cherrybomb || csc
(banner by @sailorrhansol)
cherrybomb
seungcheol x afab reader || angst smut fluff || exes2lovers, pacific rim universe
NSFW - minors DNI
Summary: Piloting a jaeger requires a rare ability called drifting - a neural connection with your co-pilot. You and Seungcheol are masters of the drift... until you have something in your head that you don't want him to see.
wc: 19.5k
warnings: language, heavy angst with happy ending, fight scenes, fight scenes written by an author with zero fighting or martial arts knowledge lmfao thus they are vague as possible, feelings heavy plot light and smut light, kissing and pretty generic (and brief) p in v smut
Author's note: thank you for @sailorrhansol for 1) accidentally sparking this idea, 2) agreeing to collab with me, 3) reading this along the way and hyping me up, and 4) beta-ing my mistakes, a million smooches for you ily
This fic takes place in the Pacific Rim universe but I honestly don't think you need to know the lore, everything you need to know should be explained. If you think something is unclear without prior pacific rim knowledge, shoot me a message privately and I'll make some edits and credit you for the insight!
Also in this universe: storm breaker by @/sailorhansol
Teaser:
“Marshall, with all due respect, I don’t know why you’re calling me,” you admit. “You were there. You saw what happened. Seungcheol and I can’t drift anymore.”
“You couldn’t then,” he points out. “That was three years ago. Things that were once too painful to carry into the drift… they’ve had time to mellow.”
He’s wrong, and you want to tell him so. Nothing has mellowed. You love Seungcheol just as much today as you did then.
“Have you talked to him about this?” You’re afraid of the answer.
The Marshall’s voice hardens, and you can just picture his eyes narrowing. “Mr. Choi will follow orders,” he says evenly, “and so will you. Asking is really just a courtesy.”
“You can’t order us into being able to drift again,” you snap, pulse suddenly pounding in your arms, your hands, your face, your chest.
“No,” the Marshall says, and any previous friendliness is gone from his voice now, “but I can - and will - order you to try.”
Playlist: you're the smoke in my gun, blowin' like cherry bombs...
The first time you ever saw Choi Seungcheol, he was flipping a man four years his senior over his shoulder and slamming him into the ground. Satisfied, he staggered backwards, chest heaving from exertion, eyes narrowed in preparation for the next move.
That’s what Seungcheol did - he leveled whatever was in front of him, and he started watching for what was coming next before the body could even hit the ground.
That’s what made him a great jaeger pilot. Not the brute strength - strong men are dime a dozen, always have been - but the watching.
You’d marked him as your first choice.
You were both nineteen. You’d grown up in the Shatterdome, the only child to a couple who piloted a neon green jaeger named Charron’s Revenge. You knew everything about how jaegers and their teams worked by the time you were nine. You started training to fight years before that. There was never a question that you would follow in your parents’ giant, mechanical footsteps one day. You just needed the right partner.
You needed Seungcheol.
The jaeger program didn’t turn away recruits - everyone could do something - but there was an organized process to match up compatible pilots. Applying recruits would fight before an audience of previously-accepted but currently-unmatched potential pilots. The pilots would rank the fighters, choosing their top five based on perceived potential for compatibility.
Then, the roles would switch. The applicants became the audience. The audience became the show.
When it was your turn to fight, you silently pleaded with the universe that Seungcheol would mark you high as well. This was the only guarantee that you’d get a chance to spar with him, to test it out before the Marshall, who would make the final call.
Let him see, you begged. Let him see how perfectly we’d work together.
And, by some miracle, he did. In fact, he rated you first, as well.
Your sparring match went exactly how you expected - he barreled at you, and you dodged every move. He could easily take you out with a single blow, but he couldn’t get his hands on you, not when you used his own inertia against him at every turn. What you didn’t expect was your own inability to land a shot. For the whole fight, you were unable to move out of the defensive - keeping out of his reach took all of your effort.
It was a draw - the first sign of strong compatibility.
You didn’t talk after the match - your father whisked you away to recover before your second-rated match, and you didn’t see Seungcheol for the rest of the day.
The second-rated match was a dud. But you already knew, even then, that it didn’t matter.
You’d met your co-pilot. You’d found your partner.
—
He found you in the mess hall that night, dropping into an empty spot on the other side of the table, his tray in his hands. His black hair was loose and wavy, and his right arm sported a sizeable bruise that he definitely didn’t get from you.
“I know who you are,” he said by way of greeting. You raised a brow at him, waiting. “Your parents piloted Charron’s Revenge.”
You narrowed your eyes at him. “That better not be why you picked me.”
He gave his head an annoyed little flick. “Of course not. I picked you because you’re fluid - and I’m not.”
Appeased, you felt your hackles settle back down. “That’s true,” you allowed. “You’re not fluid. But you’re purposeful, and-”
You were interrupted when Yoon Jeonghan dropped into the seat to your left, chuckling under his breath as he fixed his long, dark hair into a spiky ponytail at the back of his head.
“Cherry, did you hear?” he asked you, ignoring the new-comer. “The crew for Fatal Rapids got called back in for misconduct.”
“Choi Seungcheol, Yoon Jeonghan,” you said, introducing the two young men. “Hannie does more than gossip, I promise. He’s one of the pilots for Devil’s Advocates. Their drop stats are insane.”
“In practice only,” Jeonghan demurred. “For now.”
“Cherry?” Seungcheol parroted, raising a dark brow. “That’s not what I wrote on my paper earlier.”
“Just a nickname,” you explained. When you were very small, you’d struggled with the name of your parents’ jaeger, calling it Cherry’s Revenge instead of Charron’s, and the crew - who doted on you like their own - started the habit of calling you Cherry. Somehow, it had spread, and stuck. “Only my parents use my real name. But you can call me whatever you’re comfortable with.”
“No,” he said, frowning as if deeply considering his options. “I like it.”
You folded your arms on the table, leaning in to peer at Seungcheol. “So, what’s your story? You’ve heard of me. I haven’t heard of you.”
He shrugged, glanced around, then decided he could talk freely. There’s something about being in a room that’s positively teeming with people and conversation - it gives you privacy without feeling too intimate. You’re not alone.
“Not much of a story, not like you,” he admitted. “I grew up thinking I’d take over my dad’s business. We lost my dad… then, we lost the business. I have no marketable skillset, and university was out of the question. But…” He trailed off, then met your gaze firmly. Something in his look demanded you forgo any pity or sympathy, demanded you take him seriously. “I’m strong. So I came here. I came to fight.”
You sidestepped the bruises he’d bared. “Not like me,” you repeated with a bit of a scoff. “I hate to disappoint you, but my parents are the pilots - the story is theirs. I don’t have one, not yet.”
Something playful glinted in his eyes, the first true sign of personality you’d seen. “So all the rumors about the Princess of the Shatterdome aren’t true?”
Your jaw dropped. You’d heard the nickname before - it was never meant nicely. You tried to ignore it as best you could - people could think what they wanted. When you had a crew, when you had a jaeger, you’d be able to prove them wrong. “What rumors?”
“You’re spoiled,” Jeonghan supplied, having decided he was part of the conversation after all. “Entitled.”
You spluttered as Jeonghan stood, giving you a cheerful pat on the shoulder. “And bitchy! That’s just what I’ve heard. Of course I know better. Anyway, I’ve got to go. Love ya!”
You stared incredulously after him as he disappeared, your face burning with embarrassment and your heart hammering with adrenaline. Fight, your systems told you.
If only you could.
Seungcheol bit back a smile, reaching out to pat your arm placatingly.
“I don’t…” you started to say, but your voice caught in your throat. You cleared it, tried again. “I don’t think I really deserve all that.”
He nodded, lips pushed into a semblance of a thoughtful pout. “What I’d heard,” he said calmly, “is that you’re a hell of a fighter, scary smart, and that you take no shit. Unless it’s from your friends, apparently.”
This made a bitter little laugh bubble from you. You still simmered with humiliation, feared that maybe he’d decide he didn’t want to co-pilot with you after all.
“I think it’s up to you which story gets told,” he said finally.
“Yeah,” you said, nodding. “That’s what I always said. So… let’s get started.”
—
You and Seungcheol lucked out - the team that had been recalled for misconduct were terminated from their posts in the weeks following the sparring trials, and their jaeger Fatal Rapids had been disassembled, the parts up for grabs.
You and Seungcheol repurposed Rapids’s main frame, your crew working to individualize the bot to your needs as best they could. You splurged on quad-processors for her legs to allow your jaeger to keep up with how you move - quick and lithe. Seungcheol lobbied for (and won) some extra power in the top half, and you compromised and chose a mix of red and blue sections for her paintjob.
Duellona Fury, you named her. Duellona for you, the destroyer. Fury for Seungcheol, because that was where his fight came from.
You got to know Seungcheol’s fury very well. Especially when you started trying to drift.
None of it happened fast - not the building of your machine, nor your neural handshake. In fact, you didn’t pilot Duellona Fury together for a whole calendar year.
You started with physical compatibility - you sparred almost all day, every day. You fought - with each other and against each other - until all you could do was lay on the ground and pant, blinking to make the ceiling stay in focus.
Seungcheol may not have grown up training in the Shatterdome the way you did, but he kept up without complaint. You learned his way - force and strength - and he learned the way you favored - to weave and dodge.
The fighting was the easy part.
You had never drifted with someone you had true drift compatibility with. Seungcheol had never drifted at all. The Marshall wouldn’t even consider hooking the two of you up to the machine until you went through the proper training.
On the day you and Seungcheol were officially declared as co-pilots-in-training, you both stood below the half-built shell of your towering jaeger, sparks flying and drills screaming as the crew worked on her.
Your Marshall looked seriously at his new team-in-training. “Starting tomorrow, you’ll meditate together. Talk to each other. Get deep about it. If you’ve talked about it out here-” he swept an arm across the deck, “-it won’t take hold so strongly in there.” He’d jabbed a finger in the upward direction of Duellona Fury.
Seungcheol didn’t look at you, nor the Marshall. Instead, he kept his eyes on Duellona's unfinished frame, stories above you. “Yes, Sir,” he said steadily.
Your parents weren’t technically retired yet, the year you and Seungcheol started training together. Charron’s Revenge still sat in the well below the Shatterdome. They still lived on the base, still took part in daily training. They hadn’t been called into a fight in years, though; the assignments went to the younger crews.
You took dinner in their quarters instead of the mess hall, that night.
“Congratulations,” your father said warmly from across the table. “You worked hard to get here.”
“Thank you,” you said, feeling shy beneath the praise. “I hope the drift will work for me and Choi Seungcheol.”
“What do you think of him?” your mother had asked, her sharp eyes honing in on you, watching your reactions.
“I think he’s a great fighter,” you said. “The rest… I guess I’ll have to learn.”
“Do you trust him? Can you trust him out there, when the sea and the wind are trying to knock you down, and hell itself rises up from the depths?”
You swallowed. She’s right for her intensity - they will be putting their daughter’s life in her co-pilot’s hands, every time there’s a fight. You knew firsthand how terrifying it was to stand in the tech bay and wait, not knowing if your loved ones will make it back.
You thought about how you and Seungcheol fight together in the sparring rooms. You thought about how you weaved and your opponent followed your movement, only to be knocked sideways. You thought of how Seungcheol followed your motion backwards, ducked in tandem with you to avoid a hit, and how you followed his momentum forward and up to attack. Your bodies followed each other like they were magnetized. And Seungcheol was always watching for the next hit.
“Yes,” you said, so quietly that you cleared your throat and said it again. “Yes, I trust him.”
“Then we wish you luck,” your father said, and raised his glass. “To Duellona Fury.”
“To Duellona Fury,” you echoed.
On your way out of the quarters, later, you slowed as you passed the wall where they hung their accolades and awards, the newspaper clippings, photos, and medals. Before your eyes they aged - the photographs changing through the years, no longer showing a bright, fiery couple, instead displaying proof of passing time: a baby bump, then a toddler, then a child beaming alongside them as if she’d done what they had done; greying hairs, softening bodies, deepening of wrinkles. Then the pictures stopped.
You never asked them if they missed it.
—
You and Seungcheol started meditating together the next morning; it seemed logical to begin at the easiest step. In an empty sparring room, you sat facing each other, knees touching.
“Have you done this before?” you asked, as you both settled in, shifting weight and adjusting ankles.
“Not with someone else,” he admitted, lips protruding in a bit of a pout. “Only alone.”
You nodded. You’d grown up learning all of this - the right way to fight as a team member, how to be in tune for a neural connection. It led to you teaching Seungcheol often - yet when you fought together, any leadership fell away.
“Normally,” you explained, “you focus on your breath, keeping your mind clear. But for our practice, you want to focus on our breath. We breathe together. And when your mind wanders, your awareness should be coming to peace with my presence there. Like, making a path for the neural connection - for later. So there’s no resistance.”
“Have you done this before?” Seungcheol asked.
You wobbled your head around - not yes, but not no. “I’ve practiced it - I’ve done the meditation with partners. But I’ve never moved forward to an actual drift with anyone.”
This seemed to appease him, and he settled his weight backwards, letting his hands rest near his knees.
You let your eyes float closed and inhaled, listening and feeling for Seungcheol’s inhale to end, letting your breath out when he did. It took no time to match your breaths, to let your mind go blissfully quiet. You focused on feeling open, readable - any thought that floated through your mind, you pretended he could hear, too. You tried to feel and release any defensiveness, any urge to close off.
When the timer went off, it surprised you. You opened your eyes, and the feeling that struck you was this -
It was surprising to see Seungcheol before you. It hadn’t felt like he was beside you. It had felt like he was you.
You meditated, you fought, and finally, you talked.
Laying on the sparring room floor, your head somewhere near Seungcheol’s shins, he asked you, “Where do you wish you were right now? If you weren’t here.”
You laughed at yourself before answering, knowing how silly you would sound. “In a tree.”
A disbelieving smile played on his lips, almost as if he wasn’t sure you weren’t making fun of him somehow. “A tree?”
“No, really,” you insisted, still smiling a little. “There’s not a lot of nature here, in case you didn’t notice. I grew up in the Dome - never got to leave, much.”
Seungcheol didn’t respond to this, just nodded like he understood, his small smile going a bit tight around the edges.
You frowned, reading him exactly. “You think I’m sheltered,” you observed. It wasn’t a question. He couldn’t say no.
He looked at you, then. “You were sheltered,” he said, voice low. “But when I say it, I don’t mean naive. I just think… there’s a lot of world out there. A lot of things to see. You won’t see any of it if you spend your entire life under the Dome.”
You nod, accepting this. “I won’t see any of it if it gets destroyed, either. There’s a lot of world out there - that we’re trying to keep safe.”
Seungcheol watched you intently for a moment, lips downturned and gaze heavy. Then, he asked, “Have you ever seen a kaiju? I mean - in person?”
“Sort of,” you mumbled.
He’d rolled from his back to his front, closer to you, putting you shoulder to shoulder. “Kind of seems like a yes-or-no question.”
Your lips twisted. “Then, no. But I’ve stood in the bay and listened to Mission Control talk my mom and dad through a fight dozens of times, watched Charron’s Revenge on the screens and prayed I wouldn’t see her get sawed in half.”
You stopped, trailed a finger through the thin layer of dirt on the floor. “I know it’s not the same as looking one in the face myself,” you whispered. “But the fear… shouldn’t that fear count, shouldn’t it feel the same?”
Seungcheol swallowed, trailed his own finger through the dirt until his fingertip just barely touched yours. It felt like energy sizzled in the centimeter between your pointer and his.
“When Menaceclaw attacked,” he said, “he missed my home by one block. We watched him go by from the sidewalk. I wasn’t even as tall as his foot. But even with him towering over the buildings, taking them down without even trying, I don’t think what I felt was afraid. I think I just felt resigned. Like I knew, at seven, that even though we survived this one… nothing was going to be… the same, or okay. I don’t know.”
“You knew what you lost,” you said quietly. “Part of you did.”
He looked up at you, nudged his finger into yours. “You never knew anything different. It wasn’t a loss. The fear was just always part of the deal.”
You rolled sideways, laying your head on your bicep for a pillow, regarding the dark-eyed, dark-haired young man across from you. His face scrunched in a laugh, brows furrowing and lips pouting.
“What?” he asked through the quiet laugh. “Why are you looking at me?”
“What else?” you mused. “What else am I going to find when we go tiptoeing through your memories?”
He smiled faintly and then mirrored you, laying his head on his arm, his eyes swimming as he thought.
“A lot of my family, probably,” he said. “A lot of fighting. Menaceclaw. Probably some very mid sex.”
You laughed without meaning to. “My condolences?”
He grinned at you, pleased. “Eh, what can you do? I try to treat everything like a learning experience.”
You laughed again, and his smile grew, gums showing. “What about you?” he asked off-handedly.
“Mid sex?” you asked, eyebrows raising. “I hate to inform you, Choi Seungcheol, but I don’t do anything mid.”
“No,” he protested, laughing, reaching out to gently shake your shoulder. “I meant - what will we see when it’s your turn?”
“The Dome,” you said, half-joking - but it was true. “Training. My parents. Their fights, their accomplishments.”
And, as a true drift partner should, he understood what you weren’t saying.
“We’ll have our turn,” he promised, pushing himself to sit up, then stand, reaching down to help you up. “We’re gonna be fucking unstoppable. Let’s go again.”
Fire sparking behind your ribs, you nodded seriously, then reached up to take his hand.
—
Weeks of sparring melded into months of meditation and talking. The next phase of training co-pilots was learning to drift in one of the simulators - but not in a jaeger. Not yet.
You and Seungcheol finished training in one of the sparring rooms shortly before dinner would be served in the mess hall.
“Meet you there?” you asked, still half-breathless, your body starting to ache as the adrenaline from a fight melted away.
