cheating, sometimes even trying to bribe you to give him a property that he really needed while playing Monopoly, Jeno always lets you win, even helps you sometimes just to see Donghyuck’s cheeks lose all color when he realised he lost the games.

“Y/n?” Donghyuck touches your back once again, the sudden and unexpected physical contact making you jump slightly — once again. You look at him and you realise you blacked out for a bit, lost deep in your own thoughts about the guys. Realising you weren’t paying attention to him, he repeats himself, “Monopoly tonight?”

You looked around the room at the guys sitting around you with hopeful looks, and you agree before your brain can register completely. You would never ever pass on the occasion of beating Donghyuck at games, or at anything in life, especially now that you’re getting married.

You look around yourself, around the street, you look around at the people passing you by on the pavement. The still cold days of march make you zip your jacket up, your cheeks rosy and your nose and ears freezing even if the sun is out and hitting all the buildings around you. You rub your hands together in a pathetic attempt to warm yourself up, trying to calm the terrible feeling you have in your guts.

“Hey,” your head snaps to the side as soon as you hear Renjun’s voice, and you hug him tightly as you take a good look at him. Bucket hat low on his forehead, covering his eyes, you wouldn’t even recognise him if you didn’t know the timbre of his voice. “Are we waiting for the girls here?” He asks looking around, and when you nod he gets closer to where you’re standing on the pavement.

“Are you cold?” You ask, hugging his figure once again and rubbing your hands on his arms, hoping the friction will be enough for him to bear the cold a little bit longer.

He nods, zipping his jacket up to his chin and wrapping his wool scarf around his neck trying to find some comfort. You look at him, still hugging him, and you really wish you could tell him everything that’s on your mind, everything that’s happened in your life in the past few weeks. But for the integrity of your and Donghyuck’s plan you have to keep your lips sealed.

Apart from Donghyuck, who’s your childhood and oldest friend, Renjun is the second closest. You met him in college right before you met Yerim, and you instantly clicked with each other as soon as you complained about the mess in the kitchen at the dorms. You started as fellow complainers, you then met each other in the communal lounge downstairs while studying, and then you kept looking for each other whenever you weren’t too busy being with Donghyuck. He met Donghyuck in your kitchen while the latter was making your ramen, and Renjun complained about the mess.

“So you’re the one who makes the mess?” He was close to bursting a vein, trying his best not to kick the unknown man out of the dorm’s kitchen.

“Oh, hi” like a deer in highlights he turned around, scared by Renjun’s tone, before taking a good look at the guy in front of him, “You must be Renjun,” he cheered, changing hands holding the spatula and extending the newly free hand to Renjun, “Y/n told me everything about you, I think her exact words were ‘to look out for that Renjun’ guy,”

Renjun looked at him, his eyes bulking out of his orbits, “You know Y/n?” He asked incredulous, thinking that you could never be friends with such a messy person such as Donghyuck, “And by the way, she would never say that about me,”

“She’s my bestfriend,” Donghyuck answered before turning his attention back to the ramen pot sitting on the stove. “And don’t worry, the mess was already clinging to these walls way before I came by today,” And in all fairness, Donghyuck is a very clean person, a very clean man. Talk about the advantages of growing up close to a clean freak like yourself. “By the way, I’m Donghyuck, I live in the dorm just around the corner,”

“Oh,” Renjun mumbled, setting his own pots and pans on the second stove, “I’ve heard about you,” Donghyuck’s eyes lit up as soon as he heard the words coming out of Renjun’s mouth, delighted knowing that he’s someone you go around talking to other people about.

And since that moment you three stuck together. Donghyuck’s proximity to your and Renjun’s dorm, and the fact that he actually met the guy while cooking for you in your kitchen, meant he was always with you, joint at the hip, sometimes to Renjun’s dismay, because he thought Donghyuck was one of the most annoying guys he’s met. And then from your second year in college, the three of you moved in together in a shared apartment just outside campus and, although you became a trio, you’ve always been transparent about your friendship with the guys. What you and Donghyuck had was different from your friendship with Renjun, and the two of them hung out without you as well. It’s just your dynamic, and Renjun has always agreed to this, even if Donghyuck was a little jealous and possessive of your friendliness at times. As soon as you showed Renjun a little bit more attention, Donghyuck stole you away for a whole week. But it was always fine, it was never a problem for Renjun, for reasons you’ve never spent too much time worrying about.

You’re pulled out of your own thoughts by the two girls that approach you loudly, and Renjun sighs while shivering in your arms, “Fucking finally,”

“Why didn’t you guys wait inside?” Karina asks after you’re done with hugging everyone, “Couldn’t you guys get a table? Usually it’s pretty empty at this hour in the morning,”

“Wait,” you pull Yerim’s sleeve when she tries to make her way inside the cafeteria, smiling sheepishly as they look at you confused. “I know I invited you here today, but that’s not really where we’re going,” you explain, rubbing your hands together.

“So why are we here?” Karina mumbles confused, looking at the other two.

You point at the bridal boutique just across the street from where the coffee shop is, and their eyes follow the direction you’re pointing at, their heads snapping back to look at you, so harshly that you wonder how on earth they didn’t get whiplash.

“You’re kidding…” Yerim laughs so loudly that a few people’s heads turn around,

“Right?” Renjun’s uncertain tone makes you fidget on the spot.

Averting your gaze, you cross the street to reach the bridal shop, and your friends look at each other, still hoping for you to turn around and tell them you’re joking.

By the time they decide to follow you inside the shop, you’re already drinking from a glass of champagne and discussing about your dream wedding gown.

“You have to be kidding me,” Renjun mumbles as soon as one of the assistants comes over with a tray of champagne flutes.

“How are we here,” Karina downs the whole flute as soon as they take a seat on the expensive white sofas waiting for you to come out wearing whatever dress you discussed with the assistant you wanted.

“I think we skipped a few chapters,” Yerim sighs contemplatively and looks at Renjun who’s visibly shaken. Out of the three of them, Renjun’s the one that looks like he got hit by a bus. He doesn’t even understand why he’s sitting where he’s sitting right now.

“Last time I asked, she was saying she’s not seeing anyone special,” he mutters more to himself, but the two girls hear him nonetheless, “I don’t get it,”

And then you come out from the little room at the end of a narrow corridor, all three of your friends shut their mouths as you show them the best dresses that you’ve picked up while they were deciding if they needed to follow you inside, or if they should just laugh it off and walk to the nearest bar because it was a joke. It was a reality check for all three of them, and while the doubts and shock was still in the back of their minds and ready to resurface at any given moment during your dress fitting, ah’s and oh’s and sniffles filled the room while complimenting you.

“I didn’t even know you were seeing someone,” Karina spills out, having already downed three champagne flutes.

“I really don’t know how to feel about you getting married to a total stranger,” Yerim sniffles, the feeling of betrayal suffocating her.

You sigh, looking at your reflection in the mirror while touching your silky dress, and all your curves and edges, “He’s not really a stranger,” you whisper while looking at their reflection in the big mirror.

Renjun pushes himself forward, eyes as big as the rock on your engagement ring, which you purposefully left at home so as to not receive any questions as soon as you met your friends. He takes a moment to think of all the men in your life, your exes, your situationships. “Oh, dear heavens,” he touches the bridge of his nose as he looks at your reflection in the big mirror and then straight into your eyes, and something in his gaze tells you he’s gotten a faint idea of who it might be.

“What did she say?” Karina nearly screams into Yerim’s ears, the flutes making her lose all sense of volume.

You repeat yourself, “He’s not a stranger, you know him very well,” you look at the three of them, and you can feel Renjun’s eyes burn holes in the beautiful wedding dress you have on. “It’s Hyuck,” you whisper, not sure if they heard you.

Judging by Karina’s head snapping to her right to look at the others’ reactions, and by Yerim’s gasp, you can appreciate that they did indeed hear you.

“Hyuck as in Donghyuck?” Yerim makes sure you didn’t possibly meet a new Donghyuck in the span of a few weeks, “How did this happen?”

“How? That’s your concern?” Renjun pulls her by her arm, turning her to face him, “Your main concern should be when! When did this happen?” He addresses you.

“We’ve known each other for a very long time,” you start, “We were meant to be,” you hope Donghyuck’s bullshit excuses and scenarios reach your friends’ hearts, out of love for you. You know it sounds pathetic, the whole childhood friends to lovers fiasco, but you hope they won’t need more explaining regarding this, considering your and Donghyuck’s dynamics.

And as your biggest nightmare comes to reality, Renjun scoffs. And you recall telling Donghyuck just a few day ago that Renjun is going to be the one who needs the most convincing out of every other friend you two have. “Just stick to the answers I came up with, and he’ll buy it. If there’s anything Renjun cherishes more than his bickering with me, then that’s his friendship with you. He’ll buy it in the end, trust me.” And when you look at him bewildered, because you never thought of accepting such an explanation from him, he sighs and wraps an arm around you, walking you through the whole scenario again, “Tell him we’ve been together for a few months, I told you I love you blah blah blah. Stick to the scenario. Stick to the plan, Y/n” he cupped your face, swiftly kissing your forehead like he always does when you’re sick with worries, since the age of eight.

And so you do, you stick to the plan, to all the lines Donghyuck has instructed you to use, and while you play with your fingers all nervous and with trembling voice, you hope your friends are buying all of whatever bullshit you’re selling them.

“I knew this would happen,” Renjun claps his hands together as he looks at his two other friends sitting beside him on the small sofa, “I knew this would happen as soon as he ditched our study session at the library years ago just to spend time with you, when he found out some idiot didn’t show up to your date and you needed comforting,” this time he looks at you, straight into your soul, and you hope that he won’t be able to pick up whatever bullshit Donghyuck has fed you to convince you to agree to his plan. “You two are idiots”, he retorts.

And yes, you think so too. You couldn’t agree more. You and Donghyuck are idiots indeed, especially you. You, who’s willing to jeopardise decades of friendship just to make him happy, just to feel a bit validated by him. You still don’t want to admit the deeper reason of your agreeing, and you hope you’ll be able to ignore it and bury it deep into the back of your mind.

“But,” he sighs once again, and you’ve only heard Renjun sigh this many times when Donghyuck was insisting on having a bet and the loser would kiss the opponent if he felt like doing it, knowing damn well Donghyuck was going to purposefully bet on something that would turn out to be completely wrong and lose in Renjun’s favour just to kiss him, “I’ll admit that you’re very beautiful wearing that dress,” he points his head at your dress.

“You think so?” You beam and stand on your tippy toes, turning around to look at your own reflection in the huge mirror, using your hand to call one of the assistants over.

All three of your friends agree, and a drunk Karina even starts clapping, cheering you on.

“I can’t imagine the amount of stress you’re under with all the wedding preparations,” Yerim hugged you as soon as you stepped foot out of the boutique.

“I’m not,” you smile bashfully at your friends, “Hyuck suggested we should get a wedding planner,”

“Hyuck suggested,” Renjun imitates you with a mocking tone, already sick of your wedding talk after spending half a day looking for dresses for you, and bridesmaids dresses for your two friends.

“Are you going to act like this forever? I’m not even married to him yet,” you say with an incredulous laugh.

“For as long as you’re married to him,” he feigns fake innocence, and you only smile back, but your smile doesn’t reach your eyes, because you’re not sure how long that’s going to be. You never discussed this with Donghyuck, and Renjun has given you something to stay up all night mulling over.

You really don’t know how long it’s going to last, or what the whole outcome of it will be, but you can only hope for it to last for the longest of times.

Telling your parents about your engagement was easy. They loved Donghyuck, and he’s been around you since childhood, in and out of your house like it was his own. Your mother always kept a spare place at the table because ever since he was a child, he was unpredictable. Your mom took care of him whenever he wanted to sleep over, she cooked for him whatever it was he was craving, packed him his lunchbox whenever he stayed over and the following day was a school day, his own lunchbox that he personally chose when your mom took the two of you to the store, him choosing one with Crayon Shin-chan plastered on its lid, and you decided on a MyMelody one. Your dad never understood why he was hanging around your house so often, and then Donghyuck came on your family trip to the seaside when he was eleven, and he could see the dynamic of your friendship.

So when you broke the news to your parents, they were elated, they loved Donghyuck and couldn’t be happier to have him officially as part of the family in a few months.

Which couldn’t be said about Donghyuck’s parents. They liked you, and they trusted your family enough to allow their child to enter your home, and consequently, to spend all his free time there with you. But there was a line that should have never been crossed, and Donghyuck did when he proposed marriage to you, of all people. Donghyuck comes from a wealthy family, in which generational wealth was at the day’s order. Most, if not all relationships were transactional, but both parties were wealthy, and they both brought wealth into the marriage. Which couldn’t be said about you, because you didn’t grow up rich. You grew up in a normal family, you never lacked anything, but sure enough your parents couldn’t afford to change cars ever so often every time they pleased. And it was a problem for Donghyuck’s family.

“Can’t they oppose to our marriage or something?” You asked Donghyuck after the two of you left his parents’ house, after Donghyuck broke the news to them while holding your ringed hand up for them to see the engagement ring, and consequently had a fight with his mother right in front of you.

Your confidence wasn’t the highest in that moment, let’s just put it this way.

“Don’t really care,” he frowned, taking your hand in his as the other was holding the steering wheel tightly, “The only approval I need is grandma Lee’s,” he mumbled stopping at the red light, “And she loves you,”

The look in his eyes sent shivers down your spine, making you swallow the lump in your throat, and you remember that feeling so well even if it’s been a few months since.

And now, looking at your feet, the point of your shoes slightly visible from under your long silky dress, you hold on tightly to your bouquet made entirely of Casablanca lilies.

Your head tilts a bit from behind the partition keeping you safe from the eyes of all your guests, curious as ever to see you walking down the aisle.

You spot Donghyuck’s family sitting reluctantly on the right side of the church, his side, while looking around themselves with judgement. You’re starting to believe something bad is bound to happen when no one can reach Karina, who’s also one of your bridesmaids, and you’re also starting to regret your decision of agreeing to this plan when you hear people whispering as if you’re not standing a few feet away from them, albeit hidden by a flimsy partition.

“Where’s Karina?” You start to panic, thinking to yourself that this is a sign. This is a sign that this wedding should not happen.You made it clear in the past few months that you want your ceremony and celebratory party to be perfect, especially because Donghyuck’s family decided to attend, and even if you knew they considered you not to be the perfect bride for their son, you could at least show them a perfect ceremony. Which Karina is fumbling really badly right now.

“She said she’s on her way,” Renjun tries to calm you down, straightening the veil on your back so as to not have any creases.

“When did she say that?” You grabbed him by the shoulders, your nails hurting his skin even through the fabric of his suit jacket, “Oh my god, Renjun if you’re lying to me-” you’re interrupted by Yerim grabbing your hands, freeing Renjun from your grasp.

“You have to calm down,” Yerim pleads, shaking you slightly. “You need to relax, you’ll walk down this aisle and you need to be your best self,” she grabbed your cheeks lightly, and she resists the urge of kissing you on the cheek because she doesn’t want to ruin your makeup. You look so beautiful right now, even if you’re panicking out of your mind.

“I’m here! I’m here!” Karina’s heels clatter on the marbled floors of the entrance, adjusting her dress which was already starting to crease as she almost started running towards you, “I’m so sorry,” she looks embarrassed, holding the little bouquet Yerim hands over to her.

You let out a sharp exhale, instructing Renjun to go ahead and start the ceremony. Yerim smiles to you and reaches behind you to grab your veil, and gently lets it lay on your front. You hear the piano playing, immediately recognising the tune being played. You remember the day you were supposed to choose the music for the wedding march, when Donghyuck grabbed you by the arm and pulled you away from the huge shelf of music in front of you.

“I know I said this was going to be your dream wedding,” Donghyuck starts, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand, “but I have a request to make,” when you nod, he continues, “Can I be the one to choose the music?”

His request took you aback, never expecting him to want to be involved in wedding preparations for a marriage that was purely transactional. To him at least.

“Of course,” you had said, nodding and he knew you were being genuine by the look in your eyes, so big and sparkly, a clear sign of your sincerity. “This is your wedding too, Hyuck,” you smiled at him and he felt a lump in his throat as soon as he registered your words.

He smiled back, and went for the exit of the music shop, but you stopped him by grabbing him tightly, “Just don’t pull any kind of Elvis or Hamilton crap in front of your family,” you retorted, serious as ever, to which he smirked.

“Elvis? Costello or Presley?” He joked, and you hoped he was only being annoying like he always is, and not serious. Seeing your sour face, he put his arm around your shoulders, pulling you into his side into a tight embrace, “Oh come on, Y/Nnnie” he whined, and you kicked him as soon as you see pairs of eyes looking at the two of you, “Don’t you want to be part of a little musical act as you walk down the aisle? Like they did in ‘The Office’?” He whispered in your ear, and you can feel the annoying smile in his tone. He kisses your cheek, holding you even tighter, and you can feel shivers down your spine. Before you can react, you feel the arm that was holding you before, loosening its hold on you.

“I’m being serious, Hyuck,” you began, but he started sprinting past you and out of the record store. “Wait!” You screamed, trying to catch him, “I’m serious! I have rocks with your name written on them, and they’re begging to be thrown at your head!”

You heard him giggle as he picked up his pace, trying to escape your loud mouth.

And now, hearing the tune the piano starts playing, you understand what it was that he wanted. You immediately recognise Tony Bennett’s tune playing, and you think Donghyuck bagged his favourite pianist to play at his wedding, the one who works at your favourite restaurant downtown, the grace of his fingers unmistaken.

You hear heels clattering, and you know that Donghyuck is being taken down the aisle by grandma Lee, who vehemently insisted to be the one to walk her favourite grandchild on such a great day. And you’re surprised his mother didn’t bat an eye, but you know that’s for the best.

“Go! Go!” You whisper shout to Yerim to start walking down the aisle, and she holds her bouquet tighter in front of her, taking steps one by one.

When you go closer to where the aisle begins, you quickly look around the church, noticing the familiar faces sitting around, waiting for you to make your entrance before they stand up. You see Mark, Jeno, and Jaemin standing behind Donghyuck, whilst his other friends are sitting in the second row, allowing Hyuck’s family to sit in the first. You catch a quick glimpse of Renjun standing on your side, waiting for Karina and Yerim to join him, yet you feel a knot of uncertainty setting deep into your guts and stomach, and when you see Karina taking a few steps down the aisle, you take a few steps out of instinct and grab her forearm, dragging her back to where you were waiting to make your entrance.

“Y/n?” Karina whispers surprised, eyes the size of saucers, swaying a bit trying to regain balance after you drag her after yourself. “Y/n,” she insists, “What is it, sweetie?”

You grab your veil, yet still with care because you don’t want to damage it in any kind of way, and you bring it behind you head, because you feel the need to talk to Karina face to face, not hiding behind any type of fabric.

You look at the guests behind Karina’s back, or at what you can see of them since Karina is obstructing most of your view.

“I- I don’t think I can do this,” you whisper, skeptical, and Karina thinks she’s never seen your eyes this big in size.

“What?” Karina tilts her head, not understanding where this doubt is coming from.

But she isn’t in your head, she can’t hear your thoughts, and most certainly she doesn’t know on what grounds this wedding is happening. Everything is an illusion, a lie, and you feel the sweat starting to cling to the skin of your neck. As months passed, you really started to believe all of Donghyuck’s delusions, and all the lies, and all the endless conversations and discussions you two had about his masterplan, which unfortunately started to make sense to you as well. It was like the blind leading the blind.

And up to this point, seeing yourself wearing expensive accessories and an even more expensive wedding gown, seeing everyone who’s believed your lies sitting excitedly as they’re waiting for you to make your entrance, hearing the melody of the piano playing one of Donghyuck’s favourite songs of one of his favourite artists, it hits you. And it hits you hard, and you can feel your eyes swelling with tears.

“Y/n, what’s wrong?” Karina insists as she understands that she has a panicked bride on her hands. Not only a panicked bride, but a room full of whispering guests that start to grow more and more curious as they sense something is going on with the bride. And how can we forget the groom, who’s nervously biting his bottom lip as he looks at his grandmother sitting in the first seat, on the first row on his side.

“I can’t do this, Karina. This,” you move your hand around, pointing at the church and all the decorations, including your outfit and hers, “this is all wrong. Very wrong,” you whisper, and Karina’s impressed by your eyes not diminishing in size.

“But why, honey?” She presses, “Donghyuck loves you” she caresses your bare arm, her other hand holding the small bouquet stiffly. “And you love him too,” she’s trying really hard to calm you down, as she notices you trying to swallow what she thinks is a lump in your throat. “You do, don’t you?” She inquires when she notices that you keep looking towards a spot behind her back.

And truthfully, you do. And maybe that’s what’s scary to you. Marrying someone you love so deeply, but who’s only marrying you out of convenience. You love Donghyuck for all his flaws and faults, his annoying side, his bugging, his cold facade, but you also love him because, well, it’s him. You’ve grown up with him by your side, and you realise you made him your ideal type, influenced by his permanent presence and knowing everything about him. And how unfair is it, realising someone is marrying you as part of a fraudulent plan?

You look at Karina, nodding. “I do, I do love him so much,”

“Then what’s the problem?” Karina asks once again, seeing your eyes brimming with tears. When you don’t say anything back, Karina starts crossing her legs, fidgeting where she's standing. She looks behind herself, discreetly, as to sense the vibes filling the room. The few last rows of guests already turned around to look at the two of you, asking themselves if this ceremony is ever going to even start. “Listen, sweetie,” she reaches for you once more, grabbing you by your forearm trying to assure you, “Who cares about this ceremony, anyway?” She waves her hand around trying to convey assurance, although she’s scared shitless of what you might do and how this day could end.

“You don’t have to do this. We can get a cab outside and go away, if that’s what you want. You don’t need to get married today, who cares?”

You gulp, looking behind her to the waves of faces and heads wondering what’s going on. You spot grandma Lee’s head, who’s throwing questioning looks at you and her nephew, although you’re sure she can’t really see you thanks to Karina’s figure standing in front of you. And then you spot him, Donghyuck, tilting his head to look at you, trying to see you even with Karina obstructing his view. And his curious eyes meet your scared ones, and you gulp once more.

“Hyuck,” you whisper, trying to compose yourself as you break eye contacting with him, “Hyuck cares. And I do too,” you conclude, grabbing your veil fast, bringing it to cover your head and face once again. “I am getting married today,”

You use your hand to make Karina spin around, gently pushing her forward.

“Psst, Karina” you whisper shout, using a hand to move the veil a bit from your face so your eyes meet hers once again, “Do not say a word to Yeri and Renjun. Now go! Go!” You usher her to walk in front of you.

You look at your feet once again, and you touch the expensive, silky dress clinging nicely to your waist and bust, and then at the bouquet of Casablanca lilies you’re holding tightly in your hands. And yes, while wearing your expensive Vivienne Westwood dress, and walking down the aisle to The shadow of your smile, you are going to get married to who you think is indeed, the love of your life.

The first few months were milk and honey. Your dynamic didn’t change much, except for the fact that you were sharing a bed permanently. You’ve always shared a bed while growing up and consequently in your adult years too, yet now it’s different. You can look at him in his usual white tee and large pyjama shorts that show the tanned skin of his thighs and it dawns on you that he is your husband. Your husband. And all the times he wears his expensive watch before going to work in the morning, your eyes skip to his fingers, searching for his wedding ring out of instinct. He always wears it. You’ve never seen him taking it off in the past eight months, which can’t be said about you. You took it off every time you were cleaning around or washing the dishes.

Three months after your wedding ceremony, grandma Lee passed, and Donghyuck’s fraudulent plan came to a successful end. Donghyuck bought you a house, took you on holidays around the world, gave you anything you wanted and everything he thought you deserved. And he did all this while wearing the wedding ring. Donghyuck could see the dreamy look in your eyes, but he never looked too much into it, thinking it was all about the hundred million dollars you were now sharing between the two of you. You were still the same Y/n, and he was still the same Donghyuck, except for the fat bank accounts and the sharing of the bed.

To Donghyuck, sharing a bed wasn’t that big of a deal. He’s slept on the same surface as you multiple times before, the only thing that’s changed now was the fact that the two of you were legally bound, and he actually liked being able to say that he was married to you, and that you are his wife. People never expected him to even be in a relationship, and never expected someone as beautiful as you to get married this young, and he found it hilarious.

“I like being married to you,” he says, chewing on a piece of steak he grilled in the back garden.

You seem taken aback by his words, blinking a few times before clearing your throat, “You do?”

“Yes,” he smirks. That stupid smirk that you hate because you know he’s about to say something annoying, but love at the same time because it’s his smirk. “We’re still the same, we’re still us,” he swallows the bite, “except you’re my wife, and that isn’t so bad,” he smirks again and you have no idea where this conversation is going. He’s a bit tipsy, having already opened a second bottle of red wine, and except the two glasses you had for yourself, the remaining alcohol is in his system. “Why wait and date around to get married, when we’re right here? I have you and you have me, we’re locked in for life, baby,”

You feel a lump in your throat, and you’re not sure if it’s because he might have just promised you eternity by his side, or the fact that he’s just admitting to be settling for you instead of trying to go after someone he might actually love.

But you agreed to this, to the life he’s promised you. When you looked into his mischievous eyes once he kneeled down in front of you, you knew what you were getting into. Putting your feelings aside, being able to call Donghyuck yours even if he wasn’t anything more than the childhood friend you grew to love in a different way than the way he claimed he loved you back. The casual ‘be careful, love you’s you two threw in at the end of phone calls or when saying goodbye after school became to you much more than what they became to Donghyuck. But the gleam of hopefulness he’s always held in his gaze as he said he believed in you, as he tried to coerce you into committing fraud, as he promised you the moon, the stars, and everything else hanging in the sky, it really made you believe that you could have it all. If this all meant having Donghyuck next to you for the next years, decades, then it was all worth it.

And your routine as a married couple becomes just that, a routine. Waking up in the morning, making breakfast, and then he leaves for work because, unlike you, he still kept a job. And then you don’t know how to make time pass faster until he comes back home, to you. You fill your time with shopping sprees and activities you’ve never thought you would be picking up — going to the spa and playing tennis every other day. The months pass and you’re not sure how your life has become so boring. Before, you really had it all and you didn’t even realise. A job, your own apartment, your own car that Donghyuck got rid of after the two of you got married, just to gift you another one. You used to hang out with your friends multiple days a week, now it’s a miracle if you see them once every two weeks. Moving to a mansion at the outskirts of the city isolated you, and you relied on Donghyuck for all the support you needed.

As for your relationship with him, there really isn’t much to say. Nothing has changed, except that he seems to be less annoying, or maybe it’s the fact that you’ve already become too used to him and his personality since the wedding happened. At first, you travelled together for your honeymoon, and you swear you were on the brink of divorcing him, but that annoying feeling has subsided considerably, and you have a faint idea of the reason why that is.

And then, you start to notice Donghyuck doesn’t come home for dinner time that often anymore. Hell, you could say that it’s a miracle if he comes home on time for dinner at least two days a week. Most times, he comes home too late and has to eat alone, while talking to you about his day and what his plans for the following day are. Other times, he goes straight to take a shower, telling you he’s not hungry and that he’ll take a bite of what you’ve cooked in the morning instead.

And tonight, it’s both. He promised he’d be back on time for dinner and then High School Musical marathon on your big flat screen tv. But the dinner has run cold, you’ve already taken a shower, and by the time you hear Donghyuck’s keys open the heavy front door, you’ve already played the first two films.

“Honey I’m hom-”, he’s interrupted by a gasp, and you can hear his heavy footsteps run down the hallway to the living room, “Did you really start without me?” He whines, and you almost cannot believe your ears.

“Please tell me you’re not serious right now, Hyuck,” you warn, looking at him.

Donghyuck looks at you, at your figure, at your eyes. You’re looking at him, and there’s something in your gaze that, for the first time in years, he can’t decipher. Your eyes are sleepy, almost droopy, a clear sign of your tiredness. Or maybe you’re just disappointed and tired of him.

He plops down next to you, looking at you apologetically, and the action makes you jump on your spot on the couch. “I’m an idiot,” he whispers.

“You are,” you agree, nodding your head as you return your attention to the high screen in front of your figures.

“Are you mad at me?” He tests the waters, and it only makes you want to punch his face more.

“Why would I be mad?” You scoff, bringing your legs to your chest, an action he knows you do when you try to avoid confrontation.

“You’re not looking at me, Y/n” he mumbles, and it makes you roll your eyes. He knows you too well. “I’m sorry I’m an idiot. I just lost track of time,” he tries to explain to you, but honestly you don’t care.

You think your blood pressure has gone through the roof when your ears start ringing and your palm is itching to be smacked against his face.

“Doing what?” You ask, and if looks could kill, Donghyuck is sure he’d be in great agony right now, just about there, on the verge of dying. It’s the first time you’ve looked at him since he plopped down next to you, and Donghyuck knows better than talking nonsense and making you even angrier, because you always smell his bullshit a mile away.

“I’m sorry,” he apologises again, trying to dodge your question, “Was with the boys out for dinner,” he pouts, “I promise we can spend as much time together as we used to once I’m done with this project at work. Kiss and make up?” He tries one of his oldest tricks on you. Ever since elementary school, every time you were upset with him he would pull this stunt on you. The upset one being kissed on the cheek in a sweet and childish attempt to make things better with a gesture of intimacy neither you nor Donghyuck liked showing to other people. Only to each other.

And his attempt to make you at least slightly less upset with him is successful when the corners of your mouth turn upright just slightly. So he leans in, successfully invading your personal space, his head mere centimetres away from yours, and his chapped lips seem to leave a burning mark when he smacks a kiss on the plush of your left cheek.

And that’s not the only thing that’s left burning right now, as you sense a scent you don’t really recognise. It’s so sweet it burns your nostrils, that consequently flare as a result of the nauseating fragrance that has invaded your personal space.

He retracts himself, singing along with Gabriella, but you don’t focus on the scene or what’s happening around you at the moment. You look at him, as he’s slouched on the couch, his head propped up by one of the cushions on the couch. He seems content with you dropping the topic of his late arrival and the dismissal of all your plans for the evening, and you’re left wondering if he’s aware of the fact that he smells like fucking cheap perfume.

The smell is so strong up your nose that you’re sure there’s no amount of fresh air that can get rid of it, it’s the kind of smell you spray from a tester out of pure curiosity and it’s the worst fucking mistake you can ever do because the horrible smell will cling to your skin for the rest of the day. Too sweet and too strong.

You’re snatched out of your own thoughts when you see him turning his head to look at you, “I need to take a shower,” he announces, standing to his feet and moving towards the hall with the staircase to your shared bedroom and bathroom. “And after that I’m all yours, baby” he sings, and you’re once again left wondering, but this time all by yourself.

All mine, you repeat his words in your head a few times, but the only thing you can do right now is question if that’s really the case, or if it will ever be.

Days pass and you seem to be unable to get the nauseatingly sweet smell of that perfume out of your senses. You perceive it at random times, while cooking, while cleaning, and you know it’s all in your head, because you washed every piece of fabric that Donghyuck could have touched a few night ago with his skin, even after showering.

You don’t know what you were expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this. Sensing another woman’s perfume on your husband’s skin made your skin crawl and your heart drop to your ass. But is it even correct to call him your husband? He’s still your best friend, and that’s all he is meant to be forever. You can’t call him your husband if it’s just the two of you, because in all honesty it doesn’t feel like a normal marriage.

Because it isn’t, you’re reminded by your own voice of conscience.

And you know that’s right. The marriage is just a cover for when your families and friends are around, you don’t get to enjoy all the privileges of being married when there’s no one around, and you realise it’s upsetting you.

What the fuck is going on with me? You end up asking yourself. Why is this situation getting to you? You knew what you were getting into, you knew who Donghyuck is and what he goes around doing, you’ve known him for all your life and even helped him get out of unpleasant situations multiple times, so why exactly is it bothering you so much?

You’re pulled back from you own thoughts when your phone rings, and you pick it up to see who the caller is.

“Yes,” you sigh, not really in the mood to hear his voice.

“Wow, gosh, could you be more enthusiastic of my call?” Donghyuck’s tone is full of sarcasm, and you’re seriously contemplating if you should just hang up the call.

“I’m kind of busy,” you lie, “what is it?”

“I’m getting off work early tonight, wanna have dinner with me tonight?” He asks, and you can hear the car’s engine making noise in the background. “Y/n, hello?” He raises his voice a bit, thinking there’s no signal.

“Jesus fucking Christ, stop sounding like a hyena in heat,” you retort, bothered by the high pitch of his voice. “Pick me up at eight?”

“It’s a date!” He cheers on the other end of the line.

As much as you didn’t want to be in his proximity right now, you can’t deny the fact that you miss him, and spending time with him. You’d still rather watch a lion feasting on an antelope rather than seeing his face and hearing him talk to you about trivial stuff as if he didn’t come home smelling like another woman. But the truth is that you miss him. You miss his company, his presence, the idiotic jokes he makes and the smart comments he lets out when you watch a film or show him some new music. You miss him spending time with you, just being together most of the time, and worst of all is that you miss talking to him. You used to talk to him about everything. From family problems to boy issues, from uncertainties to future plans, and he used to be there for you, attentive as ever as if your words held the truth to all secrets and mysteries of this planet.

And you’re hoping that tonight it can be just that. You hope he misses you and your company just as much, and that he made these plans to take you out in an attempt to close the gap that has formed in your relationship. If you feel the distance and all these upsetting feelings and thoughts, then he must feel them too, right?

But the hours pass, and like some sort of sick tradition he’s trying to establish in your relationship lately, he doesn’t show up. You’re in a dress, you smell nice, you look spectacular, waiting for him to take you out for dinner at the new amazing place he’s found. Your stomach churns realising that he probably landed in that place with someone else as his date, and that’s how he discovered it, and you grab your purse before exiting the house.

You need to go out by yourself, and clear your head of all the insecurities you realise this marriage has given you. You used to enjoy his own company, and you used to look forward to having Donghyuck around you so often. But now it only irritates you, the thought of being in his proximity makes you want to punch a wall, because you know you can’t be near him right now. He knows you too well for your own sake, and knows if something is off the moment your gaze meets his, so it’s better to avoid him if you want to save your face in this pathetic masquerade. Because that’s what you’re supposed to do, right? As long as people don’t see him going around on dates with other women, you have to go along with all of his actions. How would you explain to him that you know what he’s been doing behind your back? Because that’s what hurts you the most, his need of going behind your back instead of telling you about it all like he used to do in the past. Why did things have to change?

Your chest feels heavy and your eyes ready to spill some tears. You make your way to your car, you need to be by yourself. Not like you haven’t been mostly by yourself in the past months, but realising why this happened makes you want to disappear into thin air. And you need to be far away, in a place where you can clear your mind, far away from Donghyuck, his smell, and you shared house — where everything reminds you of him, what could have been, and a macabre reminder of what it actually is.

Donghyuck doesn’t know how he got home the night before, too much alcohol present in his system. But he knows one thing, you weren’t there in your shared bed. Considering the taste in his mouth as soon as he wakes up, he can only imagine how bad he smells and that it would have probably woken you up the moment his head hit the pillow next to yours, knowing your sensitive nose. Because of this, he thinks you not being here last night and this morning to witness his state is a blessing. But he also knows that he misses you. He remembers being cold last night, and when he reached for you in search of heat, you weren’t there.

Donghyuck’s head raises from his pillow, a splitting headache making him hit the pillow once again.

You’ve never been away at night, not since this marriage happened. Suddenly, he remembers he has your location, and he can check your whereabouts on his phone.

“She’s home?” He mumbles surprised, making a huge effort not to whine in pain as soon as he stands off the bed and his head starts throbbing.

In his actual state, he doesn’t know where in this huge house to look for you, but then his head feels like being split in half when he hears the clanking of some pots and pans downstairs in the kitchen, and his nose picks up the faint smell of coffee and pancakes.

“Good morning,” he tests the waters as soon as he sets foot in the kitchen, but the bright light coming from outside the open window makes him whine in pain, and he brings his hand over his eyes in a sudden movement.

“Morning,” you reply back, flipping the two pancakes in your pan.

He takes a seat at the kitchen island, just in front of where you’re working your ingredients, and you feel his gaze following you and your movements.

“How long have you been gone last night?” He asks out of curiosity, and he sees you suddenly frowning. He loves getting to talk to you face to face, because you can never hide your emotions from him. He knows every jot and tittle of yours.

“How long have you been gone last night?” You have a sudden burst, asking him the same question, and you grip that pancake spatula so harshly your knuckles turn white.

“What?” Donghyuck straightens his back on the high chair, looking at you confused. Seeing you so upset makes him forget about his muscles pain and splitting headache. Why are you so worked up for?

And then it downs on him. Last night, the alcohol, the company, losing track of time. The plans he’s made with you. He’s been away almost every night in the past months, and he never paid too much attention to you, because he never thought it would bother you this much. You can’t even bring yourself to look at him right now, and he knows he’s fucked up. You’re never avoidant unless you are really upset, or you’re trying to avoid confrontation because you’re about to open your mouth to pour your heart out. He’s witnessed this behaviour of yours multiple times, so he knows what to expect from you.

Except this time, you don’t start a fight, you don’t get teary eyed, you don’t tell him what has been bothering you. But he already knows. He’s been away too much, and he’s bailed on you a lot lately.

You keep your eyes on your pancakes and on the huge bowl with batter, not even once looking at him.

“I’m so, so sorry, Y/n,” he mumbles softly, and by his tone you realise he’s genuine.

“What are you sorry for?” You ask, as if it didn’t really matter to you. Except it really mattered, more than you’d like to admit. But you’ve heard him apologise to you on many occasions in the last few weeks and months, and you feel like it’s lost its meaning.

“For forgetting about you and our plans,” he answers. Ouch. Him saying it out loud hurt more than the thoughts running lapses around your head. “I’m really sorry for not being here more often,” he continues.

And he really is, because he’s gone about his life like he didn’t coerce you into getting married for his own good. He thought that the setting down part will be done, and then the huge bank account that would come with it would be an advantage. When he said nothing has to change in your dynamic, he meant it. He wants you to go out and live your life to the fullest, especially now that the both of you share millions of dollars. There’s nothing that can stop you, nor him. While you have a joint account, for which Donghyuck insisted, he also insisted you had your own bank accounts and own cards to use as you please. “No need for me to see what, when and where you spend our money,” he explained to you, and at that time you accepted the idea. The bigger, joint account was your safety net, because while you weren’t the big spender Donghyuck encouraged you to be, he liked throwing money left and right. He supposes it’s about the upbringing, and he knows that you still struggle to let yourself go on shopping sprees worth thousands of dollars a time and getting out of the house now that you quit your job. He just wishes you would let loosen up for a bit to enjoy what this marriage has brought you. Let yourself enjoy the money and the liberty of still doing everything you were used to doing before being legally bound to him.

“Y/n,” he calls your name, “Look at me,” he instructs, and you have to gather all your willpower to do as he says, because there’s nothing you want more than to tell him to fuck off.

When you look at him, he freezes in his chair. Your gaze is so full of emotion, so hurt, and he realises the tears he was expecting you to shed in your usual upset burst weren’t there because you had already shed them before, all by yourself.

He stands to his feet, and starts walking around the marble kitchen island to reach your figure. “My sweet Y/n,” he coos, pulling you in a tight hug. “Please forgive me,” your head rests in the crook of his neck, and Donghyuck’s skin tingles when he feels your breathing against his skin.

“You’ll have to do some grovelling before I can forgive you,” you mumble against the skin of his neck, and he lets a deep laugh escape him.

“What if I did the grovelling while having breakfast together on the terrace?” He asks, moving his head to look behind yourselves outside the window, checking the weather. “Sounds good?” He moves back to his initial position, his head resting on yours.

You nod, holding him a little tighter. “Let’s spend tomorrow together,” he proposes, and you nod once again.

“Before you start grovelling for breakfast, you need to go shower,” you let your arms fall, getting out of his embrace, gently pushing his chest to guide him out of the kitchen, “You stink of alcohol,”

He whines offended, but he knows you’re right. Before he can get out the room he stops in his tracks. “Kiss and make up?” He pouts his lips, closing his eyes and fluttering his lashes like the drama queen he is. No conflict is ever resolved without a kiss and make up situation. You lean in, this time giving him a small peck on the lips instead of extending your cheek for him to kiss.

The action visibly takes him aback, but he doesn’t say anything, and he exits the kitchen with a grin plastered on his face.

You look at the tv, at the bottles of beer scattered around you and Donghyuck, and the Chinese takeout boxes resting on the coffee table in front of you. At his long, tanned legs as he sits on the carpet next to you, his gaze fixed on the tv playing Notting Hill.

After a painfully long time, Donghyuck made an effort to be with you. No more excuses, no more hiding, he knows he’s been away and distant for a few months now, and after the euphoria of the wedding and the first few exciting months of being married to you had worn off he basically went back to his old ways, as if the past few months have never happened and he was still an eligible bachelor ready to roam the streets of the city almost, if not every night.

He knows he owes this to you, to the decades of friendship with you, to the love he has for you. He loves you more than he would a sister, but less than a romantic interest, if that makes sense. Maybe it’s the decades of friendship that have gotten him so attached to you, or maybe the fact that you’ve always understood and protected him the best you could. Whenever his parents fought, and he got dragged in these relentless fights between the two of them, being asked to pick a side, he flew the scene and came running to your house. You’ve always understood him, you’ve always shared everything with him, you and your parents made him realise what normality is like. A loving family, not everything being about money and power and jealousy. And that’s one of the reasons why he married you, he knows it. Apart from being the one to know him best, even more than his family and grandma Lee, you’re the one who provided him peace and tranquillity, the safety of being loved and, no matter how many times he fucked up, you were always there for him — even if you scolded him first. He can’t pinpoint the nature of all the feelings he has for you, but he knows that you bring him the kind of comfort and safety no one has ever even tried bringing him.

You feel his gaze on you, and you turn your head to throw him a questioning look. “What’s wrong?” You ask, a deep frown plastered on your pretty face.

He’s snapped out of his own thoughts, and looks at you like a deer in highlights, seemingly taken aback by the fact that he was so deep into his head that he didn’t even realise he was looking at you. He tries to conceal what he thinks was a surprised face when you bursted his bubble, and looks at you with fake annoyance.

“Y/n,” he says your name, sporting a serious expression, “I will have to be very honest with you,”

You turn your whole body around so you can face his, and you giggle looking at his face. Judging by the scene that’s on right now on the tv, you know exactly what he’s about to say.

“You hate Anna Scott?” You say it before he can.

“I hate Anna Scott,” he confirms, throwing his head back so it hits the seat of the couch, “how can you even like her, she’s the worst!” He whines, lazily pointing his hand towards the tv screen where Julia Roberts’s character is having a fight with Hugh Grant’s.

“Because!” You gasp, smiling sheepishly, knowing that what you’re about to say is going to annoy the hell out of him. “She’s just a girl!” You start, and Donghyuck is already rolling his eyes at you, “Standing in front of a boy!” You’re so excited to do your number, and Donghyuck doesn’t say anything but he turns his head to look the other way. “Asking him to love her!” You end your act by grabbing his black t-shirt and pulling him a bit towards you.

Donghyuck looks at you, at your hands on his chest, at your excitement, and he can’t help being surprised. He also can’t help the rosy cheeks he feels getting hotter and hotter, and the strange movements happening in the pit of his stomach. This never happened before, every time he was the one initiating any type of physical touch with you, or even when you give him as much as a hug back. But he never felt this way.

He tries to regain his composure, pushing himself up against the foot of the couch to an upright posture. He clears his throat as smoothly as he can, trying to remember what was happening before you became so excited. Ah yes, fucking Anna Scott.

“She’s just a girl,” he copies you with a whiney tone, rolling his eyes once again. “She’s an idiot, that’s what she is, Y/n. She’s despicable, so much that they should make a Despicable Me film with her as the main villain,” He argues, his smooth forehead now marked by a deep frown, his index repeatedly and forcibly poking on the carpet underneath the both of you, trying to make his point come across.

You pause the film, outraged at his hate for the character. It wasn’t the first time he hated on her, but he was never this vocal.

“She’s not that bad, Hyuck” you retort, bringing your legs up to your chest, your body still facing his.

He smirks at you, that kind of attractive, devious smirk he makes when he’ll start a debate with you just to crush you and your opinions like a cockroach in a sewer.

“Think about it, Y/n,” he says, his body turning towards yours, imitating the way you are sitting. “If the roles were to be reversed, would you think this way?” He asks, smirking at you, tsking in disapproval.

You look at him, weighting his words, and you’re sure your eyes are the size of saucers while looking into his smug ones.

