#Could have been better could have been worse

[wonustars]

In Front of Me (1)

cause i was blind to see that you were right in front of me ₊˚

⊹ pairing: jeon wonwoo x f.reader ⊹ genre: bestfriends to (?), angst, smut (R: 18+ mdni) ⊹ wordcount: 40.6k (part 1) (part 2: here)

⊹ summary: jeon wonwoo has spent most of his adolesence and early adult hood unable to understand why he can't seem to stay in a relationship for more than a few months. as his best friend, you allowed him to vent about his worries without judgment. so what if you're in love with him? your friendship with wonwoo meant more to you than having your feelings reciprocated. that is until you hit your breaking point, while wonwoo finally realizes what has been in front of him this whole time.

⊹ tags: non-idol!au, uni!au, unrequited love (for the most part), pining, toxic!wonwoo, toxic!reader, both in wonwoo and readers pov, questionable protagonists, mentions of other svt members, happy ending (?), emotionally constipated characters (wonwoo), flashbacks, slight seokmin x reader, a lot of emotions thrown everywhere. (content warnings under the cut)

⊹ note: this story was meant to be posted for wonwoos bday, but if you know anything about me by now, i never really stick to my self made deadlines lol. thank you to my cutieful, big brained beta readers: ♡ @junkissed @chocosvt and @sunniques ♡ everyone in @svthub and @highvern and @gyuswhore who helped me w this fic as well ! if u look closely this is pretty much just a sugar coated version of real life events lol... anyways i hope u enjoy and lmk what u think thru the replies and reblogs :) !

⊹ masterlist, fic playlist.

⊹ smut tags: no smut in this part :p ⊹ warnings: alcohol, reader is downbad for wonwoo, stalking, slut-shaming, evasions of privacy, if i missed anything lmk! cuz ik i did i just can't think of what hehe :p

⊹ what i would like to note about this story before you read it: you're not meant to like these characters (for most of the story at least lol), they are flawed in many ways, thats the whole point of this story tbh. tmi--but this story is pretty much my free therapy lol. and i love a messy plot! wonwoo and reader are just two normal people in this story and i wanted to write something a little more raw than i'm used to. so just take what i say with a grain of salt before reading ♡ i still want you to enjoy this story because i poured my soul into it. so thank you for your support and kind asks and comments about the teaser!

prologue. 

Despite your age, you’ve never been in a serious relationship. There was always something holding you back, or rather, someone. 

In all the years you’ve known Wonwoo, you’ve always thought maybe one day, he would look at you in a different light. Hoping that he could reciprocate the feelings you’ve harboured for him since the eleventh grade. 

He was the one who constantly moved out of relationships. You couldn’t even count the amount of late-night calls where he asked you what his “next step” should be. The doting best friend that you are, you’d gladly stay up all night trying to help him fix his girl problems. 

“I just, I don’t have feelings for her anymore. Is that wrong?” he asked you over the phone. 

Tossing and turning in your bed you let out a deep sigh. One thing is always guaranteed with Wonwoo: in a relationship, he loses feelings quickly. No matter how much he likes the girl, no matter how obsessed or possessive he feels for them at the beginning of it all, it diminishes by the time the six-month mark hits. 

Although he may be a great friend to you, relationships were never his strong suit. 

“It’s not wrong to fall out of love, but how many times are you going to break up with someone before you decide to stay?” you ask him, and he pauses to think. 

“I don’t know, but I can’t stay, that would make things worse,” he sighs. “It’s better to just stop this whole thing now.” 

“I agree, but are you sure?” you continue to ask him the same questions you’ve been asking since you were sixteen. 

“I’m sure,” he replies with a heavy sigh. 

“Okay, then goodnight. It’s almost one in the morning,” you try to cut the call, but he continues to speak. 

“I’m not the bad guy, right?” he asks you for reassurance. 

“No, you’re just human Wonwoo. There’s nothing wrong with losing feelings for someone,” you affirmed. 

“Alright, thank you, good night and sweet dreams,” he whispers listlessly. 

“Good night, Wonwoo.” 

Your phone beeps indicating that he’s hung up and you can feel the heartstrings pull inside your chest. How many times will it take for Wonwoo to find someone he actually wants to be with? And why is it never you? 

act one, favorite crime.

chapter one. 

“Wait, what? You and Wonwoo aren’t dating?” Seungcheol asks you, forcing you into the hot seat. 

The rest of your friend group is boring holes into your face as they all sit around Jeonghan’s living room. The blood rises in your cheeks, but you shake your head anyway. 

It feels like every time you’re with your friends, they ask you the same set of questions. Constantly wondering why you and Wonwoo haven’t thought about dating, or why you two haven’t decided to take the chance and just be together. 

“You guys need to stop asking that. A guy can befriend someone of the opposite gender,” Wonwoo defends the two of you. 

“You’re telling me in all the years you’ve known her, you haven’t developed feelings for her once?” Cheol continues to instigate, and your eyes go wide. 

Looking over at Wonwoo, you anxiously wait for his answer, your chest blooming with hope, only for those buds to be washed away in a millisecond. 

“No, c’mon, we’re just friends. That’s it, right?” Wonwoo turns to you, trying to get you to back him up. 

Your mouth runs dry as he stares at you, his eyebrows rising in anticipation. 

“U-uh yeah, Wonwoo’s right, we’re just friends,” you blurt out, not being able to handle all the expectant eyes on you all at once. 

“See? Now can you all just get off our backs?” he chastises. 

The chatter starts up again, moving past the topic of you and Wonwoo’s friendship. But you sit there, with your heart crushed in your hands, lifeless and shrivelled. Like his words and actions had the power to tear the life out of you. The worst part was that he did all this without knowing. He’s completely oblivious to your feelings, and you only have yourself to blame.

You understand your relationship with Wonwoo is different from most people’s, but at the same time, it should be normal for a girl and a guy to just be friends. And at least you respect Wonwoo’s feelings, and you also respect that whenever he’s dating someone the dynamic between you two shifts. 

He becomes more detached when he’s in a relationship, and you’re okay with that. His priorities change and you’re okay with that. Despite your feelings for him, you know that you can’t force him to feel the same way. And you should be okay with that. 

You’ve never tried to get in the way of his love life, or purposefully give him bad advice to ruin what he has with someone else. Not since you were seventeen, and at that time in your life your frontal lobe was a measly speck of dust, but it's different now. Now, your morals don’t change just because you love him, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt any less to see the person you’re in love with, fall in love with someone else. 

two. 

“Hey, you okay?” Seokmin approaches you, and you turn your head, acknowledging his presence. 

“Huh? Yeah, I’m alright,” you mutter, but you know you don’t look that way. 

Seokmin has known you since high school and has seen you through everything, probably more than Wonwoo. He knows when you’re not feeling well. A sympathetic permanent on his lips as he continues to observe you play with the food on your plate, pushing around the food aimlessly but never taking a bite. 

The sounds of people conversing throughout the dining hall never die down. But luckily, the commotion keeps your thoughts of Wonwoo at bay, or at least that’s what you like to think. But your heart can’t seem to let go of that moment from the other day. Having Seungcheol confirm that Wonwoo has never felt anything romantically for you was like a stab in the stomach, and him getting you to back up his words was just him twisting the knife. 

“What’s the matter, sweetheart? You can tell me,” he sighs, pushing the hair covering your face and placing it behind your ear. 

You can feel the tears start to pool, but you try your damndest not to let them spill—not like this, not in front of so many people. 

“It was just something Wonwoo said when we were all at Hannie’s house,” you mumble, refusing to make eye contact with your friend. 

“What did he say?” 

“That he’s never liked me before,” you sigh, feeling a tear slip from your eye. 

Cursing yourself in your head, you hate how much your feelings for him affect you. You hate how he doesn’t have to even be in front of you, yet he can still cause your emotions to fluctuate. 

“It’s alright,” he coos, pulling you into his strong arms. 

It felt weird, to hug Seokmin so tightly in the middle of your university’s dining hall. But you’re thankful for how aware he is, how he actually cares about your feelings. You felt melodramatic sitting there crying in the fucking dining hall of all places, but you couldn’t help but let your tears flow as Seokmin comforts you with his soft voice. 

“You deserve more than this, I hope you know that,” he whispers in your ear.

three. 

Over the next few days, the words Seokmin had whispered to you kept replaying in your head. You did deserve better and looking at all of Wonwoo’s past relationships is the perfect example. He’s not exactly the ideal boyfriend, so why did you even have feelings for him in the first place?

