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biteyoubiteme · 3 months ago

Text

black cherry flavored

ot5 txt x fem!reader

synopsis: how many ghostfaces are there again?

warnings: 🔞!!! gangbang, mentions of drinking, getting scared, fearplay? reader gets chased through house and doesnt know who it is, knifeplay (only used to cut off underwear), clit play, mean dom moments, filming during sex, slight breeding kink, unprotected sex, multiple orgasms (f!), creampie(s), marking, subspace, fingering, oral (m! rec), hair pulling!, overstim (f!rec), she/her used prob forgot some

wc: 9.2k (this one got away from me)

an: this is not proofread at all im so so so sorry forgive me sweet angel ily but I cannot believe october is over and this event has come to an end ;-; I hope you guys like this one! im a HUGE horror movie fan so I was excited to do this and hopefully it turned out well. I went with a different approach for a scream fic that was kinda based on different aspects from the movies and I hope you like it! feedback is appreciated :)) [m.list]

this is apart of my mini kinktober event check out the rest of the fics! [dumdum m.list]

"whats your favorite scary movie?"

You roll your eyes, hand coming up to cover the screen of your laptop. “Aren't you supposed to be doing your own work not pestering me about mine?”

It was late in the night, the library dead silent besides the hum of the heater and faint typing on stiff keyboards. The door to the study space was cracked just enough to hear the elevator if it dinged, the indicator the floor would soon be closing for the cleaning staff. The clock on the wall told you it was close to one in the morning, only an hour away from the library being cleared and closed.

“I'm avoiding the rest of my essay,” beomgyu shrugs, clicking his pen as a signal for an end to the line of questioning. “Annoying you just seemed like a better plan,”

“Annoying all of us, I needed this done an hour ago,” yeonjun doesn't even look up from his laptop, glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose, lenses glossed over with the light from his screen, fingers speeding over the keys only to pause and jam the delete button. “Fuck, i lost my train of thought,”

“It's already late, just turn it in tomorrow morning,” huening suggests, slouched back in his chair, thumbs nibbly swiveling on the joystick of his switch. “The syllabus said it was ten points off no matter how late after twelve you submit it,”

“Don't talk to me right now, you got yours in on time. And I'm getting this done tonight whether I like it or not. I won't be able to handle looking at it tomorrow morning. the paper just won't get turned in at all if that happens,” yeonjuns back to typing furiously squinting at his laptop not noticing kais grin.

“You should have listened to me about meeting up at nine, but nooo-”

“Huening,” yeonjun warns.

“I'm just saying…”

Yeonjun picks up one of Soobin's scattered pens from the table, tossing it at Kai hitting him in the lap. And when Kai just laughs, Yeonjun picks up a few more to throw, the showering of pens making Kai yelp.

“Shhh,” soobin doesn't even lift his head to see what's going on. He and tae had been trying to sleep for the better part of two hours, Taehyun having found success, sliding two chairs together to prop his legs up. He pulled his hat down over his eyes and hasn't said anything since closing them. Soobin only crossed his arms and laid his head down, leg bouncing showing he was still struggling to actually find it in him to sleep without his bed.

The six of you usually booked the room on Friday nights from nine to two, blocking the time to try and catch up on work before the weekend. It was either the time you got the most work done or none at all. You're surprised it took beomgyu this long to finally turn away from his assignment at this point he's usually at the whiteboard doodling or trying to get everyone to play dirty hangman.

It was easier to get all of you together here instead of one of your small dorms, the space hardly big enough for three people let alone six. In the library you didn't have to worry about cramming together, the fourth floors study spaces equipped with long tables and eight chairs. Out of the two libraries on campus this one didn't have many people visit often, especially not when the walk from any of the dorms was twice as long. The fourth floor was empty and quiet except for the group's laughter on nights you didn't worry about work.

“You didn't answer that question,” beomgyu points out again, pointer finger pushing away your hand blocking the screen, “what's your favorite scary movie?”

“I didn't answer it because I can't choose,” you confess, scrolling through the paper you're writing for class.

“Is your homework twenty questions?” soobins voice is muffled, annoyed and sleep-ridden.

“No-”

beomgyu cuts you off before you could explain, brows scrunching as he reads. “Looks like it, this one is ‘what are the rules around sex’ there is no way this actually for your class,”

“What?” this pulls soobins head up, the messy strands of his dark hair sticking up around his forehead.

“Of course you wake up when you hear the word sex,” yeonjun quips, pursing his lips reading over his work on his screen.

“No need to wake up you type so loud i couldn't fall asleep,” soobin says brushing his long fingers through his hair, you always noticed the later it got the grumpier he became, pouting lips and half lidded eyes always making an appearance after midnight.

“It's for my film studies class. We’re learning about the rules of horror,” its clarification enough for soobin who nods but beomgyu lets his head tilt to the side, the vision of a question mark.

“Rules? You can't just send a killer in, have them spill some blood, and call it a day?”

“You could, but i'm sure it would follow a pattern, even without you realizing it,” scrolling through your work you pause on the first option. “First you have to think about the time period when the movie was filmed. Most of the popular ones ranged from the 80’s to the early 2000’s. A huge push in most cultures is the topics of sex, drugs, and money. It's the three things people try to control the most. Throw a bunch of badly behaving teens in with a psycho killer playing god and you can tell the masses how wrong something is. Like having sex,”

“So wrong it would get you killed?”

“Yup, in most, if not all, horror movies the people who have sex on screen or are known for sleeping around get killed off, leaving the poor virgin alive. Main characters who live to the end also don't drink, or do drugs. Rich people aren't safe, especially if you have a big empty house with lots of stairs, doors, and windows. The more for you to make the wrong decision not to exit from,”

“Then who does live?” Kai asks, game paused in hand.

“The girl next door lead, never her boyfriend, the camera man, unless you see him leave the group because you should never leave the group under any circumstances. But everyone else is fair game. Oh and if you say ‘i'll be right back,’ the lines a killer in and of itself,”

“So I'd die because I like to have a good time?” yeonjun asks, fingers paused on his keys as he looks over at you. Everyone but tae is turned in your direction, listening intently.

“Unless you're the killer, or lucky because you weren't in line of the camera when you decided it was smart enough to leave the house. It's very kill or be killed. Another rule is to never trust anyone,”

“The list just gets longer and longer,” soobin sits back in his chair, arms crossed behind his head as he stretches, “you know i saw this one post on twitter that some people like the whole masked killer thing, gets them off,”

“Of course you would be on twitter looking at stuff like that,” gyu fakes disappointment, shaking his head, “this is exactly why you wouldn't survive, you're a closeted perv,”

“I don't know about closeted perv, he was openly scrolling past hentai the other day in the dorm,” yeonjun is back to typing, soobin kicking the foot of his chair.

“Past it, i didn't pause on it,”

“It was on your for you page! Clearly you have a habit of liking things akin to it,”

“I don't know, I think it's kinda hot, the mask thing. or i guess more so the build up of fear, it's almost like foreplay, your pulse starts going, you get all flushed. And I did see this clip of these two guys dressed up…” this wouldn't be the first time any of you confessed to watching something that turned you on. All of you had been friends for years, growing up nothing had ever been an off limits topic. You can see the video in your head, the way they held the girl between them; how they manhandled her down onto the bed.

“So you and soobin are both freaks,” beomgyu grins, the need to tease showing right in his eyes.

“A threesome is not freaky,” Taehyun states, breaking his silence, hat still over his eyes, fully relaxed and laid back. If you hadn't known the sound of his voice you would have assumed he was still asleep, if he had even been asleep in the first place.

“Agreed, anything over three is a little freaky,” soobin shrugs, bending over halfway out of his chair to pick up his fallen pens.

“So would you? Sleep with more than two people at once?” gyu asks, the tilt back to his head, “this is the true test if you're freaky or not,” he chuckles.

“I mean yeah… would you?” The question is directed at the room and you watch the question lay over them like fog, each of them thinking for a second, blank expressions all the way around.

Taehyun was the first to respond, shrugging his shoulders before nodding briefly, “I wouldn't let the opportunity slip by if it was offered,” It was a unanimous yes from all of them, the hummed agreement not too surprising.

“Done!” yeonjun smashes one last key before stretching big, “finally fucking submitted, and right before we have to leave, im surprised the staff hasnt gotten around to our room yet to kick us out,”

Taehyun pulls his hat from his face, sitting up with a yawn, “good, i needed my bed two hours ago,”

It always felt so good to sleep in on a saturday after a study session like this, you could already feel how cozy it would be to wrap up in your blanket. And even if the mattress was shit with or without the foam topper, it was better than laying out in the chairs like taehyun just was.

All of you cleaned up the space, making sure to tuck in the chairs, pick up the discarded cups of late night bad decision coffee. Squishing in the elevator together, bags bumping into one another before you filed out; passing all the empty desks and empty aisles of books to make it out the front door.

As soon as the outside air hits your cheeks you know it’s going to feel like a long walk back to the dorms. the boys tucking their ears into hoodies, zipping their jackets up, you and kai lived in the dorms on the opposite side of campus from the rest of them, their walk shorter by only a few minutes.

“Okay we’re still on for dinner tomorrow right?” Kai asks the group.

beomgyu’s jumping on the balls of his feet to try to generate some warmth. “literally just text us, I cannot think about tomorrow when i’m this cold and sleepy,”

“Yes, we’re still on, I've been craving anything other than dining hall food for the past week,” yeonjun adds, shivering as he pulls the straps of his bag closer to his chest. “We'll still meet up back here like usual,” he was walking backwards as he said it, already a few steps behind the others, “but see you guys tomorrow or should I say ‘i’ll be right back!’” he jokingly yells while the others wave goodbye.

“don’t play jjunie, you might be next! don’t trust anyone!” He gives you a silent salute in response as you and Kai head out for your walk.

Instinctively the two of you are shoulder to shoulder, bumping into one another every other step. Silence following each muffled step on the pavement. Sometimes the two of you didn't say anything until you split on the elevators. a quick ‘goodnight’ or ‘see you tomorrow’ thrown out as you step out on your floor, waving as the doors closed back up so he could go up one more level. Other nights it was the two of you giggling trying to keep it down as you walked under the moonlight, too late to be loud.

You wrap your arms around yourself, shivering as the wind hits the treeline. spots of orange light from the spaced out street lights are rare, casting the two of you in darkness every time the moon is behind the clouds; every several feet the hash light is back in your path.

“So you'd live? In a horror movie?” Kai asks, hands shoved deep into his pockets, shoulders to his ears from the cold. The wind is hitting him right in the face, tossing his hair from his eyes where he liked to keep it. He asks it so softly, the question highlighted in the divot of his brow, nose pink, face washed in the glow from the moon.

“I'm not really a virgin so…,” it's not an embarrassing confession but when it's this late with his eyes trained solely on you it's like a spilled glass of red wine on white sheets. Impossible to look away from.

“You wouldn't live for knowing how people survive?”

“The smart ones usually die from bad luck, they know to head for the car waiting in the lot but forget the keys or if the keys are still in the ignition they never check the back seat. They know if you run into the woods to escape you can hide, but how unlucky for a rusty forgotten bare trap to be waiting for your next step. or if you miss that one here's a log to trip over, only to tumble down a hill and break your neck. Call the police? You're in the one movie a phone works only for you to forget never trust anyone because the police work for the killer,”

“So none of us make it?” It's such an open question the way he asks it, the hopeful twinge hitting the ending, twisting it into something it shouldn't be. Written right over his features the soft words unsaid, can't we? There has to be a way.

“This isn't a movie kai, we’re fine,”

“I know, it's only a question,” he's so easily flustered when alone, second guessing everything he says, as if one slip up will make you hate him. Now he's blushing, both of you falling back into comfortable silence. You can tell he's thinking by the way he's biting at his cheek, eyes watching his feet, making sure not to miss one step. You assume it's the end of what he has to say, his silence following you all the way back to your floor. The elevator doors opened finally giving him the courage to speak up. “Do you…”

“Hum?” you lift your arm to hold the doors open, turned to see him struggling to get the words out.

“Do you want to come with me to my parents cabin,” he says it all in a rush, avoiding looking you in the eyes just in case you reject him. “I mean you don't have to, the guys won't be there and if it makes you uncomfortable-” he cuts himself off, hand at the back of his neck, trying to rub away his embarrassment, “forget it- forget i said anything,”

“It's okay, I'd love to go. where is it?”

“Um it's like two hours from campus, my parents need me to check on it just cause and i thought, why not make a weekend of it? I mean, you can finally sleep on a real mattress, not whatever was issued here,”

A weekend away did sound good, perfect after the semester you were having. And Kai is as sweet as they come, spending time with him wouldn't be bad at all. “Sure, when are you thinking?”

“Next week?”

It was all so very innocent, a sweet boy asking a girl to join him on a weekend getaway. He even packed you snacks for the drive, let you pick all the music, and made sure to carry your bag in when you arrived.

You weren't stupid enough not to realize why you were here and the other boys didn't get an invite. The whole week you thought it over, pushing around the idea of being with him. And you could tell he was tossing it around all throughout the drive, periodically blushing without saying a thing to you, hands tightening on the steering wheel; knuckles turning white from the pressure.

Halfway through the drive you realized exactly what he meant by cabin. Not the kind sitting near the edge of a trail, but one hidden deep into the woods for perfect seclusion. Kai had a late class to make up for and the two of you didn't get started on the drive until the sun was already setting behind the trees. Every shadow thrown across the road drew longer and longer as the car kept on.

The gravel driveway leading up to the cabin was a stretch, but when you finally broke past the winding path the gleaming two story was not very cabin like. The windows reflecting the cars headlights back at you expanded most of the first level. Wraparound porch dotted with chairs, and a swinging bench. As soon as kai killed the engine the silence stumbled in, darkness spilling over the scene as you climbed out of your seat.

“This place is huge,” you whisper, as if anything louder would disrupt the peace of the outdoors. You held your phone's flash up in front of you, huening fumbling to put the key into the lock on the first try. Each attempt from his shaking hand failed.

“Here,” you took the key into your own hand, twisting the knob and pushing the door open.

“Sorry,” his voice wavering as he flips on the light switch, “i'm just- you know-,” he cuts himself off not wanting any more embarrassment to follow him.

As soon as the lights come on you can't see anything outside, the windows a reflection of the room. A tv hanging over a huge stone fireplace, welcoming couches spaced out in a semi circle around a wooden coffee table, a bar topped with dusty glasses pushed in the corner. Kai kicks off his shoes by the door, walking further in you notice the dark hallway leading deeper into the first floor, a staircase waiting right by the entrance. But kai ignores it all while walking towards the kitchen.

“I mostly have to check the doors and windows to make sure no one broke in,” he's trying to fill the silence, rambling to kill his nerves,”one year we had someone steal the tv, we don't really leave much now just incase, so that's why it looks so empty,”

“People actually drive all the way out here and break in? The last time i saw a turn off the road before this one was an hour ago,”

“You never know, it's best to just check and fill out a report sooner rather than later,” in the kitchen the backdoor is made of two foggy planes of glass, only the outline of kai seen in the weavering shape. He twists the knob and to your surprise it gives way and opens, “damn one of my sisters must have forgotten to lock it last they were here,” You lean your hip against the kitchen island, taking his explanation as is.

“They come out here to check too?”

“Rarely they mostly come with their friends but stopped when they realized there is zero phone service this far out,”

“There isn't?” you hadn't even checked to see if your phone was working, “what if someone had broken in? You have no phone to make a call from,”

He chuckles pointing past your shoulder, right on the end of the counter a sleek black cordless landline rests in its holder, the blinking red light showing one waiting voicemail. “Sometimes it can be spotty but for the most part its a solid line of communication,”

Hand still on the knob of the backdoor he locks the door before walking over to the pantry, finding only a crate of dusty wine and a stack of old jiffy pop popcorn.

“Wait, I didn't think they made these anymore,” you reach out for the thin metal handle attached to the panshapped popcorn container. Shaking it you hear the rattle of the kernels, “when i was younger i thought it was just something people had in movies,”

“My sisters and i love the stuff, it's also easy to pop outside over the fire,”

“So all you leave is popcorn and wine when you're not staying here?” you tap the crate of wine with your foot, his grin boyish and shy.

“It's a good thing for us now i guess,”

It's what leads you to sharing the bottle, passing it by the neck as he gives you a tour of the house. His lips right at the spout, nerves loosening up with each sip he takes, creaking steps leading up the second floor. “And here is my room,”

It’s right at the end of the hall, bed neatly made with a single stuffed penguin sitting against the pillows. “You left him here all alone?” You ask, picking up the plushie, Kai's standing in front of the closet, the slatted doors making up most of the wall behind him facing the bed.

He shrugs placing the half full wine bottle down on his dresser, “someone needed to protect my prize possession,” he falls right onto the mattress, head thrown back, hair spilling against the pillows, “i always sleep so good in this bed,” cheeks flushed from the wine, half lidded eyes watching you from under his lashes. It's an invitation you don't pass up.

You climb in after him, feeling relaxed from drinking even if it was only a little bit, you can tell it's helped him too, his lazy smile so blissful. “I'm sure this bed is good for other things too,” you don't even care about being bold, not alone with him under you as you dip your head, nose brushing his.

The first kiss is so soft, a brush of lips together lasting no longer than a second. Kai whines in the back of his throat, an ache for more hidden in the desperate sound. It's addicting to have someone seem so needy for your attention, his legs instinctively tangling with yours, hand at the back of your neck pulling you back down for another kiss.

The two of you fumbling to feel at each other, your hand sliding up under his shirt to touch his warm skin, his stomach flexing at the brush of your cold fingertips. His hand at your waist pulling you closer to him, needing you as close as he can get you. The kiss is sloppy in seconds, his tongue sliding against yours, noses bumping as you breath in each other. You can feel that he's semi-hard, pressed against your thigh between his legs.

He's a mess, whimpering when you pull away to take off your sweater, leaving you braless in a tank top. greedy hands back on you, pulling you back down on top of him, he’s grinding onto you desperately, fully hard from only kissing.

every little noise he makes is caught in your mouth, his fingers fumbling for the button on your jeans. you have to pull away after his failed attempt, giggling as you brush his hair back, “it’s okay to take it a little bit slow huening we have all night,” you remind him, “I don’t want you cumming in your jeans when it could be in or on me,” he's looking up at you with total devotion, with an expression that lets you know he'd let you do anything if you asked.

“Please?” and it doesn't even matter what he's begging for, you would let him do just about anything in return for looking at you like that.

You're quick to rid yourself of your pants, falling back to the bed and letting him roll on top of you. Hands in his hair as he presses into you, one hand holding himself up while the other snakes down between you two. The soft gasp you let out eggs him on, drawing soft circles over your clothed clit like he knows exactly what to do. You twist your fingers into his hair, his lips tracing down your neck, hips back to grinding into your thigh. At first you don't notice the smell of popcorn. It's faint upstairs, wafting in through the vents, buttery and warm as kai slips his fingers into you. Your hips rolling on his hand, meeting every thrust, heel of his palm pressed to your clit.

It isn't until the popcorn starts to burn that you say something, the tang in the air subtle as kai sucks hickeys on your sensitive skin. “Is something on fire?”

Kai pulls away from the crook of your neck, “what the fuck?” breathing deeply to catch the scent. It's clear in the air now, hanging around like a question. “Stay here,”

it's so unceremonious when he pulls his hand from your panties, fingers dropping onto his tongue to clear them, “i'll be right back, okay?”

“O-okay,” you're confused more than anything, knees pulling in feeling overly exposed all of a sudden. It's silent in the house, the soundtrack of your kissing dimmed to nothing, before it's replaced with the creaking of his dissipating steps down the stairs.

You feel a little foolish sitting in his bed, the crumpled sheets and discarded plushie a reminder that this is not normal for a hook up at all. Letting out a long breath you push out of the bed, all relaxation felt before now gone as you reach for the wine bottle on the dresser. You take a heavy swig from the bottle, needing your courage back. It felt silly to worry over burnt popcorn.

Your stomach turns, sickening realization settling in. the two of you had only picked up the wine, neither of you even put the jiffy pop close to the stove's burners. You're quick to look for your phone, checking in the pile of your clothes on the floor, and finding nothing. Your bag was by the door downstairs, right next to the shoes, if your phone wasnt up here it was bound to be in your bag.

You didn't say anything as you made it to the top of the stairs, not until the phone rang. Not the familiar song that came through your speakers but the deft echo of a warning siren. The kind of ringtone that was played in a movie when someone was receiving bad news, and it didn't stop, traveling up the stairs, playing once, twice, until nothing but silence.

“Huening?” your voice wasn't as strong as you wished, faulting at the end as you took your first step down the stairs.

No response.

The last step creaks under your weight, the sound triggering the phone, that chilling ringtone back in the air. All the lights are on, nothing outside the windows visible as you watch your reflection walk past. You look right at the front door as you walk past, all of your things still in place, even Kai's shoes are still right where he left them.

In the kitchen you find the ringing phone, the little screen bright green as it shows the incoming call. The skins faucet turned on, the pelting water beating down on the thin aluminum foil of the jiffy pop, hastily tossed into the basin. Thin rivulets of smoke still curling from the singed popcorn. The stove's gas burner still lit with a blue flame.

The ringing continues as you turn everything off, feeling suddenly too cold and alone standing under the golden lights. It doesn't help that you're only dressed in your panties and tanktop, bare feet padding across the tile to pick you the phone.

Unknown caller. Read the directory, not even the number shown underneath. You hit answer before you could think better of it.

“Hello?” your pulse was in your ears, washing down your neck, but you're stunned to recognize the voice over the phone.

“What's your favorite scary movie?”

You can't help but laugh, the sound bubbling up before you respond, “kai, are you using the ghostface voice on me right now? You already had your hand down my pants no need for the theatrics,”

You can't even pick up a trace of his real voice over the filter, the soft chuckle on the other line trickling down your spine. “You didn't answer my question, you have to have a favorite, what comes to mind?”

“So we’re quoting the movie now?” you ask, looking around the kitchen, leaning back against the countertop. “Should i go all in and start asking to make it to the sequel?”

He chuckles, so soft and sensual, unlike his usual boisterous laugh. “Maybe…but a little birdie told me that you're not a virgin and you know what happens to those who sleep around right?”

“Enlighten me,” you cross your arms smiling at your reflection in the window. It's a bit silly to be here roleplaying in the first place but it's not like you're against it. What gets you is that it's coming from kai of all people. So soft and sweet, giggling and shyly walking you home. But you truly never know what a persons into until you're faced first with it.

“They don't last very long,” so smug as he says it.

“They don't?”

“Nope, and you have a list of things that you've already done wrong. I don't know if you truly deserve to make it to the sequel,”

“Oh? What did I do wrong?” you smile, checking out your nails, thumb running along the bed of your cuticles as you listen.

“Humm, let me see. First you're all alone in that big old house, did anyone ever tell you never to go into the dark and scary woods all alone?”

“I'm not alone, i have you,”

He ignores the last half of your statement, “Aren't you? hum, funny how i don't see the boytoy around anymore,”

“I can't believe you planned all of this, who knew you would be so freaky? I can't say that it doesn't turn me on though,”

“Oh? How cute that you still think I'm your little boyfriend. I mean didn't you see the signs? The door was unlocked in the back, popcorn on the stove when you didn't put it there, and now a missing boy toy. It's a shame you seem to have forgotten everything you've learned in class, or maybe it was the wine,”

“A few sips won't make me stupid, seriously huening come out, i want to get back into your bed,” you push off the counter, walking back toward the living room until you're stopped dead in your tracks. The sound isn't coming from the phone but just up ahead around the corner.

Your laugh echoes in the empty house, followed by your own words, “it’s okay to take it a little bit slow huening, we have all night, I don’t want you cumming in your jeans when it could be in or on me,”

You follow each line into the living room, the tv on and showing a video of only minutes ago.

“Please?” kais weavering voice seems so loud here instead of between you two.

You can see yourself push down your pants, watch the way the two of you fall right back into each other. Only now you're seeing it from the perspective of the closet, it's the only place you could think of that he would have placed the camera. The slats of the wood even in frame. It's like someone dropped a bucket of ice water on top of you. Standing in front of the tv as if you're Carrie from the prom and someones set up a cruel joke.

“Cute huh?” the voice over the phone asks, that little laugh following right after, “i sure think it is. Look at the way your body reacts to his fingers, you’ll be that pretty for me won't you?”

You feel the hair on the back of your neck rise, the house too big for this kind of game. Even just standing there now alone it felt like you were a fish in a bowl, stuck to be watched from all sides. And not from the video but from the figure standing right on the outside of the window.

He was dressed in all black, nothing like what kai had been wearing before. And covering his face the dripping white mask of ghostface. You only catch a glimpse because the lights are on but it's enough to remind you that maybe this isn't a joke. “Are you outside?”

“I don't know? Am i?” but as he says it you see down the hallway a dark figure step out of a doorway.

Everything in you freezes, your heart rate plummeting, a cold sweat breaking out across your skin. You hadn't even noticed your fingers had been trembling before, not until your deathgrip on the phone starts to hurt. “Don't hang up on me,” he warns over the line, but the person down the hall doesnt even have a phone in sight, his slow prowl reminding you to move.

You take off back towards the kitchen, the back door playing in your head as the best possible exit but as soon as you're in front of it, tugging on a door knob needs to be unlocked you see the haze reflection of two more figures waiting right against the glass. You can hear the laugh of the person on the phone even if it's not to your ear as you rush to pull open any drawer that might have something in it to protect you. But every pull leads you to find nothing at all, “what the fuck!”

The door shakes as they try to pull it open, the glass rattling as you lift the phone back to your ear, “okay huening, that's enough, i get it, ha ha, funny, but seriously-”

“Were you looking for a knife?” he cuts you off, voice so calm when you're falling apart.

“What?” you're exasperated, huffing the question like it's a slap in the face.

“I know where one is, if you want it,”

It's then that the masked man from the hall comes into the kitchen, the steel knife in his hands glinting in the light. “You have to be fucking kidding me right now,” youre desprate to find an explanation for this. The island is between the two of you, his head tilting to the side, the open mouth of the mask mocking you as he takes slow steps around the marble. You're matching his every move, both of you circling the kitchen like two fighters waiting for the ding of a bell.

The door rattles again, the sound making you yelp, hand pressed to your racing heart. It's the distraction you need to bolt right through the kitchens arch way and run to the front door.

You're moving so fast you have little time to slow down, partially slamming into the door, fingers fast to twist the locks.

As soon as it's opened you're standing face to face with another ghostface mask, his black clad outfit sticking to his figure as he towers over you, phone hovering right over the mask's gaping mouth. “Hum not out the front door i guess,”

You try to slam the door shut but his boot clad foot moves fast catching it right before it could close completely. Spinning you run towards the stairs, the sound of their following footsteps close behind. The door to the bedroom is still wide open as you barrel through turning around and throwing the door closed and twisting the lock.

But it's only a moment of relief when you feel a hand clasp around your mouth. Your scream is muffled from their fingers, your eyes closing as if that would fix the situation, the phone in your hand falling to the floor, “Shhh it's okay,” Kai whispers, a strong arm wrapping around your middle pulling you closer to him.

The weight is lifted off your shoulders hearing his voice, hands wrapping around the one covering your mouth to tug it away. “What is going on?” you ask, pulling yourself away from him. your back is to the door and he steps closer backing you right up against it.

“Didn't you say you found it kinda hot, the whole fear thing?” he asks, leaning close enough to kiss, “i wanted to make it extra special for you, and you don't mind if we all share you, right?” his knuckle lifts your chin up so you’re eye to eye, nose to nose, his normal shy smile turned devilish. “All you have to do is say no,”

It was crazy to say yes. your heart still pounding, breathing only just starting to regulate, and yet you want him, you want them. “I-I don’t- I don’t want to say no,”

“Then don’t,” he pushed his whole body against yours, engulfing you in his warmth, taking you for another kiss like you hadn’t left the room at all. You don't even notice him unlocking the door, not until the knob is shaking against your back.

Kai pulls you towards the bed, the closet doors behind him open showing the empty space with a lone camera on a tripod. The red light looking back at you like a warning, you looked right down the barrel of the lens wondering if you would ever see this again, and praying that you did. Kai fit his fingers over you eyes, “don't look at it, don’t think about its there,”

You hear a chuckle, so similar to the one over the phone, only without the filter. Now so easily recognizable as yeonjun, you can picture the way his mouth looks as he does it, his canines on display as he smirks. You don't even have to see him to know, you've known all of them so long you're sure one touch and you could guess who was who. And with both of kais hands on your eyes the brush of someone's fingers on your cheek lets you know exactly who it is. Soobins hands are the softest of the bunch and your face tilts in his direction. “Soobin?”

he lets out a huff of a laugh, “you caught me. And you know it's kind of rude not to open the back door when we come knocking,”

“You scared me,” it's a soft confession that they all chuckle at.

“Did we?” beomgyu teases, so much closer than you expected, the ghost of his touch going up your arm, goosebumps popping up along the trail.

Your senses are on overdrive, pulse loud enough to be heard if one listens close enough, every little thing heightened by your fading fear and covered eyes. You feel a hand slip down your stomach stopping right before your panty line, a single finger sliding under the waistline to pull it and let it snap back against your skin. You jolt from the contact, body flush with kai’s, his hard cock pressed to your back.

You hear rustling from the closet, and kai lets you go, letting you see yeonjun taking the camera in hand. He's adjusting the viewfinder, the others standing in a circle around you, it should be intimidating, the masks off now, looking at you like you're something to eat. It's taehyun that steps forward first, thumb reaching out to drag across your bottom lip. You open your mouth letting him press the digit flat against your tongue.

