#Admittedly this is not the first time I have written for the AU but right now I am attempting to | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

awrkive · 2 months ago

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THE LOVE PROGNOSIS, pt. 2 — JJK (m.)

for as long as you can remember, you’ve always been a hopeless romantic.

the girl who’s always dreamt of cheesy encounters with her soulmate, grand love declarations, and a cute little beach wedding to boot. but reality pretty much slaps you hard right on the face, because love, unfortunately, doesn’t come grand — it’s simple and it’s quiet, but it is quite painful, especially when the love that you’ve been seeking for all your adult life has just been right under your nose all this time.

PAIRING jungkook x female reader // mingyu x female reader

GENRE r18+ (angst, fluff, smut) MINORS DO NOT INTERACT!

CHAPTER WORD COUNT 27.5k

CHAPTER WARNINGS/MISC medical!au, roommates!au, surgeon!jk, surgeon!reader (they are both 4th year residents and are co-workers), corporate lawyer!mingyu, oc and jk are bffs since med school but their love language is fighting each other <3, jk and mingyu are bffs during undergrad, hopeless romantic!oc. shirtless jk in almost every scene ijbol he needs to get locked up, jk thigh tattoo 😔 a dash of sexual themes (ie: making out, grinding) and violence, this is pretty much MED SCHOOL LORE GALORE bcs boy, was there so much history mentioned here, 3/4 of this is in jk pov, so ladies.... prepare yourselves 🤔so much fluff, and we counter that with not major but not minor either ANGST, so many conversations and dialogues in this one lol, this hopefully offers every answer youre looking for from part one, when ur done reading the chapter this is how the keyring looks like

NOTES hi!! this chapter was supposed to be longer but i was like.. fuck that 😭 its getting too long. anyway. hope u guys enjoy this one!! this is my most favorite thing ive ever written i think n im weirdly very proud of this one idk. scream into my inbox and the reply section if u have #thoughtss 😄😄 [ important: pls make sure to read the note below ]

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SERIES MASTERLIST | MAIN MASTERLIST

You take your sweet time trying to right your wrongs.

After that day, you were the one to initiate a call with Mingyu which he answered thankfully (you were a little skeptical about him calling you that night). You went over to his place after your shift, apologizing to him for lying about your roommate situation. Admittedly, Mingyu still doesn’t seem to be wholly okay with it �� but he doesn’t really say anything more about it. He kissed you better that night, his lips making you forget all about the stress that you’ve went through for the day, convincing you to stay over.

The night bled into two when he said he couldn’t let you go. Mingyu was persistent and you were unwilling to go in the first place. Partly because who didn’t want to spend more time with their significant other? But it’s also because of a certain someone that is no other than Jeon Jungkook.

Those two nights are going on four – which means that you’ve been avoiding Jungkook for the past three days now.

It doesn’t seem like a difficult task though because Jungkook seems to be doing the same. That was your hunch. He replies to you with dry-ass “okay”s when you text him about not going home because you’re staying at Mingyu’s. Nothing more, and nothing less.

Which is unusual of him. Sure, in your almost decade-long friendship, you’ve fought a bunch of times. But it usually gets resolved in a day or two. And Jungkook wasn’t ever cold like he is right now.

See, the regular Jungkook would find you anywhere on your floor at the hospital just to annoy you. When your time allows it, you eat together with your friends at lunch.

But now, he seems to always have something to do – which, okay, fair. He’s a surgeon, after all. But he doesn’t even spare you a glance whenever you two meet halfway in the hallways. Yesterday, you coincidentally scrubbed in together for the same surgery but he did not say a word to you other than, “Scalpel”.

The rest of your friends are already asking about it. Doyeon told you he had lunch with Jungkook this afternoon, but when she mentioned that maybe you were free to go with them, Jungkook suddenly had to look over a patient’s chart.

It’s not just a hunch anymore. He really is avoiding you.

And to be honest, you’re tired of the whole pussyfooting around. He’s being childish – and you’ll be the better person to come and talk to him about it. Granted, you’re three days late. But at least you’re doing it.

You texted Mingyu earlier this afternoon that you’re coming home to your apartment tonight. He was bummed about it, you could feel it through his message, nonetheless he replied saying he’ll miss you, which put a smile to your tired face from work.

When you went home from your shift at 9pm, Jungkook wasn’t anywhere in the house. Which was a shame – because you were planning to talk to him.

Well. Maybe you’d wait for him.

But it seemed like you underestimated your exhaustion for the day because as soon you finished showering, dressing yourself with your bed clothes which consists of comfortable flimsy camisole and panty shorts, you went straight to bed and passed out – forgetting about Jungkook.

It’s past 2 am when you feel yourself waking up from your deep slumber, stomach grumbling at the emptiness, and you realize you did not only forget about waiting for Jungkook but also about eating dinner.

Walking out of your room, you head straight to the kitchen where you immediately go to open the refrigerator to see if there’s something in it you can consume. There are boxes of Chinese food take-out which makes your eyes light up. When you open to smell them, it seems that they’re still new.

You deduce it must be Jungkook’s.

That gives you the predicament of whether you should eat it or not. You take you’re not exactly on good terms as of the moment – therefore you can’t eat his food. But you’re really hungry.

Throwing away your inhibitions, you open one of the boxes, not even bothering to heat the food.

“Hey,”

You almost jump upon hearing another voice. Looking to your side, you see Jungkook approaching, with only his boxers on, upper half naked.

“H-hey,” you say, pursing your lips into a thin line. “Are these yours?” You point to the take-out box in your hand.

Jungkook nods and heads straight to your direction. Taking one of the boxes, he hauls himself to the kitchen island, twisting his body so that he can face you.

“Yep.” he responds, dipping his fingers inside the box and taking out strands of noodles from it.

You wince at the sight. “Look like worms.”

“Just like worms.” Jungkook grins, chewing on them in that obnoxious way because he knows you don’t like noisy eaters.

Frowning, you decide to follow him to the island and haul yourself on top of it as well, sitting beside him. Jungkook scoots to the side to give you more room.

“It’s kind of like eating naengmyeon, I don’t like naengmyeon.” You tell him, opening another box and feeling delighted to see untouched stir-fried rice. “Did you just buy this earlier?”

Jungkook nods. “Left them in the fridge when I realized I wasn’t too hungry.”

“Then you woke up feeling hungry?” You smile at him.

He chuckles. “Yeah. When did you get off work?”

“Nine. You?”

“Twelve am.”

You grimace at that, but nod in understanding.

There’s a beat of silence before Jungkook speaks up again.

“Didn’t expect to see you here tonight.”

“Just wanted to remind you I’m still your housemate…” you joke, brushing your elbow against his arm in a teasing manner.

Jungkook laughs as he shakes his head. He picks up another batch of noodles in his fingers and then offers it to you, prompting you to arch your brow at him. “Try it.”

You shake your head. “I hate cold noodles.”

“Just try,” He insists, placing it closer to your face. You scrunch your nose, skeptical. It makes Jungkook chuckle lowly. “Head back.”

Hesitantly, you tilt your head back and open your mouth as Jungkook puts the noodles inside it. You almost choke on it when Jungkook laughs mid-way, making you laugh as well, but thankfully, you were able to chew all of them just fine.

“What the fuck.” You frown, slapping his arm good-naturedly.

“Wasn’t so bad, huh?”

“It was bad.” You say, going back to eating your fried rice. Jungkook gives you a look that says he’s not convinced. Looking at his face, you roll your eyes, “It’s like eating–” you stop mid-sentence as Jungkook quickly wipes off something on the side of your lips. It’s so quick though that you brush it off just as instantly and continue, “—literal worms.”

“Imagine if worms tasted like noodles. Wouldn’t that be sick as hell?” Jungkook muses, stretching his arm over you to reach for another take-out box on the counter. It’s so sudden that your immediate reflex was to stretch your upper body backwards, feeling a little taken aback when Jungkook’s face gets a little too close to your stomach, with his arm rubbing over your bare thighs.

He seems like it doesn’t move him, though. Just goes back to his position casually and opens another box. As he does, you can’t help but take a quick look at his bulging thighs, the short length of his boxers letting you get a brief view of the tattoo that peeks out of the expanse of his skin. You’ve seen that before many times, but not the entirety – of course not. It looks like it goes up from way above. Anyway, it’s sort of like a flower, but you’re not sure. You never really asked him about it. He never brings it up either.

“Oh, man, the dumplings got cold.” Jungkook picks inside his box as if he’d miraculously find one that’s not cold.

You roll your eyes at his antics. “You stored them in the fridge for like how many hours now?”

Ignoring you, Jungkook takes out one dumpling, trying to eat it, and you watch as he visibly winces. In a moment, he shoots one straight to the trash bin across from you.

“Oh, that’s real mature.” You say dryly.

With that, Jungkook throws another one, giving you a cheeky grin when it lands in the bin successfully for the second time.

Pursing your lips, you sarcastically say, “Wow. Two points to Xavier from Jeon Jungkook.”

That makes Jungkook look at you instantly.

“How the hell do you know that?” He gives you a look of confusion but there’s amusement written all over his face at the same time.

“Well… Mingyu told me you both played for the basketball varsity team back in undergrad, so,”

Jungkook stops. There’s look of something in his eyes that you can’t quite point out, but then suddenly, he nods.

“He told you how good I was?” He says with a teasing tone, a contrast to his sudden and quick drop of mood a few seconds ago.

You throw him a tissue. “Don’t be cocky. He just mentioned it.”

“I was captain. Two-time MOP, 2018 and 2019 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.”

You look at him with silent reverence. Well, Mingyu didn’t tell you all that, that’s for sure. It’s a bit surreal to picture Jungkook wearing a basketball uniform, though. You’re so used to seeing him in scrubs and lab gown and his usual casual, occasionally suits when you attend formal conferences. You’ve only ever seen him sweat it out whenever he works out in the living room.

“Impressive.” You say. Jungkook grins proudly. “It’s strange I only know about it now, though.”

“You never asked.” He shrugs. “What ‘bout you? I only know you’re little miss summa cum laude.”

Huffing, you jab at his arm when he mentions it, rolling your eyes at him which only earns you a chuckle. Regardless, you tell him, “2018 NCA College Nationals. We won Coed Division One.”

Jungkook arches a brow. “NCA… National Cheerleading Association?” You nod, eating from your take-out box so as to avoid Jungkook’s look after you do so.

“No fucking way,” He says incredulously. “Seriously?”

“Yeah,” You bite your lip to keep yourself from smiling too much. You never really get to share this part about you with a lot of people. To quote Jungkook, they never ask. It’s funny when they do get surprised by it though, like he is now. When Jungkook stares at you – you don’t know if it’s just in disbelief – longer than necessary, you realize he’s staring at your face and that makes you consciously fix a strand of hair behind your ear. “Go big blue, go big blue, show ‘em what wildcats can do.” You sing a in fast tempo, chuckling about how silly it sounds.

Jungkook utters a sound of amusement. “That’s… wow. Right now, I’m just picturing you cheering but it’s a bit hazy and shit.”

“You’re saying you can’t picture me cheering?” You playfully accuse, but you know exactly what he meant. Even you still don’t believe that you actually did cheer in undergrad. When you signed up for it, it was just because you had to choose a club, and you weren’t interested in anything other than that. You thought cheering would be fun and it was fun.

“No, I’m just—” Jungkook cuts himself off and looks at you. “Okay, now I totally deserve a cheer for that two-point shot I made just now.”

You laugh loudly at that. Covering your mouth, you look at him to see if he’s joking but he seems to be serious.

“No.” You say, your eyes widening, body stiffening.

“Come on,” Jungkook chuckles.

You roll your eyes. “You have to do more than a two-point shot to get a cheer.”

“Okay, what do you want me to do?” Jungkook eagerly presents a challange. You stifle a laugh when he gears up for something. “I can shoot dumplings further from here with my left hand.”

“Ten feet away,” You muse, giggling when Jungkook suddenly gets off the counter, carrying the box of dumplings, and positions himself further away from you. Laughing, you shake your head before you say, “You can’t do it.”

“Try me.” He says as he begins to pick out a dumpling and concentrate on the trash can. Before he shoots, he tells you, “This one’s for you.”

You watch as the dumpling misses the bin.

Jungkook beats you to speaking first. “I admit. I’m a bit rusty.”

Sneering, you eat your fried rice, not straying your eyes from him. “You have to shoot, like, three dumplings.”

“That was a trial shot.” he insists, eyeing you playfully, before he gears up for another again. You watch closely when he makes a move to shoot another dumpling.

It goes in. Jungkook smirks at you when you look at him, impressed.

“Not bad.” You cock your head to the side.

“Tss.” He shoots another shot again and it’s successful for the second time. “That’s two.” Jungkook shows you his fingers and you chuckle at his enthusiasm.

“Let’s see if you can get the third.”

Jungkook nods, and you cover a snicker again at the way his stance suddenly turns serious, as if he’s really taking the whole thing seriously.

In a few seconds, he shoots the last dumpling straight to the bin just as successfully as the last time.

“What did I say?” Jungkook brags as he goes over to the island across from you, sitting on the high chairs this time. You turn your body to look at him, containing your smile. “Your turn now.” Jungkook says with a smirk.

Your purse your lips. “I’m a bit rusty.”

“So was I!” Jungkook claims which prompts a chuckle from you.

You look at him for a while, unsure. You close your eyes, bobbing your head side to side, covering your face as you suddenly feel a sense of embarrassment at the thought of dancing in front of him.

“Promise you won’t laugh?” You say after Jungkook tries to remove your hands off your face.

He raises his right hand and fixes his sitting posture upright. “Promise.”

“If you show your teeth I’ll stop and so will this friendship.” You threaten as you bring your legs over the island to his direction.

Jungkook chuckles while saying a series of “Yeah”s, holding your hand to help you hop off the counter safely.

You take a few quick strides to place yourself in the space between your counter and dining area and look at Jungkook who settles himself comfortably in the kitchen island chair, watching you with relaxed position and crossed arms.

Feeling uncharacteristically shy, you stand upright, suddenly aware that you’re only wearing a pair of panty shorts and a fitted camisole. You don’t work out so you’re a bit conscious in front of Jungkook who looks really good in his natural form. You don’t even understand how he finds time to go to the gym or do his little work-out sesh during some nights or weekends, but you shake away the thought and smile at him coyly. He has the better body, sure, but you know well enough he’ll never judge you for yours… besides, it’s just Jungkook. He makes you feel safe and secure, no matter the context of the situation.

Off the top of your head, you do whatever it is you remember from your college routines and begin your yell.

“Wildcats, get up and shout! We’re the team that’s gonna take it out! Give it all you’ve got, let’s hear you roar!” You chuckle mid-way, forgetting a step. “Sorry,” you apologize quickly, but then continue right away, trapping your bottom lip with your teeth to prevent yourself from completely losing it. “We’re the Wildcats, and we’re here to score! Go Big Blue! Go Big Blue—" You make a mistake again and skip a beat with your finger snaps, and when you look at Jungkook, you can’t help but give in to the laughter that’s been bubbling up inside you. “I can’t do it!” You say, cutting your “performance” short.

“What? It was good!” Jungkook says, encouraging you to continue further.

You stifle a laugh as you go back to the top again but then your mind forgets the next step and you’re messing up the choreography again. At that point, you start mindlessly cheering; jumping around and flapping your arms to make it look like somewhat of a cheer but none of the coordination. You know it looks messy, so you run over to Jungkook shamefully, plopping on the chair beside him. Bringing your legs up to the seat and covering your face in your thighs, you can’t help but giggle in embarrassment.

“Woah,” Jungkook says, but you can say there’s a hint of laughter in his tone. You know it’s not out of mockery when he lifts your head up and boop your nose. “That was cute. Best cheer I’ve ever seen.”

“You’re pushing it.” You hiss, kicking his knee slightly.

Jungkook captures your leg, and you squeal when he pinches your thigh. You both laugh at that and you thought Jungkook’s gonna let go of your leg but he keeps it on his lap.

“My stomach hurts from laughing.” You tell him, taking a deep breath, trying to regulate your heart. Everything feels funny. Your cheer was funny. You must’ve looked so stupid.

Jungkook chuckles. “Wildcats, get up and shout—”

“Jungkook!” You cut him off, removing your leg from his lap to kick him again on the thigh this time. That only prompts him to laugh louder.

When the high of the moment fades, Jungkook looks over at you.

“Do you feel sleepy?”

You shake your head. “Not really. At least not yet.”

He hums, and then takes your box of fried rice to eat from it.

There’s the silence again, but it’s quiet and comfortable. No weird tension sitting in the air.

“Jungkook,” You call him after a while.

“Hm.”

You clear your throat. “I meant to talk to you,” Jungkook stops eating and looks at you to acknowledge you. “I’m sorry.”

He stares at you for a moment. Then, he chuckles, shaking his head. “You know what’s funny? I was gonna talk to you yesterday to say I’m sorry but then you didn’t talk to me at all in the OR. I thought you were still mad at me.”

With furrowed brows, you tell him, “I thought you were mad at me. You only said “scalpel” in the OR and then that was it. No hi’s or hello’s in the hallways for the past three days.”

“Me? Mad at you?” He says, as if he can’t believe you would even think that. “I mean, you piss me off sometimes, but I don’t think I was ever mad at you.” You pout. Jungkook smiles. “I can never be mad at you,” His look is gentle and warm that you feel a little flustered for a reason unknown. It just ticks a little something in your brain, tugging something at your heart. Then, Jungkook sighs. “I’m sorry, too. For the way I went about it. The “bringing boys here” comment was out of line.”

There’s a wince on your face when you hear that.

That comment did hurt a little.

But you know it was just a heat-in-the-moment type of thing, and he just wasn’t able to think through his words well enough when he was… well, pissed – and rightfully so. Because you did something offensive to him, and you can’t blame him for feeling the way he felt.

You nod at Jungkook. “Thank you for saying that. I’m saying sorry because I realized what you said. I should’ve informed you I was bringing Mingyu home, and I should’ve told him about you being my roommate. We really could’ve avoided that situation.”

“You can just tell me beforehand if you’re bringing him to our place.” Jungkook shrugs.

You chuckle. “No. That won’t happen again.” And it’s true. It’s awkward and it’s rude when you have a roommate.

Jungkook looks at you. “Okay. I won’t do it as well,” You shake your head, playfully rolling your eyes at him. “I’m guessing you settled it pretty quickly with him?” He gestures at your neck and you realize he’s referring to the necklace you’re wearing – the one Mingyu gave you the very same day you fought.

You want to point out it’s not really new, but you settle with, “Yeah. Fortunately.” as a response.

“I really am sorry for what happened.” Jungkook says and you can feel the sincerity in his voice.

“It’s fine,” Touching his arm, you give him a small smile. “Have you and Mingyu talked?”

Jungkook shakes his head. Nibbling on your bottom lip, you think about how that’s… not good. They were friends before you and have just met each other again after so many years – you do not want to be that kind of person who gets in the way of some other people’s relationship.

And you really can’t have Jungkook not liking your boyfriend or your boyfriend not liking Jungkook, either.

But as much as you want to suggest that they talk it out, you know you can’t. Besides, you trust that they eventually will. They’re grown men.

“So…” you trail off. “Are we okay?”

Jungkook’s lips tilt upwards. “Are we okay?”

“Come on,” you roll your eyes. “Do we hug it out or like – I don’t know – handshake on it?”

“Let’s hug it out like we’re twelve.” Jungkook grins and in a moment, he scoots closer to you and wraps his arms around your waist, resting his head on your chest.

The angle is a bit awkward with Jungkook crouching too much you don’t doubt his position is anything but comfortable, but it works, and it gives you the opportunity to pat his head as you say, “I missed hanging out with you, buddy.”

“Can’t say the same thing.”

That earns him a slight pinch to the ear easily accessible to you.

“Ow!” Jungkook says and then add, “I hate to ruin the moment but… you’re not wearing a bra.”

You quickly grab both sides of his head to get him off your chest. He comes back sitting upright on his chair, laughing.

“Fuck off—” you flip him off and then look over your box of fried rice, but then you remember he was also eating it earlier. “You ate all of it!”

“Finders keepers.”

“I hate you.”

“Hm.”

You shake your head, standing up and starting to grab all the boxes to take them to the trash bin.

“By the way, I just got my approval from HR for our trip the next two weeks. Have you?” You ask him across the room. You can see Jungkook’s face light up at the mention.

“Yeah, of course. Got approved yesterday.” Jungkook grins. You watch as he stares at you a bit longer, his face showing a hint of confusion.

You arch a brow. “Why does your face look like that?” Jungkook shakes his head, obviously ready to dismiss it. But you’re persistent. “What is it?” You say, walking towards his direction and stopping in front of him.

“Nothing…” he trails off. Then he rubs the back of his head. “I just really thought that you…” You squint your eyes at him. Then he chuckles lightly and swipes his fingers through his hair. “I just thought the trip would be cancelled.”

Your eyebrows furrow. Frowning, you nudge at him. “What? Of course, not! We planned that trip like six months ago. I’m not backing out.”

Jungkook gives you a shy smile.

“Okay.”

You can’t help it. You bring your hands to his cheeks and pinch them.

“He’s so excited for his birthday trip!” You say, intentionally talking like you would to a toddler.

Jungkook predictably forces your hands out of his skin and holds your wrist a bit tight as he rolls his eyes at you.

“Knock it off.” He glares at you. But you’re not done with your fun, so you poke your finger to his waist, knowing that’s his weak spot, and tease him some more. “Seriously.” Jungkook huffs out and your laughter becomes louder because he looks like a grumpy child right now.

“Sorry.” you say, still giggling. He furrows his brows, and you can’t help it, you poke at his waist again. When you do it, though, Jungkook captures your wrist, effectively stopping another one of your juvenile assaults. Suddenly, you start noting the mirth in his eyes.

You’ve seen that look before and it always ends up with you almost dying from too much laughter because he always—

“You’re gonna regret that.”

You let out a squeal as Jungkook takes ahold of your waist, and before you can even voice out a protest, he easily hoists you up against his body, bouncing you up until you're hanging around his shoulder like a sack bag.

“What the hell, put me down, you prick!” You complain, slapping the rugged muscles on his back. But Jungkook just responds with a series of clicks of his tongue, carrying you across the living room.

You know he’s about to put you on the couch to tickle you to death, so you do what you could and bite down on the skin of his back.

“Ouch!” Jungkook immediately reacts, stumbling a little in his stride. You snort at that, but you immediately frown when you feel a slap to your ass.

“You asshole!”

“You just lowered your chances of being spared,” Was his last words before you feel yourself getting put down on the surface of the sofa. Soon after, Jungkook’s poking his fingers to your waist and stomach, prompting you to erupt in fits of giggles and laughter, thrashing beneath him like a caged animal.

“Pl—stop—oh my god!” You say, weakly reaching for his arms. When Jungkook doesn’t relent, you continue wriggling under him, laughing and choking, saying a variety of, “Stop! I’m —” giggle, “gonna—” then another snort, “—die!”

Jungkook chuckles. He torments you some more before finally stopping his fingers in their ministrations.

“You deserve that.” Jungkook says when you both came down from the high, laughing at the messy state of your hair and the way you try to catch your breath like you just ran a triathlon.

You breathe in and out deeply, clutching your stomach that still hurts from laughing.

“Fuck you.” You hiss, giving him the finger.

Jungkook bursts into laughter, and from his position in between your legs, he lets himself fall on top of you.

“Jungkook, no!” Pushing him off you, you try to get away from him but the goof just forces himself beside you instead, sticking his much bigger build in between you and the back of the couch. It makes you scoot near the edge as a result, and you hold onto his arm so that you don’t fall off, tangling your leg against his own for added support. Pinching his waist in which he lets out an ingenuine “Owe!” to, you face him as you say, “You are so annoying.”

Jungkook just gives you a shit-eating grin. “Who started it?”

“You almost killed me.” You say dryly.

“Don’t be dramatic.” He rolls his eyes.

Suddenly, you realize the position you are both in.

Your bare legs are intermingled against each other, Jungkook has one arm wrapped around your waist, and from the lack of clothes on both sides, you can feel pretty much everything.

There’s a weird feeling in the pit of your stomach upon the epiphany.

Jungkook’s looking at you with a playful grin, but as he notices you staring at him, he stills. From such close proximity, you can almost trace out the lines of his features. The scar on his cheek, the mole under his lip, and the pimple scar that was probably from a week ago. At that thought, you think about: if you can see him so close like this, he can also probably see you, and that’s when you break away from the contact.

“Shit.” You hiss as you let yourself fall off the floor by rolling around, away from his hold and touch and him in general.

Jungkook immediately scoots to the edge of the sofa to look down at you with confused eyes. “The hell?”

“Don’t worry,” you wave your hand at him.

He snorts. “Did you just fall?”

You roll your eyes. Of course, he’d think that. But you let him, standing up from the floor.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say.”

You hear Jungkook’s boisterous laughter as you walk towards the kitchen again, stopping in front of the fridge to get some water.

“You’re going to bed now?” Asks Jungkook, following you to the fridge and mirroring your activity.

Nodding at his question, you peer from the rim of the glass as you answer, “Yeah, I don’t want to be sleeping at the hospital later.”

“Fair.”

Soon after, you both decided to clean up a bit in the kitchen and when you finished, you two headed towards the direction of your bedrooms. It’s located just near the kitchen, with the doors located beside each other.

When you turn the knob open to your own door, Jungkook calls you, catching your attention.

You arch a brow at him, waiting.

“Good night,” Jungkook says. You drop your kitted brows and smile. You’re about to greet him the same but then he adds, “Also– that was a really great cheer.”

“Ugh, Jungkook!”

You look across the bed to see Mingyu still on his laptop on his worktable, working on something. An hour and thirty minutes have passed since you arrived at his place, but you’re still not getting the least bit of attention from him.

You get it, it’s work, but he asked you to come over… isn’t it only fair to expect a little bit of something?

Getting up from the bed, you trudge over to his direction.

“Hi,” you say, ducking down to wrap your arms around his neck from the back of his swivel chair and kissing the spot below his ear.

“Hi,” Mingyu meets the kiss you give him on the lips. He reaches for your hands resting on top of chest and holds it there, looking at you. You delight at the hint of attention. “I’ll just be in a few minutes. You’re staying, right?”

You grin. “Of course.”

“Good.”

Rolling your eyes, you take your hands off him and stand upright once again. Mingyu rotates his chair so he can look at you with his undivided attention, voicing out a low whistle when he takes in your outfit – or lack of it thereof.

You arch a brow, knowing well he’s ogling you only in your bra and panties, squinting your eyes at him. Slowly, you glide your leg over his waist and plop yourself down on his lap, waiting for any protest from him. It doesn’t come, and so you give him a grin before planting your lips against his.

The kiss turns heated in a matter of seconds, with Mingyu squeezing over your bra and taking in your soft moans against his mouth, feeling the delicious roll of your hips against his crotch where you feel a semi growing already.

“Sweetheart,” Mingyu grunts. When you don’t answer that, he cups your jaw, making you look at him. “__.”

“What?” You say, more like a whine, looking at him with hooded eyes. You’re starting to feel sticky in your underwear and you need him to do something about it.

“Not now, sweetheart. I told you, I’m working.”

You frown. There’s a beat of silence before you let out a sigh. “Okay.” You say, getting off his lap.

“I’ll take care of you when I’m done.” He promises, taking ahold of your wrist, looking up at you.

Pursing your lips, you look away. “It’s fine.” When Mingyu lets go, you look at the direction of the bathroom. “I’m gonna take a shower,” you tell him. “You’re free to join me if you want or whatever.”

You know he can’t and that he won’t.

“Alright.” Was the last thing you heard before you walked towards the bathroom door.

You’ve been over at his place too many times to count now, and you’re slowly building your shower essentials in his own bathroom. Your body wash, your face cream, your shampoo, your conditioner – even your moisturizer and your eye mask are already placed inside his bathroom cabinet.

As you step out of the shower box, all clean and fresh, you go over to the lavatory to brush your teeth. At the sight of both your cups sitting beside each other, you smile.

You look in the mirror – noting the way your lips can’t stop from curling up at the thoughts running inside your head.

Shaking them off, you grab Mingyu’s robe and put it over yourself, turning the knob around to step out of the bathroom.

You see Mingyu on his bed this time around, but his laptop’s still perched on his lap.

He looks up when he sees you. “Ready to sleep?”

You nod, feeling at home the way you automatically go towards his closet to pick out a shirt and some panties you left over the time.

As you’re in the process of dressing yourself, a phone’s ding rings in the room.

Looking at Mingyu, you watch as he checks his phone, assuming it came from him. When he puts it down, he looks at your plugged phone on the bedside table.

“What is it?” You ask, now properly dressed, walking to the bed.

You note the way Mingyu’s gaze changes as he hands you your phone.

“It’s Jungkook.” He says with a weirdly clipped tone. Then another ding comes. A beat, and then your phone rings.