“Sure,” he agreed, and you disappeared into the changing rooms, scrubbing the sweat and dirt away as quickly as you could. You changed into something clean and made your way to the mess hall.
You scanned for familiar faces, frowning when your normal table seemed to be occupied by a team of new recruits that you didn’t know.
Seungcheol appeared at your elbow, frowning dramatically. “Our table,” he whined.
“There’s Chan and Wylie,” you said, nodding to another corner where your friends sat practically on top of each other. Chan and Wylie had never understood personal space, not when it came to one another. They barely noticed when you and Seungcheol plopped onto the benches next to them, but Seungkwan did.
“You’re bleeding, Cherry,” he said, before inhaling an entire mouthful of rice.
You started to scan your arms - you didn’t feel pain anywhere - but Seungcheol found it first, gingerly swiping his thumb along your cheekbone.
“Sorry, Cherry,” he murmured. “I should’ve pulled that punch.”
“No you shouldn’t have,” you grumbled, swatting at his hand and wiping roughly at the spot, your hand coming away with a small smear of red - nothing to be alarmed about. It would stop on its own. “You pull shots in practice, you’ll hesitate in the field.”
“She’s right,” Chan said from his physical tangle with Wylie. “What you practice will show up in your muscle memory. You’ve got to mean it, every time.”
Wylie reached across his arms and took a bite from his plate, then asked, “Did you guys see the new jaeger?”
“I did,” Seungkwan said eagerly. “Chaser Supernova, or something like that? She’s smaller, but she’s supposed to be fast.”
“Is that her team at our normal table?” you asked dryly, shooting the rookies a dark look over your shoulder. Seungcheol jostled you playfully, sending you a smile that brought you back.
The bench dipped to your left, and you turned to see Soonyoung - one of Seungkwan’s two co-pilots - settle in.
“Talking about Supernova?” he asked, hands busy opening his drink. “They seem okay - they’re a trio, like us.”
“Where is Seokmin?” Seungkwan asked, scanning the room. “I haven’t seen him in like two hours.”
“Talking to Jihoon, I think,” Soonyoung answered absently, focused on his meal. “He lost another co-pilot today.”
“Not again,” you and Seungcheol both blurted, matching levels of exasperation.
“That was freaky,” Wylie said, just as Chan told you, “You two are acting like us, now.”
“We do not need another Chan-and-Wylie,” Seungkwan said seriously, shaking his head.
Seungcheol sent you a sideways, sheepish grin.
“We won’t be,” he promised the group, but his eyes were still on you.
—
The simulators were built to be exact replicas of the conn-pod, so that trainees could get used to the feeling of being strapped in, of moving with the gear. But the real purpose was to practice the neural handshake without risking damage - to the jaeger, to the tech bay, to each other.
“Don’t be nervous,” you told Seungcheol as the tech team worked around you both like a choreographed dance.
“I’m never nervous,” he said, suddenly cocky.
If you could reach his hand from where you were strapped in, you would have. If you understood anything about Seungcheol - if any part of him mirrored you - it was the way he showcased bravado, the way he used it as his most-familiar mask.
“It’s only practice,” you reminded him. “And it’s only me.”
He licked his lips quickly, eyes darting to the side and then back to you. Then, he gave you a small nod.
“Normally,” your chief tech - a beautiful woman with jet-black hair named Nainsi - told you, “right now, you would be ready for the drop. In the simulator, we skip that step because we aren’t dropping onto a jaeger. Instead, we’ll engage the pilot to pilot connection protocol sequence.”
You and Seungcheol nod in tandem.
“You’re all good?” Nainsi checks. “Then I’m going back into the tech bay - you’ll hear me through the intercom.”
Alone in the simulator, you met Seungcheol’s gaze and couldn’t help the excited grin that spread across your face. Finally, finally you were here. Once you could do this successfully, the next step was to fight in your own jaeger - to drop into Duellona Fury and walk into the sea.
He didn’t return your smile, instead giving you a tight nod, expression serious.
Over the intercom, you said clearly, “Ready and aligned.”
Nainsi answered, “Prepare for neural handshake.”
You took a deep breath and steeled yourself as the artificial voice of the simulator’s tech system spoke around you, 3… 2… 1… neural handshake initiating…
At first, you thought something went wrong. Everything went red behind your eyelids, and you blinked, instinctively trying to clear it away.
The red faded, and you found yourself in Seungcheol’s childhood home. You didn’t know how you knew that - you just knew. It was as familiar to you, inside the drift, as your own. You knew that to your left was a small kitchen with two broken floor tiles; you knew - without having ever seen it - that to your right was a narrow hallway that led to a bathroom and two small bedrooms.
Two small boys played on the carpet; rather, the smaller one played with some toy cars while the other watched the television with rapture. Behind them, at the kitchen table, a woman typed busily on an outdated laptop, bags heavy under her eyes.
Somewhere around you, a voice floated by, telling you, neural handshake strong and holding.
You could see Seungcheol in your periphery - the adult Seungcheol, the Seungcheol of now - as he looked at his mother, his brother, himself.
“It’s not real,” you reminded him gently. “It’s just a memory.”
“I know,” he said back, voice hushed, as if he might scare them away. “It’s just… good to see them.”
The house evaporated as gently as morning dew under a mid-morning sun; you stood in a schoolyard. Seungcheol, the small one, had a bloody lip and a mean swing.
You felt a rush of affection for him - him, the child, face contorting with misplaced anger, using strength as a bandage. You wanted to stand in front of him, between him and the anger, him and the other kids, and let him take a breath. You wanted to tell him to step with his punch to get more power. You wanted to put a hand on his shoulder and tell him, you’re going to be fine.
And he knew all of it, because he was in your mind.
Seungcheol - your Seungcheol - walked away from the swarm of children egging on the fight and opened a door. You followed.
Inside was not the school, but a hospital room. Your body jolted forward, distracting and alarming. You heard, faintly, a series of beeps, that robotic voice needling in your ears, saying, calibration failure… recalibrating in 3… 2… 1…
“It’s only a memory,” you said again, but the warning beeps were coming stronger, louder, more clearly. The hospital room looked opaque, and Seungcheol walked backwards towards you, away from it, herding you both out of the room. The room - a bed, a pulled curtain, a lot of white - flickered, like a glitch, and then vanished, leaving you standing in the simulator.
Neural handshake disengaged…
“Seungcheol!” you yelled, pulling your helmet off and wheeling on him as best you could with most of your body still strapped in. “What the hell was that? You pushed me out!”
He was breathing hard, eyes a little wild. “Not that,” he said, a little ragged. “I’ll let you in but - not that.”
“You don’t get to choose!” you snapped. Part of you knew this was just growing pains, he’d never drifted before, he was learning. But the rest of you smarted and stung - both from his rejection and from your failure to train, to succeed, to check off this final step before you could get inside your jaeger. “It’s kind of an all-or-nothing thing!”
He let out a billow of air, reaching a hand up to rub at his face. “Sorry. I’ll… let’s try again.”
You didn’t answer, fuming silently instead.
“I’m sorry, Cherry,” he said. “The stuff with my dad…”
“You can’t cherry-pick what we see and what we don’t,” you fired back. His eyes shot to yours and his mouth quirked and you read the joke all over his face. “Don’t you laugh, Seungcheol, it’s not funny!”
But you were laughing through the scolding.
“Stop,” you whined.
Your anger defused, he looked at you again, taking a bracing breath. “It’s not about you,” he tried to explain. “I’m not keeping you out. I’m keeping me out.”
“Don’t chase the rabbit,” you told him, shaking your head. “See what it wants you to see and move on. Find the next door. If you stand there and let your hurt - or your, I don’t know… grief - rise up… that’s when we’re going to have trouble.”
“Find the next door,” he repeated, eyes on the floor. “Got it.”
“You can’t push it away,” you reminded him, “but you don’t have to stay in it, either.”
He nodded, eyes already lighting up, ready to go again.
The second time, you saw him steel himself before opening that same door, watching carefully as he shuffled inside, only looking sideways at the hospital room that materialized around you.
“Seungcheol.”
He turned to look at you, wide-eyed, but you hadn’t called him. The voice, weak and hoarse, had come from the other side of the fluttering curtain.
The glitching started almost immediately - the image around you flickering like a bad wall projection. Something rocked beneath your feet, an earthquake only inside your minds.
You opened your mouth, started to tell him, you don’t have to stay, to remind him that he could move forward. Instead, you heard yourself say, “I’m here.”
The tremors under your feet quivered to a stop. You watched with trepidation and Seungcheol closed his eyes and took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. Then, he held his hand out, waiting.
You slipped your hand into his, and then he turned and continued walking, ignoring his father’s memory calling out to him. The flickering stopped, the picture you were part of brightening again as you found the next door, stepped through, left his pain behind.
—
It got easier quickly. Seungcheol’s ability to press on, to maintain focus, strengthened.
The strolls through your mind went easier - you’d had years to practice maintaining focus, waiting until after to let the emotions hit you.
Seungcheol learned to be ready for you, after. He’d sit with you, silent, and breathe in tandem as you worked to let go, to release the images of Charron’s Revenge on the tech bay screen, the sounds of your parents’ frantic communication as they fought together, the fear crawling its way up your legs every time until someone in the bay said, “Charron’s Revenge, cleared to return.” The loneliness of being the only kid in the Dome, having no outlet except fighting. Everything that threatened your mind while you piloted, everything that you had to save for later - save for him.
You were both freshly turned twenty when you got green-lit to drive.
“Seungcheol!” you called across the mess hall, practically racing to your table. He turned, eyebrows raised, as you crossed the large room.
“We’re approved to drop!” you told him excitedly. It churned in you - finally, finally you could fight, you could prove what you could do, you could help. “We’re on the drop schedule for tomorrow!”
His grin was unfettered, unfiltered, just for you. He reached up a fist and you bumped it enthusiastically. You were too excited to eat, too excited to sleep. You tossed and turned, imagining experiencing a drop for the first time, imagining striding through the mighty sea like it was nothing, imagining staring down hell itself and bringing it to its knees.
You were still awake when you heard the alarms down the hall. Yours didn’t go off, because you weren’t on duty, weren’t approved to fight.
Down the hall, there was a flurry of commotion - shouting, rushing, people pushing past you as they pulled on boots and jackets.
“Cat-3 in the west bay,” someone shouted.
“Deploying Devil’s Advocate!”
You reached the tech bay, trying to stay out of the way but not unseen. When the Marshall strode by, you stepped sideways.
“Let us drop,” you said quickly, knowing time was precious. “It’ll be like practice. We can be back-up. We’ll hang back.”
“Absolutely not,” the Marshall said, already moving to work past you. “You’re not approved yet. We don’t need a liability right now.”
“We’re scheduled for tomorrow!” you protested, and then you felt a hand on your shoulder.
“We’ll get our turn,” Seungcheol told you quietly. Of course he’d come out, of course he found you.
You deflated. “It could have been us. We are hours from approval.”
He gave your shoulder a tiny shake. “We’ll get our turn,” he repeated. “Don’t make trouble.”
You glowered, but you knew he was right. “Fine,” you grumbled as Joshua and Jeonghan slinked past you in matching jackets and matching shit-eating grins. You stayed out of the way as they prepared to drop.
You stayed through the fight, listened to the control room buzz and chatter, until you heard, “Devil’s Advocate, cleared to return.”
Only then did you try to go back to sleep. Seungcheol gave your shoulder one more squeeze.
“Tomorrow,” he promised.
“Tomorrow,” you repeated.
—
Some people feel God at church. The history of tradition and the sanctity of ritual speak to them, help them feel part of something, help them feel that unnameable swell of something spiritual.
Some people feel God in nature. The patterns of the universe, the way math exists without human touch, the harmonies and patterns that seem too intricate for coincidence help them believe in a planner’s touch. The beauty of the outdoors allows them to wonder, to feel like they belong as a piece of this clockwork.
But you - you felt God when you stood before your jaeger, marveling at the power, the beauty, how it feels like yours, how it feels like Seungcheol before you’re even inside it. Duellona Fury promises you power, promises you purpose.
That hand was on your shoulder again, and it slid down to the center of your back before removing itself.
Beside you, Seungcheol stared up at your glorious machine.
“She looks sick,” he said, the grin taking over his face.
“I can’t wait to fuck shit up,” you murmured, your reverent tone at odds with the flippancy of your words.
“Ready?” the Marshall asked you, coming up to your left. “We’ll get you calibrated and dropped, and then you’ll do a lap of the bay. We’re sending out Pretty Savage just in case you run into trouble.”
The defensiveness rose in you quick, like a snakebite.
“We don’t need a babysitter,” Seungcheol said, voice hard. You reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze - a reminder to watch it, just as his hand on your shoulder frequently did for you.
“It’s just safety protocol.” The Marshall was unphased by the outburst. “Have fun, you two. Enjoy your first joy-ride.”
You screamed when you dropped, the exhilaration rushing out of you as Duellona Fury fell story after story before slowing and attaching to your jaeger’s mainframe.
Goosebumps raised along your arms when the Shatterdome’s sea-doors slid open, shudders traveling your body as you and Seungcheol stepped together, Duellona Fury stepping with you, her gigantic, metal form following every movement.
For the first time in your whole, careful life, you felt powerful. Your jaeger cut through the ocean waves like they were nothing, making an easy perimeter of the bay. In your head, you could somehow both hear and feel Seungcheol’s delight, his low-simmering desire to fight, to do something a perfect mirror of your own.
“How is it?” Soonyoung’s voice crackled in your ears, reminding you that Pretty Savage wasn’t far behind you.
“Incredible,” Seungcheol answered him, at the same time that you said, “It’s everything.”
It didn’t matter that you came from a family of pilots. It didn’t matter that you were raised in the Dome, training since you were young. None of that mattered. You were born for this - born to fight for your planet, born for Duellona Fury, born for Choi Seungcheol.
—
The west bay became Duellona’s playground; you and Seungcheol were often assigned to patrol there.
It was only a few months in that you faced a kaiju for the first time.
“Come in, Duellona Fury,” Nainsi’s voice came through. “We have a reading just a few miles north of you. Cat-2. Approaching at -”
Duellona Fury was turning due north before the command was even given.
“Are you ready for this?” you shouted to Seungcheol as Duellona slid through the water, the adrenaline singing in your system already.
“You know I am,” he answered, something hard in it, and the thrill in your stomach sparked.
When the sea split in half, the kaiju rising from the depths with an unearthly roar, you sank into a defensive stance, feeling Seungcheol move beside you, doing the same.
“Let’s fucking go,” Seungcheol said darkly, and launched forward, your arms rearing back for momentum before the first swing. The punch landed solidly, your whole body shaking once as the kaiju faltered backwards a few steps.
It opened its mouth and you glimpsed three rows of teeth bigger than a cow before it was lunging at you; Duellona Fury lurched. You tried to duck sideways as Seungcheol tried to move towards your opponent.
The moment of indecision cost you - the kaiju got its teeth on Duellona’s shoulder, knocking you back several steps. Beside you, Seungcheol roared as sparks flew near the bite.
“Are we breached?” you yelled, trying to steady your balance again.
“Not yet!” he yelled back, and you swung again, a hit landing hard enough to knock the kaiju loose, spitting it back into the sea.
You tried to move into a defensive crouch again; again, the jaeger faltered.
“Cherry!” Seungcheol yelled, desperation laced in his voice. “Cherry, don’t fight me!”
“Move with me!” you answered, and he did, miraculously, Duellona dodging left before an incoming attack.
Don’t fight me.
You rocked forward with Seungcheol as soon as you were clear of the kaiju’s trajectory, just as you’d done in practice thousands of times. Back in sync, Duellona Fury landed a kick to the kaiju’s middle that sent it stumbling.
“We’ve got him,” you said, feeling a win.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Seungcheol warned you. No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the kaiju exploded from the dark ocean, limbs flailing as it flew towards you.
Duellona’s arms came up and locked it in battle, the impact shaking you so hard that your teeth chattered against each other. You groaned with exertion as you tried to match its strength.
“I don’t think we can hold it,” you managed through grit teeth.
“We’ve got this,” your partner promised, and with a mighty shove, you managed to flip the beast over your shoulder and beneath the waves.
“Drop the bombs and head for the east side,” you said quickly, already moving. Duellona Fury followed your command, turning and starting an easy run through the bay’s churning waters, away from where the kaiju was struggling to its feet, furious and vengeful. As she ran, she dropped three small explosives, about sixty feet apart. The explosives slipped into the ocean depths.
“Ready?” Seungcheol asked, a little breathless. “Are we far enough away?”
“Light him up,” you replied. Seungcheol reached up and tapped the button; somewhere behind you, the ocean exploded.
—
“How’s your shoulder?” you asked, later, in the med bay.
“Not that bad,” Seungcheol said, but you could see the blood-stains on the bandaging.
“It won’t happen again,” you promised. “I think I just… practiced alone for so long. I forgot to listen. I’m sorry.”
Seungcheol shook his hand, eyes finding yours. “There’s nothing to forgive, Cherry. Forget about it.” Then, he brightened. “You know what I want to do?”
“What?” you asked, not entirely past feeling guilty.
His smile was devilish. “I want to go celebrate our first fucking kill.”
–
You marked the passing of two years in statistics.
Three hundred and forty-six explosives detonated.
Two hundred and eighty-three drops. Two hundred and eight-three kills.
Seventy-two mainframe repairs.
Twenty-eight achievement awards.
Nine television interviews.
Six upgrades.
One ill-informed “vacation” during which you both itched with anxiety, spending the whole time messaging your friends back in the Shatterdome desperately, praying you wouldn’t miss a fight in which you were needed.
Seven hundred and thirty days of living in and around Seungcheol’s mind and heart. But that stat should’ve gone first.
It was a good high. Your team had a good run.