“You’ll be good for us, won't you?” he asks, and you close your mouth sucking his finger as you nod. He smirks, “i want first,”

It's all he says before he's pushing you down on the bed. It's so quick the air is almost knocked right out of you, your hands scrambling to find purchase on the beds duvet cover. It's almost a shame how wet you already are, the way your panties are cut away, the cold knife in taehyuns free hand only just brushing your skin. The fabric tossed around from person to person. “I did most of the work,” kai adds as you bury your face into the sheets, “she wouldn't be this prepped if i didn't start early,”

“And that's why you have to wait,” “You didn't even get her off,” they talk over each other.

“You guys didn't give me time!” kai tries but they ignore him when you give a sharp whine.

Taehyun shoves his fingers right into you, your body so willing to take him in. but you hear his belt being undone with one hand, and it's a shame you cant see the way his cock looks from this angle, because as he pressed the tip right at your entrance, slick fingers helping to lude up his veiny shaft, you can tell he's going to be the perfect stretch.

Your moan as he sinks into your warm heat is echoed by the rest of them, a choir of the perfect voices turned husky and wanting. “Holy shit,” teahyun breathes his hand pressed right to your lower back, your feet dangling right off the edge of the bed, toes only just barely touching the ground.

“Doesn't she feel amazing?” kai asks, “fuck i bet she fits like a fucking dream,” gyu adds as he walks over to the other side of the bed climbing in to lay against the headboard. His zipper was already undone, pants low on his hips as he watched you get pounded into.

Because tae was not holding back anymore, it felt like he had been waiting all night for this exact moment, to chase his high without question. And your pussy was so welcoming, sucking him in, practically begging for his cum.

Yeonjun walked around the bed, zeroing the camera in on you as your legs bend, heel of your feet pushing on taes thighs. Taehyun wraps his hands in your hair, tugging your head back, extending your throat to the camera, arching your back just right, “i want to be able to watch back how you looked while i fucked you okay?”

“Oh, look at that, huening marked up our toy already,” soobin reaches out a finger, tracing over the hickey kai had left on your skin, your eyes were wide and begging as you watched him, mouth caught open in a moan as taes thrusts turned sloppy. “Fuck, look at that mouth,”

yeonjun bent down to catch the image. “I think someone needs to fill it,”

Soobin didn't need to be told twice. He was tugging his cock out of his jeans, leaking precum already dotting the tip as he gave it long languid strokes. Your mouth was already watering at the sight, knowing taking him down your throat would be a task but one you wouldn't back away from.

But taehyun was already cumming, orgasm cresting as he slammed his hips into your ass, cock twitching as he let out a deep rumbling moan. He let go of your hair, head falling forward into the duvet as he stilled inside you pressing as close as he could get, the tip of his cock hitting you just right as he spilled inside you.

“I want next!” gyu calls out, raising his hand like he knows the answer to a question.

“No-” soobin starts but beomgyu is already moving from his stop on the bed as taehyun pulls out, the gush of warmth leaving your cunt dripping down your thighs. Yeonjun is quick to catch the sight on film.

“Look at that,” it sounds so endearing coming from him, a true sight to behold as you whine from the feeling of being empty. You feel like a ragdoll as soobin pulls on you, tugging you further up the bed so that you're on your hands and knees in front of him.

“Open,” his tip is already prodding at your lips. You feel the bed dip behind you, gyu finding his place as he drags his fingers through the leaking cum traveling down your legs, he does his best to shove it right back into you, fingers dragging over your clit, circling it as soobin shoves his cock right into your mouth.

You give a muffled yelp, tongue flattening to make it easier for him to slide in and out of. His head is rolling back, hair spilling around his ears as he moans. He twists his fingers in your hair, both hands wrapping around your head to bob you up and down on his dick like his own personal toy. You're nails dig into the sheets, the sloppy sounds of him fucking your throat taking up the most sound.

Beomgyu keeps one hand on your clit and the other guides his cock into you, he's quick to snap his hips forward sending you forward on soobin, until you're choking for air. Moans sending vibrations up along soobins shaft. His eyes tighten, needing to pull away before he cums too quickly, face flushed red as rivulets of your saliva still connect you to him.

The constant pressure put on your clit from beomgyus fingers has your stomach tightening in knots. Now that you're not taking soobin in beomgyu picks up his pace, the skin on skin slapping sounds melding with your whines. “I want you to cum for me, i want to be the first one to make you cum, please,” he sounds so desperate, not matching the way he drills into you, tip hitting your cervix in a mix of painful pleasure. He can feel your fluttering walls, every particularly hard thrust making your cunt react just right. And when you cum hes a blubbering mess, “fuck fuck fuck-” not expecting to cum so fast, but youre drawing it out of him, with each little sound you make. He's almost embarrassed by how long he cums for, head falling forward to rest on your shoulder blade, his dick pulsing inside you, curses turning to nonsense, the drawn out, “fuuu- ahh, ah,”

“Look at how pretty she looks when she cums,” yeonjun smiles, bringing the camera close to catch the way you are trying to blink the spots from your vision, “soobin next? Or maybe kai? Both of them seem to have waited so long for you,”

Kai leans back against the dresser, arms crossed as he watches you, expressionless as he follows the shape of your body. Only one of your tank tops straps are on, your breasts already spilling out from the thin fabric, soobins eyes caught on your peaked nipples as he strokes himself. But you look back over to huening, the way he's standing there like he's unaffected at all. But you know it's not true, not when he's straining in his pants, the bulge itself drives you insane. “Hyuka?”

The shyness in your voice is what does it for him, beomgyu only just pulling out of you with a hiss. More cum dribbling out as he pushes his hair back looking at his handiwork. Yeonjun is right next to him too, getting the perfect shot.

Taehyun languidly lounges back against the headboard, cock still hard as it rests against his stomach, hand wrapped around the base as he watches you. It distracts you enough not to see kai moving replacing gyus spot.

Kai wraps his hand in your hair but unlike taehyun he forcefully pushes your head down into the mattress. The whole mit of his hand cups your skull, your whimper making him chuckle. His free hands traced up your side, slipping under your tank top as he feels along your skin. “You know I was thinking about this the whole walk back after our study night?” his hand dips down fingers sliding along your wetness, “i kept thinking about how perfect it would be to absolutely ruin you,”

You're already sensitive from finishing already and kai can tell as your thighs tremble but it wont stop him from pinching your clit. Your hips push back against him, yelping as he goes on to rub circles over the bundle of nerves. “Seeing it happen- watching you get used as a little cum dump is so much better than I ever imagined,” he works your clit, building up his speed until your back is arching, nails biting into your palm as you feel your orgasm building too quickly. You're trying to rock back into his hand but the way he has you bent helps very little. Your cries heighten until he pulls it all away.

“No huening please!”

“Aww how cute, she's begging,” beomgyu laughs and you're whimpering in response.

“Kai…please!”

“You're already doing so well because i want you begging to be filled with my cum, crying from how badly you want it,” his hand goes back to your cunt, pressing into your clit rubbing at a pace that has you seeing stars, your hands scratch out for looking for anything to hold onto. Yeonjun takes your hand in his keeping the camera facing your reaction as your eyes roll back. Its in the middle of your climax that kai pushes his cock into you, finding a punishing rhythm as he fucks you into the matterss.

“Beg for it,” he growls, hand in your hair twisting in the strands. You can feel him all the way to your throat, stretched out so good, he presses right into your gspot like he was made for you.

“P-please- hyuka i need it- i-” you cant even get the words out anymore, the squeaking of the bed building as he increases his speed. You can hear the wet sounds of the other boys jerking off, “i want your c-cum, i need it,”

“Louder,” yeonjun mutters in front of you, your death grip on his hand not loosening anytime soon.

“I want it! I need your cum, please!” But Huenings is so lost chasing his own high that he drops his hand from your clit to grab your hip, his bruising hold and brutal thrusts making you cry out.

Beomgyu reaches down under you, fingers finding just the right rhythm to send you over the edge at the same time kai cums. His faltering thrusts and throaty moans makes you feel weak. Your cunt is strangling his cock, his release pushed as deep as he could get it into you. When he pulls out you collapse onto the bed, completely used up.

It feels never ending body too tired already when you feel soobin climb into the bed. He lays right behind your exhausted form, both of you on your sides facing yeonjun, “look who's next, do you think you could get another one out of her? I hear you're only a freak in theory and not practice,”

But soobin doesn't take the bait, one hand sliding under you and wrapping around your chest, hand coming up to cup your breast, fingers twisting your hard nipple, and the other lifting your leg to get better access to your leaking cunt. Your thighs are so sticky soobins fingers slip on his hold, having to tighten his grip to make sure he can keep you open. He's been ready since the start, his cock aching as it prods your now puffy swollen cunt, so used you're sure you would be sore for days.

When he sinks in your whimpers are so soft they are hardly heard. Yeonjun is kneeling on the floor, arm holding the camera resting on the bed. He captures the way soobins dick slides in with ease, no resistance now with how much slick is coming out of you. Every drag of soobins cock comes away stained in white. A ring of the combined cum circling the base, balls sticking to your skin with every thrust.

His breathy moans are lost against your neck, pitiful little sounds before he's muttering, “im sorry, oh god- im-”

“Don't you dare cum yet,” yeonjun warns soobin, who pauses his thrusts trying to listen but can't find it in him to restrain. Yeonjuns fingers pinch at your clit, your whole body reacting to the feeling, jolting you back to life as you cum. soobin unable to handle the pressure and is a complete mess, whimpering as he pulls you closer, hugging you as if he could merge bodies.

It took him a while to finally pull out, a much needed break for only a few breaths before yeonjun passes the camera to taehyun to keep the filming going. You can feel the weakness all the way down to your bones, sure if you stand you could collapse to the floor, legs too weak to hold you up. But yeonjun is looking at you like you're being served on a silver platter, all done up with all the best fixings.

“Best for last huh?” he grins climbing over you brushing under your eye to catch a single tear that's fallen from your overstimulation. “Its so fun to see you so dumb on cock, so unlike how we usually see you,”

You hum in response as he pushes your legs open, hands at the back of your knees pushing them to your chest. When he puts them over his shoulders you whimper, reaching out to wrap your arms around his neck as he sinks into your wet heat. Bent in half you feel your toes curling, sure that if you came one more time you would be better off sleeping for the next year. “I think this is good practice, don't you?” he asks like you'll respond to him with anything other than a string of muffled whimpers. Your body is coated in a thin layer of sweat, sticking to his skin as he takes a slow pace. It's like he's apologizing, lips peppering across your cheek, down your neck. “We’ll keep you so happy, stuffed full like you deserve. Would you like that?”

You're nodding, eyes closing as he uses you. You don't even notice the way your body is reacting, that slow rise of your next orgasm building up, “i-” you can’t think about cumming again already feeling so dumbed out.

“Hum? Are you going to cum, pretty?” he picks up his pace, sinking his hips and hitting you right against your g spot. Your head rolls back as it washes over you, body tightening until you feel like you’ve combusted into little particles. “Oh look at that, so perfect for me, your pussy feels so good when it's squeezing me like this,” it's all he says before he’s trembling, a guttural moan taking over as he cums, you swear you can feel its warmth spreading throughout you. And when he pulls out he takes the camera back from taehyun focusing it in on the sight of all the combined release staining your folds.

“Look at how she pushes it out,” beomgyu says, mesmerized by the way you look leaking so much cum. But it's Kai who leans down, fingers collecting anything he can before shoving all the cream right back into you. “Its almost like she wants us to fuck it right back in,”

🏷taglist: @kissmekissykissme @bts-txt-ateez @apeachty @stwq2349 @isa942572 @tomorrowxforever r @beestvng @soobingf-blog @lovinjjong @lola-horore-553 @cypher-03 @midnight-mochii i @hueningwhy @choibeomning @soobinbunnie5 @yunjinswifee @cupidtaehyun @bamgeutsz @prince-jjae @nessaassen02 @iluvhyukaa @mrsjohnnysuh @wand3rlustm3

thank you so much to @beomiracles @prince-jjae and @thetxtdevil for beta/proofreading the first part of this fic!

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vampyrluver · 1 year ago

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im un sure if i should sleep in tomorrow bc i have homework to do but i also have 3 events happening tmrw back to back..........decisions decisions

#.txt #help #im at work rn nd wont be out till like 10:30-11pm #tmrw i got 2 cup sleeve events back to back starting from 2:45pm #the second cupsleeve i should get home ideally no later than 5:45 nd im leaving the house again to see spiderverse live in concert #like at 6:30 #so not a lot of down time at all #prob just enough time ti grab a bite nd change my clothes #nd so my first thought was ok sleep in nd take the moring easy since ill be booked from 2:45 to like 9-10 nd ill be dead after #but i also have a whole 20 pages to read for my engloish class and an assignment based on the reading #and i have an insanley long studyguide to fill out for a big test on tuesday #and i dont have to do the study guide tmrw bc i have the test tuesday but idk im stressesd its gonna b a very hard test so i wanna study #but i made these plans all way before the sem started lol #im very excited for tmrw i just am not sure if i should take a break tmrw morning or not #im leaning towards taking a break honestly nd just grinding on sunday

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marauder-misprint · 9 days ago

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happy 500 followers i’m so happy for you!!

can you write 62 for the dialogue prompt with remus? maybe she’s james’ sister and a flirt just like him. bc jealous rem ✅✅ they’re dumb for each other but sooo oblivious

Thank you for the request ❤︎

I definitely had a moment writing where I was laughing to myself. You flirt with Remus for years: James has no problem. You say one flirtatious line to Sirius: James asks what's wrong with you.

What you need

Remus Lupin x Potter!reader

2.9k words

cw: fluff, mutual pining, angst

You and James were dual threats. Quidditch stars, academic weapons when you chose to be, friendly, attractive and flirtatious. He had his sights set on Lily and you had yours on Remus. Your methods, however, differed. While James showered Lily with compliments and asked her out daily, you had a more gentle approach. You were drawn to Remus, plenty happy to just sit in his presence. You showered him with compliments as well and made him the center of your world, but you felt that, like Lily, he didn’t reciprocate your feelings.

You didn’t let it deter you though. You knew he was more reserved than the rest of the Marauders. You decided you would play the long game and wait. He would ask you out. Eventually.

You collapsed next to Remus on the couch in the common room with an exaggerated sigh. You leaned your head on his shoulder to see what book he was reading.

“The various color changes in the wiggenweld brewing process are essential to the process and without them, the potion will be rendered useless. Substitutions, while appropriate in other potions, will drastically reduce the effectiveness,” you read over his shoulder. “Merlin, Moony, what are you reading? I know Slug didn’t assign this.”

“Just reading up on healing potions. Never know when you’ll need one,” he said.

You hummed and adjusted your body so you were closer to him.

“Must be something more interesting going on now, though, right?”

“Prongs, Padfoot and Wormtail all have detention.”

“I know,” you laughed. “Maybe we could do something! You know, just the two of us!”

You tried to not sound too excited at the idea. It was a rare opportunity that the other three had detention while you and Remus got off scot-free.

“Oh, well, I was planning on reading…”

“You could read out loud?” you suggested, desperate for some attention from him. “Maybe I’d learn something.”

“No good at reading out loud,” he mumbled.

“It’d be good practice, Moons. You know I won’t judge. Plus, you have a nice voice.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you could see his face turn a pink hue. You nudged him gently.

“Come on, read to me,” you sang softly.

Remus, feeling flustered, stood up.

“Please excuse me,” he said, leaving you on the couch alone.

You watched him retreat to his dorm with a frown on your face. Once again, it hadn’t gone as you had hoped. This wasn’t the first time you had alone time with Remus and he left just after you made him blush. You grumpily moved over into the spot he previously occupied. It was warm and faintly smelled of him; it was the second best thing right now.

It didn’t take long before Lily sat down in the squashy armchair near you.

“Why the long face Potter?” she asked. “Missing brother dearest and the troubled gang?”

You made a face at her, earning you a laugh. Oh, how James would’ve smiled and stared if he were here.

“They aren’t all in detention, Lils,” you told her.

“Well, you’re not. That would be at least one.”

“Ha,” you said dryly. “No, um, Remus is upstairs. Reading.”

“Huh. Doesn’t he usually read down here when they aren’t around?”

“Mhmm.” You took a deep breath. “He was for a bit.”

Lily nodded. “You’re in his spot, aren’t you?”

“Maybeeee,” you replied quietly, turning your face to look at the fire. “Smells like ‘im,” you added in a mumble.

She laughed again. “Potter, you’re doomed.”

You looked back at her so she could see you roll your eyes and then you returned your gaze to the flames. You knew you were doomed. You would follow Remus to the ends of the earth. You sat next to him whenever you could. You knew how he liked his tea and which quill was his favorite. You knew his ranking of tables in the library, the ones best for studying alone, studying in a group and prank planning. You knew which sweater was the comfiest because he wore it after every full moon. You adored him and he couldn’t seem to stand to be alone with you for more than a few minutes.

“So, what’d you say to him?”

“What?” Your head snapped back to Lily.

“He was reading in that spot and now he’s not. What made him go upstairs?”

“I asked him to read to me.”

“That all?”

You nodded, with a confused look on your face. If Lily thought it would’ve taken more to chase Remus away, perhaps something was up with Remus that you didn’t know about.

“Bit strange. I thought he would read to you,” she said lightly. Then she pulled out her own book and waved it in front of your face. “I could read to you if you want.”

“Not the same and you know it. But, if I were James…” you teased.

“If you were James, I’d be up in our dorm avoiding him.”

Like Remus is doing…

“You read. In your head. I’m going to the pitch... I need air.”

---

When you went to the pitch alone, you used it as a time to think, to clear your head. Did you need to practice because Gryffindor was playing Slytherin this week? Yes. But you also need to think. You’ve loved Remus for years and, well, something clicked while you were flying. He just didn’t like you that way and you had to make your peace with that.

You started small. You didn’t sit next to Remus at breakfast although you still had his tea ready for him when he arrived at the table. A look of confusion passed over his face when he saw you sitting between Sirius and Mary. He didn’t say anything about it, nor did anyone else.

Your next step was more direct. You sat next to Otto Bagman in your first class instead of Lily. That caught the eye of some people. Even more so when you let your hand linger on his shoulder longer than you should have and flashed him your brilliant smile. You laughed loudly at his lackluster jokes.

During the next class, you chose Stubby Boardman. And Gildeory Lockhart in the next. And Gideon Prewett. And Bertram Aubrey. Each got your flirtatious treatment. None made you feel like Remus did, but it was nice to have their attention.

At dinner, you pulled a move that none of them were expecting. You sat between Sirius and Mary like you had at breakfast. But you sat closer to Sirius than you usually did. It was a closeness you reserved solely for Remus.

The boys were discussing their next prank and determined that they would need to sneak into Slughorn’s private stores first in order to pull it off.

“I think Sirius should be the distraction. He’s got something super captivating about him, don’t cha think?” you said, leaning forward a bit.

You flashed him a soft smile as you rested your hand on his shoulder. If you hadn’t been looking at Sirius, you would’ve seen the glares that he immediately received from both James and Remus.

“Don’t know if Slug is particularly captivated by me, love,” Sirius said, looking down at you and matching your soft smile. Then a wicked glint appeared in his eyes as he turned back to the boys. “But, running in yelling about an exploding potion down the corridor? See how fast the old man can run!”

James’ expression changed in a flash. He slammed his hand down on the table.

“Brilliant, Padfoot!”

Remus, on the other hand, let his glare hold longer, only dropping it when Peter addressed him, asking him to repeat what they needed to get from storage. You remained close to Sirius for the rest of the meal as you offered your ideas for getting past Slughorn and for the actual prank. When you excused yourself after you finished, James followed you out of the hall and walked with you back to Gryffindor Tower.

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” he asked.

“Obviously.”

“So then, what was that back there? What’s going on with you and Sirius?”

You stopped walking in shock. You spend years flirting with Remus and no comments from James, but one comment toward Sirius and now he’s suddenly concerned with your love life? James turned to fully face you and you frowned at the concern on his face.

“Nothing. There’s nothing between me and Sirius,” you said, sounding a bit incredulous.

“Then what the bloody hell was that comment at dinner? He’s like super captivating, he he he,” he mimicked in a falsetto.

You took a calculated step toward James while reaching for your wand.

“I do not sound like that.”

“What was the comment for then?” he repeated the question for the third time. “You don’t flirt with Padfoot.”

You clicked your tongue and rolled your eyes.

“I had… a moment of clarity. Obviously, Moony isn’t right for me and I’ll get over him with whoever I need to.”

You huffed before stalking away from your brother. He stood there and watched you leave, utterly shocked by what you said. Obviously was a strong word in his opinion. He thought the obvious thing was the effect you had on Remus; Remus was hopelessly in love with but too insecure to do anything and you were waiting for him to make a move.

You continued to flirt with the boys throughout the rest of the week, with Gideon being the main recipient. Being a fellow Gryffindor and on the quidditch team gave him an easy foot up over the rest. James didn’t say anything more to you, really just being glad it wasn’t Sirius but still showing his concern nonverbally from across the room.

When he could, Remus would find an excuse to leave whenever you were with Gideon. He couldn’t dismiss how sick it made him feel. Somehow he had been the one receiving your attention for so long that he didn’t realize how much of his day was actually spent with you around, and he didn’t realize how cold he’d feel without your warmth. Instead, he now had to watch Gideon bathe in your compliments and subtle touches. Remus hated it.

When the weekend came, the whole school descended on the quidditch pitch for an exciting game. Gryffindor versus Slytherin always brought excitement. Every student donned either green or red, even the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. The game was a compilation of incredible plays and dirty moves. In the end, Gryffindor pulled through as your seeker caught the snitch. Usually, after a Gryffindor win, you’d search for Remus’ arms the moment you landed, but this time was different. You immediately found Gideon and let his arms be the ones to wrap around you and spin you around. He pressed a kiss to your forehead. You didn’t mind that it wasn’t Remus; it was nice to be the one receiving the doting for once.

Gideon’s attention followed you all the way back to the common room for the party that ensued. You knew you had eyes on you - you could feel them. In the past, after a win, you’d have one drink in your hand and you’d nurse it while hanging around the outskirts of the party with Remus. You’d maybe do shots with James because no win was possible without the Potter Twins. This time, however, you were not standing around the edge of the party with Remus. Nor were you nursing a singular drink.

You were multiple drinks in and dancing with Gideon. His hands were traveling your body and you made no moves to stop him. You just kept moving to the music and taking sips of your drink.

Remus felt like throwing up at the sight. He had half a mind to walk up to you and tear you away from the ginger. He knew you could do better than Gideon, but if asked who, Remus would want to say himself, but was he better than Gideon? Once again, Remus let his insecurities get the best of him; he retreated to his dorm unable to watch you dance like that with another guy who wasn’t him.

You finished your drink and felt Gideon lean into your ear.

“Do you want to celebrate somewhere more… private?” he whispered.

You smiled at him before saying, “Refill first!”

James had been keeping an eye on you and Gideon for a while. He didn’t like the way that Gideon was touching you, just as much as he didn’t like how much you were drinking. You were certainly not in your right mind. He intercepted you on your way to the drink table.

“I’m cutting you off,” he said curtly before leading you to the stairs.

You pouted but allowed yourself to be ushered up to his dorm. In your head, you planned to sneak back down to the party the instant that James left you in his dorm. Once inside, he brought over to his bed and you sat down, crossing your arms.

“You need to sober up a bit. Um, here’s a water. You know extra blankets are in my trunk. Loo’s over there. Got your wand? Need anything else?”

You groaned in annoyance. “I’m fine, James,” you slurred. “But you know what I actually need.”

“Hm? What’s that?”

“To get over these damn feelings for Lupin!” you basically spat. “Can’t very well do that if I’m up here, can I? He won’t ask me out, won’t kiss me, can’t stand to be around me. Why you stopping me from moving on?”

“I-I…” he stuttered, trying not to look over at where Remus was sitting on his own bed with wide eyes. “I’m preventing you from making a decision you might regret.”

“James… James, James, James. I’m fine. Just let me get over being in love with Remus.”

James can’t help it. His eyes flickered to Remus. Yours immediately followed where his went. Remus was staring at you with a faint blush on his cheeks. Because why did you just say that you needed to get over being in love with him?

“Shit,” you muttered, falling back onto James’ bed. “Now I’ve said too much.”

“I’m… going to leave… and let you two… talk,” James said slowly, trying to sound casual and topping it off with snaps and finger guns.

“You’re… in love with me?” Remus asked nervously.

You made a noise that’s a mix of a scoff and laugh.

“Only been bloody head over heels for you for years, you twat.”

“You’ve been,” he muttered, not quite believing you.

“A girl can only flirt so hard,” you said with a heavy sigh.

“You were flirting?”

“With you. For years. Keep up, Lupin.”

There was a slight pause before he said softly, “You don’t call me Lupin.”

“I didn’t when I was in love with you.”

“Was?”

“Moony, Merlin’s fucking beard,” you exclaimed, propping yourself up on your elbows briefly. “Did you not just hear me tell James that I’m trying to get over you? You clearly don’t like me back so stop making it harder!”

You let yourself fall back onto James’ bed with a ‘humph.’ You stared up at the canopy. Then you felt the bed sink next to you and you don’t need to look over to know that Remus has joined you.

“You actually like me?” he whispered.

“If I have to say it one more time, I swear, Moony, I will curse-”

“You like me.” This time it was a statement. Remus doesn’t believe it yet, but he didn’t need you to finish your threat. “And it’s real. Not a prank or cruel joke or anything?”

You rolled onto your side so that you could see him.

“Stop pretending to be dense. It’s been hard enough coming to terms with you not liking me like that.”

“No!”

You blinked at him with a confused expression.

“Um, I… I do like you. Like that.”

“Remus… don’t tease me right now. You can’t stand to be alone with me for more than a minute.”

“Because I don’t trust myself to not kiss you.” He swallowed and allowed his eyes to flick down to your lips. “It’s easier to control myself when James, or anyone else, is around. But when it’s just you and me, and you say those sweet things… I just…”

“Those sweet things,” you repeated with quiet laughter. “You mean my flirting?”

“Yes. That.”

He stopped talking for a moment. He reached out to caress your face.

“I just thought you could do better than me.”

You scoffed at the idea that someone was able to be better than Remus.

“But seeing you with Aubrey, Lockhart, Bagman… Prewett…” Remus sighed. “It was hell.”

“So, what you’re saying is you’d like me to keep flirting with you and only you?” you asked softly before your teasing nature returned. “I don’t know about that, Moony. I might need something in return.”

“Anything.”

“Ask me out?”

“I… I can do that.” He cleared his throat. “Would you do me the honor of going on a date with me? Hogsmeade, next weekend?”

“Of course, you idiot,” you said before placing a quick kiss on his lips.

“Oh, and one more thing.”

You hummed.

“Never flirt with Prewett again. It was nauseating.”

You laughed. “Just kiss me until my brother comes back, Moony.”

#marauders #marauders fic #marauder-misprint #request #remus lupin fic #remus lupin x you #remus lupin x reader #remus lupin #remus lupin fluff

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starlightkun · 2 months ago

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⇢ word count: 16.3k ⇢ genre: fluff, college au, brother's best friend trope, christmas/holiday themed, baseball player!jisung, rich kids!reader and chenle, part of my 2024 hallmark movie marathon ⇢ warnings: chenle and reader are annoying as hell together lol (they love each other but would die before saying ily), everyone’s parents suck!, only minor proof-reading bc i wanted to post for christmas, FAKE pro baseball players mentioned (idk anything abt baseball and was not going to research any real baseball players and be wrong abt them ok) ⇢ extra info: this is part of my 2024 hallmark movie marathon, three short, unrelated fics starring jisung all with cheesy hallmark christmas movie-esque premises. there’s no continuing plotline between fics in this series, they’re all standalone fics ⇢ author’s note: ok so this one isn’t exactly “short” but as always, i got carried away. im just happy i got this one out in time and it didn’t end up being 20k+ lmao. anyway, this is my last fic of my 2024 hallmark movie marathon, and of 2024, and i hope you guys had as much fun reading them as i did writing them! happy holidays and i will be back with even more fics in 2025! ⇢ 2024 hallmark movie marathon

“I know what you’ve been trying to do this whole time. You’re not ‘very into baseball,’ you’re into Jisung.”

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20

Clicking the ‘submit’ button for your last final paper of the semester, you let out a sigh of relief. You were done, for now. The time in the corner of your laptop read 10:58 p.m. You’d submitted with an hour to spare. Usually, you hated cutting it so close, but four of your five classes this semester had assigned fifteen-page papers, and you wanted to take your time researching, outlining, drafting, and editing all of them before the deadlines.

There were only a few other students scattered around the library so late on the last academic day of the semester. One table away from you was another student, a boy who had also been hard at work on his laptop for the greater part of the past four hours. You had seen him around campus, not in any meaningful way, but enough that his face was familiar to you. And tonight, you had been stealing glances at him—when he let out a groan or a sigh that rang a little too loud in the dead silence, pushed his hoodie off his head to reveal his dark hair and handsome features, or stood up from his chair to go to the vending machine around the corner and walk around the library to stretch his obscenely long legs. Yeah, you’d done a bit of ogling, you also needed a break every now and then.

He was still typing away at his laptop when you had packed up for the night and were heading out, your path taking you right by his table. You were never usually this bold, but maybe it was the rush from finally being done with finals week, or how late it was, but you found yourself stopping next to the end seat the cute boy was occupying.

Upon realizing that you were there, he looked at you with wide, uncertain eyes, slowly taking his headphones off. “Hm?”