You could feel a migraine coming on from how hard you were thinking, but Wonwoo still seems to be the only person you can’t let go of. No matter how many times you’ve tried. 

A knock on your door brings you out of your thoughts. It was late, and you don’t remember anyone messaging you saying that they were going to come over, but you open the door anyway. 

“Hey, sorry I didn’t text,” Wonwoo moves past you, takes his shoes off, and plops on your couch. 

“It’s okay, what’s up?” you move to sit beside him. 

“I broke up with her,” He says, shrugging. 

Taken aback by his nonchalance, your eyes widen. He seems calm for someone who has just broken up with his girlfriend. But you try not to think too hard about it, or you might just have to take another Advil to remedy your already growing headache. 

“Well, how did it go?” you ask with a bit of apprehension. 

Knowing Wonwoo, you knew that he probably just dumped her over the phone or something. He’s never been bothered to really break up with someone. 

You have all these examples of why he would probably be the worst boyfriend ever, yet your heart still belongs to him. It’s pitiful, to say the least, people probably would think that you’re a masochist because you subject yourself to staying by his side when he has feelings for another. 

“She was crying, but at least it’s over now,” Wonwoo informs you as he eats the snacks you had left on your coffee table. 

“Oh.” You could feel the guilt start to seep into your veins. 

It never felt good to hear Wonwoo talk about his breakups, but you’re not sure how to react. There’s a part of you that’s happy to know that he’s single again, but the majority of you pities the girl who had just gotten her heart broken. 

Wonwoo continues to munch on the snacks left on your table while your mind tries to process the information you’ve been given. Hearing him talk so casually about his breakup leaves a bitter taste in your mouth, but you decide to switch topics instead of asking any more questions. 

“Are you still going to Seokmin’s thing this weekend, though?” you ask him, trying to fill the air with something to drown out your rapid heartbeats. 

He shrugs his shoulders, “If I feel like it. Are you?” 

The bottom of your stomach tightens. You were hoping that he would go, even looking forward to it. Is that pathetic? To want to see him everywhere you go? Maybe you were pathetic to the point where you only felt like hanging out with your friends if he was there. 

“I mean, I don’t have a ride so…” you trail off, pretending to pay attention to whatever was playing on the T.V. screen. 

“I’ll go since you’re going, that way you have a ride,” he mumbles, adjusting his posture to lean back on your couch. 

He sighs as he sinks into the plush cushions, spreading his legs while he puts his arms up. You’re very aware of his proximity, and you try not to let it show. But the smell of his cologne invades your senses, knocking the breath out of your chest. 

Wonwoo’s arm circles your shoulder, pulling you closer to him and forcing your head to rest delicately on his broad shoulder. Exhaling, you let yourself enjoy his way of showing affection. Although to him it means nothing, and to you, quite literally everything. 

“Thank you for agreeing to go to Seokmin’s so I have a ride,” you whisper but still avoid eye contact so he doesn’t notice your flustered expression. 

“Thank you for letting me barge in here just so I can talk about my breakup,” he whispers back, kissing the top of your head. 

“Of course, what are best friends for?” 

four. 

Most people fall in love gradually, slowly growing feelings for the person before they can even call it love. Like the way the seasons steadily turned from winter to spring. Green grass peeking from underneath the melting snow, or flowers gently blooming and unravelling their new set of stems and petals. For you, it was different.

 Falling in love with Wonwoo wasn’t gradual at all. 

If anything, falling in love with Wonwoo felt like a snowstorm in the middle of a sunny day. Your affection for him grew rapidly, and before you knew it, your mind was clouded with him and him only. It became hard to stay rational as if you were driving down a snow-filled road without any control over the steering wheel. Swerving into different lanes, your brakes malfunction, making it hard to bring your car to a full stop. Falling in love with Wonwoo was not gradual or easy.

When you met him on the first day of your junior year of high school, your sixteen-year-old brain couldn’t fully comprehend your crush on him. He was the shy, scrawny new kid in your class, and no one paid mind to him except you. But that didn’t stop you from liking him. Despite his interest in collecting pokémon cards and his crooked glasses that were too big for his face, you were in love. 

You were like two peas in a pod that whole year, and the only time you and Wonwoo spent time apart was when he had to leave during summer break to visit family in Korea. 

When he returned for your senior year, you could barely recognize him. Suddenly the nerdy Wonwoo you knew was gone. His glasses complimented his face, his hair was styled differently, and most of all, he got hot. A lot of your classmates must’ve seemed to agree because now your best friend and the man you’re in love with gained attention from people who didn’t even bat an eyelash at him last year. 

It annoyed you to see all these people suddenly interested in him. You were angry that just because he grew a few inches and learned to do his hair didn’t mean he was that much different from how he was last year. 

Even though Wonwoo was in a relationship, he still stayed true to your friendship. He still hung out with you, ate lunch with you, you even came over on weekends to have dinner with his family. Day by day, your love for him strengthened, and you ignored that his attention had been divided between you and his girlfriend at the time. 

When their relationship hit three months, it seemed your friendship had come to an abrupt halt. He didn’t invite you for dinner as often, you two didn’t talk on the phone every other night. He started to invest more of his time into her until he decided she wasn’t worth his energy anymore. Then the calls would come, his contact name flashing across your phone screen to ask you for advice. 

“I feel like I need to break up with Haein,” his deep voice flowed through your phone speaker. A sigh left his lips as he faced the truth. 

Haein was Wonwoo’s first girlfriend. She was nice, almost too nice. Wonwoo definitely had a type for girls with a bubbly personality. Ones that were effortlessly beautiful, reminiscent of a freshly made porcelain doll. That was Haein to you, unblemished in every way possible. Everything that you weren’t.

You couldn’t bring yourself to hate her. She was too nice to hate, but your younger self was so angry at how much of Wonwoo's time she took up that you envied her. Seokmin once jokingly mentioned that you looked especially green when she was around, and you remember how quickly you checked your appearance on the nearest reflective surface because of what he had said in passing. You remember vividly how nervous his words made you, was it that obvious?

Wonwoo’s first time calling you about his breakup plans was a delightful surprise, and you were too in shock to sputter out a proper response.

“Oh. Why?” was all you could say, still stunned that after a week of no contact, this was the first thing he said. 

“‘Dunno, I just don’t like her anymore,” he admitted effortlessly. 

You didn’t know how to respond. Your heart was screaming at you to encourage him to break up with his girlfriend at the time, while your brain was telling you to think logically. 

“Well, if that’s what you think is right,” you mumbled, trying to hide the fact that you felt a sense of relief at Wonwoo potentially being single again. 

Others may have tried to rationalize with Wonwoo, but you didn’t care. You wanted your friendship with him to turn back to normal. Your adolescent brain ignored that it was wrong to encourage him, as long as he was fully yours again.

History repeated itself over and over, and the older you got, you learnt to not be so selfish with his attention. Mostly out of guilt for the person he was going to break up with, but also because you didn’t want Wonwoo to realize your true feelings. 

Although being in love with Wonwoo was brutal, you constantly wished that things were different between you two, but they weren’t. He’s never seen you as more than a friend, and as your friendship with him progressed, you had begun to learn to mask your romantic feelings for platonic ones. 

five. 

By the time you entered university, you had mastered the art of pretending. As if your feelings for Wonwoo didn’t exist. You are quite meticulous in ensuring that he never realizes that you are profoundly in love with him. The mere thought of him finding out how you truly felt frightened you. 

You’ve already envisioned countless scenarios on how it could go. The idea of being rejected by the one you love most. It would change everything about your friendship with him.  The look of pity in his eyes, the apologies that would spill out of his mouth. You can't bear even the thought of rejection. Not from him. 

Two voices are constantly at war inside your mind. Your brain, acting as the voice of reason, constantly reminds you that it’s better to preserve your friendship. To keep the dynamic you’ve always had with Wonwoo guarded where it could last, thrive. While your heart persuaded you with deluded, fake scenarios. 

‘What if he likes you back?’ 

‘You never know until you try.’ 

‘Take the risk or lose the chance.’ 

What if. 

Like a siren to a sailor, your heart sang with deep imagery. Filling your thoughts with illusions of you and Wonwoo finally together. But your mind doesn’t let you go without a fight. It knows that beyond the deep waters where your siren-voiced heart lies is nothing but a bottomless pit. 

The possibilities are endless, and you’d rather stay safely grounded in your boat of rationality. 

A notification brings you out of your thoughts. Although you already knew that it was Wonwoo, you scramble to pick up your phone. There’s excitement laced in your veins as you look down at the screen. 