Your brow shoots up, taking the device from him and checking it yourself.

Jungkook’s face is plastered over your screen – a picture of him wasted in his room two years ago, taken from your Thailand trip with the rest of your friends. He’s sleeping with his mouth open, shirtless in the middle of the hut, only covered up with his trunks. You remember setting it as his contact photo because it was funny back then. Jungkook hates the photo, and your friends always made fun of him for it.

Right now, though, it doesn’t feel the least bit funny. Not when Mingyu’s certainly saw it. Not when he looks a little put off as soon as he sees a glimpse of it when he was passing your phone to you.

“I’ll just answer this.” You say, standing from the bed again.

You don’t expect Mingyu to suddenly shoot you a question, “You can’t answer here?”

Brows knitting together, you give him an uncertain look. “It’s just Jungkook.”

“Yeah… so, why not here?”

You relent, seeing the point he’s trying to make. Plopping yourself on the bed again, you answer Jungkook’s call and put the phone over your ear.

“Jungkook,”

“__,” he sighs out your name, sounding relieved. “Thank fuck.”

“What’s wrong?” You ask, growing a bit concerned at his tone.

You can hear some shuffling from the other line as Jungkook tells you, “Did you see me with my pager in the locker room earlier?”

“Oh, uh… let me think…” you trail off, trying to remember the events earlier. As you do that, you notice Mingyu’s fingers trailing his hands to your bare legs, but you ignore it as you answer Jungkook, “I think I didn’t, yeah. I didn’t.” Jungkook hisses. “Did you check your car?” you ask, trying to help out.

“Already did. It’s not in there, either. I really think I accidentally threw it out in the bin along with some trash in my pockets.” He says, sounding a little distressed now.

“Well… you can always just go to the operator, you know? Get a new pager?” you offer. There’s a drop of kiss on your shoulder that makes you shudder, and you look at Mingyu with furrowed brows. He doesn’t say anything, though, just let his fingers trail upwards, his hand sliding under your shirt, gripping your thigh. Your boyfriend just gives you a sly smile, and you squint your eyes at him, confused at what he’s playing at.

“I know. But, ugh, you know I lost two pagers already this year. Sungkyun hates me at this point—”

Jungkook’s answer suddenly drowns out when Mingyu grazes his thumb on your clothed clit.

“Oh.”

“—what?” Jungkook halts, asking about your abrupt reaction.

You bite your lip in an effort to shut yourself up, and when Mingyu’s hand makes another move again, your free hand shoots up to stop him.

“Hold on a second, Jungkook,” you say, quickly pressing mute.

Mingyu looks at you with a smirk, playful smile painting his face. “You know you can continue, right?”

At that, your brows furrow even further.

“What are you doing?” You didn’t mean to sound curt but with the way Mingyu’s expression changes, it may have sounded that way.

You… couldn’t help it.

“I wanted to touch you,” Mingyu tells you after a beat of awkward silence. Then, his hand retreats to himself. “Do you not want to?”

There’s guilt that springs up inside you when you see the look on his face as he says those words.

“No, I’m sorry— it’s just… I want to. I just… not with somebody on the phone?” You put it out like a question, unsure of yourself.

The room is quiet for awhile and suddenly there’s a thick tension that hangs in the air.

You reach out for Mingyu but then drop your hand to your sides when he moves to sit on the edge of the bed.

He turns his head to you with an unreadable expression on his face. “Is it because it’s Jungkook?”

You frown at his tone.

It sounded accusatory.

“Excuse me?” You say, taking immediate offense. When Mingyu shrugs, you feel a bit of annoyance bubble up inside you. “I would’ve still stopped you if it was anybody else on the phone, Mingyu.” you say, tone firm and leveled.

“I’m sorry, then.”

But he definitely doesn’t sound like it. His sarcasm makes you snap. “What’s up with you?”

Mingyu opens his mouth to say something but then he closes it again. You watch him with confused eyes, completely at loss of context where he’s at. The night was going fine as usual and suddenly, there’s this.

After a few seconds, Mingyu sighs. “What are you even talking about right now?” He glances at your phone.

“It’s—” you take a glance at it too. “It’s just his pager.”

“Pager?”

“Yes.”

“He asks you about his pager in the middle of the night, knowing full well you’re with me?”

“I—” you stop yourself, words suddenly getting lost in your tongue. Not because you don’t know the answer to his question, but because you hate the way he phrased it – and honestly, you’re starting to feel icky about how he’s going with it. What was he trying to do? Pin you down with accusatory notions?

You don’t fucking get it. Jungkook’s his friend. It’s so bizarre to even think about how Mingyu is seemingly acting jealous over his supposed friend.

“You know what?” You say instead, not wanting to discuss it further with him anymore. It’s just gonna lead to an unnecessary fight – and frankly, you don’t want to deal with his jealousy. It seems so… futile. “Can we just sleep this whole thing off?”

Mingyu looks at you and for the first time, his eyes don’t look gentle. He looks at you with a bit of a frown, and you get it. You do. You’re not exactly happy, either. Not right now, with the way he’s acting.

“Do you want me to go?” You ask, ready to step out of bed.

“I didn’t tell you to.” Mingyu says, voice equally strained.

You sigh. “What do you want me to do, Mingyu? Are you jealous, is that it?” You meant it to be completely rhetorical, not at all expecting him to say anything.

But he answers instantly. “What if I say I am?”

Your lips part. You’re surprised at the confirmation, but you shake your thoughts off it.

“Then it’s completely unnecessary,” you tell him, as genuine as you can sound. When Mingyu doesn’t move in his position on the edge of the bed, you crawl towards him. Testing the waters, you touch his arm to see if he would avoid your touch, but when you do rest your hand on his shoulder, he doesn’t stray. “I like you, Gyu.”

Cocking your head to the side, you watch as his face still sports a cold expression. But he says, “I like you too, you know that,”

“But…?” you try to get out the words from him, because you knew there’s more.

“I don’t want you to think I’m being irrational about this whole thing,” he starts, and you nod your head, trying to show him that you get it. Mingyu licks his lips before he continues, “I just… I guess I just want you to put boundaries around your friendship with Jeon.”

That makes you stop. Nevermind the strange way he called Jungkook by his surname.

“How do you mean by that?” You ask with furrowed brows.

“You’re just really close with him. And you live in one apartment together.” He points out.

“Mingyu…” you say, suddenly feeling tired all over again. “I thought we already talked about that.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m a hundred percent comfortable with it, you know?”

It feels like you got electrocuted by his words the way you quickly retreat your hands. “That’s…” you trail off, not really knowing what to say.

Thankfully, though, Mingyu interjects before you can slip into a dilemma.

“I know, I know about why you’re living with him and all that stuff. We talked about it. It’s just…” he reaches for your hand. Entangling your fingers together, Mingyu brings your knuckles to his lips and presses a kiss there. “I want you all the time. And I guess I really am just jealous – even though it’s juvenile. I’m jealous that he’s known you far longer than me.”

“But— I’m here thrice a week. I make time for the both of us. And it doesn’t really matter how long you’ve known me for, Gyu,” you respond truthfully.

He nods.

“I’m sorry.”

You shake your head. “No, I’m sorry. I guess I just— I got in way over my head that I also forgot to take your feelings into account,”

Mingyu smiles, and there goes his soft gentle expression again.

“I know. It’s fine. You don’t have anything to be sorry about. It’s me who’s being unreasonable.”

“No, it’s not unreasonable,” you tell him. “I get it. Boundaries, Mingyu. I know what you’re talking about.”

Mingyu scooches closer and presses a sweet kiss to your lips. You gladly bask in it, smiling against his lips, keeping your gentle gaze towards him as he breaks away.

“I’m sorry for being a bummer.”

You kiss him again and the way he inserts his tongue in your mouth distracts you a bit but you manage to break the contact. Soon, he’s lying down beside you and when you check your phone, your call with Jungkook has already ended, but there are two messages from him on your notifications.

[12:35am] jaykay🤠: are you still alive [12:38am] jaykay🤠: ok nevermind i’ll hang the call i actually found my pager just now 😭 [12:38am] jaykay🤠: it was in the kitchen counter LOL [12:45am] jaykay🤠: ok bye. night

You were going to reply but decide against it for some reason.

Putting your phone down to the bedside table, you follow Mingyu under the sheets and as usual, you face against his direction just like he does.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t really like cuddling that much. He’d share his space to a certain extent, just like how you got into his bed in the first place, but not the lengths of cuddling together in bed. Mingyu didn’t tell you why – and you don’t want to come off as clingy, so you don’t bother asking.

It’s strange, though. Now that he told you a while ago that he, apparently, “wants you all the time”. Shouldn’t he like to cuddle you in bed, then? But you don’t want to dwell in it too much, afraid that you may be digging yourself a hole if you were to keep it up.

As you lay your cheek on your folded hands, you play back the events of the night and think about how you’ve seen this film before.

When you were in med school, Eunwoo always had something to say about your friendship with Jungkook. He wasn’t direct with it, but with the way he never bothered to make friends with Jungkook or always had a grimace on his face when you mentioned him in passing, it was enough for you to conclude that Eunwoo was always… wary of Jungkook – and definitely in a jealous type of way.

He said almost the exact same thing as Mingyu – that boundaries should be built; that Jungkook and you are too close, why is he calling you in the middle of the night to ask about mundane things, why does he know too much about your mother’s preferences, and why is he buddy-buddy with your dad who otherwise always had an uninterested expression on his face?

It wasn’t even just Mingyu. Your past flings for the past four years you’ve been single always got put off when they heard that you’re rooming with a guy – even more so when you mention that he’s your bestfriend.

You’re not stupid to not see how it looks like from the outside perspective – and you’re not dense to not ever consider the possibility of something romantic brewing within the friendship. You have thought about it before – had an instant crush on him the first time you met at the law library back in post grad school. But it was fleeting at best, especially when Eunwoo came into your life a few weeks later.

Nayeon, Doyeon, and Taehyung have also hinted at it. Sometimes – most of the time, really, teasing you two, especially Taehyung. Even the most mature one among your friends – Yoongi – once told you both to get married at forty. He was joking, though he looked way too serious for someone who was just supposed to be joking.

And there was that one dreadful time in third year of med school when Jungkook almost kissed you.

You buried that memory in the very depths of your mind – not ever wanting to revisit it again. It was a bad time, and it was just not a good thing to look back at. Jungkook acted irresponsible, and you stupidly let yourself be complicit in it, even though you knew better.

Nothing even happened – but that memory was just that. A mere memory. You doubt Jungkook even remembers that himself.

Here’s the thing: you’ve just never seen Jungkook past the person you consider as a friend. You’ve never been weird about the women he dated – or if he dated, at all. He’s also always been supportive of your relationships… as far as you’re concerned. Regardless of what everybody says, you both seem to agree that you’re just better off as friends. You work better that way.

Jungkook’s a good guy, though. He does have tons of flings – but he’s just conventionally attractive and works hard for a body that is to die for. Women like that. Additionally, he has a stable job and even though he annoys you about splitting the delivery fee when you do take-out, he’s actually quite rich – or, his family is – he’d always insist.

You get it though. As a co-resident, you both don’t really make that much (for the work that you do) – at least not yet.

But he was indeed born in generational wealth, coming from a family of doctors, which is why it’s quite impressive that he knows how to handle his life by his own hard work. His intelligence and perseverance are some of the things you admire about him, his drive to make a name for himself and never leeching off his family’s name. Jungkook doesn’t ever brag about how his neurosurgeon dad is one of the best in the country and how his mom is a legend in cardiac surgery – even though sometimes, he could use it a little. He’s playful yet charming; quiet when you’re just knowing him, but he’ll eventually talk a lot when you get close.

As a friend, he’s quite the best you’ve ever had.

And even though you don’t really see him past that, you know in your heart that whoever ends up with him romantically will be a very lucky person.

“You’re a pussy.”

“Doyeon.”

Doyeon huffs, rolling her eyes so hard at Taehyung’s reprimand and then goes back to glaring at Jungkook again who just looks at her with a pathetic expression.

“What? I’m right. He’s a pussy and you’re an even bigger pussy for defending him being a pussy.” She says, furrowing her eyebrows angrily.

“Why are we talking about pussies?”

Nayeon suddenly enters the on-call room and Jungkook nearly has a heart attack.

“What the hell, you should at least knock. Jesus.” Jungkook says, clutching his chest, looking at Nayeon with an almost offended expression who closes the door behind her.

“Were you scared it was __? See!” Doyeon sighs out in frustration. “Such a fucking pussy.”

“Such a fucking pussy,” Jungkook mocks, using a higher pitch to imitate Doyeon poorly.

“And a child too.” She rolls her eyes and throws him a pillow. It misses Jungkook and hits Taehyung instead.

“Seriously, what are you so mad about today? You have that mood. Did you and your secret boyfriend fight?” Taehyung spits out.

Everybody stills in the room when Doyeon gives him a sharp glare. That pretty much makes everyone shut up, especially Taehyung who makes a show of physically zipping his mouth.

Nayeon fakes a cough and trudges towards Jungkook sitting on one of the beds. She throws her heavy hands on his shoulders, more like slaps, and then looks at Doyeon as she asks, “What are we calling this man a pussy for?”

“Oh, ask him. Or his dumber best friend.” Doyeon rolls his eyes and looks at Taehyung, crossing her arms and leaning her back on the chair she’s sitting on from across the room.

“You’re starting to hurt my feelings and I hate you.” Taehyung says from the other bed.

“Why?” Nayeon ignores their banter and furrows her brows at Jungkook curiously.

Jungkook hisses under his breath. “It’s nothing. She calls me a pussy for literally everything.”

Doyeon butts in. “Yeah, are you gonna cry?”

“If __ was here, she’s gonna be on my side, you know that?” Jungkook rebuts.

“If __ was here, you’d be panicking because she’ll know about your little secret.”

“Oof.” Taehyung comments.

“Oh, Jungkookie…” Nayeon looks down at him with worried eyes. When he looks up with a sad look, she starts rubbing his shoulders as some sort of comfort, already knowing about what this might be about. “This is about… the thing?”

He nods weakly. “Yes. And no. Uh, well, this is… you know about the birthday trip in the next five days, right? So, she asked me if she could bring, uh, Mingyu along.”

“Oh.” Nayeon utters, looking at Doyeon for confirmation.

Doyeon nods, and then nags, “Ask him what he said.”

Nayeon looks at him. “What did you say?”

“I said yes.”

“Oh.”

Jungkook looks down in slight shame at Nayeon’s reaction. She completely stops her hands’ ministrations on his shoulder, indicating that even she could not believe what he just did.

This makes Jungkook even feel worse.

Leaning his elbow on his thighs, he runs his fingers through his hair as he says, “I mean, how could I have said no? I would’ve looked like an asshole. Besides, Mingyu and I are college friends. There’s no reason for me to prohibit him from this trip. Like, at all.”

“Yeah, you and Mingyu are college friends but, ultimately, it’s our trip, right? __ would’ve understood if you said no.” Doyeon says, still not over her justification from a while ago.

“I know, I know. But still… I didn’t want to say no to her.” Jungkook tells Doyeon, not having a lot to say more than that.

It’s the plain truth, anyway. He truly, simply does not want to say no to you. Not ever.

“But Jungkook…” Nayeon interrupts. “Would it be okay for you? We know how you feel about the whole – er – Mingyu thing. Can you really take them being close together? Especially on a trip for your birthday?”

Though Nayeon’s voice is soft and her gaze gentle, her words hit him like a ton of bricks.

Truthfully, he doesn’t know what to feel about the whole thing. You dating Mingyu is one thing, but you bringing him along on your trips is another. It means that he’s it.

That you’re getting serious.

He hates himself for hating the idea. Jungkook’s always wanted to be nothing but supportive of you. He’d done it perfectly well with Eunwoo before, and your flings in the past four years have never upgraded past to being solely flings so he never worried about them, but now with Mingyu… it’s hard to pretend like it’s not killing him when you talk about how much you like him.

You have that lovestruck look on your face when Mingyu comes up in a conversation. For the first time in a while, you look genuinely happy. Jungkook always thought that your feelings for Eunwoo still lingered over the past few years – and how could it not, when you were literally engaged to him for a year? You told him one time that he may have been your greatest love… and he fears that it might be the same with Mingyu.

Where does that exactly leave him?

“What I think doesn’t really matter. And it’s just for week.” he murmurs, but the others hear it anyway.

“An excruciating week, you mean.” Doyeon says. She stands up from her chair. “You know what, I’m over this whole thing. I’ve witnessed you pine over her for whole eight years – and I’m just – I’m moving on from this. And I have a surgery. I’m going out.”

Jungkook grimaces when Doyeon heads towards the door.

“Doyeon, don’t be mean to Jungkook. He’s trying his best, you know? The timing is just not right and—”

“What timing?”

As soon as Doyeon twisted the doorknob, pulling the door open to completely head out, you came barging in, cutting off Nayeon’s words.

Her eyes widen a little at your sudden arrival. And Jungkook scrambles to think of an effort to swerve the subject, but Taehyung beats him to it.

“__, heyyy,” he prolongs the word quite unnaturally, chuckling at the end of it for no reason. Jungkook internally notes to tell him later never dare try to save anything ever again.

That makes you furrow your brows in confusion. Directing your look to Doyeon who stopped on her tracks, you ask her instead, “What’s going on? What about Jungkook trying his best?”

Doyeon looks at Jungkook and then you. You wait, but then she just rolls her eyes – just completely done about the whole thing. Like she said earlier.

“He’s trying his best not to be a pussy – well, allegedly.” At that, she goes out of the room, ignoring your calls to pull her back in.

“Uh… I think I have a surgery in twenty. See you guys around. Gotta scrub in.” Taehyung jumps from the other bed and Jungkook makes sure to extend his leg forward so that the older guy trips on it as he walks. “What the fuck, man.” Taehyung looks at him, offense written all over his face.

Jungkook gives him a glare. Taehyung chooses to ignore it rather than prolong it and walks past you at the door.

“Bye, fuckers.”

“Don’t call me a fucker!” Nayeon chimes in but Taehyung’s already out of the room.

“Hey, seriously! What was that?” You head towards the bed where Jungkook and Nayeon are, situating yourself on the far end of the bed to lean on the frame. You take off your sneakers in one swift move and lay your feet on Jungkook’s lap.

“It’s nothing. You know how Doyeon always bullies me…” Jungkook says, ignoring the tingling sensation that starts to creep up his spine at the way you casually initiate physical contact.

He needs to get a grip. You most probably don’t really mean anything by it.

“She does not bully you.” Nayeon rolls her eyes beside him.

“You probably deserve it.” you say, pulling out and eating some strawberry yogurt.

Nayeon laughs at your remark, but then it’s cut short when a pager suddenly beeps. Instantly, all of you take out your own and check if it was yours.

“Alright, that’s my call.”

“Bye. Good luck.” You say, offering your cup to Nayeon, but she only shakes her head. Meanwhile, Jungkook gives her a pair of thumbs up.

When Nayeon leaves the room, you nudge Jungkook with your foot.

“Hey,”

Jungkook looks at you with a brow raised.

“Can you rub my foot? Please rub my foot.” You say, making the best rendition of puppy face, extending your sock-cladded foot in his direction.

He scoffs. “Do you think I’m a pushover?”

You gasp dramatically. “I do not! I think you’re a cool person who’d totally give me foot rubs.”

“Unfortunately, I’m not a cool person who would give you foot rubs.”

You groan. “I gave you a massage weeks ago.”

“That was, like, two months ago.” Jungkook says drily.

“It counts because you didn’t do anything to repay me for my kindness.”

“Oh, you need your kindness paid back?” Jungkook teases, wiggling his eyebrows at you.

You pout at him and then whine. “Please, just three minutes, I swear. I’ll even put up a timer.”

Indeed, Jungkook is a pushover. Pushover to your cute pout and every request. Again, he could just not find it in himself to say no to you. Not even in his wildest dreams.

But it’s never not fun to tease you before he relents. “Fine. Two minutes.” He says, pretending to begrudge the thought of giving you a foot massage, even though inside, he’s quite thrilled to be doing so.

It would be a lie to say that it isn’t one of his favorite past times in the quiet evenings of your apartment. Jungkook loves the weight of your leg on his lap, loves the way you thank him in between groans, and loves that he just gets to be close to you in almost such an intimate way.

“Your feet stink.” Jungkook decides to tease, scrunching his nose, feigning disgust.

“Don’t lie. Also, your feet stink even more, don’t try me.”

“My feet do not stink.”

“Let’s just agree to disagree,” You grin. “I’m starting a timer.” You say, grabbing your phone, pressing some stuff on it before you put it on the mattress.

“Let me see, for all I know, you set it to five instead of three.”

You look at him with widen eyes, stiffening.

“It’s three minutes.”

“Your nostrils are flaring, you’re lying.”

You groan. “Please. Dinner is on me later.”

That obviously catches Jungkook’s attention.

“You’re staying at home for the night?”

You look at him weird. “Yeah, of course. What’s with that face?”

Jungkook shakes his head, hides a small smile as he looks down to your feet on his lap and takes a hold of one. He takes off your sock for you and begins massaging the tendons of your foot, noting the way you immediately lean back and relax.

“Nothing. I just thought you’d be staying at Mingyu’s again.”

“Ah,” you nod your head. When Mingyu's name is mentioned, you visibly frown. It’s the kind of face that you make when you’re deep in thought. “I was supposed to. But I don’t know… we fought this morning.”

Jungkook raises a brow. “You wanna talk about it?”

You shrug. “Not really. It’s a weird argument. I don’t know.”

He wants so badly to poke around and find out… but somehow, there’s something in him that tells him not to bother.

Anyway, you’re going home tonight so that’s all that matters. Jungkook begins to think about what to eat for dinner… he’d love to cook something, nevermind that he’s tired from his overnight shift yesterday. He also only got around four total hours of sleep in the past 48 hours, and that was not even consecutive hours – just the sum. That is why he was in the on-call rooms, until Taehyung suddenly barged in, followed by Doyeon, Nayeon, and then you.

“Oh– there, that’s so good, Jungkook,” you say after a particularly hard press against the ball of your heel.

Jungkook knows better than to let his mind wander upon hearing that from you. He’s massaging you, of course that was gonna be the natural reaction.

It’s also quite pathetic to be even thinking about it in the first place – considering that your mind might most likely be weighed by yours and Mingyu’s argument – your boyfriend.

“Hey, about what I said a few days ago,” you started to speak again, breaking the momentary silence. Jungkook hums to acknowledge you. “I know you said yes to me bringing Mingyu along, but, uh, I’m not sure if he still plans to.”

“Ah,” Jungkook nods. Was the argument that bad? “Okay.”

“Yeah. He has to fly over to Arizona for something that week. Told me he may be able to arrive and join us on the second day, which is the exact date of your birthday, but honestly, I’m not sure. His sched changes a lot.”

Deep down, Jungkook wishes Mingyu just opts out of joining in altogether.

But he doesn’t have to tell you that.

“That’s a shame.” he comments, not really meaning it. He massages your other foot with ginger hands, which has you letting out soft sighs again. Jungkook buries them in the back of his head, lest his mind goes to territories that are absolutely humiliating.

“I know…” you trail off. You look like you have more to say as well, but then the door to the room opens. Again.

“Forgot my pager.” Doyeon announces, crossing the room with quick steps to reach for the forgotten thing she left on the table.

When Doyeon’s gaze falls back to the both of you, she raises a brow, and then her eyes direct their way towards Jungkook’s hands on your foot.

You’re about to say something when Doyeon rolls his eyes at Jungkook. Then, without giving you the opportunity to speak, she heads out of the room quickly, leaving Jungkook to look in another direction in quiet shame.

“What was that?” You comment, confused at what just happened.

“Eh, she’s in a sour mood today. It’s regular Doyeon.” Shrugs Jungkook, trying to swerve the subject.

You pout. “Are you two fighting again for real?”

Jungkook chuckles. “No, it’s not serious. You know how Doyeon and I get.”

You squint your eyes, but say nothing nonetheless.

Meanwhile, Jungkook hisses internally.

Jungkook gets Doyeon. You all have been friends since freshman year of med school – the founder of your study group – and she was also the first one to find out about Jungkook’s little crush. He didn’t even have to say it explicitly, she just knew. Eventually, Jungkook told Taehyung. He has quite a big mouth, unfortunately, so when you started your internship at the hospital – he lets it slip in a conversation with Nayeon who was just becoming your friend that time – leading the situation to where it is right now.

Out of all of them, though, Doyeon got it pretty hard. She’s witnessed the early stages of Jungkook’s infatuation towards you in the first semester of med school, had to keep quiet during study sessions. She was even supportive that time, telling Jungkook to just go for it – but then Eunwoo happened, and the confession never saw the light of day.

When they broke up, Doyeon became hopeful again, just as Jungkook was. But you were showing no signs of moving on and Jungkook had no choice but to step back for a bit.

The past two years, though, Doyeon became more insistent, telling him you’re single and it’s the fattest chance Jungkook can ever get.

But she’s right, after all. Jungkook’s a pussy. He hides his feelings well – a pro at the sport, really, at this point.

When Mingyu happened a few months ago, Doyeon’s just over it. She told Jungkook one time in a drinking session that the ship has sunk and he’s going to be in his sixties regretting not ever confessing to you. Sometimes, he wakes up at night in sweat from a nightmare that involved Doyeon murdering him because of his emotional constipation.

Jungkook knows she just wants the best for him – even though she’s more on showing him tough love instead of a gentle one. Doyeon’s always been like that, but she’s a good friend. When things went haywire, she was there to genuinely sympathize with him and console him – together with Taehyung and some of his other friends.

But in Jungkook’s defense, Doyeon just also doesn’t get it.

It’s so easy to just say fuck it and make a confession already, so easy to think about how things could turn positively – but she’s not – they’re not – in Jungkook’s shoes. They will never be.

So many things could go wrong if he ever were to listen to his heart. Sure, he’s had the chance over the past four years – most would say that. But it’s not a chance when you’ve spent half of it moving on from Eunwoo. It’s not a chance when you spent the other half trying to go on dates and fail – each one making you more miserable about your love life, as you told him so many nights ago in those rare special moments in the balcony of your apartment.

Those four years you were single was never a chance – not when you never showed any bit of interest.

It’s the reality that his friends always somehow miss when encouraging him to confess his feelings.

You’re friends for almost a decade now – eight years to be exact – but not once did you ever hint at wanting to be in a relationship with him. Your reaction to that always involved a disgusted expression and a variation of “No way!”. Might be a joke just to tease him – but also might be rooted in something genuine deep down.

Jungkook likes to think that physically, he doesn’t look so bad. He’s nice when he wants to be, especially towards people he cares about. He’s a resident surgeon who makes enough. Could be funny, charming… whatever.

Most of all, he likes to think he could deserve you one of these days. That he could be the man that you’re searching for.

But it’s been eight years and you’ve never once looked at him like how he surely does at you.

God knows how many times Jungkook has tried to move on – how many sleepless nights he has trying to erase the feeling of so much longing for you. Sometimes, it works, when he’s on his casual dates and hook-up with all those women that thankfully fancied him enough. He momentarily forgets about your laugh and your hair and the crinkles on the sides of your eyes when you smile and your soft hands and your gentle voice – but it cracks when the sex is done and he’s staring at the blank ceiling of his date’s apartment, hating himself for yet again seeing your picture in his memory when he’s buried in somebody else, wishing it was you instead.

It hurts so badly. Especially when you seem to look at everybody else except him. You wanted to weed out someone for you – meanwhile, he’s just right under your nose, and yet you don’t see him. It’s at this point, when you have Mingyu as your boyfriend now, that Jungkook is starting to realize that you don’t see him not because you can’t, but because you choose not to.

Regardless, he knows you love him. Knows you care about him on a deeper level. Would probably sacrifice a bit of your time to tend to him if he needs it. But it’s the kind of love that’s not comparable to the one he has for you. Jungkook’s feelings encompass every single kind of love a human could have for another being – but you only have one kind for him. The platonic kind.

And even though it’s painful to face the reality of that very idea, Jungkook thinks that maybe… just maybe… Mingyu’s actually it.

Mingyu wasn’t exactly a saint the last time Jungkook saw him, but people change and the way you seem so genuinely happy these days tells Jungkook that maybe Mingyu’s another version of himself now – the better one who will never hurt you or make you cry.

Maybe this is what love’s all about. You’re content with seeing them happy, even if it’s not with you.

Jungkook thinks that as he steals a glance at you looking at your phone – most probably playing that landlord game on your phone you’ve been obsessed with the past few weeks – and you’re so beautiful like this. Even when you’re probably running on limited hours of sleep just like him.

Your hair is put up in that tulip hairclip you have a lot of, stray hairs framing some parts of your face. But he sees your features just fine – notes the way they are structured so perfectly it truly awes him that men and women didn’t beg for your attention whenever you went out in public.