“Are you going to be here till closing?” You asked him knowingly, a playful smile on your lips and bag of gummy candy in your hands. You had bought it during a vending machine break earlier in the night but never ended up opening it.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m hoping only another thirty minutes…”

“Here.” You offered the candies out to him. “I’m done for the night.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” You set them down next to his laptop. Not wanting to take up any more of his waning time left to submit his assignment, you started off towards the exit again. “Good luck. Have a good break.”

“You too…”

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21

“You didn’t get his number?!” Your roommate gasped in horror after you told her about the cute guy from the library. She had been asleep when you got home last night, and now the two of you were packing in preparation for your respective winter break plans. Sooyoung was heading back home while you and your brother would be driving to meet your parents at your family’s winter house in the mountains.

“Or his name,” you confirmed sadly. “I mean, the poor guy only had an hour left of the semester to submit whatever he was working on, there was no way he would’ve wanted me wasting it.”

“You have got to find him when we get back.”

“I’ll try,” you agreed.

There was a long honk from outside your dorm, and you rolled your eyes before peering out your window. Sure enough, your brother’s sleek black SUV was outside.

“Alright, I’ll see you in two weeks, Soo.” You hugged your roommate goodbye. Before you could even grab your bag, there was another obnoxiously long honk, followed by a series of shorter honks.

You immediately videocalled your brother.

Chenle picked up, already complaining. “Y/N, hurry up! You always take forever—”

“Shut the fuck up!” You retorted, flipping off the camera. “You’re so fucking annoying, I swear to—”

He laid on the horn again, and you could hear complaints start up outside from other people yelling at him to shut the fuck up. Then, you swore you heard another voice in Chenle’s car, quietly suggesting that he stop, but it was too indistinct for you to properly identify.

“Who was that?” You squinted at him suspiciously.

“I told you I was bringing a friend—”

“I know, I meant which one?”

“Get your slow ass down here and find out, or we’re leaving you!” With that, he hung up.

You pocketed your phone with a quiet scream, then turned to your roommate. “Ugh! Can you believe we’re related?”

“Yes,” she answered immediately, not even looking at you.

Hauling your stuff downstairs by yourself, you were a little out of breath by the time you shoved the front door of your dorm open. Your duffel bag started slipping down your shoulder, and as you readjusted that, you weren’t even looking out for the uneven slab of concrete that you knew stuck up in front of the entrance. Your toe caught on it, and you let out an unfortunate ‘eep!’ as you tripped forward. Your bag slid off your shoulder again, catching on your elbow and swinging around, the weight making you stumble a little more. You stayed upright, and you were thankful that only your brother and his friend saw all that. Yeah, Chenle was going to tease you for the entire three-hour car ride, and Mark or whoever was coming with would definitely get in on the ribbing, but you had plenty of dirt on them too. It was the natural order of things.

“Clumsy ass,” Chenle yelled at you from the car, the driver’s side window rolled down. You flipped him off on instinct. “Jisung, go help her before she hurts herself.”

Jisung. That was a new one. Admittedly, you didn’t know all of your brother’s friends, you two ran in different circles at school. You were usually introduced them in passing if you happened to run into each other at events, or some you knew from before college, like Jeno and Jaemin, the twins who lived next door to you guys growing up, or Mark and Donghyuck, who you all went to high school with.

A car door opened and closed before a tall figure was walking around the front of the car to meet you on the sidewalk. You blinked in surprise as you recognized Chenle’s friend that was approaching you, and not because of your brother. The cute boy from the library was standing in front of you, seemingly having a similar sense of déjà vu as he froze, hand already outstretched, reaching for your duffel bag.

“Hey again,” you chuckled, putting your bag strap in his hand. “Did you get everything turned in on time?”

“Yeah, I did.” Jisung unfroze and smiled at you, and you swore the sun seemed dim in comparison. “Thanks for the candy, by the way. Completely forgot to tell you that.”

“It’s okay, you were busy.”

“I’m Jisung, by the way.”

You nodded towards your brother’s car. “I had guessed.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Right.”

“I’m Y/N.”

“I had guessed,” he quipped back.

Chenle honked again, then yelled, “Come on!”

You rolled your eyes. “Pain in the ass.”

Chenle popped the trunk for you from his seat, and Jisung put your duffel bag in among their things that were already packed, then he took your suitcase to put away as well. As you opened the passenger door, your brother immediately shook his head.

“Nuh-uh.”

“What?” You looked at him incredulously. “I always get shotgun!”

“And Jisung gets carsick in the backseat.” He pointed at the boy standing awkwardly behind you. “I’m not having him puke all over my car. You’ll survive the backseat for once.”

Hating his condescending tone, but with no other option, you graciously stepped aside. Jisung gave you a quiet ‘sorry, thanks’ as he opened the back door for you. After buckling yourself into the middle seat and Chenle starting his music, everyone was ready to go.

“Y/N, Jisung,” Chenle made introductions over his shoulder, jabbing his thumb between you two. “Jisung’s on the baseball team and was in my bio lab last semester. Y/N is my annoying little sister.”

You kicked the back of his seat. “By ten months. As soon as you popped out, Mom and Dad were so disappointed they immediately decided to have another kid.”

“Regret saying yes yet, Jisung?” He asked his friend smugly.

Jisung, meanwhile, had been staring straight ahead at the road, clearly feeling uncomfortable as he didn’t want to get in the middle of your typical bickering.

“Ignore him, Jisung.” You leaned forward between their seats over the center console, your tone much more friendly. “So you’re on the baseball team? Do you have an athletic scholarship or something?”

“Yeah, yeah, I do,” he answered hurriedly. “Uhm, it’s the only way I could afford to go here. Full ride as long as I keep my grades up.”

You all did go to a rather expensive private university—your parents were alumni, they wouldn’t have sent you anywhere else, of course.

“Wow, so you must be really good, then.”

“I mean, I don’t know—”

“A full ride, I would think they only give those out to the best players, right?”

“Well—”

Chenle cut in, “You’re making him nervous, Y/N. Back up, for fuck’s sake.”

You didn’t back up. “Am I making you nervous, Jisung?”

“No, it’s fine,” he rushed to reassure you, finally turning around in his seat to face you. He let out a squeak as soon as he did, probably not anticipating that you’d be as close as you were. He sat back in his seat, propping himself up against his seatback on his forearm. “Uhm, it’s just that this is only gonna be my second season. Still a rookie, you know. I don’t think I’m that good.”

Jisung sort of reminded you of a little hamster when he was nervous like this, and your lips twitched with amusement. He really was cute.

“When’s baseball season?”

“Practice officially starts in January, first game’s in February.”

“Don’t you get cold out on the field?”

He shrugged self-consciously. “I mean, we’re moving around a lot. And we have hand warmers and stuff for when we’re on the bench.”

You kept eagerly asking him questions. “What position do you play?”

“Pitcher. I’m a switch pitcher—I can pitch left or right-handed—so they like that.”

“So it’s a surprise for the other team?”

“No, you have to declare which hand you’re going to pitch for each batter beforehand,” he admitted, then quickly tacked on, “But it still kinda throws them off!”

You hummed thoughtfully. “What about when you’re hitting the ball?”

“I could do either, but I prefer my right.”

“You’re never this interested in my friends,” Chenle interrupted accusatorily.

“Because I already know like, way too much about the twins, Hyuck, and Mark. Wish I could unlearn some of it, actually,” you snorted. “And you’ve been trying to get me into sports for our whole lives. What’s the problem?”

“Basketball,” your brother corrected you. “I’ve been trying to get you to watch basketball with me. Jisung plays baseball. Wrong sport.”

“Stop talking to me like I’m five,” you snapped, kicking his seat again.

“Stop kicking my seat like a five-year-old and I might,” he retorted.

You scowled at the back of his big head.

“I can see you pouting in the rearview mirror.”

You rolled your eyes and crossed your arms, flopping back against your seat.

“Saw that too.”

“Wasn’t trying to hide it!” You snipped back childishly. Turning your focus back to Jisung, who was looking out the passenger window, you asked, “Is he like this to you, Jisung?”

“Don’t answer that,” Chenle directed him before the other boy could open his mouth. “She’ll tire herself out.”

“Oh, you’re insufferable!” You spat. “Talking about me like I’m not even here! Or like I’m Daegal!”

“Well, Daegal is actually trained.”

“Pull the car over, I’m going to beat your ass!”

“Hey!” Surprisingly, it was the soft-spoken Jisung who raised his voice over the sounds of you two fighting, shocking both of you into silence. He continued, “Chenle, you’ve been antagonizing Y/N ever since we pulled up in front of her dorm, man. Then you act like she’s crazy for being pissed off at you. It’s honestly pissing me off.”

Chenle huffed loudly, drumming his thumbs on the steering wheel, before he finally said, “Fine. Sorry, Y/N.”

“Yeah, whatever. Thanks for apologizing because Jisung told you to.” You unbuckled and scooted over to the seat behind Jisung, buckling back in and looking out the window at the scenery rushing by.

The car was silent other than Chenle’s music, which he turned up as you pulled out your phone.

[you: i found out cute library guy’s name]

[soosoo: omfg the cia has nothing on u]

[soosoo: SPILL]

[you: i didn’t stalk him, turns out he’s my brother’s friend. his name is park jisung and he’s on the baseball team]

[soosoo: your brother’s friend that you’re going to be ALL ALONE WITH in the mountains for the next TWO WEEKS???]

[you: not ALL ALONE, chenle will be there, remember?]

[soosoo: unfortunately]

[soosoo: WAIT i found him on the team’s roster online and WHEW GIRL]

[soosoo: attached image.]

It was a screenshot of Jisung’s athlete profile on the university’s sports page. The small ID photo he had on there honestly did him no justice.

[soosoo: how is ur brother always friends w the HOTTEST GUYS who ALSO PLAY SPORTS????]

[soosoo: i need him to hook me up fr]

[you: don’t tell me ur thinking abt jeno and jaemin rn]

[soosoo: always]

[you: u don’t need chenle to hook u up if u rlly want, im friends with them too??]

[soosoo: YOU WOULD????]

[you: but you’d have to pick one]

[soosoo: god i am not your strongest soldier]

[you: exactly what i thought]

At the mountain cabin, you three were the first ones there, of course. You parents wouldn’t be arriving until Christmas Eve due to their work schedules. The house was already decorated like something straight out of a Hallmark movie—lights, red and green bows, candy canes, baubles, and other decorations all throughout.

“Wow,” Jisung breathed out, stopping in the foyer and turning around, his eyes wide as he took it all in. “Your parents are really into Christmas, huh?”

“Not really.” You had also stopped to watch his slow circle of awe. “They pay somebody to set it up.”

The wonder dropped off his face and was replaced with confusion, his brow furrowing. Chenle yelled for him from further in the house, and you jerked your head for him to follow. Your brother was at the threshold of the hallway where all your rooms were located.

“Yours is there,” Chenle pointed Jisung to one end of the hallway as you slipped by him to head to the bedroom at the other end. “Y/N’s is on the other side.”

“We share a bathroom,” you called over your shoulder as you opened the door. “Don’t use all the hot water in the morning!”

“And I’m upstairs.” Your brother indicated to a small ladder between Jisung’s room and the bathroom in the middle. “I got the loft. Won it in rock-paper-scissors almost two decades ago.”

“You cheated!” You reminded him loudly from where you had started unpacking your things in your room.

“Sore loser!”

“Sore winner!”

“Anyway, holler if you need something.”

You were still unpacking when there was a soft knock at your open door. It was Jisung leaning in your doorway.

“Hey,” he greeted you quietly.

“Hey.” You smiled at him brightly. “Bathroom’s the middle door. We both have doors that connect to it, so knock before we go in? Even if the light is off?”

“Yeah, sounds good.”

Jisung continued silently watching you unpack, then finally blurted out, “You egg him on.”

“Huh? Who?”

“Chenle.” He held his hands up in front of him defensively as you opened your mouth. “I know he started everything back in the car, but you didn’t help.”

You sat back on your feet in front of your open suitcase and dresser drawers. “Yeah, I know I’ve got a temper problem. I need to work on it.”

“I didn’t say anything in front of him because I kind of got the feeling that he was being extra mean because I was there.”

“When we’re hanging out with friends that we kinda share, like Jeno and Jaemin or whoever, it’s fine. You know, they met both of us at the same time. But I think when we’re with people that are his friends, it’s different,” you explained, gesturing to an armchair in the corner for Jisung to sit in while you talked. “We were always in the same grade and stuff, so obviously people assumed we were twins. That’s also why he really gets on the ‘little sister’ thing. When we got to college, we were both relieved to finally be different people, you know? Have different friends, different things that were ours.”

“You seem to understand him really well.”

“Known him my whole life,” you pointed out. “And just because I understand why he acts like this doesn’t mean it still doesn’t piss me the fuck off.”

“To answer your question from the car, no, he doesn’t treat me like that. He’s sarcastic, sure, but not like that.”

Zipping up your empty suitcase, you started on your duffel bag that was on your bed. “Sorry you had to deal with us like that, even more so that you had break us up. I’m sure the next two weeks were flashing before your eyes, huh?”

“Honestly, I’m just glad you didn’t actually start beating him up,” he chuckled.

“Me too, that would’ve been embarrassing.” You added, “For him. To get his ass beat in front of one of his buddies.”

He looked out the room down the hallway, checking to see if Chenle was coming, then admitted, “Don’t tell him, but I was sort of calculating how many swings to let you get in before it would look unreasonable for me to not intervene.”

“Oh really? And how many would you have ‘let me’ have?” You grinned, using finger quotes over ‘let me.’

“One good punch and a hair pull, I think.” He looked to be sizing you up, a teasing glint in his eye. “You seem like you fight dirty like that.”

“Could claim you didn’t want to hurt your friend’s little sister, let me get a few more in.” You mimicked punching and kneeing the air. “At least let me knee him in the balls.”

“I’ll consider it in the event you two do actually brawl while we’re here.”

You looked up at the ceiling, thinking about your brother up there somewhere. “Eh, we’ll make up properly soon. One thing about us, we fight a lot, but it’s never for that long.”

“Okay, now I’m worried about the next two weeks.”

You laughed, maybe a little harder than his joke warranted, but you couldn’t help it—he was cute, he was funny, and he was making your chest feel tighter and your head spin faster the longer you were around him.

“Why are you in here?” Chenle had appeared in your doorway, looking genuinely perturbed at the visage of Jisung sitting in your chair.

“Because we’re talking?” You answered for him. “Or is he only allowed to talk to you while he’s here and I have to take a vow of silence?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” he snickered, walking in and flopping on your bed.

“You first.”

“You want to do lunch in town then get the tree?” He checked the time on his phone. “Mom and Dad know how much you like Christmas tree shopping so that’s the only thing not done.”

“Or is it just another responsibility to pawn off on someone?” You snorted, opening the door into the adjoining bathroom to put your toiletry bag away.

Your brother’s distant voice called after you, “Even if it is, we can still have fun!”

You took a deep breath, and came out of the bathroom with a smile on your face. “You’re right. Let’s do it.”

“Ew, stop that, it’s creepy.” Chenle threw a pillow at you.

You caught it and chucked it right back at him. “What? Smiling?”

It hit him in the face before falling to the floor. “Yeah, exactly. I’m done trying to cheer you up, keep being a little Grinch, it suits your face better.”

You climbed on the bed and grabbed a pillow to smack him with it. “Quit being fucking rude!”

He laughed and cackled, rolling away from your pillow attack until his eyes went wide with panic as he went right over the edge of the mattress and landed on the floor. It was your turn to burst into laughter at the sound he made, and when he started groaning and complaining, you knew he was fine. Jisung was also laughing from his seat.

You finally gathered yourself enough to peer over the edge of the bed, looking down at where Chenle was sprawled out dramatically like a cartoon character that had been crushed by an anvil. As soon as he looked at you, he started giggling too.

“What about this one?” Mr. Song, the elderly man who had run the Christmas tree farm in town for as long as your family had been coming for the holidays, was showing you around to the various trees they had for sale.

“Ah, too skinny.” You shook your head. “We have a lot of ornaments. And a vaulted ceiling too, so we can get a taller one.”

“Right, of course. How could I forget?” His eyes crinkled fondly as he walked you around by the elbow. “You and your brother have gotten so big, Y/N. I remember when you two were up to my knee. Always playing hide and seek in the trees.”

“We used to think you were Santa Claus,” you giggled, gesturing to his big, bushy beard. “We told everyone we knew that we got our Christmas tree from Santa every year.”

“Good to see that Chenle and your boyfriend get along so well.” He nodded to where Chenle and Jisung were throwing snowballs at each other. More accurately, Jisung was pelting them at Chenle with scary precision, and Chenle was doing his best to throw some back in between peals of laughter.

“Oh, Jisung is Chenle’s friend from school, he’s not my boyfriend,” you clarified quickly.

“My mistake.” Mr. Song patted your arm.

After circling the next one Mr. Song showed you, you were content, inspecting how dense the branches were, the height, and general shape.

“Guys!” You yelled out to get Chenle and Jisung’s attention. They ceased their (unfair) battle, meandering over to you. “What do you think?”

Chenle gave it a once-over before nodding. “Great pick as always, Y/N.”

“Is that going to fit through the front door?” Jisung asked skeptically, trying to fit his arms around it to gauge the size.

“It will,” you promised as Chenle pulled out his checkbook.

Two of Mr. Song’s grandsons brought the tree up to the cabin in their truck, and you had to open both front doors all the way for them to carry it in. They got it set up in the corner for you, and you sent them on their way with an extra cash tip.

“We’ve got to let the branches settle before we can decorate it,” you advised Jisung. “So we’ll do that tomorrow.”

“Y/N’s got a whole thing about the tree,” Chenle added from one of the couches, turning the TV on.

“Smells nice,” Jisung piped up.

“Did your family have real trees or artificial ones?” You asked, taking up the other couch.

Jisung seemed to momentarily panic about where to sit, before taking the empty space at the end of Chenle’s couch, facing you. “A fake one. It came with the lights already on. Easier for my mom to set up.”

“One or two?” Chenle asked abruptly.

“What?”

“Two!” You answered, and Chenle immediately played a movie from whatever streaming service he was scrolling through. You went to fill Jisung in, “It’s a game we like to play. One of us will assign numbers to things in our head without telling the other, and you have to reply with a number without really knowing what you’re picking.”

“I couldn’t decide which movie to watch,” Chenle added.

“So, instead of a coin flip, you used Y/N?” Jisung clarified.

“Sort of. You can do it for more than two options. Like…” You tilted your head back and forth as you tried to think of one on the spot. As soon as you had, you perked up. “One, two or three?”

“Three?”

“Hot chocolate it is.” You stood up from the couch and headed towards the kitchen.

Jisung turned in his seat to keep you in his eyesight. “Wait, what were the options?”

“That’s part of the fun.” You smiled. “Sometimes you never know.”

A few minutes later, you came back into the room with three mugs of hot chocolate, and handed one each to Chenle and Jisung before sitting back on your couch.

Several movies, rounds of various video games, and large pizzas later, you were beat. Standing up from your couch, you stretched and started grabbing everyone’s plates.

“I’ll get these if you guys put the food away?”

Chenle gave you a thumbs-up, his eyes locked on his phone screen.

“Night!” You tossed back over your shoulder as you traipsed out of the room.

“Night!” Your brother echoed.

“Goodnight!” Jisung replied.

As soon as you were bundled up in your blankets in your room, you videocalled Sooyoung. She picked up, the familiar scenery of her childhood bedroom in the background.

“Hey!” She beamed. “How was day one? Kill Chenle? Make any moves on cute library guy?”

“We know his name now, Soo!” You laughed.

“But a nickname is so fun and mysterious!”

“I did almost kill Chenle in the first ten minutes of the car ride,” you groaned. “Jisung surprisingly came to my defense.”

“Your brother’s friend took your side against him? Wow…”

“He’s really sweet, he’s making an effort to be my friend too.”

“Friend? Or something else?” She waggled her eyebrows.

“I don’t know, it’s been one day,” you giggled, rolling over onto your back. “Anyway, how’s your family?”

You stayed up chatting for another hour before finally going to sleep, giddy with thoughts of what could happen tomorrow.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 22

In the morning, with no alarm for class to get you up, you woke up, rolled over, and went back to sleep several times. Eventually, you decided that it was time to get up, and slowly shuffled out of your room. Chenle was already up, by the stove cooking something. Jisung was nowhere in sight, probably still sleeping.

Upon hearing your footsteps, he looked over his shoulder. “Morning.”

You grunted back.

“Mom called.”

You made another noise of acknowledgment, still rubbing sleep out of your eyes as you lumbered over to your seat at the table. Your brother set a plate of pancakes down in front of you, and you squinted up at him suspiciously. Typically he would’ve made you get your own plate, or more likely, make your own food. Actually, it was kind of weird that he was up before you. He must not have gone back to sleep after talking to your mom. It wasn’t unusual for her to have called early in the morning—your parents’ work took them all around the world, and often the only free time they could find had them calling at odd hours.

“They’re not going to make it for Christmas, Y/N,” he told you softly, still standing next to your chair.

“Of course,” you scoffed, lip curling with distaste as you picked up your fork.

“They’ll be here on the 26th, and we can do everything with them then.”

“Are they staying for New Year’s?”

His silence was all the answer you needed.

“Of course,” you repeated with more venom in your tone than before, dropping your utensil back down onto the table. “What the fuck else should we have expected? Honestly, why do they even fucking bother?”

He put a hand on your shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“No, Chenle, don’t apologize for them.” You patted his hand. “It’s not your fault.” Pushing your chair back, you stood up. “I’m not hungry right now. I’m going out back.”

“I’ll save your plate.”

Shoving boots on your feet and pulling a heavier coat on, you opened the door in your bedroom that led directly out onto the back patio. It had snowed last night, so you had to shuffle through the fresh layer to get to the swing seat back here. The cold morning air bit at your nose and cheeks, and you tucked your hands into your pockets to keep them warm—you’d forgotten gloves. Sighing, you watched your breath fog up in front of your face, until your tears overtook your vision and you couldn’t see anything past them.

You pulled your knees to your chest on the porch swing, pushing your face into the thick material of your pajama pants. Why did it still hurt so bad? They did this all the fucking time.

The sound of feet crunching snow came to your ears, and you wiped at your face as you looked up at who was approaching you. It was Jisung, two steaming mugs in his gloved hands.

“Uhm, Chenle said you weren’t hungry. Does cider count?” He offered one out to you.

You chuckled, accepting it, grateful to have something warm to wrap your chilly fingers around. “No, it doesn’t. Thanks, Jisung.”

“It’s pretty out here,” he commented, looking around at the scenery. “Or not, if you want me to go back inside.”

You laughed again, gesturing to the empty half of the porch swing next to you. “You can stay.”

Jisung brushed off the snow from the rest of the porch swing before sitting down. He wedged his mug of cider between his legs and you watched him curiously as he started taking his gloves off. He offered them out to you, making you shake your head.

“I’m fine, I’ve got the cider—”

“So do I.”

“Then how about this.” You plucked one glove from him and put it on your right hand, which was holding the handle of the mug. Your left cradled the body of the mug, where all the warmth was. “Glove goes on the colder hand.”

He chuckled, slipping his remaining glove on his left, and wrapping his right hand around the mug. “Innovative.”

“Thank you.”

The smile faded as he turned more somber. “I’m sorry to hear that your parents’ plans changed.”

You took a sip of the cider, staring out at the still landscape of snow-covered trees and mountains. “Me too. You think I would be used to it by now.”

“Chenle was talking about maybe going to this ice-skating place later. If you’re feeling up to it.”

“That’s what’s nice about having him. No matter how much stupid shit we fight about, we’ve at least got each other when they do stuff like this.” You half-smiled to yourself. “You know, sometimes I think they did that on purpose. Had two kids instead of one so they wouldn’t feel guilty about leaving us alone all the time.”

The tears had come back, and you wiped at them with your bare hand, not wanting to soil Jisung’s glove that he had given you. Shaking your head at yourself, you said derisively, “I’m sure I seem pathetic to you. Rich girl crying in her family’s winter vacation home because mommy and daddy won’t make it for Christmas.”

“I don’t think you’re pathetic.”

You turned your gaze to Jisung to find him already looking at you, so sincerely, too. Swallowing down more tears, you asked, “Why aren’t you home with your family? I’m sure you’d much rather be with them than stuck here with us.”

“My parents are divorced. Every year, my dad and his wife go on some cruise for Christmas, and my mom spends it with my stepdad’s family. They say I’m welcome there, but they’re all strangers, except my mom.” He shrugged half-heartedly, blowing across the surface of his cider. “I know it’s kinda my fault too, I’m not making an effort to get to know them or whatever. But I just… don’t want to.”

“How’d you end up coming along with Chenle then?”

“Last year I stayed at school for Winter Break. Met Chenle in the spring, and when Winter Break plans came up this year, he was appalled at the idea of me eating at the dining hall for Christmas dinner.” Jisung chuckled, and you smiled fondly, able to imagine your brother’s horrified face. “It wasn’t even an offer, he decided for me.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re here instead of eating dining hall food by yourself.”

“Me too.”

“And I’m sorry your parents suck too.”

“Shitty parents club.” He held his mug out to you.

You clinked your against it in a commiserative toast. “We need Chenle out here for our full membership.”

“Yeah, but this swing only fits two people…”

You smiled a little as you sipped your cider. “Then I guess it’s just us for right now.”

Jisung smiled back. “Guess so.”

That afternoon, as promised, you three went ice skating. The local nature reserve had a lake that always froze solid, and would rent out ice skates and sell hot chocolate and other treats to earn a little extra income—free admission if you brought your own skates. You were the first one to get your skates on, and shuffled onto the frozen lake excitedly. There were a few other people out here—couples, families, groups of friends—but the area cordoned off for ice skating was big enough that everyone had plenty of room to spread out. A wide smile immediately spread across your face. Chenle knew you well, which was a blessing and a curse. He knew exactly how to push your buttons and cheer you up.

Speaking of, your brother smoothly skated up next to you, smug look on his face. “Better?”

“With a head that big, I’d hope you’d have a good idea every so often,” you teased, lightly bopping him through his beanie.

“Ungrateful.” He snapped one of your earmuffs against your head, not hard enough to hurt.

You two had been milling back and forth waiting for Jisung, and you looked back over at the bench where you’d all been tying up your skates to find him still sitting there, fiddling with the laces.

Chenle followed your gaze. “What is he doing? He had them tied when I got up, I thought he was right behind me.”

You shrugged, exiting the ice to stop in front of Jisung on the bench. “You alright?”

“Yeah, I just—” Jisung swallowed, squinting and scrunching up his nose nervously. “I’ve only been ice skating once, and I was a kid, so…”

“You don’t know how,” you finished.

“I mean—Yes.”

“Come on.” You offered out your arm out to him.

He waved his hands as he refused. “I’m going to do something stupid like fall and end up breaking your arm or—”

“No, it’ll be fine,” you assured him. “Seriously, I did ice skating lessons as a kid.”

“You did?”

“You’re in good hands, I promise.”

Jisung grabbed your arm, and using both you and the bench as leverage, stood up. He looked around warily as you patted his back.

“There you go, you got it. Now, you get to walk until you get to the ice.” As you coached him through the basics of operating his skates, you slowly guided him closer to the edge of the ice. You stepped onto the ice first, keeping a hold on both of his gloved hands for him to cautiously join you, one foot at a time.

“You didn’t think to tell us you’ve never skated?” Chenle questioned dryly as he joined you two.

“I have!” Jisung defended himself. “Once…”

“Well Y/N can teach you,” he offered you up. “She used to do lessons, till she got kicked out.”

“Wait, for what?”

You rolled your eyes at your brother just having to bring that up. Nudging Jisung forward to start moving his legs, you began relaying the story, “I called my coach a bitch to her face and refused to apologize.”

“Just because or…?”

“First of all, I was seven, so impulse control wasn’t even in my vocabulary. Second of all, she called another little girl in the class fat to her face! She had just gotten a new competition dress, it was this really pretty purple one with sparkles and stuff all over it, and the teacher told her she shouldn’t wear it because something about the pattern made her look bigger or something ridiculous. A seven-year-old! She’s just lucky she didn’t get an ice skate to the face!” Your rant picked up steam and volume as you continued, feeling freshly pissed off as you recalled the incident.

Jisung frowned, looking troubled as well. “That’s awful.”

“I know! Honestly, I’m glad I got kicked out. I hated that woman.” You pulled him away from a divot in the ice. “Watch out. Don’t want your blade getting caught in that.”

“Thanks. You seem to have retained a lot.”

“I didn’t get very far before I was booted,” you scoffed. “But I guess we still went to rinks and out here pretty frequently, so I haven’t lost the basics, at least.”

“So are we decorating the tree later?”

“Yep, should take the rest of the day.”

“Seriously?”

“We’ve got a lot of ornaments.” You snickered at his wide eyes, looking to your other side where Chenle had been skating for confirmation. Instead, your brother had disappeared. Confused, you scanned the figures on the ice, finally spotting him far ahead of you, skating backwards at an impressive speed. “He left us.”

Jisung finally detached his eyes from where they’d been glued on his feet, chuckling when he saw Chenle as well. “He’s not very patient, is he?”

“Not a virtue he was born with, no.” You turned your attention back to Jisung. “Think you’re getting the hang of it?”

His grip tightened on your arm. “If I say yes, are you going to let go of me?”

“No,” you laughed. “Not until you’re ready.”

“Oh, thank God.”

“But let’s try this.” You moved to hold both his hands, skating backwards in front of him. “Okay?”

“You can’t see behind you,” he said, nervously glancing between your face and over your shoulder.