“She plays with that poor man’s heart, Y/n. She plays this push and pull game I really don’t know why William loves her, it’s like she likes hurting him and he’s an idiot too for sticking with her for so long,” he sighs as if he was William himself, going through that kind of pain himself.

You look at him, unimpressed. It’s ironic, really, he's mocking the ones who play with other people’s hearts.

“Thank god William learnt some self respect, right?” You whisper back, looking at his side profile, waiting for his gaze to meet yours. Except, he never looks back at you, laughing at your words with his specific deep laugh that he lets out whenever he’s taken by surprise.

For god’s sake, he can’t read the fucking room, you think.

“Yeah, that too,” he agrees after he recomposes himself, finally looking at you, his facial features relaxed with amusement. “But it’s a cute ending, I’ll give you that, baby” he responds, going back to the smugness you so love and hate at the same time.

“Thank you for today,” you tell him when the film is over, the last song playing loudly in the background, making Donghyuck start humming it. He knows it by heart, with all the times you made him watch your favourite film and the countless times you put the soundtrack on.

“No, I should be the one to thank you,” he explains, picking up the beer bottles scattered around the room and walking behind you towards the kitchen, where you’re headed with all the Chinese takeout boxes balanced in your arms. “I know I haven’t been a present friends, or we could say husband, but I really want you to know that you matter to me and things between you and I haven’t changed,” he explains, and it feels like a sharp object is piercing your chest repeatedly.

Just another reminder that things are still the same according to him. Another reminder that things between the two of you will never change the way you wanted.

Sensing his piercing gaze on your figure, you nod, not feeling like letting any words out.

You leave the kitchen first promising to clean all the mess in the morning, but Donghyuck is close behind you, and you can still sense his gaze on your figure as you make your way in and out of the ensuite bathroom, and his eyes feel very heavy on you, like there’s something he needs to bring up and doesn’t know how, so instead he just looks at you until you’ll spare him a look.

So, you spare him a look. And he’s like a kicked puppy, sitting in the middle of the bed and you sense uncertainty in his posture. The easy going Donghyuck you know is nowhere to be found, and you feel obligated to intervene and ask him what’s going on in that head of his.

“Hyuck,” you say his name, climbing into bed, “Is everything okay?”

“Mhm,” he hums, but you can see him still being hesitant about something.

“You sure?” You giggle, trying to ease his nerves. He’s never hid anything from you, and he’s never taken so long to open up about something either. You never had to coerce him into opening up about what’s bothering him. “Hyuck, look at me,” you say, but it comes out more as a question.

He avoids your plea for a bit, and then he gives in and his gaze meets yours. It’s sparkling, but not with his usual smugness and joy. Instead, you’re met with an emotional look that looks like might be on the verge of tears.

“What’s wrong?” You ask, grabbing his cheeks, and you notice how they’re burning up.

“I’m so, so sorry,” he says, avoiding your eyes once again, even if you’re holding his head still with your hands. “I've treated you so badly lately, I cannot imagine how my avoidance affected you day by day, and as I said before, I know I haven’t been here for you and truth be told, I don’t want anything to change. I dont want to lose you, and I certainly don’t want you to resent me in any kind of way. I’m so sorry, Y/n,” he pauses in order to take a breath in.

You let go of his face, speechless, not knowing if you should open up as well or if you should let him be the only one to open up right now.

“I want you to know that no matter what, I love you. I really do, Y/n,” he grabs your face with his clammy hands, a clear sign of the nerves he’s experiencing right now, “I care about you, and nothing or no one will come between you and me, yeah?”

His eyes are sincere, but his words sting like hell. He says he loves you, but to what extent? You know the kind of feelings you have for him, you’re aware of them and you know their nature, but is he as certain of his, as you are of yours?

You’re so deep into your head that you fail to notice the kind of gaze Donghyuck is giving you, but when you raise your eyes to look at his face, you notice how his eyes are on your lips and immediately shift back to you eyes.

You lick your lips out of instinct, a habit you’ve had all your life when your boyfriends and partners looked at your lips before kissing you, and you close your eyes embarrassed after doing it in front of Donghyuck. After all, he’s just… your husband.

Donghyuck’s clammy hands gently squeeze the side of your face, trying to bring your attention back to him. You open your eyes and your gaze lands instantly on his lips, knowing his face’s proportion perfectly by now, your eyes sliding immediately without you not even registering the action. Until you feel him leaning in, his eyes barely open, and there’s a force that pulls you in closer to him, and even if you wanted to pull back you know that’s not what you really want. But is it what he really wants?

You give up on trying to analyse the situation right now, and you grab his wrists as you feel him getting rid of the mere centimetres of distance between your lips. His plump lips feel sweet amidst the kiss, the way they sit perfectly on yours makes you feel elated, and you briefly remember who you’re kissing right now. You cheeks feel like they’re on fire, but the kiss is too intoxicating to come to reason with your conscience, and you feel his tongue poke tentatively for access. You grant it, and he smiles into the kiss, his tongue now dancing with yours in a sweet saccharine waltz. You don’t care about the way you’re both running out of air, the way his kiss is getting more and more desperate, and the way you can’t stop chasing his lips now that you’re feeling like you’ve opened pandora’s box.

He detaches himself from your lips, the action making a popping sound that you’ve never found this hot until today.

“Just promise me,” you say, taking big breaths as discretely as possible, your throat feeling incredibly dry all of a sudden. “Promise me you’ll never run away from me,” you say, caressing his cheek, and he leans into your touch like a poor animal looking for affection.

“Okay,” he promises, pulling you into his embrace, and it feels like he’s promising you the whole universe.

But you should have known better than trusting Donghyuck. Is like ever since he married you he’s done nothing but hurt and lie to you, like the decades of friendship have never happened and like the past didn’t even matter to him. The promises he’s made in the wedding vows and the ones made to you personally and privately, have no value to him, you’ve come to this conclusion the next day, when he was nowhere to be found.

He was out the door before you could wake up to make breakfast, and you wouldn’t hear from him for the entirety of the day. He would come back home late, knowing his dinner had already run cold, not like it ever mattered anyway since you know he was having dinner out, possibly with some other female companion. He would come to bed, thinking you’re sound asleep, but you felt and heard everything. The sighs, the stirring in his sleep, the occasional smell of alcohol on his breath, the way he would keep his distance from you every night.

It went on this way for five days before you couldn’t take it anymore, so you moved your essentials out of your shared bedroom and bathroom, to one of the guest rooms. And it should have been this way since the beginning. Apparently being married has no value to the one you thought understood you the best, and what’s a signed paper in front of bodily desires? Nothing, that’s for sure.

This way you’re spared the icky perfumes he comes home having traces of on his skin and clothes, you’re spared the presence of a person that clearly doesn’t love you the way they claimed before, nor does he really care for you, you’re sure of this. Who breaks a promise to someone they supposedly say they love? You’re spared the sadness you feel when he doesn’t reach out to you all day and ultimately comes home at the crack of dawn, and the hesitation you feel when he sits tentatively on the edge of the bed before he decides to lie down next to you. And, most importantly, you’re spared the heartbreak.

The marriage is just a contract to him, you’re just some sort of friends only, treating you like a housemate who he gets the privilege of calling his wife to the outside world. No amount of money, fancy dinners, and privileges that his status brought to you once you married him is worth the pain you’re feeling being ignored by him out of all people. If it were Renjun, you’d understand. If it were one of the girls, it would be logical since you stopped hanging out that often with all your friends ever since you got married. No more meet ups in the middle of the week, no more wine parties during film nights with them. You changed when you got married, but you never thought shit would hit the fan so fast. You could understand if anyone treated you this badly, but not Donghyuck. The bond you two shared was too important, at least for you. But he doesn’t value it as much, that much is clear to you.

You move rooms, you stop making dinner, only eating small portions by yourself because, after all, everything would end up in the bin if you made dinner for him as well. You sleep alone at night, even if you’re cold as hell and you miss his body emanating heat, but you don’t think he’s even noticed your moving rooms. With the amount of alcohol he ingests before returning home late at night, you’re not even sure how he can remember where home is.

You start looking for sports courses, pottering classes, airplane tickets for vacations you’ve always wanted to go on, anything that could get you back on track and to stop you from being the wannabe perfect wife to someone who doesn’t even consider you his wife worth respecting.

Two weeks pass since you two shared the kiss, and Donghyuck’s still avoiding you like the plague. So you do him a favour and make it easier for him by hiding from him.

One evening, you’re sitting on the couch biting on an apple and watching a documentary when your phone rings. No one ever calls you, and in a pathetic attempt of hoping that he’s the one calling, you’re reminded of how much of a fool you are when you’re met with Jaemin’s name and contact picture looking right back at you. He never calls you, only talking to you through texts, so your stomach drops when your thoughts start racing, thinking that the reason Jaemin’s calling has something to do with something bad that’s happened to Donghyuck.

“Jaemin?” You ask, falling short of breath expecting the worst news ever. You suddenly regret the cold shoulder you’ve given Donghyuck.

“Y/n, yes, hi” he answers robotically, and you feel hesitation in his voice.

“Did something happen?” You push it, trying to brace yourself for the worst possible news.

“Mmm, just wanted to ask you something,” he says but it comes out more like a question. When you prompt him to continue, you hear him breathe through his teeth hesitantly, “I wanted to see if Hyuck’s home, maybe?” You know Jaemin well enough to know that he is conflicted and embarrassed by this phone call.

“What?” You ask incredulously. “Is this the reason you called?” You bark back, knowing that Jaemin is not one of the people you need to hide from when it comes to the real you, and your vulgar mouth with all the swear words.

“I didn’t know who to call,” he says but it sounds like a question once again, his tone defensive. “Me and Mark were supposed to meet him at my apartment tonight, and he didn’t show up. We thought something had happened because he said he’d come home to grab a quick bite with you, but he never came back and it’s been two hours” he explains, and you hear Mark telling him what kind of questions to ask you, “I’m sorry Y/n, just call me if you ever need anything”.

You sigh, once again disappointed. “I’m sorry Jaemin,” you pinch the bridge of your nose, “And Mark,” you continue, knowing he’s listening as well. “I’m sorry but Donghyuck never came home, and I don’t know where he is,” you say, before bidding goodbye to the two.

What a fucking idiot, you mumble, throwing your phone on the couch. You pick up your apple but you can’t chew on it right now, not with the lump that’s formed in your throat, suffocating you.

Why is Donghyuck acting the way he is? To you, to his friends? It's like he doesn’t want to keep the cover up of this marriage intact to the eyes of outsiders.

Lost in your own thoughts you lose track of time, the first documentary ends just for another one to start. You fail to hear the car parking outside your house, but you don’t fail to notice the tingling of keys just outside your front door. Waiting for Donghyuck to enter and be as drunk as he’s made a habit of being, just for him to then skip checking the living room or any other room in the house and go directly to the upstairs bedroom, you’re incredibly irritated when you realise he’s so drunk off his ass that he can’t see where to put the keys in.

You stand to you feet, approaching the front door, and just in that moment the door opens slightly, showing a dishevelled Donghyuck totter forward in the hallway. He notices you, and he smirks at you as if you’re not ready to kick him in the throat for all the mixed feelings you’re feeling because of him. You’ve never felt more low, more pathetic, more disrespected than right now.

“Hi, baby” he rasps, and you know that the tone of his voice and the words he just spoke would have had you on cloud nine. But now you feel disgusted.

“Where the fuck have you been? And why are you so drunk at seven in the evening?” You ask, a deep frown plastered on you features.

He tsks, trying to stand upright, and that’s when you see it. At first you think it’s just the shadow of his shirt’s collar, but then you look more attentively, and a simple shadow can’t have red and brown and purple tones plastered all over.

A hickey? Your heart drops and you think you’re about to black out in about ten seconds because of the distress you feel right now. Another woman’s scent is something, but a mark on his body is another thing completely. You suddenly feel sick to your stomach, but he’s too drunk to bring it up, and you know it’s not really your place to hold him accountable for this. So your internal war goes on and on, and on.

So you try to play it off by chewing his head off like a good friend would do. And you hope the hurt in your eyes goes unnoticed, but you don’t think too deeply about this because he’s too drunk to remember his own name.

“Where have you been, Hyuck?” You ask softly, but he’s too drunk to sense the amicable tone you’re using, and gets defensive immediately.

“Why the fuck do you keep asking me this, Y/n?” He barks, and somehow it hurts you more than anything he’s previously done to you.

The lump in your throat sets itself once again, threatening to make you spill the dinner and the apple you had tonight. But looking at Donghyuck’s dishevelled self, smelling him, and seeing the marks on his neck completely enrages you, making you find the voice to snarl back at him.

“Don’t fucking raise your voice because I’m on the verge of punching you in the throat, Donghyuck” you snarl through gritted teeth.

“You’re so sexy when you threaten me, and you using my government name, baby,” he smirks, trying to keep his upright posture the best he can.

“Stop being an idiot,” you push his shoulder, making him lose his balance for just a second. “Jaemin called me, Donghyuck,” you push him once again, this time his back comes into touch with the wall behind him, and the mention of his friend’s name snaps Donghyuck out of whatever dizziness he was in. His eyes are the size of saucers, and he seems like he wants to say something but you cut him off immediately, “It’s okay to neglect me, but get you fucking shit together if you don’t want your other friends to burst your fucking masterplan,” you say through gritted teeth, before turning around and going up the stairs, not sparing Donghyuck another look.

In doing so, you fail to see the look on Donghyuck’s face, you fail to hear the front door closing behind him, and the engine of his car getting turned on.

You’re suffocated by the wave of emotions you feel, they’re making you drown in your own tears. Tears run down your cheeks before you can sense them even brimming in your eyes, and the sobs that follow are a raw reminder of the unhappiness you’ve felt in the last months of your life. But now you can add betrayal to the equation.

You must do something to get out of this situation, or you’re risking losing yourself for a man who doesn’t really lose sleep over how much hurt he’s causing you.

Donghyuck is not sure how he’s managed to reach Jaemin’s apartment complex safe and sound, but he stomps his way through the building like he owns it. He just might. He’ll buy the place tomorrow and he’ll kick Jaemin on the streets for the stunt he’s pulled on his wife later this evening.

The knocks on Jaemin’s door reverberate so loudly that even Donghyuck is kind of intimidated by the echo they make.

The moment Jaemin opens the door, Donghyuck pushes through without caring about the force he uses to push at Jaemin’s chest in order to get him out of the way.

“What the fuck, man?” Jaemin asks in disbelief.

“I’m the one who’s supposed to ask you this, you moron,” Donghyuck snarls, pushing again at Jaemin chest, making him grit his teeth in annoyance knowing why his friend is paying him a visit. It must have something to do with the phone call he’s given his wife.

“Watch your fucking mouth,” he warns, waiting for the shitstorm that drunk Donghyuck is willing to start.

“What the fuck were you thinking, calling Y/n?” Donghyuck raises his voice once again, “You call my wife for what reason, exactly?” His gaze throws daggers at Jaemin’s head, but the latter doesn’t back down. “What the fuck is wrong with you, snooping about my life like you have no other business? Are you trying to ruin it for me?”

Jaemin can take a lot of things. Can take violence, palms of hands on his chest, punches to his face. He can take a nasty mouth like Donghyuck’s, and he can take the disrespect because he knows he’ll sort it out with his friend once he’s sober. But there are a few things Jaemin can’t take, like when someone's blaming him when he did nothing wrong, and when women are being disrespected.

So he walks towards Donghyuck, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and throwing him into the wall, keeping him glued against the hard, cold surface.

“Your wife was home alone, sad, and upset,” Jaemin makes a threatening pause between each word, pushing Donghyuck against the wall again and again each time, “So shut the fuck up before I push you through this wall. She didn’t even know where you were, you're drunk and you have fucking hickeys on your fucking neck. So, tell me now, who’s the one ruining it for you? Me or yourself?,” Jaemin lets Donghyuck go after one last push. But doesn’t spare him another look.

A week passes since the hickey incident and you don’t see Donghyuck. You assume he’s on some sort of vacation with someone else, and you don’t even care enough to look for him on the tracking app. You don’t want to make an obsession out of this, because you guess he’s with someone else, and actually seeing his contact on some exotic country’s map on the phone app would be your final straw.

So you try to do your own thing by packing a small trolley and calling a cab to take you to the airport. You’re not sure about the destination, but you feel like you need to do this to get out of the slums of your heart.

You buy a ticket for the first flight you set your eyes on once you reach the ticket till, and you make your way through the passenger lounges towards the gates. You already feel refreshed, and you nearly vibrate with anticipation when you think about the days that are yet to come and the alone time you’ll have to yourself, but this time in a different city. Alone and away from your supposed husband.

You reach one of the restaurants there, and you hate to admit to yourself that Donghyuck has engulfed every aspect of your life when you realise that you’re going to drink beer and eat steak at ten in the morning just because Donghyuck has always done this type of thing, “It’s the law of the jungle here, baby” he once joked when he almost got drunk off overpriced wine in one of the airport’s restaurants way before noon.

So you gulp the resurfacing feelings back to where they belong, the bottom of your being where you hope they’ll be forgotten and unreachable for a long time, and so you reach the bar, asking for steak and beer like you’d be asking for a coffee and muffin at the local cafeteria back home. Which again, you don’t need to be worried about because airports are like casinos, especially if you have a flight with a layover in the middle.

You chew your steak and you can’t help but think about how Donghyuck would love this, and there goes your appetite. The lump in your throat returns, and your stomach churns because of all the emotions you feel all at once. You think you need to go see a doctor, because your emotional state is already affecting your physical state as well.

“Excuse me,” you feel someone patting you slightly on the shoulder, making you flinch just a bit at the unexpected contact, “Is this seat taken?” The stranger asks again in a very polite way, which makes you turn around to look at him.

You’re met with a tall, lean figure standing a few feet behind you, his finger still pointing at the seat next to you. You suddenly remember his question and you jump in realisation, moving your luggage on your other side of the stool you’re sitting on, making some space for him to move and sit down. “By all means,” you look at him, gesturing towards the high stool at the bar, “Please take a seat,”

He gives you a smile in return making himself comfortable before picking up the menu to look over. He’s wearing a black wool sweater, his glasses are covered in water droplets that have gone dry by now, probably from the rain outside. His black hair falls slightly on his forehead, and he has to shake his head from time to time to prevent his fringe from getting into his eyes as he tries to look for something appealing in that whole menu.

You go back to chewing your steak, and even nearly cold it’s still delicious. You try not to think too much about the steak and who might like it, or otherwise you’ll not be able to swallow the bite.

“Is the steak good?” The man on your left asks, still holding the menu in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he giggles, realising that you didn’t expect anyone to talk to you, “It’s just that I’m not really sure what to order and I’m starving, and that steak looks really nice,” he smiles at you, but you probably look like an idiot while he was only trying to be friendly.

“You should get it,” you smile back, seeing how his features relax when he hears your answer, “It’s one of the best steaks I’ve ever eaten. The ones I make are excluded,” you laugh, cutting into your steak.

His ears seem to perk up at the mention of your cooking, now intrigued by you. He introduces himself, and you grab his hand, never breaking eye contact with him. His hand is warm and big, his long fingers wrap around your palm, squeezing slightly.

“So, where are you off to?” He asks after a while, curious to know a bit more about you.

“Chicago,” you answer, playing with your bracelets.

“What a coincidence,” he sips on the last drop of beer from his glass, “So am I".

Donghyuck doesn’t see you for a whole week. After the fight at Jaemin’s, he doesn’t come back home to you, but spends the night in his car instead. Not that he couldn’t afford going to some other place, but he was still drunk and the information Jaemin gave about you really did a number on him. Jaemin could punch him, break his head against any surface of his apartment and it still wouldn’t hurt as much as finding out that you’re aware of all his actions on the side of your marriage.

And the fact that he has some fucking hickeys on his skin, and that you surely saw them, makes him want to jump off a cliff. The remorse is eating him from inside, and he’s sure he’s about to get a hole in his chest at the amount of stress he’s been through in the last week.

But not seeing you for a week did Donghyuck some good. He had some time to himself to be really alone, in a hotel room just outside the city, and rethink his life choices and everything he’s done lately. He doesn’t think he’s ever felt this amount of shame bubbling inside of him, never thought he’d be able to hurt you so much. He remembers your eyes from that night, when you shoved his shoulder, and it must have happened after you saw the marks on his skin. He feels like a fucking idiot, like he has shit for a brain and there’s no way he’s ever going to straighten things up with you, not after last week. And he honestly doesn’t know what was going on in his head in the past months after the wedding happened, and what made him do all of this, all of the suffering he’s brought you.

After the wedding, after the first few months after the wedding, after grandma Lee passed, he thought that things were just going to go back to how they were before he even saw that damned testament. He could go around fucking whoever he wanted, as long as he came home each evening to be with you, have dinner together and then go to sleep. Nothing between the two of you had to change. The casual sleepovers at one of your apartments would become a recurrent sharing of the bed, but now as husband and wife even if the titles were just for show. The hugs, the embraces, the casual signs of affection that the two of you showed each other wouldn’t have to change. Except, he broke all his rules. Yes, he did go around fucking whoever he wanted, but he never got home on time. He stopped hanging out with you, stopped being there for you. And he can’t help but wonder what the fuck is wrong with him, because the amount of heartbreak he feels right now while acknowledging the pain he’s put you through is making him lose his mind. Maybe he realises this too late, but he thinks he’s done it out of fear. Fear of acknowledging his true feelings. Maybe he never thought you would ever agree to marrying him, but again, he was really hoping you would. He doesn’t understand what’s going on in his mind, but he’s sure of one thing, and that is he loves you. Scrap the “more than a sister but less than a romantic interest” bullshit he’s told himself time and time again, he’s sure he loves you in the pathetic Anna Scott and William Thacker way, the hopeless way, the romantic and desperate, yearning for your attention and just for you — kind of love.

Maybe spending one week away from you does him so good, because he decides to go back home, your shared home, to be a more present husband. He’ll work from home, he’ll do everything for you just as much as you did everything for him but he was too blind to see — or even more. He’ll take you out, he’ll take you on vacations you’ve always wanted to go on. He’ll pick up whatever couple activity you want, and even if it’s not an activity meant for couples he’d still go just for you.

He comes home after a week and a half of being away, and it’s early in the morning. He stops by the supermarket and buys all the ingredients he knows he needs to make your favourite breakfast, and buys freshly squeezed juice from the farmer’s till you love so much, by the entrance of the supermarket. He comes home, and it’s still early, and thank god you’re not down in the kitchen making something already.

He puts some music on, but the volume isn’t too loud so as to not wake you up. He wants to surprise you with breakfast in bed. He remembers when the two of you used to eat cup ramen or whatever other thing you prepared, while sitting in bed at either one’s dormitory. He misses those times, but he realises that nothing has to change, everything can be like before, especially now that he’s gotten the cold shower of reality.

He hears the front door open and turns around confused, but before he can take a step and come towards the entry hall, you show up in the kitchen looking just as surprised as he does.

“What is going on?” Your eyes are the size of saucers, pointing at the spatula in his hand and the apron he’s wearing on top of his casual clothes. It doesn’t look like he’s slept home, otherwise he’d be in his pyjamas or suit and tie. But he’s in jeans and a fitting t-shirt. This time, your stomach doesn’t churn and your heart doesn’t drop.

“Were you not home? Sleeping?” He asks, pointing his thumb towards the staircase.

“No,” you answer but it comes out more as a question, “Were you not home? You should have noticed I haven’t been here for four days,” you retort, your tone not that friendly.

“I’m sorry, I thought you were avoiding me,” he lies. His heart drops knowing he wasn’t here to notice you were gone. “I just wanted to make you breakfast, your favourite,” he shows you the pan full of vegetables, scrambled eggs and grated cheese. You start salivating looking at the colours in the pan alone, knowing that it’s going to be delicious because Donghyuck is an excellent cook. “By the way, we have freshly squeezed orange juice in the fridge, your favourite type, no pulp,” he points his head towards the fridge.

“Jesus, we’re like the fucking Kennedys this morning,” you reply, walking towards the fridge to take the juice out. He laughs at your joke, and it’s like music to your ears. You haven’t heard this sound in a long time, and you have to think about something else as not to let your feelings resurface.

“We’re more like… Brangelina,” he jokes, and this time you’re the one laughing.

“So,” he says, sitting at the kitchen island across from where you’re sitting, so he can see you better. God, you’re so beautiful. Your eyes are sparkling and your cheeks are rosy. You’re wearing that coloured chapstick that tints your lips just the right amount, and it contours your features so perfectly his chest heaves with something close to euphoria. The euphoria of seeing you. “Where did you go these past days? Did you have fun?” He doesn’t want to know the details, because it’s a reminder of the past. The past that he doesn’t want to go back to.

He’s a new man, a married man but he’ll take this seriously this time. A new chapter starts today.

Hearing his question, you stop mid chew. What are you supposed to tell him? Are you two sharing this kind of information now? “Yes,” you reply simply, nodding your head, “I had fun,”

“That’s good, I’m glad” he smiles at you, and it is his most genuine smile. You know it.

“Listen, Y/n,” he starts, but swallows his words when he looks at you. He wanted to apologise, but he feels like it’s too soon and too sudden right now. He’ll do it when the perfect time comes.

“Actually, Hyuck, I’d like for you to listen first. I have something I want to tell you,” you sip on your orange juice, and Donghyuck stops mid chew, and you sense there’s something in his eyes. Fear?

“I’m thankful for you making breakfast this morning, I really am,” you smile at him, trying to bring him some reassurance, “But you don’t have to do this. You never make breakfast and you’re never around but, for some reason, you’re here now preparing my favourite meal for me. I don’t know why you’re doing this or what’s wrong,” you actually might have a faint idea, but you keep it to yourself, “But we can live separate lives. I’ll respect your choices, and we don’t have to interact with each other if that’s not what you really want,”

“What? No!” He interrupts you, frowning, “What are you talking about?”

“You keep avoiding me, you’re away all the time,” you start, but you can feel tears forming in your eyes. Damn it, that’s not how you wanted this to turn out, he doesn’t deserve any more of your tears. “So, I understand that your plan of getting your inheritance was successful, but we really don’t need to be around each other. I get it now, so I’m letting you know that I’ve moved some of my things out of our room, but not all just in case, you know, if our friends ever come by and they see us having completely separate rooms. It would look really bad for your plan,” you explain, drying your tears but smiling nonetheless. And the image breaks Donghyuck.

“You can go do your activities, by yourself, and I’ll do mine on my own” you continue, “but there’s one thing I want to ask of you. Please don’t bring anyone in our house. This is our house,” you make small pauses between requests, hoping he’ll understand what you’re implying. You’re willing to give up your happiness thinking of what could have been, for the peace of mind of coming to terms with what your life is actually like. It’s the only way you can still be with Donghyuck, and you have to make this compromise.

“What?” He snarls, a frown painted on his face.

“It’s okay,” you try to reassure him, but you need to get away from him or you’ll start crying in front of him, and that’s not what you want. So you stand to your feet, pushing the stool under the kitchen island. “You don’t have to worry about anything, okay?” You look at him, but your emotions get the better of you and your eyes are brimming with tears for what feels like the millionth time in the past few months, and he looks back at you like you just caught him committing some sort of crime, “I’ll go to my room now, I need to be alone” you point towards the staircase, “By the way, there’s some dry cleaning that needs to be picked up, can you go?” You ask, but he knows that it is not a question.

He gulps, seeing your back leaving the kitchen. “Sure,” but you’re already on your way to your room, and you don’t hear him.

The day goes by, and Donghyuck doesn’t see you around the house again. He respects your boundaries, so he doesn’t push to get you to listen to what he has to say right away, so he secludes himself in your — formerly — shared bedroom, trying to give you space just for today at least.

The following day, he comes back home after picking the clothes held hostage for so long at the dry cleaner’s — and immediately notices the silence. The dead silence, only the clock ticking making a sound that’s too loud in Donghyuck’s ears and too heavy on his heart. He supposes you’re still locked in the guest room, hence the disgusting silence.

He’s used to finding you around the house either cooking, either singing using a broom as a mic stand as you clean around; either the loud sound of war documentaries, or you crying while watching a cheetah eating an antelope on Animal Planet, either you baby talking to the plants you were planting in some pots in the back garden. But now everything is dead, dead silent.

He really wants to make this right. He rethinks about everything that happened in the past weeks, Jaemin knocking some sense into him, all the conclusions he’s come to, and the words you told him yesterday morning.

First, he realised he wants to make this right. No more sleeping around, no more hiding from you, no more hurting you. It took him long enough to realise he wants to be in this marriage for real, and not just because he was promised millions of dollars if he got married, and he chose the easier way since you were the only woman who’s been around him for so long, — that he now realises he was in love with since his teenage years. It was like a cold shower taken on a scorching day, the type that makes your heart stop for one second and then back to pumping blood quickly with an uneven rhythm.

Secondly, he promised himself, after many days of mulling thoughts in his head, that he’d be more attentive, and that he will try to make things right with you. He’d spend more time with you, as opposed to what he did until now — spending his days with women, too many to count, too many to even remember. And he’s filled with shame every time he remembers how he came home all dirtied up, their kissing marks left all over his body, his clothes stinking of their perfumes, and when he stepped through the front door you were there, waiting for him with dinner and wine, or patiently waiting for him to come home so you could spend some time together like you used to. But he was scared, and it took Jaemin’s shoving to make his brain start working. He’d never meant to hurt you, although he was trying to avoid you every day since that kiss between you two happened, because he thought it was weird. He proposed marriage to you, without any obligations, he never asked you to love him or be faithful to him, and you never asked him either. So why was it so weird? So complicated? He started avoiding you when he realised that maybe you were all he needed after all, and that thought was scary. He jumped head first into this marriage expecting the two of you to live your lives like you were used to doing, and now it seems that he might have done it because it felt right. And it had always been you, and only you.

Going up the stairs two steps at a time, he quickly reaches the upper floor of your shared house, reaching the guest room’s door, where you’ve been sleeping since he screwed up — you made sure to let him know this just earlier.

“Y/n?” He calls your name gently, hoping for you to recognise the vulnerability in his voice. “Y/n, can we talk?” He pleads, knocking slightly on the wooden door.

It creaks open, a puzzled Donghyuck opening it slowly as he looks a bit around the room, expecting you to be in bed or maybe doing some sort of activity you found solace in while avoiding his presence.

But you were nowhere to be found. He takes big steps towards the dressing room, noticing the lights are turned off, and then in a last attempt he tries to look for you on the room’s balcony. But you’re not there, and he’s sure there’s nowhere nearly as cozy and comfortable as this space for you to be hiding. And your shared bedroom is an excluded possibility, because that’s where he’ll be sleeping, and you didn’t want to see his face, it was for sure.

In a last, desperate attempt to find you, he moves quickly towards the bedroom, and he prays to god he’ll find you in there looking through your old clothes and trying them on like you always do every few months, calling him an idiot as soon as you see his face entering the room. But you’re not there either, and he can only sigh, sitting on the bed, thinking of what he can do to find you.

Would it be wise to call Renjun? He’s one of his best friends, but also yours? Renjun would take your side any second, and Donghyuck knows this.

“Let’s not,” he mumbles, throwing the phone across the bed and throwing his back harshly on the hard mattress of your shared bed. He misses you. He missed feeling annoyed by your sleeping figure stretching all over him in search for heat. He misses your perfume, your scent hogging his senses as soon as his head hits your pillow. Your pillow, the one he kept close in his embrace every time you woke earlier than he did. He misses you so much, he needs to feel you randomly giving him a warm embrace.

He can remember the scent of your hair, the one sticking to your skin, and he gets up from the bed to go to your vanity desk to spray a little bit around the room, just so he can find a little bit of comfort before he thinks of where you could be.

He stops in his tracks, sensing there’s something odd going on. Looking around the room, he can’t pinpoint it, but he suddenly feels it in the pit of his stomach.

He looks at your vanity desk, inspecting it from where he’s standing, and he looks for the bottle of your perfume that he loves. And then it hits him. It’s not there. Out of all the perfume bottles, the one you always wore — which he loves, — it’s nowhere to be seen. He jogs to the bathroom attached to your bedroom, hoping that you took it there when you were getting ready to leave, because you’ve done that before. Except, this time you didn’t place it in the bathroom. It’s as spotless as ever, as if no one has ever used it before. Your shower products are still lined nicely in the shower, your skincare products still inside the cabinets hanging on the walls. But not your toothbrush. His is sitting alone in the glass holders where they usually touch each other, as unhygienic as it sounds.

He speeds out of the bathroom, back to your vanity, where he inspects the products laying around. Your preferred perfume is gone, a few make up products missing from the little drawer you had arranged them so nicely in. His eyes dart to the jewellery box sitting on the edge of the desk, and he picks its lid up, inspecting what’s inside. Your usual jewellery is looking right back at his stupid face, as if it was mocking him for freaking out, but he notices some of the expensive jewellery he’s gifted you ever since you two got married, are gone. A bracelet, a few rings, a necklace and a brooch are gone. And then his eyes still on two pieces of jewellery, his heart dropping to his stomach as soon as he recollects his bearings.

Your wedding band and your engagement ring sit mockingly in the corner of the box, as if you had thrown them in without even looking where they landed, without even making sure if they made it inside the box before you sealed it closed.

The thought of you purposefully leaving your rings behind makes him want to hurl, his mind running desperate tireless laps as he tries to understand what’s going on.

And then it dawns on him. You left.

He puts the box back down with gentle hands, and he feels like the ceiling might have collapsed on him with the amount of heaviness he feels in his chest and stomach. Did you really leave? He wants to make sure before he loses his mind, so he checks a few of your drawers and the dressing room adjacent to the bedroom. He can see a few garments missing from each section of the wardrobe, noticing how one of your suitcases is also gone.

Not knowing what to do, he walks back to the bedroom, his hands frantically going through his hair and eyes closing tightly in an attempt to find a way to calm himself down. His eyes so forcefully shut that he starts seeing spots as soon as he opens them again.

He reaches for his phone, trying to look for you through your shared location. “God fucking Dammit,” he exhales when he opens the app.

You went as far as turning your location services off on all your devices, which you’ve never done before, not since he taught you how to turn them on ten years ago.

He dials your number in a miserable attempt to get a hold of you, but it goes to voicemail almost immediately. “Please pick up,” He doesn’t want to give up, so he dials your number a few more times before he gives in and leaves a message on your voicemail.

“Y/n, it’s me, please pick up,” and after five minutes of hopeful waiting, that maybe you’ll reach out to him out of pity more than anything else, he tries again.

“Y/n, it’s me, Hyuck,” he can feel his voice full of uncertainty. He clears his throat, “Where are you? I came home earlier wanting to talk, but I can’t find you anywhere, please call me back,”

An hour of waiting for you to give him a small sign, he feels like he’s losing his mind going back and forth in this damned bedroom.

“Y/n, please come home. At least call me back, tell me you’re safe. Please, please Y/n, call me back” he whispers into the phone before it gets cut off.

Donghyuck feels a tight knot forming in his stomach, only the thought of you not being safe makes him despise himself. If anything happened to you while being away because of him, he would never be able to forgive himself for doing this to you.

Noticing how time flew by, he checks his phone once again, even if you sent him a dry text he’d be happy because he’d know you’re safe enough to check your phone. There aren’t many places Donghyuck knows you’d choose as a safe place trying to put some space between the two of you, but he thinks of one where you could be at right now, and he quickly runs down the stairs and snatches his car keys, so distressed that he forgets to grab his coat.

There’s only one place where you could be, and he needs to see for himself.

“What are you doing here?” Renjun opens the door slightly, but then fully opens it for his friend to step in. “Not only did you steal my best friend, the one who was supposed to marry me at thirty-five in case we didn’t find anyone to get married to, but you’re now attempting to steal my time too,” he rolls his eyes at the man standing in front of him.

“Steal your future wife?” Donghyuck frowns for a few seconds, processing what Renjun said. “What if she was the one stealing your future husband? What, Renjun, wasn’t I good enough for you?” Donghyuck touches his chest where his heart is, tsk-ing his disapproval with fake annoyance.

“Your ways of causing me disgust are always unbelievable,” Renjun fake gags, crossing his arms.

“Thanks, I’ll take that as a compliment,” Donghyuck sends a flying kiss, and Renjun is glad that they’re not standing next to each other right now because the two of them are close enough for Renjun to know that his friend would attempt to kiss him on any spot of his face that he can reach.

Donghyuck quickly drops the banter, curiously looking around the room, trying to find any of your objects that you could have carelessly left behind when he dropped by. In his head, you’re here somewhere, hiding from him. He hopes you are, and even if you came out and kicked him out the door, he’d be grateful because that way he’d know you are in a place where you are safe and sound.

And Renjun can’t help but notice Donghyuck’s dishevelled look, the locks on his head messily pointing in different directions, and of course there was the fact that he isn’t wearing a coat. He observes the way his friend’s eyes dart back and forth between various surfaces of his living room, and the way Donghyuck’s hands reach behind his head in an unconscious motion.

“So,” Renjun begins, “What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean?” Donghyuck half laughs.

“I’m not dumb. You’re my best friends and you’re married to each other. You haven’t pestered me with stupid memes in the past days, and I’ve only heard from Y/n a couple of times,” he sees his friend’s face lighten up at the mention of your name, “So what did you do?”

“Why do you assume I’m the one in the wrong here?”

Renjun scoffs, his friend’s almost offended tone not being that well received.

“You always do shit to hurt Y/n, so excuse me for giving her the benefit of the doubt,”

“What do you mean?” Donghyuck asks again, this time sober.

Renjun sighs, “I had to waltz around the two of you for a very long time, I lived with the two of you before,” he frowns, moving his hand between himself and Donghyuck, “I had to witness times when you hurt her feelings, maybe unknowingly, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, but you did nonetheless. I had to pick up pieces you stepped on carelessly, while she gave herself to you on a silver platter. No, pardon me, a golden platter. Your sleeping around, your mindless jokes about it, your little remarks that played with her heart every time you complimented her while making promises to her, and the way she believed you without any second thoughts as if you wouldn’t forget about her and the promises made to her an hour later.” Renjun inhales sharply, recognising how he’s getting worked up, but these are things he’s been dying to say to his friend, and now is the perfect time to do so.

“Don’t act dumb, Hyuck, I was there and I saw it all happen right before my eyes. Every time you promised her the sun, you left her hanging in the air, looking for you yet you were unreachable, avoiding her. I had to mend the pieces you fucked with, every single time. That’s why I was afraid when she told us she’d be getting married to you so suddenly and out of nowhere. I was scared for her wellbeing,” Renjun gulps, crossing his arms once again.

“So, whatever you did this time, I don’t care. I won’t help you in any way. I want her to be well and happy, and if she’ll reach out to me, I’ll be there for her. But you need to get your shit sorted, before it’s too late. If it isn’t already,”

Donghyuck inhales sharply, trying to digest every piece of information he’s found out from Renjun, on which he’ll mull over later when his nerves might calm down.

“Okay,” he surrenders, “I am getting my shit together, Renjun. I have been for the past few days,”

“It’s not long enough. A few days of meditating on your shitty actions won’t erase your wrongdoings,”

“I know, and that’s why I’m working on it, I’m doing this for her,” he starts taking a few steps towards the door, when he turns back to face Renjun, “If she calls you, just tell her to call me, please. I want her to be safe,” the sad look in his eyes are a sight Renjun never thought he’d see, especially from Donghyuck.

“I’ll see you around,” and with that, he gently closes the front door behind himself.

A few days pass, and Donghyuck has made an obsession with checking if you turned your location on again. You haven’t reached out to him, and neither did Renjun. He hopes that his friend would be considerate enough to reach out to him if he ever found out anything about you, but he’s left hanging.

He hasn’t been able to eat much, only a few bites so as not to get stomach aches from hunger. He already had stomach aches just thinking about not having a clue about your whereabouts, he didn’t want to end up on a hospital bed because he couldn’t take a fucking nibble. The bottles of liquor and alcohol the two of you had agreed on keeping on a neat bar shelf in the corner of your living room were almost empty. He’s never felt more distraught, and the liquor only helped numbing his thoughts for a short amount of time, for they all came back to his mind as soon as he woke up from his drunken naps. Donghyuck hasn’t been able to sleep much either, that’s mainly why he drained almost every bottle of hard liquor in the house. He doesn’t want to forget anything about you, but his brain is his biggest enemy these days, and the only thing that can help him out is the thought that maybe, after the alcohol numbs him real good and puts him to sleep, he’ll wake up to you standing in front of him, holding him tight and telling him you forgive him and you want things to work out. Because he can do this, he can do anything you’d ask him, he can make this work. He loves you.

He left you more voicemails and texts, and all went unanswered. By the time the alcohol’s effects wore off, his muscles were already starting to ache from the countless times he fell asleep on the big carpet downstairs, on which he chose to rest in hopes of hearing your keys opening the front door. He was like a sick puppy. Waiting for the owner of his heart to come back home, because he knows you’ll eventually come back. He hopes, at least.

He stands to his feet, taking the empty bottle outside and sitting it carefully inside the bin, as to not make too much noise. His head feels like it’s being split in half, and his muscles beg for a hot shower, which he gladly plans to take after popping two advils from the medicine cabinet in one of the bathrooms downstairs.

After using his favourite scent out of all your shower gel bottles lined up in the shower, he wraps a towel around his waist, walking back to the bedroom to pick up his phone. Your location is still off, and he decides to leave another voicemail for you, because if there’s any possibility of you listening to these voicemails, he wants to be sure he made everything in his power to reach out to you and make you realise how serious he is about everything.

One hand on his hip, while his teeth nibble on his bottom lip, he dials your number, waiting for the call to go to voicemail. Except this time the call goes through, ringing in his ears.

“Hello?” A male voice answers, and Donghyuck has to take a quick look at the phone’s screen to make sure he didn’t dial someone else.

This is your number.

“Y/n?” He inquires, a deep frown forming on his smooth forehead.

“Oh, Y/n’s in the shower right now, can I take a message?”

Donghyuck feels his throat run dry, and sharply exhales in an attempt to calm himself before he can regret anything that might come out of his mouth. Not only is the thought of your leaving destroying him, but to hear another man answering your phone might be the last thing he does before he goes insane.

Who the fuck is it? Who is this man? He can't help but ask himself. Who is it? Is it a friend of mine? But he doesn’t recognise the voice.

“Hello?” The voice on the other line rings in his ears, “Are you still there?”

“And who are you?” Donghyuck rasps, his voice raw with anger.

“Erm,” Donghyuck can feel uncertainty in the man’s tone, “I’m Sungchan. Can I take a message for Y/n?”

The mention of your name out of his mouth makes Donghyuck see red before his eyes.

“Yes, Sungchan,” Donghyuck spits out with anger, “Can you tell Y/n to call home as soon as possible? This is her husband, Donghyuck, by the way,” after which he hangs up, throwing the phone across the room, not even bothering to pick it up again.

You get out of the shower, stepping on the hotel’s slippers, feeling refreshed after getting rid of the sweat residues on your skin, when you feel a knock on the bathroom door. You open it wide, seeing a frowning Sungchan leaning on the doorframe, clearly bothered by something.

“Sungchan?” You ask, combing your fingers through your wet hair. “Is everything okay?”

You see him giving you a conflicted look, and he bites on his lip. “Your husband called. Why didn’t you tell me that you’re married?” He asks you, and you think the sky falls suddenly. It would be easier if he wasn’t looking at you right now, but his gaze is piercing, cold, and hurt.

“What?” You ask, but not because you didn’t hear it the first time, but because you need time to think how to explain everything to him.

Yes, you omitted this detail when you hooked up with Sungchan the first time, but it’s not like he deliberately asked you, ‘are you married?’. You and him were on the same flight to Chicago. You liked the attention he gave you at the airport, and he offered to show you around if you didn’t already have an itinerary planned out. So you accepted, and between some museums, jazz bars, and nice restaurants, you found yourself in bed with him.

With him, you got rid of all the stress you accumulated in the past months, and for the first time in years you even felt loved and appreciated.

Apart from the shame and regret of not being genuine with Sungchan from the very beginning that’s eating at you, there’s also the way he’s looking at you right now. Betrayed, hurt, on the verge of tears.

How did Donghyuck’s hurting lead you into hurting other people? You knew Sungchan likes you, because he explicitly told you so, so why did you have to pull the same card your husband played on you?

“Sungchan,” you start, but no words can make up for the damage already done, because he pushes away from the doorway, going back to look for his clothes.

“I don’t want to hear it,” his voice trembles, sliding the pair of jeans on his long legs. “I can’t believe you did this to me,” he’s mostly talking to himself, and you’re left in the corner of the room in your towel only, watching as he gathers his things from your hotel room.

“Never look for me again,” he walks past you, towards the door, not looking at you even once, “Go back to your husband, Y/n,”

And of course, what other fucking choice do you have?