Because he would. He did. He does. He always teases you for the purpose of your reaction… because Jungkook likes it when you pay attention to him. So much that it kills him to think that maybe, that attention will die soon as you and Mingyu get closer as another week passes by.

The timer that goes off on your phone snaps Jungkook out of his thoughts, and you look at him with widened eyes.

“Don’t st–”

“It’s my turn now,” Jungkook cuts you off and gently places your legs on the mattress, bringing his own on the soft surface as well.

You jut your bottom lip out – and Jungkook feels himself wanting to give in.

“Five minutes is so quick.” You say, but nonetheless takes his shin to your lap.

Jungkook tries hard to sway the butterflies in his stomach at your touch.

“Favor for a favor, remember?” He teases, lifting one of his foot to your direction.

You pretend to gag. “I hate you.”

Jungkook laughs, quite boisterously. Because he knows you don’t mean it. I hate you basically just means I love you but you’re annoying me right now in your own little dictionary – and he always gets giddy whenever you tell him that – as weird as it may sound.

But Jungkook likes this, though.

Sure, it would be so fucking great if he could just confess and lay out his cards all at once, but the chances of you not taking it well is too big – and even though Jungkook’s usually a risk taker, he couldn’t ever risk you all over his dead body.

He can keep his hurt to himself over you feeling anything but romantic towards him – because if he confesses and you don’t feel the same way, he knows damn well that he’ll lose you completely.

And the thought makes him shudder.

That probably catches your sight, so you ask him about it.

Jungkook tells you it’s the AC.

[ DAY 1 | August 31st, 11:04am ]

The beating sun feels uncomfortable on Jungkook’s skin, but there’s no way he’s wasting a day like this holed up in the villa he and his friends chipped in to rent. It costed you all a shit ton of money – might as well enjoy every waking day he gets to spend here.

It’s why he decides to goad Taehyung and Nayeon into coming with him along the shore where sun loungers are lined up to accommodate the few visitors who were also at the resort. He tried to convince Doyeon, but she goes straight to sleep as soon as the rooms were assigned.

He gets it – you all did travel by plane instead of car (because that would've taken you twelve hours) and Doyeon gets airsick whenever she rides in a plane. Jungkook also tried to talk you into it, but you said you were just going to lounge about by the pool at the villa and follow after a while.

Your “after awhile” takes about thirty minutes, and Jungkook thinks you’re missing all the fun, especially when Nayeon and Taehyung are starting to strip off their clothes to submerge themselves in the ocean.

With his loaded watergun, he goes straight back to the villa, and it doesn’t take much time to spot you by the terrace, lying down on a sun lounger with your big hat and sunglasses on, a book opened in your hands.

Unsuspecting, you let out a sudden squeal when Jungkook presses the trigger of the toy in his grip, a spring of water meeting your bare legs. Jungkook obviously tries hard to ignore that you’re wearing a flimsy pair of white bikinis. He saw you pack it two days ago… and he remembers taking too long to move on from the image he’s conjured up in his head upon seeing it.

“Jungkook!”

He chuckles at your reaction, poorly hiding the watergun behind him. “What?”

“I’ll kill you.” You seethe, your body coming forward to sit upright, hastily taking your sunnies off so he can see the cute glare on your face.

“What are you going to do? I have this,” He points to his weapon. “Are you challenging me into a hand-to-hand combat?” Jungkook teases, wiggling his eyebrow.

You groan. Then, you lay back on the lounger again, opening your book, deciding to ignore him.

Jungkook can’t have that, of course. So, he walks closer to your direction, stopping beside you, effectively blocking the sun and in turn, dimming the light source of your book.

“You’re blocking my sun.” You say, looking up at him.

“You’ll get all the sun you want if you haul your ass off to the shore. Come on, we’re all swimming in there,” he tries to convince you, nudging your thigh with his knee.

You give him a pout. You sound whiny when you say, “But it’s too hot.”

“That’s why we’ll get in the water.”

“Don’t be sassy.” You roll your eyes. “I meant the water would be way too hot.”

“It’s not, Nayeon said so.”

You glance at the pool across from you. “Why can’t we all just swim in here?”

Jungkook deadpans. “Because this is a five-foot pool and absolutely no one will enjoy it.”

You frown at him, quietly telling Jungkook he’s right.

“Ugh,” you groan. “But I’ll have to reapply SPF first…” You grab the bottle of lotion that’s just placed on the small table on the side of the lounger. Then you look at him with squinted eyes, “Did you wear sunscreen?”

Jungkook rolls his eyes but nonetheless says yes, knowing how you always nag him about it whenever you guys are at the beach. It’s not even just him. It’s also with your other friends.

He watches as you rub lotion over your body, but when you get to the back, you look up at him and extend the bottle towards his way.

“Can you help me with this, please?” You say.

Jungkook automatically takes the bottle but it takes him a full five seconds to understand what you’re getting at.

You’re asking him to put sunscreen on your back. You’re very naked back that sports nothing but the tiny strings of your bikini holding your chest.

Of course, you don’t notice his dilemma. Twisting in your seat so that your back faces him, you gather your hair to the side, obviously waiting for him to do your request.

But Jungkook’s distracted behind your back. He’s distracted at how smooth it looks under the scorching sun and how easy it would be to paint it with something other than the natural color of your skin.

It’s not even the first time he’ll do this – you’ve been to trips before and putting on sunscreen over your friend is about as natural as it gets like how he would do it as well to Taehyung or even Doyeon or Nayeon if they ask to.

But it doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect him one bit when it comes to you.

Needless to say, his mind is pre-occupied as he sits down behind you where you left some space for him to sit, squirting the lotion into the palms of his hands, gingerly spreading it over your back once he got it.

“Be sure to cover everything,” you say, obviously not aware about Jungkook’s mental crisis behind your back.

He thinks it’s worth the crisis over though, as you’re so soft under his touch. Jungkook kneads the span of your back, squeezes your waist lightly to even out the cream, and makes sure to put it over your shoulders as well. When his hands fall, he hesitates.

“Should I – uh—”

“Yeah, just go under the strings.” You tell him before he can even finish.

There’s a lump in his throat that he swallows before he goes under the strings of your bikini top, his heart doing funny somersaults against his ribcage as he spreads the lotion over your skin. It guilts him to no end that his mind thinks about how he’s just inches away from your breasts.

He retreats his hand right away. “Done.”

You turn back to him. “Thanks. You want me to do yours?”

“Sure.”

Jungkook sits on the edge of the lounger and lets his back turn to you. He hears the cap of the lotion bottle being opened again and soon your hands are lathering the cream over the expanse of his back.

It’s embarrassing the way he lets himself savor the seconds of your every touch. Embarrassing the way his mind zeroes in on the way your soft hands caress the tendons of his back muscles. He thinks about the weight, how good this feels; your hands on him. Suddenly, there’s a zap of electricity that goes through his spine, and then he feels it.

The twitch in his dick and the blood that he feels rushing to it.

“Okay, you’re done.” You say, tapping his back twice so he can turn to you.

It snaps him out of his thoughts, but his dick is thinking about something else and as he subtly looks down, there’s already a growing semi on the crotch of his trunk shorts.

Jungkook curses himself internally, shutting his eyes close in slight frustration.

Fucking uncooperative dick.

He stands up from the chair when you nudge his back with your foot, thinking that he’d see you coming along in a few seconds. But you don’t, and as he turns his heel to look at you, you’re back in your cozy lying position on the lounger, with your book opened, just like how he saw you when he came in a while ago.

Jungkook parts his lips in disbelief, but also finding the whole thing funny.

“You minx.” He muses, playfully squinting his eyes at you upon realizing the trick you just pulled.

“Enjoy the beach, Jungkook. Send my regards to Taehyung and Nayeon.” You say, giving him a taunting flying kiss. “And thank you for reapplying my sunscreen.”

Jungkook chuckles at your remark, and just like that, he forgets about his stubborn dick, and goes over back to you, blocking your sun once again.

“You’re blocking my sun again— Jungkook!”

It’s predictable the way you hurl a series of creative curses at him as Jungkook forcefully picks you up from the chair, knocking your hat and your book on the ground as he hoists you against his shoulder, carrying you upside down like a sack of potatoes.

“Jungkook, I swear to god!” You squeal, repeatedly slapping his back as he walks to the direction of the shore, but Jungkook’s nothing but a solid muscle, firm over his hold on the back of your legs.

“Be quiet.” He says, chuckling at your sounds of opposition.

“I hate you, you’re such a prick, ugh!”

He picks up his walking pace and you scream again when you see the ocean water from your view.

Jungkook chuckles as you continue to plant your fists on his back, and when the water reaches his knees, he throws you in it.

“Fuck. You!” You say, glaring at Jungkook in the middle of his uncontrollable laughter.

“Come on, Taehyung and Nayeon are over there,” he points to the deeper part of the ocean a few feet from where you are, and when you turn your head, you see Taehyung and Nayeon with their floaties.

“Ugh…” Jungkook hears you groan before you follow behind him. When Jungkook looks back, he sees you paddling around the water like some puppy, and he snickers to himself. That earns him a splash on his way, with you rolling your eyes at him.

“Jungkook! __!” Yells Nayeon over their direction, waving her hand around. Taehyung and her are perched on the big floatie they fought over with at the villa earlier.

“Jungkook,” calls you behind him.

You’re starting to cross the deeper part of the ocean and it’s within Jungkook’s chest now. Meanwhile, your friends are still about a few feet away, so the level would definitely be on his neck by the time. You’re considerably tall, but Jungkook’s still half a head taller than you, so when he looks back at you, the water’s already reached your shoulders.

“This is way too deep!” You complain.

“Don’t be a pussy, __!” Comments Taehyung from afar.

“Fuck off,” you murmur and then beckons Jungkook to you. “Help me a bit here.”

Jungkook shakes his head, chuckling as he moves a few steps back to get to your direction.

“You big baby, you never learned how to swim, have you?” He teases, playfully clicking his tongue.

“What for?” You say when he gets near.

Jungkook feels pleased with himself about you asking for his help to cross the deeper part of the ocean, but he’s met with surprise when you heavily plant your palms on his shoulders, causing him to be out of balance and tripping over his feet under the water.

It causes a misstep and he nearly chokes as he comes back up for air again only to see you laughing your ass off. Nayeon and Taehyung are also laughing along, even from afar, and Jungkook wipes the back of his hand over his eyes to see clearly.

“That’s for throwing me in the water earlier,” you say in between your snickers and Jungkook’s just about to say something back when you suddenly wrap your hands around his neck from the back, your legs locking around his waist. “Carry me to the floatie, pretty please,” you say against his cheek in a sing-song voice.

With that, Jungkook feels your whole entire body against his back, your breasts pressing against his skin. He ignores the way the physical contact makes his body tingle, and he hopes you don’t notice his blush when he raises his arms to hold the back of your legs.

“Only because you’re annoying.” He pretends to sound annoyed, but the laugh that comes out of you at the remark makes him smile anyway.

[ DAY 1 | August 31st, 11:35pm ]

Your daytime activities at the beach included jetskiing – one that knocked Taehyung off the water way too many times that he just gave up halfway through it. When Doyeon woke up a little later in the afternoon, all of you decided to get food from the dining hall and ate your hearts out at the buffet.

The day ended with all of you back in your assigned rooms again. Since you rented a two-bedroom villa, Jungkook’s rooming with Taehyung in the secondary bedroom while Nayeon, Doyeon, and you are all inside the primary one since it’s bigger.

It’s past thirty minutes to eleven in the night when somebody knocks on Jungkook’s shared bedroom with Taehyung. When Jungkook looks at him from across the room, he’s knocked out on the sofa, soft snores coming out from his mouth. Him and Jungkook decided to take turns with the bed itself throughout the whole vacation. There’s an extra cushion Taehyung could’ve laid on the floor, but he was way too tired to set it up and to even care – looks like he doesn’t really need it, though, since he looks so peaceful in his position.

Grumbling, Jungkook gets out from the sheets, scratching his bare chest and rubbing the back of his head as he walks over to the door to open it.

When he does, he’s welcomed by the sight of you in your big grey hoodie and some shorts.

“Wear something.” You say as soon as you take in his appearance.

Jungkook’s habit of going to sleep with only his boxers knows no bounds. Even when it’s below 20 degrees Celsius outside, he always opts out of his pajamas, choosing to go bare in his sheets instead. In his defense for now, the duvet is thick and it provided him with enough protection against the cold of the AC and the summer night.

“What are you doing here?” He says as he trudges back inside the room to wear a pair of sweatpants hanging from the chair.

“Rude.” You comment, following him in the room. You look at Taehyung’s passed out state in the couch. “He’s going to wake up in the evening tomorrow and miss your birthday.”

That makes Jungkook smirk, remembering Taehyung’s high energy in the morning.

“No consequences. It’s vacation week.” Jungkook raises his eyebrows. “Seriously, what brought you here? It’s almost midnight.”

You sit on the edge of the bed. That’s when Jungkook notices the black plastic you’re carrying in your hand. “It’s not that late. Let’s head out for a bit.”

He raises a brow, confused. “Where to?”

“You’re going to find out. Wear a jacket, it’s a bit cold outside.” You say as you stand up from the bed again, heading for the door.

Jungkook’s confusion just grows with passing seconds. Nonetheless, he can’t say he’s not intrigued.

Unsure, he goes for his small luggage and takes out the only hoodie he packed. It’s grey as well, matching the one you have on. Jungkook tries to shake that thought off his head as you both quietly head out of the room.

It’s late into the night and when you head out of the villa, there’s not many people hanging along the shore anymore.

“Follow me,” you tell him, and Jungkook does.

It may have been his drowsiness that kept him quiet throughout the whole walk – just quietly following along with you, your rented villa no longer in his line of sight. Jungkook couldn’t exactly pinpoint where you currently are, but this side of the beach is a bit rocky, and much, much colder. He feels it even through the thick material of his hoodie.

“We’re here.” You announce, a proud lilt to your voice. Jungkook bumps with your back when you suddenly stop on your tracks. It prompts a chuckle from you, turning back to him so Jungkook sees the crinkles on the sides of your eyes as you do so.

It makes his lips curl. “What’s this?” He curiously asks, looking around.

Your grin grows wider. “We’re gonna take those stairs and it’s gonna lead us to some pretty view.” Jungkook looks to the direction you pointed at, seeing the stairs you just referred to. Still unsure, he glances back at you. You laugh. “You remember when Doyeon and I went out for a walk earlier for a bit? We found this place.”

Jungkook nods. “I see. Thought for a second there you found a place to dispose my body at.”

You snort as you take Jungkook’s wrist to hold on to as you climb to the stairs.

“I won’t do it as such a public place.”

“So, you really are thinking about it in the first place.” Jungkook nods his head, guiding your back up the jagged stairs. You manage to get to the smoother surface and Jungkook’s quick to follow you towards the straight path of the narrow walkway.

“It’s my favorite past time, really.” You look back at him cheekily, a playful grin painting your lips. Jungkook scoffs.

The hallway is colonnaded with some flags, and there’s an edge where the concrete stops, the ocean water splashing against the big rocks beneath the broken bridge.

You set aside the black plastic you’ve been carrying around and Jungkook realizes they’re Smirnoffs. Sitting on the concrete, you let your feet hang on the edge.

“Hey, be careful,” Jungkook comments as he sees you do that. This part of the ocean isn’t necessarily far – where you were earlier when you were swimming was far deeper, but still, it could be dangerous if you make a mistake. Jungkook wonders what the designers of the beach thought about when they made this plan.

“Come on, don’t be fussy. Sit here with me.” You say, patting the space beside you.

Jungkook follows, of course, and you scoot to the side a little to give him more room.

“It’s nice, right,” You look at him, cocking your head to the side.

Jungkook feels the breeze of cool wind passing, and it’s a bit strong that it moves his fringes and yours as well. You put your hair up as usual in that big metal clip you always wear, but some strands of your hair escape and they frame your face.

With your big hoodie on and smile, Jungkook thinks you look extra cozy. He may have been hot and bothered by your bikini ensemble earlier, but now he’s bothered for another reason. He can’t stop thinking about cuddling you under the night sky full of stars at the very moment.

“Feels good.” Jungkook comments. He plants his palms on the hard surface of the concrete behind him, leaning back as he looks to your side. “You wanted to drink here?”

“Oh, yeah,” You say, twisting your body a little to pick up the plastic cellophane. You take out two bottles of Smirnoffs and offer one to him which he gladly takes. Taking a bottle opener out, you’re about to open your drinks when Jungkook offers to do it for the both of you. You don’t protest, just let him do his thing, smiling when he hands you your Smirnoff.

“This is really nice.” Jungkook sighs after he takes the first sip, looking straight ahead to the mountainous view in front of you.

You hum, seemingly enjoying the moment as well. Jungkook takes a quick glance at your side profile and then quickly looks back ahead when he feels you do the same.

“Why’d you bring me here?” He asks.

“Nothing. I couldn’t sleep, and I thought I could bring you here. So.” You shrug.

Jungkook nods.

“I’m turning thirty-one tomorrow. Or, in an hour, actually.” He says, automatically looking at his wrist but then realizing he took off his watch and left it at the bedside table. He didn’t take his phone with him either.

“I know. You’re so old now.” You tell him with a teasing tone in your words.

“Fuck off,” he snorts. “I’m only a year older than you.”

“Hmm… still old. Imagine, you turn fifty, I would still be forty-nine.”

Jungkook laughs at that.

“Whatever makes you sleep at night, babe.” He lets the pet name slip, and he did not mean to. It just rolled off his tongue for some reason. Quite easily, too.

You don’t seem to care – or even notice – as you chuckle.

There’s a comfortable silence that hangs in the air again when Jungkook decides to break it.

“Hey, I really appreciate you for coming along. You and the gang, really. This is a really good trip so far.”

You give him a smile as you look at him. It’s one of those pretty ones that are a bit small but there’s a certain shine to your eyes and Jungkook just really loves looking at you with a smile on your face. You’re so pretty, he thinks he’s so lucky to even get the chance to look at you.

“You know we all need this trip, right? I think it’s all our first time vacationing in two years.”

He nods, chuckling to himself. It’s true. The last time was the Thailand trip and it felt like eons ago. Being a resident surgeon means less free time for leisure – and so you always make sure to spend your days off wisely. Even this trip took a lot of pre-planning to be possible just so all of your schedules would match.

“It’s crazy, though…” you say suddenly.

Jungkook cocks a brow at you. “What’s crazy?”

“That we’ve known each other for like – what? Eight years?”

Eight years and four months to be exact. Jungkook’s not keeping count – he just will never forget the exact moment he met you for the very first time.

It’s truly one of his core memories – knowing you. He remembers having to pass by the law library to meet Jimin – one of his closest friends who was studying law at the same grad school as him at the time. They were planning to eat out for lunch, but then he saw a woman at the individual study areas with a reading material that’s familiar with his. Netter’s Atlas of Human Anatomy. You wore that maroon hairclip you loved so much during first year (Jungkook remembers you losing it in the second semester and how he bought you another one in your birthday), and when you looked up from your book for awhile, taking a break from taking notes on your iPad, that was when Jungkook saw your face and he nearly falls over back then.

It’s common knowledge among your mutual friends and acquaintances that you’re pretty. It’s the first thing that Jungkook noticed about you, the reason why he harbored an instant crush. That pretty much turned into… well – something deeper as the years passed by and he got to know you more than just your beautiful physical appearance.

He found it strange at the time to find somebody who was obviously a med student studying at the law library, but he soon found out it was because you didn’t like studying at the med lib, said you felt too much pressure being among your fellow med students. Jungkook understood that in a spiritual level, and so when you became friends, you studied a lot at the law lib, until you met Doyeon and she formed a study group. It wasn’t long before Taehyung joined the equation.

Looking back at it, Jungkook thinks it’s surreal. How knowing you led to him knowing more people that would soon be important in his life up until the age of thirty-one.

“Almost a decade.” He says, can’t help but smile at the thought.

“Right? It feels so surreal sometimes that we all knew each other at, like, twenty-three and twenty two. And now we’re in our thirties.”

“When you put it like that…” Jungkook trails off, laughing at how young you actually were eight years ago.

“Yeah, I know!” You giggle. You look ahead, then you laugh again to yourself. Jungkook looks at you in confusion, giving you a questioning look at your sudden burst of laughter. Looking at him, you shake your head, “This is a bit of a TMI, but I was twenty-two when I entered med school, so I just lost my virginity three years ago. You know what’s funny? I’ve always thought I would lose my virginity, at like, thirty. Or twenty-seven. But that was even way too early for me.”

Jungkook almost splutters at the way you casually bring it up. He takes the bottle of Smirnoff away from him and looks at you with a chuckle. “Losing your virginity at nineteen is common.”

“Well, did you? Lose yours at nineteen?” You arch a brow.

“Nope.” Jungkook shakes his head, tipping his head back to drink again.

“Younger?” You ask again.

Jungkook chuckles at your curiosity. Much to your surprise, he shakes his head again. “Nah. Junior year. I just turned twenty-one. Lost it with my first girlfriend.”

Your lips part and Jungkook meets your shocked stare, brow cocked upwards.

“You’re fucking with me.”

“What? No, I’m not.” He laughs. He gets your surprise, though. Taehyung couldn’t believe it either when it came up in a random conversation.

You still look incredulous as you say, “You mean, like you never dated until junior year of undergrad?”

Jungkook shakes his head once again. “Yes, and no…? I mean, I had a… sort of girlfriend? Back in highschool, yeah, but it was more of like a mutual crush thing rather than an official relationship. But yeah, never dated and never had sex ‘til I found my first girlfriend in third year.”

You look at him suspiciously still, and Jungkook can’t help but laugh even more at your reaction.

“I really don’t believe you.”

“What’s so surprising about that?” Jungkook knows the answer, though. He sleeps around, and you know that. It’s probably why you can’t believe he’s only started having sex until third year of college.

You’re quiet for a bit.

“So… you and that girlfriend broke up, and then…” you trail off, letting him finish the pieces.

Jungkook chuckles, recalling some memories that he thought were already hidden well at the back of his head.

Jiyeon. Her name was Park Jiyeon, his first girlfriend. He was the one who ended things – and not because he didn’t have feelings for her. It was the other way around.

“Yeah,” Jungkook fills in. “Didn’t date seriously after that.”

“Uh… was it a bad break-up?” You say, and there’s hesitance in your voice. When Jungkook looks at you, you open your mouth to take your question back, probably, but Jungkook just gives you a warm smile.

“Yeah. It was bad. But I don’t really think about it now.”

You nod. “I see.” You say, looking ahead at the ocean again. “You dated… quite seriously again in our last year of med school, though.”

“Sora?”

“Yeah.”

Jungkook nods, remembering the only one-year relationship he had. Min Sora was a fashion magazine director at the time. Jungkook liked her as she did, but they had too many differences that lead to too many arguments. Sora ended things before the relationship dragged out. Jungkook was grateful for it. They’re casual as of now… good friends, maybe?

“I always wondered why she broke up with you.” You say quietly.

Jungkook doesn’t expect that. “You wondered about that?”

“Yeah. I mean, you seemed like you were both really into each other, so I just thought… you know,” you shrug.

“Ah. That,” Jungkook looks afar, recalling the day when she ended things with him. It had been because of the stress that the last year of med school brought – he likes to think that. But it was also during the time when Eunwoo proposed to you and what he thought was feelings forgotten for you came back resurfacing and Sora just… figured him out. She told him he loved you, and she’s got no spare time to compete with that. Denying it at the time was futile – Sora was smart. A wise, independent woman. She ended the relationship herself before she got deeply hurt. Jungkook has always felt sorry about how things turned out. No, he doesn’t regret the break-up – just regrets the way he hurt her – unintentionally – even though she didn’t show it. “Just didn’t work out, I guess.”

You nod again.

Silence sits in the air.

It feels a little strange to talk about these things now. It’s not that you both never share these aspects about your lives to each other, but it’s the first time you ask him about Sora. He never really bothered to share, though, for the record.

From his periphery, he sees you taking your phone out from your pocket, then gasping.

Jungkook immediately looks at you to see what’s wrong. You show him your phone and he notes nothing of significance first before you say, “It’s 12:01 am. It’s September first!”

“Oh.”

“Happy birthday, Kook.” You say, smiling at him, and it’s an underestimation for Jungkook to say he nearly gets blinded by it. You look so gorgeous in your happy smile, so genuine, so warm, so cozy in your big grey hoodie.

Jungkook wants so bad to plant his lips on yours right then and there, but he reminds himself that he can’t do that. He reminds himself that you’re taken. That you like somebody else. The somebody else arriving tomorrow, as per your words earlier this day when he asked about Mingyu.

Still, it doesn’t stop Jungkook from mirroring your smile.

“Thank you.”

“And, before I forget,” you stuff your hands in the pocket of your hoodie and Jungkook watches as you take out a small rectangular box. As he pays you a glance, you’re a little bit shy, not looking straight into his eyes as you say, “Uh. I saw this somewhere, and I thought you’d like it.”

You extend your hand to him and Jungkook lets go of his beer to take the velvety green box from you.

He feels jittery as he takes it in, caresses the ribbon first before opening it altogether.

What’s inside surprises him.

“It didn’t cost much so don’t throw it away,” you say, uncharacteristically defensive. Jungkook can’t see your expression, but he bets your thoughts are going haywire as it takes him awhile to say anything about your gift. You always get nervous when it comes to gifts. “... and anyway, it’s not even my real gift. My real gift is a hairdryer, so I’m sure you’re gonna like that better. But it’s cute, right? You can hang it in your keyholder or something—”

“__,” Jungkook cuts you off, his eyes still on the keyring laying on the box. “You’re giving this to me?”

“Y-yeah. It’s… uh… cute, right? I thought it was cute.” You say, and when Jungkook looks at you, he sees the adorable way your brows furrow.

He chuckles, looking at the keyring again. It’s a silver Claddagh.

“Do you know what this means?” Jungkook asks.

“The what?”

Jungkook points to the Claddagh. “This symbol.”

You look away as you say, “No, not really. I just thought it’s a cool keychain. You told me you like keychains, but I don’t ever see you with a keychain. So.”

With your nostrils flaring a little, he knows you’re lying. You definitely know what the Claddagh symbol means.

But instead of goading you about it, Jungkook takes the keyring out of the box and hangs it over his finger, admiring the item.

“Thank you. This is really cute, and I love it.” Jungkook tells you, giving you a soft smile.

You stare at him and then cave into a smile of your own. “I’m glad you do.”

Jungkook looks at the Claddagh again and smiles heartily.

His heart aches with so much yearning and longing when you go back to the villa that night, spending about three minutes staring at the Claddagh you gifted him that he immediately hangs in his key holder. Jungkook thinks he’s going to transfer it to his work bag or the back of his rearview mirror, but his keyholder would do for now.

You love him alright, certainly not the way he does, but it’s enough for him.

[ DAY 2 | September 1st, 11:55pm ]

It was not a secret among Nayeon, Doyeon, and Taehyung that Jungkook’s mood considerably plummeted down as soon as Mingyu called you early in the morning that he’d be landing in the afternoon.

Afternoon came, and he tried to suck it up like a grown man – and because as far as you know, they’re both friends. And Mingyu’s your boyfriend. He should be nothing but supportive.

But it was especially hard when you gushed about being excited that he was finally here. It’s been four months since you started seeing each other, two months since you officially dated, but somehow, Jungkook still could not process it.

He knows he’s being unfair. To you and to himself. But he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t help the feeling of ugly bitterness that sat in his heart as you told him about how Mingyu rented another villa so you both could room together, effectively taking you away from the rest of your friends.

Of course, you all spent his birthday together – doing tons of water activities in the ocean, eating at the dining hall, and roaming around for some more leisure time, but Jungkook could not help but think that ever since Mingyu’s arrived, you’ve been sticking with him, even taking the time away from the gang to show your boyfriend around the resort.

Even at the villa’s porch where all of you took out your foldable chairs to drink outside, you were with Mingyu, perched on his lap, laughing at the jokes getting thrown around in the circle.

He tried not to look too much at how Mingyu comfortably wrapped one arm around your waist while the other held a drink, how you leaned into his touch, and how easily he blended with the group with his charm.

“Where’d you get the ice cream?” Doyeon asked as Taehyung sat down on his chair with a small bowl of the sweet treat.

“Fridge. Nayeon and I bought it earlier.”

“There’s ice cream?” Mingyu asked, in which Taehyung nodded to. He turned to you. “Do you want it?”

Jungkook’s brows furrowed in confusion. “__’s lactose intolerant.” He noticed everybody suddenly looking at him. Feeling cornered, he drank from his beer to avoid their gazes.

Mingyu, obviously surprised by the declaration, glanced back at you. “Baby, you didn’t tell me that?”

You winced. “It’s not really a big deal.” you waved him off and when you laugh.