You checked over your shoulder. It was clear, and you redirected your path to make sure you weren’t heading directly at the next closest people. “I’ve got it.”

“I feel like I’m leaning forward too much, how do I—Wah!” The distinct clank of Jisung’s skates hitting each other rang out, and he fell forward.

Not wanting him to faceplant into your skates or the ice, you braked and tensed your arms to try to keep him up. However, since you had braked and he obviously did not, his forward momentum sent him catapulting directly into you. His arms wrapped around your waist as his legs scrambled against the ice trying to find his footing again. You readjusted your hold on him to clutch him under the arms in an attempt to keep him up, but with all the layers that you were bundled up in and the slippery ice, it was a losing battle. You were a good skater, but you couldn’t haul him back to his feet like this. So you decided to just let the two of you slowly descend, squatting down until you could plant your butt on the ice and kick your feet out on either side of Jisung, careful not to hit him with your blades.

“You alright?” You asked him, pulling his beanie back from where it was entirely obscuring his eyes.

“Please tell me I’m dead,” he groaned, the half of his face that you could see was completely pink and his eyes were squeezed shut. His head was pressed against your middle as he was still clinging onto you.

“No, you survived that,” you laughed. “And so did I. No broken arms or other bones.”

“Will you kill me anyway?”

A spray of ice showered both of you as Chenle stopped next to you guys, proceeding to double over with laughter. “Clumsy ass.”

“Nice, thank you,” you scoffed, wiping off the cold ice from your face, then a couple drops that had gotten on Jisung’s cheek. “Anytime you’d like to quit being an asshole and help us up.”

“I don’t know, you two look pretty cozy to me.”

Jisung somehow turned even redder, squirming in your grasp. “Y/N, I’m sorry!”

“Chenle, shut up!” You scolded your brother. “You’re making Jisung freak out and he’s going to hurt himself!”

“You make him sound like a scared prey animal,” he snickered. Letting out a sigh, he patted his friend’s back. “Alright, Jisung, come on.”

With Chenle’s assistance, Jisung got to his feet, and you were then able to stand back up on your own. Brushing snow off your legs, you shivered, and saw that the entire front of Jisung’s pants were soaked through thanks to the ice, and you could feel that the back of your own had suffered a similar fate.

“I think that’s enough ice skating for today,” you declared. “My ass is quite literally going to freeze off if we stay out here any longer.”

Jisung nodded quickly from where he was clinging onto Chenle to stay upright now. “I’m skated out.”

“Good thing my car has heated seats then,” Chenle said, beginning to drag his friend back towards the exit.

After a hot shower and in a fresh change of warm pajamas, you were in front of the Christmas tree with all of the boxes of decorations for it. You had already wound the lights around it when Jisung joined you in the living room, hair still damp from his shower—he’d given you first shower out of guilt.

“Hey, you know where Chenle is?” You asked, flipping open boxes of ornaments. Chenle’s loft bedroom had a private bathroom, so you figured he’d be out by now.

“He got a call—Mark, I think,” Jisung informed you.

“Oh, that’ll take an hour,” you snorted. “You can help me. Put any ornaments that have Chenle’s name on them aside, he gets to put those up whenever he’s done.”

“Any ornaments with your name are yours to put up?” He guessed, reaching into a box and pulling out an ornament in the shape of a bear with a Santa hat on. The white band of the hat had ‘Chenle’ written in cursive.

“Yep. Everything else is fair game for you. Quick tip, any bear ornaments will be Chenle’s. That’s his parent-assigned motif.”

“Got it. And what’s yours?”

You held up the honeybee ornament that you’d just fished out, letting it dangle and twist in the air, the yellow gems catching the light. “Bees. They had a theme, kind of.”

“I’ll keep an eye out.” He reached up to hang a blue and gold ornament on a higher branch, though you could feel his eyes on you as you put your own up on a middle branch. Finally, he blurted out, “Are you sure you didn’t get hurt earlier?”

“Yeah, Jisung, I’m okay,” you chuckled. “Really, we were both wearing so many layers we were practically bubblewrapped.”

He visibly relaxed. “Okay, good.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. But I crashed into you, not the other way around.”

“True, but you had a much less graceful descent.”

He visibly grimaced, a bashful smile on his face. “Mm-hm. Thank you for bringing that up again.”

“Pretty sure you brought it up again,” you teased, nudging his arm with yours as you reached in front of him to hang an ornament.

“And I would love to change the topic now.” He grabbed an ornament in the shape of a snowman.

“What’s your major?” You decided to save him this time. “You and Chenle had bio lab together, but I know he took bio for non-majors, so you’re not a STEM major either…”

Jisung made a buzzer noise, and you blinked at him in surprise. He cracked a grin as he said, “Cybersecurity.”

“Ah, so you’re a baseball jock and a little computer geek…” You nodded slowly, grabbing another ornament. “The duality of man, truly.”

“Geek?” He repeated incredulously.

“What? I think it’s cute.” You giggled and put up the glass snowflake in your hand. Then, you turned back to him hopefully. “Ooh, actually, my laptop gets possessed sometimes ever since Chenle clicked on one of those sketchy porn pop-up ads when we were fourteen. You don’t think you would be able to take a look at it sometime, would you?”

Jisung visibly sustained whiplash at your words, his head jerking back and eyes going wide before he furrowed his brows. “Wait, what? How old is your laptop? He did what to it? What do you mean it gets possessed? What exactly does it do?”

“Uhm… it’d probably be easier to show you.”

“Y/N, this thing is old enough to drive.”

You put your hands on either side of your laptop’s screen as if you were covering its ears, giving Jisung a stern look. “Sh! You’re going to hurt her feelings!”

He continued to look at you over his glasses, entirely unamused. This was the first time you’d seen him wear them—even in the library, he’d had contacts in. Now, with him wearing his casual clothes, glasses, sitting on your bed and attempting to fix your laptop, you felt like you were going to lose it, truly. Especially when you’d catch a whiff of his shampoo, and you’d have to stop yourself from leaning in to follow the smell of cinnamon.

“Seriously, why do you still have it? Chenle has the newest Macbook,” he asked, fingers flitting across the keyboard.

“Because it works fine!” You insisted, removing your hands. “I get the internal stuff cleaned out regularly, and make sure all the software is updated and everything.”

“It still gets software updates?”

“It just… gets possessed every so often.”

“I wouldn’t call the occasional possession ‘working fine.’”

“When it’s not possessed, it works great! And it doesn’t even happen that much, only like, once a month.”

“Once a month since you were fourteen?” He squinted at you in disbelief where you were sitting on the opposite side of the laptop screen. “And you kept the damn thing?”

“No, once a month now,” you clarified. “It happened the first time when Chenle clicked on that porn ad, then maybe once a year for a few years after, and slowly started happening more and more often.”

“And he was watching porn on your computer because…?”

“So it wouldn’t be on his internet history.”

He snorted. “Of course. I should’ve realized.”

“Can I watch?”

“Oh, uhm, sure?” He readjusted to make room to his left side on the mattress, angling the laptop that way as well.

You shuffled around to the other side of the computer, dropping to lay down on your front, propping your chin up with your elbows to observe. Tilting your head, you rested it against Jisung’s knee that was next to you. His hands froze over the keys, and you lifted your head back up, looking up at him through your eyelashes.

“Sorry—Is this okay?”

“Y-Yeah, you’re fine.” He nodded quickly and pushed his glasses up as he returned his attention to the screen.

Leaning your head back against his knee, you settled in to watch him work on your laptop. You couldn’t follow what exactly he was doing to the computer, opening and closing different windows, folders, and applications. You zoned out, watching his hands and fingers deftly move over the keys instead. He was muttering to himself under his breath, his low voice pleasant to listen to even if you couldn’t make out the words he was saying. This close to him, you could smell the cinnamon better, and were starting to think that maybe it was actually a body wash or cologne.

“Y/N?” He said your name, making you snap out of a daze as you realized he was calling for you. “Hello?”

“Hm?” You perked up a little.

“We need to do an exorcism.”

That woke you all the way back up. “Wait, what?”

“Complete reset. Wipe everything and redownload the OS.”

“But I have everything on there!” You pleaded, stretching your hands over the keyboard to prevent him from doing anything else. “We’ve been through so much together! You can’t kill her!”

He sighed regretfully. “Is there an electronics store or something around here? We can get an external hard drive to back up all your personal stuff.”

“There’s a mall like an hour away. Chenle and I need to go gift shopping anyway so we can go tomorrow!”

“Why did I hear my name?” Chenle’s voice came from further down the hallway. He must have finished his call with Mark. Your brother poked his head into your room, briefly pausing when he saw you and Jisung. “I thought you guys were decorating the tree…?”

“Remember how you downloaded a virus trying to watch porn on my computer in high school? Jisung is fixing it for me,” you said pointedly, never missing an opportunity to bring that moment up. “But we need to buy something. I was telling him you and I need to go gift shopping anyway, so we can all go to that mall tomorrow.”

“Please tell me the thing you’re buying is a new laptop.”

“Never! She’s going to outlive you if I have anything to do with it!”

“Based off the fact that it sounds like a jet engine taking off right now, I’m pretty sure that was a threat on my life.”

MONDAY, DECEMBER 23

“Okay, so you’ll need at least this much storage for the files that you have right now,” Jisung explained, motioning to a few different options of hard drives that the electronics store had. He then gestured to a few more. “But if you really want to have her until Chenle’s dead, you might want to consider some more storage.”

You grinned, bumping his shoulder affectionately. “You said ‘her.’”

He covered his mouth as he let out a sputtering laugh, his cheeks turning pink. “Oh God—I didn’t even realize. That’s—Ah, you’re rubbing off on me.”

“I like that one,” you declared, pointing to one hard drive that was a similar colorway to the laptop case you had.

“Yeah, that’s more than enough storage.”

After purchasing your hard drive, you and Jisung headed out of the electronics store together. Chenle had already gone off to gift shop on his own so you and Jisung couldn’t see what he bought you.

You turned to Jisung. “Want to help me shop for Chenle?”

“Sure.”

The two of you meandered around the mall, popping into stores that seemed promising from the outside. As you passed by a jewelry display in a window, you tapped on the glass in front of a pair of earrings.

“Those are cute,” you commented, slowing down but not stopping entirely.

“You think so?” Jisung questioned, looking at them over your shoulder as you kept walking.

“Mhm.” You nodded, then clicked your tongue. “I’d get them, but I already have a pair like them.”

“You do?”

“Yep.” Keeping your gaze on the passing storefronts, you said levelly, “I don’t want to assume anything about what you think of me, Jisung, but I want you to know that I don’t expect a present from you. We only properly met two days ago.”

“Yeah, that’s… really reasonable,” he chuckled, the relief evident in his voice.

“Seriously, if you fix my computer, that’ll be the best Christmas present I get this year, hands-down. I don’t care what expensive crap my parents get me or surprisingly thoughtful, niche thing Chenle somehow manages to find.”

“I didn’t realize how much my computer exorcism skills were worth.”

“To me, they’re priceless,” you assured him. “I wish I had something to offer in return.”

“Hey, you already taught me how to skate,” he insisted, nudging your arm.

You tilted your head side-to-side contemplatively. “One could argue whether I was successful at that…”

“Completely my fault that the lesson got cut short, not yours.”

“Alright, alright. I suppose a computer exorcism can be our quid pro quo for ten minutes of ice-skating lessons.”

“I didn’t pay much attention in my high school history class when Mr. Yoo was talking about the bartering system, but I’m pretty sure those two things are equivalent, yeah.”

You burst out laughing, covering your mouth and squeezing your eyes shut as you started to go a little light-headed from how hard you were laughing. You were still walking forward alongside Jisung, and felt him grab your arm and tug you towards him at the same time he warned, “Watch out.”

You couldn’t see whatever you must’ve almost walked into as you were still trying to sober up from your chuckle fest, covering your face as more giggles bubbled up every time you tried to close your mouth. Jisung kept you right next to him, guiding you through the mall crowd with a gentle but steadfast grasp on your arm, not letting you bump into anybody or trip over anything.

“Are you really still laughing?” He asked, and though his words were exasperated, his tone was overly fond, letting out a soft laugh of his own at the end. “I don’t think it was that funny…”

You narrowed your eyes playfully at him, shook his hand off you, and suppressed your giggles to say, “Fine. I don’t think you’re funny at all and I hate you, actually.”

Jisung’s mouth parted as he stared at you in shock, and you couldn’t keep the bit going for very long when faced with his adorable look of being totally caught off-guard and floored, even if both of you knew it was all a joke. You grabbed his arm this time, your laughs getting muffled in his sweater as you buried your face in his shoulder and leaned against him for support.

“Oh my god, you looked like I ran over your dog or something!” You gasped for air between guffaws, apologetically rubbing his arm.

“You’re…” He trailed off, letting out a sigh instead, reaching for your purse that was on your arm and now awkwardly crushed between you two with you holding his arm. “Here, I’ll take that.”

He had already been carrying your shopping bags that you’d been acquiring from the various stores, and you now stopped to wordlessly shimmy off your purse for him to shoulder on his opposite side from you. You reattached yourself to his arm that you had been holding, and though his cheeks were turning pink, he had a small smile on his face as he looked down at his phone to check the time.

“Did your family assign you an animal too?” You asked him, your eyes getting caught on a kiosk of Christmas ornaments as you continued your journey through the mall.

“What?”

“Like how my parents decided when we were born that Chenle’s a bear and I’m a honeybee,” you explained, quickly looking back over to Jisung. “Did you ever have an animal or something that was like yours?”

He scrunched his nose as he thought, then shook his head. “No, not that I can remember. I always had a bunch of different stuffed animals.”

“I think you look like a hamster,” you informed him. “Especially when you do that with your nose.”

“Do what with my nose?” He questioned, his nose unintentionally twitching and scrunching up again as his eyes flitted around nervously.

You giggled, squeezing his arm tighter as you couldn’t help but coo over how cute he was. “That!”

He covered his nose with his hand, and though it obstructed half his face, you could tell he was pouting behind it.

“I didn’t mean to make you self-conscious, I’m sorry!” You apologized, grabbing his hand and trying to pull it away from his face. “I think it’s really cute!”

He stubbornly kept his nose concealed. “You still haven’t told me what it is…”

“You just scrunch up your nose sometimes, like this—” You imitated it, doing your best not to make it look like you were mocking him. “Seriously, it’s adorable! Please don’t ever stop, I might die!”

Jisung’s eyes crinkled and he dropped his hand back down as he chuckled. “Well we can’t have that.”

Your phone buzzed in your hand then, and you saw that it was your brother calling. “Mm, hold on, it’s Chenle.”

“Hey, where are you guys?” Chenle asked on the other end.

“We’re still on the first floor,” you told him. “By the pretzel stand. Where are you?”

“What have you two been doing? I’m on the third floor; I’ve been through the whole mall already. I’m done,” he scoffed. “Stay there, I’ll come to you.”

“I had to get my hard drive first, remember? You got a head start.”

“Anyway, are you done?”

“No, I have a couple more people to find gifts for.”

“Alright, hold on, I see you.”

You craned your neck looking for Chenle, still with your phone to your ear. “Damn bitch, how many old ladies did you take out on your way here?”

“Only two,” Chenle’s voice came through your phone and from directly beside you at the same time. He was loaded up with shopping bags on both arms.

You jumped out of your skin before rolling your eyes and hanging up the call. “Did you see a place that sold bath bombs and stuff?”

“Yeah, second floor, directly to the left off the escalator.”

“That’s my next stop, SooSoo loves that stuff,” you declared.

“There’s a baseball specialty shop on the third floor,” Chenle stated, eyes lingering on where you were still holding onto his friend’s arm. “If you want to go check it out, Jisung?”

You perked up, giving him an enthusiastic smile. “That sounds awesome! You totally should.”

Jisung turned to Chenle and nodded. “Yeah, sounds cool. Let’s do it.”

“I’ve still got a couple people on my list, so I’ll call you guys when I’m done so we can meet up and go,” you said, reaching for your purse that was still on Jisung’s shoulder. He handed it back to you, and you hurried off to take care of your final errands.

Back at the house, you watched on with bated breath as Jisung performed his laptop exorcism. The screen turned on, which already was good news. After a few more progress bars, you eventually saw your homescreen and looked at him with guarded hope.

“I still need to transfer your personal files back over. And you won’t know if it worked unless it just never gets possessed again, but…” Jisung gestured to your laptop with a certain finality.

“Ahh, thank you! Thank you!” You cheered, hugging him.

“O-Oh, you’re welcome,” he mumbled, hesitantly hugging you back.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24

Christmas Eve was ushered in with a fresh snowfall overnight, and maybe the Christmas spirit finally possessed you, because all three of you were outside playing in it like little kids. A rather lumpy snowman had already been built and decorated with various rocks, sticks, and kitchen utensils. Snow angels were scattered around, and Chenle had just thrown the very first snowball, hitting Jisung squarely in the back of the head.

You laughed incredulously as the pitcher turned around and calmly started packing snow between his hands.

“Are you stupid?” You snickered at your brother, who was also preparing another snowball.

Before he could finish readying that one, Jisung wound up and launched his snowball, nailing Chenle in the face. You weren’t even focused on your brother as he desperately wiped the snow off his face with both hands, however, your eyes still watching Jisung, who was chuckling to himself. You’d been too preoccupied at the Christmas tree farm to really watch any of their snowfall fight that had happened there, and obviously hadn’t gone to any of Jisung’s games before, so this was the first time you’d seen him really use any of his pitcher skills. While it wasn’t a proper pitch, the practiced ease and skill that he clearly possessed even in doing something as silly as throwing a snowball was admittedly really attractive.

Chenle had taken his loss and grabbed a stick to start writing something in the snow, a good distance away from where you and Jisung were, his back to the two of you.

Stepping deliberately closer to Jisung, you said, “That was really cool, Jisung.”

He fidgeted with making sure his beanie was down over his ears. “Ah, I mean, it wasn’t a real pitch or anything—”

“Then can you teach me how to pitch for real?” You requested sweetly. “I’m very into baseball these days.”

“Uhm, y-yeah,” he agreed, clearing his throat and nodding. He stooped down to pack more snow between his hands into a round sphere, then held it out for you. “Here, that should be the right size.”

You graciously accepted it, then looked at him expectantly.

“Do you prefer to throw with your left or your right?” He asked.

You held up your dominant hand holding the snowball, and he nodded.

“Okay, uhm, you should stand with your feet like this.” He demonstrated the correct positioning himself, and you copied.

Jisung went through the basic steps with you, making minor adjustments here and there, and you were actually finding it sort of interesting, outside of the cute boy teaching you something he was passionate about. Learning a new skill or something to that effect. When he was showing you how to actually move your arm when throwing, you were genuinely trying to do it per his verbal instructions, but apparently there was still something wrong with the way you were doing it. And so he walked behind you, covering your gloves hand with his. You could feel his warm breath on the back of your neck, and his other hand grabbed your opposite shoulder to correct your posture as he manually moved your arm through the correct motion. Slow at first, talking through it.

“Feel how it’s different than what you were doing?” He asked, doing it again, a little faster this time.

But you were long gone, your brain white noise and your vision blurring a little bit (but that was mostly due to the cold wind hitting your eyes). He still smelled like cinnamon, and you wanted to listen to his voice all day. Jisung could read you a car manufacturer’s manual for all you cared.

“Mm, mhm,” you agreed absentmindedly.

“Alright, I’m going to step back and let you throw your first pitch.” He patted your shoulder and did just that, leaving you feeling even colder.

You momentarily panicked as you grappled in your short-term memory for anything that he had just been saying. Taking a deep breath, you closed your eyes, deciding that you would probably suck anyway, and to just fucking do it. Trusting your gut and muscle memory of what Jisung had just been walking you through, you did your damndest to throw that snowball in something akin to a pitch.

Amazingly, the snowball actually hit the trunk of the tree that you had been aiming for, and you stared at it in disbelief, hands hanging down by your side. Jisung clapped, the sound dampened by his gloves, but his cheers were surprisingly upbeat for how soft-spoken of a guy he was.

“Wow! That was a really good first pitch!” He congratulated you, holding up both his palms for you to high-five. “So awesome…”

You high-fived him, but stayed holding onto his hands, wide smile overtaking your features. “Thank you.”

“I—You’re welcome.” He held onto your hands too, throat bobbing up and down as he swallowed.

“Jisung!” Chenle yelled out, reminding the both of you of his presence. “Can you get my phone? I made Daegal out of snow and I want to take a picture. It should be charging on my bed.”

“Yeah!” Jisung called back. He gave you a regretful look, letting your hands go to trudge back up to the cabin.

Rounding on your brother, you stomped over to him, observing the admittedly cute snow-Daegal for a moment before addressing him.

“You can get your own phone,” you scoffed, crossing your arms.

“I thought I might hurt Jisung’s feelings if I told him to leave to his face,” Chenle replied nonchalantly. He looked at you over his large-framed sunglasses. “I feel like I have to warn you, as your big brother—”

“By ten months.”

“—about Jisung.”

You gave him a sour look, knowing that he knew that you wouldn’t be able stop yourself from asking a follow-up question to a statement like that. “What about him?”

“I know what you’ve been trying to do this whole time. You’re not ‘very into baseball,’ you’re into Jisung.”

You immediately got fired up, hands balling into fists at your sides. “Don’t you dare start pulling the ‘my friends are off-limits’ card now. You’ve never—”

“Hey, I like Jisung.” He held up his hands defensively, an amused smirk on his face. “If I had to make a tierlist of my friends for you to date, he’d be like, the only one in S-tier.”

You snorted and rolled your eyes. “Do you have a fantasy draft of boyfriends for me too?”

“I’m genuinely trying to help you here, alright?”

“So, what? Does he have a girlfriend or something?”

“Not exactly…” Chenle sighed. “Right before we left, during finals week, he met this girl in the library and just absolutely fell head-over-heels, okay? Like, he’s never even looked once at all the girls who show up to his games, but this one says three words to him and gives him some candy and he’s a goner. I don’t get it.”

It took everything in you to suppress your giddy grin and instead cock your head, playing dumb as you asked, “Wait, did he even get this girl’s name?”

“No, he never got a chance since they were both working on finals stuff,” he answered. “Anyway, I’m just trying to warn you. You’ve got to compete with the romanticized version of mystery library candy girl that he has in his head.”

“Mm. Tough competition,” you nodded with mock solemnity.

“I’m serious, Y/N. He called me at like midnight walking back from the library to tell me about it. He’s got it bad.” As if suddenly realizing everything he had just told you might dampen your spirits, Chenle’s entire demeanor shifted, and he gingerly patted the top of your head. “But uh, you’ve totally got this. I’m rooting for you, lil sis.”

“Right. Thanks… big bro,” you replied with intentional stiltedness, softballing a punch to his shoulder.

That night after dinner, you all sat down around the Christmas tree for your family tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve. You sifted through the presents under the tree, some of which were ones that had been shipped here ahead of time by your parents or other extended family, others from Chenle.

“Hmm… one or two?” You asked, your eyes on two particular gifts.

“One,” Chenle and Jisung answered unanimously.

You grabbed the one that had been under your left hand, returning to your seat next to Jisung. Chenle had already picked his box, and fished out a gift bag, plopping it in front of Jisung. He seemed surprised, blinking down at it.

“But—”

“I got you more than one gift, dummy,” Chenle cut him off, already guessing what his confusion was about. “Go ahead.”

“No!” You stopped Jisung. He looked at you with alarm as you snatched the gift bag away, putting it back under the tree and replacing it with a different, much smaller one instead. “Open mine.”

Jisung looked even more confused, and slightly betrayed. “I thought we agreed we weren’t doing gifts…?”

“Yeah, but then I saw this and…” You smiled sheepishly. “Just open it!”

Shaking his head, he pulled out the tissue paper, then removed the object at the bottom of the bag. It was wrapped in more tissue paper to protect it, which he carefully wrapped, revealing the ornament that you had bought yesterday while you were split up. It was in the shape of a hamster popping out of a present box, and as soon as you saw it at the mall kiosk, you knew you had to get it for him.

Jisung turned it over his hands, looking up at you still a little confused, but with a smile. “Wait…”

“It looks just like you!” You giggled, taking it from him to hold it up next to his face. Aiming your next question at Chenle, you asked, “Doesn’t it?”

Your brother started laughing, reaching forward to tweak one of Jisung’s cheeks. “Ha, she’s right. How adorable.”

Jisung pushed his hand away, rolling his eyes. His gaze softened when he looked back over at you. “Thank you, Y/N. It’s great.”

“Hang it up!” You urged, giving it back to him and gesturing to the tree.

He got up on his knees to reach forward and affix it to an empty branch, between a bear ornament and honeybee ornament.

“Okay, Y/N, you next,” Chenle directed.

Ripping the wrapping paper off the small box, you were met with a small jewelry box, and took that lid off. Inside was a pair of ornate, bejeweled earrings, a little flashy for your taste. You checked the card.

“Great-Aunt Ying,” you announced, and Chenle let out an ‘ahh’ sound in understanding. You put the lid back on the box and set it aside. “SooSoo will love those.”

“Who’s that?” Jisung asked curiously as your brother started unwrapping his present. “Not your great-aunt.”

“Sooyoung, my roommate since freshman year,” you explained. “She’s also like, my best friend. And those earrings aren’t really my style, but I know she would wear them like, all the time, so I’ll just give them to her when we get back.”

Chenle’s box was a bit larger than yours had been, and was similarly stylish. He turned it over to shake the lid off and make the contents fall out all in one go, catching the fabric that fell out in his hand. Holding it up, it was a tie in what looked like a nice material, a monochrome and not exceptionally busy pattern on it.

“Another tie, wonder who it’s from…” he snorted, picking up the card. “Oh, Great-Uncle Feng. Surprise.”

“Does he think you’re eating all the ties he gives you or something?” You snickered.

“I think he’s so old he forgets he’s given me a tie before and thinks I don’t own any.” Chenle then offered it out to Jisung. “You need a tie? If not, I’ll ask the other guys.”

“I would need a suit first…” Jisung admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.

Chenle stared at him in disbelief, then sighed. “Okay, so we’re getting you a suit when we get back to school.”

“What do I need a suit for?”

“Don’t you have formal stuff that you have to go to for baseball? Awards or press conferences or something?”

“That’s maybe once a year. I just rent a suit!”

��Jisung, don’t say another word, you’re going to kill me.” He put a hand over his heart as if it were going to give out any second.

You chuckled at their antics, starting to clean up the trashed wrapping paper. “Christmas movies?”

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 25

You felt like a little kid, unable to sleep the night before Christmas morning. It was after midnight, so it technically was Christmas now. And even thought you knew that neither Santa nor you parents were coming, you were still oddly giddy. You had already videocalled Sooyoung to recap the developments of the day, but you were still replaying everything in your mind, kept up with thought of Jisung. How it felt being that close to him when he was teaching you to throw a snowball, the information that apparently he was just as smitten with you after the library as you were with him. Even Chenle’s unofficial blessing put your mind at ease—not because your brother determined who you dated, but he knew Jisung better than you did and was brutally honest, so if he said that he liked Jisung for you, you knew he meant it.

Pushing your covers off, goosebumps immediately popped up on your legs that were now exposed to the cool air. You treaded over to the bathroom door. The light was off, but you still knocked. When there was no response, you opened it. You didn’t stop there, however, continuing on to the opposite door, which you knew led to Jisung’s room. Taking a deep breath, you knocked softly on that one too.

You heard the rustling of sheets and quiet padding of footsteps before the door handle twisted and opened, Jisung on the other side. He looked down at you, nose scrunched up in bewilderment.

“Hey, is everything okay?” He asked, rubbing one of his eyes behind his glasses.

“Yeah. Uhm, sorry, did I wake you up?”

“No, I uh, I couldn’t sleep, actually.”

“Me neither.”

“Oh.”

There was a pause, and you fidgeted with the ends of your longsleeve. “Do you want to hang out for a bit? Since we’re both up…”

“Oh! Y-Yeah, sure.” He stepped back from the door, motioning you in. “Uhm, come in.”

“Thanks.” You stepped inside, and he closed the door behind you.

The bedsheets were rumpled on one side, so you sat down on the other side, pulling the blanket over your chilly legs. Jisung watched you, frozen halfway from the bathroom to the bed for a second.

“I’m cold,” you told him, turning your phone on.

“Of course, right,” he breathed out, snapping out of his trance.

He climbed under the covers as well, putting a headphone in his ear opposite from you and pressing play on a video on his phone. Curious, you peeked over at his screen to see what he was watching. It looked like a bunch of clips of professional baseball pitchers.

“It’s my favorite pro pitcher,” Jisung blurted out, pausing the video again. He had apparently noticed you snooping at his screen. “Well, that’s currently active. He’s a lefty, and he does this thing on some of his pitches where he gets this spin and—”

You blinked as he had abruptly cut himself off in the middle of his sentence. Tilting your head, you asked, “What? Why’d you stop?”

“You’re not really interested in baseball, are you?” He questioned, turning his eyes down to his lap. “You’re just being nice.”

“Hold on—”

“It’s okay, you can go back to what you were doing, I don’t want to bore you.”

“Jisung,” you giggled, turning over on your side fully to face him. “You really haven’t figured it out?”

His brow furrowed and he pouted slightly as he seemed to genuinely be confused. “Figured what out?”

“I’m interested in baseball because I’m interested in you,” you said bluntly, watching the gears turn in his head before his eyes widened.

“Wh—Oh. Really?”

“Mhm. But Chenle did warn me that apparently you’re head over heels for some mystery girl that you met in the library during finals week who gave you candy,” you teased, letting out a wistful sigh. “So I have no chance…”

Jisung dropped his phone to cover his face with both hands, letting out a noise of embarrassment from deep in his chest, shaking his head. “Oh my God…”

“I told SooSoo about you too,” you informed him. “After the library.”