You push your trolley through the entrance hallway, leaving it at the foot of the staircase, making your way towards the living room. You enter the room, empty and messy, and you can see that Donghyuck has been spending more time at home now than he did before. His clothes are scattered on the couch, a sock is thrown carelessly behind one of the houseplants while the other is resting under the coffee table. He’s not here, but you can sense the smell of steak, and you can hear him humming something in the other room.

You enter the kitchen, that’s empty and messy, and then you hear Donghyuck’s voice ring a bit louder in your ears. You walk around the kitchen island, sliding the kitchen door open and you exit on the patio, scaring Donghyuck.

He’s grilling steak on the patio, dancing around with a huge grilling fork, getting scared when he heard the door slide shut behind you.

“You’re home, baby,” he uses his saccharine voice, and you throw your phone on the wooden table next to the grill.

“Cut the crap,” you snarl, pulling a chair to sit, and you plop down while pointing at your phone, “I called you, you didn’t pick up,” you bite on your cheek, in a desperate attempt to keep your cool and not blow this fucking patio up.

“I didn’t pick up, nope” he makes a popping sound at the end, using a piece of cardboard to vent the meat on the grill.

“Then why all the voicemails pleading me to call you back? If you can’t fucking pick up?” You bark, but he doesn’t flinch at your tone.

“I didn’t pick up because I broke it,” he explains calmly before turning around to look at you, “I sort of got upset after a phone call. How’s your friend, by the way? Sungchan, was it?” He asks, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

“Do not fucking say his name,” you threaten, looking at him like you’re ready to jump him.

“Do not fucking look at me like that, Y/n” he threatens back, placing his hands on the wooden table. “I’m you fucking husband!” He raises his voice.

“And I’m your fucking wife!” You scream at him, while standing to your feet. Your nose is flaring with anger, and when your gaze meets his you feel the familiar suffocating lump in your throat. “In the last year, how many times did you consider yourself to be my husband?” You ask accusingly, pointing a finger in his direction. “How many times did you think you had a wife waiting for you at home, when you were with other women?” You cry out, biting on your lip in order to not let all the sobs run past your lips. “How many times, Donghyuck, did I turn a blind eye on your indiscretions? The times you came back home smelling like other women, marks on your skin, the amount of times you didn’t come home for long periods of time?”

“So you think you’re better than me if you just run away with another man?” He raises his voice at you once again, slamming a hand on the wooden table.

You’re honestly appalled at how he’s trying to turn this on you.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” You ask calmly, your tears not flowing anymore. “You’re trying to blame me but you don’t see the root of the problem here. So it’s okay for you to do it for months, and then when I do it once it’s suddenly a problem?” You can’t look at him any more, feeling too upset to even spare him a glance.

You notice the alcohol bottles sitting around the bin, and you suppose they’re there because the bin is already full.

“Are you drunk?” You ask in disbelief. You swear he seemed sober when he shouted at you just a few minutes ago.

“Do I look like I’m fucking drunk right now?” He asks exasperated. “Not now anyway, but I did drink waiting for your fucking call, Y/n” he points the grilling fork in your direction, as if he’s accusing you of something. “I waited, and I waited, and I waited for you call, but you just ignored me. You come home one day telling me that you don’t care who I’m with just for you to secretly leave to get with another man. What kind of pure and innocent role are you playing, Y/n? Telling me it’s alright just so you have your peace of mind while doing the same thing I do, because you thought you laid your cards on the table and allowing me to do it would exempt you from guilt?” He accuses you with an extremely calm tone.

“I’m sorry I hurt you, Y/n, but what was I supposed to do? You left your fucking rings at home and took off!” He shouts again, and you realise you’ve never had a fight this intense with Donghyuck, with so much shouting. You don’t even think you’ve heard Donghyuck’s shout except for the one he lets out when he’s trying to be funny. Two completely different tones.

“So what? You kept your ring on when you were fucking around?” You bite back, and he doesn’t say anything else.

You decide there’s no way you want to continue the fight. At this point you’re not sure if whatever you and Donghyuck have is worth fighting for. You turn around, not even looking at him again, and go towards the staircase to go to your room.

“Where are you going? Y/n?” He comes after you, calling your name and trying to grab you by the arm, “I made steak!”

“You can shove it up you ass!” You retort, getting out of his grasp, going up on the stairs and leaving him like a lost puppy.

You sit on the carpet at the foot of your bed, not even bothering to turn the lights on. You know you want to be alone right now, but you know that you’d rather be alone in this huge house instead of having Donghyuck downstairs.

You feel like the love you carry for Donghyuck is consuming you, and there’s nothing you can do about it. He can be the biggest idiot in this world and you would still love him. He can be the one to have a huge screaming match with and you’d still forgive him, and love him. Your pain is amplified when you recall the fight you two just had, because everything he said earlier is true. You told him to do whatever he wants because you knew you could go find solace in Sungchan's presence, you wouldn’t be alone anymore, and you could start doing whatever Donghyuck was doing without thinking twice. Just like he did. And what pains you the most is the fact that he made it sound like you were the one who cheated on him first.

And okay, you’re technically not together. But would it be so hard for him to acknowledge you once in a while? Would it be hard for him to stop thinking with his dick and just open his eyes to see that you’re right here, everything he would ask for, you’d give him on a golden platter. But again, maybe he doesn’t feel the same way towards you, and it’s better not to know this instead of having your feelings hurt to a point of no return.

And Sungchan. That poor soul. You feel so sorry for treating him like this, and you feel even worst for making him feel the same way Donghyuck has made you feel up to this point. Sungchan left so abruptly that you didn’t have the chance to tell him the truth. Yes, your husband called, but guess what? He’s not really your husband. It sounds pathetic. You wish you could at lest have told him the truth, about the nature of the relationship between you and Donghyuck, but you guess you had it coming — because not once did you think about bringing your marriage, albeit fake, up to Sungchan, and you had more occasions than you can count on two hands.

You feel conflicted. You feel like the best thing for you would be getting away from Donghyuck as soon as possible. He brings out the worst side of you. The jealous, possessive side, that really has no business existing. Because it’s a fake one, this marriage shouldn’t make you feel like a miserable fool. It shouldn’t affect you the way it does, you’ve only known sadness and jealousy in the past months and it’s really not fair, not when Donghyuck doesn’t care about you and your marriage as much as you do. But at the same time, even if you think it’s best to get away, you just can’t. You’re so used to being with Donghyuck that he has become a part of you, and walking away from him would feel like walking around with just one leg instead of two.

You’re sobbing into your own hands, feeling like the world just collapsed, and you don’t sense Donghyuck coming up the stairs towards your room.

“Y/n, I want to talk,” he opens the door just slightly, waiting for you to say something, but he doesn’t hear an answer, “Can we talk?”

“Go away,” You scoff, raising your head from your hands, bringing your knees to your chest. You notice him stepping carefully inside the room, the light on the hallway brightening your room just a little. He’s carrying your suitcase, the one you left at the foot of the staircase, and he puts it behind the door, before he comes next to you and decides to sit down.

He’s so close you can smell him, even if your nose is stuffy from all the crying. His arm is touching yours, and he brings one of his legs up to imitate your position. You don’t look him in the eye, but your tears keep streaming down your face uncontrollably, and you bite your lip trying not to let the sobs escape you.

He extends one hand, touching the arm closest to him, squeezing slightly.

“Lets talk about this,” he shushes you as soon as you try to reply back, and pats your head with careful gestures, “Come here,” he instructs, and your body responds immediately, like you wouldn’t even need a brain, just Donghyuck to tell you what to do and give out commands for you to follow.

Your face falls in the crook of his neck, and the moment you face touches his skin your tears are unstoppable. He continues to shush you, to tell you to let it all out, to tell you that everything’s okay.

And while you’re in his arms, and he holds you like this, showing you that he does indeed care about you, maybe you believe his words — that everything will be okay, just this once.

“Y/n, I know you can’t talk right now, so I will do the talking, okay?” He asks, but when he doesn’t get a reply back he promptly squeezes your arms to get an answer out of you. Between all the sobs and tears damping his skin and t-shirt, you give him a thumbs up — a sign that he should go on and talk, and it makes him laugh. The beautiful crystalline laugh you love so much.

“I’m so sorry for hurting you, and I know I’ve said this a lot lately but I will keep saying this a lot in the future too. I’m also sorry for talking to you the way I did earlier, raising my voice and pointing my finger when I’m not really the one who should be speaking,” he continues to caress your back while you’re all crouched into his side, your head still glued to the side of his neck. But he doesn’t mind the dampness, he doesn’t mind the sobbing you’re letting out right next to his ear. He doesn’t mind keeping you this close.

“I’m sorry for dragging you into this mess, and then making you feel like I don’t appreciate you or like I don’t care about you. Because I do, Y/n. You’d be surprised if you could hear the things my mind is coming up with when I think about you.” He kisses the top of your head, and you feel his breath fanning over your forehead and cheeks for a little while.

“I’m sorry for ruining whatever you had with Sungchan, and I’m sorry to tell you that this last part is a lie. I’m lying Y/n, because knowing you could be happy far and away from me is making me go insane little by little. I’m an idiot for saying this when I’m the one in the wrong here,” he pauses, and you can hear him gulping.

“I need to be completely honest with you, I think I owe you this, and then if you want to walk away you can. You’re free to do whatever you want, you have your share of the money and it’s up to you whatever you decide to do,” you listen to him, holding your breath for a bit while waiting for him to go on, but your tears stopped flowing.

“The day I made breakfast for you, do you remember that?” You nod, stretching an arm across his stomach to get in a more comfortable position — and you really just wanted to hug him, “I was going to have a talk with you. The previous days, when I basically went missing, I reflected on a lot of things and I was ready to ask you if we could try to do this marriage thing for real this time, but you didn’t even let me speak,” he giggles, and once you register all his words your breath is caught in your throat.

“And then you went missing and I was so worried about you, Y/n. Never do that to me again,” he warns you, and you squeeze him tighter out of instinct. “You can do whatever you want Y/n, I mean it. You can forget I said anything about being for real in this marriage, you can decline all my apologies but I’ll forever feel sorry for putting you through this,”

You push yourself up from his body to finally look at him, and he looks at you with big sparkly eyes, touching his chest with his left hand, and you can see his ringed finger shining in the dim lights filtering through from the hallway. You love him, that’s a confirmed fact. Especially now after you got to hear everything he had to say.

“So how are you going to fix this?” You whisper, not really knowing how you should approach this whole situation.

“Do you forgive me?” He asks, his face getting a bit closer to your figure. He gets so close to you that you can smell his cologne perfectly once again.

“I do, but” you whisper, and you can sense he’s holding his breath, “did you mean it, what you said about doing this,” you point between the two of you, “doing it for real?”

“Yes,” he answers with no hesitation, “I meant everything I said,”

“So let me ask again,” you get closer to his face, smirking as you can feel his breath fanning over your face once again, but this time you look him in the eye, “how are you going to fix this?”

“I have a few ways,” he smirks at you, taking the bait you’ve just thrown him.

Everything happens really fast. You don’t have time to register the moment he seals his lips over yours, kissing you fervently as he gently grasps the side of your neck to bring you closer. You snicker as you feel his lips eagerly moving on top of yours, and your poor attempt at trying to gasp for air is swallowed by his relentless warm lips.

He breaks the kiss, giving you both a chance to breathe, and he stands to his feet, dragging you with him. His lips capture yours once again, but this time he doesn’t lose any more time, his tongue sliding carefully on your bottom lip, asking for your permission. You grant it almost immediately, and he moans into the kiss as soon as his tongue waltzes with yours, his plump lips sucking on your tongue before releasing it with a pop sound, and going back to nibble on your bottom lip.

He lets your lips go once again, grabbing a strand of your hair to play with.

“I’ve wanted to be like this for a long time,” he mumbles, looking at the strand he’s holding between his fingers, “Will you let me take care of you, Y/n?” He rasps, and the look you give him is enough for him to understand your answer. “Lay down for me,” he instructs, pushing you slightly until the back of your knees touch the mattress, and you follow his orders.

He sets himself on top of you, and you wrap your legs around his waist out of instinct. His hands reach for your waistline, roaming carefully towards your hips, where he stops to squeeze tenderly. He leans forward once again, but this time he catches your lips in a sweet, short kiss, repeating the action a few times before moving his juicy lips to your jaw, nibbling on your neck as he moves his ministrations further and further down.

You stifle a moan when his hot mouth reaches the neckline of your top that’s barely covering your breasts now that you’re laying down. Once again, Donghyuck puts his tongue to work, making the wet muscle trace the neckline, leaving wet smears across your hot skin.

His hands reach for the hem of your top, raising it higher on your torso up to your bust. His cold fingertips massage the delicate and silky skin up from your lower abdomen all the way to the underside of your breasts, where the underband of your bra is sticking uncomfortably to your skin.

“Let’s take this off, baby,” he commands, pulling on the fabric that’s covering your bra.

You comply to his orders, getting rid of the top as efficiently as possible, and you hear Donghyuck sucking his teeth, his head hanging low once again to be on the same level as your chest. He continues his actions, tracing his tongue around the cups of your bra, returning to the middle of your chest, where he presses his wet lips on the delicate spot between your tits, proceeding to lick a stripe all the way to your neck and jaw. He captures your lips in a smooth kiss, moving greedily trying to savour every little sound and breathy moans you let out. Your hands reach for his head, your fingers comb through his hair, fingertips massaging his scalp, and he can’t help but moan into your touch. The sound gets swallowed by your mouth moving confidently over his, sucking on his tongue, taking everything he’s willing to give you.

He breaks the kiss, holding a mischievous look in his gaze, instructing you to get rid of your bra and jeans while he gets up on his knees to get rid of his t-shirt. With his tanned, toned arms and abdomen on display, you reach out to get a chance to touch and trace his soft skin, but he slaps your hands away and leans forward towards your stomach, on which he places short, open mouth kisses all the way to the band of your panties.

He kneels at the foot of the bed, dragging you by your hips towards himself, and holds your legs together before leaning in onto your clothed core. The action has you moaning, and he keeps moving his nose against the crotch of the underwear in repeated motions, his nose bumping against your clit every single time, and it sends a tingling sensation throughout your body, pleasure bubbling fast in your lower stomach.

“Hyuck,” you moan his name, not thinking you can resist his actions much longer.

He smiles hearing you moaning his name, but decides to halt his actions nonetheless. He grabs your panties and pulls them down, the cold air in the room making contact with your wet folds. He folds your wet underwear carelessly and shoves them in the front pocket of his sweats, leaning forward for his mouth to start moving slowly on your core. His plump lips suck on your clit gently, twirling his tongue around the bundle of nerves. Your pussy clenches around nothing, his relentless actions building the pressure in your muscles, and you’re approaching your release fast, your hip buck into his mouth, chasing the delicious pleasure you’re about to be rewarded with soon.

Donghyuck can feel his dick hard and throbbing in his boxers, but he doesn’t touch himself — he'd rather wait to be touched by you.

“That’s it, baby,” he moans with his mouth still glued to your core, his tongue licking long stripes along your entrance and clit, stopping to show extra care to the latter. And the pet name on his lips is everything you needed in order to cum.

His dick throbs hearing the sounds you make while you cum, his name on your lips feels like a mantra, like a chant full of praise, music to his ears.

“You’re insane,” you breathe out, grabbing him by the hair to detach him from your core when he doesn’t seem to have any faint intention of stopping his laps on your clit.

“You haven’t even seen half of it yet,” he grins and smirks, his chin glistens with a mix of your arousal and release. He licks his lips, deciding to cut you some slack until you come down from your high.

You look at him, and you lick your lips seeing his grey sweats hanging low on his tanned hips, a wet patch placed in the front on his crotch, indicating his arousal.

You pull him closer to you, latching your lips with his, sucking and pulling on his bottom lip, tasting yourself off his lips as his mouth moves rhythmically against yours.

You push him slightly off you, instructing him to get on the bed. You look at his figure again. What a great day to be wearing sweats, you think.

“Get these off for me,” you say, but it sounds more like a question. He giggles, but complies without having to be asked twice. He gets his boxers off of the way at the same time with his sweats, his dick falling heavy on his abdomen. You take a look at his cock, licking your lips unconsciously as you stare at the veins stretching along his length, precum leaking from his rosy tip. You reach for it, your palm aching to stroke him before you get a taste of him. But Donghyuck has other plans.

“Want you on my cock,” he grunts, bucking his hips up in your hand as soon as it wraps around his shaft, “Think you can ride me, baby?” He asks, and you’re more than eager to do it if it means seeing him so dishevelled underneath you, and you’re the cause.

You nod, and he extends one hand to help you keep your balance as you bring your weight on top of his lap, waiting for him to line his shaft with your entrance. His tip enters you and you have to stop for a bit to adjust to the girth. You sink lower on top of his shaft, your pussy throbbing around it, and Donghyuck has to suck a breath through his teeth and pray to god you won’t take long to get used to his size. You’re so tight, Donghyuck is too excited to last for too long, he knows this already.

You start riding him, your juices are enough for his shaft to slide in and out of you with ease, and one of his hands reaches up to your chest to grab one of your nipples between his fingers, twisting it and putting the right amount of pressure that gets a whimper out of you.

His mouth latches to your other nipple, sucking on it, his tongue swirls around the teat bringing a new wave of pleasure that has you arching your back and temporarily halting your rhythmic movements on top of Donghyuck’s shaft. Moaning, he sucks harsher on your nipple when he feels you stopping, so you resume your movements even if you can feel your thighs burning. A new wave of pleasure runs through your body when you hear his moans against the frail skin of your chest, one of his hands placed on the small of your back trying to guide your movements as he can sense you’re tired.

“Feels so fucking good,” he moans, looking up at you. You’re looking at him briefly, then you push him slightly to get him to lay down. You bring a pretty manicured hand up to his chest, steadying yourself as you keep your relentless and delicious moving of your hips against his. You mewl out a moan as your clit hits the base of his cock, and your head falls back making your hair bounce around yourself.

His body feels on fire, his heartbeat picking up its rhythm. “I think —” you hear him start, but is interrupted by one of your raw moans. “I love you,” he blurts out, and hearing those words coming out of his mouth makes the tension in your tummy burst, and the rhythm of your hips starts faltering. He grabs your arms with force and brings your upper body on top of his, your chests clashing on top of each other’s as he searches for your lips.

He needs them like he needs air, especially after the words that slipped past his lips. He pulls you closer, one hand grabbing your waist to keep you in place as his hips start bucking up inside of you, and another hand keeping your head in the crook of his neck as you still ride your orgasm. He chases his own climax, and the relentless throbbing of your pussy around his shaft as you ride your orgasm helps him burst deep inside of you, moaning out your name as he holds your body tightly.

You stay in his embrace a little longer, until the clarity starts hitting you, replaying the last moments in your mind. You fall next to Donghyuck, your head still resting on his shoulder, a leg still stretched on his stomach as you both try regaining your bearings.

You raise your head to look at him, only to find him already looking down at you.

“Did you really say you loved me?” You enquire, believing that’s a figment of your imagination.

“I did,” he whispers back, unmoving while keeping you close to him, his eyes big and sparkly.

“But isn’t it —“ you make a pause, trying to find the right words, “too soon? How do I know that you really mean it?”

“How do you know?” He repeats slowly, and then averts his gaze to look around the room for a few seconds. He sits up, getting off the bed, coming to your side of the bed so he can face you properly.

“What are you doing?” You ask, looking at him quizzically, trying to understand what goes on in that mind of his.

“Shut up, I’m about to do the most pathetic and embarrassing thing just for you,” he pouts at you, grabbing your arm and dragging you out of bed, “I need you to stand in front of me otherwise it won’t be embarrassing enough,”

“Seriously Hyuck, what the fuck is wrong with you?” You sigh, and you look at your naked silhouettes standing in front of each other like a pair of sims in the making.

“I have my flaws, and you know the already. I did a lot of shitty stuff to you, and I apologised for all. But you also have to remember…” he leaves the sentence up in the air for a bit, “That I’m also just a boy, standing in front of a girl, asking her to love him,” he finishes his monologue, waiting for your reaction.

At first, you're speechless. Then the moment sinks in, and you can’t help but let a surprised laugh escape you as you reach for him.

You grab his face, bringing him closer to you to give him a quick peck on the lips.

“I love you too,” you let him know, but there’s a glint in your eyes that lets him know you’re never going to let him live this moment down, and he braces himself for impact, “But please never pull an Anna Scott on me, ever again!”

author's note: i loved writing this, i am emotionally attached to this story now T-T i love hyuck and i hope reading this was worth your time. feedback and engagement is always recommended and highly appreciated! thank you guys for signing up for the taglist and reading this piece <3 and you might have already guessed, but sungchan's instalment is related to the female oc (reader) in this, but more will come out with his teaser. if you have questions about this fic, my ask box is always open!

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©️ kongjjen 2024. do not copy, translate or repost any of my works.

#na jaemin the man you are #a man a MAN A MA-A-A-AN!!!!!#need jaemin #i need jaemin #crave that #need that #respecting women and bashing your assholey emotionally constipated friend for not doing that is so hot yup

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taeeflwrr · 2 months ago

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who would've thought i'd get you?

Hot & Cold

PAIRING — Lee Donghyuck x Fem!Reader

synopsis: Donghyuck and Y/N, Y/N and Donghyuck. Whatever the order was, everyone knew it wasn’t the same without the other; everyone knew that you two would end up together, one way or another. Only, no one ever told Donghyuck that it would take this long. It took an unnecessary long time for him to get where he wanted you to be, but it was worth all the years if it meant he’d get you in the end. After all, he wouldn’t spend all of his time and effort to plan on confessing with an old pink Nintendo DS Lite and a Pokémon Pearl cartridge.

GENRE — one-shot, childhood best friends to lovers, fluff, comedy (crack treated seriously), mild angst, “opposites attract” kinda trope, non-linear narrative, slice of life (kind of)

WARNING(S) — implied sexual content (MINORS DNI 👹), but nothing too explicit, swearing, crude language and humor, talks of losing the v card, talks of sex, alcohol mention, alcohol consumption, general dumbassery between friends lol

WORD COUNT — 36K

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#im gonna cry #love them so bad #this messed me up #i need hyuck #baldhyun pics dropped as i was reading this its over for me #i need a gun #where's my hyuck #he loves her so much #they're so nerdy and cute #wonder what happened to jaem...#why couldnt a cutie come and become my new neughbour and lifelong best friend and eventual boyfie #im too late already

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taeeflwrr · 2 months ago

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youngblood | lee donghyuck

pairing: haechan x reader

words: 9.1k

genre: ‘bad boy’!au, fluff, angst(?)

warnings: language, juvenile crimes (do NOT try shoplifting, speeding and vandalism, kids)

a/n: okay omg i finally got around to editing this and you guys should know by now this au doesn’t mean he’s bad and just………annoying……….. (also it follows troublemaker’s style but like…………it might just be my fav troublemaker part aaaa)

The first day you meet Lee Donghyuck, he picks a fight with you. Or you pick a fight with him.

That’s not how the first day of high school should have gone.

It surprised you, just a little, to be toe-to-toe with someone so easily. Did he like picking fights for fun? You looked him up and down, the ink over his forearm meant to be shown and a strange friendliness in his eyes. Not exactly the bully type, you weren’t sure what to make of him. Movies spoil reality when it comes to things like this. Rumors are even worse. You took a slow gulp anyway, Donghyuck’s eyes on you unnerving.

He leaned in slightly to match your height. His tone was lilting and he phrased his words light-heartedly, a pretence you found funny. “I have no interest in you, kid. I’m going to keep it that way.”

Keep reading

#save me badboy hyuck

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taeeflwrr · 2 months ago

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10/10 loved this emotional rollercoaster

My Words, Your Thoughts

Lee Donghyuck/Haechan X Reader | Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Smut | Soulmate AU, Friends-to-Lovers AU | 36k

Synopsis: As an introvert, you are familiar with the silence. Drowning yourself deep in your thoughts has been a habit you’ve become addicted to. Your life begins to change, however, ever since the day you turned twenty. Suddenly, there’s this song that’s stuck in your head, and no matter how much you yearn to hear your thoughts or be comforted by the silence, it keeps on playing. You only get to find the answer to your problem when a young, cute barista hands you a cup of coffee one day, with that song’s lyrics written on the side. And you realize that you’re not the only one who’s been hearing voices in your head.

Warnings: explicit sex, expletives, mentions of physical abuse and astraphobia (not for the main characters)

It’s weird. It’s so weird.

It’s weird that you’ve been hearing this song replaying over and over again in your head when you’re sure you’ve never listened to it before. It’s also weird because sometimes the song sounds like the ones you often hear about on the radio—complete with instrumental accompaniment and everything—but most of the time, it just sounds like someone is humming to it. Sometimes quietly, but more often than not, vehemently like they’re having a concert in the shower, not caring if the neighbors might hear.

As someone who rarely listens to mainstream music, you don’t keep up with the trend these days but the tunes are catchy enough that you think, maybe, it’s one of those Justin Bieber’s songs people always talk about. You’re not fond of it, though, so even if you’ve heard it somewhere in a cafe or a mall, there’s very little chance you’ll be humming it in your head.

And yet, it keeps on playing.

It gets worse when it goes on for a whole day—a whole fucking day—that your brain feels like it’s seconds away from bursting into pieces. It doesn’t even sound like your voice. It seems like it belongs to a male, a bit light and a pitch higher than most. Though it sounds pleasant, the voice is unfamiliar to your ears and that’s what bothers you the most.

Keep reading

#hyuck and i twinning🤞😝#why were there so many subtle digs at jaehyun...#thin lips😭😭😭#i love my hyuckie #rip mark ik you're proud of hyuck

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taeeflwrr · 2 months ago

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really loved the plot of this one

Behind the Wall

Who was this stressed, suited man...and how could you love him so easily?

A Nanami Kento glory hole story.

Warnings: 18+, MDNI, Corporate!Nanami (before return to sorcery), falling in love with a stranger, hand jobs, blowjobs, fingering, excessive cum, creampie, anonymous PiV sex, tiny bit angsty if you squint

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"How much do they pay you here?" A deep voice, smooth, but rusted with whiskey and smoke.

Your eyebrows raised spontaneously; kneeling down behind your black screen and hole, you didn't necessarily expect the small-talk with your clients to be romantic, but such business-like enquiries did not suit the tone, either.

Regardless, you would accept almost any pay, to find somewhere clear of the monsters that plagued you; the monsters that had chased you from job after job after job. None had followed you here tonight, it seemed, so you answered, trying to sound light-hearted.

"About industry average, I think."

A huff, the man's voice now bitter; "After they skim the majority off for themselves after your hard work, though."

You shrugged, as if he could see. He hadn't even begun to hook his cock out yet, so all you could see was a pair of lean, long legs in a black pinstripe suit. You found yourself tickled by your interaction beginning with anti-Capitalist outrage, and you quipped.

"Great pension plan, though."

"I somehow doubt that."

You laughed, musical and sweet, and were satisfied to hear another huff, the barest hint of laughter from your stranger, before his voice toned lower, his words for your ears and yours alone.

"Well...though I'm sure you deserve better than this place, I'll make it worth your while. I have to get back to work, and I'm sure you have bills to pay."

Beautifully veined, thick, long hands had begun to undo his belt, and you felt a strange thrill of excitement that you didn't feel with the other men. He sighed, unzipping, hooking out a long, thick, pretty cock that looked painfully hard and weeping pre-cum.

"I can't concentrate like this, I'll just...get this poison out and then I can focus."

He sounded almost apologetic, his words dripping with loathing in a way that made you frown. You reached one finger out through your hole, beckoning, tender as you whispered.

"Well, I can help with that."

Your stranger had grasped his cock to direct it through your glory hole, but hesitated at your tone, as if the tenderness you gave him was an odd specimen, requiring examination before he could accept it.

The tip of his cock, pink and full, nudged against your cheek and nose as it pressed through the hole. You heard your suited stranger hiss and shudder. You couldn't help but be impressed by your stranger's size, spitting onto the tip before beginning to stroke him in long, languid, practiced strokes.

"How do you hide this beast when you get a boner at work--"

A huff again, almost amused, drawing out into a ragged, needy groan. His fingertips pressed on the board on the other side, white-knuckled, his voice straining as he tried to speak past the pleasure of your pumping hand.

"--sit-- sit at my desk...hoping it'll go away-- fuck, you're good...just help me, please...pay you well, just-- just get it out and I'll head back--"

Your suited man groaned again, deep and fractured as your hand picked up its pace. When you spat on his tip again, your lips ghosting against him, he bucked involuntarily, cursing and apologising under his breath. When you drew the flat of your tongue across his slit to taste the salty pre-cum there, he almost whimpered with divine agony.

You felt a squirm of pleasure in your belly, sure that his beautiful voice alone could form the soundtrack you could orgasm to, night after night.

"You sound like you should have a girlfriend to help you with this." You bit your lip, satisfied to hear how his cool, bored tone had broken into something altogether more desperate.

"--sh-shit, u-ungh...any woman deserves better...better than anything I can offer-- f-fuck, I'm close already--"

You felt it; his balls were too big to fit through the hole alongside his cock, and they looked heavy, aching, his body struggling to draw them up as your suited man threatened to spill in your hand after a single flat minute. You whispered to him, soft in a way that offered him an intimacy he was clearly desperately lacking.

"Stop hating yourself when you should be coming in my hand, big guy."

When his knees buckled against your wall at you cuffing the base of his cock with your other hand, making the veins stand proud, you knew he was crumbling.

"--a-agghh fuck-- come too hard if you-- if you keep that up...shit, like a cock ring, I..."

You hoped that when he came, some of his abject self-loathing would pour away, too. His groans were rapidly turning into short little growls, the screen shaking as he bucked into your fist with such desperate force.

"--f-fuck, good girl, perfect...unnnhhh, perfect...shit, I'm...I'm..."

"God, you really do need thi--"

Your voice broke off with a squeak to feel a veritable fountain of cum spurt over your face, stripe after stripe of thick white release spattering over your cheeks, flooding down your hand and chest.

"O-oh-- wow--"

Your mouth dropped open in shock as your suited man grunted and cursed through his orgasm, his balls heavy and twitching, and you tasted a drip of his seed trickle down your nose and onto your tongue. Musty, sweet; nothing like its thickness would suggest.

His cock twitched for what seemed like an eternity in your hand, as you stroked him down from his peak, so covered in cum that you considered you may have to call it a night to go home and shower. As his groans faded, his voice ragged, you felt the guilt and shame radiate off him in waves.

"Shit, that was...ugh, I'm sorry. It's disgusting, I'm sure."

"It's absolutely not. I'm just...wow. Do you always come that much?"

A pause, guilty again as his voice rumbled; "...yes."

You laughed, and his cock twitched in your hand. He chuckled, warm and gravelly, when you pressed a cleaning wipe out through the hole.

"See you soon?" You asked, strangely hopeful.

"Not soon enough." He answered, soft in a way that surprised himself. His voice dropped an octave as a roll of bills pressed through the hole to you. "Here...keep it quiet. They're taking advantage of you."

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You were prepared, the second time your suited stranger visited. Having required an early finish and a shower two nights before, covered with an obscene amount of cum, you blushed to recall that you brought your vibrator to the shower with you, climaxing against the wall to the memory of his velvety voice.

You hoped he couldn't hear the faint buzzing between your legs on your side of the wall. You squirmed, muffling a moan around his cock head as you prepped him, your lips stretched and glossy with pre-cum.

"-h-haaaah, god, you...you're wasted here-- feel so pathetic-- no stamina with...with a mouth like that around me-- o-oohhh...fuck..."

You released him with a wet little pop, feeling your own pleasure building with the insistent buzz against your aching clit. He seemed just as happy to have your hand, and you admired the little neat trail of honey-blond pubes at the base of your fist as he fucked into it.

"Yeah, well...you're wasted too, at that company, by the sounds of it."

"Mmm...feels like what I deserve--"

You cut him off with a tongue to the underside of his cock, his voice fracturing into growled curses and hungry moans again.

"I already told you, if you talk about yourself like that again, I'll make you come faster--"

A breathless, rumbling laugh; "You're a monster."

You whispered, your breath ghosting against his cock head just enough to make him shudder; "Plenty of monsters in this world, beautiful man...but not me."

Your suited man stopped arguing with you, losing himself instead in the way your mouth, hot and suckling and eager, drew him in deeper with every bob of your head. The gasping, husky cry he made when his tip curved round the back of your throat, sent a burst of pleasure through you that had you humping your vibrator involuntarily.

Between his gasps, his vision fizzling with pleasure, you heard him hesitate, his voice barely above a whisper; "What's...that buzzing noise, I-- do you have...back there, are you--"

Barely pulling back, approaching the climax you tried to muffle as you pumped his base with your hand, you moaned, sweet and sinful around his cock head; "B-brought my vibrator...hope you don't mind--"

"Oh-- fuck-- FUCK--"

You squeaked, your orgasm muffled by the cum that flooded your mouth and tongue. As your pleasure threatened to make you convulse, you pushed forwards instead to take the rest of what he offered down your throat, and you lost sight and sound for an indeterminate amount of time, blinded and deafened by thigh-trembling ecstasy.

Swallowing, gasping, and fumbling a hand in your underwear to pull the vibrator off your overstimulated clit, you babbled at him, apologetic.

"S-sorry, hard to--to get guys off sometimes-- without a bit of a hit myself--"

"Fuck, don't talk about other guys when you just came with my cock down your throat."

You giggled, breathless, hearing your suited man pant as he came down from his high. When he removed his cock from the hole, a long, beautifully crafted thumb and forefinger reached hesitantly through instead, and gently pinched your chin.

You pressed a lingering, affectionate kiss to the pad of his thumb as it swiped over your lower lip, and you felt your heart thud to hear such a delighted, satisfied hum from him. He opened the palm of his hand, surreptitious, and your stomach twisted to see an even thicker roll of bills than before.

"...you don't...don't have to--"

"I want to, I...I meant it when I said you're wasted here. They're monsters. Animals."

You took the money with a heavy heart, pressing another kiss to his palm, and leaving your whispers there with it;

"Scarier monsters than them in the world."

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A black dog hunted your suited man, the next time he came to you. You felt it snapping at his heels, and when your stranger approached, it was to sit with his back against your wall, instead. You saw the briefest flash of a thick, corded neck, broad shoulders, a neat blond undercut. He was quiet for a few minutes, before you spoke, soft.

"...hey, you. I missed you last night."

He scoffed as if he didn't believe you, and you reached a hand through, poking him briskly on the shoulder.

"I mean it." Another pause, and you swallowed. "Do you...did you want to...?"

"I...I just want to talk. I'll still pay."

"I'd talk to you for free."

A further silence from him, your warmth a balm for his fractious self-loathing. His next words hung heavy with the weight of the world.

"When will we rest, do you think? When will it end?"

Your eyelids fluttered, looking down in thought. Your fingers stroked over the pad of his suited shoulder. You thought of how you'd been late to your gloryhole, that evening, your usual path blocked by some stop-motion atrocity, an eldritch horror only you could see, and you swallowed hard.

"...I don't know. It doesn't feel like it ever will."

A soft sigh, his voice rich and smoky; "I hesitate to ask what your particular burdens are, to have led you to a pit like this."

You felt tears prickle on your lashes. Taking a deep breath, and tippy-tapping your fingers on his shoulder, you tried to remain upbeat against the rising tide of misery.

"H-hey, it's not all bad. I got to meet you, after all."

"If that's your greatest joy, I pity you."

You winced. Your suited man jumped, when your hand gripped his shoulder with beseeching fervour, his own hand slowly coming up to overlay yours, dwarfing it in his palm. He tensed, unsure. When you spoke it was with the certainty that he needed to understand you.

"Get your tie off, and tie it around your eyes."

He was silent, stunned, his voice brittle as he replied; "...excuse me?"

"Just do it. Blindfold yourself. Then come here."

A moment of hesitation again...then a groan, surely older than he was, as he moved. You heard the silken friction of his tie being undone. You felt the anxious tension radiating off him, and you closed your eyes, eager not to ruin this mystery for yourself.

"Alright...if you insist."

When his voice sounded again, you felt his breath across your lips, inches from each other at the hole in the wall. You raised your hand up, feeling his shudder as your fingertips examined his face as though you were examining a sculpture; and, a sculpture he could have been, with high cheekbones, a thick squared jaw, narrow soft lips. You smiled, your eyes still closed.

"You're too handsome to leave here without a kiss."

Your suited man was silent, but you felt his breath hitch and his heart stutter.

When you finally pressed your lips to his, he moaned with ecstasy, just as he did when you pressed your lips to his erection. Though you took the lead initially, with your lips softly parting his until you could taste him, your permission imbued him with a bravery and confidence he hadn't revealed to you before.

He took charge, and kissed you like a man starved, his evening stubble rasping across your chin, nose against nose. His tongue trailed with a rusty shiver over your lips.

"F-fuck...you taste good...I-- ungh..."

He broke off to you biting his lower lip softly between your teeth, drawing him back in until your lips melded closely enough for you to suckle on the tip of his tongue. He moaned again, desperate and stuttering in his chest. You heard the brush of his palms pressing against the other side of the wall, desperate to cup your face and tilt his kisses down your throat.

Your mingling breaths tasted sweet, so indescribably erotic in its simple intimacy as you pulled away. You fought against the desire to open your eyes, instead biting your own lip, your brow furrowed against your own stupid decision. You whispered, to a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob, from your suited man.

"And I'd do that for free, too."

It was the most he had ever paid you, that night, for the simple intimacy of a conversation and a kiss.

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Not a single solitary man visited your gloryhole the next night. You fizzled with worry, as man after man appeared to loiter near you, before choosing someone else; anyone else. It didn't make sense-- even your regulars would be heard mumbling nearby before walking away from you.

You felt a clench of worry; the managers would still pay you, you were sure...but not if it continued.

You felt almost lightheaded with relief and something deeper, when a familiar voice graced your wall near the end of your shift.

"Are you lonely, in there?"

You felt a frisson of joy, and you knelt upright, grinning, your heart fluttering.

"Not anymore."

There was a momentary pause, and you felt the words that your suited stranger wanted to say, stuck, gated by his teeth. Eventually, when he spoke, it was strained, as if fearful of damaging the sprouting intimacy between you both.

"I've...been thinking a lot, recently. About what's fair."

You blinked, unsure, but answered anyway. "Oh?"

"It's not fair that I have to do a worthless job for people I hate, just to earn enough money to retire young. It's not fair that you're here, selling your body to make a living. It's...its not fair that it's only me being pleasured."

You swallowed, heat rushing to your cheeks, feeling him err against what he wanted to say, and he continued.

"I...would like to do something for you. For...for both of us. At the next window."

Oh. The next window. The curtained table, upon which you could lie your lower half, for a man to use the deepest parts of you for his own pleasure. If any other man-- any other man, had asked this if you, you were sure you'd have hated yourself for it. And yet...

"I...I've never done...that."

"I'm...I'm glad, I...I hate myself. For using you, and how other men would use you, and I'd like...to give you better. To treat you as you deserve. God knows, I'd like to tell you to walk away from this shit hole altogether but that's ignorant of me, so I...just for tonight, I--"

"Okay."

You almost clapped your hands over your mouth, your acquiescence so natural that it shocked you. Your suited man seemed surprised, too, and you could almost smell the thudding scent of testosterone from his body as it readied itself for the primal promise of spilling inside your core.

"Yes? You...are you sure?"

"Never been more sure of anything in my life, actually. I...I'll come round."

"Fuck, I...I'll be waiting. Nobody else can-- fuck."

You stood on shaky legs, suddenly self-conscious. Arriving at the table, you took a deep, trembling breath, before starting to strip. You heard heavy, pacing footsteps; more mumbling; a snapped, deep, possessive response.

"This one is mine."

You bit your lip, muffling a laugh at your suited man's immediate dismissal. By the skittish footsteps of the rebuffed other man, your suited stranger was not one that other men would choose to fight. You spoke up, your voice smaller than usual.

"Alright, here...here I come."

Reverent silence hung in the air, as fine as spun gold, when you finished moving your bare lower half down the table. Self-conscious, with your hands pressed over your face in blushing mortification, your thighs and knees remained clamped together.

You heard slow, deliberate footsteps towards your body, as if your suited man had forgotten how to walk. His voice spilled forth, full of sighs.

"Exquisite, I...god, I don't deserve this."

You could have cried for him. Sick of his apparent self loathing, you stretched one foot out until your toes pressed against rock solid abs beneath a pressed, twill shirt. You felt another blush rock your system, not expecting your suited man to be quite so buff.

A large, warm hand grasped your foot, stroking up your arch, your ankle, your calf, and settling with a squeeze behind your knee. When his other hand began to mirror the first, both of your knees now bent and pressed together in his grasp, you heard him whisper as he held you.

"I'll cover you," he promised, ragged with need, "with my body, I...I'll keep you hidden. Keep you safe."

"Thank you."

"Do you trust me?"

"One hundred percent."

A pleased rumble. "Good girl."

Softly, tenderly, two great hands stroked up the sides of your thighs, gliding around your hips with his shuddering groan. Your suited man's hands felt like liquid sex, turning every patch of skin he touched into an erogenous zone.

By the time his thumbs had begun to trace up and down, up and down the V shaped creases of your mound, you squirmed in his grasp, heat pooling in your belly. He chuckled, his thumbs stretching up to massage circles on your lower belly, warming you before he filled you.

"Does that feel good?"

"So good," you whispered, struggling to remain bashful with his obvious adoration.

This warm-palmed massage, from belly, to V, to thighs, to hips, and back again, melted you. Your thighs began to part, your code cracked, without you even noticing. When he settled his hips between your thighs, you moaned involuntarily, and felt his mouth, familiar only to your lips, begin to trail kisses along your ribs, your breasts hidden by a thin black curtain.

He appeared to resist temptation, nipping along the marks left by your bra beneath your breasts. Though outwardly calm, his hands grew ever tighter, shockingly strong and needy on your hips, and you could feel how ragged his breaths were against the soft wet suckling marks left by his mouth.

You had never felt so worshipped, and your suited man seemed determined to know you before he buried himself inside you. The only natural response to those strong hands beginning to creep up the inside of your thighs, was to offer him the treasure he sought, by opening your thighs completely to him.

"Please, can I...make you come on my fingers?"

At this point, you'd have to beg him not to stop if you opened your mouth, and instead locked your thighs around his hips so he couldn't escape. That deep chuckle again, this time against your sternum, and he kissed you in reward.

"Tell me if you want me to stop."

"I won't, I-- o-oooh...my...haaaah..."

His fingers, wet with his spit, had slid between your folds, two of them teasing around your entrance while his thumb circled with blissful ease around your clit.

Utterly unafraid of playing you like an instrument, he massaged your little bud until the noises you made were to his liking. You whimpered to feel the insistent press of his two thick fingers, and his murmured growls, add to the fold.

"Fuck, you're...perfect. Get you ready...or I won't fit...fuck..."

Within seconds, he had found your spongy soft spot, turning your moans guttural, making love to you with his fingers before he took you. Your suited man was certainly no boy, responding to every moan, and every whimper, with the surety needed to take you to orgasm.

Only the tenting press of his cock, harder than ever against your inner thigh, gave away how well he was controlling himself for your sake. Already at the edge, you tumbled into completion when one beautiful, fine boned hand slipped under the curtain to cup your breast, to the tune of his hushed curses.

"Come for me, my love."

As if he hadn't noticed you were already arching, mewling, and fucking yourself down on his fingers, halfway through your peak. He stroked your inner walls as if to comfort you, shushing you, soothing, until your quivering pussy stilled around him. You heard the clink of his belt, your head spinning to remember that the best was still yet to come.

"Beautiful girl...sound so pretty when you come. I...I'll pull out--"

"--don't you dare."

The strangled noise that left him, and the way you felt a spurt of pre-cum spill onto your belly, signalled a farewell to his restraint. You squeaked to feel him bracket two thick, strong arms beneath your thighs, bracing you for the way he was about to take you.

Jolting into place, his cockhead nuzzled between your folds. He appeared to be needing nothing but ragged, shallow thrusts to pleasure himself against your oversensitive clit, his lovely voice speaking as if to himself before notching at your entrance.

"--s-so long, it's been...been so long...worth the wait, for you, though, sh-shit...augh..."

He entered you with one deep, smooth press, shushing you again with a tender grasp, and little shallow rocks to kiss his tip against your cervix. He felt absolutely enormous, squeezing himself into you until every little ridge within you shaped to him, hot and wet. You babbled, your words shooting through him like knives.

"--oh m-my god you feel so good so so good so big-- barely fits, o-ooohh--"

When you gasped with the sudden fullness, one of your hands flew down past the curtain to hold your lower belly, and something in your suited man snapped. He laid one hand over yours, pressing it down hard on your belly, before cursing a half-hearted apology, and taking you with the desperation of a man possessed.