It wasn’t a kaiju that reduced it to ash, not an attack that took your team out of the rotation of main fighters and sent your jaeger to gather rust and dust below the Dome. It was your own stupid heart.
There were a lot of moments that could have been it. Each time you walked into a fight knowing the danger, each time he ended up in the med bay reeking of antibacterial ointment and resentment. Each time you slid into your place beside him - space he saved only for you. Each time his voice bidding you goodnight from the bottom bunk was the last thing you heard at the end of the day. Any of these moments might have been the one to make you stop, gasp, suddenly slammed with understanding. That you loved him, that he was everything you couldn’t bear to be without, that he was part of you. But they weren’t.
There was no moment of realization at all.
Instead, it slowly seeped into your consciousness, as gently and naturally as morning dew collecting on pre-dawn petals. The knowledge clung to you, as impossible to ignore as damp feet after running barefoot through the yard just after sunrise.
If you knew something, that meant your co-pilot would know it, too.
Unless you tucked it away, pushed it down deep and cast his attention elsewhere, a mental sleight-of-hand. Look here instead.
You were twenty-three, on a routine patrol, when Mission Control radioed Duellona that there was a reading in the bay.
“Looks like it’s only a Cat-1,” Mission Control told you.
“On it,” you told them, feeling your body already mirroring Seungcheol’s as Duellona picked up her pace, striding through the waves.
You glanced sideways at him, and immediately wished you hadn’t. He was already zoned in, eyes focused and jaw sharp as he concentrated.
He caught your gaze for only a second. “Focus, Cherry,” he cautioned. “Don’t get cocky.”
“I would never,” you retorted, and he laughed. You were both cocky; you both knew it.
For a second, things felt better.
The fight was almost easy, when the ocean seemed to split in two and the waves fell away like wrapping paper to reveal the kaiju you’d been sent for.
You swung and ducked, dropping explosives strategically, Seungcheol moving in unison with you. There was something graceful about it - something beautiful in the sync, something holy in the way your muscles mimicked each other’s.
This is what happens when sunlight hits morning dew: it warms, lifts, makes the air humid and sticky until it burns away.
It rose up in you, your love for him, infusing the air around you, infusing the neural handshake that he was deeply imbedded in.
No.
You panicked, tried to do several things at once - tried to shove the feeling down, tried to think of something else, tried to push Seungcheol’s consciousness out of yours.
Duellona Fury lurched around you, shuddering.
“Cherry!” Seungcheol screamed to your left, and then the kaiju hit, its full weight slamming into Duellona’s mainframe.
You both staggered, trying to right yourselves, as the machines around you blinked and beeped and rebooted.
Seungcheol grunted under the neural weight of driving alone as you gasped and closed your eyes, trying desperately to fix it. Around you, you heard the floating words - recalibrating.
“Recalibrate faster!” you shouted, glancing sideways to see your co-pilot struggling to hold the monster in place, his face contorting with effort, arms straining against the machinery. He bared his gritted teeth, exhaling in a hiss between them.
You gave yourself a shake, bouncing on the balls of your feet, desperate for the connection to take again so you could pick up your half, take the literal weight from him. As soon as you felt the neural handshake, you gave a mighty shove and Duellona flipped the monster backwards, the ocean receding and then coming back to slam her shins, swallowing the monster whole.
You both sank into a defensive stance, ready for the beast to rise again.
“What was that?” Seungcheol demanded, later, as he sat in the med bay, waiting for his nosebleed to stop. The nosebleed you’d caused by letting him carry a neural load meant for two.
“I don’t know,” you lied, still panicked and desperate.
“Bullshit,” Seungcheol countered, eyes narrowed. He reached up and pulled the cotton away from his face, examining it. “I’m fine now,” he announced, and tossed the wad into a nearby trash bin, standing.
You fought the urge to cower, knowing he’d never let it go if you did. You followed him silently out of the med bay and back towards your dormitories. Halfway there, he slowed, then stopped.
Then, more calmly this time, he asked, “What happened, Cherry? You pushed me out.”
There was a slight pout to it, a sliver of hurt, and it sliced through you like something tangible, like you were actually wounded from it, like it might actually bleed.
“I don’t know,” you repeated. Guilt poked at you until you relented, gave him something that was at least partly true. “I got scared.”
“That can’t happen, and you know it,” he said seriously, his large frame casting a long shadow to your left as he leaned into your space. “You can’t keep secrets - that’s piloting 101. We’ve got to handle it. You know what’s at stake here.”
You did; you did, and that was entirely the problem. It wasn’t just feelings, it wasn’t just your relationship with Seungcheol at stake. It was your relationship with your co-pilot - your ability to fight was at stake, your ability to keep others safe. Your legacy.
Your parents’ wall of pictures flashed in your mind.
“I’m going to my mom and dad’s for a while,” you said quietly.
He nodded, let you run away - trusted you to come back to him when you were ready, trusted you to let him in.
You weren’t sure if he was right or wrong, as you walked away and left him behind.
You didn’t go to your parents’, though. Instead, you went to the tech bay and sat, watching Duellona undergo simple repairs from her fight. You stayed there, the metal cold beneath your thighs, watching the tech team buff over a scratch on your jaeger’s torso, until someone dropped into the spot next to you, bumping their shoulder roughly into yours.
“Where’s Seungcheol?” Wylie, who co-piloted Fury Striker with Chan, was your closest friend in the Dome besides Seungcheol.
“He’s pissed at me,” you answered, looking sideways, because the question had really meant, why isn’t Seungcheol with you?
You weren’t sure she’d understand what you were going through - she and Chan had been obsessed with each other since they were kids. Neither of them had ever had to fear that their love for each other would mess anything up. It had been part of their deal from the start.
“What’d you do?” Wylie demanded, turning her full, unfettered attention on you. You wanted to shrink from the intensity of it - but that was always how Wylie worked: full wattage, all the time.
“Almost got us killed by a fucking Cat-1 tonight,” you muttered, angry at yourself, angry at your heart.
Wylie smacked your arm hard enough to send you sideways. “Cherry!” she scolded.
“There was something I didn’t want him to see.” You said it in your head first, weighed the words, then forced them through your teeth. You hoped she’d just know what it was, hoped you wouldn’t have to force those words past muscle and bone, too.
Wylie’s face dropped into irritation. “Cherry,” she repeated, disappointment dripping from the two syllables.
You looked up at Duellona Fury again.
“You can’t do that,” she told you, giving your ankle a little kick for emphasis. “You know you can’t do that.”
You can’t love him? Or, you can’t keep secrets from him?
You didn’t ask. You didn’t want to know the answer.
Seungcheol was waiting up for you when you finally returned to the dorm. You opened the door to find the first room - an entryway and kitchen, both - dimly lit. Beyond it, in the small sitting space, Seungcheol sat facing the door, his chin in his hand.
You knew the look on his face. You knew it so well that you almost ran from it, almost turned right around and went back out to the hallway.
Brows slightly furrowed, mouth a straight line, jaw tight. Eyes focused, locked in. It was the face he made in training before he bodied someone. It was the face he made in the field before an offensive strike. It meant he had his sights on a target, a problem, and he was about to throw everything he had at it.
And right now, you were the problem.
“Hey?” you tried meekly.
He nodded. Licked his lips. Stood.
He’s pissed at me, you’d told Wylie. The energy radiating from your co-pilot was much more complex than that, the air around you palpably tense and teetering.
“How was it at your parents’?” he asked, voice low.
You took one tentative step closer. “I didn’t go,” you admitted. One lie between you was already more than you wanted. “I watched them patch up Duellona instead. Talked to Wylie a little.”
He nodded, eyes still on you. Nervousness coursed through you, but it would be a lie - another one - to say it wasn’t laced with a little excitement. He was stunning, always, but like this - it almost took your breath away.
If he was in your mind right now, there’d be no question. He’d know all of it. The attraction, the desire, the fear, the affection, the love, the need. All of it.
His eyes caught on a bruise peeking out from the short sleeve of your top. “You should’ve had them look at that,” he said, reaching out like he wanted to run his fingers over the dark splotch, but he was just too far away, fingertips closing around the air just an inch or two away.
You shook your head. “You needed attention first. You carried the neural load alone.” Because of me.
“Only for a minute.”
“A minute too long. I’m… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
It hung between you. You don’t know if you’d inched forward or he had, or both, but you were close enough to touch now when you hadn’t been just seconds ago.
He lifted his eyes, his gaze locking on yours. In the dim room, his eyes shone black. “You pushed me out.”
It was an accusation, but it was also a question.
“I’m sorry,” you repeated, barely able to say it, your voice coming out in a hoarse whisper. “Seungcheol, I was scared.”
Maybe he was in your head. Maybe he did know all of it.
“Don’t be,” he told you. “Don’t be scared.”
His arms were around you though you didn’t see him move. It wasn’t the first time you’d let him embrace you - after a fight, in relief, or in victorious delight, or sometimes just in sleepy affection at the end of a long day. It was far from the first time that you’d found comfort in the space between his arms, strong and capable around your frame, your forehead pressed against his sternum as his heart beat directly into your bones.
But it was the first time that his fingers, confident and sure, tipped under your chin, guiding you to look up at him, guiding your mouth to meet his.
You don’t know if you melted or exploded - it was somehow both at once. You gripped his back, feeling the muscles move beneath his t-shirt, relaxing into his hold and focusing on the feel of his full lips firm and hungry against your own. This was everything - everything you’d wanted, everything you were afraid of, everything you needed, everything that could rip your life apart.
You didn’t mean to whine, but it slipped up your throat and into the gasped space between your lips and his as you tried to pull in a desperate breath. He responded with a grunt, walking you backwards until the edge of the kitchen counter jutted into your lower back. His hands traveled, up to the back of your neck, back down to the slight curve of your waist, around to the back of your ass. He tugged your hips against his roughly, and you let your head fall back, panting, head spinning.
“Cherry,” he breathed against the newly bared stretch of your neck, his lips close enough to drag against your skin as he spoke.
Your hands found the back of his neck, gave the slightest tug upwards, and he followed, bringing his mouth back to yours. His tongue pressed yours briefly, your moan muffled entirely by his mouth as you tried to press him closer, closer, as if you wanted your rib-cages to meld, to slip together like fitting puzzle pieces.
His hand slipped lower from your ass and wrapped around your thighs, taking only a second to lift you onto the counter behind you. You wrapped yourself around him immediately, pulling him into the space between your legs, arms around his neck, pulling him in, wanting to feel every bit of him against you.
His hands found the hem of your shirt and lifted; you raised your arms in compliance and felt the cotton slip over your head and your hands.
“Yours,” you murmured, but he had already reached back between his shoulder blades, his own top joining yours on the floor.
Your hands found him on their own, sliding over his skin, fingers dipping between muscles, thumbs sweeping over shadows.
You kissed until you turned liquid, molten, your fingers wrapped in his hair. His fingers mapped every inch of your skin, as if his job was to report back on every previously unknown dip, every rough circle, every beauty mark or blemish. His fingers traced them all, his hands passing over you reverently.
The brush of his bare chest against your own was torturous; delicious until you were full, until you couldn’t take it anymore, until the electric-sharp thrill became uncomfortable. You tilted backwards, creating more space between your torsos but pushing your hips firmly into his.
You both groaned at the contact. You could feel the heat and weight of him now, and everything instinctual within you urged you to shift further, to bring that heat and heaviness closer to the part of you that ached for it.
He pressed his hips into you without reservation, your core clenching in response to the movement and the friction.
Then he leaned back, his hands gripping the edge of the counter, his arms bracketing you on either side, his chest heaving as he struggled to control his breathing. He drank you in, his eyes as molten as you felt. You leaned back on your elbows and met his gaze.
The moment expanded; nothing existed but his eyes and the pant of his breath and the way he smelled like he’d just finished a fight and the way he felt between your thighs, unmovable and steady.
Neither of you was connected to jaeger machinery, but you may as well have been, because you knew without a shadow of a doubt that your minds were connected, the drift be damned. Your eyes locked, you knew he felt everything you felt - the gravity of what you were doing, the love that drove you, the fire coursing through you. If there was going to be hesitation or questioning, this was the moment, this was the pause. But you were one, your minds were one, and there was none of that.
His unvoiced question definitively answered by the certainty that flowed between you, Seungcheol moved to lift you again, taking you easily from the countertop into the dark of the room you share, settling you on your back on his bottom bunk.
Above you, mostly shadowed, was your other half, the only person who knew and understood every cobwebbed corner of your consciousness, the only person who had walked through your mind and found himself mirrored in every way that mattered. He was beautiful in the fractured light, his expression serious and gaze intense.
You reached up to slide your thumb along his jaw and his eyes fluttered closed, his breath leaving him as in relief, as if you’d made some kind of admission.
Making love to Seungcheol felt like drifting. His eyes on you as his fingers pulled you apart felt the same as the careful way he’d watch you when your memories got emotional, like he was watching for any sign that you weren’t okay, that you needed more or less or him.
The way his breath and shoulders shuddered when he pressed into you for the first time felt the same as when he faltered in face of his father’s memory; both times, his fingers laced through yours and held tight until you could both breathe again.
He felt how you’d always known he would. Perfect - a perfect fit for you, a physical compatibility you had never tested but had always trusted would be there. He took you apart without even trying, and all you could do was hold onto him, feel all of him, feel all of it, and try to remember to breathe.
You didn’t speak as you moved together in the dark; the only sounds in the tight room were muted gasps, tiny moans muffled against necks, skin on skin, the obscene squelching sounds that accompanied each snap of his hips. You didn’t say the words that your lips tried to form - it’s so much, go slow for a little, Seungcheol, I love you, more - please, don’t stop. Maybe he heard them. Maybe this was a different way to drift, one that didn’t need wires.
You did your best to hold his gaze, losing sight of him only when you strained up to kiss him, when you nuzzled your face into the warmth between his neck and shoulder and gasped against a wave of sensation, when you couldn’t help but close them as they rolled back, your toes curling.
He pressed his forehead to yours when he finished, your name slipping out of him, as if it had been literally squeezed from his lungs. “Cherry… Cherry…”
You lay together in silence for a long time, feeling your hearts slow, your skin cool. Your thumb traced his jaw again and again, slow, worshipful. “Cheol,” you whispered. My Cheol. My everything. You didn’t say the rest as you lay together in the quiet, in the dark, your heartbeats competing.
You didn’t know that you’d drifted together for the last time. You didn’t know that your ability to neural connect could be broken.
–
The wind whips around you, stinging your face. You barely flinch. When you’d first relocated here, three years ago, the cold had made you literally cry during your first month. Just from having to walk from the door of the dormitory across the yard to the mess hall dorm, the intensity of it had sent you spiraling into misery - damning the circumstances that had sent you here, away from everyone and everything you knew and loved, to a place where the air hurt.
You were sure it would hurt, this intensely, forever.
But time eased the sting, and despite your doubts you did adjust. Now the early morning wind feels bracing and refreshing rather than painful. You’ve adjusted to a lot of things since relocating to a small training center in Alakanuk, Alaska: the climate, the food, the no-frills campus you lived and worked on. Being away from your parents, from Wylie and Chan and Seungkwan and Jeonghan and all the other pilots you were friends with at the Shatterdome.
Being away from Seungcheol. Being partnerless, a half instead of a whole.
Being unable to pilot, unable to fight.
Being brokenhearted.
Just like the cold, the pain of your losses was the same - the sting of heartbreak and loneliness and homesickness faded to something ignorable, something you could keep tucked tight in the back of your mind.
You can hear the noise from inside the mess hall before you even cross the courtyard. There are short of fifty girls ranging from ages seven to eighteen being housed here, but from the noise you’d swear it was at least a hundred.
The buildings are single-storied, painted with a heavily-chipping grey-blue that sometimes seems to belong to the mist you often get rolling in from the ocean. When you’d first come, you’d legitimately thought they were painted that way as camouflage, meant to blend in with the sea. The other trainers had a good laugh about that.
As you cross the courtyard between the trainers’ dorms and the mess hall, you breathe deeply, eyes on the birds alight above you. After a lifetime in the Shatterdome, you don’t take for granted the fresh air you’re afforded as you pass between buildings, outside, the sky open and changing above. You don’t take for granted the rhythm of the ocean, the cries of the gulls, nor the distant treeline.
It was Seungcheol who had noted that you were sheltered, having never lived outside of the Dome.
It was Seungcheol you could blame - at least halfway - for your relocation here, where there wasn’t a jaeger or even a city for hundreds of miles.
When you pull open the flimsy door to the mess hall, the noise triples. Several of the girls call out to greet you, and you give them a quick wave as you head to the table where the staff eats.
“You’re later than normal,” one of the other instructors notes as you reach for a piece of bread.
You shrug lightly, unbothered. “Still have plenty of time before the first class. What day is today, Thursday? I’ve got the little ones first, right?”
The all-girls training center is meant to teach fighting and the groundworks for drifting, but no jaegers are housed here, no teams launch into the icy bay. The girls here will grow up to pilot - if they get selected, if they get paired with a partner.
You’re mostly here to teach them to fight, the way you trained in the Dome, but you do plenty more. Help brush hair in the mornings, console tearful faces, teach games and sports, mediate arguments. You also got sucked into running one literacy class a week, though you still haven’t figured out how that happened.
It would be a lie to say this wasn’t fulfilling, that you didn’t love the girls you cared for, that you weren’t happy here with the ocean and birds and trees and laughter. In many ways, the seclusion of this training center is exactly what you needed to get back on your feet, to find strength in yourself, to heal with distance and time.
But, god, what you would give for a real fight. What you would give to feel both loved and threatened by Wylie, to rib at the guys, to hug your mom. What you would give to hear Seungcheol’s teasing pout, to catch his gaze across the span of your jaeger and know what his body and yours will do, to feel his fingers just barely graze your back when he knows you need to be reminded to focus.