7:06 p.m. [wons <3]: be there in 5. 

There was no reason for you to be so ecstatic but you couldn’t help it. He had already texted you prior, notifying you that he was leaving his place to come pick you up, and yet every time your phone buzzes, you still hope that it’s something completely different. But that was your heart talking; you knew that it wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary. 

Everyone had planned to meet at Seokmin’s place today, just to have one last celebration before midterms began again. You had happily agreed, enthusiastic that you could spend more time with Wonwoo, although it wouldn’t be a one-on-one thing. You were more than elated to see him while also being able to hang out with the rest of your friends. 

Throwing your phone back on the bed, you change into an outfit that is both cute and comfortable. There wasn’t a reason to dress up when the vibe at Seokmin’s was just going to be sitting around his living room, drinking cocktails and eating pizza. 

Wonwoo texts you once more to let you know he’s outside, causing you to race down to meet him. A lump in your throat arises, as he comes into your field of vision, appreciating how breathtakingly handsome he is. 

The chilled breeze brushes through the strands of his hair, glasses perched on his tall nose. He looked amazing, just like he always had, but you never get bored of admiring him. Even if it’s just from afar. 

“Hi! Sorry if I kept you waiting,” your voice resounds into the night. 

“It's never a problem if it’s you,” he chuckles as you dawdle over to the passenger side of his car. 

Trying not to read too deep into his words, you snort at his cheesy line instead of giving a response. Watching Wonwoo move to the side as he opens the car door for you. His actions make you blush, and you know you’ll think about it for the rest of the night. 

“Are you ready to go?” he asks, smiling at you. 

The ride to Seokmin’s house is fairly quiet, the sounds of music filling the silence instead. Your thoughts are overflowing with scenarios once again, wondering how different the car ride would be if you and Wonwoo were in a relationship. His fingers would probably be laced with yours, or rubbing soothingly against your thigh while his other hand gripped the steering wheel. Planting kisses on your cheeks at every red light. It seemed like heaven on the other side. But you knew reality would crush your delusions soon enough. 

…

  The clock on Seokmin’s pale white wall is nearing midnight and you don’t want to be here anymore. Not when the only thing you could focus on was Wonwoo flirting with a girl whose name you didn’t catch. She’s Joshua’s childhood friend and he only brought her along because she’s visiting from out of town. Whoever she was, it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered to you was the fact that she was able to bring out Wonwoo’s deep laugh. The kind of laugh that only befalls upon your ears when he finds something genuinely funny.

The ugly swirl of jealousy sits in the pit of your stomach and you couldn't help but scoff at your wretched situation. It made you sick watching them, and you could throw up any minute now. At this point, you weren’t sure who to envy, Wonwoo or the girl he was flirting with. You find it unfair that he doesn’t realize how greatly he can impact your feelings. 

Just a few hours ago, you were in utter bliss. Sitting in the front seat of his car, listening to the music softly playing on the ride to Seokmin’s apartment. Making stupid jokes and pointing out the random sights that you had seen while driving down the bustling city streets. You envy how easy it is for Wonwoo to make all those feelings of delight vanish. And he doesn’t even know. He doesn’t know what he’s doing to you, and that’s what hurts the most. 

“You doing okay?” Seokmin comes up to you, placing a gentle hand on your shoulder, squeezing it affectionately. 

“Huh? Oh. Yeah I’m okay,” you chuckle, but there’s nothing humorous about your laugh at all. 

His eyes soften, he knows that you’re not okay. Seokmin always knew. After all these years, he can tell when you’re trying to save face. There’s a lump in your throat, and if you didn’t have a drink to sip on to distract you, you probably would’ve gone to the bathroom to cry. 

“You wanna talk in my room?” he offers, and you’re grateful. 

Seokmin knew he had to get you somewhere other than the living room. You were practically torturing yourself, sitting on the couch and watching Wonwoo talk to everyone but you. 

Instead of agreeing vocally, you nod your head before standing up to follow Seokmin to his room. The door shuts softly, muffling the sounds of laughter and allowing your uneasiness to finally subside. 

As you sit on Seokmin’s bed, you feel the tears starting to trickle down your cheeks. It feels pathetic, crying over something so trivial. Why does it have to be you who feels this way? Why can’t you just be a normal friend and see Wonwoo in a platonic light? The whole world could turn upside and he’d be the first person you search for. 

Everything just seemed so unfair, how could you possibly be happy if your feelings for Wonwoo were constantly in the way of it all? It’s tiring, worrying about him, yearning for him. You could do so many other things with your time, and when you look toward the future, you know that you’ll regret how much of your life you wasted loving someone who doesn’t love you back. 

“It’s okay, just let it out,” Seokmin whispers in your ear, embracing you in a tight hug. 

Crying felt good. You rarely cry over your situation despite how upsetting it is. For the first time in a while, you allowed yourself to finally indulge in your sadness and let go of everything you were too afraid to say or feel.  

“I know it sucks right now, but honestly, it might be time to get over him,” Seokmin continues to comfort you while trying to help you face the reality of your situation. “You’re so hurt, and it’s taking a toll on you. Please, I can’t bear to see you so sad.” 

His words hit you hard because you know it's true. But all you can do is apologize. Saying sorry for feeling this way, even though it’s not your fault, you cannot control your feelings, you still apologize. To Seokmin, to your friends, but also yourself. 

“I-I’m sorry,” you hiccup, tears staining Seokmin’s white shirt. 

“Why are you sorry? You did nothing wrong,” he mutters, his large hand patting your head, trying to soothe your fit of emotions. 

“Because, if I was normal, you wouldn’t have to worry about me, about why I’m always upset, you and the others, my feelings are burdening all of you,” you continue to weep softly in his arms, gripping onto his shoulders as his hands encircle your waist. 

“Hey, look at me–” he grabs your face, gentle as a mouse, rubbing away the tears from your cheeks. “You are not a burden. We care, that’s why we worry, and I just want to be there for you.” 

“Thank you, Seokmin. I’m so happy that I have someone like you in my life,” you pull him into a hug again, knocking the air out of his chest, but he’s still somehow able to hug you even tighter. 

Seokmin is like your favourite childhood blanket, keeping you warm and away from everything that could possibly hurt you. He’s always willing to hear you rant about things that you know you could never tell Wonwoo. 

“I’m so tired, I’m tired of feeling like this,” you admit to him. 

Running his hands through your hair, he gives you a reassuring smile. 

“Maybe it’s time to distance yourself from him a bit, you two have been glued to the hip for so long. Maybe that distance can help organize your feelings better,” he mutters, catching the stray tears that pool at your chin, and wiping them away for you. 

“I want to feel better,” you agree with him, still trying to recover from how hard you were sobbing into his chest. 

“I care about you, okay? We all do. Wonwoo cares about you, too, but there’s a point where you’ll have to be okay with whatever outcome happens if you decide to tell him how you feel. Or you just have to find a way to get over him,” he speaks softly, trying not to crush your heart with reality, but you know he’s right. “In the Future, you will thank yourself for making whatever decision you have to make, but trust me, holding all these feelings in won’t do you any good.” He ends his pep talk there, and you sigh, trying to process everything he said. 

“Thank you, Minnie, I’m so thankful I have you,” you sniffled. 

“And I you.” 

…

Seokmin explained to Soonyoung and Jihoon that you needed to go home after your talk in his bedroom. They were more than happy to take you along with them before heading back to their place, not wanting to force you into a car with Wonwoo at the end of the night. 

“Of course, it’s really no trouble at all,” Soonyoung reassures you after you had asked about a million times if it was okay to ride home with them. 

The car ride is drastically different from the one you had taken on the way to Seokmin’s, Soonyoung being the number one reason why. He’s not the best at reading the room, although Jihoon is constantly telling him to shut up. He knows you are upset over something, but Soonyoung’s way of cheering you up is getting you to laugh. While Jihoon believed that you may want a more peaceful environment after everything that happened. 

As Jihoon drove, Soonyoung sang along with the lyrics of the current song playing. Loud enough for anyone outside the car to hear him. You could tell he was a bit tipsy after the few beers he had earlier, but you didn’t mind the noise. Jihoon begged to differ. 

“Soon, can you tone it down? Please. People are looking at us,” Jihoon grumbles, trying to focus on the road ahead. 

“But you love it when I sing,” Soonyoung whines, and you can’t help but laugh. 

“I do, but our friend has had a long night,” Jihoon counters. 