Three strokes, deeper, and deeper, and deeper, sent him roaring into a frenetic pace. Your hand clasping your lower belly had sent him spiralling. If his other hand hadn't held your hip so tightly, you'd have been fucked up the table.

And despite the mind-numbing force of his thrusts, you still, with every scrap of you, knew that he was making love to you, and not just fucking you. It made no difference, in the end, your voice growing in volume until it was nothing more than whimpered, mewling cries, only wishing you could have a name upon your tongue instead.

Stilted with the force of his thrusts, he blessed you with it.

"Say...say my name..."

"I will I will just give it to me gimme your name--"

"Kento--"

"--o-ooohh, f-fuck, Kento, harder--"

The cry that left his chest was visceral, animalistic, wrenched out of him with the same sudden finality as his orgasm. You felt him fold over you, his hands gripping your ribcage, his cock jolting and twitching within you as the heavy, obscenely long ejaculation that you knew so well, filled your pussy instead of your mouth.

"--unh...unh...haah...aaa-aahhh never...never gonna come like that-- e-ever again...that was it, that was the...the one that'll end me-- fuck...darling..."

Your suited man's bucks grew lazy, his torso almost completely blanketing yours, humping away the last vestiges of his orgasm. He stayed nestled within you, unwilling to let you go yet. You reached through the curtain, stroking a hand through his hair, and hearing him purr.

"...Kento, huh?"

He huffed a laugh. "Sorry, I...was that too intimate?"

"That? You're worried that was the intimate part?"

He laughed, rich and deep and genuine, kissing your ribs once more. You heard him reach into his pocket, and you spoke up, immediate.

"I won't let you pay me for that--"

"--I absolutely fucking am--"

"--no you are not--"

After he won the argument, and left with heavy reluctance, your manager pulled you aside with a dirty grin.

"You were popular tonight. How many men? Ten? Twelve?"

You blinked, confused.

"Just...just the one. Right at the end."

Your manager shook his head, turning back to the TV in his grubby little office, his fingers orange with Cheeto dust. Your brain ticked, and whirred...all the mumbling outside your gloryhole. All the murmurs, men almost visiting before moving on...and it clicked with absolute certainty.

Your suited man had guarded your gloryhole all night, paying other men to choose another woman. To choose anyone but you.

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"I worried you wouldn't be here."

You swallowed, sniffling, and settling behind your wall. More terrible monsters had settled around the building, blocking almost every pathway in, and you knew that you'd have abandoned your shift and run home to hide, if not for the hope of hearing your suited man again.

"You're...crying, my love, why are you crying?"

You felt him stiffen against the other side of the wall, at the sound of your sniffle, and his hand automatically reached through to cup your face, his thumb swiping away your tears. You turned your cheek into his palm, holding his hand against you.

Your gaze turned to the doorway...and to the bug-eyed, many-armed, puce coloured spindly monster leaning around it to stare at you.

You shrieked, crashing against your wall in terror. Your suited man took in a sharp breath, and the normal chatter and movement of the room quieted at your cry. Your suited stranger grasped your hand hard to hold you still, and his voice dropped to a horrified whisper.

"Stop-- oh, fuck, I understand-- your monsters-- can you see that? That thing in the doorway?"

Time slowed. Your jaw dropped. Your voice was thick, quiet, your insanity validated for the first time in your life.

"Kento, you...see it too?"

"Oh fuck. This...this is why you're in this place? Never been able to hold down a job, no? You've never felt safe anywhere?"

You could do nothing but weep into his palm, nodding, and nodding, and nodding. His voice rang, deep and commanding and final.

"I've got you. I...I've got you. You're safe. Just come with me."

"Kento, I can't just walk out--"

"You can. You don't need money. I've got enough. You just need...you just need me. I'll...I'll tell you everything. I'll explain everything."

When your face, tearstained and sniffling, leaned around the edge of your wall, you froze. Kento froze.

The silence was thick with wonderment, already in love before you had even seen each others' faces. But now that you saw him (obscenely handsome, tall, kind-eyed and exhausted), already overwhelmed, a sob bubbled over--

"Oh, god, you're so out of my league--"

A scoff, and adoration burning in his tired, under-shadowed eyes. He held out one hand, rescuing you as you'd rescued him.

"Come. I have some calls to make. You can tell me your name over dinner."

Your feet were numb as Kento walked you past the monster, shielding your fearful gaze with his hand. You ignored the shouts of your managers, half-deaf and stunned. In the chill evening air, his arm that was not around you, reached into his pocket, tapping, before holding a phone to his ear.

"Gojo, it's Nanami...why are you laughing?"

3K notes · View notes

taeeflwrr · 2 months ago

Text

😼😼😼

i ❤️ hot nerds (l.dh, n.jm)

PAIRING. pervert!nerd!haechan, pervert!nerd!jaemin x popular!fem!reader GENRE. smut, slight fluff CONTENTS. explicit smut (kissing, fingering, oral (receiving), titfucking, breast play, lots of drool and spit, overstimulation, snowballing, dirty talk, rimming, anal play, missionary, riding, mating press, breeding/creampies) WORD COUNT. 8.7k SUMMARY. when your professor pairs you with the two smartest students in your class for a group project, you find yourself making an interesting deal with them. or, alternatively: the one where you have to help two nerds learn to get girls so you can pass your class. PLAYLIST. n/a NOTES. remember when i said i was up to something with these two? this is it! teehee :3 i hope you enjoy!!

“Professor Kwon, I really need to pass this class,” you say with a worried frown, and she nods in understanding, reaching over to pat your hand gently.

“I’ll see if I can scrape up any extra credit assignments for you to do, but in the meantime, you can try and do your best on the group project coming up. It’s worth thirty percent of your grade, and if you want, I can pair you up with some of the stronger students in the class to help ensure you get a good grade.” she offers helpfully, and your face lights up with a relieved smile as you nod.

“I would love that,” you gush gratefully. “Thank you so much, Professor Kwon! I really appreciate all your help.” You can tell from her kind expression that she knows your words are sincere, and it warms your heart that she’s been so helpful and generous.

“No worries, dear. I’ll email you tonight with some extra credit assignments for you, okay?” she says, and you nod in agreement as you pack up your bags to leave her office hours.

“I’ll be waiting! Thank you again, and have a great rest of your day!” You chirp, slinging your bag over your shoulder before exiting her office.

As you head down the hall, you think about who, in your thirty-person class, she could possibly pair you up with that could help your grade.

“Okay, class, I’m going to pair you up with your partners for the group project. Just a reminder—it is worth thirty percent of your grade, so please take this seriously. I would hate to have to fail any of you.” Professor Kwon says as she looks out at the classroom.

Indistinct mutterings go around, and you look around as you contemplate who she might put you with. There’s Mark Lee, the sweet, endearingly bubbly English major in the year below you who’s also an RA for the building across from your dorm.

There’s Huang Renjun, the smart, quiet art major junior in the same year as Mark, and he could be a good partner, you suppose—

You’re dragged out of your reverie by the sound of your professor saying your name, followed by, “Lee Haechan, and Na Jaemin.”

Oh. Well, you’re certainly not upset by that development. You look across the room, where Jaemin and Haechan are sitting together, to see that they’re already looking over at you. Haechan smiles nervously and averts his gaze quickly, but Jaemin leans into the eye contact, giving you a small wave.

You smile and wiggle your fingers back in greeting, making Jaemin grin and Haechan dissolve into excited giggles, the older male pushing his thick, black-rimmed glasses up on his nose absentmindedly.

Your professor finishes reading off the groups and waves her hands at you all, gesturing for you to get situated with your partners. You move to stand only to see that Haechan is rushing to stand up and make his way over to you, clutching his notebook and papers to his chest almost protectively.

Haechan and Jaemin are also the year below you, and you know them relatively well, given that you’re the RA for their dorm building—well, you know a bit about them: they live across the hall from you, they’re avid gamers, and, if you’re not mistaken, they’re two of the top students in the class.

You watch with an amused smile as Jaemin leisurely slings his bag over his shoulder, the cool, calm, and collected counterpart to your other partner, and they both make their way over to where you sit, Haechan sitting in the chair in front of you and turning it around to face you while Jaemin sits beside you.

“Hi,” Haechan greets quietly, and you shoot him a friendly smile.

“Hi, Haechan,” you reply sweetly, and his face breaks out into a brilliant, shy grin.

“Hi.” he says again, and Jaemin snorts.

“You said that already.”

“Well, I’m saying it again.” Haechan counters, and you chuckle.

“Hi,” you say, “again.”

“...Hi.” he mumbles shyly, barely able to get the words out past his excited smile.

“Hi, Jaemin,” you greet, turning to look at the male beside you.

He shoots you a dazzling smile that makes you wonder, for a moment, how he even got the label of “nerd” everyone classifies him as. Haechan is a bit more understandable, given his general flustered nature around girls, but Jaemin’s always been calm and easygoing—you’d even go so far as to say he’s smooth. However, you suppose that after hearing Jaemin rant and rave about video games and the like, you can see why someone might label him as one even if you don’t find video games all that nerdy.

“Hi,” he replies easily, lifting his eyebrows in greeting. It’s your turn to avert your gaze, the mildly suggestive gesture making you feel a little hot under the collar when you couple it with the fact that he can’t keep his eyes off of you.

“So, um,” you say, clearing your throat slightly, “I think we should meet up after classes today to talk about what we’re gonna do for our group project.”

“Okay,” Haechan agrees instantly, nodding vigorously. “We can meet up in the library? Or the cafeteria—or—well, maybe you’d wanna meet up somewhere private—” he starts to ramble, and you tilt your head to the side in confusion, holding up a finger to stop him. He falls silent immediately, widened, slightly starstruck eyes gazing at you so intently you find yourself growing more endeared to him.

“Why would it matter if it’s in private or not?” you ask, brows furrowed, and Haechan nibbles at his bottom lip, exchanging a wordless glance with Jaemin. “Haechan?”

“In case you… y’know… don’t necessarily want to be seen with us.” he mumbles quietly, and you frown deeply.

“Why would I not want to be seen with you?” you ask, already feeling like you know the answer.

“Because—” Haechan looks around the room to see if anyone’s paying attention to him before continuing, “because we’re nerds,” he says, whispering the word like it’s a slur, “and you’re—well, you know who you are.”

“How about you tell me who I am?” you press gently with a playful smile. “Just to refresh my memory.”

“You’re you. You’re one of the cool seniors—you’re one of the only RAs that everyone likes—and you’re…. y’know… popular.” Haechan whispers that word both like it’s a dream and a word that doesn’t belong in his mouth, and you won’t lie and say it doesn’t bother you slightly.

“Haechan.”

“Mm?” Haechan replies, and you drum your manicured nails on the table in front of you to stop his gaze from wandering furtively around the room.

“First of all, this isn’t a stereotypical clique-y high school movie.” you chuckle. “I can be seen with anyone I want; it never mattered to me.”

“Okay,” he replies hesitantly, but you can sense some of the tension leaving his body as he gradually relaxes.

“Second of all: don’t call yourselves nerds like that—like it’s a label that actually matters. You’re just Haechan, and he’s just Jaemin, and I’m just me.” you finish carefully, and he cracks a smile, looking up from where your hands rest on the table to meet your gaze.

“Okay, cool.” he mumbles, smile growing as your words sink in.

“We can meet on the quad after class if you want,” you say, deliberately choosing the most public location you can think of.

“Well—” Jaemin cuts in, and you turn to look at him to see that he’s looking between you and Haechan. “There are no outlets on the quad… it’s just grass and some trees.”

“True,” you muse thoughtfully. “Where do you guys want to meet?”

“The dorm? Oh, but—” Haechan cuts himself off, shooting a panicked glance Jaemin’s way. “I don’t think my side of the room is presentable right now.”

“Okay,” you say with a laugh. “How about we meet in my room?” you offer, and Haechan’s eyes get so wide you fear he might hurt himself, while Jaemin’s brows shoot up in surprise. Looking between the two of them with growing amusement, you add on, “My last class ends at 4:30pm, and I can be back at my dorm by about 4:45pm, if that works for you guys.”

Neither of them speak for a moment, Haechan seemingly rooted in place with surprise, while Jaemin looks at him expectantly, eyes widening pointedly before he sighs and shakes his head. “Yeah, that works for us.” Jaemin answers finally, and you smile, nodding in confirmation.

“Great!”

“Class is over, everyone! Good luck on your projects, and I’ll see you next Wednesday!” Professor Kwon bids you all goodbye, and everyone starts to gather their things.

“Well, I’ll see you guys then; you know where my room is!” you say, putting your notebook in your bag and slinging it over your shoulder.

“See you later!” Jaemin replies easily, and Haechan nods as if to second Jaemin’s words.

“Bye, Haechan,” you say with a playful smile, finding it cute how flustered the male is by your attention.

“Bye,” he croaks weakly, and you giggle, turning to leave but not before catching a glimpse of Jaemin swatting Haechan’s arm in a scolding gesture.

“Would you relax? At least try to play it cool,” Jaemin whispers loudly from behind your retreating back.

“Sorry, I couldn’t help it!” Haechan exclaims in a hushed voice. “She’s so pretty.”

You can’t help but smile widely to yourself as you keep walking, pretending you haven’t heard a thing.

They’re perfectly on time—in fact, if your ears don’t deceive you, they’re five minutes early, the two of them standing outside and bickering quietly.

“Listen,” Jaemin says in a stern whisper, “you’re going to act normal when we get in there. No being weird and quiet and awkward.”

“Yes, sir,” Haechan replies sarcastically, and you snicker quietly. “You try staying calm when she looks at you with those eyes.”

“I do,” Jaemin replies flatly. “If you can’t… skill issue, I guess.”

“Wh— skill issue? I bet I’m skilled at putting my foot up your ass—”

“Shut up, she might be able to hear you!”

“Why don’t you knock, then? We can meet early.”

“Why don’t I knock?” Jaemin replies incredulously. “Why don’t you?”

“Why would I knock?”

“Why would I?! You’re the one all eager to see her.”

“I’m not that eager.” Haechan mumbles bitterly, and Jaemin scoffs.

“You showered to see her.”

“So did you!”

“I always shower after classes. You also put on cologne.”

“Well— Is it a crime to want to smell good in front of a pretty girl?”

“No, but it is a crime to act like a wuss when she so much as looks at you,” Jaemin snarks, and Haechan sucks his teeth.

“Shut up.”

“You shut up.”

There’s a brief scuffle on the other side, and you hear faint slapping sounds like they’re smacking each other back and forth, and you giggle softly, walking over to your door and waiting patiently.

“Would you cut it out? Here–” Jaemin snaps, and three knocks sound out on the other side of your door.

“Shit! Do I look okay?” Haechan worries.

There's silence before Jaemin replies. “No.”

“Fuck you.”

You decide to end their bickering and open your door, smiling at the two of them. “Hi, boys.”

“Hi,” Haechan mumbles shyly, and Jaemin elbows him, glaring at him.

“Hi,” Jaemin greets pleasantly, and you step aside to let them in.

“Make yourselves comfortable.” you offer, and they enter slowly, Haechan moving cautiously like you might change your mind at any moment. “I have snacks, water, and juice if you want anything to eat or drink.”

“Oh, dope,” Haechan says eagerly, heading to your mini fridge and opening it, retrieving a blue Gatorade and plopping down on your fluffy pink rug. Jaemin takes a bag of chips from the basket on top of the fridge and sits beside Haechan so there’s room for you to sit across from them.

You take a can of pineapple juice and frown down at the metal tab. “Can one of you open this? I don’t want to break a nail.”

“I’ll do it!” Haechan exclaims, leaning forward and taking it from you. He opens it with ease and hands it back to you, blushing when you smile gratefully and slip a straw into the opening.

“Thank you, Haechan,” you hum, and he smiles bashfully, nodding.

“You’re welcome.”

“So,” you say, sitting on your bed in front of them as you sip your drink. “What should we do our project on?”

“We were thinking we could do it on something cool, like…” Haechan says, trailing off towards the end and looking over at Jaemin with a clear request for help in his eyes.

Jaemin rolls his eyes slightly, sighs, and says, “Sex.”

You can’t help but smile slightly. “Sex is cool?”

“Well— well, I guess it’s not cool,” Haechan mumbles, unsure of himself, and you cross your leg over the other, watching as his eyes drop to the hem of your skirt, a latent hunger in them as he eyes your bare legs. “But something, like, trendy and relatable.”

“So sex is trendy?” You can’t refrain from teasing him slightly, admiring the way his cheeks flush. “It’s the cool, hip, new thing all the kids are getting into, huh?”

“Well—” Haechan stammers, and you hold up a hand to stop him, the male falling silent instantly and watching you intently.

“I’m just messing with you,” you assure him, and his shoulders slump in relief. “I’m okay with that! I just wanna be super transparent and let you guys know that my passing this class is riding on this grade for this project, so it’s really important to me. I’ll do my best to pull my weight, but I’m not doing as well as you guys, so—”

“We’ll do all the work,” Jaemin offers, and you stop short, blinking at him in surprise.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Haechan chimes in, pushing his glasses up his nose slightly. “You won’t have to lift a finger.”

“...Why?” you ask carefully, and they look at each other, now both a bit shifty. “Guys?”

“Hm?” Haechan asks, and you raise an eyebrow when he doesn’t meet your gaze, clearing your throat and waiting until he does.

“What’s in it for you?”

“Well… we were thinking we could trade services.” Jaemin interjects when it becomes evident that Haechan won’t be answering your question.

“Services?” you question, sitting forward slightly. Shifting your position, you cross your legs at the ankle instead, your knees falling apart slightly, and Haechan’s eyes zero in on the space between your legs, his tongue slipping out to wet his lips as he watches you. “Your service is helping me get an A, and my service is… what, exactly?”

“Um… we were thinking you could help us socially.” Jaemin says carefully, and you tilt your head to the side in confusion.

“How?”

“Teach us how to get girls!” Haechan blurts out.

“So, let me get this straight,” you say, looking between the two of them. “You’ll make sure we get an A on this project, and in return, I have to… help you get girls?”

“Teach us how to get girls,” Haechan stresses. “Don’t just help us get one girl.”

“What’s that quote? Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, but teach him how to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime.” you recall proudly, and Jaemin nods, pleasantly surprised.

“Exactly,” Haechan confirms. “I’m trying to eat for a lifetime.”

“Noted,” you giggle, and you shrug before nodding. “I don’t see why not.”

Haechan pumps his fist and whispers some sort of victory affirmation that you don’t catch but Jaemin stands up, walking over to your bed, and extends his hand in offering, making you blink at it in confusion.

“Shake on it?” he says slowly, and your mouth makes a little “o” of realization as you nod in understanding, now reaching out to shake his hand. His lips curl into an unnerving yet attractive smile as he grips your hand and pulls you a little closer to whisper, “I can’t wait for our first lesson.”

Something about his intent, unwavering gaze and the way his fingers drag against your palm as you retract your hand—the longing of it all, the lingering touch like he doesn’t want to let go—has your mind reeling in that dizzying feeling from earlier, and you wonder for a minute just what you’ve gotten yourself into.

It’s been about a week of meeting up with Haechan and Jaemin every day to work on your project, and you’ve been giving tips and tricks on how to get girls every day, both boys studiously and dutifully hanging onto your every word.

“I have a question,” Haechan states about twenty minutes into your study session, and you look at him expectantly. “When do we get to the makeover portion?”

You make a small hum of confusion. “Makeover?”

“Yeah, where you style our hair and our wardrobe and get us contacts and stuff.” Haechan says eagerly, and you chuckle.

“Your wardrobes are completely fine, my only advice for your hair is to style it off your forehead more often, and I happen to like your glasses.” you reply, and Haechan sighs in mild impatience, waving his hand dismissively.

“You don’t get it—we need to be fuckable!” Haechan stresses, and you roll your eyes in exasperation.

“Haechan, you’re already fuckable.” you explain calmly, and he opens his mouth in preparation for some witty remark, but after processing your words, his eyes widen and his mouth hangs open uselessly, his accusingly pointed finger now pointing meekly at the floor at an angle.

“I—So—so you would fuck us?” he stammers, and you nod slowly, looking from him to Jaemin.

“Why do you think I let you get away with your numerous dorm violations?” you snort in amusement, and he blinks hard.

“I thought you just took pity on us, y’know? Like you had a soft spot for nerds or something.”

“I don’t have a soft spot for nerds.” you answer. “I have a soft spot for hot nerds, though.”

His mouth opens and closes pathetically as his normally quick-witted brain scrambles to process the information you’ve just presented to him. Jaemin is quicker to act, sitting forward so suddenly the move could be considered as predatory, and you’re not sure if it’s the lighting reflecting off of his glasses or what, but there is most definitely a glint in his eye as he regards you, his lips gradually stretching into a toothy grin.

“So you let us get away with stuff? Because you like us? Like what?” he questions, and you tilt your head to the side as you think.

“Your candles, for starters. Haechan’s tapestry, your many many noise complaints from your neighbors when you two get too heated as you’re gaming,” you start to list off on your fingers, and you cross one leg over the other, not missing the way both of their eyes shift to your newly exposed skin and how… hungry they look. “The way you—” you point at Haechan, “always try to get away with looking up my skirt.”

Haechan’s face flushes a pretty shade of red, and you smile, amused, as he scrambles to defend himself. Before he can, you hold up a hand to silence him.

“Haechan?”

“Yes?” he replies meekly.

“If I minded, I would have said something by now. I certainly wouldn’t have kept wearing skirts and accidentally flashing you.”

His eyes roll back into his head with a whimper and he nods in understanding.

“And you—” you round on Jaemin, who’s still perched like a lion about to pounce, and the male just smiles wider, tilting his head to the side curiously.

“What about me?”

“You probably think you’re slick with the little lingering touches on my back and waist when you’re ‘trying to get by,’ but I only let you do that because I like it.”

His grin widens more than you even thought possible, the glint in his eye now unmistakable. “Oh, yeah? Where else do you like being touched?”

“I mean,” you hum, uncrossing your thighs and smiling as both of their gazes hone in on the space between your legs, “I could tell you, but I think you’d rather have me show you.”

“I have a better idea,” Jaemin murmurs, moving towards you slowly. “How about you let us find out?”

You pretend to think about it for a moment, relishing the way they look at each other with equally worried expressions as they silently pray you won’t back out, before you shrug nonchalantly. “Okay.”

No sooner than the last syllable’s left your mouth do they spring into action; Haechan clambers onto the bed beside you and Jaemin lunges forward to settle himself between your legs. Large, warm hands glide up your inner thighs, pushing them apart as he hikes your skirt up to reveal your light blue boyshorts. He moans loudly at the sight, immediately running his thumbs over your clothed mound, eyes flicking up to your face when your breath hitches softly.

“Princess likes being touched here, huh?” he marvels quietly, leaning in with a slow lick of his lips. “How about kissed, hm? Do you like being kissed here, too?”

“Yeah,” you exhale with a smile, and he grins, wetting his lips once more before leaning in closer and pressing his wet lips to your core, bottom lip barely grazing your concealed clit. As he does, he takes a deep, loud inhale followed by a lust-filled groan that has heat rushing to your cheeks.

“Jesus, Jaemin—”

“Not now.” His reply is distracted, but blunt and domineering all the same, and you find yourself falling silent in surprise. When he pulls back, there’s a wet spot on the fabric where his mouth used to be, and the cool air hits it, making you hiss quietly.

“As hot as these look on you, I want them off.” Jaemin mutters, hooking his fingers into your underwear and tugging it down and off your legs. “Wanna taste it.” he mumbles—you think it’s towards himself—before he’s burying his face between your legs with another loud moan that makes you curse under your breath, overwhelmed with desire.

His tongue lies flat against your folds, languidly and deliciously dragging upwards to circle around your clit. He grunts in delight and pulls you closer to the edge of the bed, hooking his arms around your thighs and pushing forward again, the bridge of his nose pressed against your mound.

You gasp and clutch at the nearest thing in your grasp, which just so happens to be Haechan’s thigh. “Fuck,” you whisper loudly, and Jaemin chuckles.

“Stop neglecting Haechan,” he scolds playfully through a mouthful of your pussy. “This was his idea, you know.”

You manage to redirect your attention to Haechan, whose eyes dart around as he watches you and Jaemin with a wild look in his eyes, the male seemingly frozen on the spot.

Your nose nudges at Haechan’s, the male tilting his head towards you and parting his lips in a soft sigh as your lips meet. It takes a moment for him to reciprocate, almost long enough for you to pull back, but he finally starts to kiss you back with a whimper caught in the back of his throat.

“Haechan, touch me,” you urge, gripping his wrist and bringing his hand to your waist. He clutches your waist, but there’s a hesitance to it that leaves you wanting more.

“Yeah, Haechan, touch her.” Jaemin chuckles before massaging your clit with his tongue. Your eyes roll back into your head with a groan and he rewards your reaction by pressing the wet muscle against you more insistently. “Maybe he needs some incentive.”

“Incentive?” you hum curiously, and he nods, that wicked glint returning to his eyes.

“Take your shirt off.” he presses, and you oblige without hesitation, discarding the shirt behind you on the bed and looking at Haechan expectantly, finding yourself endeared by the way he nibbles his bottom lip nervously. “Haechan, doesn’t she look so good like that?”

“Amazing,” Haechan breathes reverently, and you smile at the praise, eyes closing in bliss.

“Kiss her.” Jaemin suggests, and Haechan does just that, tentatively approaching you and gently connecting his lips with yours. As your mouths move together, you can’t help but notice the same reservation in Haechan’s movements, drawing a plaintive whimper from your lips. “Stop kissing her like you’re scared, Haechan,” Jaemin scolds. “She likes it. Don’t you, princess?”

“Yes,” you reply instantly, reaching up to cup Haechan’s cheek. He shudders at the contact, eyes fluttering shut before reopening with a darkened intensity that clues you in to the fact that Haechan seems to be done holding back.

Sure enough, Haechan clutches your chin and pulls you closer to him, tongue boldly slipping between your lips and exploring the wet warmth of your mouth. His thumb pries your lips apart with a forcefulness that delights you, and he hovers above your open mouth, eyes scanning yours before letting a string of saliva drip down from his lips onto your waiting tongue.

You whine when the spit connects with your tongue and he grunts, “Don’t swallow,” before kissing you again, tongue swirling confidently around yours even as a mix of your saliva drips down your chin and onto your chest. He’s quick to act, leaning down and dragging his tongue up the trail of spit before connecting your lips again in a more heated, desperate kiss that slowly takes your breath away. It’s wet, and hot, and messy and sloppy and everything you could have wanted from him and more as he leans in, pressing into you and leaning you back onto your mattress.

Jaemin seems to be done assisting Haechan, as he returns to eating you out with a renewed fervor and, as Haechan kisses down your body to your breasts, it dawns on you that they might be competing for your attention.

With every swirl of Haechan’s tongue around your nipple, Jaemin echoes the action around your clit, their synchronization sending you spiraling into a frenzy. When Jaemin flicks your clit back and forth with his tongue before taking it into his mouth to suck, Haechan does the same to your breast, lapping at your nipple eagerly before sucking on the sensitive bud.

“Fuck—” you hiss, realizing—perhaps a moment too late—that you may have bitten off more than you can chew as you let the two sexually frustrated males have their way with your body.

Before long, you feel that tightening sensation in your stomach as your climax approaches, and you whimper in lieu of a verbal warning, Jaemin picking up on your cue instantly and diving back into your core with an eagerness that both startles and delights you. With another well-timed suck at your clit, you’re climaxing with a cry of pleasure and a full body tremor as you curl in on yourself.

Before you’ve even recovered from your high, Jaemin’s pressing on your stomach to keep you in place as he resumes lapping at your core, his tongue gliding with ease against and between your slick folds.

“Fuck—Jaemin, it’s sensitive—” you moan, squirming away from his touch, but he ignores you, two fingers prodding at your entrance before slowly easing their way in. “Oh, shit—”

“That’s it, just take it, princess,” Jaemin coos, swirling sinful circles around your clit as his fingers move in and out of you slowly. “Feel so good around my fingers like that, angel.”

“Can I—” Haechan swallows thickly before continuing, “Can I fuck your tits?” Before you can answer, he adds, “Please?” fully laden with desperation and you can’t even fathom saying no to him—so you don’t, instead nodding and watching his face light up with excitement.

He rushes to pull off his pants as if you’ll change your mind at any moment, and when he pulls his boxers down, his fully erect length springs up, girthy and long with an upwards curve. You watch with fascination as he straddles just below your chest, laying his length between your breasts and pushing them together with a groan.

With his eyes locked on your breasts and where his length disappears between them, he starts to move, slowly fucking himself on your breasts. His gasps and whimpers are both adorable and arousing, his fingers greedily clutching the mounds of flesh as his thumbs swipe over your nipples rhythmically.

Apparently dissatisfied with the sensation, Haechan pauses, smearing his precum over your chest and pauses thoughtfully before leaning forward and letting several large droplets of saliva drip down from his tongue to your breasts, the clear liquid landing on either side of his cock and slowly sliding down the insides of your breasts to coat his length. “That’s more like it,” he grunts, and resumes fucking your cleavage, his eyes rolling back into his head at the sensations, his length gliding between your breasts with ease.

Meanwhile, Jaemin curls his fingers inside of you, fucking them into you quickly and mercilessly as you cry out in pleasure. His tongue keeps swirling around and flicking at your clit, massaging your little bundle of nerves as his fingertips fuck into your other patch of nerves along your inner walls that has you seeing fireworks.

“God, that feels so good,” you whimper out, and Jaemin nods vigorously, tongue messily gliding along your folds with every movement of his head.

“Mm, I know, princess—tastes so good, too.” he purrs, and you prop yourself up on your elbows to peek past Haechan at Jaemin, noting fondly that his glasses have almost completely fogged up.

Haechan shoves his glasses up his nose hurriedly with one hand, mumbling something about wanting to see better, before he speeds up, small moans leaving him as he approaches his high.

Jaemin digs his tongue into your core, greedy muscle slurping up your arousal as it gushes from your hole, and you moan loudly, walls clenching desperately around the intrusion. His fingers slide up and down your slit, parting your folds, and he uses the combination of your slick and his spit to lube up his fingers for when he presses them to your asshole. He chuckles darkly when you squeal and squirm, fingers pushing into your tight rim without pause.

“You can take it, right, princess?” he coos, and you nod, panting, even though you’re not sure he can see you. “That’s it, pretty, just like that. So fun to play with,” he murmurs, the last part almost sounding like it’s to himself as he moves his fingers inside of you, tongue gliding up and down to swirl around your clit and your entrance teasingly.

“So good,” Haechan moans, still using your breasts to stroke his length. “Wanna cum—fuck, you’re so hot—gonna cum, pretty—where d’you want it?”

You find that you can barely form thoughts, let alone words, so, in lieu of a verbal response, you open your mouth, tongue dropping out slowly, and he moans again, this one higher and audibly overwhelmed before he thrusts his cock faster between your breasts, the tip of his length occasionally rubbing against your tongue. With a low groan, Haechan cums, abdomen tensing as he pants his way through his climax. He releases onto your waiting tongue, one spurt of cum landing on your cheek and bottom lip.

He admires the sight of you with his release painting your face and swipes up the stray seed with his finger, pushing it into your mouth and groaning when your lips wrap around it and suck it clean.

“You’re so perfect,” he murmurs reverently, shuffling down your body to kiss you sloppily, tongue swirling around the inside of your mouth to taste himself.

Looking behind himself, Haechan takes one look at Jaemin’s fingers diving in and out of your core, slick arousal and Jaemin’s saliva dripping from your entrance, and groans, rushing to get off of the bed and shove Jaemin out of place none too gently to take his place between your legs and study your glistening core, eyes roving over how your entrance is still clenching reflexively around nothing and how your clit twitches with every clench, both overstimulated and in search of something more.

You’re barely done with coming down from your last high when Haechan moans loudly, at his limit, and buries his face between your legs, tongue delving into your folds as you squirm and whimper.

“Haechan, holy shit—” you gasp, squirming away from him, but he just winds his wiry arms around your thighs and tugs you back to the edge of the bed, roughly massaging your clit with his tongue. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, slow down—”

“Tastes so good,” Haechan moans, gaze flicking up to look at you. His hair is all messed up from the numerous times your legs closed around his head and his glasses are fogged up with the heat radiating from your body and his heavy panting, but you can clearly see a wild look in his eyes, his gaze hungrily drinking in the sight of you in front of him. “Don’t wanna stop—don’t make me stop—please—”

“Haechan, baby, please take it easy,” you pant, but Haechan pays you absolutely no mind, his thick tongue slithering into your entrance and drawing out a sharp whine from you as you struggle to sit up, trying the whole while to swat his head away so you can catch your breath.

Your hand barely clutches at a lock of Haechan’s hair before Jaemin’s pulling your hands behind your back and settling you against his chest, his incredibly strong and firm grip leaving you stuck in place as Haechan has his way with your pussy.

“Let him have his fun,” Jaemin purrs in your ear as Haechan laps at your entrance before stuffing his tongue back in as far as it’ll go. “Can’t tell you how long he’s been waiting for this moment.”

“But—” you whimper, walls clenching helplessly around Haechan’s greedy tongue.

“Doesn’t that feel so good, princess?” Jaemin coos fondly, lips brushing the shell of your ear. You turn your head slightly to look at him with pleading eyes in the hopes he’ll have mercy, but he just chuckles, moving both your wrists to one of his hands before cupping your chin with the other and tilting your face back to his to connect your lips in a slow, passionate, deeply overwhelming kiss.

You can taste your arousal on his tongue as well as a hint of the gum he was chewing earlier, and you keen weakly into the kiss, sloppily moving your mouth with his as Haechan slurps your arousal eagerly before he sucks your clit into his mouth, presses it between his lips, and moans loudly, the vibrations mixed with all of the lewd noises making you hurtle towards yet another high.

“Oh, shit—” you cry out against Jaemin’s lips as Haechan tongue-fucks you to another orgasm, his blunt nails digging into the flesh of your thighs as he claws at you in a desperate attempt to keep you against his mouth. Jaemin’s hand leaves your chin and moves to grope your breast, his large hand kneading and massaging the flesh and tugging at your nipple as he dots slow, wet kisses down your neck and shoulder.

“Could stay down here forever,” Haechan grunts, and your eyes widen even in their exhausted, drained state as you start to struggle against Jaemin’s grip and fight to close your legs.

“Please leave my poor clit alone,” you plead, finally wrenching one of your hands free from Jaemin’s clutches and clapping it over your core protectively. Haechan barely even pauses, just starts licking at your fingers with desperate little moans and grunts. “Can one of you please just fuck me?”

They both go stiff, looking at each other wordlessly, before Jaemin releases you completely and switches spots with Haechan, maneuvering his length out of his sweats and boxers, and oh—

“You’re big, too,” you mumble in surprise, and he arches an eyebrow with a smirk.

“Did you think it was going to be small?”

“Well, no, but I definitely didn’t think it’d be that big.” you mutter, and he snickers, lifting your hips to push you further back on the bed. He spreads your legs wider and looks at your core, eyes roving over your glistening folds and inner thighs with such unadulterated desire that you’re tempted to close your legs out of embarrassment.

“Haechan got you nice and wet for me, yeah?” he murmurs, pumping his fist up and down his cock slowly before slapping the underside of his length on your poor, hypersensitive clit and grinning when you jolt from the stimulation. “Think you can take all of me, princess?”

“Only one way to find out,” you reply breathlessly, and he laughs, nodding in agreement.

“You’re right about that,” he grunts as he pushes into you. Both of you react instantly; his jaw clenches while yours drops, and he sucks in a deep breath through his nose as a breathy half-whimper, half-sigh escapes you.

Haechan watches you two with rapt attention, eyes flicking from your face to your breasts to where Jaemin’s length is slowly disappearing into you.

“Sweet pussy’s sucking me right in, princess,” Jaemin drawls with a smug grin. “Wanted this that badly, huh?”

“Shut—up—” you gasp as he bottoms out, the absolutely full-to-the-brim sensation dizzying and overwhelming and delicious all at once.

“Yes, ma’am,” Jaemin obliges, brows knitting together as he pulls out slowly and thrusts back in with a quick snap of his hips. You cry out in pleasure and the corner of his mouth quirks upward in smug satisfaction and amusement before he does it again… and again… and again until he’s built up a steady rhythm, every thrust punctuated by a plaintive moan from you.

His hands glide over everywhere he can reach before seeking purchase in your hips, fingertips digging into the flesh there as he drives his length into you.

“You love this, don’t you?” Jaemin coos as Haechan presses your breasts together and wraps his lips around one nipple, sucking as he tugs at the other bud. “You gonna tell your friends how good we fucked you?”

“Mm—yes,” you pant, and Jaemin grins.

“Gonna tell ‘em that two little nerds from your Biology class fucked you stupid, yeah?”

“Yeah,” you whimper, nodding vigorously. “Mm-hmm—”

“Thought so,” he replies with a dark chuckle before draping one of your legs over his shoulder, angling his hips toward it, and fucking intently into a spot that, you realize after the burst of pleasure from his first thrust, must be your g-spot.

“Ho–ly shit,” you gasp, clutching at Haechan for something you can use to brace yourself. Jaemin’s thrusts send him into you nice and deep and you’re slowly but surely losing your mind with every stroke, your mouth falling open in a silent gasp as he fucks into you. Your fingers catch Haechan’s thigh once more, clutching onto the warm flesh in an attempt to ground yourself.

Haechan groans and responds by swirling his tongue around your nipple slowly before flicking it back and forth quickly, using a finger to replicate his actions on your other breast.

“Please—fuck—I’m gonna cum—” you warn Jaemin, and he nods eagerly, letting a hand drag across your body from your hip to your clit, thumb sliding between your messy, wet folds to reveal the sensitive button between them. You inhale sharply when he starts to rub it in circles with the same thumb, fingertips resting lightly on your stomach as if he’s not driving you absolutely insane. “Oh, my God—cumming—I’m cumming—!”

“Me too, princess,” he groans, his hips speeding up as he chases after his own high. You climax first, letting out a drawn out whine, with Jaemin following shortly after, the male burying his length in you and pumping you full of his cum as he groans in pleasure under his breath.

“My turn,” Haechan grunts as Jaemin pulls out of you, both males watching as milky white cum drips from your entrance. “That’s so fucking hot,” Haechan mumbles in awe before reaching for your hands to gently guide you to a sitting position. “Can you ride me, pretty?”

“If my legs don’t give out,” you mumble, and he chuckles, sitting against where your bed meets the wall and patting his lap invitingly. You carefully straddle his lap, fingers wrapping around the thick head of his length as you guide his tip to your entrance and start to ease down onto him. Haechan gapes up at you, prompting you to coo affectionately. “Do you mind if I do it myself?” you ask sweetly as you sink down on it further, your nipple grazing his lips as you move against him, and he shakes his head emphatically, his glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose slightly. “Good,” you praise softly. “You’re not going to cum early, are you?” you ask with a small frown, and Haechan shakes his head again, the glasses sliding further and further down his nose. You gently push the glasses up, and he smiles appreciatively, tongue darting out to lick at your nipple while it’s near his mouth.

“Feels amazing,” he moans, and you smile fondly. You didn’t get a chance to see his length in all its glory, but you can definitely feel every thick inch of his cock as it stretches you open. He’s not quite as long as Jaemin, but he makes up for it in girth, his length barely fitting in your fist as you finish settling down on him.

When you’ve finally managed to fit all of his girthy length inside of you, you lift up slightly, rocking your hips forward for more friction, and Haechan moans out loudly, leaning forward to suck your nipple into his mouth. He cups your breasts, holding them up and together, and alternates running his tongue over both buds, occasionally sucking on a nipple with a low moan of satisfaction.

“More,” Haechan gasps out.

“More?” you ask, confused and lightheaded from all the pleasure you’re receiving.

“Yeah—need you to move faster,” he grunts through gritted teeth, and you suck your teeth.

“You wanted me on top when I told you my legs might give out—” you start to protest, and he pulls your face to his, kissing you to shut you up.

“Need it like this,” Haechan growls under his breath, swiftly maneuvering you two around so you’re lying on your back and he’s on his knees on the bed between your legs. “Hold these for me?” he asks, pressing your knees as close to your chest as they’ll go. As you tentatively hug your legs to your chest, Haechan spreads your folds apart with two fingers, sucking in a loud breath at the sight before he spits directly on your core, a gasp escaping you at the sensation of the warm saliva dripping down your folds.

He rests the underside of his cock on your clit, slowly rocking his hips forward to drag his thick length against your clit, and chuckles when you keen with pleasure.

“You’re so nasty,” Haechan sighs the words like you’re his dream come true, and based on the way his face contorts when he pushes into you, you just might be. He wastes no time, drilling into you at a quick, ruthless pace that has you moaning mindlessly with literally no idea what’s coming out of your mouth. “So fucking nasty for letting me do this to you,” he grunts, brows furrowed as one hand cups your chin. “Open.”

You oblige, tongue lolling out without being asked, and he grins, leaning over you and letting more saliva drip from his mouth to your waiting tongue. Haechan dips down lower, maintaining his thrusts as he messily moves his lips against yours, his tongue and spit getting everywhere, and he whines desperately into the kiss, his hand moving from your chin to between your legs where he starts to toy with your poor clit.

A choked wail of overstimulation slips from you before you can even process it, and Haechan silences you by kissing you again, mumbling, “I can’t believe you’re letting me do this to you—perfect little fuckdoll—gonna fuck you so full of cum, gonna breed you—”

“Holy shit—breed me, yes, breed me—” you pant, nodding eagerly, and you might be imagining it, but Haechan’s thrusts seem to get impossibly deeper like he genuinely might take you up on that offer.

“Gonna breed you, pretty girl—stuff you full of my cum—give you a fucking baby—make you all mine—”

“Want it—Haechan, please—yours, I’m yours—” you can barely keep up with his heated dialogue, your eyes rolling back into your head in ecstasy as you fall apart on his length.

Haechan’s lips seal over yours, tasting your desperate cries as he fucks you foolish, making a weak, overwhelmed moan come from you and your body produce a deep, full-body shudder that travels as pleasure races through you, electrifying your bloodstream.

Haechan isn't far behind, his tongue playing with yours almost lazily as his thrusts slow to a stop before he buries himself in you, emptying his seed into you and filling you with an impossibly large load of cum. He groans against your lips, slowly pulling out to the tip and staring down at how his length is coated with a blend of all of your cum with a deep-seated satisfaction.

“Holy shit,” he pants, flopping onto his back. “That was incredible.”

“You’re telling me,” you laugh. “Where did you two learn all that?”

“We watch a lot of porn.” Jaemin says, sheepish for the first time.

“And it taught you all of that?” you remark, incredulous.

“It taught us more, too,” Haechan adds, leaning over you with a grin. “Wanna see?”

“So, you’re telling me those two nerds from your class dicked you down… and they did it well?” Jimin remarks over your lunch in the cafeteria, eyes wide, and you scowl at her.

“Their names are Haechan and Jaemin.” you correct her, and she chuckles sheepishly. “But yes, they may have been the best sex I’ve ever had.”

“Well, who would’ve thought…” Jimin comments, her expression thoughtful, and you snap loudly to get her attention. “What?”

“Those two are mine now. You can’t have them.” you state, and she frowns.

“Both of them? Aren’t you greedy?”

You shrug. “Don’t care. Mine.”

“What if they find out you’re actively laying a claim to them? Hm? Aren’t you supposed to be helping them get girls?” Jimin points out, and you frown slightly before pulling your phone out and scrolling through your messages before pressing the “Dial” button. “Who are you calling?”

“Shh.” you say distractedly, placing the call on speakerphone and waiting patiently as it rings once, twice, then stops, the other person on the line picking up. “Hello?”

“Hey,” Haechan greets, sounding slightly concerned. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” you assure him. “Is Jaemin with you?”

“Yeah, he’s right here—did you wanna talk to him?” he asks.

“Both of you, actually. Can he hear me?”

“Hi, princess,” Jaemin calls through the phone, and Jimin’s brows lift in surprise.

“Princess?” she mouths at you, and you smile, nodding.

“Hi, Jaemin. I just wanted to ask you guys a question.”

“Shoot,” Haechan says with audible wariness in his voice.

“You’re both… mine, right?” you say carefully, and Haechan sucks in a sharp breath before you hear a thudding noise. “Haechan?”

“I’m here!” he squawks, sounding slightly far away. There’s a rustling noise, and then his voice comes in clearer. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” you chuckle. “What happened?”

“He dropped the phone because he’s an idiot.” Jaemin calls out, and you laugh as Haechan shushes him forcefully.