The final time you’d tried, the neural connection never took. It was like trying to connect with a stranger. It had simply been still, a thing that was never alive.
“Don’t do this,” Seungcheol had begged, and that had been the nail in the coffin.
Don’t do this, he’d said. It had landed like blame. Like everything was your fault, and only yours. Like you had broken the connection on purpose, were keeping him out, barricading your mind from his when you desperately wanted everything to go right back to normal.
After that failure, you didn’t tell him you were asking to be reassigned. You didn’t want to give him the chance to say don’t do this a second time.
You’ve just ended a class, the girls starting to filter out through the training room’s side door towards the mess hall for lunch, when the center’s Administrator calls your name from the door.
“There’s a call for you on my line. I have them holding.”
A call?
Adrenaline races through you; it has to be an emergency. Your parents and friends can reach you on your own device, which is tucked into your back pocket. To call the mainline here at the center means this is a base-to-base call, not a personal one.
You’ve only been in this office a handful of times in your few years here, and you shuffle awkwardly around the desk and pick up the receiver that sits abandoned on the chipped, wooden desktop.
You greet the person on the line with your real name.
“Cherry?”
Your Marshall - your old Marshall, from the Dome - sounds unsure if he has the right person on the line. No one has called you Cherry in three years. Even your parents have used your given name the few times they’ve said it on your weekly calls home.
“It’s me,” you affirm. “Is everything okay? My parents?”
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says, and you heave a relieved breath. “Everyone is fine. This is official business. I want to call you in.”
You shake your head, frowning, well aware that he can’t see your reaction. Your body has said no, but you force yourself to ask, “Me? Why?”
“We’re down a few teams,” the Marshall says. “And -”
“You’ve got more recruits than places to put them,” you counter before he can finish. “Call one of the new teams up. Call three new teams up. You don’t need me.”
“We do - we need teams with experience, teams that are ready. Not rookies bumbling around looking for mistakes. We need precision. We need Duellona Fury.”
Your Marshall lays out the situation: the teams that are out, the problems they’re having at the breach - less time between attacks, more monsters at once. You’ve seen this before, you all have, and there’s protocol in place - protocol that starts with all hands on deck.
You shake your head again. From the door, the Administrator of the center watches you seriously, like she knows you’re being taken away.
“Marshall, with all due respect, I don’t know why you’re calling me,” you admit. “What can I give you? I can’t pilot Duellona.”
Not anymore.
The Marshall sighs, like he knew this argument was coming and didn’t have a good response.
“I think you can,” he says finally. “I’m not saying it will be easy, and I’m not saying it will happen quickly or without effort. But I think you can.”
“No,” you say, the first time you’ve voiced it. “You were there. You saw what happened. We can’t drift anymore.”
“You couldn’t then,” he points out. “That was three years ago. You’ve both had a lot of time to…. You’ve both had a lot of time since then. Things that were once too painful to carry into the drift… they’ve had time to mellow.”
This blow knocks you into silence. You sink your teeth into your bottom lip, eyes steadfastly on the warped wood of the desk, fingers toying absently with the Administrator’s pen.
He’s wrong, and you want to tell him so. Nothing had mellowed. You love Seungcheol just as much today as you did three years ago. The splitting ache in your chest that you’ve felt every day since you became aware of loving him has only worked its way deeper with time.
And Seungcheol’s anger? The anger and betrayal he’d leveled at you, when he was sure you were keeping him out of your head on purpose? You couldn’t speak for him, but if you had to guess, there weren’t enough years in a human life to let that hurt mellow into something safe enough to drift with.
“Have you talked to him about this?” You’re afraid of the answer.
The Marshall hesitates. “Not yet.”
“You might want to do that first,” you point out. “Before flying me back only to have him refuse.”
The Marshall’s voice hardens, and you can just picture his eyes narrowing. “Mr. Choi will follow orders,” he says evenly, “and so will you. Asking is really just a courtesy.”
“You can’t order us into being able to drift again,” you snap, pulse suddenly pounding in your arms, your hands, your face, your chest.
“No,” the Marshall says, and any previous friendliness is gone from his voice now, “but I can - and will - order you to try.”
The girls cry when you tell them you’re leaving, and it makes you want to cry, too. You hold it together as you give them hugs, hold it together as you pack your single bag of belongings. You hold it together in the passenger seat of the center’s only beat-up van, waving out the back window as the training center fades away.
It’s standing on the deck of the ferry, the coast receding and the sea wind clawing at your face, that you let it go. You bury your face behind your hands and feel it release behind your ribs. You cry for all of it - for leaving the girls behind, for leaving a place that had sheltered you like a sanctuary. For the time you’d lost at the Dome, for the fights you’d sat out, for the years with your parents and friends that had slipped away like sand between your fingers. For your fear that Seungcheol will turn you away, just as hurt and angry as he was one thousand and ninety-five days ago.
You’d been so determined to keep him from walking through the depths of your love for him, in the drift. You were so scared it would be too much, too intense, too much emotion for the drift. You’d been scared it would be too much for him - that the weight of it would inherently ask for more than he could give you in return. You’d been scared it would ruin your partnership, your compatibility, your capability to co-pilot.
But that had happened anyway. You almost have to laugh.
As furiously as your tears begin, they peter out quickly. You take a few deep gulps of salty air, use the backs of your hands to wipe at your cheeks and beneath your nose. As you calm down, you keep your eyes on the horizon, your hands tight on the ship’s railing, and you let your mind wander back to Seungcheol. Here, thousands of miles away, you let yourself think back to those last weeks before you left the Shatterdome. You let yourself wonder, for the first time, what exactly caused everything to crumble.
You’d been so afraid to let Seungcheol into your head once the loving him had taken over. Why had it scared you so badly? As you keep your eyes on the grey of the horizon, you puzzle it out in your mind.
Had it been the uncertainty? That had certainly played a part. Did Seungcheol love you, back then? If he didn’t, everything between you could have changed - your friendship, your partnership, your ability to drift. It hadn’t seemed worth the risk to lose it all - his presence in your life, your ability to fight together.
But maybe he had. If he did love you, back then… that would have changed things, too. What if starting something romantic affected your drift? There were too many maybes, too many variables. It had seemed safe to push it all down, to try and keep him away from it. To try and keep things the same.
Of course, you’d lost it all anyway.
Even if he did love you three years ago, you think as the sea air whips around you, did he love you the way you loved him? What if it had been too much - the way you could breathe once he was with you, the way you kept each other in check - what if he had loved you, but not that much?
Had it been a mistake to keep him out? Maybe. But it could have been just as catastrophic to let him in. There was no way to know, now.
You turn away from the ship’s railing, away from the horizon and the sea, away from your mistakes. There’s no use looking back like this. You can’t change it. You aren’t even sure you can fix it.
You were hoping to sleep on the plane, but you’re woefully awake well after take-off. Determined not to keep ruminating on what had happened before you left, instead you wonder what awaits you now.
The most-likely scenario, you think, professional and polite - but cold. Like you, he takes duty and responsibility seriously. The airplane bumps, a pocket of air jostling the small craft, and your hands find the armrests and cling tight until it stops.
The best case scenario, of course, would be that enough time has passed that Seungcheol’s hurt has faded. Maybe, you think, maybe he’s moved on from harboring that anger. Maybe he’ll greet you warmly, maybe you’ll pick up right where you left off.
This hope, this day-dream, aches, so much that you blink it away and turn to watch the clouds through the window, a desperate distraction. You crave Seungcheol - you crave feeling safe with his arms around you, you crave the elation you’d feel when he entered the room you were in, you crave the peace that comes with two minds engaged in neural handshake - the peace of someone’s mind interlaced with your own, understanding you, operating with you, picking up half of your mental lift.
You crave his giggle when you say something stupid in the dark of the dorm before bed, his pout when he feels like he isn’t getting enough attention, you crave his voice echoing in your head long after he’s gone asleep because you heard him talk to you all day long.
You crave his lips on yours, his teeth on your neck, his hands on your body, even if you only had it once. You’ve craved it ever since.
You crave closing your eyes and pressing your forehead to his sternum, feeling safe and quiet and like you belong. You miss the sanctuary of that space, chest to chest with him, something sacred in the way it exists only for you.
You know you can’t have it - any of it. The daydream isn’t real. Your curse will be to crave it forever, alone.
When you arrive at the Shatterdome, it’s your parents who greet you just inside. For a moment, you’re happy to be back, overcome with emotion as you hug them tight. They’ve aged in these three years. You’ve missed them awfully. You only tell them the latter.
They walk with you to the Marshall’s office, where you’re meant to report upon arrival.
You hesitate, covering the moment by tugging your duffle’s strap higher on your shoulder. Your mother reads you anyway, reaching out and giving your shoulder a squeeze.
“It will be okay,” she whispers.
Your father catches on. “You’ve faced down worse,” he reasons.
You disagree. There’s no monster in the sea bigger than your love for Seungcheol, no wounding possible that could hurt more than losing him has. But you appreciate the sentiment, so you give them each a grateful nod, tell them you’ll visit after dinner, and turn to knock on the door.
“Come in,” the Marshall’s voice carries through the door, and you turn the knob and step inside.
All you see is Seungcheol; the Marshall, the office furniture, the flickering screens on the walls all snap into nonexistence in the presence of your former lover. He’s the only thing in the room that comes into focus. Everything else is just fuzzy noise.
His face wavers for a moment when your eyes meet his, the muscles rippling as he fights to get them under control.
You don’t know what reaction he’s fighting. You don’t know if he’s feeling happiness or hatred. You don’t know if he’s fighting a smile or a scowl.
You give him a quick bow in greeting, and he returns it. His face is stone, now, his mouth tight and eyes flat.
He turns to face the Marshall, to receive orders, so you do the same.
“I trust your travel went well?” the Marshall begins.
You nod, not trusting yourself to speak. Even the single syllable of yes will come out of your mouth like gravel and dirt and sand, getting everywhere, leaving a trail.
“Your orders,” he says then, a bit of a sigh on his tone - as if he knows the uphill battle this will be, “are to reconnect as best you can. You’ll follow your old schedule. You’ll spar, you’ll meditate, and you’ll talk. After some time, we’ll try the drift again, see if the connection has recovered any.”
Seungcheol’s voice startles you when he speaks. “How long do you imagine it will be before we try?” he asks, just cold enough to have a sliver of sarcasm in it.
The Marshall’s eyes narrow, just slightly, as if he’d caught it. “That’s entirely up to you two,” he says evenly. “When you were young and hungry to fight, you trained yourselves into exhaustion. You spent every waking second trying to cultivate the bond that would carry you into your jaeger. With the same intention and drive, I imagine you could be piloting Duellona within the week.”
You fight to keep your chin up, your eyes on the Marshall, instead of ducking your head and watching the floor. The Marshall lifts his arm and glances at his watch.
“Your allotted time in Sparring Room 7 begins on the hour,” he says. This is his way of dismissing you.
In the hallway, you pause. “I’m just going to drop my bag in the dorm,” you say quietly, not looking at Seungcheol.
He gives a tight nod. “Fine,” he says, and turns to go the other way, towards the sparring and training rooms. Clearly he intends to meet you there. You heave a deep breath, and turn back towards the wing with the dorms.
Stepping into the dorm you used to share with Seungcheol hits you harder than you thought it would. You’re not sure what you expected - to feel like coming home, maybe, or perhaps to be slapped with the memories of you and Seungcheol together, dancing around each other as you hurried to get dressed for a drop, lazing around in the sitting area after a full day of training. And, of course, the single night you’d spent together.
Neither thing happens. You aren’t overcome by a feeling of nostalgia and love, nor are you inundated by memories of what you’ve lost. Instead, the room feels exactly as it is: empty and still.
Your footsteps’ echoes taunt you as you walk through the kitchen, the sitting area, and into the bedroom. It’s pristine to the point of detriment; it feels like no one lives there. You set your bag on the floor near the foot of the bed - you can unpack later, after training - and turn to go.
Strangely, it’s stepping into the training room that slams you with memory and nostalgia. The wood cool beneath your feet, the vague smell of sweat and citrus-y cleaner, the sounds of punches landing and grunts of effort from the training rooms on either side - they all cocoon you in history, making goosebumps rise on your arms as the emotions surround you.
It makes sense, you think, as Seungcheol glances over his shoulder at the sound of your arrival. He doesn’t speak to you, just swaggers to the center of the room and takes a stance you recognize from Form One. Your body leads you opposite him, muscle memory guiding you into the first form you ever learned with him. It makes sense that this would be what felt like home - your minds going empty together, your bodies following the steps in unison. The sparring forms are the closest you can get to drifting without an actual neural connection.
Well, that and sleeping together, but you don’t see that on your agenda.
You stare at him across the invisible circle between you and try to read him. His face is cold and empty, but that already tells you so much about what he’s feeling. Seungcheol was never cold with you. When you fought together he slipped into that mode you loved so much - ready to level anything, chin lifted, eyes narrowed, confident and so very strong. But it was when you were together outside the fights that you had loved him best - often pouting, lips protruding, voice lifting into a whine. And the best of all - that smile, dimples creating shadows that beg for your thumb to press them, eyes squeezing shut with happiness or laughter.
Something must show on your face, because you watch the muscles in Seungcheol’s upper body untense, as if he’d been ready to fight and recognized that you weren’t.
“I’m good,” you mutter quickly, before he can ask. It feels better to lie to him before he actually asks you, like that’s somehow less dishonest. “Let’s go.”
Form One is basic - no hits, no fancy moves. At the training center, you’d teach it to the littlest ones until they had it memorized. It was really about control and communication - precision and alignment with your partner. You had to breathe together as your feet traced opposite circles across the knots in the wooden floor. You had to rise and bend in unison. It was about watching and listening.
You and Seungcheol could - literally, you’d tried more than once - do it blindfolded in perfect step with one another. Before. You don’t know if you still can. But, now, unblindfolded, it’s too easy.
You move through forms one through six without incident - both of you flowing as easily as water.
Form Seven is the first form that incorporates actual hits and blocks. You’ll have to touch for the first time, even if it’s forearm to forearm or ankle to shoulder. You move right as he moves left, crouch and circle as his right foot flies over your head, stand and punch where you know his open hand will be waiting to stop you.
It is, and you press your fist against it for just a second before spinning away to continue the form. You ache, even as your body continues following the steps, to have him entirely again - to meet his eyes and smile the way you both used to, because you were pleased with what your bodies could do. Because you had each other, completely.
After the tenth form, you bow, turn, and walk out of the ring. You drink some water, your back to him. Years ago you’d have used this break to chat, but you don’t know what to say to him. You’re scared that he’ll shut down anything you say, whether you choose small talk or go straight for the heart of the problem, and you honestly don’t think you can shoulder his rejection right now. So you stay quiet.
After a few short minutes of rest, you return to the center of the room. This is when you’ll spar for real.
You and Seungcheol had done this for years before things went wrong. You’d long ago adjusted to how hard you should hit, how to dodge his moves, how to make this a dance as much as a fight. Now, you feel like it’s your first time again.
Seungcheol attacks as you’d expect - all offensive, pushy, succeeding in herding you backwards even as you dodge each blow. You know his goal is to flip you, and normally you can avoid that by forcing him to go on the defensive as he avoids your own hits. Simply dodging won’t be enough - eventually he’ll cage you in unless you distract him.
You throw yourself into a summersault and manage to get behind him - an opportune moment to strike. You shift your weight to follow the blow as you twist your hips to send a kick towards his unprotected head. He turns just too late - the blow will land.
You can’t do it. You freeze, your core working to keep you upright as you fight your own momentum, halting the kick inches from his temple.
You know immediately that pulling the hit was a mistake. His eyes narrow, and he sweeps his foot at the ankle you’re balancing on. You crash to the ground, heaving a breath and taking quick inventory.
You aren’t hurt. Not this time.
“Get up, Cherry,” he says darkly, moving back to the center to start again. “And don’t do that shit again.”
He comes at you full force in the next match, too. You dodge and weave, but you don’t try to strike. You know he knows it; this isn’t how it used to work. You can almost feel him get angrier as you fight, but you can’t make yourself hit back. You want him to knock you down, you deserve to take some shots.
You take two blows to the back and one to a shoulder; you fall back unsteadily but manage to find your footing and roll away from his next kick.
The match continues - you taking a handful of blows, though none with the force to level you, and Seungcheol with his lip curled in fury.
“If you’re not going to fight, then leave,” he spits.
“Would if I could,” you retort without thinking. You mean that you don’t want to be here like this - not talking, cold, at odds. But you know it reads as not wanting to be here at all.
It seems like everything you say and do only hurts him more.
“I didn’t mean -” you start, and Seungcheol takes your arms and flips you over his shoulders.
“Don’t waste my fucking time,” he says, brushing his hands together and stepping back to give you room to pick yourself up.
“Don’t curse at me,” you answer, pushing yourself to your hands and knees, pausing to catch your breath before rising fully again.
He shakes his head, rolls his eyes a little.
You hate this side of him.
You know you deserve it. For pushing him out. For leaving him here. For loving him, messing everything up, when he never asked for that.
“Seungcheol,” you say, but he ignores you, pacing a few steps and then turning to face you, lowering himself into a defensive stance, ready to spar again.
“Cheol,” you try again. “Listen to me.”
“Marshall scheduled us time to talk later,” he says flatly. “Right now we’re scheduled to fight. So fight me, Cherry. Let’s go.”
The rest of the hour continues the same. By the time it’s over, Seungcheol storms out without speaking to you, furious over every single pulled punch.
You don’t know what to do to make it all better.
You shower quickly, dressing in dry linens, and then re-emerge for the hours you’re scheduled to meditate together. You hope that maybe this will help the situation - maybe not talking will be good for you, give you a chance to feel your connection without the chance to fuck it up with words.
You’re wrong; trying to meditate together is just as desperately fruitless as sparring had been.