“Yeah, she’s stubborn about it. She can inhale five cones in one sitting.” Taehyung said which made everybody laugh. Jungkook knew it was to lighten the mood. So, he laughed as well, even though from his periphery, he could see you giving him daggers through your eyes.

Jungkook doesn’t know why you had to pretend it wasn’t a big deal. Sure, Taehyung’s right about you not taking your lactose intolerance seriously sometimes, but you’ve also gotten into a lot of trouble because of it, hence why you’ve been making conscious efforts to not eat dairy.

The whole day leaves a sour impression on him with Mingyu around. Quite a shame, really, since he started his birthday so well with you taking him to the far-end of the beach to drink and give him a Claddagh.

When the night becomes much darker, Jungkook sits on the terrace near the pool all by himself. Everybody’s fast asleep at this point. He doesn’t know about you, though, ‘cause you’ve probably transferred all your stuff to the other villa Mingyu rented around.

“Hey,”

Jungkook looks at the embodied voice that suddenly calls. He sees it’s Doyeon.

“Hey,” Jungkook smiles, taking the other bottle of beer on the coffee table and offering it to her.

She waves his hand. “Nah, I’ve had enough for the whole day.” Doyeon situates herself on the folding chair next to Jungkook.

Jungkook nods, looking straight ahead to the pool. They sit in comfortable silence for a while until Doyeon speaks.

“Hey, I’m sorry for the last week,”

Jungkook glances at her with a small smile. “What for?”

“For calling you a pussy. And just… being harsh. Had a tough week and your emotional constipation just pissed me off more. You’re still a pussy, but I shouldn’t have rubbed it off your face.” She says.

Jungkook stares at her with parted lips.

“Wow. I don’t know if that’s an actual apology.”

“It’s an apology with a hundred percent realness, you know I don’t baby anybody.”

“Hah,” Jungkook scoffs, amused. “Yeah. Well, you’re right, though. Today’s been…”

Doyeon sighs. “It’s hard on you, right?”

Jungkook can only give her a meaningful smile.

“But you don’t exactly have the right to get jealous… she’s not your girlfriend and you two are not anything,” Doyeon says, and it tugs at Jungkook’s heartstrings. Meanwhile, she looks ahead and continues to speak. “It’s hard when you have all these feelings for someone, but you have to hide it. You just want to show everybody they mean so much to you, but you can’t. It sucks.”

Jungkook thinks she’s still talking about his situation with you but then as he glances at her, she seems to be deep in thought. As if she’s actually speaking from her own experience.

He’s intrigued by that, of course.

“Woah, are you still talking about me?”

That seems to get Doyeon out of her trance.

She rolls his eyes. “Who else would I be talking about?”

Jungkook opens his mouth to say something. You guys have always had the theory that Doyeon has a secret boyfriend. It’s silly at best but sometimes, he thinks it’s true. Doyeon has never been the type to wear her heart on her sleeve, though. She’s tough and she’s frank a lot of times. But she’s the kind of friend who’d call you a bitch in your face but then would go to all the lengths to defend you from everybody.

“Okay.” Jungkook nods, dropping the subject.

“Has she told you yet?” Doyeon asks suddenly.

“What?” He mirrors back, knowing exactly who the she Doyeon’s referring to.

“She’s planning to move in with him some of these days.”

“I…” Jungkook stops, his mouth opening and closing like a fish in water. To say that he’s stunned is an understatement. Obviously, you haven’t told him anything.

“You don’t know.” Doyeon says upon realization.

Jungkook shakes his head. “She didn’t tell me.”

Doyeon lets out a loud sigh. “It’s not really set in stone, though, that’s what she said. But they’re discussing it.”

“Ah.” Jungkook nods and looks ahead at the pool. Another beat of silence, a sip of beer, and then he scoffs. “I really should’ve confessed even way back then, huh?” He laughs but there’s no humor in it.

Doyeon stares at him. “I didn’t tell you about that so you can regret not telling your feelings for her earlier.”

“I didn’t—”

“I told you that so you can move on, Jungkook.”

Jungkook closes his mouth shut.

She looks away. “You remember the time I liked you in med school?”

“Doyeon…” Jungkook’s lips part, not at all expecting for her to bring that up. It’s been so long ago and ever since… Doyeon’s confession, they never really talked about it again.

“Oh my god, look at your face,” She laughs. “God, do you think I still like you? I moved on the day after you rejected me.”

“I didn’t reject you.” Jungkook defensively says.

She rolls her eyes. “I asked you if you were interested and you didn’t say anything. You just looked at me like this,” Doyeon stiffens her body and widens her eyes in a comical rendition of Jungkook’s famous OJO face.

Jungkook can’t help but scoff. “That was the strangest confession that happened to me, though. You told me you liked me in the straightest face ever, I still think it was a cruel prank of some sort.”

Doyeon bursts into laughter, and Jungkook follows along, recalling that time.

“Yeah… that was funny. But… it was real, not a prank at all. I don’t remember why I liked you, though.”

Jungkook looks at her incredulously. “Okay, but that’s actually the most hurtful thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Don’t take it personally,” Doyeon rolls her eyes, but there’s a smile on her lips still. “Anyway, I brought it up because that was the same day when I realized you like __. I mean, I had my suspicions, but I confirmed it around the time.”

Jungkook shakes his head. “Was really surprised when you told me that. I thought I hid it pretty well.”

“Yeah, but not to me. You know, I don’t even know how __ didn’t figure it out herself. You’d always follow her around and in our study sessions, you always stayed up late with her and was overly attentive. Whenever Taehyung asked you too much, you sort of like reached a point where you just told him to suck it up. But if it was __, you were so patient,” Doyeon giggles. “She had a really hard time with Biochem. I remember you tutoring her all the time.”

“That was…” Jungkook bows his head down, a bit embarrassed at being read like that. “She cried a lot during first year.”

Doyeon purses her lips. “Yeah…”

Both stare ahead again, with nothing to say for a few more seconds. Jungkook continues to sip his bear while Doyeon quietly sits.

“I have this biased notion about Mingyu,” Doyeon speaks up. Jungkook looks at her she continues, “I keep on telling myself, he’s probably gonna fuck up anytime soon – and that’s because deep inside, I still want you and __ together. You know I’ve always wanted you both to be together. It’s hard to see __ struggling with her love life. She almost failed the internship when Eunwoo broke up with her, and I don’t want her to go through that again as her friend. It’s hard, because I can’t do anything about it. I think of you, and how much you love her, and I think you’re good for her… but at the same time, I feel bad for thinking that. Because I can see that Mingyu makes her happy. It’s different with the other guys she dated before him. She’s truly happy with him, and I find it hard to think that Mingyu’s gonna break her heart. He seems… nice… and that he’d be good for her, you know what I mean?”

Jungkook’s quiet, processing her words.

Doyeon sighs before she speaks again. “But that hurts you in the process, doesn’t it? Seeing her happy but not with you. You’re both my friends and I’m in the position where it’s hard for me to situate myself in a certain place. Because I want __ to be happy, but I also want you to be happy – but your happiness is interconnected and it’s… tricky. It’s a tricky situation.”

Jungkook doesn’t realize that he’s gripping the neck of the bottle quite tightly at Doyeon’s words, but he listens.

“I don’t normally say things like this, Jungkook, but I’m your friend so I’m just gonna let this go,” Doyeon finally looks at him, and he meets her gaze. “It hurts me to see you hurting like this. It hurts Taehyung and Nayeon as well, but they won’t say it. Just… just be… just be okay, please?”

Jungkook exhales a sharp, shaky breath.

He knows what Doyeon meant by that. She’s asking him to… find happiness on his own. Happiness that doesn’t lie on __’s reciprocity because with the way things are going, that’s impossible. She’s planning to move in with Mingyu, and most of all, she seems genuinely happy.

“I… I know. Thank you.” Jungkook says, not really knowing what to say.

Doyeon chuckles. “Do you want a hug?”

He looks at her with a smile. “I could use one right now, yeah.”

Doyeon laughs before standing up and going over to where Jungkook sits on his own sun chair. When she steps in front of him, Jungkook wraps his arms around her waist and lets himself rest the side of his head on her stomach, closing his eyes when Doyeon pats the crown of his head.

“Belated happy birthday, Jungkook.”

Jungkook chuckles. “Thanks. You’re unusually mushy today.”

Doyeon pinches his ear slightly which earns her a groan.

The two stay like that for a few more seconds when suddenly, Jungkook hears a familiar voice.

“Oh, h-hey guys,”

Jungkook immediately looks ahead to see you standing from the other side of the terrace, looking at him and Doyeon. At that, Doyeon lets go of him, twisting her body to look in your direction. Jungkook retreats his arms back to his side and smiles to acknowledge you.

“I thought you were sleeping already.” He says.

“Yeah, what brought you here?” Doyeon asks.

You approach them with unusually slow steps, as if reluctant. “Left my wallet here. Just realized it a while ago,” you say. After that, you stop on your tracks. Your gaze falls between them with an unsure smile on your face. “You two drinking?”

“Nah, Jungkook is.” Doyeon says, pointing to the bottle of Smirnoffs on the small table beside Jungkook’s chair. Then, she looks under her own. “Where’d you leave your wallet?”

“Over my chair earlier.” You give her a smile again. But somehow, it looks a bit awkward. A little forced. Jungkook knows you well enough to identify your smiles.

And as he looks at you longer, he realizes you have a certain color on your face, but it’s one of those expressions he can’t read.

“Well,” you blurt out after a beat of silence. Looking around, you go over to where you were sitting earlier then duck. “I think I left it here…” you trail off. Jungkook’s just about to stand up to help as well when you suddenly pull up a brown leather, grinning at both of them. “Yay.”

Jungkook chuckles. “That would’ve been the third wallet you’ll lose this year.”

You mirror his laughter, and Doyeon joins in.

There’s another pause and then hesitantly, you ask, “Did I… uh… disturb something? Or…”

“What?” Doyeon asks with furrowed brows. “No,”

“Ah, okay,” you smile at her and then insert your wallet in your shorts. “Anyway, I’m heading back to Mingyu. The villa he rented is just at the back of ours, so… feel free to visit anytime or whatever.”

“Sure.” Jungkook says. He didn’t mean it to sound clipped and short but he must have unintentionally let the tone slip, as you and Doyeon immediately give him a look. He clears his throat. “I mean, of course. Tomorrow?”

You nod.

You look at him. And then, you point between him and Nayeon. “Are you two staying up here late?”

“Nah, I’m heading to bed actually.” Doyeon says, picking up her phone from the sun lounger.

“Yeah, me too.” Jungkook puts the beer to the coffee table and stands up.

You nod. “Okay, then. Well, good night to you two.”

“Alright, good night. I’ll head out first.” Doyeon says before disappearing into the sliding door that leads straight to the villa’s living room.

You soon turn your heels back to head out as well, but Jungkook calls after you. Turning around, you hum, acknowledging him. “Hm?”

“Good night, stinky.”

You deadpan. “Night, fucker.”

Jungkook laughs, watching your retreating back as you leave.

[ DAY 4 | September 3rd , 3:05 am ]

Jungkook likes to work out when he has a lot in his mind. But sometimes, he opts for jogging or walking around to clear his head.

With the turn of events since Mingyu’s arrival and Doyeon informing him about your plans on furthering your relationship with Mingyu, he finds himself along by the shore at three am with high hopes to clear his mind. It doesn’t give the solution, but it temporarily does the job.

Inserting his hands in the pockets of his hoodie, he looks ahead at the view of the ocean, trying so hard to shut his head down with overbearing thoughts of you. It’s no use, though, it’s always filled with thoughts of you and you alone.

Jungkook thinks about the time in med school when he thought he was completely over you. It had been after you made it official with Eunwoo two months into seeing him. He thought it would be a “bigger person” thing to do, moving on, that is, after you announced that you got a boyfriend – but then later on, when he slept with other women or had his casual dates, you suddenly popped up in his head randomly, and his heart suddenly ached when Eunwoo would drop by the university to fetch you. He felt ugly bitterness when you smiled too much whenever Eunwoo was brought up in the conversation. He found himself wishing it was him instead – the guy you thought of buying shirts for, the guy you randomly thought of when you saw something at the mall or the park, or the guy you called when you needed anything.

It was that spring break in second year when he realized that he loved you, after trying hard to brush his feelings off for you as a mere infatuation because you were gorgeous and smart.

He finds himself thinking about the time when he almost let out his heart when you had a fall-out with Eunwoo during your third year. Thinks about how pathetic he was for thinking that he finally had the chance. It had been when you called him at midnight, crying onto the phone as you asked him if he wasn’t busy. Jungkook had been studying for a Clinical Skill Assessment at that time, but he’d have been a fool to make you feel lonely when you already seemed like you were not fine. So, he had set aside his studying that night and went right over to your place. You told him about how Eunwoo was going cold, how Eunwoo was getting too close to the senior architect at his firm which you’d been having huge arguments about during those days – Jungkook remembered feeling broken at the sight of you crying, could feel himself building up hatred for the guy who was fucking up his chance with the woman he did not deserve. He thought about how he would never do that to you, thought about how he could be better for you – the envy bubbling inside his heart too big to ignore.

Jungkook remembered thinking how he would never fuck up any chances with you, and how Eunwoo was a fucking idiot for even making you feel that way.

That night, he almost kissed you. And the day after that, you avoided him like the plague.

Doyeon told him he was just as much of a big fucking idiot as Eunwoo for doing that. And Jungkook remembered regretting that night, and swearing off to never, ever make a move on you ever again because your avoidance of him made him feel like the biggest fucking piece of shit to ever exist on Earth.

He remembers you didn’t talk to him for about a month. And he remembers fearing that that was finally it.

Of course, you made up – you’re still in his life. You let him still be in your life even though he betrayed your trust. The trust that lies on the fact that he was your best friend. Someone who was not supposed to take advantage of your vulnerability, someone who did not suddenly try to kiss you when you were at your worst.

It was a memory you two weren’t fond of. Heck, you’ve never ever brought it up not even once since it happened. When you finally talked to him again after that, you did not let him apologize for what he did – just shut him down by saying that you two should just forget about it and never mention it again. You made it clear that you did not want to talk about it – not at all, not in a million years.

Again, Jungkook has had a million attempts to move on. Especially when you got back together with Eunwoo. He did temporarily, when Sora came into the picture. He genuinely did like her, even more than his first girlfriend in college, and he thought he could eventually love her the same way he does you, but Eunwoo suddenly proposed… and his defense came crumbling down. The fear of losing you once again was too overwhelming that he ruined the relationship with Sora because admittedly, he had always been pathetic like that.

Even now that you’re with Mingyu, he’s still pathetic. He still thinks that one day, you can finally look at him. Like, really look at him and feel anything but friendly towards him. It’s extremely pathetic that he keeps on telling himself that your friendship will be enough, but then deep down, it’s not.

Jungkook shuts his eyes close when he feels the cool breeze of the wind hitting his skin under the hoodie. He lets himself stand there for a while, just trying to bask in the surroundings, ignoring the heavy feeling that sits in his heart.

But then he smells a sudden waft of smoke, and he knits his brows as he opens his eyes back again, turning to the direction of the smell.

When he turns back, he sees a familiar figure of a man.

“Mingyu?”

Mingyu glances back at him with the same surprised look on his face, but it disappears just as quickly. Pinching the cigarette between his fingers, he blows smoke in the air and inserts one hand in his shorts.

“Jeon.”

“Still Jeon to you, huh?” Jungkook sneers, walking over to where Mingyu is. “Why are you here?”

Mingyu arches a brow. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“Woke up a few minutes ago and couldn’t get back to sleep.”

Taking a hit of his cigarette again, Mingyu shakes his head. “That’s tough.”

“Same with you?” Jungkook asks.

“Nah. Had a discussion with my girlfriend. Just wanted to clear my head.”

Jungkook nods, not saying anything to that. It’s weird that you’ve been fighting a lot lately. He wonders if you’re okay.

Pulling out a pack of Marlboro and a lighter, Mingyu extends them to Jungkook.

He looks down at it and thinks about how this exact thing happened in college. Mingyu always had the pack of cigarettes and the link to the best weed man in college. He used to think they would be fond memories.

But Jungkook shakes his head, looking ahead.

“I quit years ago.” He says. And it is true. He wasn’t much of a smoker and only did it occasionally when he was extremely stressed, but it took him awhile to stop the habit completely, only dropping the cigarettes during second year of med school. Jungkook would say it was due to his own concern about his health – but there was an incident in the same year where you caught him smoking at the uni’s park after a particularly taxing exam, and how you did not hesitate to tell him that you hated – absolutely abhorred – smokers. You said you didn’t care if he smoked, but as a med student he should’ve known better.

He never touched that shit again.

“Changing your ways now?” Mingyu says with a teasing – more like mocking – tone, inserting the pack and lighter back in his pants.

Jungkook shrugs at that, which earns him a scoff from Mingyu.

“Do you smoke around her?” Jungkook suddenly asks.

“Who?”

“__.”

A beat of silence. And then Mingyu laughs.

“No. She doesn’t know I smoke. She doesn’t have to.”

Good. Jungkook thinks. Good that he doesn’t smoke around her. But what did he mean by saying she doesn’t need to know?

“She doesn’t like smokers, you know.” Jungkook tells him.

From his periphery, Jungkook sees Mingyu glancing at him. It takes a while for him to say something.

“You’d know that, huh?”

The dip in his tone makes Jungkook meet his gaze. Suddenly, the smirk on Mingyu’s face is gone, and there’s something behind his eyes that he can’t quite put a finger on.

Jungkook tries to ignore that. “I’ve known her for a long time. The others can also tell you that.” He says, referring to the rest of your friends on the trip.

“You think I don’t know?”

With furrowed brows and growing confusion, Jungkook stares at Mingyu.

“What?”

“That you like my girlfriend.” Mingyu spits the words out like venom in his mouth, but it’s in a way that tells him it’s been sitting with him for far too long. Jungkook’s surprised at the declaration, feels himself being taken aback by the blunt way he said it as if he’s so sure.

But Jungkook doubles down, to Mingyu’s surprise.

“So?”

That obviously wasn’t the answer the other man wanted to hear. So, what? He can dish it, but he can’t take it?

“You’re goddamn pathetic, then.” Mingyu says after awhile, taking a hit on his cigarette again.

It itches the bubbling anger Jungkook has had for him for the past ten years.

“I like __, and I’m not gonna deny that to you,” Jungkook faces him. “But you don’t have to worry about that, because unlike you, I have enough self-respect to not sleep with my friend’s girlfriend.”

It’s another response that Mingyu does not expect. Jungkook also did not mean to let that out. But his tongue glided with the words and he couldn’t help it. Suddenly, memories of junior year in undergrad comes back flashing to him; Jiyeon and Mingyu, fucking in his goddamn bed, his girlfriend cheating on him with his best friend.

Jungkook’s already moved on from that. Jiyeon was not a loss, even though she was his first girlfriend – heck, first love even, but she cheated on him. And not just with anybody but his best friend at the time. The worst thing was that Mingyu was completely in on it, and Jungkook doesn’t think he ever felt remorse about what happened back then. Mingyu gave him a half-assed apology the day he walked in on them, even had the gall to “explain” Jiyeon’s side, that apparently, she just wasn’t “feeling it” with Jungkook anymore, and that Mingyu and her had been hitting it off. Jungkook realized it was why Mingyu suddenly came over way too often over at his apartment.

It’s exactly why he never bothered to meet with Mingyu after graduation. Why he was not enthusiastic meeting him at the engagement party.

But that happened so many years ago that he thought Mingyu’s changed. He didn’t want to burst your bubble and tell you what happened between them back then because he’d be the one to ruin the happiness you’ve wished for all these years.

“I see you’re still hung up on that.” Mingyu says after a while. He throws the cigarette away and steps on it with his heel.

Jungkook’s jaw ticks in what he feels is growing rage. “I’ve moved on. I’m just letting you know that even though I like __, I’m never doing what you did back then.”

“You’re such good guy, then?”

“If not cheating makes me a good guy, then maybe I am.” Jungkook shrugs.

“Jiyeon was a bitch. She was never gonna be good for you.” Mingyu suddenly says.

It makes Jungkook seethe. “And so you fucked her?”

“She liked me better than you. Women always liked me more, that’s why I was going through them while your goody-two shoes virgin prude ass was daydreaming about dating to marry. You remember that, right?” Mingyu looks at him with a mocking stare. “And Jiyeon was smoking hot. She offered, I just delivered. Said you couldn’t make her cum properly. We could have shared her, you know?”

“Fuck you.” Jungkook spits out. He feels enraged and pissed and disgusted all at the same time.

“Are you getting mad?” Mingyu levels him with an infuriating smirk. “You always got a stick up in your ass, Jeon. Kyungmi told me you’re just a regular playboy these days, said it was the effect of your first girlfriend cheating on you. Right now, though, is that just a front to hide your feelings from my girlfriend? A pathetic boy best friend just wanting to be noticed by his hot girl best friend? You play that role so well. Telling me she’s lactose intolerant, she doesn’t like smokers… you want to fuck her so bad it’s laughable because you know you can’t.”

“Don’t… fucking talk about her like that.” Jungkook growls, and he feels blood rushing through his veins.

Mingyu shakes his head. “You know what I thought when I first met her? I was completely interested right away, but when you showed up…” He chuckles in the way that makes Jungkook’s skin prickle. “It just made me want her more.”

“You’re fucked in the head.”

“This fucked in the head guy got the girl you want wanting to commit to him. I don’t know if she told you, but we’re moving in together.”

Jungkook pokes his tongue to his cheek. “You think I won’t tell her about this?”

“You think she’s gonna believe you?” Mingyu fires back. Jungkook closes his mouth, doesn’t really know if he’s confident enough to say yes. That earns him an arrogant smirk from Mingyu. “That’s right, she won’t. I have no doubt she’s gonna choose me over you. Jiyeon has had before. And if you’re gonna fight the same battle again this time, you’ll lose.”

Jungkook regulates his breathing hearing his words. He’s starting to not see clearly, his fist clenching on his side and he knows better than to resort to violence, but Mingyu’s testing his patience.

He’s completely wrong for thinking that he isn’t the same asshole he was back in college. He’s completely wrong for not telling you about him sooner. He’s completely wrong about everything.

Glancing at his hand, Mingyu looks him in the eyes, leaning forward. “You wanna hit me just like how you did back then? You almost fucking killed me when you gave me that head injury that kicked me out of the fucking team.”

The head injury. That fucking head injury. Jungkook was so mad when he found out that he just saw pure red. It wasn’t his best moment – he knows. He lost control and just… went for it. He still regrets doing it – not punching Mingyu – but for losing it when he could’ve shown him that he’d always be the bigger person between them both.

He’s quiet and Mingyu takes that as a win. Scoffing, Mingyu says, “I could’ve reported you to the admin and you could’ve been expelled, and if that happened, you couldn’t have gone to med. You are where you are right now because of me, so don’t fucking show that animosity towards me because you fucking owe me one.”

Jungkook can’t help but laugh. But he does so humorlessly. “You really think that?” He stares at the other guy. “You’re just as delusional as you were back then, Gyu. You think everybody liked you – but that was just because you were a touch-deprived loser who would fuck anything that breathed near him, and I wasn’t. I only entertained women I liked. You thought you were smarter, but I was always the one who got the better and higher grades, even though you studied way harder. Is that why you went with law? So you won’t have to compete with me in the med field? I also know you were pissed as fuck when the captain title was passed on to me instead of you,” Jungkook leans closer as well. “You’ve always thought of yourself so highly, but deep down, you were just an insecure little boy trying to compete with another guy that didn’t even see you as competition because you were that irrelevant.”

Mingyu, in his own fir of rage, grabs Jungkook’s collar, but Jungkook stays in his place, face stoic as Mingyu snarls, “You keep running your mouth while you cry yourself to sleep because those don’t mean anything when I’m the one fucking the love of your life,” Jungkook visibly recoils to that, and when Mingyu notices, he smirks, adding, “Yeah, yeah, you wanna know how __ is in bed? Because you’ll never see her sopping wet when you give her cock. That angelic face of hers… you’ll never know she’s a slut the way that filthy mouth asks me to fuck her harder because I am that goo—”

He wasn’t able to finish his sentence when Jungkook’s heavy fist suddenly lands on his cheek.

That effectively gets Mingyu to let go of Jungkook’s collar as he loses his balance and steps backwards limply, thumbing the side of his mouth only to see blood.

Whisking away his fist, Jungkook looks at Mingyu with fire in his eyes and venom in his voice when he says, “Don’t you ever fucking dare talk about her like that, you fucking piece of shit.”

The moon hangs low in the sky, casting a silvery white glow over the beach, but the comforting sound of waves and the calm of the surrounding is a contrast to the rising tension between Jungkook and Mingyu.

When Mingyu doesn’t say anything, Jungkook turns on his heel, ready to leave, but suddenly, he feels the back of his shirt getting pulled and being met with a fist right on his cheek, close to his nose. He barely dodges the hit, taken aback by the unexpected attack.

“Fuck you.” Mingyu grits, eyes blazing.

With that, the fight intensifies, with Jungkook throwing a quick jab back. Mingyu retaliates with as much fury, the two of them grappling, their bodies colliding with violent force. Soon, the sound of their grunts and the occasional crash of a punch against flesh is drowned out by the crashing waves.

And then a familiar voice calls their names.

“Jungkook! Mingyu!”

“Oh my god!”

Jungkook’s suddenly being taken away by somebody by his arms, and he realizes it’s Taehyung when he speaks up again once he and Mingyu are off each other.

“What the fuck are you two doing?” Taehyung asks incredulously, rightfully shocked at what he’s seen. Jungkook forces his way out of Taehyung’s hold in frustration, wiping the side of his mouth. Mingyu’s on the other side a few inches away being hesitantly held down by Nayeon, who looks at all of them with deep worry in her eyes. Turning to her, Taehyung says, “Call Doyeon and __. They’re sleeping in the same room together at the villa.”

“You don’t need to do that,” Jungkook says, glaring at Taehyung.

He looks at him angrily. “You’re fistfighting with somebody at fuck o’clock in the morning. We’re going to get run off by the police, be thankful we saw you.”

“I-I’ll call Doyeon and __.” Nayeon stutters, reluctantly pulling away from Mingyu and going to the direction of the villas.

When she leaves, Taehyung looks between the two beaten up men, not believing their busted faces. Rubbing his own with his hands in frustration, he looks back at them again, saying, “What the fuck happened to you guys? Why were you fighting?”

“It’s none of your business.” Mingyu says.

Taehyung glances at him with irritation. “None of my business? Fuck off, Kim Mingyu. You joined in on this trip. Everything that happens here is quite literally each other’s business.”

“Tae.”

“I can’t believe you guys,” Taehyung shakes his head, ignoring Jungkook. “Fighting like goddamn immature teenagers… are you not embarrassed?”

Looking away, Jungkook decides to sit on the sand and let Taehyung’s words go from one ear to another. His energy is waning and the rage he had a while ago is just simmering down to… nothing. He feels absolutely empty.

“Jungkook?” He doesn’t realize the steps that were coming towards them were you and Doyeon. It’s obvious that you’ve both been sleeping, still in your pajamas as you rush towards their direction. He looks at you when you call his name, but then suddenly, you turn to Mingyu. “Ming— what happened?”

Jungkook feels his heart break when you come towards Mingyu’s direction first. He knows why you did. He’s your boyfriend, of course you are going to tend to him first.

Suddenly, he remembers what Mingyu said. About you choosing him over Jungkook.

Jungkook didn’t doubt that, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt a little to see it fully realized.

“Jungkook– Jesus Christ,” Doyeon comes over to him and quickly checks his head. With knitted brows, she casts him a look.

“I’m fine.”

She’s about to say something, but then she closes her mouth and then glances at you.

Sighing, she turns to everyone and announces, “Look, let’s just get them back to the villa. Treat their wounds before they get infected.”

“Right.” Taehyung says and then comes over to Jungkook to help Doyeon guide him in walking. He relents first because he doesn’t need their assistance, but Taehyung looks at him and he knows he’s pissed. So, he lets them.

As he tries to subtly look over to where you were, you have your arm around Mingyu’s waist while Nayeon helps guide him as well.

It takes a tedious few minutes to get back to the villa where Doyeon and Taehyung decide to take care of him in his room while Nayeon and you tend to Mingyu back in your room.

Doyeon nor Taehyung doesn’t say anything the whole time. Just let the silence fall in the room as they clean his wounds and put bandages around the cuts on his face and treat his busted lip.

He knows they’ll talk to him in the next few hours. It’s inevitable. But at least they’re sparing him for tonight – or today, since it’s almost four am.

Jungkook regrets not seeing the sunrise.