“An answer to my question would be nice, you know.” you tease lightly.

“I’m yours if you want me to be,” Jaemin replies smoothly, and you smile even though they can’t see you.

“Honestly, I’m yours even if you don’t.” Haechan adds, and your smile only widens as you shoot Jimin an “I told you so” glance.

“That’s good to hear.” you reply, your smile creeping into your voice, and Haechan clears his throat pointedly. “What’s wrong?”

“Well, are you ours?” Haechan asks hopefully, and you look over at Jimin as you reply.

“Absolutely.”

“Oh, thank God.” he mumbles, and you giggle.

“So, I’m guessing you two are done with your lessons on how to get girls?” you suppose, nibbling your bottom lip nervously.

“Yeah,” Haechan confirms, and you’re surprised by just how relieved you are. “We got the only girl that matters.”

“You’re too cute.” you chuckle. “Wanna come over later?”

“Yes—” Haechan blurts out before composing himself to say, “yes, absolutely.”

“Good. Six sound good?”

“Sounds perfect,” he sighs happily. “See you then, pretty.”

“Bye, baby,” you coo into the phone, and his excited squeal is quiet but unmistakable. “Bye, other baby.”

“Bye, princess. See you at six.” Jaemin calls out, and you smile widely before hanging up and smiling proudly at Jimin.

“My boys didn’t disappoint me.” you remark, pleased, and Jimin huffs petulantly.

“Man. I’m happy for you, but I wish I had two cute nerds at my beck and call.”

“Stop calling them nerds,” you correct, and she rolls her eyes.

“Wish I had two cute guys at my beck and call.” she amends her statement, and you smile, satisfied.

“Yeah, I’m pretty lucky, huh?” you muse, and Jimin sighs, a smile curling at her lips.

“Yeah… would you ever wanna share?” she asks with a wiggle of her brows. “Ow! There was no need to flick me.”

“There was every need. Avert your eyes from my men, you lustful wench.”

“Lustful wench? You’re horrible. And greedy! And selfish. Just horrible and greedy and selfish.” she complains, and you shrug, uncaring as you compose a text to your new… boyfriends?

you have created a group message. you have named the group message “power throuple.” you [17:05pm] hi boyfies :) haechan [17:07pm] boyfies…. i’m weak in the knees jaemin [17:08pm] haechan stand up jaemin [17:08pm] hi baby girl you loved “hi baby girl” haechan [17:10pm] why would i stand up if i could lie down and have our pretty girlfriend sit on my face? 😁 you [17:11pm] you’re bolder over text, huh? haechan [17:12pm] can you blame me? have you seen yourself? you [17:12pm] i have… haechan [17:13pm] so you know how good you look. don’t judge me when i can’t get my words out in person you [17:15pm] i happen to find it cute when you can’t get your words out jaemin [17:16pm] i find it cute when YOU can’t get your words out you [17:16pm] and when would that be? jaemin [17:17pm] don’t tell me you’ve forgotten so soon… you [17:17pm] i have :( maybe i need a reminder? jaemin liked your message “i have :( maybe i need a reminder?” jaemin [17:18pm] maybe we should come over earlier to jog your memory you [17:20pm] maybe you should. how about 5:45? jaemin liked your message “maybe you should. how about 5:45?” haechan liked your message “maybe you should. how about 5:45?” you [17:22pm] great!! it’s a date :)

“What am I, chopped liver?” Jimin complains as you giggle down at your phone.

“Sorry… and I’m even more sorry for having to cut this short.” you apologize sheepishly as you start to gather your things.

“You’re kidding…” Jimin remarks, incredulous. “Flat-leaver!”

“I’ll text you after everything,” you assure her, stuffing your notebook in your bag and your phone in your bag’s front pocket. “Gotta go get ready!”

“You’re the worst.” she huffs, but there’s a smile on her face as she rolls her eyes. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

“Rawr.” You make a claw with your fingers, and she stops short, blinking at you with a blank expression. “Too much?”

“Never do that again.”

You nod in understanding. “Copy.”

tadaaaaa i hope you enjoyed! if you liked it, please shoot me an ask or write something nice in the tags :D i love (positive) feedback!

4K notes · View notes

taeeflwrr · 3 months ago

Text

crying

red velvet hearts.

pairing: bad boy!donghyuck x baker!reader

genre: fluff, slight angst

word count: 7.7k

synopsis: you patch up a boy with a bloody nose and bruised knuckles, only to find out that he has quite the sweet tooth.

author’s note: why do i keep injuring hyuck in all my fics lmao??? anyways i tried to write his character a bit differently than i usually do to challenge myself so please let me know how you guys like it! also remember, ladies: this is fiction. you cannot fix him <3

warning(s): brief description of injuries, mentions of violence, maximum amounts of cringe and melodrama

playlist: all my ghosts by lizzy mcalpine ― heart eyes by coin ― close to you by gracie abrams ― sidelines by phoebe bridgers ― the alchemy by taylor swift

RECIPE 1. TIRAMISU

“This is not what I meant when I said you need your back blown out.”

“Not funny. I almost died,” you grumble as you wrap the back brace around your torso. You hate the immediate relief you feel from the support it provides, no longer able to tell yourself that it’s really not as bad as it seems―which only makes you angrier.

“Throwing your back out while lifting a giant bag of flour and nearly getting crushed to death by said flour is genuinely the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever heard,” Yeri, your best friend (derogatory), snorts as she shakes her head. “I wish you had cameras in the storage room because I want to see that shit so bad.”

“Thank you for the brace. You can get the hell out now.” You roll your eyes.

“So, what are you going to do now? Aren’t you swamped with orders?” Yeri asks, ignoring you completely.

You have no clue what you’re going to do now. It isn’t just orders you have to worry about fulfilling; it’s also the freshly baked pastries that you have to sell every morning. After a year of blood, sweat, and tears, the bakery that you built from the ground up is finally starting to gain some stable business. So, of course, you chose now of all times to try to lift a bag of flour over your shoulder like you were Dwayne The Rock Johnson.

“I think I’ll have to hire some temporary help,” you answer begrudgingly.

“You could sound less like someone is holding you at gunpoint,” Yeri snorts, “Come on. It had to happen sooner or later anyway.”

“I was handling things just fine on my own.”

“Were you, though?” Yeri raises an eyebrow, gesturing to your current state.

You fear you walked right into that one. “Shut up and help me make some posters.”

The two of you eventually manage to whip up some haphazard “Help Wanted” posters, the letters written in glitter pen and Yeri’s clumsy bubble text. You tried your best to fill in the empty gaps on the construction paper by placing Pompompurin stickers that you normally give to customers’ kids all over it. The posters look like a nine-year-old girl’s school project gone wrong, but you hope it’s charming enough to catch some attention.

By the time you and Yeri finish hanging up all the posters, the sun is already starting to set, and all you want to do is go home and put a heating pad on your back. After saying bye to Yeri, you start making your way back to the bakery to lock up. Once you arrive, you notice a figure dressed in black slumped over in front of the door. You can see their shoulders rise up and down as they take in labored breaths, leaning against the glass door for support.

Every rational fiber in your being screams at you to not approach the stranger alone, but it’s not like you can just leave this person at the front of your place of business. Cautiously taking a step forward, you squat down to eye level with the stranger, wincing slightly from back pain. Through the sweaty and matted mess of his brown fringe, you can see that the stranger is a young man around your age. However, his face is absolutely battered: bloody (and almost certainly broken) nose, split lip, black eye swollen shut, and a jagged cut on his cheek. If he notices your presence, he doesn’t show it, keeping his head hung down.

Gingerly placing a hand on his arm, you give him a small shake. “Excuse me? Are you okay? Do you need me to call an ambulance?”

His brows furrow, and he opens an eye (the only one he’s probably able to open) with a wince before lifting a finger and putting it against his lips. You notice that his knuckles are completely scraped raw.

“Not so loud. I’m okay,” he answers.

“You don’t look―”

As if on cue, his stomach rumbles with a guttural growl that slowly drawls into a sputtering gurgle before dying out all together―leaving a long silence to hang between the two of you.

After another beat, he gives you a sheepish smile. “You got anything to eat?”

You stare at him for a moment; his face is flushed, pink all the way down to his neck.

And like a stupid horror movie character who opens the door to a room that clearly screams danger, you nod.

Fortunately, he―Donghyuck, as he introduced himself―ends up not being a crazy ax murderer.

Unfortunately, you find yourself awkwardly sitting in your closed bakery with a virtual stranger, fiddling with a first aid kit while watching him absolutely devour a piece of leftover tiramisu that you had in your fridge. If the situation wasn’t so insane, you might actually think it was pretty funny. For someone who looks the way he does, this current picture of Donghyuck absolutely doesn’t suit him―bruised chipmunk cheeks stuffed with ladyfingers and cocoa powder stuck on his split lip.

When he’s finished, Donghyuck looks over at you with a mesmerized expression on his face, as if you just fed him ambrosia. There’s a softness to his face that you didn’t think could exist underneath all that grime and dried blood.

“That was…delicious,” he breathes.

“Thanks,” you snort, pushing a glass of water towards him. Unsurprisingly, he chugs it in the blink of an eye. “I still think you should get those injuries checked out, though.”

“Nah, I’ll rub a little spit in them and it’ll be fine,” he shrugs.

“Don’t be gross,” you sigh, scooting your chair closer to him as you set the first aid kit on the table. “Now, come here.”

Donghyuck reluctantly dips his head, and you carefully cup his jaw for support, disinfecting and applying ointment on the cuts and scrapes on his face. You also clean up the dried blood near his nostrils and on his bottom lip, and he doesn’t flinch even when you accidentally brush tender areas like his broken nose or the gash on his mouth. Instead, he stays perfectly still, leaned back in the chair with his forearms resting on his thighs and fingers nonchalantly laced together.

He keeps his gaze trained on something past your shoulder, and you also try your best to focus, but it’s hard to keep yourself from staring―especially when his demeanor has changed so much. He’s so calm and quiet in such a cold, ruthless manner, as if he’s physically steeling himself from pain―like he’s done this a million times before. Occasionally, you feel his eyes swipe across your face when he thinks you’re not paying attention, and it occurs to you how close the two of you are. Suddenly, you’re acutely aware of the heat of his skin against your palm and fingertips, and you rip your hand away from his jaw.

Clearing your throat, you move onto his hands, dabbing his raw knuckles with a cotton ball soaked in alcohol before placing large band-aids on them. Despite your best efforts, it’s hard not to notice how slim his long fingers are or how surprisingly clean his nail beds are for someone who’s covered in blood. You keep your head completely bent, fighting the urge of looking up and possibly meeting his eyes.

“There, all done,” you announce a little too loudly.

“Thank you,” he says softly, “for the cake and for this. For helping me.”

“Don’t worry about it. I didn’t do much,” you blurt, still avoiding eye contact as you clean up the table. However, you notice in your peripheral that his gaze follows your movements, almost hesitantly, before he asks:

“So, you’re hiring?”

You click the first-aid kit shut, blinking a few times before turning back to him. He looks at you with a raised eyebrow, waiting for an answer.

“I―yeah. How did you know that?” you ask, puzzled by such a random question.

Donghyuck points at a poster that you didn’t even know you left here, sitting on the table right behind you. You realize that he was probably looking at it while you were patching him up.

“That poster that says ‘help wanted.’ With the Pompompurin stickers. I’m actually in between jobs right now, so if you would have me―”

“You know Pompompurin?” you interrupt him. It’s not that important and should not stand out to you as much as it does. Yet, you can’t help but grin at the fact that someone like him knows about a tubby Golden Retriever character with a name that sounds like a mashup of the English language’s most adorable onomatopeias.

Donghyuck trails off, stiffening as if you just found out his deepest, darkest secret. He opens his mouth slightly, trying to speak but unable to formulate a response―an excuse, rather. Instead, he just lets out an airy cough, putting a hand over his mouth and turning away from you in an attempt to obscure his face. Despite his best efforts, he can’t hide his glowing red ears and the way his earlier coldness melts away.

“I―yeah,” he responds, words slightly muffled by his hand.

You struggle to maintain your composure as you gnaw on your bottom lip to keep from laughing. Fighting a smile in your voice, you finally say:

“The pay won’t be that much, but you’ll get a bunch of free desserts at the end of the day. Are you okay with that?”

It takes him a moment to process that you’re offering him the job, and you watch his eyes light up and a warm smile overtake his face. There’s still a light shade of pink dusting his cheeks, clashing with the purple bruising and swelling of his injuries.

“I’d love nothing more.”

Suddenly, it occurs to you that Donghyuck somewhat reminds you of a tiramisu.

He may look a bit rugged and grimey, bitter like coffee, but in actuality, underneath it all, he’s soft and fluffy (but not too sweet) like a mascarpone filling.

RECIPE 2. BLUEBERRY PIE

“Are you out of your mind?”

You cringe away from your phone, hurriedly turning the volume down. “Damn, you don’t have to scream like that.”

“You should be the one screaming,” Yeri hollers. “I better not come over one day and find your body stuffed in the freezer or something.”

“I thought you wanted me to hire someone!”

“Not some random dude off the side of the street who was covered in injuries and doesn’t even have any baking experience,” Yeri hisses.

“I don’t need him to bake. I just have him working the front counter and doing all the heavy lifting when I get my ingredient shipments,” you protest. “Did you think I would really just hand over all my orders to some random dude and go party it up in Cancún or something?”

Yeri is silent for several seconds before asking, “He’s hot, isn’t he?”

“What?”

“So you did know what I meant when I said you needed your back blown out.” You can hear the smugness in her voice.

“Yeri,” you say tiredly, “please be serious.”

“I am serious. You’re the one being unserious,” she retorts. “Yesterday, you acted like you would rather sacrifice your firstborn child before hiring a part-timer, and now look at you. Dickmatized.”

“Okay, I’m hanging up now.”

“So, when do I get to meet him―”

You quickly hit the button to end the call and shove your phone into your pocket, letting out an exasperated sigh. You definitely won’t be hearing the end of that for a while. Your face feels warm for some reason, and you decide that you need a coffee break. After you finish making it, you pour yourself and Donghyuck a cup.

You peek your head out from the curtain that separates the kitchen and the front counter to see if Donghyuck is busy. He’s politely chatting with an elderly woman, and your eyes nearly pop out of your head when he takes out the entire tray of egg tarts in the glass display and wraps it up for her. The woman happily hands him a wad of bills and waves him goodbye. After putting the cash in the register, Donghyuck turns around and catches you in the middle of gawking.

“Oh, Y/N. I was actually just about to head back there. We’re out of egg tarts for the display,” he says nonchalantly.

“Uh, yeah, I can see that,” you whisper loudly, “Was that Mrs. Kim? Why the hell did she order a dozen egg tarts? That woman can barely finish a single cookie.”

Donghyuck blinks, clearly confused, whispering back, “She asked for my recommendation, so I said egg tarts since no one had bought any yet, and she said she would take all of them.”

You pause, things finally clicking. Grinning knowingly, you say, “You know, having you work the front is doing wonders for sales.”

“I don’t understand.” He furrows his brows.

You laugh, handing him his cup of coffee. “I’m talking about your face card, Donghyuck. You’re too handsome, so you’re flustering the customers.”

“Are we not whispering anymore?” he asks awkwardly. “Besides, that’s not true. Look at the state of my face right now.”

His injuries have faded significantly, but the bruising and cuts are still there. You want to tell him that superficial wounds can’t mask the warmth in his caramel-brown eyes, the fullness of his cheeks and the sharp jawline, and the air of mystery that enshrouds him and draws people in.

But you don’t.

“Well, for someone who’s only been working here for two weeks, you’re doing superb. Injuries or not.”

And it’s true. You’ve always preferred to work alone because you’re the only one who understands how you want things done. You naturally assumed it would be a hassle and a waste of time to try to explain to someone else when you could just do it yourself, but Donghyuck never seems to need an explanation. In fact, he knows before even you.

He gets to the bakery three hours before you, cleans and preps all the equipment you need for the day, unloads the ingredient shipments, and is already manning the front counter by the time you arrive like it was no big deal at all. He also seems to have a sixth sense of knowing when you’re about to do something you shouldn’t be, even though you downplayed your back injury. He’s somehow always there―moving all the stuff you keep on the top shelf to somewhere within your reach even though you insisted that the rickety wooden step stool you use is perfectly safe, cleaning up a glass beaker that you accidentally shattered, taking out the trash during his breaks, checking in on you when you skip lunch. He even turned down his first paycheck, saying it’s repayment for patching him up and feeding him.

Donghyuck is so perfect that sometimes you wonder if you’re being set up, like maybe he’s secretly embezzling money from the cash register―which would be a more viable theory if he didn’t drive an Audi to work everyday.

“Thanks for the compliment. And the coffee,” Donghyuck says, snapping you out of your thoughts. He gingerly takes a sip and makes a strangled noise, a mixture being choking and retching, before slapping a hand over his mouth.

“Are you okay? Was it too hot?” you ask worriedly.

“No, it’s just…really bitter,” he mumbles, words muffled in his hand.

“Oh,” you blink, “Sorry. I drink black coffee, so I forgot to ask if you wanted creamer and sugar. Come on, there’s some in the back.”

The two of you head to the kitchen, and you watch him dump an exorbitant amount of creamer and sugar in his coffee, the dark roast swirling into something more akin to milk tea.

“You know, there might be some chocolate milk in the fridge if you’d rather that,” you tease.

His head shoots up, those doe eyes lighting up. “Really?”

“No,” you trail off awkwardly, “Sorry, I'm just messing with you.”

It’s a bit adorable that you can visibly see him being disappointed in there not being chocolate milk before growing embarrassed, looking down at his cup. He turns away from you, but you can see the flush on the back of his neck.

“You really have a sweet tooth, huh?” you laugh.

“Pretty lame, right?”

“Why would that be lame? You’re talking to someone who owns a bakery, in case you forgot.”

Donghyuck smiles at you, and it’s sugary sweet like buttercream frosting. He looks at you like you just said the most wonderful thing in the world; in fact, he always makes you feel like that, no matter what you say or do. “I guess you’re right.”

“What’s your favorite dessert?” you blurt, needing a distraction urgently.

He pauses briefly. “I don’t think I have one.”

That actually surprises you. “You don’t? Even though you love sweets so much?”

He laughs, the sound harsh and rough, and it almost makes you flinch. “I’ve never really had an opportunity to have many until now.”

There’s clearly weight behind his words, but you know you’re not in a position to ask any further. A selfish part of you wants to be important enough to him that you are in a position to know more, but you’re all too aware about him very purposefully keeping you at arm’s length.

“Well, you have plenty of time to find out,” you quickly continue, pretending not to notice. “Actually, I’m going to a blueberry farm tomorrow because I’m thinking about adding blueberry pie to the menu. When I get back, I’ll bake one for you, and you can be the first to taste test it!”

“You’re going by yourself?” Donghyuck raises an eyebrow.

“Of course. Who else would I go with?”

“Me. I’ll go with you,” he replies immediately.

“But it’s, like, a forty-five-minute bus ride to the farm. Plus, coming with me to get ingredients isn’t part of your job description anyway,” you explain.

“I can’t come with you on my own free time?” he asks, tilting his head. “Besides, I’m worried about you overexerting yourself with that back injury. A bumpy bus ride definitely isn’t going to help, so I’ll drive us there.”

“You’re going to drive that fancy ass car to a farm? You do realize it’s going to be dirt roads, right?” You cross your arms.

“I think I’ll live. Besides, what makes you think this is the only fancy ass car I own?” He gives you an amused smile.

“You’re joking, right?” You stare at him.

He hesitates for a moment. “Yes.”

“That doesn’t sound―”

“What time are we leaving tomorrow morning?”

“...Seven.”

Unsurprisingly, Donghyuck picks you up right on time, not a minute too early or late. As the universe would have it, it rained the night prior―meaning all the dirt roads are now rivers of mud. You wince every time you heard a splat of mud hit Donghyuck’s pristine white car, but he seems to pay no mind to it. The two of you arrive at the farm within twenty minutes (he found a shortcut), and because you came so early, you get the entire farm to yourselves. The staff arms both of you with a large wicker basket each before setting you loose onto the massive property.

“Okay, make sure to pick the fat ones. The small ones are super tart, so avoid those,” you instruct Donghyuck. “We’re going to fill these baskets to the brim and get our money’s worth.”

“You got it, Captain.” He salutes.

You give him a determined nod and a thumbs up before turning to your respective side and beginning to pick the blueberries. The two of you work without much fanfare or conversation, and it’s a silence that lingers between you comfortably. It reassures you to hear the sound of the bushes rustling from Donghyuck working; his companionship alone relaxes you.

Eventually, when the sun starts peeking through and the weather grows warmer, both of you decide to take a break. You find a spot in the shade before sitting down, pulling out snacks and bottles of water from a backpack Donghyuck brought along.

“I have a surprise for you,” you tell him, trying to hide a smile. “Close your eyes.”

He eyes you suspiciously but does so anyway. You fish out a handful of unripe blueberries wrapped in a handkerchief from your pocket and feed some to him. His reaction is nearly instant the moment he starts chewing them; you watch as his face puckers up from how sour they are and his entire body shrivels into itself, a shudder running through him. He’s polite enough to not spit them out, but you’re not polite enough to resist pointing and laughing at him. Throwing your head back, you laugh so hard that your stomach starts to hurt.

“Oh my God, your face!”

“Ugh,” Donghyuck groans, taking a big gulp of his water. “I should’ve known you had sinister intentions from the start.”

“I didn’t think you’d react like that,” you finally manage to say after catching your breath. “You really can’t handle anything except for sweet stuff.”

“Are you having fun bullying me?” He rolls his eyes.

“So much fun,” you say in a sing-song voice.

Donghyuck tries to continue feigning annoyance, but he can’t help the low chuckle that rumbles in his chest. His eyes always soften when he looks at you, and his gaze is intimate like a lover’s―gentle, tender, unwavering, and vulnerable. But his warmth is always fleeting, and he only allows you glimpses of it through the unmoving walls that he’s erected around himself.

You wish he wouldn’t indulge you so, terrified you’ll try to cross the line he’s drawn between the two of you.

“What are you thinking about?” Donghyuck asks, trying to read your expression

“About the delicious pie I’m about to make when we get back,” you smile.

“I see,” he responds, though it’s clear he isn’t convinced. “I’m looking forward to it.”

“You better be. This is how I’m paying you back for driving me here,” you nod.

“Instead of that, pay me back by telling me what your favorite dessert is,” he suddenly says. “I do still want the pie, though.”

“That was random,” you snort. “Why do you want to know my favorite dessert?”

“Because you asked me, but you never told me yours.”

You suppose he has a point, but you find it ironic that he wants to know more about you when he refuses to offer you even a modicum of information about himself. Despite this, you tell him anyway because you are obviously the fool here.

“If you must know, it’s red velvet cake,” you sigh.

“Why?”

You don’t answer at first, carefully thinking about if you’re ready to be vulnerable in front of him―still a virtual stranger. A virtual stranger who loves sweets. A virtual stranger who is a bit of a messy eater. A virtual stranger who knows Pompompurin. A virtual stranger who worries about you even when he’s not on the clock. A virtual stranger who gently tells you to be careful whenever you try to do something dangerous, whispering, “I’ll do it instead.” A virtual stranger who allows his luxury car to be caked in mud for you.

“Because it’s the dessert that made me realize I want to do this for the rest of my life,” you finally say. “I baked it for my mom’s birthday, and I think I ended up being more excited than her.”

Donghyuck stays quiet, gauging your reaction.

“I was in college, studying to be a doctor like everyone else in my family. So, like a dumb young person who thought that dreams were more important than money, I dropped out of college and went to culinary school. My parents told me I was ruining mine and their lives, disowned me, yada-yada―a bunch of depressing stuff, you know. Eventually, I graduated, took out a huge loan, and opened up my own bakery. Worked a bunch of part-time jobs until my business could stand on its own. Now here I am. Still in debt, though,” you laugh awkwardly. “But I’m not doing too shabby. I was able to hire you, so at least I have a little cash to spare.”

He still doesn’t say anything, so you find yourself starting to ramble. You’re really not sure what possessed you to trauma dump on him like that.

“You know, a lot of people talk shit about red velvet cake because they say the only thing that makes it special is the red food coloring,” you hurriedly explain, “but that’s not true. The cream cheese frosting is super important too. Also, I always say love is the most important ingredient of all. As a baker, you’re kind of baring your heart to the customer, and isn’t it kind of cute that red velvet cake is red like a heart? Okay, please say something now or else I think I’m going to projectile vomit.”

Donghyuck reaches over and brushes a sweaty lock of hair out of your face. His fingers brush over your temple, which makes you sharply suck in a breath. You almost lean into his touch, but you catch yourself. His hand slightly lingers on the side of your neck, like he wants to bring your face closer, but he eventually pulls away.

He searches your face, and you’re not sure what he’s looking for―if anything. Rather, perhaps he’s not searching. Perhaps he’s committing your features to his memory, as if the way you look right now is something he wants to remember forever.

“You’ve worked hard, Y/N,” he says softly, voice slightly hoarse. “This is long overdue, but congratulations. You achieved your dream, and don’t let anyone ever discount that. Not even yourself.”

You wonder how long you’ve waited to hear that. You’re not even sure you knew you needed to hear that. But when Donghyuck says it, it hits you just how long and hard you’ve worked all on your own without a single break. Throughout the years, you’ve really only ever heard, “I’m sorry that happened.” When was the last time someone congratulated you? When was the last time you congratulated yourself?

You surge forward, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and burying your face in his shoulder. Donghyuck cradles you against him, one hand wound tightly around your waist while the other is tangled in your hair. You can feel his chest rise up and down as he holds you. He smells like lavender soap and a bit earthy from being outside, and the warmth of his skin against your cheek makes you want to close your eyes and fall asleep in his arms.

“Thank you,” you whisper.

“No, thank you,” he murmurs into your hair.

You’re not sure why he’s thanking you instead, but what you are sure of is that you’re crossing the line, taking a step towards him and wondering if he’ll meet you halfway.

“Tada!” you announce cheerfully, setting down the freshly baked blueberry pie onto the table.

Donghyuck claps excitedly. “Holy shit, it looks amazing.”

“I’m still trying to figure out the right portions for the filling, so let me know if you think there’s too much or little,” you tell him as you hand him a slice.

Without even answering you, he stabs his fork into the pie and almost eats the entire slice in one bite, seemingly unbothered by the steam still rising from it.

“Be careful. You’re going to burn your tastebuds off. I’m not letting you eat it for shits and giggles, you know. This is for research purposes.” You cross your arms.

“It’s perfect, Y/N. I’m serious,” Donghyuck says after swallowing. “The filling isn’t too sweet, and the crust is airy and light.”

“Well, alright, Gordon Ramsay. I think we’re going to be adding a new menu item then,” you smile. “Think you can get Mrs. Kim to buy a dozen of these?”

“I don’t think she’ll need much convincing with how good these taste.”

“You’re so easy,” you tease. “All I need to do is feed you. Anyways, I’m going to clean up here, but you should head home. It’s getting late, and you wake up way earlier than me.”

“I’ll help,” he insists.

“Go,” you order, pointing at the door. “I can handle it.”

He looks conflicted but eventually relents when you threaten to physically kick him out. Before he leaves, he turns back to you and says, “Thank you, Y/N.”

“Why do you keep thanking me?” you laugh.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had this.”

“What? A blueberry pie?”

Donghyuck pauses, a slight wonder in his expression, as if he’s realizing his answer for the first time as well.

“Peace.”

And you think maybe this is a step forward for him too.

RECIPE 3. CREAM PUFF

It’s quite surreal how easily and naturally you and Donghyuck fall into a routine together. Somehow, in the blink of an eye, two weeks becomes two months. You’ve learned the little things about him, like how he always swipes some icing before you can fill up the piping bag or that he’s not a coffee drinker at all (more of a hot cocoa person) or that he purses his lips when a dessert he’s testing tastes off (no matter how hard he tries to hide it) or that he involuntarily sticks his arm out in front of you when he wants to stop you from doing something you shouldn’t.

You also notice that he sometimes comes into work with injuries. They’re not nearly as bad as the first time you met him, but it’s hard to ignore a bruised cheek or bloodied knuckles. He always has a reason for them, whether it’s tripping down the stairs or accidentally falling down and scraping his hands on the concrete. You can tell by the way he laughs it off that he doesn’t plan on telling you the truth, so you laugh with him. The two of you, having taken only a step towards one another, find yourselves completely immobile now.

He always does this: envelops you like a cloud but disappears the moment you reach out for him.

You’re honestly not sure why he’s still here. Your injury has long healed, and he clearly doesn’t need the abysmal pay you’re giving him. He feels like he’ll slip away at any moment, fleeting like a warm spring breeze, and you suppose time flies by when you know it’s limited. Despite knowing that, you can’t help but desperately want him to stay.

“I think it’s cute how hard he’s working,” Yeri randomly says one day as she eyes Donghyuck prepare orders in the front. He’s in the middle of a lunchtime rush, so he doesn’t even notice the two of you watching him like weirdos.

“Well, that’s what I’m paying him to do,” you reply, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, I think the money is the least of his worries here,” she hums, taking a sip of her coffee.

She has a point, but you’re pretty sure she’s implying something else as well. Just as you go to ask her what exactly she means, you hear a loud clatter. Flinching, you turn your attention back to Donghyuck and realize that he’s dropped a tray on the floor. However, the tray is the last thing on your mind when you see the expression on his face. It’s a mixture of horror, anger, and almost sadness―like he’s finally come face-to-face with whatever he’s been running from. It makes your blood run cold.

Donghyuck is looking at a boy around his age; the boy has dark hair, a mole under his eye, and a grim expression. More importantly, he’s covered in injuries too.

“Who is that?” Yeri whispers. “Why does Donghyuck look like he’s seen a ghost?”

Maybe because he has, you want to tell her.

Donghyuck grabs the boy's arm, squeezing so tightly that his knuckles turn white, and mumbles something to him. When he turns around and meets your eyes, he looks pained and fearful as if you witnessed something you shouldn’t have.

“Is it okay if I take my break early today?” he asks calmly, though the tremor in his voice gives him away.

You nod hesitantly, unable to force yourself to speak. You watch him as he drags the boy out; when he passes you, you can tell how tightly his body is wound right now. His jaw is clenched, a muscle spasming as he tries to control himself, and every step he takes seems labored. He’s running on pure adrenaline right now, like he’s physically steeling himself.

However, you don’t think he’s ever appeared so incredibly alone before. As you watch his back disappear further and further from your view, you’re unsure if he’ll ever return, and you never imagined how terrifying that would be.

The cream puffs aren’t rising.

You’re crouched in front of the oven, watching the dough remain flat and lifeless. You should’ve known better than to attempt to make cream puffs on such a shitty day, especially when pastries like these are so sensitive to the environment and atmosphere. Even though you know you should probably just scrap them and try again, you wait for just a little longer, hoping that maybe if you wish hard enough that they’ll magically start to rise.

But then again you suppose that no matter how hard you try, no matter how careful you are, no matter how perfect the batter is, no matter how much time you spend time piping them, no matter how much you want them to rise, they won’t.

You decide that Donghyuck isn’t like a tiramisu at all; he’s sensitive and delicate and elusive and frustrating like a cream puff.

“Y/N, they’re burning.”

Losing your balance and nearly falling over, you gasp loudly. You were so lost in your thoughts that you didn’t even hear Donghyuck walk into the kitchen, nor did you smell the undeniable scent of something being burnt to a crisp.

“Oh, fu―!” you curse, hurriedly opening the oven and casually suffocating both you and Donghyuck with a hot plume of air. Sputtering, you look around and grab a random rag from the sink before reaching for the cream puffs.

“Wait, stop!” Donghyuck stops you with an outstretched arm, his hand pressed to your side. “Let me do it.”

He gently takes the rag from your hand and removes the tray of charred cream puffs from the oven, dumping them into the trash before putting the tray in the sink and running some water on it―just how you like it.

Letting out a relieved sigh, he turns back to you and asks, “Are you okay? It’s not like you to make a mistake like that. You didn’t get burned anywhere, did you?”

When you don’t answer immediately, Donghyuck rushes forward and grabs your hands, carefully examining your fingers and arms. “Wait, are you hurt? Where? Tell me where you got burned. We have to cool it down with some lukewarm water. And don’t just say you’re fine. Burns are not a joke, Y/N―why are you looking at me like that?”

His hands are calloused and rough, and you can still see scabs from where he tore his knuckles, yet he touches you like you’re the delicate one. He’s covered in fresh and old wounds, yet he looks so panicked at the thought of you having a scratch.

“Shut up,” you whisper furiously, ripping your hands away from him. “From now on, don’t ask me another question. It’s my turn to ask you questions.”

He blinks, a bit stunned by your reaction, but it’s clear he knows what you’re about to say. He goes to reach for you again but decides against it. “Okay.”

“Who was that guy?” you demand. “Why are you always covered in injuries? Why did you lie to me? Who are you?”

“He’s an old friend,” Donghyuck starts quietly.

“Do you treat all your friends like that?”

“When I don’t want to see them.”

You wait for him to continue.

“Before I met you, he and I and a few of our other friends worked…odd jobs for cash,” he explains, and he looks like he’s choking on every word. “The jobs usually entailed us hurting people and also getting hurt. I did a lot of shit I wasn’t proud of. At the time, I didn’t really care. It was just nice to feel something, whether it was the adrenaline rush from doing the punching or the pain from being punched. I got a bunch of money, bought a bunch of expensive stuff, but none of it mattered. Eventually, I just felt nothing again. I didn’t even have the energy to loathe myself anymore. So, I took one last job, got the shit kicked out of me, and then I left. That’s when you found me―”

He inhales, and his eyes flicker towards you. He gazes at you so longingly, as if you were impossibly out of his reach, that you can’t help but involuntarily take a step towards him.

But he steps back.

“I thought that working here would make me feel like a human being again, but I didn’t realize how much I would―” He pauses again. “I thought working here would be a nice reset for me, but I naively thought that I could completely leave my past behind. My friends eventually found me, and I guess I care about those reckless assholes more than I thought because they managed to convince me to take on a few more jobs with them. That’s why I’ve been coming to work with injuries. But I’m done. I cut them off for good when they walked into this bakery. I don’t want…I don’t want our past to tarnish this place. I want to keep this place a beautiful, warm, and pure safe haven that you worked so hard for it to be. That’s why I lied to you, Y/N. I’m a coward to the bone, and I was envious of you. I was ashamed to admit it to you. You, who had the courage to chase after your dream. You, who had the kindness to help a good-for-nothing asshole like me. I only want you to have happy memories from now on, and I am not one of them.”

“Are you going to leave?” you ask softly.

“I probably should,” he answers shakily.

“What’s stopping you?”

“Just…one reason.”

“When you say it like that, it makes it sound like the reason is me.”

Donghyuck laughs bitterly, and his eyes drag across your face like every movement hurts him.

“You know it’s you. It’s always been you.”

When you reach for his hand, he turns away like just the warmth from your body heat burns him. So instead, you take a step back.

“I won’t ask you to stay, Donghyuck, I won’t chase you. I’m going to wait right here, and it’s up to you if you're going to meet me halfway.”

RECIPE 4. RED VELVET CAKE

When your alarm clock goes off the next morning, you seriously consider just not showing up to work. It’s not like you can be fired for being a no-show when you’re your own boss, after all.

And it’s not like you have any employees who will be expecting you.

You’ll just apologize to Mrs. Kim and your other regulars later. You’re allowed to have a day where you just rot in bed and feel sorry for yourself.

However, no matter how much you tell yourself that, you find yourself crawling out of bed and getting ready anyway. You can’t seem to brutally crush that small glimmer of hope that Donghyuck might still be there, no matter how hard you try. When you see yourself in the mirror, you recoil in horror. Your eyes are almost swollen shut from the amount of crying you did last night, and your face is sallow and lifeless.

So much for putting on a brave face, you think wryly to yourself. You tried so hard to look tough, when in reality, you bawled your eyes out and even considered praying to God for Donghyuck to stay. It’s a humiliating and humbling reality check.

“Stand up right now,” you sharply tell yourself in the mirror. “He’s just some guy. Get it together.”

You do your best to clean up your appearance and make the trek over to the bakery. It takes another internal pep talk before you can make your way to the door. After you finally walk up, you see that the lights inside are off. Your stomach sinks, and your eyes start to burn. Even though you’re holding the handle, you can’t bring yourself to open the door. It’s an outcome that you expected, yet you wonder why it hurts so badly.

“You liar,” you mumble to yourself, “You said you only wanted me to have happy memories.”

Once you make your way inside, you numbly head towards the kitchen, trying to remember what exactly you have to do today. Oh right, now that he’s not here, you also have to make sure all the ingredients are prepped first.

When you walk into the kitchen, you do a double-take.

The whole place looks like it’s been completely ransacked: used pans and utensils piled up in the sink, two opened boxes of cake mix, containers of ingredients without lids on on the tables, random lumps of flour and egg shells strewn about―

And right in front of the oven is Donghyuck, flour in his hair and frosting on his nose. He’s holding a cake stand with…you think it’s supposed to be a cake on it? The shape is mangled and haphazardly cut, but it has echoes of a heart. The frosting is a hot mess, as if a bird with diarrhea shat all over the cake. The batter is clearly underbaked and makes the cake look gooey in a bad way.

“Um, I promise I’ll clean all of this up in a second, but I wanted to surprise you,” Donghyuck starts awkwardly. “It’s not perfect, but I tried making a red velvet cake for you.”

You stare at him, still not sure how to react.

“You once said that baking is like baring your heart to the customer and that love is the most important ingredient of all,” he laughs softly to himself. “I think love is the only ingredient I managed to get right, but I’m baring my heart to you now, Y/N. I’m sorry I hid everything and lied to you, but I’m in love with you. Hopelessly so. All my life, I’ve chased a feeling, not knowing what it was. But now I do. I don’t think I knew how to feel until I met you. I never once thought I would ever have a purpose in my life, but you make me want to be a normal, proper member of society. Your dream is my dream. I want to wake up at 5AM and sell egg tarts with you for the rest of my life, if you’ll have me.”

Donghyuck sets the cake down on a table in front of you, and you notice that his fingers are dyed red from the food coloring. It almost reminds you of when you first met him, except his injuries have been replaced with red food coloring, flour, and cream cheese frosting.

“This cake is terrible,” you smile, “how did you butcher it that badly when you used cake mix?”

You watch him blush all the way down to his neck, as he sheepishly looks away. “Don’t make fun of me. I really tried my best. I stayed up watching tutorials―”

Leaning across the table, you cup his face with both hands and kiss him, brushing your thumbs across his cheekbones. He tastes like frosting, hot cocoa, and your prayers being answered. The way he kisses you back is bruising, dizzying and knocking any coherent thought out of your head, his hands finding your hips and anchoring you to him. He kisses you like you’re the sweetest and most wonderful thing he’s ever tasted.

When you finally pull away, it takes you a moment to regain feeling in your legs. Donghyuck presses his forehead against yours, lips brushing against yours once again as the two of you try to catch your breath.

“I think I’m going to have to fire you, though,” you whisper. “You know, with me being your boss and all. The power dynamic is too weird.”

He hums, pausing for thought. “Then how about I become your business partner?”

“What?”

Donghyuck reaches into his pocket and fishes out his wallet, pulling out a shiny and fancy-looking credit card. He hands it to you without much fanfare.

“I have a lot of money, you know. So I’m going to invest in your business. Use it as you’d like,” he casually announces.

You stare at him, your jaw hanging wide open. He never tried to hide from you that he was rich, but he never told you that he was rich rich.

“Well, damn! Why didn’t you show me this earlier? I would have forgiven you a lot sooner,” you tease, slapping him on the arm. “Are you sure you want to give this to me? I’m quite the gold-digger, you know.”

“When I told you to use it as you’d like, I meant me as well,” Donghyuck replies, shrugging.

“You’re insane.” You hope he can’t tell how much your face is burning up.

“I guess I am,” he laughs, and you don’t think he’s ever looked so free. You want to tell him that you hope he only has happy memories from now on too. You want to tell him that you’ll rewrite all of his scars with sugary and fluffy desserts so that they won’t ever hurt again.

And for the first time in your life, you feel it too.

Peace.

EXTRA

“So, have you figured out what your favorite dessert is?”

Donghyuck stirs slightly, groaning, as he wraps an arm around your waist and pulls you closer. He slips his hand under your shirt (well, technically it’s his shirt) and rests it on your bare hip bone.

“Why aren’t you asleep?”

“Because I’m curious.”

“If I answer, will you let me rest?”

“Depends on how good your answer is.”

“Blueberry pie. That’s my answer.”

You smile against the crook of his neck.

“Why?”

“Because it’s the dessert that made me realize I want to do this for the rest of my life.”

#i need him #as a baker girl myself im waiting for my own hyuck 😔#your dream is my dream WHAT IF I JUMP #and he's rich rich🤭#im so sad #need sweet-toothed fluffly hyuckie who has a troubled past #I CAN FIX HIM I SWEAR!!!!!!!!#im so down bad for hyuck oh god....

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taeeflwrr · 3 months ago

Text

the end was a punch to the gut....GIVE THEM THEIR HAPPY ENDING!!!!!

haechan - all my demons have your smile

demon!haechan x angel!reader genre: smut, angst, fluff if you're into it wc: 9.6k <3 warnings: dubcon-y & morally gray (reader is a literal angel and doesn't know a lot about anything so it's hard to give informed consent, haechan manipulates her emotions and dreams bc he's a demon), heavy on the corruption kink, wet dreams, masturbating (m), thigh riding / grinding, blowjobs and oral, fingering, haechan thick cock agenda, power dynamics (supernatural edition), sweet aftercare, overstim other warnings: angel demon lore is a mix of representation in pop culture and media and is very NOT based on its religious connotations a/n: happy birthday to me...ngl i wrote 40% of this either tipsy or drunk. this is for all the people who requested being corrupted by haechan….please lmk what you think i hope you guys like this!!! thank u to @saintlyhyuck for giving me the idea for writing demon hyuck <3

haechan thinks your reaction when he calls you angel is like a shot of pure pleasure in his veins.

"hey, angel."

you spin around, mouth falling open, flush high on your cheeks. "how could you…?"

in the dim light of the club, haechan can hardly believe his luck. he raises his eyebrows, leaning in closer to you, delighting in the way you tense. the glow of your skin growing stronger, the feathers of your wings – folded and poorly disguised as a halloween costume, beginning to rustle nervously.

how could he? more like how couldn't he, what with the way you looked then. the glow of your skin growing stronger, the feathers of your wings – folded and poorly disguised as a halloween costume, beginning to rustle nervously.

"what do you mean?" he smiles innocently, tilting his head to the side. he has to bite back a laugh at the sound of confusion you make, a small whimper in your throat. "angel is what i call all the pretty girls i see."

at the stricken look on your face, he lets his mouth fall open deliberately slowly, widening his eyes mockingly. "unless…you're a real angel?"

you look like a deer in headlights, trembling slightly, unsure of what to say. it was only your first night in the human world. you'd heard there were demons and devils roaming the streets, monsters and spirits hidden in shadowy corners who would hurt you for your wings, worse ones who would strip you of your skin. creatures who were dying to get ahold of an angel and figure out what made you glow, harvest parts of you which were so holy and undamaged. you weren't supposed to let anyone know who you were, least of all strange boys in dark and shadowy places.

haechan can feel his body burning. it's as if he's hyper-attuned to each breath you take, every single particle of you seeping with untainted innocence, something breathtakingly pure about the way you shake in your flimsy white dress. anticipation claws against his insides – he wants you, wants to learn every part of you, drink in your sweetness and choke on it.

he's never ruined an angel before. the thought of it sends a heavy pulse through him, right to his gut.

"relax…" he soothes. he wants to touch your skin, but he knows you might just burst into pure flame out of sheer fright. he softens his gaze as much as possible, tries to dim the desire. a soft smile on his face, he places a hand on his chest, to where his heart should be — if he had one.

"i'm an angel too."

you gasp, hands flying up to cover your mouth, relief flooding your system. "really?"

he nods, lips morphing into a comforting smile. his hand reaches out to touch your upper arm, stroking your skin soothingly. he almost moans with how soft-to-touch it is, your angel's glow tickling his fingers with warmth, spreading through his body and churning inside him.

"of course," he murmurs. "you're safe with me."

"if you're an angel…" you lean closer to him, wary of others who may be listening to your conversation. you couldn't believe your luck, finding another angel the first night you got here. breath fanning lightly over his face, you whisper, "where are your wings?"

he can't help it – his breath hitches. he's able to count your every eyelash, feel your chest rise and fall, pretty pink mouth so close to his. there's no suspicion at all in the way your eyes sparkle with innocent curiosity, wide and trusting.

he can't help it — he wants to see them fill with tears.