You can’t focus at all - can’t shift your attention to your breath, to your body, to the earth beneath you, to the energy of your partner.
Your partner is the distraction, though he sits perfectly still, eyes closed. He might as well be yelling. His shoulders are tight, his jaw still clenched. Anger radiates off him so strongly that it makes your stomach hurt, makes you want to cower from it. You can’t stop watching him, hoping you’ll see him relax, hoping you’ll see the moment that he lets go.
He doesn’t.
“Your eyes are supposed to be closed,” he murmurs, and you feel your face heat, embarrassed that he knew you were watching him.
“I can’t,” you admit. Maybe, you think, you should just be brutally honest, starting now. It’s not like you could make this worse. “I can’t stop noticing how angry -”
“Then stop pissing me off,” he snaps, eyes opening. “Just a suggestion.”
“Don’t talk to me like that!” you cry, and push yourself to stand. You’re not sure why - maybe just to pace. “You never used to talk to me like this. Who are you?”
He looks at the floor, the first sign of guilt you’ve seen since you came home.
“Fine,” he finally bites back, and you know it’s as close to sorry as you’ll get. “I’ll reign it in. Sit back down.”
You shift your weight, arms crossed defensively across your chest, and close your eyes, deciding.
“Sit down, Cherry,” he repeats, and it’s gentler now. That’s what makes you cave, and you settle back across from him.
He’s less tense this time, so you eventually manage to close your eyes and count your breaths. But you’re still feeling for him, reaching for him in your mind, and coming up with nothing between you fingers. Touching him is as possible as touching the fog that used to blanket the training center, thick enough to blind you but impossible to grasp.
The pain feels like a cramp, except it’s behind your ribs instead of in your muscles. The pain grips and tightens, takes over. You want him, you want to be his again, you want to be inside these walls - where you used to fit comfortably. The fact that you’re out here, without him, aches so badly it makes you nauseated.
You want to beg him - let me in again, let me back in, let me be close to you again.
It won’t do any good, and you know it.
He was yours - you had him, you knew him, you could reach out to him and he’d pick you up. You’d taken it for granted, and you’d run away from it. You’d chosen to let it go, and now all you get is this: Seungcheol, cold and closed. Seungcheol, hating you for everything that happened.
—
Dinner is just as bad.
You go to the mess hall eager to see Wylie and Jeonghan and Seungkwan and all the other friends you haven’t seen in years. Wylie screeches like a banshee when she spots you, crossing the mess hall in a blur and hugging you so tightly that you both stagger, off balance, until Seungkwan joins the hug and rights you again.
“I missed you both so much,” you whisper, the only vulnerability anyone’s going to get out of you today.
“Then don’t leave again!” Wylie snaps, but you know the admonishment is full of love.
“I can’t promise,” you admit. Honestly, you’ve already made up your mind - you want to go back to Alaska. You’re not wanted here, not by the person who matters. What good are you, taking up a bed, if you can’t drift?
You’ve already given up hope that he’ll come around.
Seated at the table, you listen while your friends fill you in on what you’ve missed in three years - the fights in the bay, the new teams of pilots, the illnesses and injuries. You almost don’t notice Seungcheol silently takes a seat on Jeonghan’s other side, but something in you prickles, like you’ve sensed him.
The tension around the table heightens; the conversation goes a little stilted. When it’s apparent that he’s going to ignore you two seats down from him, Wylie slaps her hand flat on the tabletop.
“Come on, Seungcheol,” she scolds, and you’re sure no one wonders what she means.
His face goes dark so quickly it’s alarming. “Don’t,” he tells her darkly, one finger coming up to point at her in warning.
Her own eyes narrow and dart to her fork. Beside her, Chan’s eyes pingpong between them. He’s probably wondering if he should hold her back or join her.
“It’s fine,” you mutter, grabbing your tray and making to rise. “I’ll go.”
“Cherry, no,” Wylie protests, and then turns a glower onto your ex-co-pilot as if to say see what you did?
“It’s fine,” you repeat, standing. “I told my mom and dad I’d come by.”
You slink out before anyone else can argue.
You can’t even be mad at him - you did this by pushing him away. You hammered every last nail in the coffin by requesting to transfer. You pushed him out and you left him behind and now you have to face the reality that you can’t have him anymore. He isn’t yours, not anymore.
When you return to your dorm, he’s already in bed, the lights out. He’s facing the wall so you can only see his back, can only see the angry, tight shoulder poking out the top of the sheets. It tells you everything you need to know.
You don’t try to talk to him. You just go to bed.
—
You spend four days identically - fighting while sparring, not meditating, and avoiding Seungcheol’s ice-out. On the fifth day, your Marshall loses patience and changes your schedule. Your entire day is blocked to working on Duellona’s mainframe - buffing, repainting, greasing, and anything else you’re able to handle on your own.
“Since you can’t do anything else useful,” he adds, and you avoid Seungcheol’s eyes, ashamed.
Standing under Duellona’s unlit frame fills you with guilt. It feels like you’re letting her down, disappointing her by letting her rust here, failing your half of the bargain. You run your hands gently over the metal, finding the rough spots that need attention. Somewhere to your left, you can hear the telltale sounds of Seungcheol tightening bolts.
You work in silence for hours.
Eventually, you crack. You’re not sure if it’s the monotony of the task, the tension woven into the silence between you too, or being so close to your jaeger but unable to fight in it - maybe a combination. Something pushes at you from the inside, like a balloon trying to inflate under your skin and running out of room.
You flop backwards on the metal walkway, the grooves digging into your back. “What are we doing?” you ask, and you hear the tool Seungcheol had been using cling loudly as he sets it down.
“Following orders?” he says, stepping around Duellona’s side to look at you. “Fixing up the jaeger?”
“Fixing up the jaeger we don’t get to pilot?” you ask, sitting back up to look at him better.
“Is that what you’re here for?” he asks, the sudden ferocity of it surprising you. “To fight? Is that why you came back?”
You reach up to the walkway’s railing and pull yourself up. You feel yourself frowning at his question, at the heat behind it.
“I’m back because the Marshall gave me an order,” you say slowly.
“And that’s it?” he demands.
You stare at him. You feel sure there’s more to the question, more that he’s asking. You feel sure, after knowing Choi Seungcheol down to the last molecule, that he’s really asking, you didn’t come back for me?
And it confuses you. You try to think about your split from his perspective: you’d shut him out, then slept with him, and then vanished. You’d made a lot of assumptions about his anger since then. You assumed he was angry at you for pushing him out of your head. You assumed he was angry at you for sleeping with him and then leaving. You assumed he was angry with you for ruining your drift, for ripping him away from the ability to fight. You assumed he was angry because he never knew why - never knew what it was that you were so desperate to hide, never knew why sleeping together had made things so much worse that the neural connection had fizzled into nothing altogether.
Is there more to it, his anger?
Should you call him on it, should you ask?
You take too long deciding. Seungcheol scoffs, like he’s disgusted with you. “I should have known,” he says coldly. “Princess of the Shatterdome, I should have known you only cared about piloting - about your legacy.”
This is something you’ve never said to him - that your desire to shine as brightly as your parents has weighed on you. This is something he’d pulled from the drift, something he only knew from tiptoeing around your mind before a fight.
“That isn’t fair,” you say, your voice hard. “Is there another reason I should have come back? I’d love to hear it.”
He hears the challenge as it is - you didn’t ask me to come back, the Marshall did. You let me go.
He has nothing to say for himself, just stares back at you, eyes narrowed in anger, chest moving too quickly as he battles with his temper.
“Exactly,” you say curtly. The victory stings. It doesn’t feel like a win at all. “The bottom line is I’m here now, and we can pilot again if we can get our shit together.”
He shakes his head. “You left,” he says finally. “That’s the bottom line. You decided you were out, you decided you didn’t want me in your head, and then you left.”
He watches you, waits for you to say something. When you don’t, he lets out a derisive little laugh. “We’re both wasting our time here. The drift won’t work. We aren’t going to fix it.”
For the first time, fear slices through you like steel. “You can’t know that,” you say. You hear the fear in the way your voice comes out low and rounded, barely sounding like you at all.
“I can,” he retorts. “You know how I know? Because I don’t want to. You wanted me out of your head so badly? You got it. Can’t turn back now.”
He heads for the ladder, swings around and finds the third rung down with ease.
“So that’s it?” you ask his retreating form. Your heart is hammering and you’re starting to get tunnel vision.
The only answer he gives you are his feet hitting each new rung with a clunk and a vibration that rattles up your legs.
—
You go to the training rooms alone and run through the forms just to do something; your mind turns the problem over and over as your body goes through the motions. After, you take a longer shower than normal, letting the water run hotter than you normally would.
After, you go to the Marshall’s office, determined. Or maybe resigned.
When he opens the door, he already looks irritated, like he knew exactly who would be on the other side.
“Requesting an audience,” you say flatly, fighting the instinct to cross your arms defensively.
He glances at his watch. “Five minutes.”
You step inside but leave the door open.
“I’m requesting transfer back to Alakanuk,” you tell him as evenly as you can manage. You’re sure he’s not surprised. “Seungcheol has made it very clear that we won’t be fighting together again. If that’s the case, then I can’t do anything useful here. But in Alakanuk I can.”
You pause, looking to see if you can read anything on the Marshall’s face - any hint that he’s considering what you’re saying, or that it’s a lost cause. He gives you nothing.
“Please,” you say. “Those girls need me. If I can’t help here, I can help them.”
The Marshall tilts his head just slightly. “Surely anyone can teach little girls the forms.”
You shake your head. “It’s more than that, and you know it. It’s not about the forms. I love those girls. I came back here to follow orders, and I tried. But if it isn’t going to happen… Please, don’t make me waste time here if I can be with them instead.”
The silence when you stop speaking seems to last for hours. Your heart pounds, and you work on keeping your breathing even. If he tells you no, you might just lose it, just give up entirely.
Finally, he takes a breath and seems to consider you. “If,” he says, and your eyes widen with hope, “your co-pilot agrees, then I will reassign you back to Alaska. But only if he will agree.”
“No problem,” you say quickly. Seungcheol was the one who said it was over. He should have no problem letting you leave.
When you step out of the Marshall’s office, Seungcheol steps out of the shadows. You should be surprised to see him, but in the Shatterdome it feels right that he just is wherever you are. That’s always how it was, before.
You look at him disdainfully. “I assume you heard that conversation?”
He nods, once.
“So?” you ask. “Will you tell him you approve, so I can go?”
For the first time since you returned, Seungcheol smiles, tight and sarcastic.
“No,” he says easily, like it’s kind of funny.
Fury erupts inside you; you can’t even pinpoint where in your body it stems from. “Why?” you demand. “Because you feel like I took something from you, so you want to take something from me?”
He doesn’t respond to this. You know you’re right. You know him. You know his mind.
“I hate to fuck up your narrative,” you spit at him, “but I’ve lost out here just as much as you have. You’re not the only one who lost the ability to fight. You’re not the only one who lost their partner.”
You wish you could tell him the rest - you’re not the one who spent three years with a broken heart on top of it. He had lost you as a partner and a friend - you had lost him in the same ways, and you’d had to harbor your broken heart.
He shakes his head. “Poor baby,” he bites sarcastically, and then takes off down the hallway, into the dark.
—
You stop sleeping at the dorm. Sometimes you sleep at your parents’, sometimes on Wylie and Chan’s tiny couch, sometimes in bed with Seungkwan, who kicks at you and whines that you take up too much space. Sometimes you sleep inside Duellona Fury, sitting up, your back against her metal frame.
The Marshall seems to have taken some pity on you. He schedules your mornings training the Dome’s recruits, and lets Seungcheol get back to what he was doing in your absence - which seems to be on track to move up in rank, to maybe become a Marshall himself, someday. It isn’t quite the same as being back with your girls, but training recruits feels at least somewhat fulfilling. And it keeps you and Seungcheol busy - separately - until afternoon.
Then, he schedules you to spar.
In your first week, you’d been unwilling to hit Seungcheol. You’d been feeling guilty for hurting him, sad for your time apart, hopeful that if you were soft to him, then he’d be soft back to you.
Now, you’re fucking furious.
For the first time, when the match begins, you hit him first. He’s surprised for only a second, eyebrows shooting up as he stumbles for balance, and then you watch something delighted and devilish fall over his face. Like he knows exactly what dance this is, and he’s been learning the steps in secret.
The match is brutal, reminiscent of your very first one, when you were both nineteen. You throw hit after hit his way; he blocks or dodges all of them. But he can’t get a hit on you either - you’re too quick, spurred on by fury. You’ve been angry in a fight before. But you’ve never been angry at him.
You spin and throw up a kick, expecting his forearm to rise and block it. Instead, you knock him in the jaw.
He grunts, hand flying up to cover his mouth, and you drop your stance with a gasp.
“Shit!” you cry, hurrying closer. “I’m so sorry! Are you bleeding? Let me look.”
“‘M fine,” he mutters thickly from behind his hand, but you ignore him. For a second, things are how they used to be between you. He lets you peel his hand away, lets you gingerly turn his head this way and that, even opens up so you can check his teeth.
“You’re gonna have a fat lip,” you tell him regretfully. “But nothing’s bleeding. Teeth look okay. Anything loose in there?”
He pokes around his teeth with his pinky. “Nope.”
You take a step back, cowed. “I’m really sorry.”
He laughs a little, wryly. “I bet you feel better, though.”
You bite back a smile. “Actually…” you say, and he laughs again. You both do.
Somehow, this seems to be the thing that cracks the anger you’ve both been encased in, unable to move forward or backward. You feel melted, and you wonder if he feels freer now, too.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” you say. You mean the kick, but the words land heavy.
He avoids your gaze. “I need some water,” he says, turning and heading to the side of the room.
You do the same, sitting heavily on the bench where your water waits for you.
“Hey,” he says, and you look over, brows raised in anticipation. “Tell me about Alaska.”
You can’t help but smile.
“It’s so beautiful,” you tell him. “God, Cheol, the ocean there. And the birds, and the snow…”
He’s watching you, listening, but while he listens he stands and heads to the center of the ring, settling into a starting form. With a small smile, you follow, standing opposite him. He starts an easy match that’s mostly just following the eighth form. It includes some hits and blocks, but you both do them gently, easily, circling each other slowly.
“So you liked it?” he asks. You can hear how hard he’s working to make it sound casual.
“It was so beautiful,” you admit before ducking below a kick. “But it was also… really hard.”
“What was the best part?” he asks.
You smile, block a hit. He almost gets his hands on you for a flip, but you dodge around behind him. He turns to follow you. “Weirdly, it was taking care of them outside of class. We - the instructors - we kind of their moms, away from home, you know? I’m the one who knew Yejin won’t sleep unless someone sits by her bed for a while. I’m the one that knew that Farrah and Salome only argue because they’re competitive. I’m the one that knew that Maria and Anjali don’t know their times-tables, that Ximena can’t brush her own hair, or that Iseul is allergic to fish. I loved them. I loved knowing them.”
He looks at you for a long time. “Maybe you should go back,” he says finally.
It feels like a trap.
You look at the floor, at the wall, then finally back at him. “If you’ll do this for real,” you say carefully, “then I’d rather be here. If we’re actually trying, then I don’t want to go.”
He’s quiet for a long time. Finally, he swallows hard, not looking at you.
“What was the worst part?”
There’s only one answer.
“Missing you,” you say. “Losing you.”
He manages to get both of your arms and hauls you over his shoulders. You land on your back so hard that the air is knocked out of your lungs and your eyes close protectively. For a second, you lay there panting, waiting for the pain in your back to settle down, waiting for the stars behind your eyelids to calm.
When you open them again, the ceiling coming into focus above you, the room is empty.
–
You have a hunch on where you can find him, and you head to the jaeger bay. Sure enough, he’s sitting below Duellona, knees to his chest, staring up at her.
You sit next to him and he doesn’t get up and leave, which you take as a good sign.
“I can’t do this if you’re not all in,” he tells you without looking at you. “You walked away from me once. I can’t let you back in my head if there’s any possibility you’ll walk away again. If you’re with me, I need you to be with me.”
Something prickles in the back of your head. You feel like you’re starting to realize something - the seed of an understanding is pushing delicately through the dirt, but hasn’t yet spread out its leaves under the warmth of the sun yet.
Something about his hurt. Something about why.
“I think we should try to drift,” you tell him.
This seems to startle him - he forgets to be cold, turns to look at you, eyebrows raised in surprise.
“I can tell you how much I missed you,” you reason, “and tell you about how I spent every minute just… steeped in regret. Or we can walk through it - you can see for yourself.”
You know what you’re risking. If he gets into your head now, he’ll see it all - he’ll know everything, he’ll be able to feel for himself the depth of your loss, the height of your love.
But what’s the harm, now? You can’t lose him twice. Maybe it’ll be enough for him to realize you hadn’t left him because you didn’t care about him. Maybe it’ll be enough for his forgiveness.
Maybe then, he’ll tell the Marshall to let you go back to Alakanuk.
It’s Seungkwan you bother, since he’d been in mission control before finding his team of co-pilots. The sideways look he gives you as he walks to your conn pod is withering, but you know better than to take it personally.
You buzz with nerves. The last time you’d tried this, the neural handshake hadn’t even connected. There had just been nothing.
The second you hear neural handshake initiating, you almost sob with relief. You can’t even pay attention to the memories - Seungcheol’s memories - floating around you; you want to collapse, to press your palms to the ground and thank the universe for letting you back in.
His first memories are a breeze - the ones you’ve jogged through together hundreds of times: his first home, his school, his father’s hospital room, the Dome. Then you slow your pace, because this is new.
You’re facing the landing dock on the Shatterdome’s roof. Seungcheol stands with his back to you, watching through the glass walls as a helicopter waits, the pilot talking into his headset.