He opened his hands to peek at you meekly. “Really?”

“Really.”

Jisung glanced upwards, and you snickered.

“Chenle’s not like that. He’s not going to care unless you’re a dick to me.”

“Because only he gets to be a dick to you?” He joked, slowly removing his hands all the way from his face.

“Yep. Same for the girls he dates. Nobody gets to be a bitch to him except me.”

“So, now what?” He asked nervously, glancing around the room.

“Now, you’re going to finish telling me about your favorite pitcher,” you stated, scooting over until you were snuggled into his side, head resting on his shoulder so you could see his phone screen better.

Jisung grabbed his earbud case from the nightstand, bringing the other one out. He offered it to you, and you put it in as he turned his phone back on. He restarted the compilation, but didn’t press play yet, instead launching back into his explanation from before, excitedly talking faster now.

“So this is Hwang Myungjun. Like I said, he’s my favorite pitcher that’s in the league right now. He’s a lefty and—you’ll see it in this video, but—he does this really cool thing on some of his pitches where he can get this certain spin on the ball and…”

You listened to him go on and on with a smile on your face, breathing in the warm smell of cinnamon.

In the morning, you stirred a little, sighing and pulling the covers up to your nose. Covers that smelled like cinnamon. Opening one of your eyes, you were greeted with Jisung already wide awake, sitting up against the headboard, staring at you from behind his glasses.

You rubbed your eye and yawned. “Christ—Did you sleep at all?”

“Yeah, we get up early for baseball conditioning, so I don’t really sleep in even on days off.” He rubbed the back of his neck, ears turning pink. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Good morning…”

“Morning,” you mumbled, yawning again. “Sorry for falling asleep here.”

“It’s okay. Sorry for talking you to sleep.”

“No, it was nice. I like your voice.” You pushed yourself into a half-sitting position. Pecking his cheek, you added, “Merry Christmas.”

His face flushed as he smiled down at his hands. “Merry Christmas…”

Climbing out of bed, you stretched your arms over your head, then wrapped them around yourself. “Anyway, I should emerge from my own room. Just because he doesn’t care if we date doesn’t mean Chenle needs to think something other than watching baseball compilations happened in here last night.”

Jisung squeezed his eyes shut and nodded his head. “Good idea.”

“See you in a few.” You bid him a momentary farewell, opening the door to the adjoining bathroom.

Shuffling back into your own bedroom, you almost screamed when you saw a figure sitting on your bed in the dark. You grabbed for the closest thing in your reach, a candlestick on the dresser next to you, ready to swing. The figure turned on the lamp next to the bed, and you saw that it was Chenle, still contemplating hitting him anyway. You decided to set your weapon down, however.

“What the fuck?!” You hissed, stalking up to your bed and grabbing a stuffed animal to chuck at him instead. He caught the stuffed bee, holding it to his chest as he smirked at you.

“Something you want to tell me?” He raised an eyebrow. “About where you’ve been?”

You followed his line of sight between you and the bathroom door that you just came out of. “What are you, the piss patrol? Can’t a bitch pee in peace around here?”

“Toilet didn’t flush, sink didn’t run,” he immediately shot back. “Also, I’ve been in here for the past hour.”

“Don’t be weird about it—” You held up a finger in his face threateningly, and a victorious grin immediately spread across his features. “Jisung and I talked about how we felt, and I fell asleep in his room. Nothing else, okay?”

Chenle gave you a look that told you he didn’t entirely believe you, but he didn’t press you any further. “God, how am I going to choose between being your brother of honor and his best man?”

“We haven’t even gone on a date!” You grabbed a pillow and tried to pushed it over his face to shut him up. He narrowly saved himself from being smothered, cackling as you resorted to smacking him with it instead. “As if I’d even ask you to be my whatever you just made up! You’ll be lucky if you even get an invite, I swear to—”

The door to your room was thrown open from the bathroom, Jisung looking around the room wildly. “Y/N! Are—”

You stopped your assault on your brother to smile breathlessly at Jisung. “Oh. Hi.”

“I heard you yelling, I wanted to make sure…”

“I’m fine,” you reassured him. “Thanks, Jisung.”

“I know!” Chenle announced loudly. “I know everything, Park Jisung! Last night, you and my little sister—”

You succeeded in smothering Chenle this time, muffling whatever obnoxious things he was about to spew.

After breakfast and opening presents in the morning, Jisung excused himself to go call his parents. Chenle tsked, turning the gaming console on to start up one of the new games he’d gotten and tossing you a controller.

“He tell you how he ended up coming with us?” Your brother asked, his gaze on the screen.

“Yeah. His dad goes on a cruise and his mom is with his stepdad’s side of the family. So he would’ve just been at the school if you didn’t bring him,” you replied, only paying half-attention to the opening cutscene.

“At least ours pretend to make an effort,” he scoffed. “His mom didn’t even offer to pay for his plane ticket.”

“Hm?”

“His mom and stepdad live on the other side of the country. They technically ‘invite’ him to Christmas every year, but he’d have to get himself there and back.”

“So it’s hardly a genuine invite.”

“And you know what his stepdad does?”

“What?”

“CEO of that logistics company that Mom and Dad are always talking about. The big one.”

“Shit, really? And he can’t be bothered to pay for his wife to see her own son once a year?”

He clicked his tongue. “Apparently not.”

A few levels into the video game, Chenle’s phone lit up with a text. He paused the game, and sighed upon reading the message. “Jisung says we can eat lunch without him. He’s suddenly not feeling well.”

You winced. “I take it his phone calls didn’t go well.”

“You go check on him. You can handle crying people better than me.”

You nodded in agreement, getting up from the couch. Outside of Jisung’s bedroom door, you listened carefully first, just in case he was still on a call. It was quiet, and you knocked softly.

“Jisung?” You called out. “Can I come in?”

“Sure,” he replied, his voice sounding far away.

Opening the door, you saw him laying on the bed on top of his covers, his back to the door. You stayed in the doorway, asking, “Do you want to be alone?”

“No.”

You sat down on the bed behind him, still giving him his space. “Do you want to talk or do you want quiet?”

“My dad didn’t even pick up,” he muttered. “And my mom—God, I got to tell her about school for all of five seconds before she started gushing about how her grandbabies are learning how to write or whatever. I’ve never even met those kids, honestly, I don’t give a fuck about them. They’re not even her grandkids, they’re her husband’s. Apparently, one of them is on a little league baseball team. When she started saying I could teach him how to pitch when I come to visit for summer, I pretended the call was dropping and hung up. ‘When I come to visit’—I live with my dad in the summer because he didn’t move away from me.”

“I’m sorry, Jisung,” you said, feeling the hurt in your heart as his voice tightened and cracked.

“It’s funny, they used to have these-these blowout fights every year about who got me for Christmas,” he sniffled. “And now that they moved on and got their new families, they couldn’t care less about me.”

“Lucky for me and Chenle, then. Because we got you this year.”

He laughed, finally rolling over to face you. He wiped at his eyes, but you still saw the tears that had run down the side of his face. “You really mean that?”

“Of course I do.” You gently stroked his hair, brushing some of it out of his face.

Jisung scooted closer, until he could pillow his head in your lap instead, his eyes fluttering shut as you resumed your ministrations. “I’m glad you guys got me too…”

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26

A knock on your bedroom door woke you up. It opened, and somebody who was neither Chenle nor Jisung peered in.

“Merry Christmas, sweetie,” your mother hummed lightly. “Are you up?”

“Mm, yeah,” you grunted, pushing yourself up against your pillows.

She came over to press a kiss to your forehead. “Good morning.”

“Hi, Mom. Merry Christmas,” you smiled up at her, letting her take your hand in hers. “Did you and Dad just get here?”

“A few minutes ago. Your father’s getting Chenle.”

There was a loud thunk from above you, followed by a yelp and two very familiar and similar laughs that you recognized as your families’. You chuckled as your mom rolled her eyes fondly.

“I think he was successful,” you snickered.

“We’re going out for breakfast when you’re ready,” she informed you, squeezing your hand before letting it go.

“Mmkay.” You yawned as she headed for your door. “I’ll let Jisung know.”

She paused, tilting her head. “Who?”

“Didn’t Chenle tell you his friend was coming? Park Jisung?” You pointed at the room next door.

“Oh, I thought he was bringing Mark for some reason.” She looked at you with concern. “Does Jisung like basketball too?”

“I… don’t know? He plays baseball?”

“Oh. Hm.”

“So, what are you studying, Jisung?” Your mother asked, stirring sugar into her coffee.

The five of you were at a diner in the small town at the base of the mountain, you, Jisung, and Chenle packed into one side of a booth and your parents on the other. The car ride had been filled with you and Chenle filling your parents in on your various happenings from this semester, but now your parents seemed to have zeroed in on the newcomer.

“Cybersecurity,” he rushed to answer.

Both your parents seemed impressed by that. Your dad spoke next, “And what do your parents do?”

“He’s got an athletic scholarship, Dad,” Chenle cut in before you could. You both knew what he was really asking about.

“Full ride,” you added proudly. “Baseball. He’s the pitcher.”

“Really?” Your dad’s interest was piqued—he was a bigger sports fan than your brother.

“Yes, sir,” Jisung replied.

“The school doesn’t give out full athletic scholarships frequently. You know that?”

“No, sir, I-I didn’t know that.”

Your dad took a sip of his own coffee, regarding Jisung like he was evaluating his investment portfolio. “So what makes you so valuable?”

“W-Well, uhm, I-I don’t—”

“He’s ambidextrous,” you answered for him. “He can pitch with both hands.”

“Switch pitcher?” Your dad hummed thoughtfully. “You know who the best switch pitcher in the history of the league is, right?”

“Kim Beomjin, sir,” Jisung replied firmly.

“Has he passed your test, yet, Dad?” Chenle scoffed. “Come on, stop treating him like he’s interviewing at the company.”

“I was trying to get to know—”

“You were being a bit much, dear,” your mother interrupted your dad’s attempts to defend himself.

“Alright. My apologies, Jisung.”

“It’s fine, sir, really.”

You didn’t understand why your mother had asked if Jisung liked basketball until you got back to the house. Your parents had brought a few more presents with them, including, kindly, a couple for Jisung. Except they hadn’t been expecting Jisung, they had been expecting Mark, which evident in the gifts. Both Chenle and Mark loved basketball, so the matching jerseys for their favorite team would’ve made the perfect present, if it had been Mark receiving it.

“I’m so sorry, Jisung,” your mother kept apologizing, clearly embarrassed at the mistake.

“No, I-I like basketball too, ma’am,” he tried to reassure her.

“It’s a requirement for being my friend,” Chenle helped him out. “If only I could’ve made it a requirement for being my sister.”

“If we got to pick, I would’ve made not being annoying as fuck a requirement for being my brother,” you retorted.

“Language!” Your mom scolded you, at the same time that your dad warned Chenle to “Be nicer to your sister!”

Your parents were gone again after dinner, leaving in a flurry of hugs, kisses, and promises of celebrating Christmas together properly next year. As soon as he’d shut the door behind them, Chenle turned to you, cynical disbelief on his face already.

“No way,” he chuckled and shook his head. His phone rang then, and he tutted. “Gotta take this. I’ll be in my room if you need me.”

Jisung was already in the living room, and you plopped down next to him on one of the couches, dropping your head into your hands.

“Your parents seem nice,” he said quietly.

“Mhm, they’re really great when they’re here,” you agreed bitterly. “Sort of makes it hurt worse. It’d be easy to just hate them if they left us all the time and changed plans last-minute and were awful when we did see them. But they do all that shit, and then I see them and it’s good. And it makes me start thinking that maybe it’ll be different, maybe they’ll really keep their promises next time.”

“I get that.” He seemed to be choosing his words very carefully. “But maybe this time you just don’t get your hopes up. Might be easier on you.”

“Yeah, probably.”

With a sigh, you sat up, turning into Jisung’s side and snaking your arms around his waist. He wrapped his arms around you as you buried your face in his chest, one hand cradling the back of your head. His other hand slowly rubbed your back, encouraging you to relax into his embrace even more.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 31

The morning of New Year’s Eve, the three of you were sitting around the kitchen table silently eating breakfast scrounged together from various leftovers and the singular grocery store trip you’d taken since Christmas. Then, there was a knock at the front door, and with your cereal spoon sticking out of your mouth, you gave Chenle and Jisung a bewildered look. They, however, didn’t seem put off at all.

“Y/N, can you go see who it is?” Chenle asked you, returning his gaze to his phone screen.

“Are you expecting someone?” You retorted. “You go answer it.”

The knocking came again, more insistent this time.

“Y/N! Just get it!” Chenle demanded loudly.

“Fine! Fine!” You got up, stomping over to the front door.

Opening the solid wood door, your jaw dropped when you saw six figures on the other side, before you were tackled in a hug by the one at the front.

“Surprise!” Sooyoung squealed, nearly squeezing the air out of your lungs.

“Soo!” You gasped, hugging her back. “What are you doing here?”

“We were invited!” Jaemin informed you cheerily, grabbing you for a bear hug next.

“We’d never pass up an invite to a Chenle-Y/N party,” Jeno’s eyes twinkled as he pecked the crown of your head.

“Especially a New Year’s Eve party,” Donghyuck added.

“Since when have we been throwing a New Year’s Eve party?” You spluttered, still in delighted shock as you took in all of your friends standing in your foyer.

Mark hugged you too. “Chenle texted us a couple days before Christmas to see if we could make it for New Year’s.”

You grabbed your roommate’s hand, bewildered the most by her presence. She wasn’t friends with Chenle or any of the other guys standing there, to your knowledge. “But how did you…?”

“Jisung’s idea,” Chenle had joined you all, standing at the threshold of the foyer with the baseball player. “We figured out that Renjun and Sooyoung were in a study group together this semester and…”

You’d spotted Huang Renjun, one of Chenle’s friends from college whom you’d met several times before, hanging back on the fringes of the group. You smiled at him before beelining for Jisung, throwing your arms around his neck and kissing his cheek a couple times in your excitement.

“Thank you!” You were smiling ear to ear, so much that your cheeks hurt, but you couldn’t help it.

“You’re welcome, Y/N.” Jisung returned the hug, rubbing your back. “My late Christmas present to you.”

You let him go to hug your brother next, hooking your chin over his shoulder and squeezing him so tight you felt like your chest might burst, and you hoped he could feel how much all of this—how much he—meant to you. Despite everything you may say or do to each other. “Thanks, Chenle.”

“Of course,” he whispered, hugging you back just as tight.

“SooSoo, I’m serious, not that much has happened!” You promised, laying on your bed to watch as she got settled in your room. She had of course insisted that you filled her in on every details of everything that’s happened between you and Jisung, including things that she had already heard before since you two talked almost every night. “It’s only been like a week, and my brother is literally here.”

“We all saw those little cheek kisses earlier,” she replied pointedly. “You’re at least going to kiss him at midnight, right?”

“Maybe,” you giggled, quite literally kicking your feet as you thought about it. “Onto you—You just spent three hours in a car with them, have you figured out if you want me to set you up with Jeno or Jaemin?”

“We took two cars. I was in Renjun’s with Donghyuck,” she informed you with a desolate sigh.

“Why did you—”

“He offered because he knew I didn’t know anybody except him, and I didn’t know how to explain why I wanted to go in the other one!”

“Foiled once more by empathy and kindness.”

“I’ll figure it out before we go back to school!”

“Maybe you can get one of their numbers on your own before then.”

Despite the reputations that ‘Chenle-Y/N’ parties carried amongst your friends, and your friends also bringing enough alcohol to host a full-blown kegger, the event itself was pretty low-key. You’d gotten the firepit on the back porch going, food ordered, music going throughout the house, and had already completed several different games.

You were fixing yourself a cup of eggnog in the kitchen when you spotted someone out by the firepit. Pouring another mug, you took both out with you. Jisung looked up when he heard the back door open. He smiled as he recognized that it was you, scooting over on the bench to make room for you to sit with him.

“Eggnog?” You offered a cup out to him. “I didn’t spike it, but I can go add something in if you really want.”

“No, this is perfect,” he chuckled, his laughs rising as white wisps in the cold air. “I’ve been thinking…”

“About?”

“Were the three options hot chocolate, cider, and eggnog?”

It took you a second to catch up, but once you had recalled your first night in the mountains, you burst into laughter, nodding. “Yeah, those were the three options when I made you pick a number.”

He smiled, taking a sip of his drink. “There was something else, that I was thinking about.”

“Oh?”

“Are-Are we going to kiss at midnight? Do you want to? I know we haven’t gone on a real date or anything—”

“I do want to kiss you,” you admitted. “Do you?”

He nodded hurriedly. “Yes, god.”

“You still seem… fidgety. We can wait, if you—”

“That’s not it.” He set his cup of eggnog down, and you did as well. “I want to kiss you. I just don’t want the first time I do to be in front of a bunch of our friends.”

You smirked, tilting your head curiously. “Are you asking to practice before?”

He blinked. “I don’t think I was before, but I definitely am now.”

You snickered a little, leaning in and gently touching your lips to his in a feather-light kiss. He let out a small sigh against your lips, one of his hands coming up to cup your cheek and pull you closer, sealing his mouth over yours. Everything was warm, no matter the fire or the cold wind or the thick jacket you were wearing, you were being heated from the inside out.

When Jisung pulled back, he had such a dazzlingly soft smile on his face that you couldn’t help but stare, wanting to burn that image in the back of your eyelids forever. He moved to duck his head shyly, but you grabbed his face.

“I think we might need some more practice before midnight,” you teased, nuzzling your nose with his affectionately.

“Mm, of course,” he agreed humorously, kissing you again. And again, and again, and again.

⇢ 2024 hallmark movie marathon

TAGLIST

@annenakamura @bee-the-loser @lotties-readings @ppddpjdr @reiofsuns2001

@classicroyalty @giirlfriendd @shaqs-oatmeal @sofipolii01

@tearinka @yoursyuno @yutasputa69

@winkeuu

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luckylzclerc · 26 days ago

Text

A Thousand Miles 𓍢ִ໋🏁՞ᰔᩚ (cl16)

sypnosis : Due to your different careers, You both have been in a long distance relationship for quite some time. Charles has been nothing but supportive of you and got himself into a habit of mentioning you nonstop in interviews which sparks the attention from the media.

request : yes! from this request ₊˚.༄

AU : Mixed AU (smau + written au)

genre : fluff

an : first post since 2023 ! I changed my layout and tried to be more aesthetic (kinda..) lmk your thoughts on that! anyway, i hope u guys enjoy reading this as much as i enjoyed making it hehe :3 pls don't be shy to request, I'll definitely try to answer them all 💌 anyways, have fun reading this and don't forget to like, comment and reblog!

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charles_leclerc mon cœur, i miss you

⤷ yourusername ahh Charles, tu me manques aussi bebe

(i miss you too bebe)

lando we miss you here, y/n! 😔

⤷ yourusername landooo!! missing you guys too💘💘

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

The paddock is buzzing with excitement as fans from all over the world arrive to watch the 2025 Imola gp. Meanwhile, in the Ferrari garage, Charles is on the phone with his lovely girl, y/n.

"Charles, isn't qualifying starting soon?" asked the girl, interrupting her boyfriends ramble about an inchident that happened the night before. "Huh? shit! it's starting in 20 minutes!" replied the monegasque frantically while quickly gathering all his stuff.

Confused, she raised an eyebrow, "Are you going to end the call, or do you want me to do it?". Charles' panicked face contorts into a pout "Do we really have to end the call?" he asked with a soft tone. On the other end of the line, y/n chuckled "yes, yes have to mon amor. I'll talk to you later yeah? Promise me you'll do your best okay?, good luck". He smiles softly at her "Promise, je t'aime" while clicking the 'end call' button. All he could do now is just hope for the best as he wants to get pole to make her proud.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

"POLE POSITION BABYYY" echoes through the entire paddock as Charles crossed the finishing line with the fastest time amongst all 19 drivers. As the crowd errupt with cheers from the tifosi(s), Charles makes his way to the post qualifying interviews.

interview .ᐟ

still feeling giddy, Charles decides to call y/n to tell her about the qualifying even though she was probably watching the entire time. *ring ring ring* -voicemail "huh?" confused as he can be, he started worrying about the sudden voicemail so, he called her again. twice. thrice. no answer. 'What is she up to?' Charles thought to himself.

Without any warning, Carlos barged into his room to congratulate his teammate. Noticing the monegasque's unhappy face "Carino, you okay ?" asked Carlos with a careful tone. "Yeah, im alright, its just y/n. She's not picking up my calls!". Understanding the situation, the spaniard comforted his teammate "Ah, maybe her device died or, I don't know? She took a nap or something.. theres endless possibilities, don't worry about it too much."

Nodding, "Maybe you're right.. thanks mate" "No problem!Now time to celebrate!!" Still full of adrenaline from the pole position but not feeling like celebrating, he decided to just head back to the hotel to rest "You celebrate, I'm going back to the hotel" said the monegasque. Walking to his car, he thought to himself 'Maybe she's asleep, I'll just call her again when i get back to the hotel' while trying to ignore the constant feeling of worry.

twitter .ᐟ

As upon his arrival at the hotel, Charles still couldn't shake the feeling of a pit forming in his stomach so, after reaching to his assigned room, he quickly calls y/n again.*ring ring ring*

"Y/n are you there?" furrowing his brows while trying to make sense the black screen on his phone. "Charles! Congratulations on the pole, I'm so proud of you, knew you could do it!" said y/n with excitement filling her tone. Charles commented "Thank you! amor, I don't know if its my phone but I cannot see your face". A few moment of silence passed and Charles keep hearing commotion on the other end of the line.. "bebe? are you there? are you out right now..?". Finally, the girl answered short and sweetly "Sorry, got to go, talk to you tomorrow amor! bisous" and the call went dead.

Now he's even more confused. While trying to decide wether to investigate or not, tiredness washes over him. Finally deciding to ignore the paranoid feeling, Charles decides to get ready for bed and bother the girl with more questions the following day.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

As Charles wakes up at the crack of dawn, all his worries about y/n seems to disappear and he decides to just focus on his race today. While getting ready, he receives a notification on imessage from her wishing him luck on todays race, and that alone is enough to make him smile from the words of encouragement.

As soon as he arrives at the circuit, Charles was quickly rushed to the Ferrari garage to get prepped for the race at Imola. Todays goal was to win, make y/n proud and oh! win again. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to him, Y/n is on the plane flying a thousand miles away to get to the Imola grand prix in time.

Y/n arrives just in time as there were 2 more laps to go. As she quickly rushes to the Ferrari garage, Charles zoomed by the checkered flag in first place. The entire garage was filled with screams and cheers of joy celebrating another win for Ferrari. Outside, y/n could hear the grandstand booming with celebrations as the tifosi(s) celebrate Charles' victory. She couldn't believe it, it was her first time witnessing his win in real life and was feeling overjoyed. Her heart was full of love and admiration.

Charles parked his f1 car behind the '#1' sign and jumped out of the vehicle while doing a celebratory pose. He was feeling so pleased with his results and all he could think about was telling y/n.

As the post race interviews were held, y/n was hiding in the McLaren garage to avoid spoiling the surprise and bumping into her partner.

interviews .ᐟ

"Charles Leclercc!!" echoes through the entire circuit as they announced the winner of the race. Charles walked to the first place of the podium, full of pride and a huge smile across his face. Y/n was standing amongst the crowds watching him stand on the top of the podium filled with excitement and proudness. 'I knew you could do it' she thought to herself, smiling like an idiot.

As the national anthem of Monaco ended, the top 3 winners sprayed each other with champagne and that marks the end of the ceremony.

As Charles makes his way to his motorhome, y/n was hiding in his drivers room with a bouquet in her hand. Other than Charles, his teammate, Carlos was walking alongside him to the motorhome secretly recording the surprise that was about to happen. "Mate, why are u following me to my drivers room?" asked Charles and he twisted the door knob. While still looking at Carlos with a puzzled look, he decides to ask the spaniard again. "Mate???" All Carlos could do was point his head towards the drivers room and there she was. Standing with a huge smile spread on her lips while holding a huge bouquet of red roses.

"Surprise?" said the girl. Charles mouth dropped agape while he stared at her in disbelief "y/n??" as he snaps back into reality, he quickly ran towards his lover and hugged her tightly. "Woah woah! I can't breath Charles" she chuckled. "I can't believe you're here! When did you arrive? How come do I not know? Why didn't you tell me??" Bombarding her with questions. "Mate, calm down" Carlos interjects , which was replied with a glare from his teammate. "Oh you can't believe how much I miss you."

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yourusername hardest secret to keep❤️👻

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charles_leclerc Can't believe you're actually here❤️❤️

⤷ yourusername im literally right next to u rn🤨💘

lando not u hiding in the McLaren garage haha!!!

⤷ yourusername CHARLES IS SO BLIND HAHA

⤷ charles_leclerc ??????

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‍‍‍‍‍‍‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎fin.

an : tysm for reading!! I hope you guys liked this!! lmk your thoughts on it as this is my very first time writing. I love to read your comments and dont be shy to ask away in my inbox💌 dont forget to like, comment and reblog ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁!

taglist ⤷ @xf4iryx

#f1 fanfic #f1 imagine #f1 fic #f1 one shot #f1 social media au #formula 1 x reader #f1 x reader #f1 x you #charles leclerc x female reader #charles leclerc x you #charles leclerc fluff #charles leclerc fanfic #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc #cl16 x reader #cl16 imagine #cl16 #f1

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tootiecakes234 · 8 months ago

Text

Aged up Characters

MDNI: smutty

Katsuki had been gone for a month on an assignment and not only had he been away from you all that time, but it’d also been one of the most exhausting assignments he’d been on. Which is why he had EVERY intention of getting home and passing out in your shared bed for the next 3-4 business days.

He had a plan. Get home, take a shower and get directly into bed. Fuck food, fuck putting his things away.

But that entire plan went up in smoke when he got home.

He walks in with all his stuff and just drops everything close to the entrance. He trudges his way through the house and into your bedroom, when he hears the shower cut off.

He knew you were home because your car was in the driveway, but expected you to greet in the front room but he now sees you were otherwise occupied. What he didn’t expect was for you to come scampering out of the damn bathroom completely naked and dripping wet.

You of course screamed bloody murder because you hadn’t heard him come in.

“Katsuki what the hell?!! You scared the shit out of me! I could’ve killed you.”

He snorts, “with what? Your tits? Death by smothering??”

“Maybe dammit. My hearts almost came out of my throat.”

“So this is what you do when I’m gone huh?” He asks as he starts walking over to you. “Walk around naked and wet and what?? Do you air dry?” At this point his voice had dropped an octave or two and you could feel his eyes roaming over your body.

“No i d-don’t air dry…. Well that wasn’t my intention this time. I just left my towel out here.”

“Mmmm…” and he snakes his arms around your waist pulling you to him focusing his eyes on yours. “ I get home after a month and you dont even seem excited to see me.”

“Well maybe if you hadn’t tried to give me a heart attack…ouch asshole. Why the hell did you pinch my ass?”

“Be nice to me. I’m tired and jetlagged…. And now, because of you I’m hard” he of course takes this moment the press his groin up against you so you can feel how hard he actually is.

Your hands are resting on his biceps before the slide up and your hands sift into his hair.

“Well let me just dry off and I’ll help you with that” and you have the nerve to try and pull away from him.

“Why would you go dry off when I like you just like this hmm? Wet. And Naked.” And then he presses his firm lips against yours before sliding his hands down to cup both of your ass cheeks.

“Tell me you missed me brat. I’ve been here 5minutes and you haven’t said it.” He says with his lips pressed up against you ear and then he moves down and start placing sloppy kisses on your neck.

“Of, fuck, of course I missed you Katsuki. I sent you voice messages e-everyday telling you how much I missed you.” You whine.

“I don’t believe you.” And you jump before letting out a moan when this asshole slaps the hell out of one of your asscheeks. Then he slides his hand down and in between your puffy pussy lips.

When he pulls back to look at you there is a smirk playing on his lips. “Maybe you did miss me.”

“I told you.” You say as a pout forms on your lips.

“I can’t be sure though. I need you to prove it.”

“Prove it how Kat? I’m wet for you already. Is that not enough??”

Then his smirk turns into the most devilish smile you’ve ever see. “ i told you im exhausted from fighting villains, and you know making the world a safer place.”

“Get to the point you terrible man”

He chuckles at that. “Well that means I need you to be a big girl and do all the work this time. Need you to get my cock all wet with that filthy mouth of yours and then need you to ride me til I fill up my pretty little cunt ok?? Can you do that for me?”

All you can do is nod your head and drop to your knees.

This definitely not how he pictured his arrival home. It was so much better.