Soonyoung turns to face you from the passenger seat. “If you want me to be quiet, I will.” 

“No, it’s okay, I’m actually enjoying it, thank you very much,” you giggle, and that was all the confirmation he needed, going back to his antics. 

Jihoon groans as Soonyoung practically breaks out into full song and dance, causing you to sing along with him. This distraction from all the conflicting thoughts gives you a refuge from the war inside your mind.  

The whole way back to your place was filled with singing and laughter, allowing you to finally feel at ease for once. Albeit Jihoon pretended to act annoyed the whole time, you knew he secretly loved how Soonyoung tried to bring the mood back up to help you. 

Once you got home, you thanked the two before bidding them farewell. Apprehension flowed throughout you, and you didn't want to be alone with your thoughts after being around someone as cheerful as Soonyoung. But you didn’t know where else to go or what else to do.

Laying in your bed, you think about how today went from beginning to end, and you’re scared of what will happen in the future. Sighing to yourself, you allow yourself to at least get some rest instead of staying up all night thinking about the possibilities of tomorrow. Turning your phone on "do not disturb," the stillness in your apartment lulls you to sleep. 

1:09 a.m. [wons <3]: seokmin said u went home early? u ok? 

ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?

chapter one. 

Wonwoo’s ride home was sombre, yet desolate. Your absence from his passenger seat irked him. Street lights whisk by his vision in a blur, but he’s too lost in his thoughts as he drives on autopilot, wondering why you went home so early. You didn’t even say goodbye. It’s the first time you went home from Seokmin’s place without him. 

By the time he got home, his curiosity had started to claw at him, but he didn’t want to be irrational and assume the worst. So he texted you, hoping that there would be an explanation awaiting him in the morning. 

Not a single notification from you came that very next morning. No matter how many times his phone went off, no matter how many notifications popped up from his screen. None of them were you. Morning turned to afternoon, and afternoon slowly turned into night. Still nothing. 

He feels dejected. Everything seemed to be going okay just last night. That was until you abruptly left without telling him you were going home. What changed? Why did it feel like there was a shift between you two? 

Rejection is foreign to Wonwoo. Most times, it’s him that’s doing the rejecting. He was the one to always initiate the breakup and lose feelings first; every decision he made was made by him. He has no control over whether you’re going to text him back or not, and to put it simply, he can’t stand that feeling. 

Wonwoo hates not being in control. Whether that be his future, his relationships, and especially his feelings. At least that’s what he forces himself to believe. That it’s not fair of you to ignore him when he’s worried about you, because he’s your best friend. You should answer him when he texts you. When he calls you, and especially when he shows up at your door, seeking your comfort. In his mind, that is what he believes the foundation of your friendship is. To comfort each other, just like it always has been. 

Sure, maybe Wonwoo is entitled, perhaps he’s conceited and selfish, but he doesn’t care. Because in his mind, you’re his best friend. There was no way in hell that you were ignoring him. His ego doesn’t even consider it a possibility. You were busy, that’s it. That has to be it. 

… 

Less than forty-eight hours in, Wonwoo couldn’t stop himself from texting you once more. Nimble fingers practically itching to open your contact to update you about the most mundane things. Maybe if he pretended that this moment of silence was perfectly normal, then maybe you would eventually end up answering him. 

12:36 p.m [wons <3]: class just finished. lunch at our usual place?

Nothing. Not even a thumb’s up reaction. Wonwoo had become antsy, guilt and slight annoyance gnawing at the pit of his stomach. Where the hell are you? What are you doing that’s so important that you couldn’t even open his message let alone read them? 

1:27 p.m.  [wons <3]: this random girl asked for my number after class lol. weird right? i didn’t give it to her though 😁

Cursing at himself, he regrets pressing the send button on that text. Double texting you is already out of the norm for him, but triple texting? He can’t believe how desperate he looks right now. He wishes he could bring himself to unsend it, but he just hopes it’ll be the text that finally gets you to respond. 

2:10 p.m. [wons <3]: saw a bunny running thru the oval today u should’ve seen it! reminded me of u.  [1 photo attachment] 

Absolute radio silence from your end. Wonwoo is starting to think that you had him blocked, but his messages are still delivering. Unsure of what’s worse, you ignoring him or blocking his number, Wonwoo still tries his best to remain calm.

4:00 p.m. [wons <3]: im about to head home soon. r u riding w me today? 

The sight of you getting into Seokmin’s car made Wonwoo scoff. Since when did you start getting rides home from Seokmin? And why was he the one opening the door for you? Buckling your seatbelt instead of his own? Wonwoo is completely dumbfounded at what he has witnessed. 

4:30 p.m.  [wons <3]: saw u get into seokmin’s car, lmk if u need a ride tmrw. 

Seeing you laugh and smile while walking to the student parking lot with Seokmin, of all people, solidified the fact that you are actively ignoring his texts. And he just can’t stand the thought of it. How dare he be ignored? Especially by his best friend, the one person who had always responded to him, no matter the time or how busy you were, you always texted him back. 

Wonwoo initially thought that even if the world ended, you would be there within arms reach, enough to hold you close, where he could keep you safe. You were predictable in that sense. But if the world decided to burst into flames, or swallow itself whole tomorrow, he’s unsure if you would be there right next to him by the time he woke up. 

two, wonwoo’s summer before senior year. 

The school year flew by with the speed of light. And before Wonwoo knew it, he was home back in Korea for the summer. The dreaded fifteen-hour plane ride over was excruciating. There was an ache in his lower back, and his knees felt like they were being struck by a hammer with every step he took. But at least the worst part was over. 

Sixteen-year-old Wonwoo was quite naive, thinking that he’d be welcomed into his home country with loving arms. That hadn’t been the case at all, and for the two months that he spent in Changwon, he couldn’t help but count the days till he could come back home. Where you had been patiently waiting for him. 

He despised being away from you, and he had yearned for you every moment he was gone. With you by his side, Wonwoo had finally understood the true meaning of solace, a peace of mind that couldn’t be replicated. Not even the fresh air that breezed through his fingers or the scent of the salty water misting its way onto the shore of his hometown could outweigh the feeling of tranquillity that he got when he was with you.

Every year that Wonwoo was dragged back to Korea by his parents was excruciating. Especially because he had a certain distaste for his relatives. Maybe it was disrespectful to loathe them the way he did, but he couldn’t care less. Their scathing comments would flow out of their mouths just to pierce daggers of judgement into his back. To insult Wonwoo was second nature to his aunts, and he couldn’t do much but sit back and listen.  

Much to his dismay, his parents hadn’t even bothered to book an Airbnb for their stay, informing him and his brother that they would be staying with his aunt. He couldn’t stand his aunt Seo-Ah in particular, and he swore the feeling was mutual. Unsure of why he had to withstand her crude remarks in front of his family without much protest, he forced himself not to dish out rude rebuttals to everything she had to say. 

There was a time when Wonwoo tried to reason with himself on why his aunt was filled with so much bitterness, but he gave up on that long ago. He was about to be seventeen now, and he couldn’t bring himself to empathize with the older lady anymore. 

“Wonwoo! You’re all grown up now, and I can’t believe it,” Seo-Ah forced him into a bone-crushing hug as he tried his best not to push her off of him. She pulled back to take a closer look at him and he could already see the scrutinizing gleam in her eyes, “You know, you’re still so skinny for your age. Do your parents not feed you enough?” 

Wonwoo wanted to scoff at her, but he kept a neutral expression. 

“No they do, I don’t know maybe it’s my fast metabolism or something,” he refuted her claims. He couldn’t wait to get out of her sight. 

“You know, maybe you should start going to the gym, get some muscle on you or something,” she patted his lanky arm and laughed that dreadful laugh. The ones that have no real humour behind it, just to cover up the obvious dig she took at his appearance. 

“Yeah maybe,” he dismisses her to head into the house. Setting his luggage down to check whether or not you’ve texted him yet. 

It was about five in the evening in Changwon, but he knew you wouldn’t be asleep. Faintly recalling how you were planning to stay up late every night to watch BuzzFeed unsolved videos, or until your mom yelled at you to go to bed. 

[4:15 p.m. kst]  [you: i stayed up all night watching buzzfeed unsolved]  [you: im going crazy i keep getting paranoid to the point i’ve turned all my mirrors backwards]  [you: hope ur flight was ok tho!!! 🫶]

He chuckled to himself, remembering your wide eyes and elaborate plan to sneak snacks into your room in the early hours of the morning behind your parents’ backs. Wonwoo missed you, and your stupid obsession with horror podcasts and YouTube shows. He missed the way your smile would shine so bright as you talked about all the haunted places the hosts would visit. 