You watch yourself walk towards the chopper’s open door. You watch yourself leave, remember how hard it was to not look back.
You hadn’t known that Seungcheol had been there, that he had seen you go.
The pain that accompanies the memory hits you like you’re drowning, like it’s too deep and you can’t feel the bottom, and you feel the machinery falter around you.
“Hey,” you say quietly. “I’m with you.”
He nods, still doesn’t look at you. But the beeping stops, the connection holding.
There’s knowledge in this memory, knowledge in this pain. Seungcheol’s thoughts in this moment read in your head as clearly as if he said them aloud - I did this. I pushed her too far; I made her run.
You can’t stay here, can’t let him wallow in the memory of pain. You had to move forward - that’s how the drift works. Reluctantly you step towards the door, glancing over your shoulder to see if he’s following.
He is. His jaw is tight and fists are clenched, but he is.
When the next memory - not in order of chronology, clearly - appears before you, you want to vanish into the floor. You’re watching yourselves in Seungcheol’s bed. Thankfully, you’re sleeping - this was after. But in the memory, Seungcheol is awake, laying on his side, his eyes drinking in your sleeping form.
The emotions and the knowledge come with it in an instant. The tenderness and the love he felt in that moment surround you now in the memory, unignorable, impossible to mistake.
He had loved you. He had known you loved him, and he was showing you how he felt. The understanding slams you so hard that you think you stop breathing.
“Seungcheol,” you whisper. Around you, the scene begins to flicker, the connection starting to react to the oversaturation of emotion.
“We can talk about it after,” he says, voice hard. “Don’t stay in it. Find the next door.”
Your eyes find the door, but you feel frozen. You want the connection to drop, you want to unlock yourself from the stupid drive-suit and throw yourself into his arms, you want to apologize for leaving him thinking he’d pushed you away, thinking that he scared you into running.
“Cherry,” he warns. “The drift can’t -”
You know.
And you owe him your side of the story.
You take a steeling breath and head for the door. You don’t take his hand. You don’t know if you deserve to, if he’d want you to.
When you step through the doors, you’re confused - you’re still in your dorm. Your bodies are both in the bed.
Now, though, Seungcheol sleeps, and you - the memory of you - sits on the edge of the bed, your head in your hands.
You feel the emotion the memory holds, which means Seungcheol does, too.
Fear. It’s still fear - fear that he’ll know, fear that what you just did together will make it worse, make it harder to hide.
Beside you, Seungcheol’s eyes go wide.
“We have to move on,” you tell him. He looks at you, then back at the memory.
“You -?” he starts to ask.
“After,” you tell him firmly. “We’ll talk after.”
You open the door, and you’re suddenly outside, surrounded by white.
Alaska.
The emotion knocks you over with the fury of an ocean wave - even though you know you’re not supposed to let it. This was how you had felt every day that you were gone, and it screams at you now, determined to be heart, determined to be felt. The loneliness, the regret, the despair and heartbreak all rise up in you, overtaking you, as snow falls gently and silently around you.
And the love. That never went away. That never mellowed, as the Marshall had put it.
If he didn’t know before, he has to know now. There’s no way he couldn’t.
Seungcheol squeezes your hand, and you almost jump. You look down at your linked fingers in shock, then up at him, eyes wide.
“We should go back and talk about this,” he tells you, but his grip on you is firm, assuring.
“Okay. It’s this way,” you tell him, trying to breathe, and you lead him by the hand through the snow. The fog strengthens as you walk, until you can’t see anything but grey, can’t see anything but Seungcheol’s hand in yours.
You continue on. You know where to go. When you step through, the fog vanishes as if it was never there, nothing gradual about it. With the fog gone, you can see clearly where you are - inside Duellona Fury’s conn-pod.
As you begin to work on the straps, you call through the intercom, “Kwan? We… need some privacy. We’ve got to talk - alone.”
His voice crackles back at you. “Yes, I’m leaving, I’m already gone. If you hear popcorn crunching, no you don’t.”
Seungcheol gives you a flat look. “Let’s go home and talk,” he suggests.
Home.
You are so afraid and so hopeful. You don’t know how to juggle both.
Back in your small living space, you sit like you’re meditating.
“Let’s figure this out,” he says. “No lies.”
“No lies,” you agree. Your knees touch, and you reach to take his hands. He lets you, giving your fingers a squeeze.
“You knew,” you say first, bordering on accusation. “I was trying so hard to hide how I felt about you… but you knew.”
He nods, his eyes on you. “And you,” he says slowly, “didn’t… know? That I knew?”
You shake your head, confirming. “I didn’t know. I thought I hid it.”
He smiles at you, a little placating. “Not as well as you would have liked.”
“And you…” You chicken out, swallow, force yourself to be brave. “You… loved me, too?”
He nods. “I did.”
The air leaves your lungs so forcefully that you bend over, pressing your forehead to the tops of your hands. He pulls his hands from yours and you feel his touch, firm and reassuring, cupping your shoulders and rubbing his thumbs along them.
“We felt the same,” you echo into your shins. “You loved me.”
“Cherry,” he says above you, his voice like a plea. “I don’t understand why - when we… when I… I felt like once I forced you to look at it, it was too much. You ran.”
You sit with this for a minute, stunned and processing. His hands are back in yours, which you take as a good sign.
“You thought… wait. You thought, after that night, that I knew how you felt, too?”
He nods. “I thought you knew,” he says, confusion still present in his tone. “I thought we both knew. I thought if it was out in the open, the glitch in the drift would be fixed.”
You wipe at your face, trying to breathe. “And instead,” you realize, “we couldn’t even connect, because I was still trying to hide it from you, and then you were hurt. I thought it was broken. I thought we really broke it forever.”
He looks at you in wonder. “That’s why you left,” he breathes, and you know he’s understanding this for the first time. “You thought we made the problem worse.”
It’s your turn to nod. “After we…I mean, I knew if I couldn’t hide it from you before that night, there was no chance I’d be able to hide it after. I kept you out in the first place because I… was afraid. I was afraid for you to see how much I loved you. It seemed… hopeless to keep trying.”
The words lay bloody between you, but his grip on your hands is strong, and you take another breath.
You push on, adding, “I was afraid it would be too much. I was afraid everything would change.”
Which it did, you think. He nods, like he hears this, like he agrees.
He releases you and leans back, blowing out a loud breath. “We’re so fucking stupid,” he says, and you splutter out a laugh.
“We really are.”
“I can’t believe we lost three years over that,” he says.
“I can’t believe you thought it was your fault that I left.”
“I can’t believe you left in the first place.”
This makes you smile, guilty. “That’s fair.”
You push yourself to stand; Seungcheol mirrors you, as if you’re already in the neural handshake, bodies working in tandem.
“Cherry,” he says quietly, stepping closer. “It could never be too much. I love you. I’m crazy about you. I’m only me when I’m with you.”
You remember him, the night you’d slept together, telling you, don’t be afraid. He’d told you, after all, and you’d missed it entirely.
You close the distance between your bodies and kiss him hard. His arms circle your waist immediately, like they were waiting for you. He kisses you back hungrily. His mouth meets yours eagerly, his tongue stroking yours confidently before he shifts his attention to your jaw, your neck, then your mouth again. His hands don’t wander this time - instead he holds you so firmly it almost hurts, like he won’t let you move an inch, won’t let you out of his grasp ever again.
You cradle his face between your hands, let your teeth gently scrape along his bottom lip. “Cheol,” you whisper, then kiss him again. “You’re everything.” It’s what you should have said aloud the night you’d slept with him.
When the kiss breaks, he presses his lips to the top of your head and holds them there, melting around you a little. You give his middle a squeeze, revel in his heartbeat surrounding you like music.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m sorry I didn’t just say it.”
“Me too,” you tell him, holding him just a little tighter. “I should never have tried to hide it from you in the first place.”
He kisses your temple, and you hold each other, silently, each grappling with the time you’d wasted apart.
You’re interrupted by a knock. You break apart, puzzled. You’re even more puzzled to see your Marshall at the door, and Seungkwan literally bouncing on the balls of his feet in excitement.
“I’ve heard your drift is working again,” the Marshall says dryly.
You look over your shoulder at Seungcheol, grinning. “Seems like it.”
“There’s a Cat-1 reading in the bay. I was about to alarm for Pretty Savage to drop, but Savage’s team insisted I give you the opportunity first. They can follow as backup. How do you feel?”
Seungcheol is at your side. He looks at you, his face open and raw. “Well?” he asks you. “Are you in, or are you out?”
“I’m in,” you tell him seriously. “I’m with you.”
You thrum with excitement as a tech team helps strap you into the drive-suits, and you can’t help but shoot Seungcheol a wild grin, your happiness alive and unbounded.
You tell mission control - Nainsi, probably, just like the old days - “Ready and aligned.”
Mission Control - definitely Nainsi - responds, “Prepare for neural handshake.”
The artificial voice bounces around you - 3… 2… 1… neural handshake initiating…
Around you, the machines flicker busily. Neural handshake strong and holding. Now calibrating…
You’re crying, but you ignore it. You beam through tears, looking sideways at your co-pilot. His eyes dance as he smiles back at you. You want to unstrap yourself to the drivesuit and go kiss his dimples, the dimples you hadn’t seen in years. You resist the urge.
“Ready to drop?” He looks sideways at you, sly.
You scoff at him, your own grin cocky and sure, like you’re twenty again, like nothing had ever been broken between you. “Been ready. Let’s light ‘em up.”
– end
thank you so much for reading!!!!
stay tuned for more fics in this universe! Wylie and Chan will get their own fic written by @sailorrhansol, as will Woozi! I'm also planning a Vernon x Reader in this universe, too! Should be a fun time!!
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mountebank chem pt. one (JYH x reader).
part of the love's an uncharted path universe ★.
SUMMARY:
* 𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐤: 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫𝐲.
The first time you met Yunho, you knew he was going to be part of the biggest tragedy of your life: the loss of your freedom, of your free will. You didn't know why back then but what you did figure out is that you and Jeong Yunho were going to, eventually and very publicly, date each other at some point. Is that reason enough to hate his guts? Well, of course! Now, when the time comes to fulfill the prophecy, how the hell are you going to pull it off? And, most importantly, what do you need to do to not fall in love with him in the process?
PAIRING: rich!yunho x rich!reader.
GENRE: enemies to friends to lovers.
WORD COUNT: 9,7k.
WARNINGS: eventual SMUT ☽ (MINORS DNI) attempt !!! at comedy, crying, mentions of drinking and drug usage, mature language, petty behavior, insults, yunho and reader really hate each other i fear, pet names (princess), negative mentions of body image, panic attacks/panic disorder, negative??? (or so they think) tension. no smut on this part, it's an introduction to these two characters, their families and the chaos they bring to poor yunho's and readers life.
NOTES: hi everyone! i know i posted the hwa fic ten days ago or so, but i wanted to get started with this mini series that is PART OF THE LOVE'S AN UNCHARTED PATH / SHOW & TELL UNIVERSE. there's mentions of the last installment plot so, if you're new around here, you can always find the rest of the stories on my masterist! this is 100% self indulgent, as all fics should be, and i think i've re-read it so many times that if you find a typo or something that just doesn't make sense, you can blame it on english not being my first language i guess lmao. i hope you enjoy it and if you do feel free to send to my askbox/reblog/type in any feedback or thoughts! <3
POSTED: september 14th 2024.
permanent taglist: @hotteokkay, @potatomountain, @fairylover68, @e3ellie, @alsomimi
masterlist. / part two / part three.
A trembling finger is all you can see in the still dim light of the room.
It's quiet, very quiet. You haven't heard anything but your thoughts all night. It grosses you out, so you wait for the clock to turn to six and press the button you've been hovering on for, at least, half an hour.
Park Seonghwa is your only hope right now.
The conversation doesn't go as planned.
“No, I will not go to the party with you and no, I will not pretend to be your boyfriend.”
Not even your great pitch could've turned him around to help you. Sighing, you replay the conversation in your pounding head.
“This is very inconvenient for me but I hope you and the cool girl I saw yesterday are happy together… Even if it ruins my happiness forever!”
Your happiness was probably ruined the day you were born. Sighing again, you turn to the window.
It’s raining.
You didn’t notice until you ended the call that was, if you’re being honest with yourself, your last resource.
Brain rotting away the entire night, wine drunk and edible high, you didn’t even notice the rain accompanied you through your misery.
The sound of the droplets hitting your studio window and the sun trying to break through the gloomy clouds adds insult to injury: You’re running out of time.
Any time now, your mother is going to call you up to let you know you’re possibly getting promised tonight. Not engaged, but promised and presented.
Like you’re some sort of property your parents can give away.
Nails connecting with your glass desk, the noise syncs up with the rain pattering on your window sill and, to your tired mind, it also mimics the tic-tacking an old clock would make.
You figured, if you show up with someone on your arm tonight, they might finally leave you alone.
And not marry you off to Jeong Yunho.
There’s not enough hours in the day to plan a perfect escape, there’s not enough will left inside you to reach out to someone else and make everything seem genuine, organic, like you’ve known each other for years and kept it a secret all this time.
There's not enough time to save yourself.
Because there's this… unspoken agreement you’ve known about since you were eight.
Your parents and Yunho’s parents are friends. Your mom went to school with his mom and your dad met his dad when they were teenagers and they all got married off respectively because it was what worked for their families at the time so, after hearing the superficial love story at the age of seven, you knew you were going to meet the same fate eventually.
And the next year, you met Yunho.
He was an hyperactive little kid with a lot of energy and facts about the earth you didn’t care to listen to because the second you started playing with him in his huge backyard and turned to check if your mother was watching you, you realized that was not a casual playdate.
Smiling ear to ear, both your mother and his, it signaled to you that it has started.
Your planned love story with Jeong Yunho had sailed smoothly in their eyes and there was nothing you could do about it.
Naturally, you have hated him since then. But you were taught etiquette and were media trained since you turned three and could form complete sentences, so your hatred only really showed when you two were alone.
Turns out, he didn’t really care if you liked him or not.
He’s always been good at pretending as well.
That chirpy personality, kindness and humbleness he exudes in front of everyone else? An act.
And you were proud of yourself when you saw right through his bullshit when you were both eleven and left alone so he could show you around their new, bigger house.
Gone too soon was that child who wanted to teach you about worms in his backyard and in its place there was this distant tween who’s smile disappeared as soon as your mothers were out of sight.
“Listen, I don’t know why we’re being forced to hang out but I don’t like you.”
Dumb kid.
“Good, because I don't like you either but they can’t find that out.”
He scoffed, crossing his arms and frowning at you “I’m planning on telling mommy that you… chased me around with a knife or something, so she can see how psycho you actually are and stop forcing me to be around you!”
Eyes lighting up, that was the first time you saw a possible escape from all of this “You think that would actually work?”
Annoyed and a little freaked out, Yunho pointed at the smirk on your lips “See? That’s exactly what I mean: Psycho.”
And you both only grew hostile at each other since then. Sure, saving face in front of your parents and older siblings was necessary to not get scolded and revoked of your privileges (and you actually liked to be alone with him, only if it meant you could take a break from your mother and her judging gaze), but pretending to like Yunho proved to be more difficult than what you had imagined.
Especially when you both outgrew the phase where you tried anything and everything under the sun to piss the other off. Not so harmless pranks were pulled and the petty behavior got you both in trouble with your oldest brothers a couple of times but, no matter how hard you tried, it never “accidentally” got to your mother. Or his, for that matter.
So when you two stopped trying to get your point across and grew cold towards one another, that's when it got really ugly. Vile words cut through both of your egos harshly, family vacations that include his were uncomfortable and holidays were your personal hell.
December thirty-first and January first have always felt like purgatory. Christmas was always spared because you have family living on the other side of the world who you travel to see every year but it's never truly enjoyable when you know that, in the next couple of days after that, you'll see his dumb face.
But you have always smiled brightly at him and hugged him when he comes in with his unnecessary luggage at your home. You hold his arm and bat your eyelashes when you know your mom is watching from a distance and it all but confuses him every single time.
Remembering the time you both were thirteen and you went through very sudden puberty makes you smile. The look on his face when your kitty heels helped show how tall you got over the summer was fantastic.
“Look at what the cat brought in!” Scrunching your nose and squeezing his cheeks in fake affection, you noticed it took a lot for him to not swat your hands away.
But you also remember noticing that he was blushing when you pulled away.
“You look like a very ugly gigant,” he whispered with a smile, matter of factly and all “It doesn't really suit you.”
He was a pain in the ass. A manageable pain in the ass, but a pain nonetheless.
It all took a wrong turn when he caught up on your mothers plans by age fifteen. By that age, you've known for a while and the mercy you had on him, on explaining everything you believed to be true, was simply a way of keeping everything at arm's length from you.
The second he put two and two together, your guesses had automatically turned into a possible reality you couldn't cope with.
A reality that's about to hit you in the face and leave a bruise that doesn't really go with your polished image.
The rain picks up and you close your eyes in hopes of coming up with a new idea.
It only makes your headache worse.
You really should get going with your day.
There's appointments you need to get to, meetings you have to fill the space in because your brother is going to fail to show up as usual and you have to get your hair and make-up done for tonight.
You really shouldn't be crying right now.
Are you even allowed to cry?
Your fate was probably decided the day you were born, five months and a few days after Yunho.
“Shit.”
Sobbing is useless, so you get in the shower. You do your skincare routine and plan the outfit you're going to wear to the office while you cover your eyebags and try to make it look seamless, natural even.
If the struggle shows up in your face, you're going to get yelled at downstairs.
Living with your parents might be a bigger nightmare than getting presented with Yunho tonight but there's really nothing you can do about that, either.
Working in their company, gaining connections through them and being praised by simply having your last name attached to your first makes you completely useless when faced with a situation where you simply want to tell your mom to fuck off.