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this chapter is not over yet! tumblr has a 1k paragraph/block limit in a single post and so i can't put the whole thing in this. please look thru the reblogs to read the last scene and the continuation of this chapter or click on this [ link ]

#jungkook angst #jungkook fluff #jungkook smut #bts smut #jungkook x reader #mingyu x reader #bts imagines #bts scenarios

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baek-at-it-again95 · 11 months ago

Text

We Know

Pairings: park seonghwa x fem reader x choi san

genres/content: action, agent au, mafia au? rivalry, leader bang chan, angry seonghwa, y/n is san's weakness lol

Warnings: profanity, violence, weapons, suggestive content!! please take care of yourselves <3

A/N: I am nervous about this one y'all 😳 I've never written something like this before, but it ended up being so fun! This is for my friends, @milfks and L, who had these wonderful ideas! Love you two lots <3

Synopsis: Tonight's mission is in your hands, and you're eager to prove that you're capable of handling it on your own. Unfortunately, your plans are interrupted a bit sooner than you expected.

***

"I've got eyes on him," you mumble, pretending to fix your diamond earring as you adjust your earpiece. Surveying from the platform of the mansion's grand staircase, your eyes follow a man in a black suit as he turns the corner and disappears down a far hallway.

Chan's sigh rings in your earpiece. "Be careful."

"I can handle myself. Trust me."

"I trust you, Y/N. You know that. It's everyone else that I don't trust. It's your first time unaccompanied," Chan says.

"Like I said, I can handle it. Besides, the boys are always out by themselves and they're just fine." If you could see Chan right now, you know he'd be pinching the bridge of his nose out of stress, holding back from giving you a lecture on why your situation is different from theirs. You know his concern is out of love, and he would blame himself if anything were ever to happen to you. But this is your chance to prove yourself. Tonight, you'll be participating in an auction to get your hands on the Cromer, a powerful artifact that can control time. It's been rumored that ATEEZ has their sights set on it as well, so Chan had you do as much research on them as possible. Unfortunately for you, they're quite good at covering their tracks and keeping their identities under wraps. You know only a few of their names and faces, so you'll need to be extra careful about your approach to this.

The auction will begin in about an hour, and you'd rather not hear a lecture from Chan. "I'm going in," you whisper. Your black dress flatters your figure perfectly, and you're excited to show it off tonight. With a deep breath, you make your way down the staircase, your heels silent on the expensive red carpet.

Clusters of people stand together around the large space, sipping champagne and chatting amongst themselves. Many wives have separated into groups away from their husbands, who go on and on about their latest business ventures and investments. Understandable—how boring. You greet some people as you go, your charming smile in effect as their eyes land on you. One woman compliments your dress as you pass by, and you enthusiastically return her compliment, telling her that her own dress brings out her eyes. She blushes and tells you it's custom made, which basically means "my dress is worth twice as much as the average person's monthly paycheck."

You continue to weave through the crowds and admittedly get a bit distracted, still thinking about the woman's compliment. As you turn into the hallway you witnessed your target disappear into, you bump straight into an oncoming person. A strong arm wraps around your waist before you can lose balance on your high heels.

"Woah there, doll. Straying too far, are we?" A tall man with dark hair looks down at you, his eyebrows raised.

Park Seonghwa. Just the man you were looking for.

"My apologies sir," you say quietly, feigning innocence and avoiding his eyes. His arm leaves your waist after steadying you. "I was wandering in hopes of finding a vacant room to lie down...I'm afraid I've had a bit too many drinks too early in the night." You stumble for dramatic effect, hoping he'll eat up your lies. "I have to sober up before the auction," you say, shaking your head. "Daddy will throw a fit if I spend all his money tonight."

The man looks amused. "Yeah? Better be careful, princess."

"I can handle myself," you say for the second time tonight, stepping closer to trace the pads of your manicured fingers over the fabric on his chest. He tilts your chin up gently, and you meet his intense gaze. He's breathtaking. Suddenly, you have an idea that seems much more fun than your previous plans.

Sorry Chan, you think as you press yourself against Seonghwa.

***

You didn't find anything of importance on Seonghwa's person, but you did manage to slip a tracking device into his suit pocket. Chan should be able to access his location any minute now.

You enter the auction room fifteen minutes before the event is scheduled to start, scanning the tables for your seat. It's dimly lit, a majority of the lighting coming from a screen behind the stage. You don't see Seonghwa seated anywhere yet.

"And what are the starting bids on you, lovely?" a low voice asks, breath tickling your ear. You turn to look at the owner of the voice, his strong facial features almost as striking as his neatly-styled red hair. He's practically undressing you with his eyes, and you can't say you hate it.

"Whatever you've got to offer, pretty boy," you reply sweetly. He smirks, pleased with himself as one of his hands finds your waist.

"My friend says you're not as innocent as you look."

"Pardon?" you ask. The man turns you around, your back against his broad chest as his free hand reaches up to your ear. Before you know it, your earpiece is on the ground in front of you, crushed beneath a polished designer shoe. Looking up, you see that the shoe belongs to none other than Park Seonghwa. Of course they're working together.

You freeze as something cold presses to the exposed small of your back.

Fuck.

"One wrong move and you're done for, princess," the man with red hair says calmly, lowering himself back down to your ear. "Try to cause a scene and innocent people will pay the price."

You take a deep breath before nodding your head in submission. You slowly turn back around and watch as he returns his gun to his shoulder holster, his expensive blazer completely concealing it. No one around you sees the ordeal, too distracted and eager to spend their money. The man then puts his arm around your shoulders, leading you out of the auction room. Seonghwa follows close behind, making sure you aren't able to slip away. You have no idea if he is armed at this point in time.

You're led into a large meeting room at the very end of the upstairs corridor, the bright moonlight seeping through the open balcony doors and illuminating the glossy wooden table at the center of the room. You catch a glimpse of the pretty garden below the balcony before the man guiding you throws you to the floor. You can feel the bruises forming on your knees instantly.

You don't dare fight back yet—your training in hand-to-hand combat doesn't do shit when your opponents are armed with guns, of course. You would attempt it if he were alone, but with Seonghwa present and potentially armed, you'd rather feel the situation out.

God, Chan will never let you out onto the field again. He's probably losing his mind now that you've lost contact with each other. Not to mention the fact that you were busted before you even had a chance to get what you came here for. The auction is going to start any minute, and now you're certain there are other ATEEZ members in the auction room that are ready to claim the Cromer instead of you.

You're angry with yourself for not being more prepared with your own weapon, but your favorite handgun unfortunately didn't fit under your dress of choice. You sigh to yourself. At least you look good in it.

"Give it up, sweetheart. We know what's going on here," the man with red hair says. Seonghwa locks the door behind him before speaking.

"I saw your wolf tattoo, and I've seen only one other just like it. You're working with Bang Chan," he states, is emotions unreadable.

No. You had forgotten to conceal your waist tattoo since your dress fully covers it. You hadn't expected to completely remove your dress tonight. Rookie mistake. You should expect everything.

"All this over a tattoo?" You eye him, downplaying the situation.

"How brave of you to interfere with our operation by yourself," the other man comments, ignoring your previous sentence. "No back up here to save you, huh?"

"Oh, you don't really believe she's here alone, do you, San?" Seonghwa asks. Choi San. You recognize that name. Seonghwa comes over to you, a completely different aura surrounding him now. He's intimidating, gripping your chin with much more force than he had earlier. "Be a good girl and tell us where your friends are, yeah? Don't make things difficult." A chill runs down your spine at his threat.

"I'm not here with anyone," you state. It's the truth. Even though Chan had insisted he wait in his car nearby, you convinced him to stay and monitor operations from your base. If you don't make contact within the next hour or two, he'll know something is wrong and follow Seonghwa's location.

"Wrong answer, princess." He grips your hair harshly and you wince. "I have a hard time believing that they would put you in a situation like this without back up. Where are they?"

It's sweet of him to underestimate you, honestly. You got yourself into this situation, and you're sure as hell going to get yourself out. You're already halfway done formulating your escape plan. "I said they're not here," you answer again. He lets go of your hair with a hiss.

"It would pain me to ruin such a pretty face...I think we'll let the boss deal with you."

The boss? Chan told you that no one knows the leader of ATEEZ—it's safe to assume that anyone who's seen him hasn't lived to tell the tale. You're not sure if he'll have any mercy at all to offer you. But maybe these two still have some in them.

"No, please!" you plead, your fists balled up as they rest on your thighs. "If I tell you where they are, will you go easy on me?" You let your head hang low, looking at the floor. San lowers himself in front of you and you find his eyes. You blink, letting a few tears slip down your cheeks.

"Sure, doll face. We will." You look away from him to briefly meet eyes with Seonghwa. He still stands at full height, arms crossed as he looks down at you. Perhaps it's your tears making your vision blurry, but you swear his gaze softens at the sight of you. You look back to San, sniffling.

"You promise?"

Now, never ever would someone in their right mind trust a promise from someone like them. But you're not planning on following through with your own side of the promise, either. Two can play at this game. You would never jeopardize the safety of SKZ...you told Chan you could handle yourself and you meant it.

"Promise," San says. He's truly something else, radiating such strong and convincing charm. You would fall for his promise in a heartbeat if you didn't know who he really was.

As you slowly rise from your knees, San stands with you. "They made me do it," you confess, more tears spilling from your eyes and taking your favorite mascara with them. "They said they would kill me if I didn't," you whisper, looking away.

"It's okay, doll," San says, coming closer to comfort you. You flinch before he touches you. "Just tell us where they are, okay? We'll help you." You bury yourself in his chest, your frame shaking in his arms as you cry quietly.

Your best performance yet, if you say so yourself.

After a long minute in his embrace, you begin to pull away. In the process, you grab the gun out of San's shoulder holster and hold the barrel to the center of his chest. He curses under his breath, raising his arms in defeat. You slowly step backwards, turning your aim to Seonghwa as a warning not to try anything, and then returning your aim to San. Seonghwa makes no attempt to grab for anything, so now you know for a fact that he is unarmed.

"I told you the first time that there's no one here with me." You smile. "But it's nice to discover that you both have a heart."

"Tell Chan we said hi," Seonghwa replies, irritated.

"Of course, it would be rude of me not to. It's truly been a pleasure, boys." You give Seonghwa a wink. "We'll meet again, right? Maybe you can introduce me to your boss next time."

You've backed up far enough to step onto the balcony, assessing the situation above and below. The garden below is deserted now that the auction has started, but it's a far drop to the ground. There is another balcony above you, but it seems a bit too high for you to escape to. You're trapped, so you're going to have to pull this off fast to avoid getting hurt.

All you can hear is the sound of your own heartbeat as you throw the gun over the railing into the garden. If you slip up, they could get their hands on it again, and you cannot let that happen. You'll fight the real way if you must.

As soon as it leaves your hands, the men launch at you. You quickly dodge them, ducking under San's punch and managing to sweep Seonghwa's leg, knocking him to the ground. Now that they're both on the balcony, you run back inside, shutting the french doors and locking them behind you. You know it will barely do anything to set them back—they could easily break them down if they wanted to. Through the glass, you watch as San pulls Seonghwa off the ground and looks at you. He doesn't make an immediate effort to get inside.

Is he letting you go?

You shouldn't wait around any longer to find out. You blow him a kiss before taking your exit out into the main hall.

But after stepping out, you see why they let you go...

#ateez au #ateez x reader #ateez reader insert #ateez fanfic #ateez fic #ateez #park seonghwa #park seonghwa x reader #seonghwa x reader #choi san #choi san x reader #san x reader #bang chan #stray kids #ateez x female reader #ateez x y/n #skz

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thefallenangel2008 · 1 month ago

Text

I have come up with my Relativity!Falls AU!

Ok, so, I came up with this today at the last period at school so it might be a bit messy, but pls bear with me.

So let me tell ya!😈

Ok, so Mabel and Dipper's lives were fairly normal back in the 60's. Like, sure, their parents got a divorce when they were 13 and lived in a broken home but they still loved eachother and their love only grew stronger when their parents broke up, their will to stay together strengthening. Their parents still cared about them dearly despite the breakup, so everything was not as bad.

Dipper wanted to go to university to study science and Mabel wanted to go to a fashion school and be a fashion designer! People already loved her sweaters so it only seemed fitting.

Dipper got a scholarship after his project got approved by scientists. It was going to be the first time of the twins being apart, and although sad, they knew they could do it. A year later Mabel left home as well to go to her desired fashion school.

After university Dipper gained an interest in the supernatural and he decided to investigate, he even started recording himself searching and finding these paranormal creatures. He kept the videos in a cassette, hoping one day he could show the world and maybe, just maybe, he would get his own show. He started to keep a journal, the cover being blue/silver with a silver pine tree in the middle. After a while Dipper realized that the most sights of paranormal activities happened at a place he had never heard of before, a small town called Gravity Falls. He built a house there and a basement underneath to find more paranormal creatures.

There, he learned about this demon called Bill Cipher from a cave writing near the town, and said demon visited him in his dreams after saying the incantation written. He flattered him for his smarts and said that his unusual birthmark on his forehead made him look like a freak, but in a good way! And although Dipper felt flattered, he didn't trust him all that much, because why would a demon want to talk to him of all people??? Also , come on, that was a DEMON. He had seen enough movies to know whether to trust a demon or not. (Mister Anxiety and Overthinking everyone lol)

Bill kept pestering him about building a portal that leads to other dimensions, and after a LOT of thinking Dipper decided to build it, believing it would be a big step in the world of science.

He decided to ask for help from the richest woman in town whose family found it, a brilliant (and admittedly attractive) mechanic, Pacifica Northwest.

They spent a long while building the portal together, and once it was ready they decided to test it on a dummy, only Pacifica was accidentally pulled in with it. Dipper managed to get her out, but when he did, she seemed... Paranoid. She started screaming at him and demanding to dismantle the portal, only Dipper didn't listen to her, too stubborn to admit it wasn't a good idea now that he had done so much. Pacifica quit right after.

After that he didn't know what to do and as a last resort he sent a postcard to his sister, asking her to come over.

Now the twins had kept in contact, but Dipper tried not to mention the portal to Mabel, just saying he was working on a project that could possibly change the world.

When Mabel got the postcard (she was back at California) she decided, sure, why not? It would only take a couple of months, maybe at most a year, and then she would be back to her small business.

When she arrived at Gravity Falls Dipper explained to her about the portal and the otherworldly creatures. He told her that his last assistant quit, leaving out some very important details.

Mabel was ecstatic to be a part of dangerous scientific experiments, spending some time with her brother after 10 years of phonecalls and postcards, and possibly meeting a unicorn!

They started writing a journal together, that had a purple cover and a purple pine tree with a shooting star at the top (Dipper said it looked like a Christmas tree. Mabel just found it funny) and they wrote about every other creature they discovered and their progress on the portal.

But as time passed by, Mabel started to notice that... Maybe Dipper was hiding something. But no, he would never hide anything from her! They're siblings, they share everything! But she had a weird feeling that the portal might be for something more instead of just "scientific advancements" and he regularly seemed to meditate. Dipper??? Trying to clear his mind??? Yeah, right! She began writing her own journal (which was more like a scrapbook tbh) where she wrote down her thoughts, her suspicions about her brother, and also had a bunch of photos of the creatures they found, clothes she made and their time together. It was pink/gold with a dark pink shooting star on it (and thus the three journals were created).

One day Mabel accidentally came across Dipper's journal and she had a look at it. That was when she found out the real reason why Pacifica left the project and she also found out about Bill Cipher.

She confronted Dipper about this and they had a huge fight over it. Mabel accidentally pushed Dipper and he burned the back of his shoulder with a symbol. Because of that the portal was accidentally opened and Mabel was sucked into it. Dipper tried multiple times to get it to work again and bring her back but it was severely damaged and nothing worked. After a while he gave up and he decided to dismantle it.

Bill was not happy about this and he kept hunting Dipper in his dream and also possessing his body and at some point he finally got a metal plate inserted into his mind so Bill wouldn't possess him anymore.

Oh also by the way Pacifica created the memory gun and kept erasing her own memory and created the Society of the Blind Eye and yeah, she lost her mind, yk.

Dipper kept trying to reach out to Pacifica but since she lost her mind nothing could happen so he would just visit her from time to time but she would always be in her own mind, being the crazy old hug of the town or "old hag Northwest", and also because she was crazy now the Northwests kicked her out of the Northwest Mansion and she's been living in the junkyard ever since.

Dipper is forced to fake Mabel's death to "excuse" her disappearance. A lot of people came to the funeral.

He hides the two journals (he doesn't know Mabel wrote one of her own) so that no one would find them and rebuild the portal again.

Anyway, Dipper turns his home into a museum for the supernatural to get money where he has fake miniatures of the creatures he found but of course always people would think they're fake but they mostly go there just for fun. It's called "The Home of Mysteries".

Many years pass by until he gets a call that hey, you're gonna babysit your twin nephews this summer! Yey...

Well, anyway, his nephews. Stanford (Ford) and Stanley (Stan) Pines.

On their first day the twins discover a pink scrapbook underneath a wooden floorboard. They see photos of their Grunkle Dipper but much younger, and a woman that looks almost just like him. Ford was quick to inform Dipper about this, but Stan stopped him and told him it would be a good way to learn more about their weird relative.

Well, that's what I have so far. I might draw something based on this, can't promise anything though. Oh well, I'll see! Sorry it's so big!

#ngl I got inspired by other's ideas here and there #idk I live for the version where Mabel got sucked into the portal instead #I'll add more #gravity falls #relativity falls #mabel pines #dipper pines #ford pines #grunkle ford #stan pines #grunkle stan #pacifica northwest #bill cipher

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rambleonwaywardson · 12 days ago

Text

Clegan Astronaut AU - Epilogue

Masterpost Read on AO3

AU Summary: the boys as modern day NASA astronauts. Taking place in 2025, Bucky is heading to the moon as mission commander of Artemis III while Buck is CAPCOM at NASA. Established relationship (obnoxiously in love).

Author's Note: We made it. Thank you a million times over to every single one of you who has engaged with this story. It means a lot to have you along for the ride.

---

Something funny happens when you fly faster than the speed of sound, nothing but a hunk of metal separating you from the sky. Time doesn’t seem to work right anymore; everything can move slow and fast all at once. You take a breath. It feels peaceful, somehow. Sacred.

Even when you pull so many Gs that it presses a stone to your chest and strangles your lungs until they burn, as long as you can push through the tunnel vision and the dizziness, suddenly everything becomes clearer. Perspective, some might say. Others just call it exhilaration. Freedom. The feeling of being alive.

Bucky Egan is seriously addicted to that feeling. For months now, he’s gone without it. He spends more time than he should standing out at JSC’s Ellington Field, closing his eyes and breathing deeply as other astronauts perform flight tests and training exercises overhead. He listens to the rumbling sounds of the jets, wondering if he’ll ever be up there again. Free.

A jet, a prop plane, a space capsule. He’d take any one of them, really, if he can’t have all of them anymore.

Some things are written in stone. Bucky knew seemingly out of the womb that he wanted to fly. He wouldn’t settle for anything else, wouldn’t settle at all. He was going to become an Air Force pilot, and then – once he learned that there were real people flying aboard something called the Space Station, orbiting around the planet 16 times per day – he was going to become an astronaut. From the very second he even knew it was an option, he wanted his feet to be off of this Earth. He wanted to feel what it felt like. He wanted to see what it looked like. He wanted to hear what it sounded like.

He wanted all of it, and he never much minded the risk. Flight, after all, was his first love, and Bucky Egan will do just about anything for what he loves. A part of him always figured, if he had to die, he wanted it to be in the sky. If he had to die, it would be worth it, as long as flight was what claimed his life. Commit his soul to the stars, a supernova in the dark.

But then, of course, there was Gale.

The night they met, two young boys standing awkwardly in a college dorm, Gale told Bucky that he didn’t intend to be an astronaut. He had Bucky wrapped around his finger from that very first smile, but he wanted to become an engineer for the Air Force. Maybe, if he got lucky, work his way into NASA’s space program. Someone back home to keep his feet on the ground may have done John Egan some good. But, in the end, it was him that looked at Gale and told him that all of that was bull. It was Bucky that pulled him along with strings tied to their hearts, convinced him to just give it all a shot – what’d he have to lose? And here he is, nearly two decades later, an everyday flyboy.

This life they’ve built, orbiting one another like a binary star system, is greater than any adventure Bucky ever could have imagined. The way he’s lived it, he figures he’s lucky he’s made it as far as he has. He’s lucky to be alive after that little stunt on the moon. He’s lucky to have the most amazing husband this side of the universe. He’s damn lucky for all of it. Maybe he’s a fool to ask for more.

But he’s not ready to keep his feet on the ground.

Not yet.

—

July 17, 2026 Houston, TX

Admittedly, this was maybe not Bucky’s brightest plan, taking a video call in the dimly lit Orion cabin, where he has to lay on his back, legs elevated, staring up at a brightly lit screen. He can feel a bit of a headache coming on, and he isn’t sure if the vague throbbing in his leg is real or just a figment of his haywire imagination. He might be losing feeling in his feet; he isn’t really sure. Is he setting himself up for failure? Maybe. This afternoon he needs to be in top form, or at least as close to it as he can get. But he’s committed now, and he’s too stubborn to move.

So here he is in the mock-up, like any other mission sim, tucked into his commander’s seat. Or, really, he supposes it’s Gale’s now. The Artemis 4 crew has been doing their fair share of sims in recent months, and Gale has been pulling longer and longer hours as they get closer to launch, as Bucky needs him at his side less and less.

Maybe that’s exactly why Bucky’s sitting here now. To feel close to his husband during a time when their careers, as usual, tend to pull them apart. Or maybe he’s sitting here because he needs the reminder, a silent dedication to who he is, what he’s meant to be doing, what he so badly needs to keep striving for.

Or maybe, he’s only sitting here because the seat of a cockpit is always where he’s felt the safest.

Safe isn’t the right word.

In control, maybe. Most like himself. A cockpit is always where he’s best understood the world around him: sky above, Earth below, his heart strangled with a love for the unknown. The Orion capsule is another home to him. Things might go wrong – sometimes horribly, horribly wrong – but everything about it was constructed and tested with the singular goal of helping Bucky and his crew break boundaries, make history. Every single thing about it is so specific, so familiar, so carefully planned and crafted. John Egan knows this spacecraft better than he knows himself. In the chaos that is his life, it’s the capsule that carried him away from this planet that best keeps him grounded.

So he sits, laying on his back in the commander’s seat that once was his and is now Gale’s. He doesn’t really remember the process of getting here, but he remembers the intense need to be here, like he didn’t have a single other choice. When he first answered Gale’s video call, his husband stared at him for a long moment, then laughed and said something about “only John Egan has an emotional support spacecraft.” He didn’t say anything about how strange it is, considering Bucky almost died in this spacecraft. Maybe, in some weird, fucked up, convoluted way that he’ll have to talk to his therapist about later, that’s one reason he finds being in this tiny space so reassuring.

He’s not a psychologist. He’s hardly even an astronaut.

In any case, fully convinced that this was exactly where he needed to be to call his husband today – a day that has his nerves all shaken up like a can of soda – he duct taped his phone to the console above his head so that he can look at Gale without having to hold it up above his face the whole time. It fell and smacked him squarely on the nose once at the beginning of the call, but it’s been holding well enough since then.

He doesn’t know how long they’ve been talking. Surely it’s been longer than they’d scheduled for, and someone’s gotta be looking for him by now, grabbing onto unassuming JSC employees and asking in a mild panic “Have you seen Major Egan?” Gale’s crew is no doubt waiting for him, too, perhaps just out of view of the camera, reminding him that they have to get started on some task or another. A part of Bucky feels guilty for holding Gale up for so long, but the rest of him needs this desperately.

This is the first time since Bucky splashed down in the Pacific last November that they’ve been apart for more than even a day. Scratch that, for more than 12 hours. Gale has stayed at his side, for better or worse, since the night he first laid eyes on Bucky again in the hospital. It feels like forever ago, and yet it feels like yesterday. Sometimes Bucky still wakes up convinced he’s dying, convinced that his hands don’t work, phantom pain burning through his leg, unable to speak.

It was a long winter, and a long spring. Bucky has gaps admittedly, times when the brain fog whisked him away from reality, made it hard to stay in the moment, hard to figure out what was real. It all but disappeared with time, thankfully. He still has a moment here and there, especially when he first wakes up or if he’s stressed or nervous (not that he’ll admit to anyone but Gale that he’s even capable of being nervous), but they’re becoming less and less common.

Getting that leg to heal was a complete bitch. Turns out micro- and zero-gravity aren’t very kind to broken bones. Eventually the cast came off, and he progressed to a brace, walking with a cane, slowly, slowly working toward walking on his own again.

Gale was there the whole time. Holding him up, steadying him, cheering him on, taking the brunt of Bucky’s frustration and fear. No matter how many times Bucky lost his temper or wanted to give up or refused to get out of bed or go to PT or OT or his CT scans, Gale stayed. Gale didn’t give up on him. Gale loved him through it all.

It’s July now. Almost eight whole months since Bucky fell to this Earth, broken and barely breathing under a bright Pacific sky. It’s the dog days of summer, long and hot and busy as ever here at JSC. Gale has been gone for six whole days, training in Iceland with the Artemis 4 crew. Weirdly enough, the volcanic, rocky landscape of Iceland’s arctic desert is a perfect training ground for astronauts headed to the moon, and it has acted as such since the Apollo days. With Artemis in full swing, NASA has started sending the lunar crews out there again to conduct simulated missions that mimic what they’ll be faced with on the lunar surface.

Bucky misses those days, training and bonding with his crew – his best friends – as they bounded across the dark, eerie Icelandic rock in fake moon gear, out of their minds with excitement for what they were training to do. He’s spent much of this video call asking Gale about Iceland and their simulated missions, half wanting to relive it and half hoping maybe Gale would forget why Bucky wanted to call so bad in the first place. He can see on Gale’s face that he’s failing.

Sure enough, after indulging him for longer than Bucky honestly expected, Gale sighs and tilts his head, raising an eyebrow. “How do you feel?”

Bucky doesn’t quite know what Gale means when he asks this. The implications have changed so much over the years.

In college, he’d ask Bucky How do you feel? when he woke up with a hangover after a night of drinking too much with their friends. Or that time he got terribly sick in the middle of midterm season and shoved through a Statics exam with a fever. When he pulled an all-nighter trying to finish a class project. When he passed Thermo by the skin of his teeth. From the first day of classes to the day they graduated.

How do you feel?

As young adults in the Air Force, or at NASA, he’d ask Bucky how he felt before going up for a mission or a training exercise. Or after survival training in the desert, wandering to the finish line dehydrated and sunburnt but alive and ahead of the rest of their astronaut class. He’d ask him after long training days or messy flights or after they’d been apart for days, weeks, months. He asked him when they both sat, shell-shocked, after losing a friend in the flames of a crash landing. How do you feel?

Before their wedding day, when Bucky was terrified of their future but knew without a doubt this was everything he ever wanted, Gale asked him, How do you feel?

During quarantine. Before the launch. On the pad. How do you feel?

Every day over CAPCOM or video call. Even when Bucky couldn’t hear him, couldn’t say anything back. How do you feel?

When Bucky came home, Gale would ask him that question several times a day. It was tough; there’s no use lying. There were times Bucky wanted to give up, couldn’t bring himself to leave the house or do much of anything. It was painful and it was confusing and it was messy, and sometimes all Bucky could do was stew in silence or, once or twice, tell Gale to fuck off. But every time his awareness drifted or he had to be moved with his bum leg, every time he woke up in pain or had to be left alone for any period of time, Gale, his voice gentle and concerned and so full of love, would ask him, How do you feel?

So what does he mean now?

Bucky doesn’t know how he feels. He should feel good. Excited. It’s about damn time this day came around. He’s John fucking Egan, not afraid of anything, born for the sky. He should feel as sure of himself as the day he climbed aboard the SLS.

So why doesn’t he?

He is excited. Don’t get him wrong. He’s been waiting for this since he woke up in a Houston hospital. But there’s a pit in his stomach and a weird, fluttery feeling in his chest and a weight settling over his shoulders that he can’t seem to shake.

He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to feel. He wants it to be the same as it was before. But it isn’t. It can’t be.

Not anymore.

“I’m fine.”

Gale frowns in that concerned, knowing way that he does. He looks so soft now, comfy in Bucky’s Yankees sweatshirt with his hair messy, no doubt fresh from debriefing after a ‘mission’ or about ready to get prepped for another. But Bucky squirms and looks away from his gaze; it sees right through him. It always has.

“Try again,” Gale insists.

“I’m…” Bucky feels a weird phantom twinge in his leg. Blinks and it goes away. He rolls his eyes. At the question? At himself? Get it together. “I’m fuckin’ nervous,” he admits uncomfortably. “Of course I’m fuckin’ nervous, Buck. What if I get out there and…”

What if I get out there and I can’t do it anymore? What if I can’t handle it? Physically. Mentally. What if today just proves what we were all so worried about months ago: Bucky Egan is grounded. For good.