Wonwoo did not care for horror or anything scary, but if you were to ask him to stay up all night on Facetime binge-watching your little Buzzfeed videos, he would do so in a heartbeat. 

Two days down, about another 89 to go, Wonwoo thought to himself as he looked through your messages with him. You had already spammed the chat mercilessly about your first two days of summer break, and your intricate mission to stay up without accidentally falling asleep in the middle of it all. 

[6:00 p.m. kst] [1 photo attachment]  [you: currently trying to sneak snacks into my room without my mom knowing]  [you: u better not snitch 😾]  [you: its so boring w out u here btw SO COME BACK SOON PLSS]  [you: ok thats enuff…txt me when u land!]

Wonwoo really missed you. 

…

One more week and Wonwoo would finally get to see you again. The ability to talk to you in person, hug you, and spend time with you gave him something to look forward to, and thankfully, summer break went by fast because of it. 

He had spent most of his time in Korea eating at local food spots, going to the gym, and trying a lot of new things with his brother, Seongho, giving them time to bond before he went off to University again. Wonwoo had missed his brother dearly during the school year, but at least they were able to pass the time together during summer break. 

It was initially his brother’s convincing that got him to go to the gym for the very first time. The idea of going to a place with a lot of sweaty, adrenaline-filled people kind of frightened him, but the more he went, the more he started to like what he saw in the mirror. Wonwoo’s shoulders had broadened, and his lanky arms finally started to show signs of muscles. He was satisfied in knowing that all of his hard work, and Seongho’s encouragement had finally paid off. 

Seongho told him he looked a lot more carefree now that he wasn’t so worried about his appearance all the time. And it was then that Wonwoo realized that he wasn’t all that bad-looking, after all. 

Wonwoo had begun to take pride in his vanity. He searched for different ways to style his hair, bought glasses that better suited his face shape, and, most of all, did his best to act more confidently. The sudden change made him wonder how you would react. He had been anticipating your reaction, wanting to see the look on your face once he returned home. 

“You got it. Just one more rep, and we can switch,” Seongho encouraged Wonwoo as he tried to push the bar up from his chest. 

His muscles were aching in the most addictive and satisfying way. He almost wished he had started working out earlier because only good things seemed to have come ever since he stepped foot into the gym. 

“Okay! You’re done, that was good,” his older brother high-fived him, a proud smile dancing along his lips. 

“Thanks, but my arms feel like jelly now,” he huffed a chuckle before gulping down the contents of his water bottle. 

Seongho chuckled along with him before setting himself down on the workout bench. His actions faltered, and he slowly observed the mirror in front of him, raising his eyebrows in amusement. 

“Uh, don’t look now, but I think that girl is staring at you,” Seongho tilted his head in the girl’s direction and Wonwoo couldn’t be more confused. 

“Huh? Are you sure it's me they’re looking at and not you?” 

“I’m serious! You should go talk to her,” Seongho grinned, pushing his younger brother in the direction of the girl who was supposedly eyeing Wonwoo. 

“Hyung!” Wonwoo calls out but it falls on deaf ears as his older brother begins his bench presses. 

Wonwoo turns towards the girl in the most awkward way humanly possible. He was completely dumbfounded and not sure what to do in the situation he’d been put in. The girl who was staring at him waved flirtatiously, and before he could even think about his next move, his feet had begun to move on their own accord. 

“Hi, I saw you working out over there, are you new here?” she asked him, batting her eyelashes. 

“Uhm, I guess? I’m only here for the summer though,” he spoke with apprehension, because what the hell was he even supposed to say? 

“Oh! Me too. My name is Haein, by the way.” Haein’s smile reached her eyes as she giggled, and her hand extended to shake Wonwoo’s. 

Wonwoo’s actions were practically robotic, rubbing his sweaty palms on his gym shorts before taking her hand in his. He remembers thinking about how soft her hands were, and how pretty she looked with her hair tied up in a messy bun. 

“I’m Wonwoo.” 

“Wonwoo, hmm, that’s a cute name. But I think I would like it more in my contacts,” she flirted shamelessly, her fingers squeezing his sweaty bicep. 

Wonwoo’s mind short-circuited, and he took out his phone from his pocket so fast it almost slipped out of his grasp. Haein found it endearing though, and happily gave him her phone number. 

They talked for the rest of Wonwoo's time at the gym and promised to hang out more before they both went home at the end of the summer. 

To put it simply, Wonwoo was on cloud nine for the first time since he’s been here. Suddenly his aunt Seo-Ah’s words weren’t so hurtful, his confidence had skyrocketed, plus he had a beautiful girl to talk to for the rest of his vacation. 

By the end of summer, Wonwoo started to miss you less and less. Even though he still saw you as his best friend, he began to find peace in other things, like the fresh air that breezed through his fingers or the scent of the salty water misting its way onto the shore of his hometown. Finally, for the first time in his life, Wonwoo felt serene, and that made him a little more whole than he was when he first landed in Changwon. 

…

The after-effects of Wonwoo’s surprisingly pleasant summer vacation hadn’t worn off just yet. The gift of Haein appearing in his life seemed to just keep on giving. Not only did she live overseas, she had told him that she was actually from the same city as him. It was a little hard to believe at first as if he was the main character in a cheesy rom-com, but he couldn’t find it in him to complain. Haein made him feel wanted, excited, and cared for. 

Wonwoo wasn’t entirely devoid of those feelings, especially with you as his best friend, but it was different coming from Haein. Every time he saw her, he felt like he was going to throw up, in a good way of course, but she also boosted his confidence. He liked that she made him feel like he was a man worth depending on. 

Haein was his first real relationship, and although he was still young, he could see himself being with her for a long time. 

…

Quite like the seasons, Wonwoo’s feelings for Haein changed drastically by the time school was back in session. Although he and Haein lived in the same city, there was a lot more than just distance that separated them. 

Six months into their relationship, Wonwoo began to doubt himself. He was less eager to meet her or even text her. He could only blame himself for how things turned out with Haein. Despite his adolescence, he believed he loved her; he just got tired and disinterested. 

On a subconscious level, Wonwoo could not stop comparing Haein to you, and as fucked up as that was, it was completely out of his control. Why didn’t Haein ever want to talk about what Wonwoo was interested in? Why did she seem bored out of her mind when he would delve into his theories about his favourite shows? Or anything about himself and what he liked. As though she didn’t see him for the Wonwoo he was, the personality he had behind his looks. 

“It all makes sense now! Eren had Zeke fooled!” Wonwoo couldn’t contain his excitement about the newest episode, but Haein didn’t seem interested in hearing her boyfriend geek out. 

“I'm sorry babe, but I gave up after the first episode,” Haein sighed into the phone, and if Wonwoo could guess, she was probably picking at her cuticles out of boredom. “I just didn’t get anything that was happening.” 

“Wait, really?” He was a little offended, how could she not be obsessing over the beautiful intricacies of his favourite anime? Wonwoo didn’t understand. 

He didn’t understand because when he introduced you to the show, you texted him the next day saying you were caught up to where he had left off. It amazed Wonwoo how fast you were at binge-watching shows, especially because he had told you about it on a weekday. 

You came into school the morning after with dark circles under your eyes, but even with that tired look on your face, you ran up to him with so much eagerness while thanking him for urging you to watch his favourite show. You two were obsessed and never missed out on watching the weekly episodes together.  It had become you and Wonwoo’s thing, and even though he wanted Haein to join in on the fun, he found himself more entertained by your theories than by talking on the phone with his girlfriend. 

It dawned on him that he wished that Haein acted a little more like you. And it made him feel guilty. He knew he should’ve loved Haein no matter her interests, but he wanted someone who could understand his nerdy side. And that was only something that you were able to do. 

“Honestly, I’m really tired, I’m gonna go to bed now okay?” Haein’s voice brought Wonwoo out of his thoughts. 

“Oh okay. Night.” He said before ending the call so quickly that Haein’s ‘I love you’ was cut off mid-sentence. 

Haein probably had thought he had forgotten, but Wonwoo just didn’t want to say those words if he didn’t mean it. He had grown annoyed, and a little bored of practically talking to a wall all night.  

Comparable to the light switching off in his bedroom, he decided to do the same thing with Haein. He pushed his guilt aside and decided it was probably best to leave Haein and Changwon in the past. The memories of his last week of summer with her would become something he would look back on in the future and smile. But he didn’t want to pretend any longer, it would’ve just hurt her more if he stayed, he couldn’t help that he fell out of love with her. The least he could do was not lead her on. 