Katsuki Bakugo Masterlist

*id just like to say that this fic started with a whole different idea in mind and evolved into this and i never even got around to the original because it was getting too long😭

*also this isn’t proofread in the slightest so sorry🤭

Tags: @dreamcastgirl99 @xxvendettaxx @justbepeace @moonpieshawdy @theloveofnagiseishiroslife @mintsbubbletea @darkstarlight82 @anon-mouse223 @b134ch-m4h-ey3z @i-literally-cant-with-this @flowerbedbaby @kit-katsukii @blaize-hewwo @sweetblueworm @tippy-toes @superlegend216 @kxtsxkii @liliththeunqualifiedsimp @burgvndy @fluffismystaplefood @yoyolovesdaiki @zaiban2989 @zanarkandskylines

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everyonewooeverywhere · 3 months ago

Text

NSFW BLOG | MINORS AND AGELESS BLOGS WILL BE BLOCKED

boss!yunho who's so horrible to you that you think he hates you.

you started at your new job two months ago. you're first corporate job. and your supervisor, jeong yunho, just won't let you breathe.

on your first day he called you into his office. he stared you down, eyes grazing every inch of your body and told you, "go home and change." and when you'd looked at him wide-eyed and asked "why?" he'd pointed at your skirt and said, "it's way to short. you look incredibly unprofessional." your face had burned in embarrassment as you walked out of his office, completely missing the way that his eyes lit up when your little skirt bounced as you walked out of his office.

and he works you to the bone, giving you assignment after assignment until your forced to stay overtime. and you do it without complaint because you finally want to get on his good side. and he watches from his office as you try so desperately not to fall asleep. he loves what a good girl you are. and if you do happen to fall asleep, he'll wake you up by calling you to his office once again and scolding you for taking so long.

when you finally get to your breaking point he gets so excited. you have your first performance review, but everyone else's took so long that he has to give it to you after hours. so you come back to his office for what feels like the 100th time. and he berates you for nearly an hour about how little you've been contributing to the team and how your work has declined in quality significantly since you were hired. and he tells you that they might need to let you go.

and he about comes in his pants when you break into tears. sobbing into your hands. apologizing profusely. "i'm sorry, mr. jeong. i'm trying so hard. i just feel so lost, and i don't know what i'm doing wrong. i want to do better. i can't lose this job. it's all i have. i'll do anything."

he rises from his chair and comes around his desk to your side, and you look up at him with teary eyes. he cups your cheek and wipes a tear, making sure to smudge some of your mascara, "anything? are you willing to do anything ms. l/n?"

yunho's thoughts are full of ways he could absolutely ruin you. thoughts of you forced to stay under his desk all day warming his cock in your mouth. you spending these late nights bend over his desk until you've squirted all over the floor, and he makes you clean it up with your tongue. making you turning in topless photos of yourself on top of your usual paperwork.

you nod and he smiles down at you, "good girl."

"what did you have in mind?" you whispered. desperately trying to avoid looking at his crotch where his obviously hard cock was straining in his pants.

"on your knees, pretty girl."

you move without hesitation, "yes, sir."

he groans at your compliance. "god, i'm not even gonna have to break you, am i?" your wide eyes look up at him from your spot on the floor, "oh but i am gonna ruin you, baby. ruin you for anybody else."

general taglist: @swimmingkpopblog @oddracha @drinkingrumandcocacola @minaateez @funnyvxlentine

@sunnysidesins

ateez taglist: @certifiedmoa @wooyoungmybelovedhusband @curiousgworge @hyukssunflower @hotteokisms

@sushiinmidnight @atiny-dime-p1ece @mismatchfluffysocks @vic0921 @vampzity

@breadpuddingboys @woolysium @desirehorizon @im-ovulation @pommelex

@dancingwithdeities @maidens-world @jycas @kirbrary @aftertherain-atr

@staytinyinmybpack @m4n4-s4m4 @jjcanwrite @yvnhoos @uninterested-ghost

@yizhou-time @shinyj3lly @kyeos4ng @prettygirlslietoo @miriamxsworld

@tiny2018 @ttdogsworld @kejingken

#yunho x reader #yunho smut #*ੈ✩‧₊˚ dj's thoughts #yunho x reader smut #*ੈ✩‧₊˚ yunho thoughts #jeong yunho x reader smut #*ੈ✩‧₊˚ yunho hard thoughts #yunho #jeong yunho #jeong yunho x reader #ateez #ateez x reader #jeong yunho imagines #ateez imagines #jeong yunho smut

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talksungchan · 10 months ago

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kiss, cry, fall in love ☆ jung sungchan

୨♡୧ WORD COUNT: 19.3k ୨♡୧ PAIRING: riize's jung sungchan x female!reader ୨♡୧ TAGS & WARNINGS: figure skating!au, skater!sungchan, skater!yn, friends that kiss to lovers!au, secret/hidden relationship, fluff, angst, mentions of anxiety and skating-related minor injuries, lots of pining, lots of internal monologuing, lots of making out descriptions but no smut!, non linear narrative ୨♡୧ SYNOPSIS: jung sungchan is completely, utterly and hopelessly whipped for the struggling skater who keeps him at an arm's length, yet loves the feeling of his mouth on hers in every corner of the globe.

୨♡୧ NOTES: im sorry this is SOOOO long and its just y/n and sungchan being so cute and head over heels for each other. it's kinda a self-indulgent fic and i didn't really explain the figure skating terms, but i think you can make do without knowing what they mean (ask me anything if you wanna know tho!) pls enjoy this cute piece :) anyway, miss u seunghan!!!

⋆｡°✩

SKATE AMERICA, OCTOBER 2023

Your first love will always be figure skating. There was something about the way the cool air kissed and then smothered your face as you stepped onto the ice, and something about the way your sharp blades screeched as it cut through the top layer. There was something about the way the lights around you reflected on the glossy surface and the way you felt like you were most yourself while cutting through the air.

Your first love is figure skating, and everything to do with it- from the 5am call for training, to the sleepy drives all around the country and the world to get to your competitions, to the cheering, the gasps and the booing from the audience, to the gifted plushies making their home on your couch in your living room, to the stumbles and the landings, to the kiss and cry and most of all, to the skating.

Figure skating was also your first heartbreak- one that you were still trying to get over.

The arena you were competing in today was a familiar one, since you'd completed competitions in both the junior and senior circuit here a couple of times. Over the years, your nerves had truly eased up a little - never totally, of course, but you were always more excited than nervous no matter how well you thought you'd fare.

Still, the familiarity of the layout and the size and the ice was no help towards the pit growing in your stomach that you hadn't felt in competition in years. No matter- you woke up with that dread every single day for months now.

The stands had fallen into a hitched silence when they announced your name over the speaker. You had opened the barrier to the rink with a deep breath and one last forlorn look to your coach, who diverted her eyes quickly from you after a tense smile. It was weird; this was one of the loudest crowds in the grand prix circuit, but for you- last to skate in the short- you could hear a pin drop.

This time last year, you were on top of the world going into your first assignment of the season. You were fresh off the back of an amazing run at your very first Winter Olympics, helping your team secure gold medals in the team event and yourself a silver for your own effort. You had been skating in ice shows left and right in the midst of creating new routines for the new season, and you were on a high in life.

The season had passed well- you won gold, and then silver at your grand prix assignments, cruised through the grand prix final and then swept your discipline at nationals. You medalled for the 4th year running at 4 Continents and then all that was left was worlds.

Easy right? All you had left at the end of the best season of your career was the World Championships against all the skaters you had been consistently beating for years.

Anyway, back to the present.

You continued inhaling and exhaling consciously and intentionally for a while and it felt like forever before the first notes of your music began to boom into the arena and you could make your first move.

All eyes were on you.

It took you a split second to snap yourself from the sudden stage fright that had come over you. For a second there, you had thought that your feet refused to move from their starting position and had anchored themselves to the ice, but thankfully your brain and muscles had connected after a brief pause to send you on your first lap around the rink.

You had a few seconds to compose yourself and perform some intricate arm waving before your very first, and most difficult jump- one you had been rigorously training over and over and over again since the end of the last season when it had sabotaged your Worlds free skate.

When on the ice, the faces of the audience blurred into one continuous mass. You were thankful for this, otherwise you would be staring at the anxious expressions of hundreds of people that would bury and make home in your already fluttering stomach.

You sighed heavily to yourself before beginning the lead up to your jump. You told yourself that even if you didn't make it, it wouldn't affect how the rest of the routine went- you wouldn't let it.

You made the dreaded turn to start skating backwards and counted to 3 in your head before you turned again to take off forward, throwing your arms around yourself and launching your body in the air. You wish you could say that you knew what happened afterwards, but all you know is that you landed on the correct feet and the arena burst into cheers. You prayed that you landed your triple axel, but who knows at this point.

You let out a sigh of relief and continued with the rest of your programme that was ingrained in your mind. You were pretty much running on autopilot, which was not always what you preferred to do in competition. You wanted to be more in control, but honestly whatever got you through this skate would be okay.

The rest of the skate flew by and with each jump and element, you began to loosen up and the cloud in your mind began to dissolve. By the end of it, you could clearly make out the relief and pride splattered on your coach's face.

She gave you a tight squeeze when you opened the gate once more and cooed into your ear how proud she was of you, not that a blip in your routine would make her any less proud.

"Let's go to the kiss and cry and then i'll treat you to whatever you want," your coach Lina squeezed your hand with a reverent smile.

"Well now it sounds like you're bribing me to skate well," you grabbed a Keroppi plushie from one of the attendants that had cleaned up after you, giving her an appreciative smile.

"I always believe that you'll do well," she uttered back.

She sat you down in the middle of the bench and you gave smiles and waves to the camera pointing at you. You finally got to review yourself on the screens showing the live feedback of the broadcast and you were elated to find out that you had in fact landed your triple axel perfectly, instead of just a double.

The score blared out your season's best, just cause it was the start of the season, and it was on par with your scores from the start of last season, so you quickly celebrated and made your way to the media area and the changing rooms.

"Y/N!" you were greeted with a familiar squealing voice and were quickly enveloped in a tight hug.

"Sho! I didn't know you were coming!" you were so happy to see one of your friends around.

Shotaro pulled away and you noticed a towering figure beside him, holding a small bouquet of your favourite flowers, tulips.

"Sungchan," you smiled softly, "Hi."

His eyes were as sparkly as you always found them to be, his lips challenging the pinks on the flowers he was clutching.

He gave you a shy smile back and offered out the bouquet, "Taro and I got this for you. Congratulations on your short."

You wrapped your fingers around the stems and admired the vibrant orange and pink, "I bet you guys were holding your breaths. I know I was."

"It was incredible, as always," Sungchan assured you.

"Every skater goes through this, Y/N. We always know you're giving your best and we always believed you would recover," Shotaro hummed sincerely, "Anyway, we came because a lot of the gang is skating tomorrow. We begged our coach to let us come to this assignment and surprise you and the boys."

Shotaro was the first friend you made outside of your skating club in the junior ranks. He had approached you years and years ago, telling you he admired your skating and offered to be skating friends. In a career that was sending you everywhere around the world with never any stability, it was good to be friendly with people that could end up in the same assignments with you.

He had introduced you to the boys he had befriended himself and that was something you were so grateful for after you stopped finding yourself lonely in the cities you were drawn to.

You recalled seeing Anton and Wonbin drawn to this assignment too, but you hadn't had the chance to see them in their practice or otherwise.

"I'm gonna talk to a few reporters cause I can see my coach giving me some death stares to do them right now, but wait for me and we can get dinner? Or are you seeing the boys?"

"Toni and Bin have practice just after this and the others are watching, so we can get dinner just us and then we're hanging out in Anton's hotel suite after if you wanna join," Shotaro explained, "But yeah, go!"

You gave them both smiles and turned around to make a beeline for the press area, trying to ignore the booming feeling in your heart seeing the tall brunette for the first time in months.

⋆｡°✩

WORLDS, MARCH 2023

"Last to skate, Y/N Y/L/N."

You set off into a lap around the rink before settling in your starting position. You were well poised to walk away with the gold medal this competition, after ending up second in the short program and the competitor above you falling out of her combination in her free skate just before you. It wasn't that you prayed for the downfall of others, it was just that you had to take advantage of all you could.

Still, you were incredibly nervous. Your warm up and public training yesterday hadn't gone so smoothly considering you under-rotated your triple axel and landed your other quads shakily. You didn't know what was wrong with you- you were rounding off the best season of your career so far and this was just one last programme before you could have time to relax for a bit.

Lina gave you an encouraging thumbs up from the side and mouthed a good luck. You gave her a nod and waited for the music to start.

You had polished this routine to perfection, having performed it for two seasons already, so you were able to hit every piece of choreography perfectly as you led up to your first jump.

It was weird, the minute you began the lead up to the axel, this unfamiliar feeling began to nestle itself into your stomach and your mind and you didn't even have a split second to shake it away before you shot up in the air.

Then something snapped.

It felt like time had stopped and you were frozen mid spin in the air. The world had gone quiet and you could suddenly see the faces of everyone contort into worried gasps in slow motion. You didn't know how many times you spun in the air. It should have been 3 and half, but maybe it was 5 and maybe it was 2. It seemed like the laws of physics were non-existent as time suddenly snapped back into motion and you were on the floor the next moment.

You had no idea what was happening. Your mind had completely fogged up as you pulled yourself up. In the replays of this moment, you'd later see your coach in the background motioning for you to stop your skate and retreat, but you had bit your lip to stop the tears and continued your skate.

It was as if you blacked out for the rest of your free skate. All you remember was spinning around and around and trying your hardest to get back on track, but that was incredibly difficult when you had popped out of your quad lutz and fell again on your triple-triple. The audience was stunned, watching in silence and shock as the most likely contender of the competition was skating the worst in her entire career. Even in your junior years, you had never placed lower than 5th and you had certainly never popped out of your jumps before. You could probably count on one hand how many times you had fallen in competition, and this skate was obliterating that statistic.

You received your score in the kiss and cry stoic and unmoving. As soon as the cameras switched, you bolted to the halls of the arena while your coach shouted behind you. It took less than a minute for you to lose her as you navigated the maze of the 'backstage'. You were running on your skates (protected, of course) and you were running on some kind of adrenaline that was currently preventing you from breaking down. It would run out soon enough.

You had finally run into a corridor where the lights weren't activated until you stepped into them, so you had felt safe enough to hide in one of the rooms in the hopes they were empty.

The one you had barged into was a small dressing room, but evidently it was occupied by some people judging by the skate guards on the coffee table and the Team Korea jackets thrown on the couches. You didn't care as long as it was empty.

The silence dawned on you after the ringing that had been plaguing your ears since you came off the ice. It was then that all your emotions erupted and you fell to the floor in body-shaking sobs.

You had no idea what had happened at all. Nothing in the world could explain it and you had never felt like this skating ever again. In fact, skating always made you happy- it was the one thing in life that felt like it was for you. You never belonged anywhere else doing anything else. Skating was it.

So why did that happen?

You had heard of a phenomenon in gymnastics- the twisties. It was the sensation of losing yourself in the air, with your mind and body disconnecting in the middle of an element. It was one of the scariest things that could happen to a gymnast, and maybe that was what you had experienced.

Your tears were falling like a rainstorm on your sequinned dress and you felt the creeping of a throbbing and thunderous headache as you cried into the couch.

That was probably why you couldn't hear the door opening and a tall, young figure skater strolling in with a hum before he stopped in his tracks, noticing you on the floor, "Uh-"

Your eyes snapped to the leaning figure and you couldn't even make out who it was through the tears.

"Y/N?"

That was a voice you knew anywhere.

"Sungchan."

⋆｡°✩

SKATE AMERICA, OCTOBER 2023

"Where's your next assignment again?" Shotaro mumbled out through his mouth full of noodles. The three of you were in a hole-in-the-wall ramen restaurant downtown in the city, somewhere that one of your club-mates had recommended.

You grimaced, urging him to finish his bite first before speaking, "France. So soon."

"That's my first event," Sungchan hummed, sitting diagonally across from you.

Sungchan was one of the quieter ones around you. Of course, that possibly didn't reflect his usual personality around his friends while you were absent, but you'd noticed that in a large group, he tended to flitter on the outskirts and just listen.

"I'm off to Canada in a few days and then to Japan," Shotaro added, "I keep telling the federation to invite some lower ranked skaters to give them Grand Prix experience, but they keep including me in their domestic picks."

"Oh what a shame! You're popular in Japan!" you rolled your eyes playfully and chuckled at him, Sungchan joining along with you.

"Yeah, whatever. I want to experience other assignments. You know i've never been seeded to France?" Shotaro grumbled, "But yeah, I guess a home crowd is always the best crowd."

"The only time I experience a home crowd like that is for nationals, where all my competitors are also the same nationality. Then no one has a home crowd advantage," you mused, "I hope I make it to the final though- I haven't been to Italy in a long time!"

"I believe in you," Sungchan cheered timidly. You returned his musings with a gummy grin.

"Thanks, Sung. After Worlds I stopped believing that phrase, to be honest, but I think I'm getting better at internalising it."

"Ah yeah," Shotaro hissed, "A lot of the guys haven't seen you since. I don't know how much you want to talk about it; do you want me to tell them not to ask?"

"Thanks for being considerate, Taro," you said, "But I think i'm okay to talk about it if they ask. I think I'm coming out the other side of that dark tunnel now. And my therapist says talking about it is the best way to get over it. I guess she's paid to talk about it with me so maybe she just says that so our appointments aren't filled with silence."

Your best friend gave you an understanding nod and continued digging into his bowl of ramen. A comfortable silence fell between the three of you as you finally stopped chattering and were able to divulge into your food. You made small talk about the bowl in front of you- how good the broth was, how chewy the noodles were and how tender the meat was.

After the bill was split three ways, you huddled into the back of a taxi that was taking you to the hotel that most skaters had booked for the competition. You were squished in the middle, thanks to your shorter stature compared to Sungchan and Shotaro, but in an effort to not make Sungchan uncomfortable, you tried to scoot closer to Shotaro. It was pretty much a futile attempt considering the way Sungchan's broad shoulders sprawled over his seat and yours.

Still, you sneaked some glances over to the quiet Korean, who was peering out of the window and watching the busy streets of downtown Texas. His side profile was one you admired, with his enviable nose bridge and plump lips that were pulled into a somewhat pout as his eyes followed the people and the lights outside.

"Hm?" Shotaro poked you with a whisper, "You okay?" You didn't even know that you had dissociated and were staring expressionlessly out through the windshield.

With this, Sungchan snapped his head to you, eyebrows pulled in concern as you dismissed them with a wave, "Yeah i'm fine guys. Just thinking about stuff."

"Well don't plague that pretty head of yours. We're here tonight to help you take your mind off things," Shotaro was well aware that you still had some anxiety about skating and competing, and he mainly dragged Sungchan along to Texas just to help you through your first competition since your disastrous World's run.

Sungchan hummed along, agreeing with Shotaro and soon enough, the taxi was pulling up in front of your hotel. You rolled your eyes when Shotaro pressed on the penthouse button in the elevator; Anton often booked the most expensive suite at his competition hotels, claiming his environment had to be perfect or else it would affect his performance. Whatever, all the more space for all of you to hang out.

Sungchan produced a keycard from his pocket and you could already hear some commotion from the other side of the door. As soon as you heard the beep and the click of the lock opening, you felt a stampede of footsteps running towards the door.

"Noona!" Anton beat everyone to wrapping his arms around you, "Haven't seen you in forever."

"Yeah, I know. I've been a recluse these past few months. I missed you guys though," you giggled into his neck.

"Congratulations on the short," Eunseok hummed as he hugged you.

You received the same sentiments from the rest of the boys before you were being dragged over to the plush L-shaped sofa that they had begun to make their home at, judging from the blankets and jackets and snacks.

"Are you guys excited for tomorrow?" you asked Anton and Wonbin, recalling that the men's short program commenced in the afternoon.

"Excited, nervous; it's all the same emotions," Wonbin shrugged, "I kind of hurt my knee in practice today so hopefully it's okay tomorrow."

You winced at the prospect of an injury. It was so difficult to gauge how much certain bumps and grazes could actually affect you until you're on the ice and giving your all.

"Don't hurt yourself, okay?" Seunghan nudged his friend as he nuzzled into the corner with his blanket.

"Yeah, trust me, you don't want to make it worse," Sohee groaned. He had been dealing with a knee injury for a better part of 6 months and he was praying it would miraculously heal itself before his first assignment in one month.

You plopped down in the middle of the couch and to your surprise, Sungchan took his seat next to you. You tried not to make a big deal out of it, meeting his eyes for a brief second before turning your attention to Eunseok and Shotaro rock-paper-scissoring over who was choosing the movie. Shotaro won and the rest of you groaned, knowing that he was about to subject you to Studio Ghibli film again. For as long as you knew the boys, which was a long time, but you hardly saw them, you had cycled through the whole roster maybe 3 times over.

"How about we don't watch a movie and just chat shit instead?" Seunghan murmured sleepily from his position, "Like to start with, how's everyone's love life going? Any updates?"

You threw a pillow at him, knowing the question was directed at you. The 7 boys were attached to the hip in Korea, all training at the same rink (how the coaches managed that, you don't quite know) for the majority of the off-season. They knew everything about each other.

"Yeah, Y/N, how's your love life?" Sohee teased with a shit-eating grin.

"Non-existent, as always," you rolled your eyes, "I literally don't interact with any guys outside of the 7 of you in this room and that's even a stretch. The only man in my life is my cat at home."

"Why don't you date one of us then?"

Sungchan erupted into a coughing fit and you all looked at him strangely before deciding to address Wonbin's crazy suggestion.

"Sorry, swallowed my spit wrong," Sungchan avoided your eyes and chugged the water bottle he had snatched from the coffee table. He was thankful that everyone moved on from him.

"Wonbin, what the fuck?" you turned back to the long-haired skater, "Are you in love with me or something?"

"Psh, you wish," he dismissed, "But i'm just saying it makes sense. We've been friends for years, you trust us, you can't be bothered to go look for a man and i'm sure the thought of dating even just one of us won't kill you."

"Shut up, Bin. Did you hit your head or something cause that's some crazy allegations there," you defended, "You can't skate with a concussion, you know that right?"

"I'm legit fine," he rolled his eyes and began annoying Eunseok who was sat cross-legged next to him.

Your relationship with these boys was somewhat complicated, you would say. They were your closest friends in the skating world, but you also barely saw them and befriended each one on different levels.

You knew Shotaro better than everyone and you considered him a brother to you, meanwhile Sohee and Anton felt like your children since they adored you so much. Seunghan and Wonbin were your drinking buddies in whatever corner of the world you could find them in and you found yourself museum-hopping with Eunseok more often than not.

And then Sungchan. Ah, Sungchan.

Sungchan was just a consistent and quiet presence in your life. You didn't know much about him but he always appeared in the most random times. You weren't sure if Sungchan just treated you nicely because he felt obligated to because of your friendship with the others, or if his considerate but small gestures were out of his own friendly affection for you. There were phases that you convinced yourself that Sungchan disliked you and merely tolerated you for the sake of the others, but he would always prove you wrong otherwise in ways that you like to cast out of your memories.

Sungchan remained pretty quiet for the rest of the night, only chirping in when he felt like he could add something to the conversation, but the warmth radiating from his body next to yours gave you constant comfort. You would say the two of you were friends, but it was hard to quantify and label what you and Sungchan were exactly.

Eventually, Anton and Wonbin began dropping hints that they were tired and needed to rest up for their skate tomorrow, so you began to usher the boys into their rooms. The two competitors were sharing the three-bedroom penthouse, but with the surprise from the boys, they were having to squeeze 7 to the suite. Of course, Anton and Wonbin needed their beauty sleep, so the rest of them were cramming themselves into the 2 king beds in the third bedroom.

The two skaters bid their goodbyes first and you gave them good luck hugs, promising to watch the event tomorrow if you were able. This left the other boys and you standing around the coffee table looking at each other with no purpose.

"Uh, Shotaro and I are going to the gym," Wonbin began.

Sungchan perked up at this, "Oh! Let me co-"

"No!" Shotaro cried out suddenly, "You're not invited! Sorry! C'mon Bin let's go get changed," he dragged the smiling boy towards the spare room in the suite.

You looked around in confusion, noticing Eunseok, Sohee and Sunghan looking mischievous, "We're going to get chicken," Sohee declared, "I know you don't eat fried chicken so close to competition, right Channie? So why don't you walk our dear Y/N to her room? It's dangerous out there, you know?"

Their intention must have flown over your head as you furrowed your eyebrows together and shook your head, "It's okay Sungchan, I can go by myself! It's only a few floors down and you should rest. Must have been a long flight."

He mirrored your action as he reluctantly tugged on your arm, "It's okay; I'll walk you. I wanna get something from the vending machine anyway."

You gave him an unsure look, but relented when he returned a confident smile. You said good night to the boys who were slipping on their jackets and followed Sungchan out of the suite.

"I'm sorry they made you do that and they all just left you," you scurried after him. His long legs were definitely no match for you, "I don't want you to feel uncomfortable or anything so you can just go down to the machine!"

"Hey," he interrupted your ramblings as the two of you entered the elevator, "Don't worry. We're friends, right? And I would hate if something happened to you on the way down. You have a pretty crazy fanbase, you know?"

You grimaced, thinking back to the time that a couple of fans had stalked you around Toronto when you had competed there once. Sungchan was right, in fairness- you never know what information people have access to.

"Thanks, Channie," you reluctantly called him by his affectionate nickname that the others loved to coo at him, "I also think they decided that you're the most eligible bachelor for me, considering they all dipped and left you behind."

"Ah, they're crazy," he rolled his eyes, "Ignore them, please!"

The two of you had reached your floor and you were glad that your room was close to the elevator. You took out your keycard from your jacket pocket and opened the door. You hadn't had time to unpack before going to training the day before, so all that was in your room was your free skate dress hanging in the exposed wardrobe to let the wrinkles drop out, and your closed suitcases in the corner of the room.

"Well, uh," Sungchan scratched the back of his neck, "Goodnight, Y/N."

"Sungchan?"

He looked up at you with glimmering doe eyes.

"Yeah?"

"Do you want to come in?" you moved aside to give him the choice to.

He chuckled in amusement, "Yeah, I do."

He stepped foot into the room and kicked off his shoes while you peeled off your jacket. As soon as the lock clicked shut behind him, Sungchan snaked his toned arms around your waist and attached his lips to yours.

Okay, confession time.

Your relationship with Sungchan was incredibly, incredulously complicated.

It all started 3 and a half years ago when your high school boyfriend broke up with you over the phone between your short and free skate in Canada. Sungchan had been the only other one of the group who was competing at the same assignment and although the two of you weren't close, the boys sent him to your hotel room with chocolate, tissues and a picture of him to rip up or stab with a pen.

You had embarrassingly cried your eyes out all over his training shirt and then pathetically asked him to distract you from the heartbreak by making out with you. You couldn't say that 18-year-old you was very smart or emotionally available. Well, to be honest, you still weren't particularly any better.

Anyway, the next day, the two of you decided to never talk about it ever again, swearing to never tell the boys anything and decided to continue with your semi-awkward acquaintanceship.

That was until the two of you stumbled into each other months and months later at a fellow skater's birthday party halfway across the world and ended up making out again in a coat closet for a good amount of time.

And then it carried on like that- finding places to make out around the globe, swearing not to say anything to anyone and then not talking about it ever again.

"We should really stop this, you know," you panted against his lips.

"You say that every time," Sungchan muttered, slotting his tongue between your lips and snaking his smooth hands to your throat, "But totally, yeah. We should stop this."

"Okay, this can be our last," you decided, as he led you over to your bed and pushed you gently down.

To be honest, you would say that you didn't know much about Sungchan despite making out with him 2 or 3 times a year because it was a correct statement. The two of you never really did anything else other than blow off some steam by making out. You never shared meals together or cuddled in bed indulging in pillow talk. It was always a transactional thing. It was weird in your head- all that the two of you did, but Sungchan was too good of a kisser for you to care about all the details of it.

"Better make it worthwhile, huh?" he peppered kisses down your neck until he reached the spot that had you putty in his hands. Sungchan knew better than to leave marks that your friends would definitely not let go of, so he just bit and sucked for a short time before connecting his lips back to yours. Your shirt had creeped up your torso, exposing a sliver of smooth skin that Sungchan attached his large hands to while he laid waste to all your emotions by kissing the breath out of you.

You didn't know how long had passed until Sungchan pulled away with blown out pupils and a pant. A small smile tugged onto the corner of his lips, which you couldn't help but poke, "What's with you?"

He giggled, "Nothing, nothing. You're beautiful, you know?"

A blush rose up to your cheeks and you broke your eye contact with him. It was weird- Sungchan seemed so confident when he was alone with you, but the moment he stepped out of the confines of your little situationship, he returned to being quiet and mysterious. You wished that you could get to know who the real Sungchan was.

"Shut up," you dismissed, cupping his chin and bringing his face down to yours. Sungchan stopped himself until your noses touched and he nudged his against yours sweetly before kissing you once again.

Kissing Sungchan felt like the world stopped spinning and it was only the two of you. All your worries disappeared and every stress left your body when Jung Sungchan's was on yours. He had this amazing power of making the world tilt on its axis the minute his lips touched yours and frankly, you were addicted to the feeling of him.

Your heart was completely and hopelessly beating out of your chest with the way his lips melded perfectly between yours and it was times like this, alone in a hotel room in a city you'll only ever see the ice rink of, that you forgot what your relationship with Jung Sungchan was.

"You should go," you murmured, halting his actions, "I have training early tomorrow."

"Yeah," he untangled his limbs from you and gave you a limp smile, "It's good seeing you again, Y/N. We haven't spoken in a while."

You internally cringe, thinking back to all those nights you sometimes contemplate texting him, only to realise you really don't text or speak at all outside of the groupchat. You think the last time you spoke was when you greeted him a happy birthday over text, and even that was a very fleeting exchange.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Channie," you felt the emptiness rise up again in your stomach as you walked him to the door. You were back to acting like nothing had ever happened between the two of you and as if walking you to your room was the only thing he did, "Thanks."

He bid you a soft goodnight and disappeared around the corner. Your hands rose up to your swollen lips and you sighed.

What were you actually doing?

⋆｡°✩

JUNIOR GRAND PRIX FINAL, DECEMBER 2017

"Urgh," you kicked the vending machine in anger as it withheld your drink in its clutches. It was a futile attempt as it sat on the edge of the shelf, taunting you. You gave it a few more hopeless kicks and groaned in frustration.