"you want to see my wings?" he murmurs, leaning down. brushing a light hand on your shoulder, he skims the glow of your skin, reaching behind you and letting the tips of his fingers brush the feathers of your wings.

you still. a strange feeling spreads through you, the room swimming slightly as it makes your head go light, settling deep inside your bones with a dark pulse. this is something you've never felt in heaven – and you're not sure if you want to scream, or run, or guide his hand further on your shoulder blades, letting them linger on places you're sure no angels would ever touch…

"can you show me?" your voice, achy and soft, is the only sound he can hear.

and he can't help but wonder, as he guides you towards the back door with a hand on the small of your back, your footsteps barely touching the ground, holy light misting around your body in dizzying waves, – what is an angel like you doing in a place like this?

you close your eyes, but open them to find yourself sitting up in an unfamiliar bedroom.

not the one you had just gone to sleep in - this one had dark silk sheets instead of your white ones, a red glow cast over everything from the lights above. it made you dizzy, and your mouth felt dry as you turned and realised you weren't alone.

the angel you just met was sleeping peacefully next to you, his wings tucked out of sight, skin glowing slightly even under the red light. one of his large hands rests on your thigh, and you suck in a breath at the sight of his veins protruding from his arms and over the back of his hands, long fingers seeming to burn against your skin.

something stirs in you, a heat you've never felt before that creeps all the way from your navel to the tips of your toes. you didn't know why, but you felt the urge to press your thighs together, letting out a small sigh at the tiny bit of relief it allowed you. you hardly know what you're doing, as if you're being controlled by some higher power or deeper desire, when you guide his hand between your legs with your own trembling ones.

his fingers twitch, and you freeze.

his eyes open slowly, nothing innocent about the way his eyes slide over your body and stop at where his hand is nestled between your legs. parting his lips, his eyes flick back to yours, a careful eyebrow raised.

"angel…what are you doing?"

"that's called a dream, sweetheart."

rubbing your eyes, you steady yourself on the kitchen counter. "so it's not real?"

"it's not," haechan assures you, kindly.

"is it…like…my imagination?"

"some dreams can be pure imagination, but sometimes dreams are our mind's way of letting us know what we want," he explains, purposefully. you sit there, lost in thought, as he brings out dishes from the kitchen and encourages you to eat breakfast.

while in the human realm, you were bound by the limitations of any human form – needing to sleep, being able to dream, having to eat and drink to sustain your energy. and although there were still aspects of your divinity which spilled over: such as your wings, and the heavenly fire which made you glow, haechan was much more interested in the other ways mortality would change you.

your propensity to feel lust and desire, primarily.

"so…" you chew on your lip. "the people in my dream…are they…actually….in there with me?"

haechan smiles to himself. "i don't know what you mean, angel," he fakes a look of genuine confusion when his eyes refocus on you. "who did you dream about last night?"

"you," you answer, honestly.

"really? what were we doing?"

you drop your fork.

haechan laughs lightly when you fumble for it on the ground, smiling serenely back at you when you straighten up, looking at him through your lashes.

"but, if you don't know…" you tilt your head to the side, slight hopefulness in your voice, "doesn't that mean you weren't actually in my dream last night?"

"well…" cocking his head to the side to match your own movements, he relishes the way you tense up when he makes eye contact. "we'll only know for sure if you tell me what you were dreaming about."

your hands fly to your mouth and you shake your head. haechan watches with fascination at the way you mist sparkling light, blush tinting your cheeks with embarrassment. "i don't want to say," you whisper.

you don't have to say anything. haechan still remembers the way you had looked at him when he opened his eyes, the thrill of feeling you guide his hand to your core.

dipping into your dreams had been easier than usual, your mind offering up no resistance at all and handing over all reins of control to him.

"angel?"

it takes him a second to realize you're referring to him.

"yes?"

"i realised i don't know your name."

he only hesitates for a split second. "it's haechan," he decides. full-sun – a typical angel name. you test it on your tongue, carefully forming the sounds, and he savors it.

he can't wait for nighttime again.

the second time you wake up in a dream, you almost feel at ease in the familiar red-light flooded bedroom, relaxing further when you realise it's empty this time.

this is just my imagination, you remind yourself.

getting up from the bed, you tiptoe over to the window, looking out at the starry sky. it calms you even further, giving you the courage to turn around and explore your surroundings. aside from a bedside cabinet, and the ridiculously large bed, the room was quite empty.

wondering what lay beyond the bedroom, you make your way to the door of the bedroom, and your hand is just on the doorknob when-

"angel."

if this was just your imagination, then why did it seem so real?

haechan lay on the bed you woke up in, one hand fisting the black silk sheets while the other traced down his body, writhing with what looked like pain. his eyes were closed, lips parted as he let out small sounds of some emotion you couldn't quite place.

even as you try to take in what you're seeing, your mind races as you pick up a million other details. you've never seen him in clothes like this before — straps and buckles adorning his chest and pulling in his waist sharply so that you can catch every heaving breath he takes. and when his hand slides lower, ghosting under the waistline of his pants, the soft fabric shifts and you can faintly see the shape of something twitching between his legs.

"haechan?" crossing over to the bed quickly, you place a hand on his shaking thigh, withdrawing it as if scalded when his back arches and he lets out a moan. "sorry-" you blurt out, "did i hurt you?"

"angel," he whimpers, eyes still closed as he rubs his palm over the front of his pants, his other trailing up under his shirt and teasing over his chest. "fuck-" you suck in a sharp breath at the profanity.

you know there's something wrong about the scene before you. there's nothing holy in the way he tilts his head back to let out a slew of sounds, the line between what was pain and what was pleasure blurring as his lips glisten with saliva, and when he slides that familiar veiny hand underneath his waistband, you could swear he purred.

and surely, there was something desperately wrong with you too, because the ache between your thighs that you felt the last night was now burning something unbearable, and you felt the urge to reach out and touch him, hear what sounds he would make under your fingertips, beg him to open his eyes so you can see that hungry look again.

his body stills.

his breathing slowly calms down, his hands slowly releasing himself from under his clothes, falling limply on the sheets. silence fills the room again and static buzzes so loud in your ears you feel like you're about to burst into flames. you don't know what you're doing, as you reach for one of his hands, guiding it towards your mouth as you dart out the tip of your tongue to taste the sticky white substance coating his fingertips.

and then his eyes open, staring directly at you.

"haechan?"

"mmhm?"

"did you dream, yesterday?" you ask him, hesitantly.

"yeah," he answers, easily.

"what did you dream about?"

"nothing much. i was in bed, –" a small gasp, and another sound as the mug in your hands slips and falls onto the table with a small thud. he grins, continuing to work on the wards guarding your front door, listening to you clean up behind him. "why? was i in your dream again?"

a long pause. "kind of."

when he turns, you're looking at him guiltily, hands clasped tightly in front of you as you twist your fingers this way and that.

"angel…" he soothes, but the name only makes you shiver. crossing over to you, he pulls you into a comforting hug, your body relaxing under his touch as you lean your head against his chest. you can hear his words through his chest, a low hum filling your ears and making you feel so safe.

"the dreams…" you admit, softly. "they're so scary…and confusing…i wish i didn't have to dream anymore, i don't think i like it at all…"

"do you want me to stay by your side when you fall asleep again? i can wake you when the dreams make you uncomfortable."

you nod, eyes shining up at him with adoration and gratitude.

he just can't wait for nighttime again.

you can't fall asleep.

haechan holds you against his chest, one of his thighs slotted carelessly between yours. he's resting peacefully, looking angelic under the moonlight, an arm slung protectively around your waist. but if it weren't for your white sheets and your familiar bedroom – adorned with flowers you had picked and shiny trinkets he collected for you, you would have mistaken it for another dream because of the desperate heat that throbbed inside you.

you didn't know what to do to relieve the pain, body shifting clumsily as you tried to move your hips or rub your thighs against each other, the movement blocked by the way your legs were tangled together. frustrated, you give your hips a rough pulse against his thigh, and freeze when the sensation offers you more than a little relief, an insidious sweetness in your core.

you move your hips again, grinding gently on his plush thighs, then a little harder as you realise it feels better the more friction there is as you rub against him. and now you're positively humping his leg, breaths coming quick and fast, whines seeping out from behind your closed lips as you try to make the pain go away, chasing pleasure as it comes.

"angel?"

a rough hand grips your waist, and you gasp.

haechan's wide eyes meet yours, darker than you've ever seen before, and for some reason when his hand squeezes your side you find yourself shifting even more uncontrollably against him, seeking the friction you craved.

"i'm sorry!" your voice comes out as a whimper, as you try to back away from him. the room is burning hot, dizzying heat making you gulp. "i don't know what came over me, i just really-" your whole body flooded with shame and guilt, you pull his hand away from where it squeezes your waist.

"hey, hey, it's okay…" in the moonlight, you can see his face morph into an expression of understanding, a sense of authority in the way he helps you sit up and pulls you into his lap. he sweeps you into his arms, and you feel safer than ever before as you straddle him, your body melting with his as you nuzzle your face into his chest, still feeling the aftershocks of embarrassment when you realize he just caught you doing something so unspeakable to his unconscious body.

you whimper out another apology, letting each stroke of your hair calm you down as he hums, low in his chest, the sound shooting straight to your core in a way that both thrills and frightens you.

"is this what the dreams were about?"

"yes," you mumble, the sound of your heartbeat still rushing in your ears. timidly, you lift your head to meet his gaze. "i don't know why this is happening, i've never felt this way before…"

"like this?" his hand slowly snakes down in between your legs, cupping your core with his large hand. the heel of his hand presses against some part of your core, and you keel over into him again, body shuddering as your hips buck into his hand instinctively, as if you were made to react that way. soft whimpers rise from the back of your throat as you nod in response to his question, body moving clumsily as you grind against his fingers.

haechan swallows, hard. the image of his angel, dressed in that tissue-paper thin white nightgown, humping desperately against his hand like a bitch in heat, was more arousing than he could have ever anticipated. he wants to push you down to the bed and fuck you hard, splitting you apart on his cock and making you beg to cum, he wants to-

"help me-," you pant in his ear, hips now moving in jagged circles, as if your body can't decide whether to lean into the pleasure or move away from it. "please, i don't know what's happening…"

"angel, do you trust me?" he murmurs, quietly.

the answering moan you let out punctures the air. "mmphh…

yes…" you gulp, hands now pawing at his chest as he ghosts his fingers over your clothed core.

"then trust me when i say that all angels experience this," he advises, calmly. you're enraptured by his every word, and he leans even closer to you as he presses an insistent finger against your clit, smiling to himself as your body shudders.

hopefully, you gasp into his neck. "really?"

dipping his fingers under your panties, he begins to rub slow circles on your clit, relishing the way you shake under his touch. "of course," he murmurs, voice dropping an octave.

pressure begins to build up in your core as you submit to the feeling. you close your eyes, feeling him rub and pinch at your clit in a way that makes your hips jerk and your thighs go weak. you push your hips into his lap, not even really sure about what you're doing, being met with something hard that makes you whimper as it ghosts over your clothed cunt. strangely, when your hips meet his, haechan also lets out a pained groan, the hand at your core speeding up, wet sounds filling the room as he dips lower and lower, fingers tracing around your slit as he throws his head back and lets out a moan.

"am i hurting you?" you ask, panicked, hips stuttering to an unsteady halt as you place both palms flat on his chest, trying to push yourself away from what was threatening to unravel you. "haechan i'm so sorry, i must be really bad at this-"

he interrupts you with a searing kiss, his mouth moving against yours, tongue stroking into your mouth and claiming all your sounds. pulling you back against his body, his hips drag sinfully upwards, grinding into you with just the smallest hint of desperation.

feeling you fuck yourself against his clothed cock, mind clouded with desire and not a single idea of what you were doing – knowing he could corrupt you in so many different ways, had his head spinning with all the possibilities.

"you're perfect, angel." pushing you so you lay flat against the bed, he clambers over your body, all the while sponging kisses on your neck with a sweet tenderness.

"but," you shake your head, trying to get rid of the haze in your mind. "you sound like you're in pain, and-"

"you wanna make it better, angel?"

nodding vigorously, you sit up and almost hit your forehead against his. "please!" you beg, hands fumbling beyond your control as you struggle with the the waistband of his pants, trying to tug them down so you can see what he was doing in your last dream, so you could help with where it hurts. "i want to help, i want to make you feel good…"

his hands sweep your wrists into a tight grip, and your movements freeze. you look up at him, breath caught in your throat.

"from now on, angel…" he traps your hands above your head, his other dragging your nightgown up your waist with a flat palm, still trying to feel as much soft skin under his hands as possible. "can you be quiet for me? can you do that, sweetheart?"

you nod, bottom lip snug as you bite down on it. he knows you won't be able to hold it for long.

"i'm going to make you feel so good, angel," he breathes, hand now tugging your panties down your legs at a sinful pace. he answers your silent question with a smile. "feel how wet you are? do you know what this means, baby?" he taunts, quietly.

"all of this…" he slides two fingers against your slick core, smiling as your hips thrust up, your body responding to him and completely out of your control. "all of this shows me how much you like me, angel."

one long finger slides into your core, and he lets out a filthy groan at the way your tight pussy sucks him in, tight and eager.

"have you ever touched yourself here before?"

you shake your head. "i didn't know i could," you mumbled, hips still stuttering, fucking yourself on his finger. "haechan…it feels so…"

he starts to slide his finger out, thrusting it slowly against your walls, this thumb comes out to rub your clit, and your back arches, a gasp wrenched from your throat as you cum, uncontrollably, all over his hand.

pulling his hand out from your core and freeing your wrists, he silences every single one of your gasps with a kiss, tenderly nipping at your lips as his hands roam over your body. he just made his angel cum for the first time.

"m-more," you pant, hands scratching down his back as you attempt to thrust up against his stomach. "haechan- i don't mean to be greedy, but i want… i want…"

two fingers slide easily into your core, your moans morphing into a pleasurable sigh as your eyes roll back in your head, drunk on a feeling you've never felt before. a slow heat crawls around your body, wrapping itself around you and suffocating until all you can think about are his veiny hands, the hard length in his pants, and the way you still felt empty even as he pushed a third finger into you.

"you see how your cunt just sucks my fingers in?" his voice is baby-talk pitched, and you fall even harder under his spell, nodding vigorously as your thighs clamp shut around his hand. "such an insatiable, needy slut… thought you were supposed to be an angel, hmm?" you claw at his body, hips moving in time with the way his fingers were moving in and out of you.

haechan feels like he's in seventh heaven, the way you're losing your mind over just his hand, obsessive over a feeling you can't even articulate. he crooks his fingers against your walls, a triumphant glow thundering in his chest when he sees you fall apart even more.

it's when you're on the brink of cumming for a second time, your body glowing like a bonfire, spilling light all over the room, when he suddenly withdraws his hand. leaning back against the headboard, he tugs his pants down and feels his thick cock slap up against his stomach, precum glistening from the angry red tip.

he's not prepared for the sight of you, on all fours, crawling towards him, eyes wide and begging. as if in a trance, your hand reaches towards his cock, and your palm wraps around it curiously, giving it a hard stroke. his lets out another groan, one of his own hands wrapping around yours and encouraging you to squeeze even harder, focusing your attention on the tip and covering it with your fingers.

"i know a way that can make both of us feel good." he makes sure there's nothing but sincerity in his eyes as he watches your head shoot up in excitement.

"how?"

pulling you into his lap again, and whispering his words sinfully against your lips, he coaxes you with a quick nip to your bottom lip, a swipe of his tongue against yours. "let me fuck your sweet cunt, hm?" he pants. fingers sliding expertly into your cunt, he wraps an arm around your waist as he makes scissoring motions in you, stretching you out. "bet you feel so empty…" he pouts, nodding sympathetically towards you. "i can fill you up so good, angel, you'll realize this is what you were made for…"

your mind is slipping out of your grasp. you forget everything about being an angel, about how weird it felt to be touched like this, how you never once had another angel touch you between your legs, ideas of purity and innocence and sin blurring in a happy haze.

"are you…" you gulp, eyeing the girth of his cock, the way it twitched under your palm as you squeezed. "are you sure it'll fit…in me?" you wonder aloud.

"would you rather have me fuck your throat, angel?"

"would that work?" and fuck, you're back on your knees, head dangerously close to his cock as your tongue darts out, licking up a shiny bead of precum from his slit. he's frozen in place as he watches you nuzzle your face against it, making a soft whiny sound at the back of your throat as you messily tongue at the base, his cock twitching against the soft skin of your cheek. "i don't…" you lap tentatively at his tip, using a hand to steady yourself on his thigh, the other gripping his cock and gently sucking the tip into your mouth, withdrawing when you feel the stretch against your lips. "i don't think it'll fit…"

"come here," he croaks, arms coming up to steady you as you rush up to meet him, doe-eyes searching his for answers to this desperate desire he's instilled within you.

"i need you," you whimper, frustratedly. "haechan please, i'll be good for you, just make this feeling go away…"

his cock teases over your entrance, and your moan rips through the half-finished sentence on your lips.

"feels good?" he murmurs, kissing you deeply again as he thrusts up gently into you. "sit on it, don't be shy angel…"

steadying yourself on his shoulders, you sink down on him, stopping every few seconds as you feel a slight stretch. the prep you've done with his fingers and all the teasing allowing your walls to give way to him, snugly sucking him in as you pulse around his member. every time you whimper, wings fluttering where they were folded against your back, he kisses you gently, hands stroking up and down your spine and distracting you from the sensation in your lower half.

"just a bit more, baby…" he bottoms out in you, a satisfied groan rumbling in his chest as he squeezes you into his embrace, your arms wrapped around him, craving his skin against yours as you shudder. he's already ripping your nightgown from your body, the luscious feeling of bare skin making you purr in delight.

your palms skid over his skin, settling on his shoulders as he gives a rough thrust upwards, and you feel his cock drag heavy against your walls. his hand moves purposefully over to your clit, mimicking a vibrating motion with his fingers so you only clench tighter around him. when you cum again – the inner sides of your thighs now so wet that the filthiest sounds fill the room every time your hips meet, he feels lke he could do this forever.

slowing down his movements, he gently pushes your hair out of your face to give you a little break. "how do you feel, angel?" he asks, softly.

"g-good…" you hiccup, swivelling your hips this way and that, trying to find a rhythm now that he had stilled within you.

he hums, still not moving, enjoying the way you squirm in his lap. "something wrong?"

"it hurts…" you whine, now bouncing on his lap, nails digging into his shoulders. "it hurts when you don't move, haechan, please…"

"do you believe me when i said you were made for me?"

"yes," you rasp out, as he starts to fuck into you again, making you feel every ridge and vein on his cock as he grinds up into you, blunt tip insistent against your sweet spot and making you feel that mind-numbing pleasure again.

"is this all you're good for, angel? sitting in my lap, looking pretty…" he bites down on your neck, and you let out a soft cry. "being fucked open on me…"

you nod, words leaving you as you melt under his strong grip.

"making me so happy, angel," he murmurs, and you smile dopily up at him, panting.

"you like making me happy?'

you nod, swallowing hard as you work yourself into a frenzy, and he loves it, loves the way you rock your hips into his at an embarasing pace, sensitivity all at once too much for you and never enough. he watches as your eyes roll back into your head, wings bursting open with the sheer force of how hard you cum, walls squeezing him so tight that he can barely move as he lets go too. you gasp when you feel his warmth painting your walls, a new sensation on top of everything you've experienced that night making you let out a distressed whine.

"be good for me, angel, hmm?" he coaxes, pulling you harder down onto his lap so you can't free yourself from his embrace. "let me fill you up."

dumbly, succumbing to the way he pulls you in for another kiss, you let your eyelids flutter shut, an overwhelming sense of fatigue flooding your entire system. until the room goes blurry at the edges, and the last thing you're aware of is haechan's hands sliding low on your navel, feeling where he was buried deep inside you, hands pressing against the way you bulge out — his pretty little angel stretched out and filled with him.

he's never fucked an angel before, so it almost comes as a shock when he catches a glimpse of you on his way out of your bathroom, immobile on your bed, skin drained of all its heavenly glow, a dullness so abrupt he freezes.

if he was to be honest, which he almost never had to be, his original plan had included leaving immediately after he got you in his bed. he had only been drawn to the idea of defiling an angel, filling you up with a need you never felt before, staining the glow of innocence that lit up your skin from beneath.

he wanted the sight of you on your knees — of tears rolling down your cheeks. but he never prepared for this –

haechan.

your voice murmurs in his head, and he can hear how hoarse and fragile it is. he doesn't dare to move as he watches you, so motionless you're barely breathing, your body shielded by your wings and drawing his attention to how your feathers look like they would crumble into ashes.

your voice creeps into his head again, and it's like some form of sick retribution – first he plays with your dreams, and now he doesn't know if it's really your voice in his mind or if it's some sort of guilt that seeped out of you and into him.

haechan?

he moves without meaning to, the next thing he knows he's sitting on the edge of the bed, his hands sliding against the sheets towards you.

"angel?"

your eyes open to look at him, and through the haze of fatigue and your slow blinking, he can see that you're terrified.

what's happening to me?

he touches the tip of your wing. he pitches his voice low, and soothing.

"you're just adjusting from being in the human world," he murmurs.

what if what we just did was wrong? tears well up in your eyes, and your lips part in a silent cry. haechan, i've never felt like this before…

he shushes you with a soft sound, leaning over to gather up your limbs and hold you against his chest, rocking you back and forth as he murmured praises into your hair.

"how could it be wrong if it felt so good, angel?" wiping away your tears with a careful finger, he smiles encouragingly at you, pressing a light kiss to your cheek.

you nod, hanging onto his every word, letting it wash over you as your truth.

"and also…" his voice dips. "didn't you see how happy you made me just now?" he murmurs, lips nipping at your ear. "don't you like making me happy?"

you nod again.

hesitating, his hand cups your face, stroking over your jaw. he knows what would make you stronger again — something he read about angels surfacing in his mind before, recalling how your power was usually most concentrated in the column of your throat, and why it was extra sensitive. creatures would slit your throat for just a taste of your angel's grace, but if he were just to touch you at your sweet spot, feel your divinity underneath his fingertips and coax it to grow stronger with his own powers…

quietly, so as not to startle you, he slides his hand to your neck, tracing his fingertips over where your pulse point would be. your body begins to stir as he rubs circles closer to the back of your neck, limbs twitching back to life and falling limp again.

"how does it feel, angel?" he asks, softly.

your lips part. "strange…" your voice is raw, a hollow and broken sound. "never felt this before…"

he reaches the nape of your neck, and suddenly your hand flies up to grab his wrist in a strong hold – halting his movements and causing him to freeze as your nails dig into his skin, threatening to pierce through to his veins. "don't-!"

"i'm not going to hurt you," he murmurs, voice dripping patience and tenderness as he slowly pries each of your fingers off his wrist, interlocking his other hand with yours. "this is going to feel really good, okay?"

your body continues to squirm against his, finger locking his in a death grip as he ghosts his hand over the nape of your neck, finally locating your most vulnerable spot judging by the way you let out a soft sound in his ear. he applies more pressure, massaging his fingers in soothingly and whispering praises to drown out your whimpering.

and sure enough, your glow begins to come back – starting from where his hand held yours, a warm golden light which flowed through your veins and under your skin, your body heating up and enveloping him in that blissful glow again. you taste sweet when he presses a careful kiss to your collarbone, and if he listens closely he can almost hear your body hum with power, wings fluttering against your back as their ashy color seems to wash itself off, replaced with the pristine glow he'd taken a liking to.

"haechan?"

"yes, angel?"

"when can we do that again?" you mumble, shyly.

fuck that – he was beginning to grow obsessed with you.

strolling with you outside, haechan lets the fresh air wash over him and calm him down. you look ethereal next to him, passerby's eyes glazing over when they catch sight of the way you seem to glide rather than walk, peering curiously at the different shop windows and dreamily staring at the stars above. possessively, he wraps an arm around your waist just so anyone who looks at you looks at him too, and realises you're his as much as he was yours.

"this is so pretty," you whisper to him, tugging him to a display of diamond jewelry up ahead. he's learnt that you like shiny things and the smell of spring-time, that he could make your skin glitter by gently nipping at your bottom lip when he kissed you. looking at you and completely ignoring the jewels behind glass, he takes in the familiar look of love in your eyes and smiles.

he could have robbed the store for you before you even had the time to blink. a snap of his fingers and the very necklace you were pointing at could have made its way onto your neck. or he could have had some fun with you and convinced you to steal it, coax you into doing one more terrible thing.

but he pulls you into the store anyway – even as you latch onto his arm nervously, tugging at his sleeve telling him you don't need the pretty jewels. but still he patiently converses with the store attendant, encouraging you to pick out the pieces you liked the most, enjoying the genuine happiness in your eyes as he spoiled you with gifts.

when the attendant is busying himself in the back room, you peek over at him with barely contained excitement, pressing a quick kiss to his lips.

"i'll make it up to you," you breathe, arms hooked around his neck.

"how?"

"i…" you look at him through your lashes, and he can feel your skin heat up. "i can do that thing you talked about last time…"

"what thing?" he presses, pulling you closer so all of your attention is focused on him.

you barely notice, caught up in your thoughts. "when i asked…and you told me…"

"angel," he says, lowly. his voice is more raspy than he thought it would be, rough with need. "i won't know what you mean if you don't say it-"

"you can fuck my throat," you say, softly. he searches your eyes and sees that you're embarrassed, yes, even a little guilty at the crude words which your lips just formed, but there's no trace of fear at all. you trust him wholly and completely, your breathing tinged with desperation as it picks up, as you brush up closer to him. when he doesn't respond, you hesitate a little, trying to decipher his expression. "if…if you still want to."

"want to?" he murmurs.

"i might not be very good at it, but you can teach me-"

groaning, he swallows the rest of your sentence with a hungry kiss, the kind that lifts you off your feet and makes you feel like you're flying and falling all at once.

he takes you home in an instant, dropping the bags of necklaces and diamonds as he pushes you roughly against the bedroom door. you slide to your knees in between his spread legs, his pretty angel, eyeing him with a maddeningly innocent look of wonder on your face.

"how…how are you going to…"

"do you want me to teach you?"

you nod excitedly, hands now stroking his thighs absentmindedly, and he has to stifle a groan.

"what if…" he clears his throat. "what if i changed my mind? what if i don't want to teach you anymore?"

"please-" your eyes widen with fear. "i'll be good for you..." he still looks unconvinced, so more words fall at random from your lips. "and if i'm not good enough, you can punish me-"

pulling you up, he kisses you harshly. it was almost as if you were rotten through and through, and it was all because of him.

"i don't think there will be a need for punishments, angel," he assures you, gently pushing you back down on your knees as he shoves his pants down, tongue poking into his cheek and stretching his puffy lips apart as he watches the way you eye his cock almost hungrily.

you start out by taking just the tip into your mouth, suckling on it lightly and letting go with a gasp when you feel like you can't breathe. he trains you through it, coaxing you to take more and more, holding your head down when you feel like giving up and stroking your face encouragingly every time you smile back at him, lips messy with drool and precum, eager for his approval.

he finally gets you to sink down on him — feel your hot wet tongue licking over his veins, shoving your way through and choking yourself on his length, nose hitting his navel as your nails dig into his thighs with pain, trying desperately hard to breathe through your nose like he taught you as he fucks his hips up experimentally.

it's like one of his filthiest fantasies, the way he pulls out to cum all over your face — your mouth lewdly open and trying to lick up as much of him as you could, unaware of how it made you look.

"i'm sorry, angel," and he swears he almost feels it, as he pushes his fingers deep into you, rewarding you for your good behavior. "next time, i won't make it so messy."

but you shake your head vigorously, back arching into his chest as your thighs clamp around his hand. "'m always making a mess of you too," you mumble, blush spreading to the tips of your ears as you smile up at him. "i don't mind you making a mess of me."

drawing away from your body, he keeps his eyes on you the whole time he crawls down to situate himself between your legs. he keeps his eyes on you so he can catch the first look of surprise, confusion, and pure desire that spreads across your face when he sucks your clit into his mouth.

"sometimes, i wish you could hear the things you say to me the way that i hear them." he laps at your entrance, and you swear you see stars. "you're so filthy, angel."

and in the darkness of the room, you glow even brighter with pride.

haechan feels a little stupid right now, sitting in his booth, letting some human girl put her hands all over him and hoping you're watching.

"i'll only be a minute," he had murmured into your ear. "have something to take care of."

and for the past 5 minutes he's played his part well – fingers tilting her chin up so he can whisper words into her ear and brush his lips against her neck. playing with strands of her hair, eyes half-lidded and body slumped against hers, legs carelessly spread. he knows it's making her dizzy simply being around him, his body radiating lust.

it's when she slides into his lap that he finally feels your eyes on him, picking up on the way your breath hitches in a small gasp from all the way across the room. he doesn't bother to hide his smile as he rubs his thumbs on the girl's bare waist in slow, tantalizing circles. begging for you to take the bait.

all the way across the room, your body tenses, hands trembling slightly as your vision zeroes in on haechan and the girl draped over him. you watch as she guides his eager hands up her thighs, the glint of his smile almost blinding in the dark. something roars inside your chest, clawing at your lungs, an acidic something you've never felt before threatening to melt you from the inside out as you watch her lean in towards him, lips dragging across his jaw where you had kissed him last.

haechan closes his eyes when he feels her lean in, lips falling open as he mimics the look of someone lost in pleasure, hoping to rile you up even more. her lips barely brush his skin before he feels something searing hot take its place, pure pain rippling up from his palms where he was touching her skin. his eyes shoot open as he sits up with a jolt, but he doesn't have to look long to understand what happened.

the lifeless body of the human girl slumps to the dirty floor of the club. towering above her, wings fully extended, skin glowing so bright he could hardly make out your features, you look down at him with gold flashing in your eyes.

"when you said you had something to take care of, did you mean her?"

exhilaration races through him, your jealousy and your anger feeding each pump of blood in his veins.

"angel-"

he starts to speak, but you cut him off with a tight hand on his wrist.

"no."

light briefly darts across his vision, the scene melting like wax as your bedroom materialises soundlessly around the both of you.

he didn't even know you could do that.

when you let go of his wrist, your wings are folded again, your skin returned to its normal pale glow. but there's nothing normal about the way you sink onto him on the bed, his body pliant under your touch in a way he isn't even able to control, all semblance of the power he just gained draining from him as you put your hands on his chest.

"did i do something wrong?" you murmur, your voice lower than he had ever heard it. "is that why you went looking for her?"

his lips part, mouthing soundlessly as your weight shifts on him. he had forgotten how to speak, the way you were looking at him stealing his breath from his lungs and turning his mind to mush.

"why did you let her touch you?" you demanded, a slight growl to your voice he never heard before. "hm?"

"i'm s-sorry," he whispered.

"do you want her?" your eyes flash dangerously, your skin burning hot to touch now, wings rustling along your shoulder blades. your hair moving unnaturally despite there being no wind in the room, reaching out and curling in lazy tendrils at the base of his neck. "are you thinking of her right now?"

dazed and drunk on your voice, he shakes his head, eyes never moving from yours. drool glistens on his lips, his body numb under your spell.

"want me, haechan," you breathe, pressing yourself into him needily, dipping your head so you can feel his labored breathing on your lips, lips brushing his as you beg – when really you have him under your complete control. "tell me you want me, just me." you push your hips against him, and he can feel himself throb with need.

"i want you," he whimpers. "fuck, angel, i want you so bad, please-"

"show me," you murmur, your nails scratching down his chest and making him moan out breathily as you lift your weight from his. moving so you lie back against the headboard, you watch as he takes a second to catch his breath before scrambling up, eyes wild and movements jerky.

positioning himself in between your legs, his hands drag your skirt up your thighs haphazardly, breath hitching when he sees you're already bare for him.

"angel," he says without thinking, "fuck, angel, you're perfect." he dips his tongue into your cunt, moaning loudly and lewdly as your sweet arousal floods his tastebuds. sloppily moving his mouth over your folds, his tongue circles your clit expertly before dipping down to collect your juices. he moves his head this way and that, mindlessly holding you in place with strong arms as he licks his tongue as deep into you as it will go. your thighs clamp tight around his head, and he lets out a muffled sob of approval, his stiffened tongue pushing past your tight entrance and nose bumping your clit with his movements.

you can feel your climax approaching, your body trained by him to respond to his touches. thrusting your hips into his face, he frees a hand to slip a finger into your tight hole, mumbling with pleasure when he feels you suck him in.

"want my angel to cum," he begs, desperation dripping from his tone. the pads of his fingers brush your sweet spot, the warmth of your skin spiking again as the feeling makes you glow with pleasure, trapping him in a heat haze between your thighs. "my pretty angel," he hums approvingly, slipping in another finger. your hips twist this way and that but he pins you down firmly with his arm, stretching you out with his fingers as his lips move back to your clit. his mind is flooded with the thought of you and your pleasure, your small whimpers and each tremble of your body making his body buzz with satisfaction. his mind wiped clean of everything but your smell and taste. he spells out your name with his tongue, silken movements on your clit paired with rough drags of his fingertips against your walls finally making you release all over his face.

he moans as he laps it up, sticking his fingers in his mouth to savor it. dizzy, he blinks up at you, feeling lightheaded as reality rushes towards him in a tidal wave.

what the fuck did you just do to him?

"angel." he starts, shaking his head to clear it again, loosening himself from your grip. "what did you…"

"did I hurt you?" you cup his face in your hands in one swift movement, tilting his head up so his eyes remain fixed on yours. "haechan? is everything okay?"

it's the way you say his name that pulls him right under again. gold specks dance in your eyes as your voice lowers, and it's like you slow time, and he can see your every word hang in the air, feel your angel's glow seep from the pads of your fingers into his bones and liquify every particle of him.

"i-i…" he stammers. "angel…"

"why did you stop?" his pretty pink mouth falls open when you place a thumb on his lower lip, his eyes glazing over as you let out a needy whine. "haechan…"

wordlessly, because he's forgotten all forms of language, he pulls you into his lap, letting you straddle him as he blinks up at you adoringly. kissing your collarbones, he removes your dress with shaky movements, reduced to nothing more than a human, forgetting to use his powers entirely as he shoves his own clothes away.

his lips never leave your skin, sucking messy bruises and nuzzling his nose against your warmth. you're misting light in a hypnotic glow, and he's sure it's the reason why he's so hard it hurts, shaky hands now ghosting over your hips as he tries to stop himself from cumming untouched.

"will you be good for me?"

amidst the fog in his brain, arousal shoots through him when he hears the words rise from your throat, and he bucks his hips up instinctively. his cock slides against your folds, and he lets out a choked sob, gripping onto your hips even tighter as he throws his head back.

"i'm yours", he whimpers, hips shallowly thrusting up into you. a high pitched moan rips from his throat as he feels you sink down on him, gummy walls clenching onto him like never before.

"are you mine?" you murmur, neediness still dripping from every syllable even as you have him reacting to your slightest touches like a livewire. you circle your hips, causing his to stutter.

his arms wrap around your body, worshiping you with his touch. "i'm yours," he trembles, hips thrusting up to pound further into your heat. you clench hard around him, and he loses all control, cumming into you with an embarrassed whimper, his head falling against your chest. he slows to a stop as he feels himself coat your walls, sensitivity making him hiss.

"more," you urge, and his body reacts to the command before he realises what he's doing, thrusting up into you again as his voice cracks and jumps like a broken record. through tears in his eyes, he admires the way you look as you bounce on him, chest heaving and skin flushed, the soft sounds you make. he speeds up even as it hurts, a hand snaking in between your bodies to press at your clit, rubbing it in quick motions.

"angel," he whimpers, like a prayer, breathing rough and shallow. "angel." you trace a hand on his cheek, and he nuzzles his face into it, bucking up into you with more fervor. he'd do anything to make you feel good, in that moment, no matter what it took.

he cums when you do, feeling slick ooze out from where he was stuffed into you. he doesn't stop rubbing your clit, forcing your walls to clench in spasms around him. whimpering against your lips, you let him drive you into overstimulation as he fucks his spent cock into you again, dribbling out the last bit of cum he had left.

when he pulls out of you, letting out a last gasp of pain, your eyelids are already starting to droop. the room is cold and silent without your glow, and he watches dazedly as you drain of all light again, a dullness spreading from in between your wings, faster than the last time. his whole body feels sore and spent, his arms barely able to hold you up as you slump against him. you look fucked out, and ashen, and —

he pulls you in for a soft kiss. moving his mouth gently over yours, feeling stronger when you sigh into his mouth. his fingers caress the inner edge of your wings gently, moving to stroke comforting circles down your spine, his hand eventually trailing its way to the nape of your neck.

"haechan…"

"is this okay?" he murmurs, applying gentle pressure with his fingertips. your noses brush as you blink sleepily up at him, and he watches a little bit of glow flicker to life in your eyes, feeling your skin warm under his touch. you squirm a little in his arms, head nuzzling into his neck and throat letting out a soft whimper.

"why…" you bite your lip as he applies a bit more pressure, "why is it always you taking care of me?"

the answer comes to him easier than breathing. "because you're my angel."

"but i-"

he gently maneuvers you around in his lap, strong arms lifting you so your back faces him instead. brushing your hair aside and gathering it up in one hand with a tenderness you can't even begin to place, his plush lips begin to graze your neck, reverently sponging kisses on the sweet spot he's had burned into his memory. you tilt forward, tingles running down your spine, but his arms encircle you and pull you back until you're almost flush against his chest.

this time, when he presses a soft kiss to your skin, warmth rushes through you like a shot of pure light through storm clouds, your whole body alight.

"i want to take care of you too," you say, quietly. and then, bolder, "i don't know if i'm just weak because i haven't been here very long, but this never seems to affect you like it affects me…"

"you're not weak, baby," another kiss, a gentle brush of his forefinger. "you're just an angel."

"but you're an angel too," you insist.

haechan's chest aches.

you continue, "and you never seem to grow weak whenever we…whenever we…"

"that's because you're always so good for me." now burying his face in your neck, he pulls you closer in his arms, closing his eyes so he can breathe you in. "you're too good for me, angel."

you relax in his hold, and when he next opens his eyes, you're glowing as bright as all the stars in heaven put together.

haechan thinks of the way you reacted when he first called you angel, weeks ago, in this very club.

now, the air is sticky, and it clings to his skin too uncomfortably. bodies press up against him, eyes seeking his, but he doesn't meet any of them – his mind in a completely different place.

your skin glows gently even in the dark bedroom.

you lie on your chest, wings folded against the sheets, your face turned towards the side so that he can see just a hint of your features in the shadows. even as he backs towards the door, he feels the inexplicable urge to wake you from your sleep, if anything to see your eyes open again, drink in the doe-eyed sweetness. the entire time he sweeps through your apartment – carelessly erasing the traces of his presence, picking up his jacket, pocketing shiny trinkets he bought you, — he wishes you would wake up and cling close to him the way you always used to in the mornings. longing to feel the light on his skin again, your touch hesitant and needy all at once.

lust, envy, wrath, pride – all of these meant nothing to him, but watching the way they drained you, and realizing that by corrupting you he was killing you softly every night…it clawed at him like nothing ever had before.

looking up from his drink, he's startled to come face to face with a girl he's never seen before. her smile doesn't reach her eyes as she reaches out to touch his hand, fingers drawing practiced circles on his wrist.

he didn't tamper with your dreams the night he left, but still he wondered if you were dreaming of him.

he takes a deep breath.

"hey, angel."

taglist: @jenomov, @91qowngus, @sundhaelatte, @jaemboi64, @sassy-author, @matchahyuck, @prdshobi, @smwhrinthehaze, @yesohhsehun, @chimiwimi, @haechaniesunshine, @hyukiebb (can't tag- sorry!)

#love demon!hyuck #need that #so yummy

1K notes · View notes

taeeflwrr · 3 months ago

Text

this was so perfect loved the writing and the plot so so much

wave | lee donghyuck (part two)

part 1 | masterpost | full fic not split in two

pairing: lee donghyuck x fem reader genre: college au, academics rivals to lovers, kinda fake dating, forced to work together on a project, smut, fluff, humor (idk), music major!haechan, music major!mc | not really requested but thank you 💌 anon for the inspo summary: your indifference toward Lee Donghyuck, also known as Haechan, becomes rivalry when he decides to sabotage you. The battle turns into a war, the war turns into a plan, and the plan, well, the plan fails miserably... or succeeds wonderfully. After all, it’s all about points of view. Or, Haechan thinks he found a way to distract you and be better than you, but doesn’t think it thoroughly and screws it up. warnings: smut, weed/alcool consumption, thigh riding, oral (receiving, giving), unprotected sex, teasing, etc | inclusivity notes: reader wears different hairstyles (no mention of texture, type and color), no mention of body type (but haechan lifts her a few times), no mention of skin color, no use of y/n wc: 20.3k (out of 42k)

a/n: here’s the second part. please if you liked it leave feedback (comments, reblogs, asks), i love knowing your opinions and it keeps me motivated to keep posting my writing. enjoy!

After too many dates, too many studying sessions together, and in general too much time spent together —even with his group of friends— you feel like this is a relationship that simply hasn’t been named, yet. Something about everything doesn’t feel like just sex and hate.

You’re fine like this, for once believing you can let loose a little and still do well in your studies.

Haechan, instead, thinks his plan is going amazingly. He knows he has you distracted, he knows he takes away your time, and he knows everything is technically perfect. But the plan is not the best made of his life, and the more time passes, the more he forgets about it, and the more he thinks about you.

He never planned to use you, that had to be clear. He just wanted to distract you with sex —something you both wanted to have— and give you a boyfriend experience so you could write the song in the best way possible. But in doing all that, he is more caught up in you —and not only because of the plan, he is just caught up in you— than in his studies.

It’s nine pm on Sunday after he dropped you home around four pm this afternoon. He made you meet his girl friends too for lunch and then you went back to his place to stay together for a while. But even if you spent almost the entire day together, he still misses you.

He rolls on his back as he goes into his contacts to text you again, he doesn’t have to scroll down, you’re second on the list since he last annoyed you forty minutes ago but you still haven’t replied.

haechan: can you answer me?

haechan: i miss you : (

haechan: you didn’t even let me eat you out

haechan: you looked so pretty in that skirt i think it looks better with my head underneath it

haechan: fuck and now i’m hard thinking about you

mortal enemy: the only hard thing should be the books you should be studying on, remember we have a test tomorrow?

“Fuck,” he screams, sitting up. “What?”

He never forgets these things. He always writes them down in his agenda that he maniacally reads every day to make sure he’s always on time with his studying schedule. He can’t have forgotten about it. But, apparently, he did.

His thumb quickly wipes to call you and your answer doesn’t let him wait.

“I’m studying,” you huff annoyed as you pick up his phone call right away.

“Why would you go out with me if tomorrow we have a test?”

Your chuckle reaches his ear through the phone before he gets to hear your voice again. “Why not?”

“Don’t you want to be the top one? What about your grades? This adds up for the finals.” Panic fills his voice, he’s hoping you remembered just now and haven’t been studying since you went back, but you’re too relaxed for that to be true.

“Yeah, I know,” you reply, too calmly for his liking. Was his plan working? No, because you knew about it. And he completely erased the test, too busy thinking about you.

“And you go out?” He asks again as anxiety starts to take over him.

“Why would I lock myself up before a test? It’s not even that serious. There’s the topic you pick, and then like four questions that will surely be the main things we discussed in class, Professor Kim only knows one way of making tests.”

He groans, he can’t believe you’re always so ahead of him. “How do you know these things?”

“I use my brain,” you reply nonchalantly.

“So you started studying… when you got home?”

“Last week.”

“Last week? Are you kidding me?” He screams so loud that he’s sure you have to move the phone from your ear.

You sigh, rubbing your temples, Haechan knows it, you always do that when he pisses you off somehow. “You didn’t open the book at least once until now?”

“I…” I would usually read through the notes at least once a week, but I’ve been too busy. “I’ve… I read the notes, until some weeks ago. I got busy, okay?”

“Were you perhaps distracted by something Hyuck?” You ask teasingly, and he can see you twirl the end of your hair in your fingers while your tongue pokes at your cheek.

“Nothing distracts me,” he mutters, frowning even if you can’t see him.

“Then hang the call and try to read the notes at least, I’ll send you the recordings of the lessons, play them all night maybe something will stick to your brain.”

“Okay, bye. Wish me good luck, please,” he says, and you chuckle. “No seriously, don’t manifest against me, I need all your good energy.”

“I will, Hyuck. Just give it a quick read and then try to get as much sleep as possible. You have a brain and you’re smart with it, it’s better for you to be active tomorrow than force information that just won’t get in, alright?”