Wonwoo’s relationship with Haein was merely a catalyst and a peek into what the rest of his relationships were going to look like in adulthood. He was never able to comprehend why he couldn’t keep feelings for anyone after the six-month mark, and it almost frustrated him. Something was missing in every single relationship he had been in, and he wasn’t sure what that was. But he was determined to find an answer. 

three, present time.

The answer was you. But of course, Wonwoo didn’t know that. 

“Are you gonna keep checking your phone every five minutes or are you gonna do your homework?” Mingyu lectures him. 

The two were studying in the library before their stats midterm, but Wonwoo’s mind couldn’t help but wonder. He hasn’t been acting like himself since the night of Seokmin’s party. 

“Oh, right.” Wonwoo clears his throat, putting his phone face down on the table. 

Wonwoo drags his palms against his face, trying to not let sleep overtake him. It is not his fault that every time he tries to close his eyes, your face comes into his mind. The memory of you smiling with Seokmin made his insides twist. He hasn’t seen you smile that hard in a while, and he almost misses how your eyes crinkle whenever you do so. You were practically haunting him and he had no idea how to make it stop. 

“Not to be rude, but you’ve been looking like shit lately. What’s wrong?” Mingyu questions him with furrowed eyebrows. 

Wonwoo rolls his eyes at his friend, he didn’t have to be insulted to know how crappy he looked, but Mingyu seemed to only be telling the truth. Wonwoo did look and feel like shit. With the amount of near run-ins he’s had with you and Seokmin on campus, he’s begun to sense that it’s some sort of karma. Whatever that karma may be for, he fully believes that it’s completely unwarranted. 

Forcing a hand through his dark locks, Wonwoo contemplates whether or not he should just go up to you in person and demand answers. It’s uncommon for the two of you to fight, or ignore each other for that matter. But he can’t help but presume that if he were to confront you about your silence, there would be no rightful explanation. Or at least not the explanation that he wants from you. 

Every time he even fathoms the thought of barging into your apartment and asking what the hell is wrong, there’s a lingering nervousness that he wishes would dissipate, leading him to lay awake with his thoughts for hours on end. 

“Thanks for that, asshole, I just haven’t been getting much sleep,” Wonwoo huffs. 

“Okay, obviously. You practically look like a zombie with the way you’ve been moping around. What has been keeping you up?” Mingyu presses. 

It’s not every day that Wonwoo indulges in his problems with Mingyu, that’s what you were for. However, he can’t talk about his problems about you, to you, so he’ll have to settle for the next best thing.  

“Y/N has been ignoring me since the night we all hung out at Seokmin’s,” Wonwoo confesses, and it feels nice. 

For the past two weeks, he’s been keeping his frustrations to himself, and now that he can freely speak about it lifts the weight off his chest. 

Mingyu snorts, obviously finding his friend’s situation humorous. Wonwoo sneers at Mingyu’s reaction, clearly not finding anything about you ignoring him funny. 

“Serves you right, you’re a dick to her, man.” Mingyu shrugs without any remorse to spare. 

“What?” Wonwoo sputters, since when was he a dick to you? His best friend? 

“How blind are you? You have glasses and everything but you can’t see how mean you are to her sometimes? Really?” Mingyu almost sounds offended on your behalf as he stares at Wonwoo with an incredulous expression. 

“I am not a dick to her. She would definitely tell me if I’ve ever said something to hurt her feelings,” Wonwoo defends himself. 

Attempting to rack his brain of all your moments together, he can’t seem to pick out a memory where he has been especially rude to you. Of course, you two teased each other from time to time, but he wasn’t a complete asshole. He knew when to not take a joke too far or purposely try to upset you. 

“You’re a dumbass.” Mingyu lets out a frustrated sigh which only aggravates Wonwoo even more. 

“Could you stop with the insults for one second and just tell me what’s going on?” 

Shutting his laptop, Mingyu’s posture becomes serious, a deviation from his usual carefree and smiley self. He cares about you just as much as the next person, so if he had to reality-check his friend, then so be it. 

“She cares about you a lot. And you treat her like shit. It’s not about what you’ve said to her, it’s your actions. Ever since we were in high school all you’ve done is use her to solve your problems. I can’t even blame her for wanting to cut you off. I don’t know what happened at Seokmin’s place for her to realize that, but you don’t deserve her,” Mingyu confesses. 

Soaking up each word that left Mingyu’s mouth, Wonwoo sat in a pool of perplexity. There are so many questions flying through his mind, yet he can’t seem to utter a single word. Is that really how everyone perceives his friendship with you? 

Wonwoo is going to throw up. There's a tightness in his chest and a burning sensation behind his eyes. He wants nothing more than to hear all of this coming from you, not Mingyu. The frustration of wanting to talk to you about this is taking a toll on him, he doesn’t want to believe that Mingyu is telling the truth. 

It’s not fair. It’s not fair that Mingyu gets to know these things about you while Wonwoo is just left in the dark. Did he make you feel like you couldn’t tell him anything? 

Ever since Wonwoo met you, it was evident that he can be quite merciless when it comes to his relationships, but that’s romantic, not platonic. Wonwoo was convinced that he treated you equally because that’s how it's supposed to be. 

Hearing Mingyu talk about his friendship with you in that way caused Wonwoo’s whole world to crash down. And the only thing he can do in moments like these is seek out your comfort, except he can’t anymore. Not only has he been a terrible friend without realizing it, but he’s pushed you so far to the brink that you’d rather ignore him than attempt to hash out what’s been troubling you.

“I-I didn’t know that's how you guys saw our friendship,” Wonwoo falters, clearly taken aback, and still attempting to fully comprehend what’s been said to him. 

“It’s not that we see your friendship with her that way, it is that way. If I was her, I would’ve cut you off a long time ago.” 

“Well, thanks, Gyu. I feel like this could’ve been said before she started ignoring me,” Wonwoo huffs, trying to come up with the words to explain his side.

“It was kinda obvious, man,” Mingyu shrugs. 

“Was it, though? If I had known, I would’ve at least tried to be better,” Wonwoo attests, tired of feeling like the bad guy. 

“How about you just talk to her about it instead of sulking,” Mingyu suggests. 

Desperation hijacked his rational thinking, making Mingyu’s advice sound plausible. Talking to you seemed out of the equation since you started ignoring him; he feared you wouldn’t even answer if he tried to call or show up at your door. But he can’t go on like this, especially now that he knows there is more to your friendship than he had initially thought. 

four. 

For the first time in Wonwoo’s life, he’s unsure about what decision to make. Although he wants nothing more than to knock on your door, his feet stop him from even entering your building. So instead of mucking up the courage to talk to you face to face, he waits inside his car. Without a solid plan, he continues to sit there, biding his time. 

Never has he acted so pathetic in his life, not even for the sake of his relationships. He knows that nothing will come from sitting there, just watching, but before he can even comprehend what he is doing and where he is going, he is already across the street from your place. 

Gripping on the leather of his steering wheel, he just couldn’t help himself. He can’t help but watch your silhouette from your window. The curtains are drawn, but there are glimpses of you walking around. He’s such a fucking loser. What type of person has Wonwoo become that he resorts to stalking you from the front of your building? 

After all that Mingyu has enlightened him on, Wonwoo’s attitude has become less angry and more apologetic. There was a line he pondered crossing, and it practically mocked him. Stepping over that line would mean getting answers from you, demanding to be brought into the light that you had snuffed out from under him. But his uncertainty of the outcome outweighed his decision to do so.

That same apologetic attitude died a fiery death after watching Seokmin leave your apartment. There you were in all your glory, the tiny sleep set clinging onto your body as the wind forced its way into the door of your building. Then there was Seokmin, grinning like a fucking idiot as he waved goodbye. 

“Shit!” Wonwoo grunts as he ducks down, not wanting to blow his cover. His car was visible from where the two of you stood, hoping that you weren’t able to recognize it in the dead of night.  

Boring holes into the back of Seokmin’s head, Wonwoo's guilt diminished, floating away with the cold night breeze. You were fine, and he should’ve known that the root of all his problems started with the name Lee Seokmin. 

The shape of your figure had faded into the confines of your building. Yet Wonwoo can still make out your body through the glass window of your door. He can’t help but gawk at your skimpy attire, your ass practically on display for the whole world to see. The deathly twist in his gut intensifies the more he ponders on what may have happened during Seokmin’s visit. Wonwoo desperately wants to stop thinking about the possibilities, especially because your lack of clothing only fueled that inferno inside his mind. 