“Fuck.” He can’t say any of it, can’t risk speaking the death of his career into existence. The melodramatic part of him thinks the bugler might as well start playing Taps right damn now if today doesn’t go his way. Fold up a flag and present it to Gale as the jets fly overhead.

He can only imagine the way Gale would frown and grit his teeth if Bucky said such a thing out loud.

His husband full well knows what Bucky means, though, and he’s quiet, thinking it over. Bucky can see half formed placations tumbling through his head like desperate dreams running on fumes. But eventually, he says, “it’s gonna be okay, John.” His voice is careful and easy, and he doesn’t even sound like he’s faking it.

It makes Bucky’s heart clench.

“Gale,” he whispers, and he hates how vulnerable his voice sounds. It rings in his ears, echoing back and forth and back and forth as he roughly scrubs a hand over his eyes, squeezing them shut tight.

He’s always felt most in control inside of a cockpit. He knows the way an aircraft moves better than he knows anything or anyone on this Earth, except maybe his husband. Flight makes him know who he is, gives him his metaphorical wings. And yet he’s also never felt more out of control than he has in a cockpit.

If he goes up there, he has no idea what’ll happen. He has no idea what his body will do when it gets crushed into the seat by several times the force of gravity. He has no idea if the thing that used to lift him up will carry him again, or if it’ll spit him onto the ground in a pathetic heap of has-been.

So how is he supposed to feel right now?

Starbursts of pain color Bucky’s vision. Skull-splitting. All-consuming. It’s burning him alive from the inside out like a physical force trying to rip him apart. He thinks falling into a black hole would hurt less.

He feels sick. The G forces are too much.

He can’t think a coherent thought that isn’t something along the lines of ‘please make it stop.’ Somewhere, deep in his brain that won’t work, he hates himself for that. Knows he should be better.

And out of all of that – this crushing, crunching, nausea-inducing pain that has Curt yelling at him not to throw up in his suit – the words that pop up into his head like a cartoon thought bubble are “the Big Crunch.”

It’s Gale’s favorite theory for how the universe might end. Because Gale is a space physics nerd that has a favorite theory for how the universe might end.

It’s like the opposite of the Big Bang – an exploding outward from an infinitesimal point, 0 to 73.3 kilometers per second per megaparsec in about a trillionth of a second flat. The Big Crunch would be an imploding inward, a collapsing into a single infinitesimal point at a similarly impossible to comprehend rate. Theoretically, this point could be anywhere in the universe.

John wonders if that would feel something like how he feels – crunching, disconnecting, reconnecting, blinding, unbearable. He sort of wishes it would just happen right now, with that point somewhere in this spacecraft. He’ll take the whole universe down with him. He doesn’t really mind, if it’ll make this stop.

“Gale?” He finds himself crying out the only word he can get past his lips. The only word that matters. The only word that can come remotely close to making any of this better.

“Gale?”

Why won’t it work? Why won’t Gale save him?

He’s getting more desperate. Please.

“Gale?”

“John? You with me?”

Bucky blinks. He looks back at his phone, sees Gale’s face, all worried and shit. It makes his heart sink, because Gale’s been looking at him like that a lot in recent months. Today is a big day, and Bucky knows Gale is worrying he won’t be able to handle it. He also knows that Gale feels guilty for worrying he can’t handle it.

But Bucky’s worried, too.

“I wish you were here.” He says these words so quietly he isn’t sure Gale will hear them. He isn’t sure he wants Gale to hear them. He looks away from the phone as he says it, feeling too vulnerable and too raw on this day when he’s supposed to be Major John Egan: cool, cocky, composed.

He can pretend for everyone else. Everyone besides Gale. He’ll tell them that he’s ready, even if he isn’t.

He won’t ever be ready until he does it anyway.

The lights are dim around him. In the glow of the console in front of his face, he strokes his fingers gently over the tactile buttons beside the screen. They feel so familiar; he thinks he could press one with his eyes closed and know exactly what it would do.

“I wish I was, too.” Gale’s voice comes back soft and real, bringing Bucky’s attention back to his phone screen. The way Gale’s face is so open and genuine – so unlike what the rest of the world gets to see of him, with a crooked half-smile half-frown accentuating the mix of emotions in his eyes, wide and searching Bucky’s for some answer he doesn’t have – makes Bucky want to pull him through the screen and hug him tight.

He wants Gale to hug him tight. He wants Gale to pull his feet back down to this planet and tell him he’s safe and protect him from everything that has hurt him so badly. He wants Gale to make sure the stars keep burning at night and the world keeps turning and the darkness doesn’t swallow them whole. He wants Gale to quiet the buzzing in his brain and the ringing in his ears. The little voice that’s telling him he can’t do it, can’t do any of it. He wants Gale to come home right damn now and make all of it go away.

But Gale won’t do that. Because he knows that, right this very moment, Bucky needs to climb the rest of the way up this mountain. He needs to stand at the top himself in order to understand that he can do it, he can make it. Gale can’t do anything but stand beside him.

“Do you think I’m ready?” Bucky asks. He says it with a mindless air, looking away as he traces his thumb over the bottom of the console, but there’s a jagged edge to his voice that gives him away. He doesn’t know if he wants Gale’s reply. There was a time when it didn’t matter what anyone else thought – even Buck. Bucky Egan would do what Bucky Egan wanted to do, whatever he convinced himself he was capable of doing.

Some things change. Sometimes forever, and sometimes only for a moment.

He makes tentative eye contact with his husband through the screen. Gale nods – a curt, somewhat hesitant little thing. “Maybe,” he says honestly. “You’re ready to at least try. But if it doesn’t go the way you want it to, you just keep workin’, and you’ll try again. You’re Bucky Egan. Nothing can keep your feet on the ground forever.”

Bucky is about to say something snarky and maybe self-deprecating back, but before he can, there’s a voice in the background of Gale’s side of the call. His eyes widen and he looks off screen, putting a hand up to whoever was trying to get his attention. He looks back at Bucky and sighs. “I gotta go, darlin’. You’ll be alright, hear me?”

Bucky forces a smile. “Yeah. Yeah, obviously.”

“I love you,” Gale says, shoving every bit of adoration he has into those words, and Bucky wants to bottle it up somehow, hold onto it for when he needs a reminder.

“I love you, too,” he says.

The corner of Gale’s mouth lifts into a shy smile. “Ad lunam, ad astra,” he says, and then he’s gone.

Alone again, Bucky reaches up to turn off his phone, and he lets his hand fall down to rest over his chest. He rubs his thumb over his wedding band, twists it around and around his finger. “Ad lunam, ad astra,” he whispers to himself.

When the master alarm starts blaring through the cabin seconds later, red lights flashing in Bucky’s eyes, his heart rate shoots up as he instinctively starts thinking through every single thing that could possibly be wrong. His eyes scan the console in front of him, searching for system statuses that aren’t there, and he blinks in confusion before he shakes his head, remembering that he isn’t in a training exercise. Someone’s tracked him down.

He turns off the alarm and lets silence fill the cabin again.

“You know, when you said you were gonna find somewhere quiet to flirt with your husband, we thought you meant your office or a shady tree or somethin’.”

Bucky turns his head awkwardly to see Rosie outside, his head ducked down to peek through the hatch at him.

“It was quiet before you came and scared me half to death,” Bucky retorts. He reaches up and rips his duct taped phone off the console, picking the tape off and rolling it into a ball.

“If that scares you, you’re in the wrong place,” Rosie quips. He freezes, just for a second, his eyes going that little bit wider, and Bucky sees the moment he realizes what he said. A harmless joke. A truth, if nothing else. Something that would’ve made Bucky throw a meaningless little insult right back at him a year ago.

Everyone’s been walking on eggshells for a while now. No one would dare even insinuate that John Egan doesn’t belong here, especially not while he’s working so hard to claw his way back.

But he takes Rosie’s words for what they are, rolls his eyes, and brushes a hand back through his hair. “If you ain’t a little scared you’re doin’ it wrong. Or you’re crazy.”

Rosie lets himself smile, shaking his head, and he crawls in through the hatch. He pulls himself into the seat beside Bucky, where Curt would usually sit. Bucky sticks the tape ball to his shoulder, and Rosie grabs it, shoves it into his pocket before Bucky can bug him with it any more.

“Man, can you believe we spent weeks cramped up in this thing?” he muses, his eyes skimming over the industrial walls of the tapered conical cabin. He’s talking about the real Orion capsule, not to mention the hundreds of hours logged in this very simulator.

Bucky glances around. This glorified minivan of a spacecraft is the stuff of his childhood dreams, like something straight from science fiction. “We’re astronauts, Rosie,” he points out, as if he doesn’t wonder every day how he managed to make it this far. “I can’t believe we left the planet at all.” Rosie scoffs, and they share a look, like neither of them are certain anything that’s happened in the last year was real.

Bucky shakes his head, adding, “not like we ain’t used to it.”

“At least on the station we got more than one cramped space.”

Bucky doesn’t ask the question that surges through his brain at the mention of the station: Do you think I’ll ever go back? He isn’t ready for the answer. And he doesn’t want to hear ‘I don’t know’ or ‘Of course you will’ or ‘You’re John Egan, you can do anything.’

John Egan couldn’t sign his own name with a pen a few months ago.

Instead he looks over at the fake window on the side of the fake capsule, assessing the distance from it to him. It’s so close. “Felt like that window was a world away during the return trip.” He remembers being led over to it. The feeling of Beary Egan’s fur between his fingers. The throbbing in his head. The unbearable burning in his leg. The nausea in his stomach. Everything spinning around him.

But out the window, stars. So many stars. And he was going to get to them one way or another.

Rosie looks at the window, then back at Bucky. The crew physician remembers all of it, all too well. Part of him wishes he could forget the worst parts, but another part of him feels a need to be the keeper of those memories. He thanks the universe everyday for guiding all of them home. “Everything seems further away when your body doesn’t know if it’ll make it to tomorrow.”

They’re quiet for a long time, just two crew members in a capsule mock-up. It has snapshot memories flashing through Bucky’s mind, and he rubs his thumb over his wedding ring again to ground himself. He thinks about Rosie’s words. “I made it,” he whispers.

“Yeah,” Rosie agrees. “Yes you fuckin’ did.”

It’s a truth that John has been trying to remind himself of every single day for months. He made it; he’s alive.

But is that enough?

What do you do when the best experience of your life was also your worst? What do you do when the thing you love nearly killed you? What do you do when all is said and done, when there’s nothing left to do but forgive, even though you will never, ever be able to forget?

What do you do when the universe tries to strip away your identity, leaving nothing but a trembling shell, the pieces strewn about for you to pick up one by one?

You rebuild yourself, step by step. And what do you do when the edges don’t fit anymore, rough corners scrubbing at wounds that won’t heal, nothing but sheer grit and determination gluing you together?

Is it enough? Do the pieces fit well enough for you to be whole again? Will time sand away the jagged edges, sew together the messy seams? Pieces lost and pieces gained, and all you can do is search in the dark for who you were and who you thought you were and who you still can be.

And you wonder, is it enough?

Bucky holds his hand up in front of his face. Out in zero G, there’s no up or down. You’re weightless, every part of you. Holding your hand up in the air takes no more effort than holding it out to the side or down or back or forward. On Earth, though, there’s good old gravity. 9.8 meters per second squared. 32 feet per second per second. A reliable force keeping your heels on the ground so you don’t just float away. With the way Orion’s seats are oriented, Bucky and Rosie lay on their backs, staring up at the tapered ceiling of the capsule and the screens set up in front of their faces.

Here on Earth, holding his hand up in front of his face takes effort. He’s not weightless down here, and as he experimentally pinches his fingers together, he watches the way they shake.

He bites his lip, takes a breath, closes his eyes. He doesn’t open them.

Gale once told him about the conversations he had with Dr. Huston – the fear that even if Bucky even made it home, he may never be the same. Now he wonders if that fear came true. Is he the same? Will he be the same? He doesn’t know.

He wonders if Gale does. He wonders what Gale sees now, when he looks at him.

He squeezes his eyes shut even tighter.

Ad lunam. Ad astra.

“You’re gonna be fine, John.” Rosie’s voice cuts through the ringing in Bucky’s ears, quieting it. “This is what you’re meant to do.”

Bucky swallows thickly, willing his voice not to come out a strangled mess. “What if… what if I’m not anymore? What if it doesn’t come back like it’s s’posed to?”

“You’ve been training.”

“What if I never...”

“Take a breath.”

Bucky does. There’s no room for panic. No room for doubt. Just him and the sky.

“Open your eyes.”

When Bucky releases himself from the darkness, his hand is perfectly still in front of him. He straightens his fingers, bends them again, straightens them. They don’t shake.

“You’re ready, John.”

—

The sun is bright over Ellington Field late that afternoon, and Bucky pushes his aviators up the bridge of his nose. He tugs at the collar of his flight suit as he strides down the runway, adjusting it beneath the straps of his parachute pack, and he squares his shoulders, lifting his chin. He feels the hard pavement beneath his boots, hears the beat of his footsteps. The ground crew waits for him.

When he stops in front of the Northrop T-38 Talon, he squints against the light reflecting off its sleek white side, and he feels his breath catch in his throat at the sight of this beautifully engineered machine that will launch him into the blue. He curls his fingers into a fist, spreads them out wide, and slowly, steadily, he presses his hand to the nose of the jet standing in front of him, just waiting to come to life. The T-38 jet trainers are used by NASA for training exercises and keeping the astronaut corps’ flying skills up to par. He knows this aircraft as well as he knows Orion, but he hasn’t flown it since last July, a whole year ago now.

“Hey there,” he whispers, letting his eyes roam over it – the fuselage, the engines, the wings, the tail, the wheels. A beautiful bird. It was designed long before Bucky was even born, but it doesn’t look it. “Long time no see.”

“Worried she won’t remember you?”

As Bucky’s eyes stay trained on the ground, studying the wheels, his hand still pressed to the nose, he feels someone else’s presence at his side. He looks up, pulling his hand away. Curt’s there, watching him with a teasing smile on his face. He’s wearing the same gear as Bucky: blue NASA flight suit, G-suit, parachute pack, a helmet tucked under his arm. His other hand grips the shoulder strap of his harness.

“Not one bit,” Bucky replies.

Curt chuckles and pulls Bucky into a tight one-armed hug, as if they haven’t seen each other in months even though Curt makes a point out of bugging him every day. “You ready?” he asks when he pulls away.

Bucky nods and grins in that wild, daring way, as if he hasn’t had a single doubt this whole time. As if he wasn’t just freaking out to Gale and Rosie over what he’s about to do. He brushes his hair back and gazes at the jet again. “Let’s see how well I remember her.”

After passing his sunglasses off to a ground crew member, he climbs the ladder leading to the Talon’s second seat, behind Curt’s. They each stow their procedure documents in the cockpit and hang their helmets on the rail before hopping back down for a walkaround inspection. This thing’s been checked at least twice over by ground crew already, but Curt and John don’t fly without giving their own seal of approval.

When Bucky climbs the ladder again and, at long last, settles into the tight cockpit of a real, flight-ready jet, adrenaline rises in his chest at the same time that a sense of belonging presses him into the seat. He sits back, and staring at the instrument panel just beyond his fingertips feels something like coming home. He can’t stop the grin that spreads over his face. The crew chief helps Curt and Bucky strap in and connect their G-suits, and then Bucky slides his helmet over his head so he can hook up to the oxygen supply and comms. He sighs deeply; for the duration of this test flight, this jet is a part of him, or he’s a part of it.

Ladders stowed and systems checks complete, Curt gives the signal for air, and the ground crewmen oblige, pumping life into the Talon’s engines. Once they’ve completed the last of their pre-flight checks, Bucky hears Curt’s voice buzzing in his ear. It crackles over the comms, a sound Bucky hasn’t heard coherently since he was bounding along the side of Shackleton crater.

“It feels damn good to fly with you again, Major.”

“Cut the crap, Biddick,” Bucky teases. “Without me around, you’re officially NASA’s best pilot.”

Curt scoffs at that, and Bucky imagines him rolling his eyes as he double checks the takeoff and landing data. “Should’ve left your ass on the moon… astrofag.”

Bucky rolls his eyes right back, but he can’t help but laugh. Whether he’ll admit it or not, the name is growing on him. He shrugs, reviewing the same numbers. “Only one way to get back there.”

Chick’s voice cuts in from the tower, and it makes Bucky feel something like relief to know Harding is here for this, rooting for him. “One step at a time, boys.”

As Curt starts taxiing, Bucky looks out over the side of the aircraft. The wings of the Talon and the still-open canopies shake as the tarmac rolls by beneath the wheels, bumping them along. He and Gale have taken their prop plane out a few times this month and last; Bucky even took over the controls for a while one time. But this, today, is his first time back in a supersonic jet trainer. He’s only flying second seat, leaving most of the piloting to Curt, but today is a major stepping stone toward feeling whole again: today he finds out if he can handle supersonic flight.

Since his neurologists cleared him for it a couple months ago, he’s been training for this day in earth-bound simulators. At first, the Gs were too much for him, leaving him feeling weak, pathetic, and discouraged as he passed out or started feeling sick at embarrassingly low G forces. But it’s been coming back to him in recent weeks.

The Talon – capable of flying at Mach 1.3 and climbing 30,000 feet in just one minute – can easily pull 7 Gs. Bucky thinks he’s ready. He wants so badly to be ready. He wouldn’t be flying today if anyone thought he wasn’t ready.

They’re at the end of the runway, staring down the length of it as Curt pivots the Talon so its nose points straight ahead. When Chick clears them, they lower their canopies, and Bucky feels the cabin pressurize. He blinks in surprise as they lurch forward, and then they’re barrelling ahead, faster, faster, faster, until they lift up off the ground, ascending into the clear sky.

He breathes deeply as they climb, picking up speed as they shoot up into their airspace, approaching 16,000 feet. They coast there for a minute, making sure everything is still in order up at altitude.

“Doin’ alright back there?” Curt asks as they both check their systems again.

“We’re go back here,” Bucky affirms. “Let’s fuckin’ do it.”

“Your wish is my command, Major,” Curt says. He lowers the nose of the jet, and they pick up speed as they drop again, getting up to about 500 knots, three-quarters of the speed of sound. Curt brings the stick back then, sharply pulling the Talon’s nose up, and Bucky watches the G-meter gradually kick up to 5 as they shoot upwards. The force presses him back into his seat, making it hard to breathe, and he clenches his muscles as he feels his G-suit get to work trying to keep the blood from draining away from his head. The needle creeps toward 6, goes a little over it. He grits his teeth hard, feeling his heart start to beat harder, faster as his vision starts to tunnel. His head feels funnier than he wishes it would, but he forces himself to focus, strains to breathe, determined to keep going.

“Fuck,” he mutters, tensing his lower body as he and his suit fight to prevent G-LOC.

Chick’s voice crackles in Bucky’s ears. “You’re doin’ fine, son.”

Curt keeps pulling back until they’re up around 20,000 feet and the nose passes vertical; they’re now flying inverted. The nose of the Talon is like an arrow, going wherever you point it, and currently it’s looping them over backward at Curt’s command, with the ground through the canopy where the sky should be. The G-meter starts to chill out, dropping again as they lose speed. Bucky’s vision clears as the blood returns to his head, and he breathes in deeply.

Through the canopy, he catches a glimpse of two lonely, fluffy clouds in the distant sky, and below, little buildings and invisible people and dark, sparkling bodies of water spread out across the Earth. Stardust, he thinks, smiling just a little bit as he watches the world around him, trying to see it through Gale’s eyes. Bucky’s always found it beautiful, but more than anything, he’s always cared about the flight, the adrenaline, the excitement. Gale cares about the beauty, the wonder, the imperfect perfection.

“You still with me, Bucky?”

“Yeah,” Bucky assures Curt. “I’m here.”

Curt expertly flips them around and levels back out, upright once again and coasting along at a smooth 400 knot clip. “You ready?” he asks after giving Bucky some time to recover.

“I didn’t come all this way not to be.”

“I don’t need the sass,” Curt shoots back, but it’s light, like normal. “You have the controls.” Bucky’s pretty sure he hears the word ‘asshole’ muttered at the end of that sentence, and it makes him smile.

He shakes the stick in confirmation, and suddenly he has all the power of the Talon right there in his hands. His eyes flick down to where his fingers grip the stick, his heart skipping a beat, but his hand is perfectly still. “I have the aircraft,” he says, and he hopes Chick is still listening.

He sends them into a roll, feeling giddy as his head gets snapped to the side and his body seems to remember exactly what it’s supposed to do. Flying this thing is ingrained within him, like riding a bike – a bike that’s 46 feet long with a 25 foot wingspan, 3,000 pounds of thrust, a 55,000 foot altitude ceiling, and a top speed of 858 miles per hour.

He asks the plane for a little more, a little more, pushing them higher, faster, forward. He hears Curt whoop loudly into the comms: “Come on baby! We’re fuckin’ back!” And Bucky hasn’t felt this alive since he was on the moon.

After a few minutes of unfiltered glee at the helm of his long-lost ship, feeling pieces of his soul sink back into him, he banks them around and hands the controls back over to Curt for the grand finale, their final test of the day. At about 32,000 feet, they enter a shallow dive, using it to increase their speed again. Bucky feels himself being pressed back, but with a more comfortable amount of force this time as the sky blurs by. He watches the airspeed indicator. Mach 0.92… 0.96… 0.98… 0.99. The indicator jumps, out of sync, as the bow shock passes.

Bucky nearly gasps as they hit Mach 1… 1.02… 1.06… 1.11.

A strange feeling of calm descends on him. They’re flying faster than the speed of sound; they’re flying faster than anything else on Earth. There’s a certain beauty to it that Bucky’s missed in the last eight months, and he blinks away stubborn tears as the world starts to make sense again. He looks out the window, sees nothing but blue skies, and he lets oxygen fill his lungs as he grins beneath his mask. He laughs, and he hears Curt laugh with him.

—

Back on the ground, once the canopies are up and Curt’s parked them squarely in the Talon’s hangar, the crew chief secures the ladders to the side of the aircraft, giving the pilots their exit. He asks Bucky if he feels alright, and Bucky nods once his helmet is off, leaving dark, sweaty hair sticking up in all directions. “Never better,” he says.

In his head is a steady mantra: I am an astronaut. I am an Air Force officer. I am a pilot.

He just proved it to himself, even if he still has more work to do. He is a pilot. He is all of those things. Not was… he is.

He climbs down slowly, gripping tight to the sides of the ladder in a way that has him second guessing how much brain power he needs to dedicate to his grip strength. Just a few months ago, his fingers wouldn’t listen well enough to do even this. But he studies his hands for just a split second, one foot on the rungs of the ladder and the other hanging mid-air, and he realizes that his fingers are working just fine right now. His legs feel a little weak as he steps down, down, down, and he holds his breath as he lowers himself the last big step to solid ground. His head goes just a little fuzzy, and for a nerve-wracking half second, he worries his knee might give out and send him crashing to the pavement, but his toes find contact, and he lets himself hop down. His head clears. He takes another deep breath.

His heart is beating fast; he still feels the adrenaline thrumming in his chest, and it makes him feel so goddamn alive. The world around him feels so unreal, the feeling of Curt clapping him on the shoulder so far away that it makes Bucky stumble to the side. He laughs and shakes his head before turning to press his hand to the jet one more time.

“Next stop, flyin’ her yourself,” Curt says.

For the first time in months, Bucky actually believes it might happen. It’s not even a half-truth said to the media, a manifesto spoken to shove him through PT, a dream to get him out of bed in the morning. It’s right here in front of him, just inches away, and he’s so close.

He doesn’t say any of it out loud, but he knows Curt can see it, too. They all can see it. Someday soon, John Egan won’t be grounded anymore.

He tucks his helmet under his arm and takes his aviators from the crew chief with a nod of thanks before putting them on. With a glance over at his best co-pilot as they walk away from the aircraft, out of the hangar, he ruffles Curt’s sweaty hair. “What the fuck?” Curt says, but he’s looking somewhere out ahead of them when he says it.

Bucky squints into the early evening summer sun at a small silhouette running fast toward them. After a second of confusion, he laughs and sinks down to his knees just in time for a wriggly husky to crash into his chest. “Pep!” A second one runs up to his side, licking at his ear before going after Curt. “And Meatball,” Bucky laughs. Pepper shoves her nose into his face, making him lean his head back, pushing her away even as he curls his fingers into her thick coat. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Flyin’ looks good on you major,” a voice calls out. Bucky’s heart skips a beat, and his head shoots up, his hands freezing in the middle of scratching Pepper’s ears. Meatball trots away, toward the group of people approaching them.

There’s Benny and Marge – here for support and for media updates respectively – as Bucky expected. Then there’s Chick, fresh from the tower and looking something like a proud father, or maybe just a relieved boss.

And then there’s Gale.

Bucky’s husband – the same one that Bucky was supposedly video calling in Iceland just hours ago – is now also in a NASA flight suit with his hair gelled back. He’s walking across the tarmac to him, illuminated by the sun.

“Holy shit, man!” Benny exclaims, giving Bucky a firm, excited side hug before slapping Curt on the shoulder. “Bucky Egan is back.”

“That’s right, you can’t get rid of me,” Bucky jokes as Marge comes forward to hug him. He knows she’ll want some pictures of him and Curt by the Talon in a minute, but for now she just whispers in his ear that she’s proud of him, and she squeezes him tight.

Chick pulls him into a rare hug, patting him on the back. “You did damn good,” he says. “Damn good.”

And then there’s Gale. He stands in front of Bucky, looking a little sheepish but tall and proud and beautiful. He raises an eyebrow, and Bucky can’t do anything but stare at him for a long moment. He stares, and stares some more, before finally he blinks and surges forward. Gale grunts at the force of Bucky’s body hitting his, but he firmly plants his feet and wraps his arms around him. “Hello to you, too.”

“Hey, angel,” Bucky whispers. He presses his nose into Gale’s hair, inhales the scent of his shampoo and product. He smells like Houston, like the gulf, like waking up to sunlight shining through the windows, like all the things Bucky loves. He smells like home. “All that about what you were doin’ in Iceland today was bullshit, huh?”

Gale shrugs. “Surprise?”

Bucky grips the fabric of Gale’s flight suit, twisting it in his fingers. “Were you… did you see?”

Gale nods. “I saw all of it.”

Bucky bites back a grin, hiding it against the side of Gale’s head. He hears Marge take their picture. It’ll be framed and on his desk within the week.

—

By the time the sun’s gone down, the Talon tucked away in its hangar and the ground crew gone for the day, Bucky is back at Ellington Field, sitting on the hard pavement of the runway. There’s the lightest breeze drifting around him, carried in off the bay to relieve Houston from the oppressive heat of the daylight. Major Egan is still in his flight suit, adorned with patches – his name, John Egan, written in neat script beneath a set of wings; the NASA logo; the U.S. flag; his ISS mission patch; and finally, Artemis III.

There’s a crescent moon peeking out of the darkness, set against a backdrop of dark blue-black sky pockmarked with the stars that have guided Bucky his entire life. He stares up at them, the moon and the stars, his mind jumping from one thing to the next. Running through his flight today, everything good and bad about it; thinking through how much further he still has to go until his body is 100% ready to fly alone again; wondering if Gale is looking for him, if he knows Bucky well enough to know where to find him. He’s remembering walking on that moon – every day he works to reconcile it all in his brain, what went wrong and what went right. He’s thinking about what it will be like when Gale goes up there in just a short four or so months.

He can hear footsteps walking over the pavement, and he breathes out in a huff. His husband knows him like the back of his own hand after all.

He spares a glance over as Gale settles on the ground beside him, pulling his knees to his chest in a way that Bucky thinks can’t possibly be comfortable anymore at their age. They sit, close enough that their arms brush, and they look up at the sky that has laid the path for their entire existence.

“Everyone’s headin’ to the Hundred Proof,” Gale says. “Thought you’d wanna drink to being back in the cockpit.”

Bucky hums. “Guess that’s somethin’ I oughta do.” Since he was released from the hospital last December, the Hundred Proof has become a place of celebration and camaraderie again, rather than one of collective grief and worry. His Artemis portrait went up on the walls of the bar just before the new year, along with Curt’s, Rosie’s, and Alex’s. Soon enough, Gale’s ISS portrait will be switched out for his Artemis 4 one, too. Buck and Bucky; one is never far behind the other.

Bucky crosses his legs and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, still looking up as if he can see the entire universe if he only squints hard enough. “We’ve been through a lot together, haven’t we?”

“Have we?”

Bucky looks over at Gale again, scoffing in disbelief, but he finds Gale hiding a smirk as he presses his cheek to his knee, watching Bucky. His hair is messy again from running his hand through it, the gel never holding for long, and Bucky rolls his eyes, reaching a hand out to ruffle it some more.

“It’s worth it,” he says matter of factly, letting his eyes drift back to the stars.

Gale scoots closer and lets his head fall against Bucky’s shoulder. “It’s our life,” he agrees. He doesn’t need to emphasize the our; it’s as if there was never any doubt in this universe that his life would be John’s and John’s would be his.