First, your triple salchow in your program was a total mess and definitely under-rotated, and now the vending machine wouldn't even disperse the drink that you paid the last of your Japanese coins for.

"Do you want some help?" a soft voice called out to you. You turned around and came face to face with who you presumed to be a skater judging from the pass hanging around his neck. He looked kind of familiar, you thought, but you couldn't put your finger on it.

You tried to give your politest, "Sure," but he could probably tell you were annoyed.

He enveloped the vending machine between his two sprawling arms and gave it an abrupt shake. You sighed in relief as you finally saw the melon milk can tip over and fall into the hole.

"Ah, thank you," you crouched down to take the drink, "I'd buy you a drink for that but I just used the last of my money."

He gave you a dashing smile, finally meeting your eyes.

Ah, wow.

He was certainly an attractive boy, with light brown fluffy hair and eyes so big that it made you swoon. This guy was almost two heads taller than you, but he was still built from the soft definition of muscles you could see from his short-sleeve top.

"It's okay," he assured you, flashing you the coins in his palm, "I was gonna buy myself a drink. I'm Sungchan, by the way. I'm a skater from Korea and I'm competing tomorrow."

It clicked in your head suddenly, "Jung Sungchan? Shotaro's friend? I'm Y/N!"

He smiled sheepishly, "I know who you are, of course," he motioned to your ensemble consisting of your competition dress, "You literally just came off the ice, you know that? Plus, Taro talks about you all the time."

You looked down at your costume and your feet that were still in your covered skates, "Oh, yeah. It wasn't my best out there. Anyway, sorry for not recognising you- Shotaro also talks about you guys a lot but he never shows me pictures. It's my fault though- I know I've probably been at numerous assignments with you guys since I've known Sho."

Sungchan popped open his can of strawberry milk, "You're quite harsh on yourself, you know that? Shotaro always says that about you. It was an amazing skate and you swept your competitors. Even if you made a small mistake, it doesn't take away from the rest of your incredible elements. You should always be proud, because those who watch you always are."

You tilted your head at him, a near-stranger offering you some comforting words, "Ah, I've never thought about it like that. I guess I'm harsh on myself because I want to do this for as long as possible. My dream is to win an Olympic gold."

"You're probably the closest out of all of us. Your skate in Norway was out of this world!" he chided. It was true- you already had a Winter Youth Olympics medal, but that was never really a predictor for the real thing- wait, he was at Norway Youth Olympics. Maybe that's why he looks so familiar to you?

You fought the smile arising, "Well, skating's an unpredictable sport; you never know what can happen. You just have to hope for the best," Sungchan opened his mouth to reply, but you could see your coach appearing around the corner, "Ah! I have to go- my coach is coming! It was nice meeting you, Jung Sungchan. I'll definitely see you around and good luck for tomorrow!"

"You too, Y/N," Sungchan watched as you bounded over to your coach, happy to see that you were in a better mood than when he first encountered you. That feeling did something funny to his stomach.

⋆｡°✩

GRAND PRIX DE FRANCE, NOVEMBER 2023

You're on top of the world, and then suddenly you're not. That's the feeling you get when your blade collides with the ice so abruptly, shooting the pain all through your body as you fall on your triple axel again.

You think that you don't even breathe for the rest of the free skate, just running on pure adrenaline pumping through your muscles to get you out of this situation. Fight or flight was really taking over, but you knew that you could never step foot on the ice again if you decide to leave halfway through.

Your coach fussed over you as soon as you stumble out, shell shocked and delirious, but not yet crying.

"Y/N?" she snapped her fingers in front of your face, "Are you okay? Go to the medical team and get that checked out now," she ordered you.

They're satisfied that you didn't sustain any injuries with that fall; you think your mind took the worst of it. You're hunched over on the examination room bed, blanket around your shoulder and shivering.

All you need right now is someone to hold your hand and tell you everything's okay.

"Sungchan?" you whispered into the phone when the call finally connects.

"Y/N! What happened? Where are you?" he sounds breathless, as if he's been running around.

"I'm in the medical room," you looked around the empty room, thankful they gave you the privacy you needed to process, "Can you find me?"

"I'm coming, don't worry," he assured you, "For now, just breathe okay? Just make sure you're breathing. In and out, okay love?"

Love.

Sungchan doesn't bat an eye on this or even try to correct himself. It's something that slips out so naturally to him and that gets your mind going at another 100 miles per hour. Well, at least you weren't thinking about your skate.

It took Sungchan a few more minutes to find the medical room, having asked two staff members along the way. The whole time, he stays on the phone, making sure you're still okay.

He knocked twice and entered the room, finding you in the corner, just staring at his contact information on your phone. Sungchan pressed the hang up button and sighs in relief as he finds you.

Reluctantly, he approached the stiff bed and wrapped his arms around you. The second he does, you melt into his embrace and he's more confident to squeeze you tighter.

Your body begins to shake with sobs and Sungchan feels his shirt become damp, so he places his hand on your head and gave reassuring pats.

"Ah, let it out, Y/N. I know how hard that must have been for you," Sungchan whispered, hoping and praying he was saying the right things.

Falling was nothing new to Sungchan. He fell every day, even. But the immediate feeling you get after it never gets any better. You just have to get better at dealing with the aftermath. He knows you've fallen countless of times before, but after a nearly-traumatic competition all those months ago, he understands why nearly 8 years into your career, you're starting to deal with these new anxieties.

"You're okay, Y/N, you're safe," your sobs let up after a while, but he can still tell that you're still crying, "This is nothing. You're still in the Grand Prix Final and you're still the most amazing skater in the whole world."

You pull away and gave a half-hearted smile through the tears, "Just cause I'm having a breakdown doesn't mean you need to lie to me."

Sungchan is in awe at how beautiful you still look despite the tears rapidly falling. He tucks the hair in your face out of the way and tried to wipe some of the tears, "I'm not a liar. You're my favourite skater and you always have been, ever since juniors."

"Have a crush, do you?" you teased, sniffling and trying to finish up the release of emotions.

"And how bad would it be if I did?"

You tried to ignore him, you really did. You tried to ignore the way his words sent impulses straight to your heart and brain and made you dizzy.

Look, you weren't stupid. You were nearly friends with benefits with this guy and you knew how that usually ended- lovers or enemies. You had been suppressing any emotion all this time to postpone finding out which one you and Sungchan were gonna end up as.

"Y/N?" he called, pulling you out of the trance.

"Hm?"

"Come to Paris with me for a couple of days," Sungchan hums, taking your fingers and playing with them, "I'll help you take your mind off it all."

"Just you and me?"

You think about Eunseok and Seunghan, and how they had expressed their desire to come to Paris after the competition.

"Just you and me," he stated, "Let's just- keep it between us. A healing trip."

"What are you healing from?"

He brings his face close and nudged his nose against yours, "Seeing you cry breaks my heart every time, but I'm glad you come to me."

⋆｡°✩

Sungchan holds your hand the whole 3 hour drive to Paris the next day. While you were feeling better, and watching him skate to a gold also made you happy, you were still fighting your inner thoughts. You look over to your companion, his head resting on his shoulder with his pink lips slightly open as he let out deep breaths. He looked so pretty sleeping, you thought to yourself.

You felt like you were in a romantic film, to be honest. Outside the windows were the sprawling countryside of France between Angers and Paris, and his hand was intertwined with yours and you were sharing an earbud each from his wired headphones connecting to his phone.

You wish you could fall into a slumber like he had, so you wouldn't have to be faced with these thoughts about the two of you. Since your arrangement with Sungchan started, you refused to think about the possibility of anything more between the two of you, convincing yourself that friends was the only title you were destined to bear. When you think about it, you're actually in a much dire situation than you wish to be in. You know you'll have to confront these feelings soon enough the more that Jung Sungchan entwines his life with yours.

Then again, Jung Sungchan has always been in your life.

The minute after you met him at the Junior Grand Prix final when you were 16, you suddenly began to notice him all over the world. He was at nearly every grand prix assignment, every challenger series you participated in and every corner of the world. He was always just there and you never really realised that until recently.

It started off as shy smiles between the two of you and 'good luck's' in passing, and then happy waves and asking each other how you were. When you finally turned 18 and had more freedom at the competitions, you were able to explore town with the boys, Sungchan always in tow since the world loved to put the two of you together.

You didn't know everything about Sungchan but he had already seen you at your worst and at your best. That has to mean something, right?

"We're almost at Mr. Jung's requested destination," your driver cleared his throat, breaking you out of your spell.

You thank him quietly and face the task of waking up what you believe to be the most beautiful sleeping boy in the world.

You reached up to his eyes, pushing the hair out of the way and you cup his warm face with your cold hands. His eyelashes began to flutter, until he woke up at your touch.

"We're almost here," you told him.

He squeezes his eyes shut adorably as he stretches out his body, never breaking his hold on you, "Ah, I fell asleep? Sorry, I didn't mean to!"

"It's okay," you shrugged, "You must be pretty tired considering you had the whole competition and you were last to skate at the gala. You did so well yesterday."

You thought back to how you also met up for drinks with the other boys that night and didn't get into your hotel until 2 in the morning.

"I wanted to spend some time with you, though," he pouted and your head spins at the thought of wanting to kiss the pout off his face.

"We have a few days," you reminded him, "Speaking of, where are we going?"

Sungchan pulls his lips into a sheepish grin, "You might hate it but give me a chance, okay?"

He's right in saying that you absolutely hate the thought of it the second you stepped foot in the building. You pleaded him to do literally anything else in the world as he paid for the tickets and led you past the barriers. You're slow in putting on the equipment and grumbling as you meet him by the gate.

The ice rink is busy, bustling with teenagers, families, couples and everyone alike.

"Give me a chance," Sungchan echoed as he extended his large hands towards you. You nearly laugh at this gesture, considering the two of you were definitely the most experienced skaters on the rink and the possibility of falling was nearly 0, but then you look up at the other couples and groups on the rink, all holding hands as they tried to keep themselves upright.

"We've just spent the last week going around and around the ice until we were going crazy," you began as the two of you set off on a leisurely lap, "And your very best idea for our so called 'healing' trip was to do the same thing?"

He looked at you pleadingly, "Look, I know I can't change the way that skating makes you feel instantly in one day. But I want to get to know you a bit more- find out why you love skating in the first place and hope that I can help you in your journey in falling back in love with skating."

You're struck silent by his explanation, mouth agape. Sungchan smiled softly, tugging on your hand and doing some more intricate steps as you followed. Looking around, there were people of all abilities- adults stumbling and adults gliding, teenagers falling and teenagers spinning, and little children across the whole spectrum of abilities. You awed at the little girl who fell, but got back up immediately, cheeks flushed but expression determined.

There was some couples that you could make out- one partner would be hobbling, holding onto the railing, and then every so often, their more gifted partner would catch up to them in their lap and make conversation, usually grinning and laughing together despite the disparity in ability. You could see the couples holding hands, reassuring each other that they were supported and they weren't gonna let the other fall.

"I was already 9 when my parents first put me on the ice. I fell so many times that my legs were bruised and bleeding up and down both sides and they had to stop me from skating because I was tracking blood and it was a biohazard," Sungchan began, "I hated skating so much at the beginning because I was so bad and I hated being bad at things. I begged and begged my parents to put me into lessons and I was determined to be the best. I hit a stump when I was 13 and puberty hit. I hated how all the easy jumps I could land were suddenly the most difficult thing in the world and it took me a while to find my balance again since I grew so tall in a short period. The time that I hated skating made me realise all the more how much I loved it because it was just showing how much I was willing to give to the sport. That's it, that's my story."

"That's your whole story?" you let go of his hand and skate around him, holding eye contact.

He shrugged nonchalantly, "That's all there is to me. Once I started skating, nothing else mattered. All I do is hang out with you and the boys, and get on the ice at every other time. What's your story, Y/N?"

The two of you skate around an adorable child clutching onto a penguin aid and join again at your hands as you reminisced, "My older cousin loved to skate, so when she would babysit me, she would take me to the rink. At first, my parents hated the idea of that since they didn't want me to get hurt, but I took to skating immediately. It became my life too. School was hard- I was always leaving school early or coming late because of practice and I would be missing days at a time for competitions. I never made many friends at school because of that, so skating was my only friend. I loved everything, but I guess I'm hitting my stump now."

Sungchan hummed and nodded along, "Do you know why?"

"I know it's all in my head," you affirmed, "Me and my therapist agree. I know I can do these jumps and I know that I still do love this sport deep down. I think all the pressure is mounting onto me- you know, continually being the best? But it's all I have and it's driving me crazy. It's the only thing I can take pride in and I think I need something new alongside skating."

"Like what?"

"You're definitely helping," you admitted, looking down, "Not just you. Spending time with you guys is giving me a bit more purpose in life- striving to form better friendships. But you've helped me a lot."

Sungchan grins down at you, surprising you by planting a kiss at the top of your head. He had never been affectionate in public, considering the two of you were keeping a secret from the world, but in this small rink in the outskirts of Paris, he felt like he could shout to the world how he felt about you.

"I don't want you to dread competitions or tear yourself up over your falls. I know there's nothing I can personally say or do to help you, but I just wanna be here for you," Sungchan's words are nearly a confession, but you push that aside as you come to a halt by a little girl falling in the middle of the rink.

"Hey," you coo in your best French, "Are you okay?"

The little girl grabbed your hand with her little fingers and you swooned at how tiny she was. Her eyes are brimming with tears as she tries to find her feet again, so Sungchan grabs her other hand and helps her to stabilise.

He looks over at you, fondness in his eyes as you try to set off the little girl into a slow routine. She's giggling when she is finally able to skate on her own and she thanks you in a cute little voice when she does.

"What's the likelihood that she's gonna be a figure skater when she's older?" you lean against Sungchan's frame, watching her shoot off into the bend.

"Hm, pretty high. You just showed her that if someone's there to pick you up after you fall, it's all gonna be okay."

⋆｡°✩

GRAND PRIX FINAL, DECEMBER 2023

"Song Eunseok," you greeted your friend with a tight hug, and turned to the other, "Park Wonbin! Haven't seen you in a couple of months."

Wonbin affectionately nuzzled his head into your neck, "Did you miss us?"

"I don't know if miss is the right word. Maybe, noticed your absence is better," you teased back, "Isn't this exciting?"

The three of you took your seats right in the front row of the area you had reserved, you in the middle as you watched your best friends warm up on the ice. The other 5 were all participating in the grand prix final, having had the best results in their assignments of the season and were about to compete in the free skate to determine the medalists. Yours had just finished in the slot before, but you were still awaiting the awarding ceremony, hence you still in your costume.

"I would like to be on there with them," Eunseok grumbled, waving hello to a passing Shotaro, "But getting to watch with you isn't so bad."

"There's more seasons to come," you nudged his elbow, "Everyone's on top form this season."

"Especially you, our newly crowned Grand Prix Final gold medalist," Wonbin excitedly clapped, "Three in a row, how does it feel?"

"Like the pressure is still crushing me," you dismissed, "But thank you, Bin. I'm happy."

You steer the conversation along in a different direction, talking about the boys' program and what you were looking forward to see. Anton had a mean quad combination, meanwhile Shotaro's dance elements and step sequences always blew everyone else out of the park. Although you had watched these routines time after time each season, you never got tired of how talented your best friends were.

"Ah right, you went to Paris right? After your assignment there?" Wonbin asked you suddenly.

Your face flushed beet red immediately, "Oh, how do you know?"

"You posted a picture of the Eiffel Tower on your Instagram," Eunseok butted in, "Who'd you go with?"

"Ah, no one you know. Just stopped by on the way to the airport," you lied through your teeth and you hated that you had to do that, but it was your decision anyway.

Sungchan was nearing your side of the stands, and he slowed down significantly as he sent the three of you a wave. You hadn't seen him yet since the end of your free skate that crowned you gold medalist, since he had to prepare to be on the ice immediately afterwards.

"Something's up with Sungchan these days," Wonbin began, eyes trained on the tall figure skating away.

"What makes you say that?"

"I'm not sure," he replied, "But he's like, uh, happier these days? But also more secretive? He's always on his phone and smiling at it and he always sighs when we mention setting him up on a date. Do you think he has a girlfriend he's keeping from us?"

Eunseok nodded along, "I've been noticing that too, actually. What do you think Y/N?"

Your ears flushed red and you prayed they wouldn't notice as you kept your eyes on the boys warming up, "Why are you asking me? You guys spend the most time with him. Plus, why don't you just ask him yourself or wait for him to tell you?"

In all honesty, you were burning with guilt about keeping such a huge secret from the boys, but you and Sungchan were suddenly treading into new territory that you wanted to navigate together first before anything else.

"When we ask him he just changes the topic," Wonbin answered, "To be honest, I thought he had a crush on you. We all did."

"Me?" you exclaimed, looking between the two of them nodding.

"He always talks about you and we thought that was so weird considering you two didn't even seem that close. Channie always asks Taro how you are and we're like: 'why don't you text her yourself?' and then he gets all shy and flustered," Eunseok rambled, "But I guess not."

"Yeah," you trailed off the word, decidedly ending the conversation as the boys evacuated the rink for the first skate.

The thought of Sungchan asking the boys about you made you feel some way- happy, maybe? It was so adorable that he thought of you and that texting you made him shy. You weren't stupid- Sungchan made his intentions clear towards you, but the two of you drew a line and stayed behind it, so you weren't sure what to think. These days, it seemed like Sungchan was destroying that line inch by inch.

Anton was first to skate, so the three of you focused your attention to him instead. A grand prix final with 5 of your best friends was definitely conflicting, but the boys all agreed to never get angry or too competitive with each other and just cheer for each other. Whoever won, won and that was that.

You were glad that all the boys were making it through their programs cleanly and the scores were all in such close proximity to each other that it was actually unclear who might win. Sungchan was last to skate by luck of the draw and by the time it was his turn, you were nearly biting your nails off in anticipation.

While you try not to have favourites between the boys, considering them all to be equally talented in their own ways, Sungchan just had a way of skating that spoke to you. You determined this even before your arrangement.

For a skater his height, he was incredibly graceful with long limbs creating beautiful lines and silhouettes. Despite his abnormally broad shoulders, his jumps were well balanced and tight, and his athleticism made all of them look so easy. His choreographer and coach really used all of his features and abilities to create the most visually stunning and technically superb skate.

"Hyung's been on fire this season," Wonbin muttered beside you, in awe of his friend that was so magnificently treading the ice.

"He's incredible," you agreed softly.

Sungchan was incredibly passionate about figure skating. Of course, you all were since it was your careers and if you didn't love what you were doing, you would quickly burn out. He just had this fire in him that you hadn't seen reflected in other people in a very long time, and that's what you admired about him.

Pushing your own feelings for him aside, you watched him intently as he led up to the most difficult skill in his arsenal- the three of you in the stands all linked arms and muttered prayers and pleadings. It felt like you were on the ice instead- you couldn't breathe until it was over.

"1, 2," you counted under your breath as he took off into his quad lutz. It was almost as if you watched him jump in slow motion, counting every turn until he landed, switched sides of his blades with an euler, before taking off into his triple flip.

You were still holding your breath when Wonbin and Eunseok dragged you up as they jumped up to cheer and whoop at the clean landing and combination. Jung Sungchan was truly one of a kind.

"He's so good," Wonbin squealed as you sat back down to watch him finish off his program, "Crazy good."

You're completely captivated by him for the rest of his skate and it even takes your coach multiple tries to catch your attention to tell you to come down to prepare for the victory ceremony. You plead to wait until Sungchan finished his skate and she just clicks her tongue and gives you a knowing smile.

The rest of the event goes by in a whirlwind, accepting your medals and flowers and taking pictures with your fellow medallists. You speak to some media and change into your comfier clothes, relaxing in your self-prescribed dressing room, which was just an empty room with a table and a couple of chairs.

A knock at the door snapped you out of your trance thinking about your program, and you shouted for them to come in.

"My gold medalist," Sungchan grinned over at you from the door as you jumped up to greet him. He's holding a gorgeous arrangement of flowers in his arms, extending it to you once more, "A gift from us."

You took the flowers, admiring the colours and the smell, before placing it down with the other gifts and your medal, "You guys are always so sweet to me. Congratulations to you as well; that was one of the best programs i've seen in my life!"

"Thank you, Y/N. And Taro says you're our only ice princess so we should spoil you," Sungchan chuckled, slowly approaching you closer and closer, "Anyway, they asked me to come and get you so we can go and get dinner together."

"They asked or you volunteered?"

A smirk took over his face, "Now why would I want to get you alone?"

"Who knows?" you teased as his large hands cupped your cheeks and guided your face to his. All tiredness left your body as you melted into his kiss and you wished that time would stop so you could do this forever.

He captured your lips with his own soft and plump lips, nibbling and kissing so softly and delicately, as if he would break you. It was worlds away from the way you two would make out ferociously in dimly lit hotel rooms after competitions ended at night. It was intentional, sweet and utterly heart-clenching.

"My gorgeous champion," Sungchan murmured against your lips, connecting them again passionately as he snaked his arms around you.

"Channie, we talked about this," you whispered, "We're just getting to know each other still."

Sungchan playfully rolled his eyes and left a fleeting peck before he pulled away, "I know, I know. Let's go before the boys get suspicious?"

He offered out his hand after you picked up all your things and you laced your fingers together and walked out side by side.

⋆｡°✩

PARIS, NOVEMBER 2023

November in the city of love and enlightenment was certainly a chilly ordeal. You were wrapped up in infinite layers, face red and tucked behind a wooly scarf and hat. You would think that since your profession was being around literal ice all day that you would be acclimated to the cold, but Paris was tearing you a new one with its weather.

You and Sungchan were taking a stroll by the River Seine, people watching and basking in each other's quiet company. The thing with Sungchan was that you felt comfortable with him; you's been friends for 6 years anyway, but all this time, you had kept him at arms length in order to protect your heart. Sungchan was still somewhat of a mystery to you- all his thoughts and all his feelings unknown.

"I heard that at night in the summer, they have people play live music here and people will dance along all night," Sungchan sighed, watching the couples stroll by with arms and hands interlocked, bundling together tight to warm each other up.

"That really sounds amazing," you replied, trying to stop yourself imagining dancing with Sungchan by a twinkling river on a cool summer night, "I want to come to Paris again when it's warmer and fully explore it!"

"We should do a trip," Sungchan said and you don't even ask if he meant as a group or just the two of you.

"Y/N?" he called again.

"Hm?"

He stopped to lead you to an empty bench, sitting with a considerable gap away from you before he made the bold move to shuffle closer. Sungchan stared you in the eyes with a longing gaze, "How come you trust me so much? How come you let me stay through your vulnerable moments when I know you don't do that with the others?"

You paused to think momentarily about his question that you'd pondered yourself during sleepless nights many times, "You're always just there. Whenever I end up in a situation like that, you somehow always find me like you have some spider-sense that i'm breaking down. And your presence calms me; you don't even need to say anything," you talked through your thought process slowly, trying to make it make sense in your head as well, "I feel like you understand me well whereas others may feel like I'm self absorbed and selfish for freaking out over such minor mistakes. And I can just feel in my heart that I can trust you. Thank you for always being there for me, Sungchan. I hope I don't burden you with my own breakdowns."

Sungchan smiled shyly, taking your gloved hands between his, "I'm really thankful that you do trust me. Don't ever think that you burden me because I do want to be there for you. Me and the boys hate seeing you so upset, so whatever I can do to help you through is nothing for me; we're in such a demanding field that it's important to have a good support system."

"You guys have really made my career. I don't know how I could have lasted this long without all of you," you emphasised the 'all', hoping he would catch on to your allusion of how special he was to you.

"You know, Y/N," he began, voice suddenly shaking and nervous, "I've been meaning to get some time alone with you in the daytime to talk for a while now."

You chuckled anxiously, "Did you take me to Paris to break up with me? Break up as in end our arrangement?"

"I like you, Y/N," he deadpanned, dismissing your pessimistic comment. Your heart started beating fast instantly, "I really like you and I can't carry on what we have until I tell you. We can move forward however you want: we can end the arrangement or just carry on as we are, but I just wanted to tell you."

His words don't shock you much. You think Sungchan has been confessing in his own little gestures and actions for some time now, but he finally threw the ball in your court.

You looked down at your intertwined hands, smiling softly and exhaled a puff of white frost, "We were bound to fall for each other, right? I just don't want to to hurt you since I've been in a bad place this past few months. I'm slowly getting out of it, but I just don't want to drag you down with me."

"I just want to be by your side," Sungchan whispered gently, "I just want to be able to kiss you in front of the world and call you mine."

"In front of the world?" you teased, ignoring the way your heart was swooning at his sweet confession.

"I know it's selfish of me, but I don't want to hide you forever," Sungchan voiced out, "I want to text you how you are and not feel like I'm overstepping and I have so much more of myself I want to give you."

You finally met his eyes again, "Let's make a deal, Jung Sungchan. Let's get to know each other well and more intentionally over the rest of the season and try that out. When it ends, we can think about what's next."

"I like the sound of that," Sungchan grinned, "I can still kiss you though, right? I think I'd die without it. The months between Worlds and your first assignment was hell for me."

"You're so dramatic," you rolled your eyes playfully, nudging your shoulders against his.

"Y/N?"

"Yes, Sungchan?"

"Does that mean you like me back?"

You let out a laugh that Sungchan swears is the best thing he's heard in his life, and you pulled him by your entwined hands, telling him you want to go see the Eiffel Tower.

⋆｡°✩

SOUTH KOREA, APRIL 2024

Shotaro is smiling happily as he placed the orange juice pouch in front of you on the sand. You're sat on a blanket, knees tucked up to your chest as you watched the waves crash against the rocks peacefully. You think it's a good time to swim since the tide might be too strong later.

"Thank you," you coo at your best friend as he laid down beside you, flicking his sunglasses over his eyes.

You pierced the pouch with the straw and let out a happy sigh as the freezing cold juice invaded your taste buds. Late April in the south coast of Korea was thankfully warmer than the previous weeks you spent in Seoul with a new choreographer, piecing together your new program for the upcoming season.

The beach house behind you does very little to block out the sun, considering the sun is shining the opposite way and down to you, so you had made sure to lather up in sunscreen before relaxing on the beach. You had read half your book before Shotaro woke up from his short post-breakfast power nap and decided to join you on the sand.

"I think Anton and Sohee are still asleep cuddling," Shotaro laughed. You had tried to wake up the pair for breakfast, but they had both grumbled and sent you on your way back to the kitchen, nestling into their shared bed even more.

"They can be in charge of lunch then," you huffed, "When's everyone else coming? What time is it?"

"It's only 11:30," he told you, "I think the other 4 are all arriving together soon- maybe around now."

You, Shotaro, Anton and Sohee were able to make it first to the beach house that you all booked for a peaceful week and a half trip. You had already stayed the night, but the other boys had commitments that meant they could only come now. It was all fine, since you were there for a pretty long time anyway.

A comfortable silence fell between the two of you as Shotaro closed his eyes and took in the fresh sea breeze.

"How have you been since Worlds?" Shotaro broke the silence.

"Better, but I'd hate to find out if my happiness only stems from redeeming myself at this year's Worlds," you recounted. The last time you had seen the boys previous to the trip was the Worlds Championship the previous month, the same competition that caused a year-long spiral down into near insanity. Thankfully, you managed to escape scot-free and with a gold medal around your neck.

"How does it feel now stepping onto the ice? Does that dread still overcome you?" Shotaro asked softly.

After your worst skate on the world stage, it had taken you nearly a month to step back onto the ice since every time you attempted, you were instantly tossed back into that moment. It took another month before you even tried attempting your signature triple axel again. At your first assignment, you had felt fear instead of excitement as you began.

"I don't think so," you said lowly, afraid that if you said it with anymore confidence, it would come back to haunt you, "I think i'm on the other side completely. I have you and the boys to thank for that."

Shotaro smiled proudly, grabbing your hand and squeezing it tight affectionately. You missed speaking like this to your best friend, just the two of you- on rooftops, beaches, cafés, ice rinks, diners- spilling your hearts and confiding in each other. You hated that you were still keeping such a big secret from him.

"Hyung? Noona?" you heard a soft voice call out behind you. You turned around to find Anton peeking only his head out of the double doors at the back of the house overlooking the beach, "The others are pulling up!" The two of you shot up, picking up your blanket, your book and your trash before skipping through the sand to reach the house.

You were nervous, quite honestly, but the good kind, which was new for you. You hadn't seen Sungchan since Worlds (though you've stayed much more connected than in the past when apart) and all you could think about was the agreement between the two of you to revise your arrangement once the season had ended. And it has.

However, the talk was still pending.

You joined Sohee and Anton watching from the wide open front door as the boys were getting their bags out of the car trunk and rolling it up the driveway.

"Vacation time!" Seunghan whooped, dancing into the house with his suitcase in tow and a plastic bag filled with clinking glass, "We're going to get fucked up this week!"

"Well hello to you too, Hannie," he approached you with open arms before you were pulled away into another hug.

"Hmph," you were taken by surprise as Wonbin crushed your frame.

"Haven't seen you in ages," he said sadly. He wasn't at Worlds since he had injured himself slightly at 4 Continents before that, so it had been a while.

"How are you?" you poked his arm, "How's the knee?"

"It'll be totally fixed up before the season starts," he dismissed, grinning at you before going to greet the boys. You quickly hugged Eunseok and turned your attention to the last one through the door.

"Sungchan," you quickly enveloped his waist in a tight hug and he wrapped his arms around your neck and leaned down to your ear.