He’s never been more annoyed at Seokmin in his entire life, not until today. 

Wonwoo allowed himself to ignore the signs, but only for a moment. But this, this he can’t ignore. Not after what he witnessed. He allowed himself to stay ignorant when it came to your silence because he had been so naive to think that it was your decision. Now that he knows Seokmin had somehow weaselled his way closer to you, Wonwoo had to make sure this plan of his didn’t go on any longer. 

…

There is a heat inside Wonwoo that, for some reason, he cannot extinguish. The curve and outlines of your body burn in the back of his retinas. No matter how many times he’s tried to put himself to sleep, the image of you is clear as day in his mind.  Sparks crawl their way up his spine, and he desperately wishes that it would just go away. 

There’s a point where Wonwoo gave up on trying to sleep altogether. Thoughts of you, your body, and the oh-so-painful reminder that you’re still ignoring him. How can he sleep with everything going on? What made things worse, was the fact that the one person he wanted to call most likely wouldn’t pick up.

Wonwoo wasn’t the type of person to let his emotions get the better of him, but this abrupt rift that has been torn between you two has him acting out in ways he’s never acted before. 

The urge to grab his phone, to text you, to give it one more try, grows perpetually every second he lies awake. 

One more time. One more attempt. What does he have to lose? 

Wonwoo stands up, pacing around nonsensically, trying to think of what to say. For all he knows, you may not even answer, but there is the urge to hear your voice one more time and see your name pop up on his screen. Wonwoo yearns for you so much so that it supersedes any part of common sense he has left in him. 

[12:52 a.m.]  [wons <3: darling. can we talk? please?]  [not delivered] 

The silence within the four walls of Wonwoo’s bedroom is harrowing. Out of all the outcomes he had considered before he texted you, the outcome of you blocking him was not even on the list. 

Before jumping to some sort of conclusion, Wonwoo’s finger hovers over the call button with skepticism. If you don’t pick up, then that’s it. That would be the definitive answer to all his qualms. 

“The number you have called is not available, please leave a message at the tone,” an automated voice affirmed his suspicions. 

The notification is gut-wrenching, but he can’t just sit here and pretend like it’s okay for you to do this. To decide without any of his input. What kind of friend were you to just drop him like he was nothing but an old toy? How unfair did you have to be to not even try to talk it out before you completely cut him off? 

five. 

Pacing outside the door of your apartment, Wonwoo hasn’t been this nervous in years. He has always been so sure of himself, but it’s almost two in the morning and he’s still continuing to weigh his options. 

It’s either you’ll let him in, and talk for the first time in almost two weeks, or you’ll kick him out before he can step a foot past the door. Desperately, he desires that it be the first option. Losing you over this would break him, and not in the way you would expect. 

He’s already lost his mind. This shouldn’t be the way you two break it off. It won’t be the way you two break it off. Not if Wonwoo has a say in the situation. 

Sweaty palms and white knuckles rasp against the dark oak that barricades himself from you. There’s nothing that Wonwoo wants more than to see your face glowing in front of him. And before he can even get a word out to you, the door whips open. The person on the other side is someone Wonwoo is starting to get really sick of seeing. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Both Wonwoo and Seokmin speak in unison. 

Scoffing, Wonwoo rolls his eyes at his so-called friend, “I think I should be asking you that. You clearly don’t live here.” 

“Minnie? Is someone at the door?” your voice is as sweet as a glass of lemonade on a hot summer’s day. 

Minnie. Wonwoo almost threw up in his mouth. 

Minnie. The nickname is parallel to nails scraping against a chalkboard. 

“Yeah! Your neighbour just needed to borrow something,” Seokmin goads through a sickly sweet smile, eyes never leaving Wonwoo’s. Without as much as a word of mockery, Seokmin’s expression had said more than his words ever could have. 

Despite his soft demeanour, Wonwoo knew there was something vile hiding under Seokmin’s thick skin. 

A rebuttal to his deception is on the tip of Wonwoo’s tongue, but your melodic voice echoes throughout your home once more. The refute dies within his throat, and he hopes you will come out and see what your “neighbour” is looking for. 

“Okay!” is the only response you give out. The reverberation of the water hitting the shower tiles causes Wonwoo’s stomach to practically lurch out his abdomen. 

“Whatever you’re doing, she’s not gonna fall for it,” Wonwoo jeered, staring at Seokmin with looks that should kill, if he could. 

Seokmin chuckles bitterly, “She already has.” 

There was no need for Wonwoo to put two and two together; he already knew what Seokmin was alluding to. It left a dreadful taste in his mouth. 

Puffing out his chest, Wonwoo takes a step closer towards the man he once considered a close friend. Sizing him up, he knew that Seokmin was the reason for the wedge in your friendship. And Wonwoo had no problem treating him as such. 

“You’re fucking sick, you know that?” Wonwoo practically spits in his face. 

“I could say the same thing for you,” Seokmin mutters, unperturbed, “I didn’t have to do anything you know? Just a little push and she fell into my lap, voluntarily.” 

“I’m not just going to let you get away with something like this. She’s my best friend.” 

“I think the correct tense is was. She was your best friend,” Seokmin taunted. 

He was wrong about Seokmin. Even though he had known about his friend's crush on you for years, Wonwoo didn’t expect the lengths Seokmin would go to in order to cut him out of the picture. 

Before a breath could even escape his lips, Seokmin cuts him off, “I think it’s time for you to leave. She doesn’t want to see you.”

The last few words that he heard come out of Seokmin’s mouth nearly fell on deaf ears. It was practically a whisper, laced with enough malice to almost kill the fighting spirit inside him. Almost. 

“By the way, don’t text her anymore. I’ve made sure she won’t get any more notifications from you.” 

The realization had struck Wonwoo hard. He knew you well enough that you wouldn’t just block him so carelessly, without a word no less. Yet he was no match for Seokmin, not after the fact that you allowed him into your home, your heart, so willingly. 

…

Lying in wait, Wonwoo observes the door of your building once more. The distinct difference this time was that Wonwoo had no guilt left in him to care. Whether you see him or his car across the street didn’t matter to him anymore. The only thing Wonwoo wanted to make sure of was whether or not Seokmin would be leaving your place. 

After what had felt like hours, he watched the same scene from last night unfold in front of him once more. The abhorrent hug goodbye that is exchanged between you and Seokmin is nothing but a cue for Wonwoo to make his move.

With as much grace as a bull in a china shop, he slams the car door shut, not even bothering to lock it before he stalks his way to your apartment. The anticipation caused the hairs on his neck to stand straight up. As he presses the button to your floor, he can only deliberate whether any of Seokmin’s words hold any truth behind them.

 Certainly not, right? Not after all the years you spent together. His friendship with you couldn’t end on this vague note. You were always the sentimental type, holding onto trinkets, memories, and even people for far too long. It should be the same with Wonwoo; he believed it would be the same. 

If there is a chance, you should allow him to talk and voice his opinion. No, Wonwoo will voice his opinion; there has never been a time when you haven’t let him speak. 

As the elevator ascends to your floor, anxiety begins to weigh down his shoulders. The feeling is atypical and Wonwoo hates how his throat constricts. He hates how his clothes feel too tight and stuffy despite his casual attire. Is this how it feels? To actually care about someone and whether their decisions might affect him later on? 

Footsteps echo within the hallway, and with each step he takes, the illusion steadily becomes more vivid. Your front door almost looks like it’ll take a mile before Wonwoo can reach it, rather than a few feet away. 

After what felt like years, Wonwoo stands before the entrance of your home once more. The foreboding tension won’t vanish and it’s starting to make him itch. Without another thought, Wonwoo forces himself to knock on the door knowing it’ll be you who answers this time, not Seokmin. 

“Minnie? Did you leave something agai—,” Abrupt silence engulfs your words, leaving nothing but an echo to resonate within the expanse of your long hallway.

“Wonwoo…” your voice falters, like you genuinely didn’t expect to see him, let alone have him standing outside your door. 

“Did you fuck him?” Wonwoo cuts to the chase, not leaving any room for you to ask questions. 

His blunt words caused a frown to grace your soft pink lips, and Wonwoo almost felt bad for being so frank. But he doesn’t have time to beg for your forgiveness, the anger surmounting to nothing but harsh words and a push past you and into your home. 