“Y/N, I hope you already weighed down the options for the dress you're wearing tonight,” is what greets you when you enter the dining room, breakfast laid out perfectly across the table both your parents sit at. She's glancing at you in warning “And I hope you know that the navy blue dress is the best option. It's on theme and it's classy, it shows your figure too.”
Fuck off.
You might've been taught a bunch of things while growing up in this tinsel bubble but never ever were you taught how to stand up for yourself.
It shows in the way you nod and smile and sit down on your designated spot next to your dad and in front of your mom.
“Navy dress it is, ma'am.”
The nod she gives in approval makes you nauseous. At least she's not saying anything about Yunho.
“Excellent choice, dear.”
You swallow the food on your pre-portioned plate with a tight throat and, after sipping your black coffee, you turn to your dad.
Feeling a little delirious on lack of sleep and a little bold, especially when it comes to work related matters, you take the opportunity to press on the other thing that kept bothering you the entire night.
“Father—”
He sees right through you.
“No, Y/N. It's not an open discussion, the deal is signed and sealed.”
“It's not a smart choice.”
“Kim Y/N!” slamming her utensils down on the table and making everything shake in the process, you barely flinch at your mothers warning “Are you calling your father dumb?”
“No, of course I'm not,” you defend yourself immediately, the softness in your voice hanging by a thread because all you want to do is scream at her to stop putting words in your mouth “All I'm saying is that he's too generous. That company is not profitable and he gave them half a floor in the building and an initial investment that's going to backfire,” you calmly explain to her what you told him the day before “There’s not really a market for physical media anymore.”
“And they're trying to bring it back,” your father returns, his eyes never straining from his food “I think it's a great idea. You said a couple of months ago that eighties and nineties style is coming back.”
“As a trend,” you remind him with a tight smile “And trends tend to die down rather quickly.”
“Soohyun approved it,” he finally looks up and his next words have you biting your tongue bitterly “You don't have a say on the final decision and you know it.”
Damn right you fucking know it.
“Are we clear on that?”
Glancing at your mother, you notice how she's picking on her food to try and avoid sticking up for you. Not that she normally would but you think, as the years pass, the mistreatment must give her some sort of guilty feeling she can only escape if she avoids your eyes.
Straightening your spine, you fix your face and smile with fake acceptance “Yes, sir.”
The tinsel bubble brings in unnecessary amounts of money and privilege, but it doesn't really save you from tradition and misogyny.
Soohyun is the firstborn, after all.
He's also a complete fucking idiot.
You love him a lot, but he's completely useless when it comes to this business.
Although trained separately and for completely different positions, you always paid close attention to the company.
You studied hard, you graduated early at the top of your class and went to business school as soon as you were able to. You even got to be valedictorian last year at your graduation and even then you knew you weren't getting your father's role once he took a step back from being the face of the company.
But you couldn't help but wish.
Wishing and imagining was your way of coping with it. What if you were born a boy instead? You surely wouldn't be in this predicament.
What if your brother wasn't pampered the way he was growing up? You surely didn't have to step in to save apparences with your employees.
Your day to day would probably flow so much smoothly if he actually wanted to do his job like he should.
Heels clacking on the marble floor, you strut the hallway into his office to aggravate your headache just a bit more: The space is a mess and when you glance at the tree you started to paint on his wall when he asked you to help him quietly turn the space around but never got to finish it brings your mind to the man who declined your offer this morning.
And the clock in your mind starts ticking again, faster and louder this time.
Soohyun’s voice comes out of a corner in the big office, behind some piled up boxes “Well that's not good.”
Snapping out of it and turning to him, you cock your head to the side “What is it?”
“You,” he comes out of his hiding spot, suit barely ironed and hair a little messy which makes you cringe “Usually, you complain as soon as you close that door,” he points at it with a tiny and concerned smile “So now I'm worried they cloned and replaced you, sis.”
“Well, you made a mistake yesterday and there's nothing I can do now to cover it up so,” raising your arms before tossing your purse on the free loveseat that serves as his lounging area, you sigh “Nothing to complaint about today, except—” you squint your eyes, making a show of pretending to be thinking about it “Oh! I'm probably getting married off tonight.”
The fake happiness laced in your tone makes your brother scoff. He walks to his desk, sitting down on his chair and shaking his head in disapproval.
“It's not an engagement, Y/N. It's more of a… Public relations matter.”
“Oh, so you agree with it?” Blood pressure skyrocketing, you quickly make your way across the space until you stand in front of him “You're fine with it?!”
“Don't act like you didn't already know this was going to happen eventually,” leaning back, he gives you an apologetic look. That's how you know there's nothing he can do about it either “Jeong Tech is the largest investor, or primary partner and basically the first big successful business we helped to launch here.”
The explanation is unnecessary. You know. You know he knows you know.
“And after the stocks falling over that little… Hiccup they had last year—”
“The selling clients information hiccup.” You recall with a tight smile.
Soohyun gulps.
“Yes, that, they need to rekindle their image with the press and, in the process, we gain a few reputation points in the market by association. You know how this works,” looking away for a moment, he bites the inside of his cheek before pressing on “And you two are loved and shipped by everyone online already. Grandmas swoon at the potential TVN drama they could make about your love story.”
What fucking love story?
It's more like a gruesome, slashy horror movie to you.
“Okay, is that why they don't marry me to Gunho instead?”
“No, Y/N, they don't marry you off to Gunho because he's in love and soon to be engaged to a complete nobody,” he responds right away with a shrug “Besides, you and Yunho—”
“We hate each other. We—”
“Now, I wouldn't say that—”
“—Completely and utterly despise one another. He's the unwanted dirt under my Louis Vuitton heel, he's the bee I want to kill but can't because they are needed for the environment,” you continue without taking a breath “He's somehow needed to this environment,” meaning the company “Although he's attending a public university and detaches himself from his responsibilities because he already has a brother who actually takes care of it all, unlike me!”
Soohyun doesn't seem hurt at that and you're annoyed he's not. That he knows you well enough to know you're trying to sink your claws into his pride because yours is flat lining as the minutes pass.
That does nothing but fuel your anger.
“Unlike me,” you repeat “Who has to take care of your responsibilities because you are too busy playing renovation simulator in your stupid office to attend your meetings! Because if you did attend them you would know yesterday’s decision was a mistake and—”
“There it is!”
“—You're going to cost us millions of won for nothing.”
Soohyun sighs and the way the scowls at the scattered papers on his desk lets you know he's not about to entertain this conversation any longer.
For the third time today, you are about to lose. And you're a sore loser.
“You're not getting engaged,” he reminds you, standing up and fixing his hair with his hand, his expression kind and sweet like you didn't just yell at him “You don't have to marry Yunho.”
You scoff “For now.”
“Or never, if you don't want to,” rounding his desk, Soohyun pats your head softly like you're a child “Just pretend for a bit and then let him break your heart publicly so that the media doesn't treat you like a stoned hearted bitch.”
“I am a stoned hearted bitch.”
He shakes his head “You're not but even if you were no one has the right to call you that,” your expression softens and you kind of want to cry at that, but you don't “Except me. Now, we have a meeting to go to, don't we?”
Duty calls, like it always does. Your brother steps away and rushes to the door.
Grabbing your purse and following him out, you fix your own hair in the reflection of the glass separating the cubicles from the hall “Do you even know what it is about?”
He smiles back at you “Nope but you're going to tell me on the way there anyway.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don't.”
The call comes after the meeting, when the sun is finally breaking fully through the clouds and your headache is starting to go away.
Only to come back in full force once you see Yunho’s face as soon as you make your way to your own living room.
Wearing a formal black blazer with matching trousers and a white shirt, the asshole doesn't even spare a glance at you even when you're sure he knows you just walked in.
The room started to fill with negative energy. He must have felt it, right? But he doesn't show it.
He's on the phone, eyebrows almost melting together as he pays attention to what the person on the line is saying.
“What do you mean he met this girl two days ago?”
Oh, he's gossiping. Your eyes almost meet the back of your skull when you roll them and, with a sigh, you throw your purse at him.
He catches it without making that much of an effort.
Asshole.
“End the call.”
“Wait, wait,” he covers the microphone with his hand and frowns at you instead “Shut it up, princess, this is an important call.”
“Princess? Who are you calling princess?” It's not hard to hear the person on the other line, a poor confused guy, talking back.
“My mother's friend’s daughter,” he shoots back and gives you a tired look, putting the phone to his ear again and signaling you to close your mouth “Anyways, is Seonghwa sure he wants to introduce us to her? Isn't it too soon?”
At the name, you perk up. Gears turn in your head, one by one because you're tired and your machinery probably needs another coffee to oil everything up there, but then it hits you.
That's where you knew Park Seonghwa from.
You were not proud of yourself for letting curiosity tickle you enough to check Yunho’s instagram page merely six months ago. On your burner account, of course, the one with a fake name and fake pictures so that people don't know you stalk them when you're bored.
There's this picture on his finsta where they're all sitting around a bonfire. It looked cozy, like they actually love each other which is a crazy concept for you.
All your friends are fake. Also, the concept of a bonfire is insane. Bugs? Acoustic guitars and careless laughter?
Insane.
But it seemed genuine the first time you saw it and it made you burn with jealousy of a life you could never have.
And in that picture, Yunho was hugging Park Seonghwa.
Huh. You wonder what would've happened if he accepted your proposal earlier today.
“Well, okay, uhm… I probably can't tonight. I know I said— Yes, Wooyoung, I know,” he sighs deeply as you sit down right in front of him, one leg over the other with rehearsed poise “I’ll see you all at Hongjoong's gig this weekend, yeah? Okay, bye… I love you too, oh my god,” he giggles and you frown, disgusted “Bye.”
You immediately go for it.
“Your boyfriend?”
“My husband,” his smile is fake and tight and it makes you want to punch him in the face “That's what I'm telling our mothers in fifteen minutes, by the way.”
Rolling your eyes again, you let out a tired breath “As if that would ever stop them.”
“So I reckon you know what's going on?”
“You don't?” eyebrow rising inquisitively and expression turning into a pitiful one, you wonder if that's why he seems so laid back at the moment “Please, indulge me and tell me you do.”
“Of course I know what's going to happen,” scoffing, he crosses his arms and looks at the living room double doors “Just trying to figure out if you're out of the loop so I can put you up to speed on our escape.”
“Oh, please,” you huff out a bitter laugh “If you really wanted to escape you would have been out of the country by now. Don't pretend you're not a people pleaser, Yunho,” looking back at you, that familiar wrath burns in his brown eyes and it makes you smirk “Passing the opportunity to hang out with Park Seonghwa and the rest of your public university crew is not usually what you do. You were probably given an ultimatum by your mother and that's why you're here, isn't it?”
Watching his expression shift from annoyance to confusion to anger in the span of seconds gives you the satisfaction your lost fights of the day took away from you.
“She's really pretty, by the way. His new girlfriend, the mechanic,” you smile, moving your eyes to the ceiling like you're trying to remember something “Didn't catch her name, though. Tell her I say hi when you see her. Oh, and tell Mr. Park I say hi as well. You don't really have to explain to anyone how you know me after tonight anyway.”
“How the hell do you know them?” he's full on frowning now and the corners of your lips twitch in amusement “Are you stalking me, Y/N?”
“Wouldn't you like that, hm?” clicking your tongue in disappointment of his guess, you rest your arms over your knees and lean your weight on them, like you're about to share your secret “I always know everything, Yunho. It's my superpower.”
He imitates your movements, jaw clenched and chest heaving “And here I thought it was being spoiled and annoying.”
Shaking your head, you lean a little further now “You're so silly, Yun, you know that's yours… When will you stop projecting your shit on me?”
“When you stop ruining my fucking life.”
Oh, he's so easy to mess with.
“Glad to know you think I have that much power over you,” you bite the inside of your cheek for a second and then sigh loudly and dramatically “Sadly, I can't control what my parents want me to do. Or do you really think I would choose you, the hypocrite who pretends to run away from his responsibilities, out of all the men in the industry?”
That cuts deep. His face lets you know it does, you also know it's hypocritical on your side to criticize him for getting the treatment you wanted to get to begin with.
He leans in a bit more “As if I would ever choose you, the most cold hearted snake out of the elite.”
Fuck him.
You lean in more, chin up “Mama’s boy.”
Doing the same, he griths out: “Spoiled brat.”
“Rakehell.”
“Psychopath.”
Laughing, you dismiss the fact that your noses are almost touching to shoot back “I hope you enjoy the way the media is going to tear you apart when it comes out that you cheated on me, asshole.”
“And I hope you enjoy when Dispatch digs up what you did at that party four years ago, princess. Falling off a table for mixing your drinks and your drugs and yelling at the staff as they tried to helped you out is quite embarrassing, isn't it?” he returns immediately and it fails to intimidate you but the fact that he knows about that angers you and it sparks in your eyes, so he smirks “Not that I would ever leak that information, of course.”
“You stupid fucking—”
“Ah, good! You're both here already.”
Pulling apart and standing up, you both try to regulate your breathing and conceal your flustered state as your mom and his walk straight towards you.
They're here early, you think. You couldn't possibly have argued with Yunho for fifteen minutes straight.
“I beg you save the public displays of affection for later, though,” his mom says and with a hand on your back she directs you to sit on the sofa Yunho was occupying before. You sit and he does too and you both make sure to leave enough space for the holy spirit and all deities in between you “We're going to need them for the cameras.”
Uncomfortable, you fidget on your seat until the warning look from your mother forces you to stop. Yunho gulps beside you, probably just as uncomfortable as you.
Both women smile brightly like they're not about to lay on you the saddest news of your life.
“As you both know, tonight's gala is a celebration of the twenty years Jeong Tech and Kim’s Innovation have joined creative forces and built the empire we have the pleasure to see unfold today…”
Is your mother reciting your dads speech? It sounds robotic, rehearsed, fake and forced and it's not something new from her but you hate it either way.
“And in celebration of our families friendship, loyalty and alliance,” Yunho’s mom continues and you take in a breath “We're finally making your relationship public!”
Finally?
“Finally?” Yunho asks and you lick your lips “Mom, Auntie… We don't have a relationship.” He tells them plain and simple and you don't look at him when you nod in compliance with the statement.
“Oh, you two have been in love since forever!” His mother dismisses what she just heard “It's only fair to finally let everyone confirm it. This way, you can actually be seen together without our public relations team having to rush to cover everything up.”
That has never happened. You prefer to stay as far away from Yunho as possible when your free will is actually yours to live with.
“Mom, we—”
“We are friends, obviously,” you interrupt Yunho before he dives head first into the depths of hell and his head snaps to you, eyebrows creasing a bit “But it's very much platonic. I don't feel—”
“Yes you do,” your mother interferes, tone stern and fake smile falling for a second as a result before she composes herself “You have loved him since you both were kids and he saved you from falling in the pool at you tenth birthday,” that never happened and slowly but surely you realize they have a whole story planned out for you “And you, Yunho, realized you loved her when she stayed by your side when you had the flu at age thirteen. When she cried over your high fever and came over everyday until you got better. Right?”
The question floats in the air for what feels like eons and she has successfully shut you up for good.
You knew, when you first met Jeong Yunho, there was no way of escaping this.
And he, ever so hopeful and foolish, can't seem to accept it the way you do.
Standing up, he looks at his mother with so much hurt you wonder if you still have that amount of delusion inside of you “You can't do this to us!”
“Dear, do not raise your voice at me—”
“This is the stupidest idea you had yet! I don't care how many years you've been planning this, it's not fair!” He paces around the space and you sigh, looking down at your lap. His voice echoes around the living room and you can practically feel your mom scowl with annoyance at the recklessness “You can't marry me off to someone like it's the eighteenth century! This is ridiculous, I—”
“You'll do it,” his mother stands up as well, voice firmer than you have ever heard. She's a soft spoken woman, a sweet woman even. She's never raised her voice in your presence and you don't let it show how by surprise it takes you “And you know what happens if you don't.”
You don't know why you relate to the pained expression on his face. You really shouldn't because you two are, clearly, on two different ends when it comes to pleasing your family.
His family seems loving, the way his mother treated him growing up felt so genuine you always wished you could switch places with him. Even at times where they thought they were alone in the room and you hid to witness the cracks on the foundation of their love, it never happened.
Until now, when he storms off and she seems rather unaffected by his pain. What she gives off is annoyance, just like your mother, she's annoyed that this didn't go as smoothly as imagined. She moves to follow him.
“Jeong Yunho!”
After she leaves the room, there's screaming in the distance, probably at the end of the long hallway. And then, there's silence until your mother breaks it.
“Well that was an unfortunate mess.”
Your throat feels like it's closing up but you push through it, standing up when your mother does too.
“Mother, I don't really think this is the best way to—”
She frowns at you.
“What are you wearing? A suit?”
“W-what?”
Dumbfounded, you look down at your choice of outfit that she saw this morning and then back up at her.
“I understand there's really nothing that can be done about your body shape but wearing silhouettes like these makes you look very masculine, Y/N.”
She's doing that thing where she belittles you into submission. Vulnerable because of what you just lived and what you just witnessed, you stand there and take it.
“And are you wearing makeup? Your eyebags, darling… I can't believe you let Yunho see you in this state.”
If only she knew you stayed awake the entire night trying to sabotage her plans.
This triggers you beyond belief. It starts with your heartbeat picking up, with your inner child begging you to stand up for yourself and banging at the walls of the safe you locked her up so many years ago.
When you both hear footsteps coming down the hallway, she looks down at her watch and your chest starts heaving.
“You need to get your hair and makeup done in an hour and a half. No need to go to the salon, I arranged things and they're coming over,” she informs you camly, putting on her fake smile when Yunho’s mom sighs at the doorway and when she turns away from you to get to her and loop her arm around hers, you catch his eye as he makes his way to you “Now, how about I show you what they did with the garden, dear.”