He hums, weirdly feeling a bit calmer at your words. “’kay, goodnight, babe.”

“Goodnight.”

Haechan sighs, slumping on the bed, boner long gone and anxiety on his chest, until the screen lights up again and a few messages from you show up.

mortal enemy: 10 audios + 10 files ‘music theory notes’ sent the audios anyway but my *perfect* notes should be enough to not make you pull up an all-nighter also don’t stress too much, I appreciate the act of chivalry to make me top this class grades again :;

He forgot about an exam, he didn’t study for it, yet he’s smiling like an idiot because of you.

Haechan’s screwed.

“So, how did it go?” You ask, blocking Haechan as soon as the bell rings and Professor Kim dismisses the class, letting you know the results will be in next week.

Haechan glares at you, and you suck your teeth. “Come on, it wasn’t that difficult,” you say, sitting on his desk, as he looks for something in his bag.

“I did great, I just don’t want to admit your notes are perfect and were enough to save my ass,” he says, and you can’t hold back the smile.

“You’re welcome,” you say, standing up and kicking him playfully with a swing of your hips.

“Hey! You could’ve made me fall,” he jokes, grabbing his bag before taking a step back so you can lead the way out of there. “And thank you.”

You chuckle, lowering your head to hide that dumb grin on your face. “You know, I wanted to ask you why we never revisited music theory but I thought you wanted to do it on your own, maybe you were scheming something against me.”

“What? I would never scheme against you,” he says as you start walking to lunch.

You stare at him with a raised brow, and he huffs. “It was in the past and you did it too. Also, what would I scheme?”

“I don’t know, maybe you sneaked into his office and stole the test to already know the answers?”

“That would be cheating, not beating you. There’s no fun in that,” he says, holding the door of the cafeteria open for you.

“You’re such a fair rival,” you joke as you head to the buffet to grab something to eat.

“Wait,” he stops you when your plates are full. “Why don’t you sit at our table? I hate seeing you eat alone.”

“Have you ever considered I can’t stand how loud your friends are?”

“Oh come on, you already deal with them when you come to my place.”

“Exactly.”

Haechan huffs, standing in front of you to stop you from going toward your table. “We can go to yours today.”

You furrow, lightly tilting your head to the side. “We don’t have anything to study.” You try to decipher his expression and think if you could get so distracted to forget something you had to work on or revisit. “The song?”

He shakes his head. “I might…” he pauses, trying to find a way to say what he wants to say that’s not so humiliating, but then he gives up with a heavy sigh that rolls from his lips. “Okay, I need help.”

“You?” You scream, attracting some attention on you, and Haechan glares at you, pulling you to the sides so that the curious gazes can linger away from you.

“Yes, me,” he replies through gritted teeth. “It’s just a small thing, but I don’t get it.”

You smirk smugly and he rolls his eyes. “Fine, I can’t wait to tutor you,” you reply, starting to walk to his group of friends’ table.

“Why can’t I ever win with you?” He whispers, shaking his head and following you.

You’re not sure Haechan told you the truth. He is smart but he isn’t the best actor ever, and when he came to your place to try to understand that small thing he didn’t understand in sociology, you were pretty sure it was just an excuse. You explained it in less than five minutes, he got it too quickly and immediately started messing around.

You don’t mind it, though. You enjoy spending some time with him. He’s a good distraction. Surely you would’ve fixed some notes or listened to some lessons instead of… well, instead of being on his lap with your fingers in his hair and his hands on your ass, grinding on him.

You hold in a moan when he concentrates on your neck, kissing, biting, and sucking the spot that makes you shiver. And you’d like to go on like this, but you need more. So you shift on top of his thigh, while yours presses against his hardening dick and makes him growl.

“What are you do—”

“Shh,” you shush him quickly, pressing your thumb on his lips before replacing it with your lips. “Ouch,” you gasp when he bites on your lower lip. “Why did you do that?”

Haechan chuckles, shrugging before leaning close to you again. “Why not?”

You frown but have no intention of carrying it any further. You can feel your panties stick to your skin and you just want to come, not really caring if it’s just like this.

But the moment of intimacy, if you could call it that, gets interrupted by the buzzing of his phone in his pocket.

“God, just answer,” you yell when Haechan ignores the third call but whoever is on the other line has no intention to stop trying.

Haechan rolls his eyes as his right hand leaves your ass to search through his pocket and huffs annoyed when he sees the name on the screen.

“Jaemin, what?” Haechan groans as you keep moving on his thighs, ignoring his deadly glare. “No, I’m busy.”

You faintly make out an angry reply from the other side, but you don’t care enough to understand what Jaemin’s saying.

“No, I can’t go out with you.”

“We can,” you reply loudly enough so that Jaemin can hear while Haechan scowls at you again, muttering a scold under his breath, but his anger is quickly addressed to his friend on the other side.

“Yes, I’m with her,” he huffs, rolling his head back, trying to stop your movements but failing. “Don’t ask questions. And yes, fine, fine.”

When he hangs the call after mumbling a quick, annoyed goodbye, you chuckle. “Thought you didn’t want to hear my annoying friends?” It’s all he asks, leaving a small, teasing slap on your asscheek.

“What were we supposed to do? Stay inside all day?”

“Yes, we have everything here,” he says, spreading his arms to point around. “And you’re still grinding on me.” He looks down, eyes narrowing as he stares at your hips.

“I’ll finish and then we’ll get out,” you wink, starting to move faster but he has no intention to get back into the mood, not yet, at least.

“You’ll stain my pants and where do I come?” He huffs, and you’re sure he’s trying to find an excuse to don’t go outside rather than one to don’t fuck with you. He would never say no to that, especially when you two are already in the middle of it.

“Take them off,” you urge, jumping off him, waiting for him to get undressed as you do the same, your panties the only thing staying on. “Come on. You don’t want to be late.”

Haechan groans, “you’re so… so greedy. You just want everything.”

“Yeah, am I allowed to have one flaw?” You bat your lashes at him, grinning when his eyes roll in the back of his head. “Oh, will I stain the underwear, too?” You ask when his lower half is completely bare to your eyes.

“Honey, I’m not coming inside my boxers, can’t wear your panties to hang out with the boys,” he says annoyed.

You chuckle, climbing on his thigh again, watching him whimper when your bare leg brushes against his dick and you press on him to be as close as you were before.

He doesn’t know why you didn’t take the panties off, but he knows he doesn’t want them there. He wants to feel you on his skin. As hot as this is, he wants to feel your pussy drip down his thigh, and your panties are stopping the full experience.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Donghyuck!” You scream when the sound of the fabric ripping hits your ears and the chill air of the room hits your warm core.

He groans. “It’s so hot when you say my real name with an angry tone, makes it hard to hold back fucking you.”

“You need to stop ripping my stuff,” you complain, trying to hide how hot you found that, the ripping of the panties and that fucking smirk on his face now that he lays back against the headboard of your bed, so proud and snotty that is hard for you to hold back fucking him.

“Shut up, you love it,” he says, pulling you into a rough kiss, pushing your body closer while his hand rests on your hips to guide you in the movements. “Also they weren’t a good pair, if you were in lingerie I would’ve asked you politely to take them off.”

“You will never see me in lingerie,” you retort, pulling away as your hand sneaks down and starts moving up and down on his throbbing cock.

“Fuck,” he groans, “at least warn me?”

“I’m half naked, grinding on top of you and I have to warn you when I grab your dick?” You ask. “If you don’t want, I won’t make you come.”

“No, just —fuck,” he glares at you when you concentrate on the tip, “don’t be a bitch.”

“Sorry, sorry,” you chuckle but still move your hand quickly, following the steady rhythm of your thighs. Your head rolls back when one of his hands creeps under your shirt and cups your boob, his thumb brushing against your hard, sensitive nipple.

Haechan sucks in a deep breath when your thighs start shaking around his and your cum drips down his thigh. “Fuck,” he moans, eyelids fluttering as he looks at you, head reclined back as you hold onto him with only one hand, the other still busy taking care of him. “This is so hot, you are so hot.”

The compliment pushes you closer to reaching your high and when he lifts your shirt to wrap his lips around your sensitive nipple, you lose it.

You whimper and quiver, hips moving messily as you keep riding your high, breath getting stuck in your throat when he accidentally bites you as his orgasm washes over him unexpectedly.

“Fuck, sorry,” he mumbles, and if you weren’t still so lost in your pleasure you would let him know you liked it.

When your hips still, and the dizzying sensation calms down, you lay your head against his shoulder for a while as his arms wrap around your waist.

“Can we stay in?” Haechan pouts when you try to get away from him, reaching for your hand to keep you next to him before he rolls over when you shake your head and jump off the bed. “Please.”

“We can’t always fuck and study and study and fuck,” you reply, cleaning yourself up, holding in a sigh when you realize he stained the cover of your bed with his cum.

“Who said I want to do either of those things?” He says, looking up at you with puppy eyes, pushing his lower lip out to pity you.

“I know you,” you reply, glaring at him before pulling your pants back on, not even caring about putting on another pair of underwear, you would’ve had to wash all those clothes anyway after taking a well-deserved shower, but for now you only had to pick some clothes to go out with the boys.

“No, let’s stay in and, I don’t know. Should we sing?” He proposes, jumping on his feet and putting his discarded underwear on.

You laugh, staring at him in shock. “You want to sing?”

“Yeah, you have a guitar, right?”

You nod, turning around the corner where your guitar is.

“Don’t you want to hear my angelic voice?”

You take a deep breath at his brag and then exhale loudly. “But Jaemin?”

“Fuck him, I don’t care,” he says while a small victory grin already starts widening on his face. He knows you’re about to give in.

You huff, rubbing your temples and giving up fighting him when his fingers are already typing on the phone to tell his friend you two can’t come anymore.

When he puts the phone away and smiles at you in anticipation, you sigh. You really are stuck with him, aren’t you?

“Why don’t we prepare biscuits?” You suggest. You wanted to bake something for a while now, but you never really find time to dedicate to the kitchen.

“Biscuits?”

You nod, stealing his sweatshirt to wear on top of your shirt before walking to the kitchen —that space you consider the kitchen.

“I’m a mess when it comes to cooking, you know, right?” He confesses as he leans against the countertop, watching you move around to grab all the ingredients and tools you need.

“You? Admitting you’re bad at something? To me?” You ask with a teasing tone, but you’re genuinely surprised he let you know without turning even this into a competition.

He fakes a laugh. “Very funny,” he says. “I just don’t want to hear you complain if I make some mistakes and ruin your perfect biscuits.”

You chuckle. “Can you weigh the ingredients and then put them all in a bowl?”

“All at the same time?”

You nod, handing him what he needs and showing him where the scale is. “Is not that hard, even you can do it. Plus, it will be another thing I teach you today,” you wink.

“Careful, baby. Don’t start thinking you’re so much better than me,” he says, starting to weigh the ingredients and putting them in each separate bowl.

You scoff. “Honey, I won’t start thinking that,” you say, resting your head on his shoulder, “I already think that.” You leave a teasing kiss on his cheek before he hits you with the flour and you gasp.

“Oh, no, we’re not doing that,” you warn, taking a step back, seeing how he’s ready with another handful of it.

“Then take it back,” he says nonchalantly.

“I never take back the truth —oh, Jesus Christ, Donghyuck!”

He laughs loudly, bending forward as he glances at you, flour on your face and well, his sweater. “Don’t call my name like that again, though. I won’t resist this time,” he says when he finally stands up and stands right in front of your face. “Now, will you take it back?”

“Never —Ah!” You scream when he lifts you up without a warning and sits you on the table before he starts tickling you. “No, no, please,” you babble, shaking your head and trying to stop his hands on you but he’s faster. “Okay, fine, I’m not better than you — I’m not better than you!”

“Good,” he says, stopping his torture and smiling proudly. “I love it when you listen,” he jokes, kissing you again.

You should hate it —or at least don’t like it so much— when he kisses you like this, out of nowhere, for no reason at all other than wanting to shut you up, or maybe to feel you. But you truly don’t mind. Actually, you lean in for another one, and another one and another… until you feel this is once again going in another direction and, as much as you’d love to indulge in the moment, you want to prepare those biscuits.

“Enough,” you say, pushing him away and jumping off the table. “No more food waste and we’re doing this together.”

You discover you and Haechan work better in the kitchen than in other fields, maybe because there’s no tension pushing you to do better but you are listening to each other, teaching tricks, and simply having fun. And this atmosphere stays with you even when he grabs the guitar and starts playing the tune of your song, you sing some bits of the lyrics and then jokily propose to add some about baking cookies on a cloudy spring afternoon, expecting him to laugh at it but he just smiles and tells you to go on. And you do, mumbling something about being in the kitchen, humming, baking, and laughing. You think it’s too cliché, and you will surely go back to it obsessively until it comes at you like you want it, but he loves it.

Then the oven rings, signalling the biscuits are ready and none of you can believe they came out good, nothing burned, and they’re tasty. Somehow, those cookies, feel like the biggest achievement you two ever made together.

“Maybe we should stop fighting each other,” he mumbles, after chewing his last bite. “We make a pretty great team.”

You smile, cleaning your lips with a napkin, crumbs falling on the table. “Hate to agree, but we do,” you say. “I mean… we kinda teamed up months ago, don’t you think so?”

“We want to kill each other, and you call that teaming up?”

“It’s our way of teaming up,” you reply, handing him a clean napkin so he can clean himself, and he takes it. “We just like to keep the flame alive, if we stopped bickering at all, it wouldn’t be so funny.”

Haechan shrugs, he guesses so. “Not like anybody else ever stood a chance with us on top.”

You chuckle. “Imagine if someone is using our rivalry to get to the top and we never noticed them.”

“Honey, trust me, I would’ve noticed.”

Once you’re done eating, you push him into the shower. There’s flour, and dough on all your clothes, and you still need to wash off the sex of before. You’d opt to shower separately but you’re tight on water and you have to make the best out of the confined space, reason why his plan to fuck another time fails.

“Why are you wearing my pink robe?” You turn around two seconds to grab the towel you prepared for him, and he betrays you. “This was for you,” you say, holding up the white towel as you stand there naked.

“I already put it on, it’s wet,” he says. “Come on, it’s pretty.”

“Yeah, that’s why is my favourite robe,” you pout, but still wrap the towel around you because you don’t want to freeze.

“I’ll make it up to you,” he says, and, before you can even think how, you don’t feel the ground under your feet anymore. Your arms immediately wrap around his shoulders for more safety as you let him carry you outside. You have no idea what is going on today, but you like this, how he’s taking care of you —in his way, of course— and how this feels good.

“You have to change it anyway,” he says when he drops you on the bed and, as soon as you open your mouth, he knows you’re about to complain about the wet towel on the dry covers. “I’ll help you change it later.”

While you change into your new clothes, your pink pyjamas with small black hearts as a pattern, you watch him walk around as if he’s so familiar with the place —not that it would take much for anyone to know where everything is, considering how small it is— but something about it makes a feeling of comfort and warmth spread in your heart. Nobody else had ever been inside that place.

But then you snap out of it and realize he’s naked, and his clothes are dirty, so you rush to the closet to find something to give him.

“So, mhh,” you say, making the things you grabbed fall in front of him, who’s sitting at the table. “I have those sweatpants and a sweater, or these pyjamas if you want it, it’s pink, but it doesn’t look like you care much,” you note, looking at how much he’s rocking your robe.

“Pink pjs! We’ll match,” he says, eyes lighting up as he wastes no moment getting out of the bathrobe.

“Out of the kitchen!”

“There’s not even a wall?”

“Still, get out,” you say, pushing him with force away from there. “Better.”

He rolls his eyes but still grabs the shirt and pulls it on him, blinking when he sees a pair of clean boxers. “Why do you have these?” He still studies them, thinking he has seen them before.

“Because they’re yours,” you say nonchalantly while fixing your hair in a braid.

“They’re mine? I left them here?”

“I might’ve accidentally dragged them with me once,” you confess, looking at him with a big, awkward smile.

“When?”

“When Jaemin almost pushed the door down and we had to rush to get dressed. I just stuffed everything in my bag and your underwear was next to mine so, ta-da,” you say, stretching your arms and shaking your hands to complete the sound effect.

Haechan sighs, nodding. “Of course, it must have been because of Jaemin, somehow.”

“Well, it turned out useful, just put them on. I don’t want to see your dick more than necessary.”

Haechan scoffs and bites back a comment as he finishes getting dressed. “You have to admit I look really good in pink.”

You look at him up and down while he twirls, and you smile. “You would be my favourite Barbie at the mall if they sold you in boxes.”

“God, you’re so annoying, can’t ever make normal compliments,” he complains. “Come on, help me with the bed. It won’t clean itself.”

Making the bed with him is tiresome. His weird way and theories about making it lead you two to bicker more than you should and remake it twice to see who is right —you, obviously. So, once you’re done with it, laying on it with him by your side, you know not even God himself will make you stand up to cook dinner. You don’t need to say a word, Haechan already has his phone out ready to order, and you couldn’t be happier.

You spend ten minutes deciding what movie to watch and another five bickering because you don’t want to eat on the bed, but he insists you won’t make a mess, and if you do, he will help you clean up. It ends with you giving up and the bell ringing with your order ready.

You never have nights like this. You always try to cook on your own and don’t waste money on eating out, and you also never finish the movie or the series you start, either too tired halfway or with something more important to care about, for example, some notes to copy, or lessons to listen.

But this is nice.

You two joke, laugh, eat, and then you start to feel the sleep take over you, and you don’t think about sending him home or falling asleep on the pillow.

And as you rest your head on his shoulder, Haechan’s more and more sure that his plan failed.

“You’re playing with me, right?” You ask when Haechan messes up for the nth time. The end of the year is approaching, and you two are getting ready for yet another test, the last before the finals, but right now he’s testing your patience not getting a single answer right. You’ve been stuck in his room for hours now.

“I wish I was, my brain is fried,” he huffs, throwing his head back on his chair.

You’re speechless and you shake your head. “It’s super easy, you were better than me in this class, what the fuck is wrong with you?” You snap.

“Hey! Why are you so pissed? Shouldn’t you be happy you’ll beat me even in this?”

“Be serious,” you say, sending him a deadly glare. “What are you thinking about?”

“I’m…” he huffs, shaking his head, and turning around in his chair to avoid you. “I’m just stressed for a lot of things. I’m tired, I didn’t sleep tonight.”

“You struggled even last week. And when the Professor asked you something in class you gave an answer that is just not you,” you say, cutting off his bullshit, grabbing the armrest of the chair, and forcing him to face you with a rough tug on the chair.

“There are too many things to remember,” he says, after frowning at how harsh you have been. “It’s not that I don’t know, it’s that I mess it all up.”

You sigh, rubbing your temples. “Do I have to motivate you?”

He lifts his head, staring at you with a furrow. “What do you mean?”

“Let’s play a game,” you say, sitting better on the chair, and Haechan gulps when doing so your skirt —short skirt, incredibly short skirt— rises. He will never tell you, but the way you show up on your dates is another reason why he can’t concentrate. It’s May, it’s so hot. It’s your excuse, but he would bet you’re also doing it to mess up with him.

“No,” he replies, already fearing your proposal.

“Why not? You didn’t hear it, yet.”

He sighs but signals you to go on with a quick movement of his fingers.

“So, we’ll revisit once again, I’ll try to explain all your doubts. Then, I’ll ask you a question, if you get it right, I’ll take off one piece of clothes, if you get it wrong, you’ll take off one, and vice versa.”

“How studying with you butt-naked would make me learn more things?” He almost screams in a high-pitched voice.

“See!” You say. “You’re already starting with the idea you’ll lose.”

“Because I can’t get anything in my brain, and if I get it right then you’ll have to take something off and all I’ll think about will be… you.” I already only think about you, he’d like to add, but that’s too humiliating. Just like the grin on your face. He hates how weak he is. He hates how easy it is for you to win battle after battle. And he hates even more that his plan is showing flaws with each passing day. He doesn’t want you to be his Waterloo, but he’s not sure he can come up with another strategy soon enough to beat you.

“Fine, then no study-strip-poker,” you give up, but the smug smirk on your face doesn’t drop when you start to think of something else that could motivate him, it only grows bigger when you finally get it. “If you answer right to at least ten of the fifteen questions, I’ll suck your dick.”

Haechan gulps. His eyes immediately fall on your lips as his brain starts to wander on lands he shouldn’t think about, not now at least, not when he has a bigger obstacle to face if he wants to get there.

“Hey,” you call his attention, snapping your fingers and waving them in front of his face. “It has to be motivation, not distraction. Do you want me?”

He huffs, throwing his head back. “Can’t we just fuck and then we’ll start again?” He pouts like he does every time he wants something from you.

“No,” you reply sternly, stealing his sweatshirt from his chair and putting it on you. “You don’t get the prize if you don’t win.”

“That’s not fair. And why are you covering up?”

“So you can’t distract yourself,” you say. You might like to tease him with more revealing clothes, but your intent is never to get him to be this distracted. You don’t want to be the reason he will fail this last test.

“You’re not my distraction,” he scoffs, diverting his gaze, and moving closer to his desk.

You decide to ignore him, you know the truth, and as much as the idea of him starting to lose because he’s too busy thinking of you, sends you on cloud nine, you also don’t want him to do terribly, especially in a class you know he loves and is good at.

“I know the theory,” he says, stopping you from going back to the start. “I wouldn’t be able to produce songs if I didn’t.”

“Yeah, but you just failed to explain how you create and add effects, and you forgot the basic difference between the dry sound and the wet sound, so revisiting some theory won’t hurt.”

Haechan sighs but soon gives up as you hand him your notes. He always thought you were crazy for also having printed pictures of how the software works but now that he needs it, he couldn’t be more grateful that you’re so precise with everything.

You start explaining things once again, cutting short about the most basic notions and diving deeper into the last lessons, as you try to stop as much as you can to make sure he’s still following you. And, after almost an hour, you’re done.

“What are you doing?” He asks when you take off his sweater again. “What about my concentration?”

“I needed your focus while I was explaining, now you have to answer even if you have distractions.”

He huffs loudly, throwing his head back. “But don’t play dirty, you can’t touch yourself or anything like that.”

“I’m not that cruel, I just want you to answer me,” you say. “So, let’s start with an easy one, should we?”

Haechan answers the first questions with ease, not like he usually would, but it’s still better than the mess of before. And he would be so close to getting the last one that keeps him on thin ice, he only got five wrong...

“No, no, no, please,” he begs, trying to stop you in place. “Please, give me one last chance. Ask me just one last question.”

“You got six wrong, babe,” you reply, loving how he’s almost on the verge of tears as his big brown eyes look up at you.

“But it was hard, I will never remember all the types of old reverbs unit,” he whines, coming closer to you.

“Then why do I?”

“Don’t lie, you don’t remember them either, I can’t even pronounce some of those names.”

You chuckle. “Oh, it’s really funny when the lack of a good fuck gets in your brain.” It’s not about sound design anymore. It’s about the desperation behind his eyes; knowing he wants you so much even if you’re the biggest reason for his despair gets your body hot and your pussy wet.

He groans, slumping back on his chair as he gives up on you. Or so he thinks because when he doesn’t pity you enough and you’re still packing your things to leave, he’s back again with his complaint.

“Please, one last chance? I didn’t mess the others up, I just made some tiny mistakes.”

“And you didn’t answer to two,” you say, ignoring him, trying to keep a serious face to not show your true emotions.

“Do I have to get on my knees?”

You snicker. “You look good on your knees,” you taunt but you don’t expect him to do that. “Get up!”

“Not until you give me another chance,” he retorts. “Please.”

You huff, rolling your eyes. “Fine, but just one.”

He nods enthusiastically, almost looking like a puppy being teased with a treat before he sits up in front of you.

“The differences, all the differences, between the shelving equalizer and the peaking equalizer.”

“Okay, I know this one, I know it,” he says before he starts explaining without missing a single detail. “So?” He asks with eyes full of hope as if he doesn’t know he just gave you a perfect answer.

“It was… great,” you tease him but you can’t keep a straight face when you see the pout on his face. “Kidding, kidding, you answered perfectly. So, I guess you deserve your prize.”

“Yes,” he screams, and in a second he throws himself on you but you shake your head and push him back on his chair. “What?”

“You sit there and let me handle this,” you say, placing your hands on his thighs. “Take them off,” you order, tilting your head to point at his grey pants. You see he’s confused about where you want this to go, but he obeys you anyway. “Everything,” you add when he’s still in his boxers. “Good boy, come here,” you say, patting your lap.

Haechan frowns. “You said you were going to suck me off.”

“I know, and have I ever break my promises?”

“I don’t know.”

“Just trust me and come here,” you order, waiting for him to follow. “Can’t believe you’ve been this hard all this time,” you say, wrapping your hand around his hard cock, starting to pump the pre-cum that leaked.

“You teased me,” he huffs, trying to keep his composure as he watches your hand moving on him delicately.

“I know, babe. I’m sorry,” you pout, one hand sneaking under his big white shirt to tease his nipples.

“Don’t,” he mutters, but you only laugh.

“Don’t, what? Let me take care of you, you’re stressed.”

He doesn’t reply, his head falls back as your movements on his dick quicken. He feels so small in your hold and he should find this more embarrassing but he doesn’t care. He loves the way your hand wanders delicately on his body and your lips leave pecks on his neck while the movements on his dick are fast enough to give him what he wants but not too fast to ruin this moment.

Your hands keep moving while your lips kiss his neck and jaw.

“Feels so good,” Donghyuck hums, shifting in your lap.

“I told you,” you chuckle, watching him roll his head back on your shoulder as his eyes close. “The others will hear you,” you say when his whimpers get louder.

“Don’t care,” he moans. “Feels too good.”

You smile and shrug. If he doesn't care, who are you to worry about it? It’s not like they don’t know what happens between you two.

So you quicken your hand, sliding up and down his sensitive dick so fast you make him tremble in your hold.

“You’re so cute like this, you know?” You say. “You look so small and delicate.” You expect him to get mad but instead, he moans and nods swiftly. And you know that stress got him good. Donghyuck, admitting to be vulnerable in your hands? You can only thank the weight the University is putting on his shoulders. But if that’s a way to make it go away, you can’t complain.

“I’m gonna — gonna come,” he whimpers when you start rubbing your thumb on his tip. “Fuck.”

You trap his scream with your other hand, staring at him as he slumps against you as his orgasm washes over him, squirting white strings of cum on your hand and his crumpled shirt.

“Get on the bed,” you urge while lifting the shirt off his body, leaving him naked. He barely has time to put himself together, but you don’t care and you know he needs more too.

“Don’t you think it’s a bit unfair that you’re still all dressed up?” He asks, still sitting on top of you.

“Do you want me to suck your dick, or do you want me to leave?” Is the only thing you have to say to make him obey with no more complaints. “Good. You should be thankful I gave you another chance. Right now you would be masturbating all alone and have no knowledge of sound design, so… what do we say?”

“What do you want me to say? You didn’t—”

“What do we say?” You shut him up, pulling his hair back harshly as your body weights on his lap, eliciting a broken groan.

“Tha — thank you,” he mumbles, cock throbbing right against your thigh. “Thank you but, please, do something, I’m… I need you.”

You snicker, letting go of his head and crawling back on the bed. “You’re so pathetic,” you mock, grabbing his dick again. “Begging on your knees just because you wanted my mouth.”

Haechan groans, throwing his head back but the harsh slap on his thigh makes him snap his eyes open.

“Why?” He squeaks.

“Eyes on me when I’m talking to you,” you order before lowering down so you can tease his tip with your tongue, making him bite back a loud moan.

“Please,” he pleads, and you finally give in. When you take him in your mouth, the broken breath that rolls from his lips makes your pussy clench around nothing.

“Shit,” he moans, fists clenching in the sheets as you suck harder, moving your head up and down in quick movements. He wants to look at you, knowing it will be even harder to not come on the spot, but he’s fighting with so many parts of him, he doesn’t know what to do.

When you pull away to look at him, he whines, hips bucking up in search of physical contact. You snicker, “and then I am the greedy one?”

“You’ve been teasing since you stepped inside the house,” he whines, trying to grab your hand but you don’t let him. “Come on, I’ve been good.”

It’s true, he has been good, but you don’t want him to come yet. “You can’t come, not yet.”

“Fine, just — just don’t tease me. Please,” he cries, begging you with his eyes.

You start taking care of him seriously; bobbing your head up and down while your hand wraps at his base to touch him where you can’t reach. Your movements are quick, but not too messy, since you’re trying to avoid creating a pool of spit and pre-cum all over his lap.

“Your mouth, fuck,” he groans, involuntarily fucking into your throat and uttering a slurred apology. “You’re just so good. God,” he curses, and you catch him rolling his eyes. “Even at — even at this you’re good.”

You snicker to yourself and keep focusing on his dick, heavy on your tongue as you suck with force.

You might be too good, cause it doesn’t take a lot for him to explode in your mouth; a brief warning for you to choose if you want to pull away and then the pleasure runs through his body for the second time.

You barely have time to clean your chin from the cum that dripped down that Haechan pulls you close to him, kissing you intensely while his hands are all over your body. “Want you, please, please fuck me,” he begs against your lips.

You slip out of your panties, quickly grabbing the base of his cock to line it with your soaked entrance because you can’t wait anymore.

“Oh, fuck, you’re so wet,” he hums when you sink, wrapping your hands around his shoulders.

“Want to take merits for this, too?”

“Well, yes,” he retorts. “Shit, don’t move, it’s not fair.”

“Everything is fair between us,” you say, starting to pick up a rhythm that makes him struggle to come up with a snarky reply. “Loss of words?”

He groans, throwing his head back and tightening the hold around your waist. “You can —mmph— you can talk all you want but —ugh— I am the reason why you’re soaked.” Somehow the way you’re bouncing on his dick it’s not enough to wipe away that smug smirk off his face, and you can’t stand it.

“Just shut the fuck up and enjoy this, will you?” You snap before kissing him roughly, cupping his chin with force before nibbling his lower lip, making him hiss. “I like it when you moan, so please, just fucking moan. The only words I want to hear are my name and begs.”

Your “threat” is effective because he doesn’t dare to open his mouth again.

“Good boy,” you praise without ever stopping to kiss him and moving your hips at a quick but regular speed.

You quickly realize that stress has gotten to you, too. You love to pretend it doesn’t affect you, and that you don’t need to let off steam, but you do. You are desperate to feel carefree for a few moments, put all the books and papers behind and have fun. And worst, you need him.

Donghyuck is what makes you feel good. It doesn’t matter if it’s mostly physical, he takes you to another world every time. He makes you feel wanted, he puts you through the test, but he makes everything worth it.

You’re so sure of it as you let your body crush against his, your fleshes meeting in a messed-up tangle of flaws. The kinds of flaws you both grew close enough to show each other.

In a few minutes, waves of pleasure hit you both and your bodies collapse into each other as you keep lazily riding that sensation; muscles on fire, lips meeting in messy kisses, moans panting the room, and your hands looking for each other.

When you lay on the bed side by side, you feel disconnected, and, truly, the only thing you’d like to do is to close your eyes and fall asleep, but your eyes fall on the clock against the wall and remind you why you went to his place.

“Five minutes and then we’re revisiting again,” you say, knowing the only way to get up is to say that thought out loud.

Donghyuck groans, pressing his face against you and mumbling, “can I eat you out if I make no mistakes this time?”

“We’ll see.”

You’re woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of the piano playing from the living room. The other side of the bed is empty, and the sheets are crumpled up, signalling you Haechan got up somewhere during the night.

You two went on a trip the whole weekend. Not like you had a choice when he passed by your place and told you to get in the car without giving you any information. You got mad at him when he told you it wasn’t a one-day thing, but you were too far from town to even think of going back. And even if initially you were angry because your plans for the weekend were different —studying all day for three days— your anger disappeared quickly.

This is the second night out; you spent the entire day wandering around a town you didn’t even know before and got closer to each other. You love the thrill with him, but you soon realize you also love it when there’s peace between you. It’s impossible for you to don’t bicker, but you learned how to balance everything. And the more you get to know him, the more you like him.

“Can’t sleep?” You ask, watching his features being lit up by the faint moonlight and a small lamp at the side of the piano. It’s an old one, almost left abandoned in the living room of the small, cheap house you’re staying in for the night.

Donghyuck shakes his head. “Got a tune I couldn’t get off my mind so… here we are.”

You smile, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear as you sit next to him. You don’t talk, you only watch his fingers move on the notes looking like ballet dancers. You’ve never seen him play the piano before, you weren’t even sure he could. But you’re amazed at how many things he’s talented at, the guitar, the piano, production, singing, dancing —and making your days less grey.

You don’t tell him, you only lean in, resting your head on his shoulder as he keeps playing the sweet melody.

“It’s…” he huffs, stopping for a second. “Doesn’t it sound messy?”

“Not at all,” you reply. “It sounds upbeat. Happy.”

“Out of all the ways you can describe music,” he chuckles, looking at you.

You look up, shrugging. “I’m describing how it’s making me feel.”

“Yeah? And what does it feel like?”

“Play it again,” you say, closing your eyes and letting the tune lull you. “It feels like spring. Like a field full of sunflowers, the ones you see at the side of the highway, passing by so fast before you can even get lost in their beauty.”

Haechan chuckles, holding back the big smile on his face. “It reminds me of those late summer evenings, when the heat dims a bit and the sky is pale pink and purple and blue, and time is frozen.”

“Yeah, when you’re ten and you don’t want summer to end because it means you have to go back to school,” you smile. “When you would stay out all day and come home with the smell of your favourite cake that your mom just baked.”

“Really? Your mom would bake that too?”

You nod. “Chocolate cake, basic and too messy for the heat of summer. But my mom loves me too much to don’t bake it for me, even if it’s 30° outside.”

Haechan chuckles, and his fingers start moving faster, starting the melody of what could be the chorus of the tune.

“In this part, it feels like a wave. I’m picturing running on the beach as the waves crash at your feet and the wind blows against your face.”

“Why are you smiling?” He asks.

You shake your head. “I — I can… it feels oddly romantic, a bit tormented, maybe confused, but in love,” you whisper. He gives you a weird look, and you’re not sure if it’s because you’re not using technical words to describe it or because you’re just weird. But there’s a reason you’re not being technical, you’re saying what it makes you feel, the vivid pictures in your mind. And, somehow, there’s you and him.

You two on the beach, walking on the sand before he starts running, teasing you to follow him. There’s the scent of the sea filling your nostrils and your lungs burning up as you reach him and then fall in his arms and feel your heart explode.

“It’s an unexpected feeling, something that wasn’t supposed to happen and then… changed everything. It’s thrilling. Scary, but satisfying.” You avoid his gaze but hear him hum in agreement, and wonder if he’s thinking the same, if he can feel this tension.

“So, something that sweeps everything like a wave,” he asks, and you nod. “Sunset,” he adds, smiling at you, slowing down the rhythm of his fingers. “I can also see the sunset colouring the scene. The kind that makes you look up and stare in awe like a child.”

“The one we saw yesterday,” you reply shyly. “It made your eyes look even more brown,” you confess, watching his cheeks tint up of rose.

“The kind that leaves you breathless,” he whispers. His fingers are still moving but they’re playing the same notes, he’s too busy staring into your eyes, leaning closer to you.

“And speechless.”

And a bit closer.

“And grateful you’re on earth.”

And closer.

You move back, coughing and lowering your head because you feel on fire. Is he making fun of you? Does he feel this? Why is he so confusing?

“It feels like a road trip with nowhere to go,” you say to fill the silence, and your words make him play again. “The calm while everything outside is falling apart.”

“Like running to your safe place?”

You nod. “It feels like… home.”

He smiles, looking in your direction while his fingers still play that sweet melody. “I always believed home is a person, even people, but not a place.”

You swallow, staring at his lips before your eyes meet his. “I’ve forgotten that feeling quite some time ago,” you whisper, feeling your head spin. You left home and never looked back, eager to chase your dreams, the ones you’ve been fighting hard to achieve since you were a child, but in that marathon to success, you’re starting to realize you lost something.

“You just need to find the right people, and then never let go.” He leans closer to you, hands falling from the piano as he leans in completely to trap your lips in a kiss. His hand cups your face while the other moves to the back of your neck, pulling you closer and moving his thumb in small circles. You feel like your lungs are on fire, and your legs are weak, but your heart never pumped harder than this. And when he slowly pulls away, you’re staring into each other’s eyes.

You know all the words to your song.

It’s true you’ve tried to avoid Donghyuck’s group of friends as much as you can —mostly to preserve your brain from early injuries— but it’s also true that the end of the second academic year is tearing you apart and you need to do something to don’t go insane.

So here you are, it’s Friday night, at their place, and you’re surrounded. Haechan has left you alone for a moment, busy talking with Mark. Jeno is trying to set up the table in the living room, while Renjun runs after him because ‘things are not perfect enough.’ Yangyang —no, he doesn’t live with them, but for some reason, he is always around— is in the kitchen doing only God knows what.

For your luck, you have Jaemin and the girls by your side. Ningning, who apparently has something going on with Mr Loverboy at your side. Yeri, who is there just to bully Haechan, Mark and Yangyang —an old tradition that goes on since high school, and you love her for that. And Minjeong, who’s the nicest and yet smartest person you know, you are relieved she is in creative writing with Jaemin. You met them all before, one of the thousand times Donghyuck dragged you around with him, and the four of you got along right away, quickly becoming friends.

“They’re so loud, I would have a constant headache living here,” Yeri huffs loudly, rolling her eyes and falling backwards in Ningning’s arms.

You raise a brow as a ‘told you’ moment.

“They’re not that bad usually,” Jaemin defends, looking at his friends, now all too interested in something that regards what they are supposed to eat.

“Pfft, please, Jaem,” you say, glaring at him.

“How would you know?” He says. “Oh, no, yes, actually you would, you’re always here.”

“See, so stop defending them,” you say before becoming aware of the three sets of eyes boring holes into you. You turn around meeting your three friends and lift a brow in a questing look.

“Why would you always be here?” Ningning teases, nudging you.

You roll your eyes. “Don’t wander too far with your brains. I’ve got a project with Hyuck.”

“Hyuck? You used to go around calling him by his stage name just a few months ago and now it’s Hyuck?” Yeri points out, smirking smugly.

You throw a pillow at her. “He’s always attached to my hip, of course, we got closer,” you explain, frowning.

“Sure, sure,” she laughs. “Not even the boys call him Hyuck.”

“They do,” you retort.

“Of course you know, you’re always here,” Minjeong giggles and you gasp.

“You traitor!” You say, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her as you both laugh.

“Move your asses over here, motherfuc—” Yangyang screams before Renjun slaps a hand on his face.

“I will kill you all one day,” Renjun says, storming into the kitchen to bring more drinks as you sit down around the table.

“Please leave us out of it,” Yeri screams loud enough so he can hear.

“Sure, you can even help me get it done if you want to,” he says, sitting between Jeno and Yangyang, handing the bottles around.

“I’m in,” the four of you say simultaneously, raising your hands and they all gasp as they glare at you.

“Guess we better sleep with our eyes open tonight,” Yangyang mutters.

“You should always sleep with one eye open,” Yeri threatens, smiling creepily.

You chuckle at their antics, but your attention is caught by Donghyuck who sits by your side. “Would you kill me?”

You smile, caressing his hand on his thigh. “Honey, what are you saying? You would be the first that has to go.”

The smile on his face drops and you laugh, turning to the table to grab something to eat.

“You know,” he whispers, leaning in so only you can hear, “no dick tonight.”

You lower your head, trying to hide the embarrassment, but then lift it up and shake it, fixing your hair behind your ear, and turning to him. “Not like something could’ve happened tonight anyway.”

“Period?”

“People,” you say and he chuckles, opening a can of beer before taking a sip.

“As if that ever stopped you.”

You roll your eyes, stealing the beer from his hand, “as if that ever stopped you.”

He smiles, resting his head on his palm as he looks at you. “You never said no, though.”

You wave him off, returning your attention to the table, but it doesn’t last much, they’re deep in a heated conversation and you’re missing something. “Why are they bickering… again?”

Haechan chuckles, shaking his head, grabbing a spring roll, dipping it in the soy sauce before taking a bite. You roll your eyes because you need to be updated right away but when you look at him munching happily you can’t hold back a smile.

“So,” he says, cleaning his lips after he swallowed, “Jeno wants Renjun for a project, but Renjun has war traumas of the last time they did a shooting together and doesn’t want to.”

You giggle, grabbing a spring roll too, and dipping it in the same small cup of Donghyuck, while you both pay attention to the conversation.

“But you’re perfect for it,” Jeno insists, shaking Renjun from his shoulders, not caring about the pissed-off expression of the older.

“I’m literally not, ask anybody else but me,” Renjun repeats, a deep crease visible on his forehead.

“But you look like an angel,” Jeno pouts, finally stopping his movements and batting his lashes to gain some pity.

“I might look like an angel, but I feel Satan rising in me every time you talk,” he says, making everybody laugh before he glances, and the room goes quiet.

“Come on, how bad can it be?” Minjeong says, and you see her shift closer to Mark, but you don’t say anything.

Renjun groans, throwing his head back. He can’t believe he might be convinced into this by the end of the night. “He’s too much of a perfectionist, and I’m not comfortable in front of the camera. Also, he’s not rich enough to have a studio and he always takes ages to put the light boxes in their place once he’s done.”

“Oh, I won’t annoy you, I promise,” Jeno begs again.

“We can rent a studio,” you say, all eyes on you. “I mean,” you cough, placing the small bite of the roll left on the plate in front of you, “me and Hyu— Donghyuck have to shoot the cover for the songwriting project, I don’t think we can wait any longer since we also have to record the song and then come up with an advertising strategy.”

“Then rent a studio?” Renjun says, coming out colder than he intends to. “No, wait, I just don’t get why you have to drag me in this.”

“Jeno proposed to be our photographer, but I doubt we can do it at home. And since we wouldn’t be paying for his job. Sorry,” you mouth quickly glancing at Jeno who shrugs and smiles at you. “We can at least put the money for the studio.”

“And where do I fit in this,” he cries, shoulders slumping as he knows there’s no way out of this, no matter what you say next.

“Well, since you pay the studio per hour, I don’t think Jeno will torture you much. He takes two hours with you and two hours with us and in a day, we are done. Also, if there are four of us, we can be quicker,” you finish explaining, hearing some hums of agreement from your other friends.

Jeno doesn’t say a word, he’s only smiling widely with his face close to Renjun’s as the latter regrets all the life choices that brought him here. “Fine, I’ll do it,” he exhales, groaning when Jeno hugs him and screams a cheer in his ear. “Step away before I change my mind,” he warns, slapping Jeno’s arm and glaring at him when he does as told.

Yeri sighs deeply at your side, rolling her eyes and muttering, “children.”

You chuckle, finishing your roll, and stealing Donghyuck’s beer again before talking to him. “So, I guess we’re almost done.”

“Almost done? You still didn’t show me the lyrics, have you even written them?”

“Hey,” you scold. “Are you doubting me?”

“I don’t know, last time I checked, you were the one struggling. I offered you four bases, and all the words I’ve read from you ended up crumpled in the bin.”

You sigh. “I’ve got the song,” you reassure him.

“Really?”

“Yeah, and I also picked the production. I mean, I… I wrote it because of that production.”

Haechan’s smirk widens when you start stuttering and looking away, trying to look unsuspicious in your friends’ eyes. “Really? And why are you shying away?”

You almost jump when you feel his hand on your thigh, resting on your bare skin under the skirt. “I’m not,” you whisper, trying to keep cool.

He snickers. “You know I’ll have to see it and you can’t keep it a secret from me, right?”

“I know, I don’t want it to be a secret. You’ll read it.”

He squeezes your thigh, and you glare at him. “Not now.”

“Right, later, under the cover when we’ll watch a movie,” he jokes.

Yeri coughs beside you and you see your entire life pass in front of your eyes, but you fake nonchalance and turn to her. “Need something? Some water?”

“Some tea, honey, some tea,” she says, raising a brow and pointing at the man at your side, now busy talking with Yangyang.

“I can make some.”

“Stop playing me,” she whispers, sending you a deadly glare. She can be scary at times, you’re not surprised the boys listen to her in the blink of an eye.

“He’s just being stupid, he flirts even with walls,” you say.

“Does he touch their thighs?”

“No, he’s not,” you say, only to gasp when she looks down and his hand is still on you. You push it away but he puts it right where it was and you can only sigh.

Yeri snickers. “Ah, l’amour.”

Your head rolls back as you let out an annoyed sigh. “Love my ass.”

Yeri shrugs, sipping from her small bottle of soju. “Don’t care, there’s still something going on, and I’m interested.”

“I’d love to mock you with somebody but you’re more closed than an unopened can of beans.”