"Hey there," you could feel him smiling, "Missed you."

You pulled away quickly, trying to not be obvious in front of the boys, simply giving him a smile of reciprocation as you all migrated to the living room.

"D'you guys claim rooms already?" Eunseok looked around at the interior of the beach house.

"Hm," Sohee nodded sleepily, "Anton and I took the double bed on the right of the stairs and there's a room with another double across it."

"My room has a single bed and a double so two more of you can stay with me," Shotaro explained, "Then our princess Y/N gets the master bedroom all to herself."

You grinned teasingly at the boys who affectionately cooed at you and your overpacking. Your clothes were all currently sprawled out everywhere since you dug deep into it to find your pyjamas the night before and didn't bother to unpack properly.

"Dibs on the single," Eunseok rushed out, to which the other boys groaned at, "What? Shotaro likes to cuddle at night and I get too hot for that."

"I'll cuddle with you, Hyung," Wonbin said cutely, wrapping his arms and leg around Shotaro's side. Shotaro chuckled and fondly agreed.

"Yay, we're roomies!" Seunghan tugged on Sungchan's arm, "What are we doing today?"

"How about relaxing?" Wonbin groaned, "Sleeping?"

"Yah, you already slept the whole drive down!" Eunseok protested, "We can unpack and then grocery shop?"

The others seemed to decide that was a good idea so you also headed up to your room to sort out your clothes. Normally, you never properly unpacked in the countless hotel rooms you stayed in, since you only every brought your skates, your costumes and a couple of comfortable sweats to lounge in in between skating sessions. However, since you were staying for a while and doing activities (Shotaro made sure to book a place far from any ice skating rinks), you had to bring a lot of clothes.

Leaving your door open as you sat on the wooden floor and arranged your clothes into piles, you saw Eunseok and Wonbin drag their suitcases up the stairs and onto your wing of the house and they peeked in.

"Wow, noona this room is so nice," Wonbin expressed, "You're so lucky."

"Yeah I deserve not having to share with you guys. You're all pigs," you threw a sock at him that he threw right back.

"Guys, come look at the master," Eunseok craned his head and called over to the other boys bringing their bags up. Eunseok and Wonbin crossed the landing to their room to make space for the approaching Seunghan and Sungchan.

"Wow," Sungchan gasped in awe as he traversed the room and past you, "A bay window looking out at the sea?" He clapped happily as he stretched out across the cushions on the bay.

"Yah, get off! It's mine," you pouted, getting up from the floor to check the view outside. Since you arrived after the sun had already set, you didn't get to see what the view was like before and in the morning, Shotaro had dragged you straight down to the kitchen without even letting you do so much as brush your hair.

You could see from the corner of your eye that Seunghan had turned around and closed the door behind him, which left you slightly suspicious.

"Why did he close the door and leave?" Sungchan frowned, sitting up and patting the cushion next to him for you to have a seat. You sat down, twisting your body to examine the view. It was so peaceful and you couldn't wait to see how the sunset would illuminate your room in vivid colours.

"Beats me," you shrugged, "Did you tell them anything? They've been suspicious that you've been dating someone since grand prix final!"

"Yeah, I know. They keep bugging me about it," he rolled his eyes, "But I haven't said anything!"

"Hm," you hummed, "Anyway, how was the drive up?"

"I called shotgun then Eunseok demanded that I stay awake the whole time to keep him company," Sungchan recounted, "Seunghan and Wonbin were completely knocked out in the back, but it was a nice and smooth trip. What have you guys been doing here?"

"We all just explored the house and then went to bed last night pretty quickly, but Taro and I had breakfast and sat on the beach for a bit before you guys came."

Sungchan shuffled over, his hips bumping against yours, "Mhm, sounds nice! We should take a walk on the beach later. A nice long walk on the beach."

"Just us?" you inquired, brow raised.

"To be honest, I'm not really sure how to get you alone without the others being suspicious. This is probably suspicious enough," he pointed at the door, "They're all probably on the other side with their ears pressed against the door."

"We could just tell them," you suggested cautiously, "That we're getting to know each other?"

Sungchan dropped his head onto your shoulder and sighed, "I like keeping this to us. Our own little secret. It's fun for now, but maybe when we get a bit more tired we can tell them. We'll find a way to spend time with each other a little bit, but I guess it's a group vacation after all."

"Yeah, let's not stress," you agreed. Sungchan started playing with your fingers, twisting your rings and measuring up his large hands with yours before he entwined them together. He peered up at you from your shoulder and reached up to press a kiss along your jawline. You rotated your head to look down at him and before you know it, he had stolen a kiss from your lips.

You nudged him off of your body playfully as he tried to lean in for another kiss, "Go unpack! Hannie's gonna get suspicious!"

He feigned displeasure as he got up and stretched high, nearly touching the ceiling, "Mhm, okay, whatever you say. I'll see you later, love."

You bit back a grin, "Bye Channie."

⋆｡°✩

Sungchan is pushing one of the shopping carts as Shotaro and Sohee trailed behind him. In reality, they should be ahead, but they stopped far too often to point at random things and Sungchan was getting impatient. The three of them were on snack duty, while you, Eunseok and Wonbin were on ingredients duty, as you were the best cooks. Anton and Seunghan had skipped away the second you all arrived and every so often passed by and dumped an armful of things in the cart.

"What kind of crisps should we get?" Shotaro placed his hands on his hips and examined the vast wall of options in front of him. He picked out a few, Sohee following also and placed them in the cart.

Sungchan spotted a rare flavour to find, "They have truffle flavour! Let's get this. I think Y/N likes these."

"How'd you know that, hyung?" Sohee questioned, not interrogatively, just nonchalantly.

"Uh- I think she's mentioned it before," Sungchan stammered, "Let's get drinks."

Shotaro shot him an unsure look, but skipped ahead of the cart anyway to find the beverage aisle. From a few aisles down, Sungchan could hear you laughing with Wonbin and Eunseok and he wished he was by your side.

Eventually, you all converged at the checkouts, carts full and wallets about to be emptied, metaphorically. You had chosen a bunch of meats to grill on the patio down to the beach and lots of ingredients to make side dishes and other random things. The three in charge of cooking followed their task diligently, whereas Anton and Seunghan had produced a pool floater, a bunch of water guns and so many hangover sticks that you were all worried about how much Seunghan was going to force everyone to drink.

You returned to the house in two cars, the same groupings as how you came to the house and rapidly unpacked everything.

"Today, Eunseok, Wonbin and Seunghan are in charge of lunch for everyone," Shotaro declared, "We'll take turns making food each mealtime!"

Everyone made noises of agreement, slowly dispersing through the house as the cooks brainstormed what to serve.

"Does anyone want to go on a walk on the beach? I haven't seen it yet," Sungchan queried to no one in particular. Anton and Shotaro had turned around guiltily from where they were crouched under the TV. You could see that they were fiddling with some wires and powering on the console that they brought to the house. Ah, boys.

"Gonna play FIFA," Shotaro held up the game case sheepishly, "Maybe later?"

"I'll come with you now," you offered slowly, "I love the beach!"

Sungchan gave you a knowing smile and turned to Sohee, "What about you?"

Sohee looked up at you and Sungchan and then down to Anton and Shotaro, who had widened their eyes in order to communicate with him. He opened his mouth and spoke hesitantly, "Uh, I wanna play as well. Is it okay?"

"Mhm, suit yourself," Sungchan shrugged, happy on the inside that he had found a way to be alone with you.

The two of you slipped on more suitable footwear and grabbed a few snacks before heading out onto the beach.

(Meanwhile, Shotaro, Anton and Sohee were smirking in the living room, delighted that their own devious plan to get you and Sungchan together was coming into effect.)

"That was easy," Sungchan chuckled as you chose a direction to walk down.

"Surprisingly! You know how much Sohee loves the beach!" you frowned again but shook out the suspicion, "Whatever. I'm happy to spend time with you."

The second you were far enough from clear view from the house, Sungchan had interlaced his fingers with yours, happily swinging your conjoined arms between you. With his other hand, he ran it through his fluffy brown locks and basked in the soft breeze of being down by the ocean.

The beach was fortunately pretty deserted of people, since it wasn't terribly hot in climate yet, but there were a couple of people dotted around closer to the water.

"This is definitely what a healing trip is made of," he sighed contently, "That was a hard season."

Facing your own challenges didn't mean that the boys also weren't experiencing some hardships of their own. You know that Sohee was taking it hard with some injuries and Sungchan had only introduced his hardest combination the season just past, which is never easy.

"We all deserve a little break," you agreed, "To spend time with each other and definitely not talk or think about skating at all."

"What a dream," Sungchan was too elated being on this trip and it had barely begun, "Here with my best friends and my best girl."

You had stopped in your tracks and punched him softly in the chest, "Don't say that!"

He lowered his neck to meet you at your eye-level, "Why? Did it give you butterflies?"

You scoffed, pushing him away from you, but he decided to wrap his arms around you instead and sway your bodies around.

"You're too bold now, Jung Sungchan," you huffed, "Where's the boy that never speaks whenever we're around people? And the boy that blushed every time we kissed in secret?"

"He found out that the girl he liked likes him back and was giving him a chance to woo her off her feet!" Sungchan poked his tongue out at you and finally let you go, returning to your linked hands and continuing to walk.

"Woo?" you laughed at his teasing.

He nodded affirmatively, "Yeah, woo. Have you been woo'ed?"

You looked away for a second, hesitant to be so candid with him, but you figured that if he was so bold, you couldn't let this chance slip away.

"You're my ideal man, Sungchanie," you admitted quietly, "I like everything about you. I like having you by my side."

His face heated up so suddenly, so far removed from the confidence that was radiating off him just seconds ago. His heart was beating out of his chest as he tried to utter his words as casually as possible, "Enough to make me your boyfriend?"

You nibbled on your bottom lip to stop you from freaking out and smiling like a maniac, "Is that a confession? Is this our evaluation?"

"You already know I like you," he affirmed softly, "If you're ready for a relationship and if you're ready to have me in that way, you're in control."

You were still walking, barely looking at each other and too shy.

"Ask me."

"What?"

"Ask me the question," you whined as he seemed to play dumb.

Sungchan grinned down at you, his bambi eyes sparkling in the sun as he shook his hair out of them. He paused your stroll momentarily, turning to face you and closing the distance between your feet.

He nudged his nose against yours, a favourite move of his as he took a deep breath, "Y/N," he began slowly, "Please can I be your boyfriend?"

"Sungchan!" you laughed suddenly, "The question is 'will you be my girlfriend?'"

"That's not enough to express how much I want to be your boyfriend though," he pouted, "Doesn't matter, just give me an answer."

You threw your arms around his neck, still giggling, "Of course you can be my boyfriend, Jung Sungchan. I'm sorry you've been on trial period for like 5 months now."

Sungchan connected his lips to yours, giving you a soft peck, "Don't be sorry. I just wanted to show you how much I wanted to be there for you."

"And thank you for that. I couldn't have gotten through this season without you," you proclaimed gently.

He bumped his shoulders with yours as he took your hand again, "Don't get too sappy. You'll probably hate us by the end of this trip."

"I swear, if you guys don't clean after yourselves and leave the bathroom messy and dirty, I'll kill you all!" you remarked.

Sungchan laughed heartily- a sound that you had grown to adore over the past few months when you would share hushed conversations getting to know each other over the phone at night and calls whenever your schedules aligned. The two of you walked a little further, just talking about your plans for the trip and pointing out the cute, but also the endearingly ugly, dogs that were running around the beach. Eventually, Eunseok had texted you that lunch was nearly cooked and for the two of you to start heading back.

You couldn't believe that you left the beach house in a situationship and came back as a girlfriend! In fact, you probably still hadn't processed the fact that the Jung Sungchan was finally your boyfriend after all these years of creating boundaries and drawing lines to protect yourself and your heart.

All this time, Sungchan was your right person, wrong time, but you were so happy to be able to say that he stayed by your side long enough to become your right person at the right time.

⋆｡°✩

You were breathless and pliant in Sungchan's hold as he pressed feather-light kisses along your neck. He peppered them across your jaw, ending at the corner of your mouth before pulling away.

"Just kiss me," you begged as he smirked above you. Sungchan loved seeing you like this and now that you were officially his, it ignited a new spark in his heart that had always beat for you anyway.

It was past halfway through the beach trip and you had spent the past week lounging around on the beach and exploring the seaside town together. You spent mornings taking walks with the boys, the afternoon sunbathing and relaxing under parasols on the beach and the evening huddled around a bonfire just talking, singing and reminiscing. You were hard-pressed to find time alone with Sungchan, but you didn't mind since you came with the intention to hang out with your best friends and the new season wasn't going into full effect for a few months anyway.

Despite that, Sungchan had been sneaking into your room either before the others woke up or after they went to sleep, usually just to say goodnight and pillow talk, but sometimes to also make out like you were doing now.

Light flooded into the room from the expansive bay window, bathing Sungchan's face in sunlight. His twinkling eyes against his golden skin made you want to stare in them forever.

You were snapped out of your daydream when you heard a door click open and then close behind someone, and then footsteps on the hardwood floor. You pushed Sungchan off of you and he rushed over to sit at the bay window while you straightened out your bed and your clothes to give the illusion that your boyfriend hadn't been attacking you with his lips for the past half an hour.

You could hear a few more doors open and then close, before a knock on your door sounded out. Gingerly, you shuffled to your door and peeked out to find a sleepy and dishevelled Seunghan.

"Noona, have you seen Sungchan-hyung? He's not in bed," he was blinking slowly, as if trying to adjust to the natural light in your room. As he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, you opened the door wider and pointed sheepishly at the missing boy.

"Hey, I woke up early and couldn't go back to sleep so me and Y/N were just talking and planning the day," Sungchan hummed as casually as he could muster up, "Do you need something?"

You let Seunghan inside your room and he immediately collapsed on your four-poster bed, sighing as he felt the soft sheets hit his head, "Nah, just wondering where you went and if you guys suddenly all decided to wake up and do something without me."

"You know everyone's so hard to get up in the morning," you mused, "Sungchan and I are the only morning people."

"You must have got closer then," Seunghan mumbled to himself, eyes fluttering shut, "That's good, noona. You weren't always as close to hyung."

You sat criss-cross next to his body as you shot Sungchan a pointed look. Was this the time you were going to reveal your relationship to the others? Sneaking around for the past week had been exhilarating, but it did weigh on the two of you to keep such a big secret from them.

"We're going to the fair today, right?" he carried on, breaking the tension between you and your boyfriend.

"Mhm, so you better get up and wake the others up so we can have breakfast and get going," you told him as he groaned. Sungchan was just smiling at you lazily from the window, watching your sweet and maternal interaction with the younger boy. You prodded Seunghan a few more times before he finally rolled away and off the bed and Sungchan followed him out of the door, giving you a small wave goodbye.

You slowly got yourself ready for the day ahead, knowing it was going to take a while before all 7 of the boys could wake up and get refreshed enough to leave. By the time you were done, the youngest ones were preparing breakfast in the kitchen, singing along to the song on the radio perched on a floating shelf.

"Need any help?" you cast your eyes over Sohee and Anton who grinned happily as they saw you for the first time.

"Mhm, no," Sohee assured you, leading you to the already set dining table and pointing at the food, "We're nearly done so you can just wait for us or start eating if you want."

For the duration of the entire trip, it seemed like the boys were determined to not let you lift a finger. Although you were happy to help in cooking and cleaning, every time you were on the rotation, whoever was with you would work hard and take a lot of your work off you. Then again, the boys had always been sweet to you. Of course, they were funny, teasing and ridiculous, but at the core of it, they treated you like their little sister even though you were older than most of them. You really think that you couldn't have lucked out more with a friendship group and found family.

Anton served an over hard egg on your plate and you noticed that the rest on the serving plate was filled with sunny-side up eggs. See, they even paid attention to your food preferences.

Seunghan was next to come down, more wide awake than when you saw him last and seemingly energised by the prospect of food. He sat on your right, quickly scooping all of the dishes he wanted but stopping himself from eating until everyone came down.

Wonbin and Shotaro descended next, complaining about how long each other took to shower and get ready, but Eunseok came right behind them hair still dripping, to your chagrin as he made the floors slippery. Sungchan finally came down just moments later and took the empty seat next to you.

"Yay, let's eat!" Anton clapped his hands together as you completed the table.

"Wonbin-hyung, you'll go on the rides with us today, right?" Sohee crunched through his sausage.

"No, you can't force me to do anything," he grumbled and the rest of you chuckled at the man you knew to be so scared of fast and high rides, "I can watch over our stuff if you do go."

That was exactly the coversation you were having 2 hours later as all 8 of you stood in front of the tallest and fastest rollercoaster at the fair. In all honesty, it wasn't even that big and scary considering it was only a small fair that moved around, so the rides had to be simple to deconstruct. Even still, Wonbin planted his feet on the ground and firmly shook his head.

"But there's an uneven number of us," Shotaro whined, tugging at Bin's arm, "C'mon, just this once?"

He pouted and batted his long eyelashes as Anton sighed, "It's okay, I'll stay with hyung. I don't feel that good after that hot dog anyway."

Looking around, all of you had accepted defeat, so you joined the short line for the ride and immediately began grouping yourselves into pairs. At the one amusement park you had joined them at since you guys became friends, you stuck by Shotaro's side the whole time as you were still opening yourself up to the others. This time, you didn't really mind as Sohee linked arms with your boyfriend.

As the line progressed and you were at the front, Eunseok made his way to the back of the pack with you and helped you into the cart before sitting by your side. The climb up was decently steep and you could hear and feel the vibrations of the rails under you. You could also see Sohee still clutching Sungchan's arm and Seunghan and Shotaro preparing to raise their arms up when the ride plummeted.

As it slowly approached the peak, Eunseok cleared his throat, "You guys are pretty obvious, you know?"

You snapped your head so fast that even this rollercoaster couldn't give you the whiplash you gave yourself, "What?"

The ride was so rickety and loud that the boys in front of you couldn't hear you as Eunseok smirked, "You and Channie. Well at least to me you're obvious."

You opened your mouth to say something along the lines of you had no idea what he was talking about, but suddenly the ride dropped and a scream erupted from your throat. From beside you, Eunseok was nearly doubling over in laughter at how he caught you so flustered and shocked.

"Yah, don't run away from me," Eunseok laughed, calling after you as you gave him a pointed stare and ran ahead to catch up to Wonbin and Anton first.

Sungchan with his long strides reached you quickly, "What was that about?"

Anton and Wonbin's eyes were trained on you, so you merely waved your hand and dismissed it, "Nothing, just some nonsense."

You were grateful that Eunseok didn't say anything else when he arrived at the fence the others were waiting at, but for the rest of the fair, he would give you teasing smiles whenever you got so much as remotely close to Sungchan.

The sun was about to set and you were all nearly tired enough to go home. Between the big rides, the boys put on their competitive hats and kept challenging each other to the stalls that were known to be scams. They were probably blowing all of their prize money between them, but you had to keep walking back and forth between the fair and your cars since they were accumulating far too many plushies to hold.

"Just one more," Sungchan pleaded so cutely that you were resigned to say yes to, "Then we can go home after! Song Eunseok! Do this one with me!"

He was tugging on your arm, pointing at the basketball booth before slinging his arm around Eunseok's shoulder and dragging him along. Behind you, the youngests were happily munching on long churro sticks that Shotaro had bought for them, meanwhile he was conversing with Wonbin behind them.

"Loser has to grill all the meat later," Eunseok bargained. It was the two of them on main dinner duty once you returned to the house.

"Well what if we both win?" Sungchan huffed.

"Doubt it," Eunseok chuckled, as he handed over his bills to the booth manager.

You rolled your eyes at their antics- everyone knew that the basketball hoops were oval shaped and the chance of getting a ball in was slim. Even still, they both paid for the highest amount of balls in order to have the chance to win the biggest prize. If they got three balls through the hoop, then they could pick from the large prizes.

The boys finally caught up to you guys and sighed at the competition they saw in front of them. Eunseok was very passionate about basketball and Sungcham was very passionate about winning.

"No cheating," Sungchan swatted at Eunseok, who narrowed his eyes playfully.

They both began, the rest of you cheering them on. Both of them missed their first two shots, and they had to make the last 3 to win the big prize. Surprisingly, they also both were able to shoot the next two together, and were staring each other down as they picked up the last basketball.

"You're going down, Song Eunseok," Sungchan taunted, sticking his tongue out. Eunseok rolled his eyes and decided to shoot first at the hoop. You all watched in anticipation as the ball hit the rim... and then bounced off. Eunseok screamed in defeat and all eyes were turned to Sungchan.

He carefully examined the hoop and decided to just go for it. You were all shocked that it went in!

Sunchan whooped in glee, taunting Eunseok before throwing his arm around your shoulder. That was a pretty normal thing for the other boys to do to you, but it certainly wasn't the way Sungchan used to interact with you.

"You can choose the prize, Y/N," he grinned down at you, pointing at the array of large animal plushies attached around the booth.

You gasped as you laid your eyes on the most perfect choice and you leaned into his touch as you pointed it out, "That one!"

The booth attendant took it off its hook and handed it over to you. Gleefully, you held it up to Sungchan and cooed, "It looks just like you, Channie!"

Sungchan was smiling so dorkily at how the large baby deer plushie was making you so happy, and you were both too busy cooing at the plushie to notice the boys, jaws dropped and watching you.

"Uh," Wonbin uttered, "What's going on here?"

The silence that fell caused you and Sungchan to turn around, and upon realising their reaction, you jumped away from each other, still both holding the plushie.

"What do you mean?" Sungchan scratched his neck awkwardly, "You all got a prize for Y/N earlier. I wanted to as well."

Seunghan nodded slowly, "Okay, okay. Sure. But we just got small prizes."

"Is it my fault that I was good at this?" Sungchan retorted as he began walking your group towards the car park. You scurried behind him, hugging the deer close to your chest.

You fell back a little from Sungchan and slowed your footsteps since the boys behind you started whispering to themselves.

"I think Operation Sung-Y/N is working!" Sohee whisper-hissed. You raised your eyebrow at that. There's no way, right? There's no way that they were doing a whole scheme to set you up together with your boyfriend- not that they know that.

You decided not to confront them and joined Sungchan's side again. He had turned to talk to you, but saw you had slowed down so he had stopped in his tracks and waited for you. Sungchan sighed to himself as he watched you bound over with the plushie. He wished he could be in your embrace the way that plushie was connected to you. Frankly, he should have just told everyone else right then as they got suspicious, but he had a feeling you wanted to do it more lowkey.

Later on that night, Sungchan was lying on top of your sheets as you played with his hair. It was his turn to hug the deer- the only one that made it to your bed as you banished the other plushies the boys gave you onto the windowsill.

The others were all downstairs, either preparing the side dishes and preparing the grill or fighting each other on the playstation.

"We can tell them tomorrow," you sighed happily. his hair was so soft and bouncy that it instantly bounced back to its spot after you ran your hand through it, "And then we'll have 2 days here to act like a couple."

"Ah, two days," Sungchan sighed, "When am I going to see you again after that? I want to take you on a proper date, finally."

You gasped to yourself, bringing your hands to your mouth. Sungchan sat up quickly, eyebrows stitched together in worry, "Oh, what's up? What's wrong?"

You began laughing to yourself and Sungchan looked at you like you had grow two heads, "I forgot to tell you guys completely! I have some news for you all!"

"Ah, what is it?"

"I'm going to train in Seoul this season!"

Sungchan yelped in surprise, suddenly attacking you in a hug down onto the bed, "Oh my gosh, really? Are you serious? It's not a joke right?"

You giggled happily as he attacked your face wiyh kisses, "You know my coach Lina? Well, she's pregnant and she asked if I would be willing to relocate to Seoul so she could be around her family and her husband's family! She wants to receive maternal care here, so," you trailed off.

"Oh my, I'm so happy," Sungchan breathed out, "You mean I won't have to wait months in between competitions to come and see you? I can see you everyday?"

"Hey, you have a skating career too," you poked his chest, "Make sure you focus on that. But if it works, then sure! I'm going apartment hunting as soon as we all drive back up to Seoul!"

Sungchan was so elated, dreaming about all his favourite places that he would take you, "Ah, I think there's an apartment empty in our building. Do you want me to ask our management team?"

The boys all lived in the same building, some of them sharing and some of them living alone since there were various apartment layouts. You recalled that Sungchan lived with Shotaro on the 7th floor of the building, but you had only visited twice before.

You had a thought about declining his offer. Maybe it was moving too fast for you if you moved into his apartment building, but then again, the rest of your friends were there too and it wasn't like you were moving into his room. The thought of having all of them around often and being able to guide you through the city comforted you, so you just gave him an appreciative smile and nodded, "Mhm, that would be nice."

A happy sound escaped his throat and you're certain that moving to Seoul was the best move for you at this stage. Sungchan flipped you around so he was below you and you hovering over him. He brought his hand up to your face, tucking your hair out of your eyes and settling his large palms on your soft cheeks.

He guided your face down and you could feel his breath ghosting over your mouth. Sungchan connected his eyes with yours, "I really, really like you, Y/N. Thank you for giving me a chance."

Stealing his move, you grazed your nose against his, "You tell me that everyday, baby. I really, really like you too. I'm excited for this new season."

It wasn't just a new season of figure skating where you were going to debut new programs. It was a whole new season in your life. It felt like you could finally release yourself from the shackles of the bad moments of your past and start anew- a new country, and a new boyfriend.

He craned his neck up to softly touch your lips together, but he hadn't made any other moves, so you slid your arms around his neck and melted into his chest, parting his lips with yours and deepening the kiss.

You have always loved kissing Sungchan. His kisses seemed to heal every pain and suffering in the world and made you forget even your own name sometimes. He was always a passionate person, tending to your whines and requests whenever you got frustrated and he was teasing you. You don't know how, but since becoming his girlfriend, kissing him felt even better than it did before.

You were so engrossed in each other that you hadn't even heard the footsteps coming up the stairs, or Seunghan's soft calls for you, or his knocking on the door, or the way the door creaked as he opened it.

"Yah!" his scream caused Sungchan to sit up so hard and fast that you fell off of him and onto the floor, "My eyes!"

Sungchan smoothed his clothes out in a panic and yelped in apology as he helped you up from the floor. He scowled at his younger friend, "Do you know how to knock?"

"I did!" Seunghan exclaimed, throwing his hands up, "I even called for you, noona! Ah, I'm so traumatised! How can I get that out of my head?"

Your face must have been as red as the way it flushes when you get drunk as you just watched silently against the bed.

"Hey, what's going on? Hurry up, we wanna eat!" Wonbin appeared behind Seunghan who was still rubbing his eyes, unable to believe what he saw. Wonbin looked at him, confused by his reaction and the yells, "What happened?"

Suddenly, the other 4 boys all came out of nowhere too, crammed in the small hallway and looking between you on the bed, Sungchan closer to the door and Seunghan just on the other side.

"I caught them," Seunghan dramatically screeched, throwing his arms around Wonbin, "I caught them!"

"Caught them doing what?" Shotaro frowned.

"Making out!" Seunghan screamed, to which the rest of the boys started yelling in surprise too, suddenly firing questions at you and Sungchan, who was looking worriedly and apologetically at you.

"I knew it!" Eunseok smirked.

"Oh my God?" Anton gasped quietly and Sohee was mirroring his reaction.

"Are you guys fucking?" Seunghan was still dramatically wailing.

Sungchan scoffed, offended, "No! Well-" he looked at you, giving you the choice to give as much information.

"We're in a relationship," you revealed softly, laughing at their dropped jaws, "Well, only since the trip. We've been getting to know each other since Paris."

"Paris?" Wonbin gawked, "Paris? So when we asked you who you went to Paris with and you said no one, you actually were with Sungchan-hyung?"

"Yeah," you tilted your head and scratched the back of your neck, "Sorry for some white lies we've had to tell. We just wanted to keep it to ourselves for a bit, navigate new territories and make sure it doesn't affect our friendship with you guys."

Shotaro stepped into the room, huddling over to give you a hug, "Well we're all happy for you both. Besides, we were all conspiring to set you two up this trip."

"We were so proud at how well it was working," Sohee cried out, "Turns out we're the fools!"

You think back through the trip at the instances they created to get you alone together, whether it was taking quick trips to the grocery store because they 'forgot' an ingredient, or just leaving you two behind whenever you were walking and relaxing on the beach. You were thankful the boys were so silly to create a plan like that, otherwise you couldn't have spent so much time with your new boyfriend on the healing trip.

"It's okay guys," Sungchan grinned lopsidedly, "It was funny to watch." "Um," Seunghan interrupted, "I actually came up cause I was coming to tell you that dinner was ready."

Eunseok nodded, turning on his heel, "Yeah, I'm really hungry. Can we talk about this over barbecue instead?"

The rest of the boys nodded in agreement, making their way down the stairs. You sighed heavily, looking at Sungchan who placed a loving kiss on your hair, "That was so chaotic. Are we okay, though?"

You smiled up at him and took his hand pulling you up, "More than okay. They were bound to find out and they're all so happy about it."

Sungchan splayed his palm against yours and then locked your fingers together, "Ah, wait til you tell them about moving to Seoul. They'll forget this news instantly!"

You let the grin invade your face as you happily imagined the way they'd cheer and instantly bombard you with outings to do and places to visit together in Seoul. You were definitely certain now that your relationship with Sungchan wasn't going to change your friendship.

"Lovers, come on!" Eunseok yelled up the stairs, "The food is getting cold so stop making out!"

Well, maybe a little bit. But as long as you were able to call Sungchan yours, you were sure you could endure anything.

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a/n: thank you for reading:) pls let me know what you think<3

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