They walk away from the wreckage with a giggle that only raises your panic.
The fire of it burns your pride, your self image and your capability of keeping it together in front of your sworn enemy.
It doesn't help that he comes in with full vengeance, ready to take out on you what he obviously couldn't take out on his mom.
“Why didn't you say anything?!” his voice fills the room once again and you physically recoil, which makes him reconsider. He looks you over once and then takes a deep breath before pressing “Why did you tell them that we're friends? We're not friends, Y/N! You should've… You should've told them that you hated me, that y-you were in love with somebody else, anything!”
Tears cloud your vision and you can only reply in a faint whisper that sounds far away “Yunho, shut up.”
“Are you seriously letting them get away with this?” his index points at the door and he looks at you like he doesn't know you. He doesn't but he does know what your family is like, so you don't know why it surprises him “Are you seriously going along with this stupid charade?!”
Air leaves you. You can't breath but you try to and you faintly hear him say something else but it sounds bottled up, like you're underwater.
“I c-cant.” You try again but it barely comes out.
Breathing in with your mouth, you close your eyes and focus on the way your head pulses. Migraine in full force, it only aggravates the feeling of complete loss of control over your body. But your feet move before you can think, to the couch, to look through your purse because damn it if he finds out.
He follows you.
“Is this some sort of sick revenge against me or—”
They're not there. Why didn't you bring them with you today of all days?
God damn it. Yunho is, somehow, still talking.
“Because if we don't go out there and let them know that—”
“Yunho, shut the fuck up! Stop it!”
Turning around with tears streaming down your face and hyperventilating seems to shut him up for good.
“What's wrong?”
He stops, breathing hard with a confused look on his face and his eyes follow you when you quickly move around him to get out of the room.
“Y/N, wait—”
You don't wait to see if he's following you upstairs. You only know he is because when you trip midway, his hands are there to catch you.
Physical contact with him is so strange and unfamiliar that you have to push his helping hands away and, quickly and still hardly breathing, you make your way to your room.
Neatly done by the staff assigned to ready it up everyday before you get home, the order gets destroyed by your panicked state. You look through your vanity drawers messily, full on sobbing and mumbling incoherently as you do and you slam your fist down on the thing when you fail to find your pills.
“Where the fuck is it?!” You sob out, hand hurting and shaking until you fall to the ground.
You try to recenter, pressing your shaky palms into the soft material of the carpet and sinking your nails hard in it until it starts bunching up beneath your fingers. Eyes closed, you can't see when Yunho knees down next to you but you do jump in fear when his hand touches your arm.
Looking at him, you see when he removes his hand until, hesitantly, he places it firmly on your shoulder “I need you to breathe with me, Y/N,” he starts demonstrating, breathing in once, holding it in for a few seconds and letting the air go next. You choke out a sob “Breathe with me so you can tell me what I can get you.”
You want to scream at him to stop pretending to care and get out but you can't.
Instead, you listen to him. You breathe in when he does, hold the air a second longer than him and let it out afterwards. You do a few rounds of this, just staring at him with tears still falling down your cheeks until the fog in your brain starts clearing.
It's agonizingly slow and it pains you to let yourself be seen in these circumstances, especially by him.
“Now, what were you looking for?”
Coughing uncomfortably, you attempt to get up the floor but he stops you from doing so “You can leave, Yunho, I can get it myself.”
“You're shaking, Y/N,” it takes for him so say it to look down at your hands, which are barely grasping the carpet now and just hovering above it as they tremble “What do you need?”
“My pills,” you tell him in a murmur after a few seconds, closing your eyes because, to you, this whole thing is very embarrassing “I don't remember where I put them, m-maybe in my nightstand?”
“Drugs?” he asks with a frown and you shake your head, too panicky to get offended at the insinuation “Ah, actual pills, I see, um…” He gets up and you open your eyes to him walking over to your bed, sitting down to open up the drawer of your nightstand “You have a lot of shit here. What do they look like?”
“Prescription bottle, not a blister. Translucent, white cap.” You're taking control over your own body now, breathing starting to normalize and mind syncing up with the situation again.
Your head hurts still, but it's better than five minutes ago.
“Here it is,” you hear him say and he's on his knees next to you a second later. You take the bottle from his hand, unscrew the cap as fast as you can and shake it to get a pill out of it “It was behind a bunch of stuff. I'll get you some—” putting the pill on your mouth, you crane your head back and force yourself to swallow it “Water.” He finishes in a whisper.
When you look back at him, he looks a little freaked out.
“What?”
“N-nothing… Do you still need some—”
“No. Thank you for getting me these, you can leave now.”
Your tone is cold. The memory of him yelling at you downstairs returns so now you're pissed off and still very, very vulnerable. He's not allow to see you this way or any way for that matter.
But he just did.
He stays still and you're about to ask him if he didn't hear you or what but then you follow his eyes and notice he's staring at the way you hands still shake a little while trying to get the cap on the bottle again. You presume he's trying to read the label on it, too.
“How long have you had them?”
“The pills? This is a new prescription, so like… A month or so.”
He sighs, closing his eyes and sitting fully on the floor next to you “You know what I'm talking about, Y/N.”
Looking away, you hate that the cat is out of the bag. If only your mother didn't comment on your appearance maybe, just maybe, you could've keep the secret to yourself and take it to the grave with you.
You hate that Yunho, out of all people, found out.
But he helped you, so you decide to please him with an answer.
“I started getting them when I was ten, I think. I didn't know what was happening for a while and then at fourteen I learned what a panic attack was,” you recall, tone sounding breathy and tired and a little annoyed. He nods “And then I got officially diagnosed with panic disorder at twenty, so not that long ago.”
Eyes back at him, you see him frown and then nod again as if the information you just gave him is hard to digest. It's not, it's actually extremely normal for someone like you.
It makes you wonder if he has ever felt the same.
Taking another calming breath, you speak again “I would appreciate if you keep this in between us. Not tell your brother or anything,” you clarify before he can respond “Because your brother is going to tell my brother who is going to tell my mom and that's a whole disaster I don't really want to deal with.”
“They don't know?”
“Of course they don't know,” a bitter laugh makes it past your lips “If they knew, don't you think I would be the image of a visibility campaign against anxiety or something like that?”
“They're your family, though.”
“Blood is thicker than water but I'm allowed to have my secrets,” it's pathetic, the way your vision clouds once more and tears trail their path down your face once nor3 “And you of all people know how exploitative they are, so don't tell them.”
What happens next takes your breath away again. Not for the reason you expect but it does and, for the first time in your life, Jeong Yunho is able to make your brain malfunction.
You don't really think he realizes his hand is on your cheek, thumb whipping away your tears so softly it turns to you to a puddle right away
The last time someone handled you with that much care was…
Never?
Unable to look away, you catch the second he notices what he's doing and, by the time he does, he already leaned in a fraction into your space.
Snapping out the weird, dizzy moment you two just had, he lowers his hand and you clear your throat to try and shake your feelings, all of them, off.
Off. Away. You need to get your shit together and work on depuffing your face before the makeup artist and hair stylist arrive.
“Listen, if you want to mysteriously disappear tonight and miss the gala you can totally do it and I'll cover up for you. I wouldn't blame you and I don't really care if our parents take it out on me,” your words are fast and your tone lighthearted. Like you're making a joke but, also, you're totally not “In return for you to keep your mouth shut about this,” you shake the pill bottle “I wouldn't do it out of kindness, of course, after all I am the most cold hearted snake of the elite.”
Scoffing, he closes his eyes and lets his head hang low for a few seconds “You’re so—”
“Beautiful? Smart? Outstanding?” You offer.
He looks back at you again “Insufferable.”
You squint your eyes at him before your lips turn upwards in a sardonic smile.
Yunho lets out a heavy sigh “I'll do it.”
“Run away to Timbuktu and change your identity?”
“Be there,” he corrects, clearly tired of your antics “I’ll be there tonight. We are up to our necks in this bullshit, both of us,” he reminds your “And I'm sure my mother wouldn't let me get far if I did try to run away.”
The ghost of a genuine smile curls in your lips “Pussy.”
He rolls his eyes.
“See? Annoying as fuck.”
Your smile fully widens at that. Finally, some sense of normalcy after whatever the hell happened a few minutes ago.
“What dirt does she have on you to make you bend to her will all of the sudden?”
“She—”
“I'm sorry to interrupt,” both looking up at your door way, you try your best to hide the pills under your thighs as you eye the staff member suspiciously at his interrupt “But misses Jeong is calling for Yunho downstairs. She says that you have to leave to get ready and misses Kim urges you, miss Kim, to get a shower.”
“Yeah, she smells kinda bad, doesn't she?” Yunho jokes but the staff member doesn't laugh at his quip. Instead, he earns a push from you before getting up “I'll get going then.”
The guy bows and disappears at that.
“Finally.”
You feel like you have to thank him again for what he did. With words, not actions. But he doesn't look like he's expecting it and the words hang on your tongue without making it past your lips because it's against your morals to thank Jeong Yunho for absolutely anything.
“See you tonight, Y/N,” he says and you make a face that makes him smile for some reason. He moves to the door but stalls and, as you get up, you see him turn to you one more time “Bring them with you,” he points at the bottle on your hand “Just in case.”
You huff and close the drawers of your vanity, stashing the pills in one of them “Don't tell me what to do.”
“I wouldn't dare,” mimicking the staff member, he bows dramatically and you groan “Goodbye, princess.”
You close the last drawer with a little more force than you intend to as soon as he's out of eyesight and then whisper and amused: “Asshole.”
Now that's a couple of hours later and your head allows you to lock back in, to focus on the matter at task and prepare for what's to come.
Sitting in the car, your chauffeur takes the hill up to the Jeong’s so you can pick up Yunho and show up together to the event.
Hair beautifully done and makeup beat to the gods, it irks you that your mothers have everything so planned out down to the last details. There's a tablet on your lap and you're rehearsing the backstory they put together for this made up relationship.
As they told you earlier, you have to pretend you two have been in love since childhood. There's some paragraphs narrating how you supposedly felt like you owe him your life after he “saved you” from failing into the deepest part of the pool when you didn't know how to swim.
Which is true, you didn't know how to swim at that age but Yunho never saved you from anything.
Except maybe today, only after aggravating the situation to the point you couldn't help but break down in front of him.
Pressing a finger down on your temple, you close your eyes and try to wipe the image of him helping you away. Instead, the way the washed your tears away pops into it and you groan, earning a curious look from your driver.
“Is this hill endless?” you ask in a way to cover up your true grieving and he laughs a little, which makes you smile before complaining again, as a joke. Kind of “That's why they usually come to our house, it takes a whole business day to get here.”
That seizes your driver's curiosity and you look out the window when their mansion comes in full view. It's majestic, it's modern and it looks really pretty from your balcony at night, when it's all lit up even when you know the probability of someone actually being there is scarce.
His dad and brother are always at the office, his mom is always at a meditation class or the gym or the mall with your mom and Yunho, well, you can only assume he's never actually there. He seems to have a very active social life and you don't think his mom would necessarily approve of his public university friends being there.
When the car comes to a stop in his driveway, you look back down and scroll to that part of the document: You're supposed to be supportive on his choice of avoiding a private education, call him humble and down to earth if the question gets asked but not praise the public education system because your dad endorses a really expensive school, the one he and your fake father in law graduated at.
The one you graduated at.
It was so freeing not looking at his face in the halls when you started uni and you, quite frankly, don't think about him often enough to wonder why he was allowed to attend the university of his liking and study what he pleases.
Now you're curious but, as you see him descend the stairs that lead to his massive front door, you're not sure you want to talk to him outside of business for too long.
He's all dolled up in a navy three-piece, color matching your dress and all. Hair done and out of his forehead, you hate to say it does more for him than the usual style he wears it in. You don't remember the last time his bangs didn't cover his eyebrows and now you're wondering if you pushed all the times you did to the back of your mind.
It'll be hard to pretend you don't think he looks good because he does and you don't want it to show in your face, so you stay focused on the tablet as he makes his way to the car.
The driver gets out and attempts to open the door for him but you hear Yunho telling him it's okay.
“I'll do it, thank you, thank you,” he opens the door and so you hear him more clearly now and he slides on the seat next to yours with ease, a disappointed look on his face when he notices you “Ah, you're here.”
“They didn't tell you?” sounding boring as hell, you scroll to the bottom of the document and pass the tablet to him, avoiding to look at him again “We're supposed to arrive together so the photographers waiting outside can start speculating and reporting to the media outlets that something might be going on.”
He grabs the tablet, looks at the document for five seconds in total and then hands it back to you “Oh, yeah, I didn't read that.”
Your driver gets in his seat and starts the car, maneuvering out of the driveway in seconds and so you have to brace yourself on the seat to avoid sliding down on it as you're driven down the hill.
“You didn't read it?” your head snaps back at him and he shrugs “Yunho, we're supposed to pretend we're madly in love with each other and you didn't study?!”
“We've been pretending to get along in front of our moms for over a decade, Y/N,” he deadpans “We're doing the same tonight, only at a bigger scale. It's not that complicated,” shrugging again, he looks out at the street for a second before looking at you again, a disgusted expression on his face “I hope you're not expecting me to be all over you because now that I can't fake.”
“Because you're never felt the touch of a girl in your entire life? I know that, loser,” he's about to retaliate but you stop him with your index finger “You've been away from the spotlight for way too long. You don't know how ruthless and scrutinizing the people attending are, I do. So sit pretty and study this.”
You shove the tablet back and he groans, looking through the document briefly again.
“And how do you know who's attending?”
“Page ten through twenty five. There's a detailed list with names, occupations and hobbies so you can have possible topics of conversation. I also took the time to highlight in pink the ones I want to avoid,” you point out and he moves his finger on the screen until he gets to the list, scoffing in amusement a second later “You should avoid them too. Especially the Hwang’s,” he gives you a look, asking for an explanation “They gossip too much, their friend groups are filled with snakes who can't take an NDA seriously and the girl is a little in love with you, so she'll flirt with you the entire night.”
“I don't even know her.”
“You don't have to, she's in love with the idea of you and your family's influence. Seriously, Yunho,” you let out an annoyed noise, crossing your arms over your chest “It's like amateur hour with you. You should know this.”
“I live a normal life, princess, I don't know any of this because it's not important to me,” he states as simple as that and you shake your head in disapproval “It shouldn't be important to you or to anyone, really.”
“Oh, but it is,” you return and when you look at him he's looking back. There's this electricity passing in the space in between you, something dangerous that's the tail tale of how different you both are and you start asking yourself how are you going to pull this whole thing off “And now, it is to you. You're about to enter a ballroom filled with people who admire you for simply being a Jeong, people who want to be you. It's hard and it’s pressuring but you declined my offer to not show up earlier today, so fucking own it.”
There's a pause where you see his jaw clenching, you see him shift uncomfortably and adjust his tie before presumably telling himself to relax.
“And study as much as you can, I'm not covering up your mistakes.”
The rest of the ride to the venue is silent and, when you get there, you exchange a look with your driver that's both apologetic and a request for discretion. You know your staff is discreet but you thank them every time you can because it's a lot of shit to handle.
“Here you go, honey.” The pet name almost makes you gag but you take the electronic from his hand, lock it and give it to the driver to safekeep.
“I prefer Y/N,” or even princess, because you're used to it “Don't try that inside.”
Rolling his eyes, he sarcastically lets out “Anything else your highness wants from me before we get off?”
“Yeah, for you to shut up and leave me alone forever after tonight but that's not really going to happen, hm?” You can see through the tinted windows how people gather outside to try and see who's inside the car and so you fix your hair with your fingers and then turn to fix Yunho’s tie. He makes a noise of disagreement but you shush him “Oh and for you to open the door for me?”
He levels you with his stare “Can't do it yourself?”
“Fucking do it and stop asking questions, Yunho.” You say under your breath and he smiles a little, triumphant like he just won something only for pissing you off.
Neither one of you want to lose the staring contest you suddenly have going on and it's, once again, electric. The tension is palpable and not in a positive way but you have to act quick when his brown eyes scan your face and linger where they don't need to. Hand still on his tie, it's tempting to try and choke him with it so instead you just tighten it a little more and it serves as a
“Now, Yunho.”
When he gets out of the car, you hear people gasp. He's not usually at these types of events because his mother must indulge him a lot. But also, he's usually seen with a frown whenever he does attend, so it must come to a shock to everyone he actually showed up.
It came with a shock for you too, you're not going to lie. You fully expected him to back out on his word and leave you hanging to deal with the shitshow yourself, no matter what he said this afternoon.
Rounding the car, he doesn't make the dramatic pause you were hoping for before opening the door and offering his hand to you. The gasps intensify once you elegantly get out, flashes going off and blinding you for a second before you take your surroundings in and loop your arm around Yunho’s.
There's people screaming both your names, asking questions that you don't get to answer because it's not the time for that and this is not a red carpet you have to walk through.
You wave your hand at the cameras, bow to the photographers and smile brightly when a girl behind an iphone tells you how pretty you look.
That would be the first person to compliment you today.
You don't turn to see what Yunho is doing, probably handling the attention in his own weird, detached way like he normally does and when someone signals you both to get going inside, you follow the person until the doors of the venue closing behind you drown out the paparazzi noise.
In the solitude of the initial hall, you see how Yunho lets his posture fall and lets out a breath “Well, I hated that.”
Condescendingly, you smile at him “Poor baby,” you lean in a bit into him “We’re only getting started.”
The horror on his face as he stares back brings out a nervous feeling inside you, but soon you're dragging him by his arm and following the staff member down the hall.
And when she opens the door into the ballroom, you let the feeling overcome you for a second and you gulp because of it.
Only getting started indeed.
If you read all the way down here: THANK YOU SO MUCH. This is part one of three (possibly more if the story extends that far). Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!
© jensthwa, 2024.
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