“You are so bad with words. How do you write songs?”

“I don’t write about beans, clearly,” you say seriously before you both laugh.

“You two, mind to share what’s funny with the class?” Ningning calls you out.

“Sorry Professor Ning, we’ll be even more annoying next time,” Yeri retorts.

“Why do I feel you’re quoting something we can’t understand?” Renjun says.

“Because you’re right,” Yeri replies.

“Yesterday Yeri almost got us expelled,” Ningning says with a forced smile on her face, making you all gasp.

“What happened to sharing information?” Mark screams, leaning in with interest.

“Why do you care so much?” Yeri shrugs, grabbing a bowl of tteokbokki to eat.

“Mh, hello? You got your asses out of Uni,” Minjeong says.

Yeri only rolls her eyes, resting her head on Ningning. “If a tteokbokki falls on my clothes you’re dead,” the blonde-haired warns before bringing her gaze to all of you. “In her defense, it wasn’t her fault. Not at the start, at least.”

“No,” Yeri retorts, sitting up straight again, and placing the bowl on the table, “it wasn’t my fault, period.”

“Here she goes again,” Ningning sighs, puffing and shaking her head, making you chuckle. But Yeri is not paying her attention, too busy telling the facts right.

“Professor Choi hates us and treats us like kids. Not only his lessons are boring, and I would like to add, useless, but he also thinks we’re in kindergarten.”

“Did you fight with him?” Jeno questions, frowning, already fearing a positive answer.

Yeri gulps, looking around to take time to answer.

“Oh, God, tell me you didn’t,” you say, staring at her with a worried expression.

“He asked for blood,” she says, getting fired up.

“You fought a Professor?” Jaemin gasps loudly.

“She didn’t,” Ningning intervenes when Yeri is about to open her mouth again. “Just because I was there to babysit her, but she didn’t.”

“I didn’t come here to be treated like a child,” she says, crossing her arms on her chest. “We weren’t even being loud. We were sitting in the back of the class, minding our business and he called us out. There was a group of boys in the middle row watching fucking porn and he called us out.”

“Ew,” it comes out collectively.

“But unless the headphones weren’t connected how would he know?” Yangyang asks.

“I don’t care! He hates us,” she groans.

“So you decided to make him hate you even more? Smart move, Yerim, smart move,” Renjun says sarcastically, and she glares at him.

“I just decided to drag her out when things got a bit heated,” Ningning says.

“Not in a Beyonce way I guess,” Haechan jokes, and Yeri slaps him as you move back to give her space to hit him.

“Hey! Why are you helping her bully me?” He asks offended.

“Cause you deserve it?” You shrug.

Donghyuck looks around in disbelief, groaning when everybody agrees. “Fake ass friends, can’t even trust your own shadow in this group.”

“Back to what matters, safe to say you won’t pass the class,” Renjun says.

“We will, there’s only one lesson left, and we’ll pay attention,” Ningning says and Yeri raises her brows. “We will pay attention. He might hate us, but, you know, a bit of boot-licking and we’ll be fine.”

“Fine,” Yeri gives up. “But only because I don’t want to see him ever again.”

“We once fought so hard we got kicked out,” Haechan confesses, bringing the attention to him.

“You and?” Jeno asks.

“Dumbass, Miss Better than him, thought you heard them bicker every two seconds,” Renjun replies instead, pointing at you with his index finger.

“Hey!” You say. “I mean, thank you for acknowledging I’m better than him but it wasn’t so bad.”

“Oh, trust me, it was,” Mark comments before drinking his beer.

“And you were teaching us a lesson, uh?” Yeri teases, eyebrow raised at you two.

“We didn’t insult the Professor,” you explain. “We were just at each other’s throat.”

“Why?” Minjeong asks.

“Honestly? Can’t remember, we fight about everything,” Donghyuck replies.

“We don’t fight,” you clarify. “We discuss. And sometimes things take a bad turn. Not anymore, we learned how to survive with each other.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” giggles Yeri and you kick her knee with yours, making her groan.

Haechan sends you a look you ignore, and you go on explaining. “We were just stating our thoughts, but we weren’t exactly agreeing, and we couldn’t stop, so the Professor told us to take it somewhere else.”

“And you did? You simply could’ve stopped,” Renjun asks in disbelief. He can’t believe he thought you were normal.

“We had business to settle, okay?” You explain.

“Oh, and we sure did,” Haechan chuckles under his breath or so he thinks because the room goes quiet, and you think you want to strangle him.

You have to come up with something.

“You only won because I gave up,” you say, looking into his eyes, seeing the devilish glint behind, warning him to not say a word more.

“You always give up if there’s a prize you can take,” he clicks his tongue and you gulp.

“Oookay, weird tension in the room, it’s clear the only one not getting laid is me,” Yangyang cheers, bringing you two out of your competitive stare. You’d like to complain, saying it’s not what he thinks about, but you’re still stuck, brain busy thinking about something else.

“This night it’s boring, if we don’t do something funny, I’ll act out my plan of killing you all,” Renjun says, standing up.

“I still don’t know whether you’re joking or not,” Mark says.

“Because I’m not.”

“Caught you!”

“Hyuck!” You scream, turning around, holding a hand over your chest as his arms wrap around your waist and his chin rests on your shoulders. “You could’ve killed me.”

“You’re eating cake without me, that’s the crime,” he says, pulling your hand to his face to take a bite.

You roll your eyes. “Jaemin told me he had to store it away because Jeno and Minjeong were eating it all.”

“So, you were hiding, uhm?”

You hum, cutting another piece and diving it in two to give it to him. “He said I could eat it. Also, I think I had too much alcohol and I need to put something in my stomach.” You sit on the countertop and he takes his place between your legs.

“Am I allowed to eat it?”

“I guess so, I’ll take the blame if he says something,” you giggle.

“Don’t think he will notice, too busy dancing with somebody,” he says, hinting at Ningning.

“They look cute together,” you say, smiling fondly.

“Oh, they do. If only he could grow some balls and confess,” he says.

“Do you confess, Casanova?” You tease.

Donghyuck smirks. “How does it look like?”

You shrug. “Don’t know, you tell me.”

He rolls his eyes before he realizes you two are not together. “Wait, are we… no, never mind,” he says, pulling away, and turning to the door.

You grab his hand, stopping him. “What?”

“Jeno called,” he lies, trying to escape your hold.

“No, he didn’t. He’s sitting with Yangyang passing the blunt around,” you jump off the top and face him. “Are we?” You’re not sure what you expect him to say.

Donghyuck gulps, struggling to keep his eyes on you. “Are you fucking somebody else?”

Whatever you were expecting, that wasn’t it. “Are you?”

“I asked you first,” he retorts.

You blink. “Oh, really?

“Yeah, really.”

“Do I look like I know somebody else besides us?”

“Jeno likes you, and he told me you two are texting.”

“As friends, Hyuck. I already told him I’m taken — I’m not, I’m… I’m taken by other things in my mind. Uni, fighting you, especially fighting you.”

Donghyuck snickers, not really what he expected from you, but deep down —not even so deep, truly— what he wanted to hear. “Yeah, I agree, you’re taken, mostly by me.”

You’re about to retort but he slips from your hands too soon, leaving the small kitchen to reach the others. But you’re smiling. It’s a dumb, small smile that lights up your face in the dark of the night, and your heart pumps. You two didn’t name any of this, but —bickering aside— you objectively know you acted like a couple. It’s not about the sex, it’s about everything else. He started to pick you up before lessons so you could go to class together and sit next to each other —while he did everything he could to distract you. You ate at your friends’ table at lunch, went out for dates, and occasionally even slept over. You are taken and probably for longer than you even realise. Donghyuck started filling your days months ago, and even your life.

You’re still caught up in your thoughts that you don’t hear Ningning enter the kitchen.

“I spy with my little eyes something suspicious,” she sings while pouring herself a glass of water, leaning against the countertop where you were before.

“First Yeri, and now you?” You ask, a small smile curling your lips while you walk to lean next to her.

Ningning gasps offended. “She knew before me? Is this how you betray me? After I helped you style your hair?”

You laugh, resting your head on her shoulder, and inhaling deeply; she always smells nice. “I didn’t tell her,” you confess. “Honestly, I don’t even know myself.”

You can’t see her, but you know she’s smiling when her arms wrap around your body.

“So, what is that, love?”

You hum. “I don’t know what it is, but I know I like it.”

“I knew you were a romantic at heart,” she jokes, pulling away to squeeze your cheeks.

“I’m just happy. I don’t think I need to put a name on this… on this happiness.”

A big smile spreads on her face and her eyes crinkle, her hand softly caresses your cheeks. “It’s not only Donghyuck, is it?”

You nod, pressing your lips in a flat line because something about this feels too emotional for you. It’s 11 pm and there’s faint music playing in the living room while people laugh, and joke, sharing a blunt or bottles of alcohol. And you’re in the kitchen talking about a boy you want to kiss and strangle with who, you’re sure, can now consider your best friend. It’s the stupid fun of the early 20s. It’s the sense of something you’ve been missing for too long since you only let yourself be absorbed by your studies, leaving friendship behind.

And when a lonely tear rolls down your eyes, Ningning coos, gently wiping it away. “I’m happy,” you say, nodding.

“I know,” she replies, cupping your face.

“I’ve been on my own since I came here and I never regretted believing in my dreams even if it meant leaving the ones I loved the most behind, but now I realize what I’ve been missing,” you confess. “I love that they’re so loud they give me a headache.” You both chuckle and your hands intertwine. “And I love that we all sit together at lunch even if most of you have to run from the other side of the building. I love how none of you hesitated one moment to consider me part of your group.”

“I’m so happy you’re with us,” she says, smiling. “I guess Donghyuck does something right sometimes.”

You both laugh.

“Yeah, he definitely made my second year less boring than the first one,” you admit.

“Come here, I guess we both could use a hug,” she says, not giving you time to reply before you’re into her arms. You stay like this for a while, and you know more than before that this is what you missed the most. This is what college means. It isn’t in the loud parties, the sex, and the drugs, it’s in the people you do things with. Nine young people like you, trying to survive this craziness by being each other’s strength. You can still look at your goal right in the eye even if you have fun, even if you date, even if you have someone to walk down this road with.

“You know, I knew you were a good one when you slammed your fist on the table at lunch when he made you fuck up the essay,” Ningning confesses when you pull away.

You laugh, wiping away another tear. “I’m glad he did, I wouldn’t be here today if he didn’t.”

“You and Ning disappeared in the kitchen before,” Donghyuck says, searching in his closet to find something to make you wear for the night.

“Yeah, we talked about us. I know I might not show it, but I’m glad I found this,” you sigh. “I like them.”

Donghyuck smiles, sitting next to you. “They all like you just as much.”

“It’s like I finally have a place where I belong. I have people to rely on, so maybe I’ll learn to stop wanting to deal with everything by myself.”

“I told you life doesn’t have to be lonely,” he says. “I know that coming from me sounded like sabotage but I meant it. Having someone by your side makes everything easier.”

You smile and nod, grabbing the shirt he’s handing you. “I hate to say it, but you were right,” you chuckle. He doesn’t reply and you don’t drag the conversation, simply enjoying the thousands of words you two should be telling each other, but are not ready to face, yet.

“Can I use the bathroom? I need to freshen up a bit,” you say, breaking the comfortable silence. Most of the others are crushed in the living room, you think you saw Ningning sneak into Jaemin’s room but you were too caught up in Donghyuck to be sure of that, Renjun and Jeno might still be awake but you’re sure that all the weed they smoked won’t make them pay attention to you.

“Sure, if you need towels they’re in the cabinet under the sink,” he tells you, and soon you’re out of the room.

It doesn’t take you long to clean yourself up; you wash your face and steal someone’s products to get rid of your make-up, quickly get rid of your dress, put on some perfume —you’re pretty sure it’s Donghyuck’s cause you smell like him— and then wear the shirt he borrowed.

Once you’re done, you quickly make your way to the kitchen, and, passing in the living room, you see your assumptions are right; there’s no sight of the two love birds, and the only ones awake are Renjun, Jeno and Yeri, while the others are crushed on the sofa. You expect a remark from the girl, but she barely notices you, too busy playing —trying to— something with the other two.

After a few minutes, you’re back in Donghyuck’s room, and you notice he’s changed into something comfortable, too. He’s lost folding his clothes, and you let yourself get lost in his beauty. Too busy fighting him and trying to prove something, you realize you never noticed the smallest details that make him so handsome. The bridge of his nose, his soft lips, the moles on his cheek, his soft brown hair falling around his face.

“You alright?” His voice brings you out of your daydreams and you nod shyly, feeling embarrassed for being caught staring.

“Yeah, everything fine,” you reply, quickly walking to the bed. You see him staring at you with a confused expression, but avoid any awkward moment by reaching for your phone and pretending to be busy. But you’re not busy, you’re confused. You’re not used to this, any of this. Your nights have always been filled with yourself and books (whether for school or your entertainment), and if you felt wilder a movie, rare were the occasions when you would go out with your friends. And regret is creeping on your back. You feel like you lost a lot, you feel like you’ve punished yourself to get where you are now. And you think about love, how you treated your relationships, how little weight you gave them. And when you think about what you felt in these past months you wonder if you have ever even been in love.

“Remind me to never make you drink again if you get this sulky.” Once again, Donghyuck’s voice brings you back to earth, and when you turn toward that sound, you see he’s sitting next to you.

“I’m not sulky,” you chuckle. “I was just thinking about what I said before.”

He hums. “And?”

You shrug. “Nothing. You can’t change the past, I was just… having some bittersweet emotions.” It’s the truth, but you know that deep down your brain is trying to make you focus on the friendships because you don’t want to think about your biggest problem: the man you have by your side. This wasn’t supposed to be whatever it is. It wasn’t supposed to happen. And you don’t hate that it did, but you don’t know how to feel and act about it, cause you didn’t plan it. You couldn’t study this, you couldn’t put this on a PowerPoint and have it all laid out for you to understand it, it’s not logical, it’s not a theory, a study, a thesis, it’s emotion.

“You seemed happy before,” he whispers after a few minutes of silence passed. His hand gently rests on your stomach and you feel your heart race.

“I was,” you reply. “I am. I just wish I found this sooner, I always focused on my studies and career, and looking back at it now, it was lonely. And…” you sigh, rubbing the bridge of your nose, “I’m jealous of you, ‘cause you managed to be at the top with all of this.”

He chuckles, but it’s a tender sound, and then smiles at you. “Well… I managed until you came around. You…” he coughs, struggling to confess, “you distracted me a bit, so I think you’re better than me at this socializing and rocking your career at the same time thing.”

You laugh. “I distracted you?”

“Just a bit, don’t get too excited,” he warns, falling deeper into the mattress and laying in silence. You have your thoughts tormenting you, but for him, it’s no different. He knows his plan failed. You’ve been filling his thoughts, days and seconds for a few months now. Even when he was studying or recording, somehow, you were always there. At first, for spite, surely, but then, it turned into something else. Hate turned into teasing, teasing turned into lust, and lust turned into something more. He knows he doesn’t just simply want you or need you. He craves you and your company, your study sessions together, your smart talks, your witty words, your annoyed eye-roll when he’s right, and the soft eyes when you listen to him. He craves you and your laugh, the suppressed one during lessons and the loud one when you are alone, or your hidden smirk when he makes you smile even if you don’t want to.

He constantly comes back to you.

“Are you listening or are you avoiding me?” You ask when he doesn’t reply to your question and he shakes his head, mumbling an apology.

“Sorry, I was thinking.”

You chuckle. “It’s alright, it was a bitter question anyway.”

“No come on, ask me again.”

“It was just for fun. I wanted to know if I was the reason why you’ve been doing a bit worst than me lately,” you say. There’s no mockery in your tone, instead it’s light and hides a timid blush as the words roll down your tongue.

Donghyuck’s body shuffles next to yours and only then you realize how intimately close you are, with your legs almost intertwined, his hand still on your stomach and his face resting on your chest. “Well, yes, you were an unexpected presence in my life, so…”

“So…?” You laugh. “Am I so hot I got you horny all the time?” You joke but he doesn’t crack a smile, instead he furrows and stands up to sit on the bed with his arms crossed.

“I’m not that horny,” he murmurs.

Your body mirrors his, and then your hands lift his chin up. “Sorry, I was kidding. I didn’t mean to offend you. I just didn’t think you thought about me that much. I wanted to be on top but not like this.”

“Technically, you’re not on top of everything, but anyway, we just spent a lot of time together, you know? So different studying methods and so on, shocked me a bit.”

You raise a brow, not because you’re so pretentious to think you distracted him that much, but because you think you learned to read him a bit and he’s not being honest at all. “Sure, and you weren’t busy thinking of me after our… dates? Coming home and texting me, and telling me how you should’ve been between my thighs instead?”

He blushes, and you can’t believe your eyes. “It only happened once, and either way I never study at night, my pretty brain can’t handle it.”

You laugh. “Your brain is pretty, now?”

“Yeah, of course, everything about me is pretty.” He shrugs.

“You’re a bit of a liar, you know? First telling me I distracted you and then taking it back, but it’s alright, I think we settled this war. We’re equal now, right?”

“I guess you could say that.”

You huff rolling your eyes. “You’re so competitive, God.” You fall on the mattress again. “But maybe it’s good, we can keep this healthy and competitive.”

He hums, thinking about it and then nods. But you don’t expect him to cage you with his body as he sits on top of you and reduces the distance between you. “Doesn’t sound bad, we could try.”

You smile, trying to act nonchalantly, but it’s hard when he’s so close; hair a mess, face tired but still so fucking handsome, and plump lips so temptingly close to yours.

“I want you,” you whisper, looking straight into his eyes even if they make your knees buckle.

“I want you, too,” he replies before diving in and kissing you.

The last weeks before finals are hectic. You and Donghyuck spend all the time studying together. When you’re not locked in the library you’re either at your or his place, and most of the time you end up sleeping over with the excuse of “spending just a few minutes together without thinking about exams.”

Yet, none of you confess anything. Your relationship lingers in that limbo.

In all that chaos, what takes you more time is the songwriting project. You spend days in the studio to record and mix it. Then when you are done, you move to the studio with Jeno to shoot the concept photos. And it would been enough for the exam, but you and Donghyuck just have to go an extra mile, making an entire booklet with the photos and the lyrics inside, the physical CD with the track, the instrumental, and an acapella version.

Even if the shooting is long and tiring, since you have to style and do each other’s make-up, and the only help is from Renjun, you have a lot of fun.

If at the start you feel a bit insecure with the poses, Donghyuck is the perfect partner to have to feel at ease. And Jeno knows how to do his job, making you feel like a queen after the first awkward shots.

“I love how the photos turned out,” Jeno cheers happily on your way to their place. “The three of you are the perfect models. I will annoy you again to build my portfolio.”

Renjun rolls his eyes as his head slams against the bus window.

You chuckle. “Come on, Jun,” you say, pinching his cheek. “You had fun too, you can’t deny that. Also, you got so many beautiful photos for free, I wouldn’t complain.”

“Free? I’d like to remind you I helped you pay for the rent,” he retorts, sitting straight again. “But yeah, I had fun,” he admits, making Jeno clap happily. “But, I will do this again only if she comes with us.”

Jeno bats his eyes at you and you snicker. “Yes, if I am what he needs to be dragged into the studio, I will come with you.”

“I love you,” Jeno screams, hugging you tight. When you hug him back, you make eye contact with Donghyuck, but he swiftly turns his head. Not quick enough to hide he’s not enjoying this so much; jaw tense, fingers closing in a fist.

You find his jealousy of Jeno quite interesting. Even if it’s true you got very close to him, it’s hilarious how Donghyuck thinks anything would happen between you two when Jeno is clearly taken by someone else; someone too busy plotting his murder to realize his feelings, but that’s another matter.

And Donghyuck shows his jealousy even more when, once at home, you sit around the table to watch Jeno post-produce the photos and create the mock-up for the entire project with your supervision.

His arm wraps around your shoulder as he keeps his leg pressed against yours, and you have to hold back a chuckle. Yes, it’s obvious there’s nothing between you and Jeno, but this makes you feel wanted, and you let him show it.

You know you’ll have to deal with other menaces tomorrow; a hangout is already scheduled in the group chat with the girls after a quick text sent right away by Yeri. You love her, you do, but without that, maybe, just maybe, you wouldn’t have four other pairs of eyes set on you — Jaemin and Yangyang are very curious when they want to.

“Are you listening?” Jeno’s voice brings you out of your thoughts.

You blink twice and then mumble, “what?”

He shakes his head. “Do you like the font?”

“Oh,” you whisper. Your eyes adjust again on the screen that you were mindlessly staring at and focus on the project. “Yeah, I love it.”

“We were thinking of not putting our name on it since it’s more trendy lately,” Donghyuck says.

You nod. “Yeah, I think it’s better like this. I also love the picture, I think it would be more powerful without the name on it but we’re not that famous, yet,” you joke making them laugh.

“That’s why I didn’t make it too big, so the focus would be on you two.”

“Love it, that's perfect,” you praise. “Honestly, seeing it all almost done, I feel guilty for not giving you anything.”

Jeno shrugs. “It’s alright. I’m having fun doing this and can put it in my portfolio anyway. I did much worse and less fun for some courses.”

“We will offer you a dinner,” Donghyuck says. “Somewhere cheap, though.”

After a few hours, everything is almost done. Jeno still wants to double-check everything tomorrow before sending it to be printed but the final results won’t differ much.

“So, I think we should celebrate the project that brought you two so close,” Ningning says, winking at the last words, before raising an empty cup.

You chuckle, trying to escape Donghyuck’s hold, but it’s still firm on you. “It’s just a Uni project, there's nothing to celebrate.”

“Well, mine and Mark’s is not that good,” Yangyang snorts. “I don’t understand why you two always want to do so much extra work but whatever makes you happy.”

“We love the song,” Donghyuck replies. “And we’re proud of it so we might as well fool ourselves it might get more than 30 listens on SoundCloud.”

“For me,” Ningning says, “this is huge. One day you’ll be famous and we will get to say we were here from the start, so we need to treat ourselves and party.”

“Yes, let’s treat ourselves to the cheapest pizza on the block. Oh, how I love being an adult,” Yeri huffs, slumping on the couch. “No, but really, this is something to celebrate.” She then moves closer to you so that only you can hear. “And maybe if we get you drunk enough we’ll get juicy info before tomorrow.”

You roll your eyes and shake your head. “Fine, order these pizzas and let’s celebrate.”

The girls don’t get you drunk enough to spill anything but get themselves drunk enough that Jaemin has to drive them back to their place. Truthfully there’s nothing to say anyway. You and Donghyuck still didn’t talk, you didn’t even have sex lately. Too busy with everything, that was the last of your thoughts. But you did sleep together and basically lived in symbiosis. So?

You should feel happy about this project. Academically it will be another success, and honestly, one of your best works so far. So why do you feel this emptiness in your chest now that you’re sitting on a chair in Donghyuck’s bedroom?

This is the end. Now nothing holds you two together, and you fear that what you built over these months might not be strong enough for you to still hang out with you. You wonder if this meant anything to him. Sure, he likes you, but how much? Sex means nothing, and even if said between the lines, he got you to try out romantic things to make you come up with the song. And he succeeded. You have the song, the lyrics you tried so hard to put down. Fake dates, fake flirts, fake everything, but everything you put down is real. And it’s terrifying.

So absorbed by your torments, you don’t see Donghyuck stare at you, standing in front of you changed into fresh clothes.

“Hey.” His voice makes you flinch in surprise and quickly look up at him. There’s a frown on his face. “What’s with that face?”

You shrug, diverting the eye contact.

“Are you not happy with the result?” Donghyuck asks, grabbing the closest chair so he can sit right in front of you.

“No, I love it. I loved everything so much and that’s why I’m sad.” There are many reasons why, and you’re not a master at dealing with too many emotions at once. Subjects? Books? Essays? Projects? They can fall and pile up on you and you won’t feel the weight of it. But real life? Feelings? Not where you excel.

“Cause you won’t have any excuses to spend time with me and see me?” He teases, chuckling. He’s still the same person you met one year ago but behind his playful voice and acts there’s something tender, at least you like to see it this way.

“Uhm, I hope we will keep seeing each other,” you confess shyly, doing everything in your power to not meet his warm gaze. His hands on his lap are a beautiful view now. “But no…”

His teasing smirk turns apprehensive. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

You shrug. This should be the easy thing to confess. A bit humiliating considering showing some weakness to him still feels like letting your mortal enemy pour salt in your open wounds, but you’re hiding more vulnerable things from him.

“Nothing but… I was so sure I didn’t want to be a singer, and I was more and more sure of working in Pr, and now… I don’t know. I loved writing the song, like I always do, but this time felt different, as if… that’s what I’m supposed to do in my life, you know?” You look up because even if you can’t take a mocking look you have to see his reaction.

He smiles, caressing your cheek. “I think you’re good at it so yeah, you should.”

You’re taken aback by that reply. Deep down you wanted him to shred your dreams cause you feel like all of this is insane, and if you have nobody supporting you maybe you won’t indulge in it. But it’s clear that Donghyuck is not an enemy anymore and has your back now.

“Yeah but… I loved singing and doing it with you. Being in the studio, recording, but even before when we were working on the melody and everything. And working on the concept? We did all that with just one song, can you imagine what working on an album feels like?”

He smiles and nods. “Well, yeah, I fantasized about it a lot, so yes. But why is it a problem? Why can’t you pick this as a career?”

You can see in his eyes that he’s confused. Not by your change of path, but by your sudden insecurity. Deep down you’re shocked by that too. You have changed goals a few times in your academic career but somehow this feels so different.

“Cause it’s rare to make it,” you mutter, nervously playing with your hands. Truth is, the chances of failure are so big, and you’re not sure you could take it. You and your perfectionism and your need to succeed on the first try.

“Can’t say you’re wrong, it’s hell out there, but… you’re good, and beautiful, and I’m sure that with your songwriting skills and your voice, someone will notice you.”

He had tried to make a name for himself longer than you, he knows it. During some vulnerable night conversation where you showed him your songs, he told you how many demos he had sent, and how hard he tried to build something at least on the socials. So you don’t care if his words are driven by sympathy, he could discourage you, but instead, he’s supportive, and that’s all you need.

“And what am I without your production? Will you be my Jack Antonoff?”

Donghyuck laughs. “I’d prefer to be your Aaron Dessner.”

“Yeah, fine. I like that Haechan,” you say, highlighting that name that now sounds foreign.

“I don’t want to hear that name roll from your lips anymore,” he chuckles and you hum laughing.

“Talking about lyrics,” he says after a few seconds, the phrase lingers in the air… “this song was interesting.”

“Interesting? What do you mean? Is it bad?” Your eyes widen and the anxiety that left you jumps at you again.

He shakes his head. “I said interesting, not bad. You should know the difference.”

“It’s not funny, interesting means nothing.”

He chuckles. “Some phrases are interesting… that’s it. They look familiar.”

You feel your body burn up in flames and you have to shift your gaze from him. You should’ve scrapped that, he isn’t dumb. (You believed he was up until two seconds ago, but apparently, he was just waiting for the right moment to trap you.)

“I wonder if something, or someone,” he winks, “inspired you.”

“The sea. When we went there together. The sea inspired me,” you whisper swiftly, nervously biting the inside of your cheek. “That’s why I called it wave.”

Donghyuck laughs. “I’m not talking about the title, and you know it,” he says, resting his hand on your knee. “Flow that I’ve never felt before? Meeting you through distinctive distraction is a miracle?”

“You told me you liked it,” you say, playing innocent.

He rolls his eyes. “I do. I love it, actually. I just wanted to analyse it with you.”

You gulp when his fingers start rubbing on your skin. “We should’ve done it before recording it, don’t you think?”

He clicks his tongue. “Nah, I want to do it now. I think I already know who inspired you.”

“The sea —”

“Drop it,” he retorts sternly, squeezing your knee. “I think our plan worked. Well, unless you found someone else who inspired you to write a love song.”

“It’s barely a love song,” you stutter, body heating up.

“Right, some lyrics felt sexy,” he giggles. “You’re such a master in holding me here and there and going up and up down and down again.”

You try to scoot away, but he blocks you by putting his feet under the leg of the chair. “So what? Also, you’re dirty-minded, that’s not what it means…”

He snickers, rubbing his thumb on your cheek. “Why are you so flustered then?”

“Cause you’re too close to me, I can barely breathe.”

“Mhh… it reminds me of something.”

You roll your head back and mutter a curse under your breath. “Isn’t it what you wanted? To inspire me? I did it. I romanticized everything and we got the song.”

“Romantized everything,” he hums. “In this wave called you that’s pushing in, I fall in love. You are the center of my heart. Feeling new, feel now. The wave that started because of you, babe. Dive into the world called you. Damn, your creativity is so good, you are talented.”

“Are you mocking me?”

“No, I…” he sighs annoyed. “If you wrote it down in a song, why can’t you say it to my face?”

You gulp. “I have nothing to tell you.”

He raises a brow. “So you’re still confused. Should I satisfy you to hear you say it?”

You hide your face in your hands and groan. “Fine,” you snap. “I — I wrote that about you. And I, God, this is humiliating. You heard the song, you sang it. Do you want me to say it out loud? Was that not enough?”

Donghyuck smiles, and, for a moment, you fear he will break into a mocking laugh, but instead, his smile gets bigger. “Yes, I knew it,” he screams.

“Oh… of course it’s funny to you, maybe this is what you wanted all along, make me fall in love and then make fun of me.”

“Fall in love?” He whispers, stopping in his tracks to look at you, and only then you realise you said it loud and clear. And it’s worse than saying it in a song. “You love me seriously? Like it’s not just attraction and maybe liking me?”

You feel like choking up on tears but try not to show it. “So you can laugh at me more?”

“Why would I laugh at you? I just want to know if what you feel is real,” he replies, and somehow he sounds even more annoyed than before.

You hum and nod, no words can leave your mouth.

“Did you really think I would use this against you? Don’t you trust me?”

“I — I… I don’t know, okay? I do, but also, this was… this was all fake, just to write that song and now it’s real. And it was never supposed to be real, and maybe you never wanted me, cause I’m not your type and you hated me and we both wanted this to be over and now I feel like I can barely breathe without you, and I know that in the song I said I would’ve left the decision in your hands but the idea of you not wanting me back makes me sick and I —”

Your words fall into a void as he kisses you with no hesitation. Hands cupping your wet face and holding the back of your neck to keep you close.

“You’re so fucking stupid. So, so smart and yet such an idiot when it comes to feelings,” he chuckles when he pulls away. “You said I was an unexpected thing that completely changed your flow but do you have any idea of what you were to me? You ruined my second year,” he confesses, and your face quickly shifts into a worried expression, but he clears your doubts right away.

“I thought I could beat you, I thought I could have the upper hand and… you messed up my days and nights. I thought you couldn’t fill up so much of my time when I already had so many friends but, fuck, I was wrong. And instead of distracting you, I let you distract me.”

“But I — I didn’t plan it, I didn’t want to —”

His thumb shushes you as his eyes crease in a smile. “You didn’t do anything, I just miscalculated. I didn’t know the amazing person you are, and let jealousy consume me before love took its place without me even noticing.”

You almost gasp. “Love? So, you do love me back?”

He nods. “Strong word, I know. But goddam, you were ten times cheesier in the song.”

You laugh and he does the same.

“But I am hurt, though. I can’t believe you thought I was playing you.”

“What were the chances you were going to fall for me, too? Nobody ever falls for me.”

“Good thing you only needed me to fall for you,” he says, kissing you. “So… did you fall for me at the beach?”

“I was confused back then. I knew I felt something but I didn’t know what it was. I thought it was only attraction, but at the same time, I felt like I needed you, you know?”

“And to think I wasn’t even sure of taking you there,” he giggles.

“Really?”

He nods. “I wanted to study, I already felt like I was falling behind and I thought I could use those three days to catch up, but then you crossed my mind and I forgot about the rest.”

You look down to hide the big smile on your face. No, you’re not happy you almost made him fail his second year in this war, but you love knowing how much he cares about you. The old Donghyuck would’ve never confessed this, he would’ve never shown how weak you make him. But now he’s proudly telling you how you genuinely occupied his thoughts.

“I know I didn’t show signs of failure, but you did succeed in your plan just a bit.”

He snorts. “Don’t need fools gold.”

“No, I’m serious. I mean, maybe you’re right, you didn’t, but I think you succeeded in something better. You showed me I can achieve my academic goals and still live life. You showed me so much. I had fun on my own, and I loved it, but I also only had myself and nobody to count on, and that sucks.”

“I didn’t do it.”

“Yes you did, you pushed me out of my comfort zone and trust me, I did panic sometimes. I just hide it better. But you gave me the chance to meet seven amazing people allowing me in your friend’s group. Some of you have known each other for so long, that’s probably when I should’ve put my heart at ease and realised you truly cared about me.”

“You fail to understand how likeable you are. Everybody loves you, you just don’t pay them attention.”

You shrug. He’s probably right. You never cared about that, but you won’t start caring about it now. You found your people, you found your place.

Staying at his place for the night is tempting, but, truth be told, you two want to be on your own on your first night as lovers. So, with the excuse of wanting to eat an ice cream (not an excuse, you will eat ice cream), you slip out of the place.

The others don’t care. Honestly, it’s clear that everyone except you two was expecting this ending, but you will deal with this tomorrow at lunch with the girls. For now, you chuckle at Jeno’s wink before he rests his head on Renjun’s shoulder again, who barely waves goodbye before going back to the movie they’re watching. Mark seems to be the only one confused at the way your arms are linked when you walk through the living room, but you’re sure that Yangyang, who has a teasing smirk on his face, will fill him in as soon as you’re out of the door. Jaemin will sneak at the girls’ hang-out tomorrow, his face lets it all known.

“I love this place,” Donghyuck says when you enter your apartment.

“Really? This hole?” You chuckle, leaving your bag at the door and getting rid of your shoes.

He nods. “It’s cosy and quiet, and I get to have you all to myself.” Before he finishes the phrases he pulls you in his hold, almost making you lose your balance and you scold him.

“Can you be less clumsy?”

“Mhh... no.”

“Also, it’s not like not being alone ever stopped you from being the clingiest man on earth.”

He huffs, throwing his head back as he slowly starts walking backwards to reach the bed. “As if you don’t like it.”

“You got us many suspicious looks,” you complain.

“Girl, everybody knew about us,” he says, falling on the bed with you. “I fear they were betting on a situationship but well, we didn’t do anything to keep this on the low.”

You shrug. “Whatever,” you say, caressing his face to move the hair on his eyes. “I don’t care. Tonight I just want to think about us.”

“Now you’re talking,” he hums happily. “Can I get a chocolate-less kiss?”

You laugh. “You can get all the kisses you want.”

Your lips connect to his to start a sweet kiss that lasts for a while. You never truly pull away as your hands start moving on each other to get rid of the clothes and leave you half-naked on the bed.

“Wanna taste you,” he murmurs, rolling around so your back is on the mattress before he starts going down. His fingers hook with the band of your panties and pull them down. “A bush?”

You huff. “I was just a bit busy, and didn’t have time to shave.”

“Good. I hope you don’t find time to do it ever again,” he says making you laugh.

“You like it?” You ask.

“I love it,” he replies.

You don’t have time to react because his lips are on you as soon as he's done talking. Your hips buck up and you fail to hold back the moans.

Donghyuck takes his sweet time, licking up stripes to get you wet before he starts sucking on your hardening clit.

Your head rolls back against the pillow and your hands can’t help but tangle in his hair to pull him closer. The groan of pleasure that comes out of his mouth at your gesture makes you tremble.

“So fucking sweet for me,” he mumbles against you. “My sweet girl.”

A dumb grin curls your lips and your eyes try to open to get a glimpse of him. You regret that action cause his pretty face smashed against you as he eats you out as if you're his last meal sends shivers straight to your core.

“Please,” you whimper, making him open his eyes to stare at you. Your throat tightens and you feel like you might pass out from that, but still force yourself to finish the phrase. “Don’t stop, you’re so good. I — I never felt like this.”

He grins, pulling away only to reply. “Yeah? Am I that good?”

You groan. He’s still so competitive and always has to prove a point. But you don’t care. That’s fun. That’s what you love about him. “Yes, you’re that good. Just please, keep doing it.”

“Never planned of stopping.”

When his mouth starts moving on you again you see stars. Your neck falls behind, enjoy the softness of the pillow, and you stop trying to keep it together, moaning loudly and chanting his name.

His hands wrap around your thighs, keeping you close to his mouth. And each flick of his tongue pushes the climax closer, making you see stars.

Your breath gets messier as you hit your peak and pleasure takes over your body as you let go to that blissful sensation running inside you.

You’re still gasping for air when you feel his fingers prodding at your entrance, slowly entering you.

“Hyuck, what are you—?”

“I want you to be ready for me,” he says. “I won't make you come another time, I promise. Just getting you wetter.”

You mumble a sound that makes no sense before you decide to relax and enjoy the sensation. It’s not like you would ever complain about his fingers, you simply don’t want to be too sensitive already. But he’s true to his words, his two fingers fuck into you, curling up right on your sweet spot, turning you on more and coating them white.

“Always so good for me,” he praises when he pulls out, sucking them harshly before he leans in to kiss you. Your hands wrap in his hair as you pull him closer, letting your legs wrap around his waist to pull him down. “Damn, calm down,” he chuckles close to your lips. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know, but I want you close.”

Donghyuck smiles. “Unhook your legs for a moment and I’ll be as close as possible.”

Reluctantly, you do as ordered, knowing that as soon as he’ll slip in, your legs will be exactly in the same place.

You barely pay attention when he does, too focused on the gentle kisses he's leaving on the crown of your head, cheeks and neck. Your eyes only open when he bottoms in and brings your legs around himself.

“Happy now?” He asks, brushing behind a few strands of hair that fell on your face.

“More than happy,” you reply smiling. Your body moves on its own when your hips buck up against him, eliciting a deep moan to slip past his lips.

That’s the sign he needs to know he can start moving. One hand places on your waist to keep you in place and the other supports his body as he starts dragging his hips out.

You can feel your heart skip a beat when he leans down and hides in the crook of your neck, inhaling deeply. “You always smell so good, that’s what tricked me to always be close to you,” he mumbles, nibbling your skin.

You chuckle, shaking your head. Even now he has something to say. Still, his words don’t distract him from his actions. With each stroke, he hits deep inside of you, hitting sensitive spots that make your toes curl and your fingers close into fists on the sheets.

After finding the perfect angle, Donghyuck starts speeding up, his thrusts not harsh but fast enough to build up a steady rhythm. And, with each one, you feel a wave of pleasure invading you.

“Come here,” you whisper, cupping his face to pull him close. “Wanna kiss you.” Your lips are on his right away and you both let go to a long passionate kiss as the hold of your legs around his waist tightens. One hand leaves his face to run on his back, feeling his muscles flex.

Your moans get louder with every passing second but they end up muffled in the messy kiss you’re still sharing.

When his hand sneaks between your bodies, so he can touch your clit in quick circular motions, you know you won’t last much longer. Your walls clench hard around him, and more wetness coats him as your hips buck up for more friction. And the last drop comes from his lips, leaving yours to wrap around your sensitive nipples.

“Hyuck,” your voice trembles as you call for him. Pleading eyes looking up at him. You should say something sex-related, maybe praise how good he’s making you feel, or how close you are, but even if those are the thoughts on the tip of your tongue, the words that come out are completely different. “I love you,” you whisper in a hush, feeling the weight disappear from your chest. Saying it clearly is like finally coming to the real realization.

Donghyuck smiles, kissing you repeatedly on the lips. “I love you, too.”

And soon after, you both reach your peak. The pleasure shoots through your bodies like fireworks in the sky.

You stay like that for a few minutes, kissing each other as you wait for your bodies to calm down.

When he slips out of you gently, putting his shirt under your body to avoid a mess, you still have a dumb, but content, smile on your face.

You don’t have the energy to move, so you lay there as you watch him move around to grab new clothes and two glasses of water. Just the time to pull yourself together, and you’re once again under the bedsheets, cuddled up against each other. You relax at the feeling of his fingers rubbing circles on the back of your neck and let his heartbeat be a sweet melody.

Mamma Mia is playing on the TV, but none of you has much energy to sing along to ABBA’s songs —he has a bit more than you as he hums the words.

When he chuckles, you look up at him.

“What’s so funny?” You ask, staring at the tv with a frown on your face. The SOS scene not being exactly one of the funniest one.

“I was thinking about us,” he says.

“I do hope we won’t end up like this.”

“Yeah, no, but you ended up being my Waterloo, I guess,” he whispers, looking at you. And then you get it, remembering when he sang it to you.

“I told you,” you reply, making him gasp offended. “What? You expected me to say something nice? You mocked me, you bragged and I cursed you with eternal love for me.”

Donghyuck laughs and then wraps his arms around you to pull you flatter against him, resting his chin on your head.

“You know this doesn’t mean I’ll stop trying to beat you, right?” He chuckles, but when you lift your gaze, getting a glimpse of him, you see his serious expression. And you hope he's true to his intention and that that spark set by your ambition will never die.

You smile smugly before relaxing against his warm embrace. “Yeah, but we’ll see if I’ll let you.”

YEARS LATER

“Is everything alright? Why are you looking at us like this?” You ask, shifting on your seat on the couch, looking at the girl in front of you.

“Is it true?”

“What?” Donghyuck says.

“Is it true that you two couldn’t stand each other?” She says, big brown eyes staring at you with curiosity.

You quirk a brow, giving your full attention to your daughter. “Why this sudden question?”

“Cause it’s embarrassing to see tweets of people going insane over you two, but also I think it’s unfair how these strangers seem to know more about my parents than me.”

You and Donghyuck laugh. “And what do they say?"

She rolls her eyes. “That they can’t believe you hated each other and that you started dating her to distract her but ended up falling for her?”

You look at each other smirking before a tender, nostalgic smile takes its place.

“Would it be so terrible?” He asks, tilting his head.

She thinks about it for a moment and then replies. “It would be a bit embarrassing for you, Dad. But also... cute. So?”

“I’d say it’s true,” he replies, shrugging.

“Wait, so you really started dating because you hated each other?” She screams, sitting straight on the loveseat, leaning toward you with her body.

You chuckle. “We didn’t hate each other. We believed we could outdo the other. And your father did too much, as always.”

“You were miserable before me,” Donghyuck replies, tightening his hold around your waist. “I had a plan, and it would’ve worked.”

You roll your eyes. “Imagine thinking you could make me fall in love and not fall in love with me,” you say to your daughter. “I was a real heartbreaker back then.”

“You still are,” she replies, smiling. “My friends go insane every time they realize who my parents are.”

Your daughter never brags about being your child. The famous singer, producer, and dancer Haechan, and you, who had a good launch as a singer before you realized that wasn’t your world and decided to stick to be a choreographer and PR manager (well, mostly Donghyuck’s choreographer and his manager). But everyone close to her knows who she is, and it’s not easy to act nonchalantly about it.

She has heard many stories about you two. The gossip about your story running wild since you broke into the industry. But you never sat down and explained it to her, not until now.

“We still have our charm,” Donghyuck laughs.

“I think the most important thing is your love and that you might be the best parents in the world. But I’m saying it officially only if you don’t turn it into a race.”

“Us? Turning something into a competition? We would never,” Donghyuck jokes.

She rolls her eyes, huffing loudly. And you can’t help but smile thinking how similar to your husband she looks right now.

“Honey, forgive us. How do you think we’re still having so much fun after all these years? That’s how we thrive, we learned how to push each other healthily.”

“Yeah, fine, I’m glad your love story is still perfect, but seriously, no competition when it comes to me. I love you both so much.”

“Come here,” you say, patting the space in front of you on the couch. Hugging her when she sits down between you two. “You are the only thing we won’t turn into a competition.”

Donghyuck hums in agreement, wrapping his arm around you two. “We both won with you.”

general taglist: @froggyforhyuck, @wingsss45, @tddyhyck, @technologyculturedneo

fic taglist: @hcluvie, @gusgus0517, @multifandomania, @413cl, @odgsuji,

@hey-hey-heybitch, @nctrawberries, @n0hyuck, @haechoshi,

@girlwholoveslpreppyattire, @viciousdarlings, @hyuckmoon,

@jaeymark, @hqech, @xntlax, @milkyway-vxm, @fullsunahceah,

@beomgyusonlywife, @toroufriteh, @yesohhsehun, @shxnz

@haecastor, @hyucksaint, @sk8ermark, @midnightrained

@maiteeeeesstuff, @smwhrinthehaze, @yoursyuno

#why are there tears streaming down my face and dripping down my nose #this got me fucked up #its not that deep #i wanna be loved too omg #please #i want hyuck

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