“Sometimes I can’t really believe I made it here.”

“You were never gonna take no for an answer.” Gale doesn’t know exactly which part of Bucky’s life they’re talking about. He wasn’t going to settle for less than the astronaut corps. And he wasn’t going to settle for less than Gale either.

“I said sometimes,” Bucky mutters, but there comes a point, no matter how badly you’ve always wanted something, where it doesn’t feel real anyways. He doesn’t quite know what he did right to make it to this very spot, even if he can trace his exact path, every single step and crossroads and difficult decision. Sometimes, all he feels is fucking lucky.

Gale scoffs and turns his head, pressing his nose against Bucky’s neck, above the collar of his flight suit. He kisses the delicate skin there. “I never had a doubt,” he whispers. “I’m proud of you.”

Bucky leans back, pulling Gale with him until they’re both laying on the hard ground. It’s uncomfortable as hell, but Gale curls against Bucky’s body anyway, shifting so his head lays right over his heart. Bucky’s fingers curl into his hair. They don’t shake. They don’t even hesitate.

“It’s a damn good life,” Bucky breathes out, the words floating up to the heavens and wrapping around them both. He means it with everything he has.

Gale hums in agreement. With his ear pressed to Bucky’s chest, he can hear his heartbeat, steady and strong. It’s a sound that he took for granted before, but he never, ever gets tired of it now. He squeezes his eyes shut and silently counts along. One. Two. Three. Four.

“You’ll come home, right?” Bucky asks. Few people in this world would be able to distinguish the slight tremble to his voice, the way it jumps almost imperceptibly, nerves twining through it. But Gale hears it loud and clear. With his cheek pressed to Bucky’s chest, he feels the rise and fall start to slow, feels the way Bucky is nearly holding his breath.

Gale closes his eyes, bites at his lower lip. He knows that Bucky knows better than to ask that question. Both of them know that their line of work has never, not once, come with guarantees. They know better than anyone that promises like that are as good as empty. And yet, without promises, what is there to keep them moving forward?

So Gale buries his face in Bucky’s chest and says the only thing he can say. “When have you ever known me not to come home?”

Bucky scoffs quietly at that, but Gale knows that’s all he wanted to hear. They both know that, technically, the odds of him making it home are high; the opposite outcome, statistically, has little to no standing. Bucky takes Gale’s hand, and he mindlessly fiddles with Gale’s fingers in a way that feels normal and domestic, like they’re just any other married couple in this funny little world. Like they’re just them – awkward teenagers and reckless young adults and newlyweds all at once.

Gale could count the days until he launches out of this planet’s orbit. The hours. The minutes. He could mentally tally them as they tick by, pulling them closer and closer to the next adventure, the next mission, the next dream. The clock is running.

But, despite it looming over them, with all of the excitement and adrenaline and worry that it entails, at this exact moment, beneath a sky full of stars, it feels far away. He could count down the seconds. He could feel the anticipation of it winding through his body with every beat of his heart.

But instead, he focuses on Bucky. He counts his husband’s heartbeats, the purest sign that they are both alive, that they are both exactly where they need to be. One. Two. Three. Four.

“Ad lunam, ad astra,” Bucky whispers into the night.

Gale hides a smile against the fabric of Bucky’s flight suit. It smells like flight – fuel and sweat. He focuses on that, on the rise and fall of Bucky’s chest, on the feeling of warmth between them, the sticky summer air drifting through their hair.

“To the moon, to the stars,” he repeats back. And with a soft smile, he lets himself breathe.

#I feel so many feelings about this ending #can't believe we've made it this far tbh #I love these gay space boys #And I'm glad you love them too #Thank you #ad lunam ad astra #clegan #clegan astronaut au #to the moon and back #mota #masters of the air #my gay space boys #john egan #gale cleven #clegan fic #buck x bucky #bucky egan #buck cleven #mota fic

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eustasskiddsprosthetic · 6 months ago

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So, I'm thinking of a Sabolaw actor AU!

For the longest time, Sabo's an amateur actor who does this as a hobby. He loves making short films and he loves writing, so this was an avenue of self-expression for him throughout his twenties.

One day in his late thirties, a casting director finds one short film of his and immediately hired him to be the lead of a chirpy adaptation of a YA thing.

Instant hit! People adored his good looks, his giggly laugh and bug eyes. His popularity skyrocketed and the hype sustained his career ten years later. He's just that smart when it comes to marketing!

So now, as a forty-something, he's the star of a quirky, eccentric adult film written by the enigmatic Corázon. He's interested in the script because a lot of people fancast him as the male lead and figured this would be a good project to appeal to public opinion.

This is where he meets Law, who has taken an instant dislike to him. Whatever, that happens.

Law's apparently Corázon's personal assistant but he acts more like a baby sitter. Law would light his cigarettes up for him, get coffee and even writes corrections for Corázon. They were apparently father and son and Sabo kind of envies their good relationship.

More than that, though, Sabo adores how sweet Law was towards the mute Corázon. He saw a lot of shy, reserved people—especially if they were minorities—get yelled at, berated and insulted regardless of rank. It could be straight up harassment or backhanded compliments to their achievements.

Law, in contrast, was doting, polite and even talks for Corázon, even if what he said was either "Thank you, Cora-san will think about it" or "Piss off." Sabo thought vulgarities sounded cute from his mouth.

Their first full conversation happens in a dressing room where Law was filling in for a makeup artist. Law was doing his makeup and Sabo leaned in so Law did not have to strain himself.

"You come here around, lovely?" Right, Sabo flirts with him a lot. He's kind of insane about it.

"No."

"Your words are cold but your hands are warm, darling."

Law sighed deeply. "Have you memorised your lines? You forgot them the last time."

"Oh..." Sabo did not like talking about work so casually. "Yes, yes, I have. Would you like me to recite one?"

"Sure."

Sabo did not mind that Law was ignoring him and that he was pretending to tidy up the makeup supplies. He recited a monologue, admittedly cringing slightly. He planned to negotiate a slight rewrite.

"What am I thinking of? What a silly question. I think of you when I don't think of anything in particular. I think about what you're doing now, how you're feeling, what you want to do when you come home to me. Even right now, I think of how I can love you better. I think of you all the time, even in my daydreams. You inspire me, my love."

Sabo noticed Law's ears go a little red but he kept a neutral face.

"Don't take this the wrong way but," Law paused to glance at the floor. "I'm glad you have the role. You're not the guy my dad had in mind but you fit it perfectly. Thank you for agreeing to do this."

Sabo laughed. Law was oddly sweet today.

They got a bit friendlier from that day onwards. They would talk occasionally about things that's not just work, even if Law seemed reluctant to. From the few bits of information Law gave, Sabo found himself falling for him more and more.

Law had a puppy. He liked black coffee, just like Sabo. He liked hardcore rock music, indie stuff with a splash of poppy-addictive Red Velvet music. He liked the colour yellow. He liked reading. Law wore the fluffiest, softest cardigan to work sometimes.

Law's stoic demeanor finally broke when Sabo let him infodump all about Sora the Warrior. Law speaks so enthusiastically even to someone he supposedly 'hates' and Sabo just melts. He could listen to Law talk all day. He would think of his sparkly eyes even in his daydreams. He could count the stars in them...

Today, Sabo was going to film the sex scene with his co-star and he made sure they would do it in at most five takes. She seemed willing enough and wanted to get it done in one. Admittedly, they did not get along in real life despite having chemistry on camera.

When they started filming, Sabo tried his best to be 'in love' as the script says. This was a moment where their relationship would deepen and it was admittedly the hottest moment in the film. It was fine if she hesitated, since she played a timid character. The director reminded him of this. Sabo got annoyed but he agreed to try again.

It got worse because they were both irritated. Gah! Just before Sabo wanted to take a break, he had a reckoning. He realised that her lips were pale... Sabo glanced up and saw Law pretending to look busy by tapping away at his laptop. They were pale, just like Law's. He closed his eyes and finally felt the passion he needed to make this work.

Even the director blushed at what he saw.

After the scene, Corázon taps Sabo on the shoulder without Law next to him. Sabo follows Corázon into a small, under-utilised office. He opened the window and smoked a cigarette. Here, he took his sunglasses off and Sabo sees that he's actually quite handsome with a large face, pale skin and dull blonde hair.

"Be careful, boy."

Where did that deep voice come from? Sabo was surprised to hear it come from Corázon himself.

"His heart is in pain," Corázon continued. He blew a puff of smoke out the window. "Treat him well."

"You can't cut me out of this project," Sabo reminded him lightly. Threats like this were unprofessional. "We have a contract."

Corázon smiled. He was cunning like Sabo and Sabo oscillated between liking and distrusting him.

"It's not about that. I know your type, and... Well... I'm a protective father, do you see?"

Oh, it's that kind of consequence. For the first time in his career, he stood some distance away and bowed deeply. Corázon did not expect that but he seemed to appreciate that.

Sabo knew cynicism when he saw it, however. Why won't these people just believe in him! He needed a fucking drink.

He went to the bar some distance away from the studio and wow! Holy fucking shit!

Law looked at him first. He changed out of his hoodie and now wore a black button shirt and jeans. Sabo knew he had game but damn, Law's so slim and fit and so damn sexy. Sabo ordered a drink and sat there. He stared at the wall, thinking of his work, what he had to do tomorrow, he quickly remembered his lines...

"Hey, handsome. You look like you have a lot on your mind." A slightly tipsy giggle.

Sabo looked up. Now, he thought of Law. Law had such a cute smile when he wasn't so irritable. Law sat on his lap without asking and of course Sabo let him. Law gave him fuck-me eyes and Sabo knew that was only because he was sort of drunk but Sabo just felt his heart squeeze and his dick harden.

If only Law were sober! Damn it! This would be so much better if Law wanted to seduce him. He wanted Law to look at him with those lustful eyes and mean it. Sabo laughed bitterly.

Law's legs were long and warm against his. Law held his face and tried to kiss Sabo but Sabo put his hands over Law's mouth. Law pouted and he was so fucking cute, Sabo would gladly kiss him just not like this. He tried to get Law off his lap.

"You're still the same dork I fell in love with twenty years ago." Sabo finally had enough. Law tilted his head to the side in confusion. Sabo remembered Law hated loud noises and would wear white noise-cancelling ear-plugs. Upon closer inspection, Sabo saw that it was the same pair too. Law kissed his ear and Sabo let him come closer.

"Fine, you win. I'm hopelessly smitten. I wonder, Law, I wonder where we'd be if you believed in my feelings towards you? If you listened to me that day..."

Also, did I mention that they were (very bitter) exes? Yeah, that's a thing that happened a long ago...

#sabolaw #revolutionary sabo #trafalgar water d law #trafalgar law #slawbo #yeah there's way too many ideas invested into this fic bro #yes i posted this yesterday but i want to repost it for algorithm #i have like specific scenes written out in my head like a crazy person lol

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miraculouslbcnreactions · 3 months ago

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Since Miraculous Ladybug is becoming for more mature audiences it should split povs between Marinette and Adrien. Its upsetting how Adrien has such a main character backstory yet he's not apart of it or a major character in the show even though he feels like it. It feels like he should be Marinette's costar but he's treated as some guy most of the time. I get that Marinette's the main character but still Adrien feels so wasted on. Honestly he kinda reminds me of Steven Universe. Dead mom, complex with not being entirely human, well meaning but absent dad(Gabriel's hearts was in the right place but just went down hill). Like when Adrien finds out about the whole sentimonster thing imagine the identity crisis he's gonna have. I also wonder what they're gonna do with Emilie. She's not dead anymore and she was the driving force for why Gabriel did what he did. I wonder if she's gonna be a good mom or if the fan theories are right and she's just as bad if not worse then Gabriel. Rose haunted the narrative because she was so important if it wasn't for her and her actions we probably wouldn't even have Steven Universe or the many momswap aus. But after Gabriel got all the Miraculouses Emilie felt kinda of forgotten and last minute when she was talked about.

Are there any other shows that you sometimes compare Miraculous too?

I don't think that Miraculous is aiming at more mature audiences now unless there was some announcement that I missed? If anything, I'm expecting season six to tone things back down because I'm guessing that it's going to be a soft reboot. New main villain, new animation style, new school, the signs are all there.

Shows rarely ever change their target audience like that. It's just too risky a move. You have to redo the marketing and somehow convey to parents that the show is no longer safe for their child as it's aimed at teens now. But anyone who wants a more serious show for teens isn't going to want to sit through the first five seasons which were not written like a serious show for teens, so the audience for this would be the small subsection of viewers who want to watch their childhood favorite get more serious.

While that's certainly a demographic, it's not the massive one you get when you stick to anyone ages five-and-up. Since five-and-up is also where the toy sales are and Miraculous has a lot of tie-in toys, it would be pretty wild if they abandoned that demographic at this point. I dug up an old tweet that I remembered seeing to give my warning some extra backing. For full context, this was in reply to a tweet asking if the writers consider the teen audience when writing the show:

[Image description: a tweet from the show's head writer reading "they are not the primary audience. The main target is kids 5 to 12 max. It doesn't mean we don't consider older audiences. But it means that whatever we write must not leave the kids behind."]

This tweet is admittedly over two years old and anything is technically possible, but I would strongly caution you against having expectations for more serious content unless you know something that I don't. The show was originally sold as to investors, distributors, and so on as a kids show and, unless they were able to renegotiate those agreements, it's going to stay a kids show.

I'd also caution you against assuming that Emilie is alive. I thought that was where the show went, too, but statements from the writers have made it pretty clear that Emilie is well and truly dead, which further supports my soft reboot theory. Bringing her back means a stronger tie to the previous seasons and you don't want that for a soft reboot.

Please don't read this as me praising that writing choice! I think it was stupid as hell to magically bring back Nathalie while killing off Emilie. They were both dying and only one of them is a domestic terrorist who actively chose death by knowingly using the broken Miraculous. The other is a Good And Pure Soul Who Was Too Perfect For This Cruel World (or, at least, that's what the show seems to want us to think). Plus, if you're going to use the wish, do something big! Change the status quo! But that's not how formula shows work so they probably couldn't do that.

Quick side note: this is my best guess as to why the leaked scripts indicated that Emilie was going to come back when season five ended the show. Series finales are usually allowed include elements that would ruin the formula if the show continued because the show isn't continuing. Season finales are not allowed to do that because the next season needs to stick to the same formula. When season five went from end-of-show to a mere end-of-season, that probably signed Emilie's death warrant. Sorry Adrien, no happy ending for you! Hope you like being an orphan!

Moving on!

In my opinion, it feels like they only used the wish to let Gabriel die and get rid of Emilie without it being too traumatic for the indented audience, but it's still basically a murder suicide being treated as a happy ending which is wild! At least it was a pretty one where the murderer and his victim ascended into the light?

We admittedly might see larger impacts from the wish next season as we don't explicitly know what the wish was, but have they ever let a season finale lead to something interesting? Not really, so I don't see why that would change now. I'm not even sure if Adrien's sentistatus is going to come up again. It should, but it may also just fizzle out because the writers don't know how to deal with it. The sentimonster thing is not the kind of plot point that you can handle in 20 minutes, especially when you have to include some sort of akuma fight, too. Bringing up the sentistuff would also complicate a soft reboot so, yeah, I have no idea if they're ever going to touch it again.

As far as recs for shows like Miraculous go, I'm afraid that you'll have to be a little more specific about what you're looking for because Miraculous is trying and failing to be a lot of things. If you want a duo show with a lot of banter, a badass female lead, and a goofy-but-narratively-important male lead, then I'd point to Kim Possible. If you want a team show with romantic undertones, then Teen Titans is a good pick. If you want identity shenanigans, magic, and romance, then American Dragon Jake Long might be worth checking out in spite of the very dated slang, though fair warning that one is enemies to lovers. It's done in a very fun way, but it's not a partner show like Miraculous kind of is and the romance is also not the main focus.

Part of the reason I was drawn to Miraculous is that shows about superheroes don't tend to have a strong romance element to them, so there aren't a ton of options for me to give you when it come to shows that fill a similar niche. However, if you're willing to go into the realms of fanfic, then you've got a wealth of options. Pretty much any property with secret identities will have fics about identity shenanigan romances. Love squares are nothing new. I've been reading them for years! I basically watched Twelfth Night when I was about eight and never looked back. Identity shenanigans or bust!

People will even bring them into fandoms that don't have any secret identities because identity shenanigans are really fun to play with! They make for some of the best romances. I'm sure that you can also find them in novels, but it's not something I've seen a lot of, so I mostly stick to fanfic for my identity shenanigan needs. That's where almost all my recs are from.

Should I do a fanfic plug to demonstrate what I mean? Yeah, why not. This baby deserves more readers and, if you like Miraculous, then you'll probably love this. (Seriously, if you read it, feel free to come talk to me about it. It's so good and also proof that I really am drawn to very specific tropes. What can I say other than I know what I like?)

We Didn't Start The Fire by ohhgingersnaps

Ava is all burned out, literally— she’s an exhausted JojaCo employee by daylight, and pyrokinetic superhero The Phoenix by moonlight, until she accidentally starts a fire at work and has to blame it on her superpowered alter-ego to avoid being discovered. The Phoenix is forced into early retirement, and with nothing else to lose, Ava moves to her grandfather’s old farm for a new start. Between restoring the farm, resolutely bottling all of her feelings, and trying to keep her powers under wraps, Ava has a lot on her plate. She’ll figure it out. Eventually. She hopes. Meanwhile, the hacker Memento, Phoenix’s good friend and confidant, is left to pick up the pieces alone after her sudden disappearance. He’s fully convinced that she didn’t start the fire, and he’s determined to discover the truth and clear her name... As long as he doesn’t fall for the pretty new farmer down the road, first. Part superhero AU, part mental health recovery arc, and part rom-com, topped with a generous serving of secret identity love square shenanigans, hurt/comfort, shameless flirting and banter, and dramatic irony.

I've mentioned before that I don't like OC main characters. Video games are the one exception to that rule. I'm really not big on reader inserts (no judgement, just personal preference), so when I read fanfic for a video game with a self-insert type main character, I'm looking to read about people's fully developed OCs, but I also want a good deal of the focus to be on the game's characters as they're the only reason I'm looking for stuff to read. That's what this fic is and I love it!

I also wouldn't normally rec fanfic for properties outside of Miraculous since this is specifically a Miraculous blog, but this is Stardew Valley fanfic, which is why I picked it over fic from other, more complex properties. If you don't know that game, it's a farming sim whose cast is developed enough for you to get attached to them, but who don't have a ton of depth, so you can read this sucker without having touched the game because there's no deep lore here. The game dev is apparently pretty open about the fact that he kept lots of things about the characters ambiguous so you could read things like their relationships and ages in whatever way makes you happy. Only prep work I might recommend is reading the character summaries from the game's wiki and you'd only need to do that for the named characters.

As I said above, fics like this are where I get my more-serious-story-with-identity-shenanigan-included itch scratched and are what I'd recommend looking for in either fanfic or original fiction form if that's what you like as TV shows just don't seem to have this kind of content, probably because TV shows often draw plot lines out to maximize views while novel-style stories generally have a clear end goal, which is why it can be hard for TV romances to feel satisfying. However, there are certainly a ton of TV shows that I haven't watched, so if anyone has recs for anon, then feel free to drop a comment or give this a reblog with your rec list.

#ml writing critical #ml writing salt #anon ask #Why was I reading Stardew Valley fanfic?#Because none of the characters were acknowledging my budding romance!!!#Robin. I am seducing your son. Say something about it!#Welcome me to the family. Lower your prices! Raise your prices! Do something! Anything!#And Sam? No well wishes for your bestie's new girl? I am disappointed #So I looked to fanfic to give me what I wanted because I was playing on the switch and had no access to mods #My life is very trying sometimes.

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puppy-byun · 1 year ago

Text

Just Friends...unless...? pt. 1

pairing: Hyunjin x Reader / a sprinkle of Seonghwa x Reader

rating: 18+

word count: 8k

genre: smut / friends to lovers / angst / university au

warnings: drinking, curse words, Hyunjin (obv but like... there should be a warning at all times), heavy make-out, fingering, light nipple play, dirty-talk, pet names (just one rlly), public...indecencies don't do this irl, minors pls dni!!

summary: You weren’t crushing on Hyunjin. You couldn’t be crushing on Hyunjin because you were just friends, and there was no way he would ever feel the same way about you. Right? Unless...?

disclaimer: This has only been proof read by myself but hey! I’m back! This is angstier than most stuff I've written before I hope u guys enjoy it!

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There had been a time in your life when you had thought you were in love with Hyunjin. Not infatuation, not attraction, and not an incredibly intense college crush, no, but the kind of star crossed, life changing love that you thought you could never possibly get over. You hadn’t had a clue how right you would be about that.

And Hyunjn? He hadn’t had a clue about anything at all, because Hyunjin was a sweet, but he was just about as oblivious as he was caring.

In all fairness, you hadn’t tried to get him to realize that you were head over heels the first time you realized how fast he made your heart beat. You didn’t think that you would be able to handle the embarrassment of him finding out one of his closest friends had been harboring a crush on him, and even less so the possible follow up of rejection. So instead, you had gone through months of fearing that he would realize you had feelings for him. You had constantly been torn about being grateful he was so clueless and hoping despite better judgment that he would realize, and he would maybe reciprocate those feelings. It had been months until you had finally managed to snub out every last one of them, until you and Hyunjin were just friends.

Regardless of whether you were over those feelings or not, it did not stop your friends from endlessly teasing you about that period in your life. Apparently, you had been extremely obvious - according to them. It was just your luck that Hyunjin wouldn’t even consider his friend being in love with him, so even two years later he had no idea there had ever been a time when you had wished you would make his heart flutter the same way he did with yours.

You couldn’t fully blame your friends for teasing you about your feelings for Hyunjin. Neither could you blame them for not quite believing that those feelings were in the past - not when you were so comfortable with each other, it was easy to mistake you for anything but a couple. But even if that did happen a lot it didn’t bother you and it didn’t seem to bother Hyunjin either – because you were just friends.

You had your hands full with eight guys in your life and you definitely did not need or have time for a boyfriend on top of it, so you didn’t mind guys automatically backing off when they saw Hyunjin and you together. And in the three years you had known Hyunjin he had never seemed too interested in starting a relationship with anyone either.

Admittedly, you had tried not to pay any attention to what he was doing when you weren’t spending your time together, because part of your ‘Hyunjin-crush-extinction-program’ had been to decidedly keep your nose out of his private affairs. If he had hook-ups, you had successfully managed to not witness any of them. It wouldn’t have been difficult to avoid situations like this though, considering he was friendly, well-mannered, hard working, and just about the stereotype of the perfect, sweet boy next door. He was ambitious, chivalrous, you had never seen him treat anyone with even the slightest disrespect, and you had never heard him talk badly about anyone. It was unfair, really, that on top of having an amazing character he also looked flawless. Long hair tickling his ears and the tips brushing his shoulders, still soft despite the way he bleached it all blond just a few months ago. Straight eyebrows, dark eyes that crinkled at the edges whenever he laughed, holding a sparkle that made it impossible not to laugh with him. His nose an elegant slope and a cute tip you had desperately wanted to kiss back when you had thought yourself in love with him. And his mouth. His mouth had been the worst part, because the boy looked like an angel but his lips never promised anything but sin, plush and soft and just about the most perfect lips anyone could ever want to kiss.

No, you were definitely not thinking about Hyunjin’s lips now. Even if there’s no problem with a bit of kissing between friends, no strings attached, right?

You shook yourself out of those thoughts, shoving them at the very back of your mind right with the memories of what it felt like to be hopelessly in love with Hyunjin, because those were parts of your life you had left behind and were not ever bringing back to explore.

You were thankfully forced to focus on something else for good when a loud thump sounded next to you, gaze dropping to the table with a slight squeal. Felix and Minho had dumped a whole tray loaded with various assortments of drinks and, to your dismay, also shots, in the middle of the table, spilling some of them in the process and splattering everyone with drops of sticky alcohol.

“I thought we’re not getting shit-faced today? It’s only Wednesday…” You tutted with a raised eyebrow, finger pointing at the shots specifically.

“Oh these?” Minho raised one eyebrow with a cat-like grin. “These are for our heartbreakers, since they look like they need a good amount of liquid courage.”

Changbin, one of said heartbreakers Minho had just mentioned, only rolled his eyes, but Jisung immediately grabbed two small glasses of what was undoubtedly tequila, downing both of them unceremoniously, foregoing the lemon. You laughed at the display, shoving one of the shots in Changbin’s direction discreetly, because even though he was putting on a tough act you could tell he was nervous.

You were occupying your usual booth at your favorite campus bar, attending Karaoke Wednesday for the sole reason of Changbin and Jisung promising they would finally get up on that stage and impress the girls they had been eyeing for the better part of almost two months. It was almost ridiculous, how your entire group had become regulars on karaoke night solely because these two kept saying they would ‘finally make a move this time’ every single week - only to chicken out.

Jisung was already on his fourth shot, ready to grab the fifth one, when you gently put your hand on his arm to stop him. “I think you should maybe slow down or all you’ll be doing is throwing up on her skirt before you can even utter a word.” you cringed, hoping you didn’t jinx it with your words.

Seungmin and Minho both laughed at the likely image of that happening but Jisung slumped back on the seat, rolling his eyes.

“You’re seriously the worst wing-men, all of you!”

The other boys only laughed more and you patted his hand empathetically, leaning over Hyunjin who was sitting right next to you.

“It’s going to be fine, Jisung. You go up there and you impress her, and she’ll totally fall in love with you. I would fall in love with you, if I weren’t already friends with you.”

The lie went over your lips smoothly, not even cringing inwardly when this was very much not true. Being friends hadn’t stopped you from falling in love with Hyunjin, but that experience had also taught you that you would never again get into the messy business of crushing on someone in your friend group.

“I would trust her judgment, you know,” Hyunjin added, casually grabbing your hand from on top of Jisung’s and placing it back on your own lap so he could lean forward and look at the blue haired boy. “She’s got actual standards, so her compliment means something.”

His hand never left yours, keeping his own slender fingers lightly wrapped around yours, a gesture so casual and normal between you that no one would even bat an eye. You laughed at Hyunjin’s words, whacking him over the back of his head softly. “What do you mean I have standards, I’m friends with you guys.”

“Yes, exactly,” Minho added pointedly, completely ignoring your jab and sliding a drink in your direction which looked suspiciously colorful and like it would make your teeth stick together.

“Shush, I was giving you a compliment bunny.”

You grinned at Hyunjin cheekily, from over the rim of your glass, proud that once again the pet name barely made your skin tingle. He always used it with you, and there was absolutely nothing flirtatious or special about it. It used to make your head spin, and it only took just about two years for you to get used to it.

“So what’s the game plan for tonight?” Chan piped up, the question mainly oriented at Jisung and Changbin, who were the sole reason you had even gathered at the bar and accidentally made it a tradition to get drunk on a freaking weekday.

“Let me guess, same as every week?” Seungmin asked, barely containing an eye-roll. Jisung was still pouting but Changbin set his shot glass down with vigor, sitting up straighter and causing you to snort into your drink. Hyunjin was helpfully patting your back to prevent you from choking while you listened to Changbin declaring how he would for sure win over his crush tonight.

The pats on your back changed to gently rubs once your coughing had calmed down a little and you skirted closer, leaning your head on Hyunjin’s shoulder. The last singer had ended their horrible rendition of Billie Eilish’s ‘Bad Guy’ and they were calling for new daring participants. For all of Changbin’s talk both he and Jisung had gotten very quiet. The drinks Minho and Felix had steadily brought had at least done nothing if not encourage everyone else at the table that tonight really was the night, so you weren’t surprised when Chan jumped up from his spot, waving and hollering to get the bartender’s attention.

“We have two entries here!” he shouted, so loudly that the whole bar had heard for sure and there was no way for Jisung or Changbin to back out of this. Waving him over Chan got up and fished a USB out of his back pocket, deeply engrossed in conversation with the bartender now. You knew he was trying to convince him to let your friends perform their own tracks instead of singing karaoke, which were saved on said USB. Jisung had gotten worryingly pale throughout the last two minutes, but your friends knew no mercy for the boys. Seungmin was already almost forcefully shoving Changbin out of the seat, and Felix and Minho were pulling Jisung, who did his best to resist, up by his arms.

You couldn’t help but laugh throughout the whole display, turning to catch Hyunjin doing the same while watching them.

“You think they’re aware their crushes are most likely watching them right now?”

“Don’t let them know, Jisung will probably pass away on the spot.”

You bit back a snort, nodding in agreement and continued watching how Chan threw a thumbs up in your direction and a very dramatic gurgle left Jisung’s lips. He might actually be about to pass out.

Hyunjin’s hand slipped from between your shoulder blades to your lower back, reaching the expanse of skin peeking out between your top and skirt. You shivered, unable to suppress the sensation and immediately sent your mind into shut down. Even if this was technically a normal reaction, it wasn’t with Hyunjin. You could never allow this with Hyunjin, because if he ever came even close to thinking you had a crush on him you would dig yourself a hole and vanish in the ground forever.

Halfway through the path to the stage the boys seemed to realize that their crushes were indeed watching them and finally managed to get it together so Seungmin, Minho and Felix could stop forcefully dragging them towards the raised platform.

The bartender – Seokjin, who Chan knew because they had a couple of classes together, which was most likely how he got him to agree to play their original songs – announced that tonight the program would be a little different, and you caught yourself sitting up straighter. Hyunjin moved with you automatically, pulling you closer with the movement, but your full attention was on the stage now. After months it was finally happening. The first heavy tunes of the song you had heard countless times by now started, and you watched your friends fumble for the microphones, still visibly nervous. They had performed their own music many times for you guys, but never on a scale this big, in front of strangers, and even worse, in front of someone they wanted to impress. The first few lines were a bit unsteady, making you cringe inwardly and holler out a lout whoop of encouragement. Jisung’s eyes caught your table, seeing you give him two thumbs up in support, and when a grin settled on his face you felt relief flood your body. Changbin didn’t need as much encouragement, immediately at ease as soon as he heard his own music, and once they started rapping you knew they were about to impress everyone in the bar, not just their crushes. Even though you knew the songs by heart you found yourself captured by their performance as well. They were just naturally talented, their charisma flowing through every line they were spitting.

Hyunjin’s hand, which had stilled when he, too, had focused on the performance, picked back up on drawing soft patterns on the small of your back and his nose brushed your hair when he leaned in enough so you could understand him over the music.

“You’re not actually gonna fall in love with Jisung now, right?” He was clearly joking and you leaned back to look at him with a laugh, mirroring his expression.

“Why are you asking? Are you jealous, Jinnie?” Hyunjin rolled his eyes in response at your absurd question. Why would he be jealous or anything even remotely as ludicrous, when your friendship was rivaled by yours and Chan’s only, and he damn well knew that.

“Of Jisung? Hell no, it took him two months to go up on that stage and the girl he’s trying to impress doesn’t even know it’s her he’s flexing this hard for.”

Even if you agreed you lightly pinched Hyunjin’s arm to let him know he wasn’t being entirely fair. Confidence didn’t come as natural to everyone as it did to him.

“I just think he wouldn’t deserve you.” he added as an afterthought, shrugging his shoulders.

“Oh?” you quipped, eyebrow raised because now you were intrigued. You could talk about almost everything with Hyunjin, but you hardly ever talked about something like this. For some reason your dating life (or lack thereof) was reserved for talks between you and anyone but Hyunjin, which you didn’t entirely mind. But now that it had come up, you were curious as to what he was trying to say. “And who would deserve me?”

Hyunjin opened his mouth only to close it again, the music filtering out in favor of a pregnant pause. He had successfully managed to capture your full attention, Jisung’s and Changbin’s performance, as good as it was, not as important as this conversation.

“No one of course.” Hyunjin finally deadpanned, as if it were the most obvious answer.

“No one…,” you repeated, a little incredulous. “So I’m just going to be single forever?”

Hyunjin shrugged, as if that was the obvious solution. “I suppose not. You’re going to settle for someone who doesn’t come close to the standards you’d deserve, and it’s going to be a tragedy.”

“Ah,” you supplied, your tone implying that, of course, how hadn’t you thought of that before? You let your eyes wander the room, settling on a guy halfway across with dark hair, a lean and tall figure and pretty beauty mark under his eye adorning his face.

“What about that one?” you nodded your head vaguely in his direction and Hyunjin followed your line of sight.

“Yugyeom?”

You rolled your eyes, raising an eyebrow at him. “How am I supposed to know? The one with the beauty mark.”

“Yeah, that’s Yugyeom. We share some classes, he’s a dance major.” He caught the wistful smile on your face, your eyes still locked on the other dancer rather than your friend, mentally jotting down his name while thinking that he definitely wouldn’t be a bad catch.

“Oh, hell no. I know what you’re thinking. He most certainly wouldn’t deserve you.” Hyunjin quickly grasped your chin softly but decisively, squishing your cheeks together and forcing your gaze back on him, confronted with your pout. “Don’t look at me like that. He’s a total fuckboy, you don’t want to get yourself into that mess.”

You hmphed, swiping your gaze in the other direction and away from Yugyeom. Instead, your eyes landed on a brown-haired boy who was sitting with a couple of friends, beer in hand and completely immersed in the music. He had a pretty, heart-shaped face, full cheeks and, oh god, dimples.

“What if I want the guy with the dimples? I think I’d want the guy with the dimples,” you decided, directing your question at Hyunjin, who apparently had become the judge of your hypothetical love life.

“Jaehyun, seriously?” Hyunjin’s exasperated tone was enough to tell you what he was thinking of that choice, but you decided to push it a little, just to tease him.

“Yeah, Jaehyun. I should go say hi.” Hyunjin’s hand, which had still been comfortably resting on your back, drawing distracting patterns from time to time, slipped around your waist, his fingers digging into your skin faster than you could react.

“Alright, alright, relax, I’m not going to do it. So he’s bad business?” Hyunjin relaxed his grasp only infinitesimal, as if he didn’t trust that you wouldn’t just jump up as soon as he let go.

“No, he’s actually a pretty fun guy. But I’ve seen his tongue down more girl’s throats in, like, barely a month, than I can count on my hands and toes. He’s football captain, too, so his life is pretty much sports and fucking. Unless that’s what you’re looking for…?”

“I guess not. Shame,” you commented, abandoning the idea of Jaehyun because he was clearly very far from your type. Your type being extremely hard to define because you had barely paid attention to boys other than the casual hookup throughout high school, and the only ever serious crush you had had been Hyunjin, with no other following after. There had been guys, but there hadn’t been anyone who managed to make your heart beat quite as fast as Hyunjin had.

The performance had long but ended by now, someone else already taking the stage, but the guys weren’t back yet, Chan stuck at the bar and engrossed in an animated conversation with Seokjin, who was severely disregarding every other customer. You had lost sight of Seungmin, Felix, Minho, Changbin and Jisung in the crowd so your booth was currently solely occupied by Hyunjin and you.

Letting your gaze glide over the crowd once again, mostly just to see if you could spot any of your friends, they instead landed on a head of white blonde hair, surely long enough to brush over the tips of the boys ears if he hadn’t slicked it back, showing off his undercut and sharp jawline. Oh, you knew that boy. It was true that only ever Hyunjin got your heart to beat fast, but you would lie to say there weren’t other boys who got you excited in other ways – Park Seonghwa right at the very top of that list. He was lounging on the backrest of a worn leather sofa, his back leant against the wall, legs spreading impossibly wide, as if he had no intention of making room for anyone else (he probably didn’t).

Hyunjin clearly had caught onto your not so subtle staring, because his next words were more exasperated than they had been at any other suggestion so far.

“Park Seonghwa?!”

You quickly glanced at your friend with a sheepish smile, before turning your gaze back to the white blond boy, resting your arm on the back of your seat and your chin atop of it.

“Yeah, Seonghwa is hot.”

“God, I take back everything I said about you having standards.” Hyunjin groaned next to you, but it wasn’t enough to pull your gaze away from the other boy. Everyone and their mum knew who Seonghwa was, campus heartthrob extraordinaire, with just the right amount of bad boy flair to make every girl positively drool. Now, you knew you didn’t stand a chance with him, just the way you had known that you didn’t stand a chance with Hyunjin. Guys that pretty were just way above your level, despite what Hyunjin said.

It wasn’t that you were unpopular per se, because hanging with one of the most infamous friend groups on campus had definitely gotten you a certain amount of popularity yourself. It had happened by accident, really, because Chan’s parents had moved in next door in elementary school, making you walking buddies on your way to school every single day for years, forcing Chan to befriend you. It could have ended after Chan had already entered high school and gained quite a bit of a reputation when you finally left elementary school behind to join him. But it didn’t. For some unfathomable reason he had decided that there was no one cooler at school than you, spending every lunch break and free period in your company, dragging you along and introducing you to all of his friends. Slowly but steadily your group had grown, Seungmin, Changbin and Jisung joining first, and then, one by one, Minho, Felix, Hyunjin and Jeongin. All of them had been semi-popular for their talents and charms even by themselves, but as a group they were one of those cliques that everyone wanted to be a part of just once. And somehow, through all of it, you had ended up as Chan’s number one.

Anyhow, all of that meant that you weren’t exactly unpopular, but nowhere near the level where you presumed you could pull someone like Park Seonghwa, just like you hadn’t presumed you could pull someone like Hyunjin, even if you had already been friends at that point.

“Are you even listening to me?” Hyunjin quipped impatiently, poking your side and you had, indeed, not been listening.

“Repeat it for me?”

You clearly heard his annoyed grumble, causing you to grin, although not in Hyunjin’s direction but in Seonghwa’s instead, who exactly at that moment seemed to have sensed that someone was staring at him and caught your gaze.

“I said I don’t—” The words didn’t filter through to you because Seonghwa was running a hand through his hair, one eyebrow raised in challenge, and you thought you might die on the spot. He couldn’t possibly mean you, could he? It felt like the longest staring match possible, even though it was probably only seconds before Seonghwa nodded his head towards the door and even through your disbelief you were ready to jump up and leave. But you were stopped when someone scooted right next to you, successfully ripping your gaze away from Seonghwa and pressing you closer to Hyunjin. It was Minho, decidedly more drunk than before, and when you snapped your head back around to Seonghwa you knew you’d missed your chance because he was already engrossed in a conversation with one of his friends.

With a wistful sigh you turned back around and the first thing you noticed were the two empty cups in front of Hyunjin that hadn’t been there minutes ago, which meant he had downed them in the short time you had spent eye-fucking Seonghwa.

“Care to explain what exactly you’re planning, don’t you have morning class?” You questioned the boy with concern, knowing that usually he held back because he took his dancing very seriously.

“What if I do?” Hyunjin just grunted snappily, reaching over the table to steal Felix’ drink while the blonde boy wasn’t looking.

You made a sour face at him, not knowing what had suddenly gotten into him and deciding that if he wanted to do something he would regret tomorrow you wouldn’t stop him if that’s the attitude he was giving you. Instead, you focused on Jisung, who had accumulated about four table’s worth of coasters and had started building a ginormous house upon his return. He wasn’t very successful at it, most likely because you could tell by his droopy gaze that he was very drunk.

“How did it go?” You inquired nosily, directing the question at everyone at the table who had clearly paid more attention to Jisung’s attempts of conquest than Hyunjin and you had.

“Did you know that in kindergarten they called me the ‘god of crafting’?” Jisung instead slurred, causing you to look at him as if to ask ‘what the fuck’ while everyone else was tipsy enough to deem this a perfectly acceptable answer. Felix even patted his back (which caused the coaster house to crumble) to congratulate him on his title.

You groaned in frustration, noticing how Hyunjin had emptied Felix’ cup as well now, only adding to your irritation.

“With the girl, Jisung, how did it go with the girl?” Jisung didn’t reply, intently focused on building his coaster house and mainly on ignoring you, so you turned helplessly to the other guys, question marks written all over your face. Felix was shaking his head as if to signal that it wasn’t a good topic to talk about but Minho wasn’t quite as sensitive.

“She didn’t like your lyrics? What was it she hated? ‘Excuse me noona, do you have a boyfriend?’” Minho was cackling in the ugliest way possible, causing half the table to almost spit out their drink against better judgement.

“I didn’t even talk to her!” Jisung instead ground out, throwing his head on the table with a thunk that resonated loudly and must have hurt, shaking the whole coaster house he’d built to the ground again.

“What do you mean you didn’t talk to her?”

“I chickened out okay!” He whined, voice muffled against the tabletop and the whole table groaned in unison at the hopelessness of it all.

“What about Changbin?” Hyunjin asked next to you, voice way friendlier than it had been seconds ago when he had talked to you. You decided not to be sour about whatever had gotten into him, because the hangover he would have tomorrow would be karmic energy enough.

“Judge for yourself,” Seungmin commented with a grimace, pointing a thumb over his back and you followed the direction he was pointing, catching sight of a couple pressed up against the wall next to the bar. The others were clearly looking at them too, Seungmin’s grimace not warning enough.

“Oh my god, is he for real?” You gasped, your grimace now matching Seungmin’s at how Changbin’s hands where clearly up the girls skirt right there, no doubt groping her butt.

“Well, he’s still faring better than me,” Jisung commented dryly, and you felt so sorry for the boy you couldn’t even laugh when he knocked his coasters down again.

“That reminds me, a girl asked me earlier if you and Hyunjin were dating,” Felix threw in, looking between the two of you and despite Hyunjin’s suddenly sour mood you couldn’t bite back a grin.

“Which one?” You inquired, curious who had been checking him out. Felix quickly scanned the crowd before finding who he was looking for, unashamedly pointing at her. Your eyes followed, quickly recognizing her from one of your classes. Despite your best efforts you couldn’t help but feel a short sting in your chest because if she was interested in Hyunjin her chances were definitely better than yours had been.

“That’s Chaeyoung,” you explained, managing to keep your voice stable and enthusiastic. “She’s in my Thursday afternoon course, total cutie. You should talk to her Hyunjin.”

“Why are you trying to set me up again?” Hyunjin only asked, not even bothering to grant Chaeyoung a single glance. It was true, you had made it a habit to try and set him up with someone back when you had desperately been trying to overcome your crush, thinking it would be easier if he were taken. Over time it had simply become a tradition you hadn’t really dropped since then.

“I don’t know? I’ve never really seen you hook up with anyone, I just don’t want you to combust at some point.”

“I haven’t seen you hooking up either,” He pointed out and you didn’t really know what to say to that, so you decided to ignore it. He had a point, but the reasons for that were not something you wanted to tell him, of all people.

“Chaeyoung’s a really nice girl and she’s gorgeous, if she’s really interested in you I think-“ you stopped mid-sentence, the words dying on your lips when Hyunjin’s hand unceremoniously slipped onto your exposed thigh. The conversation had apparently been drowned under the music because no one commented on how you never ended your sentence, mouth hanging open like an idiot before you caught yourself. Hyunjin was always touchy when he was drunk, and he was definitely drunk after he had rushed down three cups in a matter of minutes. There was nothing more behind this than him wanting you to stop trying to set him up.

“Someone should really stop Changbin.”

Everyone made the mistake of looking over to your friend again at Seungmin’s words, cringing even more at how the girl already had one leg wrapped around his waist, basically letting him grind into her against the wall.

Seungmin’s prompt evolved into a discussion of who would be the unlucky one to break them up and you were grateful no one was suggesting you. Despite your best efforts you couldn’t quite ignore Hyunjin’s hand, his fingers annoyingly soft on your skin. And, fuck, you weren’t sure if he was even aware but they were brushing the inside of your thigh, ghosting over sensitive skin. He couldn’t possibly be doing this on purpose. Why would he be?

You barely caught that Felix had been the unlucky one who was designated to kick Changbin’s ass and tell him to go somewhere at least a little more private.

“Thank fuck we didn’t bring Jeongin today,” You threw into the round, mostly just to save face and pretend you weren’t fighting with all you got not to clench your thighs together when Hyunjin dragged his nails up the inside of your thigh, stopping only when he ever so slightly dipped under the hem of your skirt. He had to be doing this on purpose.

“I mean, I’m glad he’s getting some, but damn, we’re too good at our own job, this is self-sabotaging,” Minho stated, blatantly ignoring that you had failed big time as wing-men when it came to Jisung, while you barely had to do anything for Changbin.

You chuckled, proud that your laugh didn’t hitch at the consistent movement of Hyunjin’s hand. What the fuck was he doing? You had half a mind to ask him, but you deemed it too embarrassing if he really wasn’t doing this on purpose and you called him out on subconsciously getting you all riled up. He’s always touchy when he’s drunk. He’s always touchy. It was better than him being pissy at any rate.

“Can someone take me home, I think I’m gonna be sick,” Jisung moaned from where he was resting his forehead on his arms, half hanging off the table, and you weren’t sure if he was drunk or close to crying, but either way it would be better if he got back to his dorm right about now.

Minho and Seungmin both got up with a sigh, hooking their arms under his to pull him up.

“You guys gonna be fine?” Seungmin, the only somewhat sober one asked and you were cut short before you could even reply.

“I’ll make sure she gets home safely,” Hyunjin immediately supplied and you didn’t want to point out with the way he was slurring you would be the one taking him home safely. It wouldn’t be the first time you walked home together, either one or both of you drunk, so Seungmin and Minho accepted gratefully and focused back on pulling Jisung up with them.

“Now where’s Cha-“

“How can you be so unaffected?”

You turned to Hyunjin, not quite understanding what he was getting at but giving up your search for Chan immediately. He hadn’t been super drunk when you’d last seen him, and even if, he was a big boy and could get home by himself just fine.

“What do you mean?” You asked dumbly instead, and in place of a reply Hyunjin’s hand slipped lower between your thighs, thumb now brushing the inside too.

“You know what I mean.”

You weren’t sure if it was because he was drunk but his voice was raspy. So obviously, you did the only thing you could think of and started giggling in panic, successfully killing the moment that you weren’t sure had even been one. If it left Hyunjin utterly confused he didn’t say so, instead pulling his hand away from your thigh, finally giving you enough focus to breathe again.

“Do you still want to look for Chan?”

You shook your head, instead grabbing onto his arm and pulling him towards the exit, struggling when you noticed just how much he was staggering.

“Jesus Christ, you’re drunk. Let’s just get you home, alright?” You sighed, swiping his hair out of his eyes and patting his shoulder when he almost hooked his foot in the doorframe and fell.

“M’not drunk,” Hyunjin muttered, burying his face in your shoulder and hanging onto your arm with almost his full weight and that’s when you knew that the fresh air had kicked in. Sighing, you shifted your weight best as you could and continued staggering down the empty road down campus towards Hyunjin’s shared dorm with Seungmin, Minho and Felix, hoping that one of them would be home already and would let you in.

Deciding to push your luck a little you slowed your walk, taking a breath of fresh air before deciding that Hyunjin wouldn’t remember this conversation tomorrow, so if there was ever a chance to ask it would be right now.

“Why did you act so pissy earlier when we were joking around?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean,” you echoed his words from earlier, but with an entirely different meaning. Silence settled over you, leaving only your steps, dragging under Hyunjin’s weight, and his heavier ones to sound in the empty area. He wasn’t going to answer, so you decided to shortly let go of him in retaliation. You immediately regretted that choice when he only clamped down on you harder and almost caused both of you to fall.

Readjusting your grip you continued shuffling down the road, deciding to give it another try.

“Why did you decide to get shit-faced, knowing damn well you will regret this tomorrow?”

“Nope.”

You huffed in annoyance at how he made the p of the word pop loudly, but decidedly did not give you an answer. You were growing increasingly frustrated.

“Why do you always act so uninterested when I try to set you up with nice girls?”

“Not gonna answer.”

“Okay, then riddle me this, why the fuck did you feel me up in the middle of the bar with Minho literally right next to me?” Frustration was audibly laced through your voice now, with how uncooperative he was being, but he caught you off guard when instead of replying he simply stopped in his tracks, taking a deep breath and then walked straight to the bench at the side of the street, sitting down heavily. You were left standing by yourself, looking at him questioningly.

“Come here.”

You stood rooted on the street, dumbfounded for another moment what he was getting at, before you took a couple of steps towards him, heavy with hesitant confusion, ready to settle down on the empty spot on the bench. Instead Hyunjin grasped your wrist and pulled you off balance, causing you to stumble. It didn’t matter if you tried to catch your fall because Hyunjin had other plans, his other hand catching your thigh and pulling you down on his lap.

“What are you-?”

The rest of your words was swallowed by his lips on your mouth. You felt almost as if you were caught in some type of twisted deja-vu, because this had happened so many times in your mind. But while you had dreamed of kissing Hyunjin, it had never gone down quite like this, and it hadn’t felt like this either. This was needy, carnal. Your legs were splayed on either side of his, skirt naturally hitched up, and his hands were on your cheeks, cupping your face, fingers digging into your skin as if he was scared you’d move away if he didn’t hold on to you. You were way too shocked to do anything, even if he weren’t making sure your lips stayed on his. You couldn’t even react, not until he took your bottom lip between his and bit down, eliciting a gasp from you that was somewhere between surprise and almost whining. His tongue followed, soothing the bite, and that’s when your brain shut down and you whimpered, hands slipping into his hair. It was soft, it always was, but this was different, because when you dragged your nails over his scalp, getting stuck in a tangle of his hair he groaned and you swallowed the sound. It sent warmth straight to your stomach. His hands slipped, from cradling your face to cupping the back of your neck, and you welcomed the added pressure, the way he meshed your lips together so desperately. You whimpered again, a little whinier, a little needier, and it was all Hyunjin needed to slip his tongue into your mouth. He tasted like alcohol, but he also tasted like him, and you thought you couldn’t possibly get enough. Hyunjin’s other hand was everywhere at once, running up your legs, scratching your thighs until you were gasping into his kisses. It was messy, your mouth wet and your lips kiss-swollen and you couldn’t stop touching him either, savoring the way the slightest touches made him react.

Leaning back slightly, just enough to catch your breath, another whimper slipped over your lips when you caught his gaze, dark eyes looking into yours so greedily you wanted nothing more than for him to wreck you.

“What are we doing, Hyunjin?” you whispered, and even that seemed inappropriately loud for the eerie silence of the campus road.

“Whatever you want bunny. Whatever makes you feel good, just tell me.”

You closed your eyes, taking a deep breath to gather your thoughts because he had never, never, talked to you like this before and it was causing heat to pool right between your legs. Even just the thought of him fucking you until you couldn’t think straight made you clench around nothing, regretting that he wasn’t doing so already.

“But why are we-?”

He shut you up with another kiss, going straight to sucking on your bottom lip, his tongue adding to the pleasure. Your eyes fluttered shut, questions dying down again. He was moving from your lips to your jaw and then to your neck, leaving a wet trail. He wasn’t even close to leaving a hickey, his bites too soft and too quick, doing nothing but to add to the tingle of anticipation running down your skin. You felt his hands move down your arms, almost hoping they would settle on your ass but he stopped just short of the hem of your shirt, running a fingertip along it until you were shivering. You felt him smile against your skin in between kisses, before his fingers settled on grasping onto the upper edge of your top, slipping down the strap and pulling until it left the soft flesh of your tits exposed. You had half a mind to stop him, thinking your bra would go next, the sheer lace doing very little to cover your hard nipples anyways, but instead he bit down, all softness from earlier gone. You gasped, loud this time, the sound turning into a moan when his lips wrapped around your nipple, sucking hard enough you could feel every movement of his mouth even through the lace. His tongue was swirling around your nipple, causing your breath to become erratic and your hands to clench in his hair, so hard he was groaning against your skin again.

“Hyunjin since when-?” You didn’t need to finish your sentence, but you immediately regretted even attempting to talk when his lips detached from your nipple, the spit-soaked material of your bra a cold contrast in the night air.

“I always tell you how pretty you are.” It wasn’t an explanation by any means but his mouth was still busy ghosting over your skin, his other hand now coming to slip under your bra, fingertip drawing over your nipple so deliciously it almost made you forget the questions you were burning to have answers to.

“You call everyone pretty, so why are we, shit, god you’re good-“ It took a few moments for you to collect yourself again, breath agitated and the heat between your thighs impossible to ignore while Hyunjin’s mouth had settled on your nipple again. His hands had finally dropped to your ass. He was pressing you down on his crotch and you had lost all capability to speak when his hard dick pressed against your wet underwear. Holy fuck, no matter what his motivations were he clearly wanted you right now.

“-why am I dry humping your dick on a park bench, you don’t get hard for all your friends, do you?”

„Nope.“

Again he let the p pop, but this time he accentuated the sound with a lazy grin, because despite your protests you were rolling your hips just the way he wanted you to, grinding yourself on his hard dick. Your underwear was sticking to your center, no doubt covering his pants in your juices already and the thought of it only made you wetter. “Your skirt looked so cute today, I really wanted you to ride me.”

You didn’t deem it necessary to mention that you had worn this skirt many times before and it had not ended up with him telling you he wanted his dick inside you. Not when he was swiping his fingers over your wet panties, groaning at the slickness between your legs. “I wanna go down on you so badly bunny, I’d love to make you cum all over my tongue.”

You could only whimper, no coherent words forming in your mind because he had swiped your slick underwear to the side, his finger now slipping through your wet lips. There was something about the fact that he was still holding onto your ass, pressing you close enough that he could reach your drenched folds from behind that made your head swim with pleasure. He had rushed his kisses before, but he was not rushing this, running his fingers from your clit down to your entrance slowly. He kept spreading you open, making sure to coat his fingers to his knuckles in your wetness. It was lewd, night air kissing your exposed skin while he was brushing his fingers over your slickness until you were shaking from just that.

You dropped your face to the crook of his neck, your moan muffled by his skin when he finally sunk two fingers into you up to his knuckles. He stilled, enjoying the feeling of you clenching around him while your fingernails dug into his skin, surely leaving marks even through his shirt.

When you started grinding your hips slightly, trying to get some friction and fuck yourself on his fingers because he wasn’t moving his other hand came up to your waist, stopping your movement.

“Nuh-uh, I wanna make you feel good, let me do this.”

You could only nod, hoping he could feel the confirmation, accepting that you’d behave if only he would finally do something. You were rewarded with a crook of his fingers you felt right at that sweet spot that had you arch your back.

“Right there, Hyunjin, do that again please.”

“That felt good?” He drawled, purposely crooking his fingers again, harder this time, and your moan was so breathy you felt dizzy. He finally motioned for you to move, lifting your hips so he could slip his fingers out before he fully sank them into you again, repeating the motion until you were bouncing on his lap, skirt bunched in his free hand and hitched up so high there was no way it covered anything. Eyes fluttering open to look at Hyunjin you knew you were right because he was mesmerized by the way your lips swallowed up his fingers, wet sounds every time you lowered yourself down on his hand.

“You’re doing so well, think you can come like that for me bunny?”

“Yes, god- fuck, yes-“

You were a stuttering mess, your words barely intelligible when Hyunjin picked up the pace, pushing his fingers into you at an angle that hit your most sensitive spot every time. It didn’t take long to have you seeing stars, your orgasm a tight curl in your stomach. Pressing his face to your tits again it only took one more harsh suck on your nipple and the knot unfurled, your walls clenching as you came hard on his fingers. Your orgasm was causing your body to be wrecked with shivers, his name falling over your lips like a mantra until your throat felt sore. His fingers were still inside you when you slumped against him, his free hand cradling your head, letting it rest on your shoulder.

“The fuck did we just do, Hyunjin?” You mumbled, uncertainty lacing through your post orgasm haze. You were far from calmed down, body still tingling from head to toes, a shiver running down your spine every time he moved his fingers inside you just the slightest bit, but with it came another realization.

Your crush on Hyunjin wasn’t gone. Possibly had never left, and now that he’d made you come on his fingers it was crashing over you like a tidal wave. You needed this to mean something because if it didn’t you were almost sure there was no way you could get over it.

“I don’t know about you, but fingering you in that cute little skirt was definitely on my bucket list for tonight.”

His words were still slurred. God, how had you managed to completely ignore that slur once he kissed you? He was drunk and you let him finger you in public because he was horny. His god damn bucket list for the night. Were you ranked lower or higher than getting shit faced in a cheap campus bar?

Anger was welling up in your chest - at yourself for being so stupid, for thinking you were over him, and at Hyunjin for making you a drunk fuck and disregarding over two years of friendship.

It wasn’t fair, because it happened, friends casually fucked, and he couldn’t have possibly known it would hurt you. You couldn’t have known either, but now it was too late. The squelching sound resonating in the silence when you lifted yourself off his lap made you cringe and you couldn’t smooth out your skirt and step away fast enough. Your shirt was wet with his spit, and you could feel him all over your body, which only made everything all that much worse.

“So, we’re done here now and that’s that.”

It was supposed to be a question, but even to your ears it sounded more like a statement, and you were almost grateful. A question could’ve meant that you wanted more. You didn’t want him to know before, and he certainly couldn’t know now.

For a short moment Hyunjin was looking at you with an expression you couldn’t decipher before he carelessly wiped his fingers on his pants, completely ignoring the awfully visible tent from his straining dick.

“Want me to walk you home?”

You bit your lip in order to stop yourself from crying out in frustration. Who was this person, and where had your best friend gone? Hyunjin cared, he always did, so could he not tell how you were clearly struggling, how you were barely keeping it together while he completely shut himself off from you emotionally? You would not lose this friendship because of one stupid mistake.

“Yeah, please.”

#hyunjin #Hyunjin smut #Hwang hyunjin #stray kids #stray kids smut #enjoyyyyy

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