“Did you fuck him? Yes or no?”  Wonwoo continues to press you for answers, agitated that you have the audacity to stand there dumbfounded. As if you don’t know who he's talking about. “C’mon, you know who I’m talking about,” he can almost laugh at the situation in front of him. 

How is it that all the rage he built up for Seokmin is being taken out on you? Wonwoo had no clue, but the thought of his friend-now-enemy defiling you, tasting you, while Wonwoo desperately waited for your call caused him to direct all his anger to you. Perhaps it’s undeserving to do so, but Wonwoo’s frustration spoke for him before his brain could even register what he was saying. 

“The past two weeks you’ve been ignoring me, spending your time with him, do you know where his true intentions lie?” Wonwoo continues to rant with unpreparedness. 

He didn’t plan what he was going to say because there was a moment of doubt, he had expected you to open the door just to slam it right back in his face. The look you gave him almost brought him to his knees. Your doe-eyed expression could’ve broken down every wall he’s built if only he hadn’t let his anger proceed him. 

Wonwoo should’ve cried, to plead for you to take him back. To go back to the way things were. He knew he fucked up the moment he uttered a single word. The hurt flashed across your face as though Wonwoo turned your world upside down. 

“Seokmin doesn’t care about you, and I’ll tell you that now because you need to hear it. He just wants to fuck you! And you just gave that to him?” He can’t stop talking. 

“Stop. Just stop fucking talking Wonwoo. Do you hear yourself right now?” You cut off his rant. “Out of all people, who gave you the right to tell me who I can and cannot fuck? Especially knowing the type of person that you are. It doesn’t matter if Seokmin and I had sex. What matters is the fact that you think you can barge in here at two-thirty in the morning interrogating me over a situation that doesn’t involve you.” 

“No. I’m just trying to help you. Seokmin isn’t the person that you think he is,” Wonwoo seethes, annoyed at how you’re twisting his words. 

The bile in his throat rose further, as you stood before him like he had just kicked your dog. Wonwoo’s extremely aware of the hole he had dug for himself, but he couldn’t stop. His urge to self-sabotage overrides his common sense. 

“That is exactly what we’re not going to do right now. Seokmin has been a better friend to me than you have been in all the years we’ve known each other. I have been by your side for years, bending over backwards. I was at your beck and call and I’m tired. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and warn myself about you. I fell in love with my best friend, and the worst part was that you didn’t care enough to notice. 

“I gave up so much for you, Wonwoo. I lost myself trying to please you. But I give up. I was drowning in my love for you. It consumed every part of me to the point I couldn’t even come up for air. And I’m just sick of it. I know there’s a part of you that cares about me too, but it’ll never be equal. I’ll always love you more than you love me, and I don’t want to feel this way anymore.” 

“What hurts me the most, is that you thought it would be okay to accuse me of things I didn’t even do. I did not sleep with Seokmin, but why is that what you care about?  He respects me and just wants to be there for me. And that’s a lot more than I could ever say about you.” 

Your voice was terrifyingly calm, with neither a lilt nor a hiccup during your speech. The heft of your declaration crashed back down onto Wonwoo, leaving him at a loss for words. 

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing to come out of his mouth after a long pause. 

“Please. It’s late, you should go home,” you sigh, but Wonwoo couldn’t move an inch. He refused. 

“I’m sorry,” he repeats himself, looking into your eyes, searching for the look of endearment you had always given him. 

“Wonwoo…” there it is. Your voice had broken for the first time since Wonwoo stepped foot in the place. 

“Please. I’m so fucking sorry. For getting angry, for doubting you, for not realizing how badly you were hurting,” Wonwoo resorted to pleading. 

A look of desperation mixed with agony was the only thing you could exchange for his apologies.

The stare of grief you had given him caused a shooting pain to swell throughout his limbs. The one that begins at his fingertips, creeping up to tug at the strings that held his heart together. He wanted this nightmare to end, and he was sure you did too. 

“It’s time for you to go. I’m tired, Wonwoo.”  A single tear slips and trickles down your cheek. 

He regrets not wiping it away for you at that moment. It was the first time he had been so unsure of his actions. So, instead, he walked out of your apartment, leaving nothing but the lingering scent of his cologne and a piece of his heart. 

Wonwoo's world was crumbling underneath him, and there was only one person he refused to let go of. He should’ve known.

He should’ve known that you were in front of him this whole damn time.

end of act one.

⊹ a/n: if you liked this story pls dont be afraid to let me know thru a reblog, comment or ask! also a big ty to my beshies forever @vapidlynn and @bunnyjjongie who i've texted multiple times in the wee hours of the morning for reassurance abt this thing hehe.

[woso-dreamzzz]

Snap

Leah Williamson x Reader

Summary: It's all Leah can hear

The snap is what Leah hears and the snap is what Leah hears only.

She can't hear your scream. She can't hear the yelling from the crowd. She can't hear anything as that snap echoes around her brain.

The North London derby was always this kind of scrappy. Everyone expected it. Everyone looked forward to it.

More yellow cards flew for both teams than probably any other fixture.

Tackles always held a little bit more passion, a little bit more aggression than usual.

But not like this.

Never like this.

No one ever wanted it to be like this.

Leah can do nothing but stare. It feels like minutes, time slowing down around her as she watches. It can't have been more than seconds.

It's not her that makes the tackle. It's some new academy girl that's been called up to replace an injured teammate.

Leah can't quite recall her name but she goes in for the tackle, studs up.

Studs up and not even aiming for the ball.

And not even for your ankle either.

She goes in for your leg and your crumble under the force of it.

Leah doesn't know if the rest of the stadium heard the snap but she certainly did.

She heard the snap.

It was all she could hear.

Chaos erupts from everyone - teams, staff, supporters - but Leah can't hear any of it.

You're on the ground, face split open in a scream that she can't hear, tears dripping down your face as you clutch as your bloodied leg.

"Hey, hey, it's okay. It's going to be okay. Stop moving. Stop moving."

Leah can't remember when she moved. She can't remember shoving past your Spurs teammates and getting on her knees to hold your head still.

"Baby, I know it hurts. I know but you just have to stay still. It could be worse than we think. Alright, stay still for me."

You suck in a breath. "L-Leah," You croak out, voice cracked and quiet," It hurts."

"I know," Leah says, feeling panicked as she glances over to the side lines, watching as the medics run on," I know, baby. I know. It'll all be better soon. Just hang on."

Everything still feels like slow motion to Leah, panic clawing at her consciousness.

You try to move your head again, to look at your leg but Leah's hands are clamped tightly around you.

"You-You don't want to see it," She says," Trust me, baby."

"I...Leah, it hurts. It hurts so bad."

"I know," It's all Leah can say, all she can do to keep you calm," I know, baby. But it'll be over soon. The medics are just coming."

She's right, of course and in any other circumstance, she would brag endlessly about it, about being right.

But not now.

Not with you injured and your leg very clearly broken and bloody.

One of the medics gives you a green whistle that you suck on generously before you're loaded up on the stretcher.

That academy player gets a red card and Leah doesn't even care that they're down to ten on the pitch and the open gap next to her is what leads to Spurs equalising and the derby ending in a draw.

"What was up with you and l/n?" Katie asks in the locker room," I didn't know you two were friends."

Leah changes quickly, not even bothering to shower when it means spending more time away from your bedside.

"We're not friends," She replies, throwing her boots into her bag and unplugging her phone charger.

"Really?" Katie says in disbelief," You guys looked so close when she got injured. You wouldn't leave her side."

"She's not my friend," Leah says bluntly," Because she's my girlfriend who is now in hospital after a stupid, reckless-"

"Leah," Kim cuts in, glancing over to the showers where the academy girl has been inside since her red card nearly half an hour ago ," Go and see her. I'm sure she's waiting for you."

Leah cuts off her oncoming rant, zipping up her bag angrily before storming out.

Her hands clench her steering wheel tightly as she drives, only stopping off once to grab some snacks and some flowers.

"Hey," You say as she walks into your hospital room," Oh, Leah, they're beautiful."

You take the flowers from her as she dips down to give you a kiss.

"I was worried about you," Leah says, glancing down at your leg," How bad?"

"A clean break," You reply," So just a cast and no surgery. The blood made it look worse than it is. I'll be okay."

"Are you sure?" Leah asks," You can tell me. You don't have to try and save my feelings."

"I promise," You say," It's all okay. Nothing too bad."

"Definitely?" Leah checks," You're not trying to stop me stressing?"

"Definitely," You agree with a little laugh," Nothing too bad. Nothing to stress about."

Leah blows out air noisily, finally relaxing in the stupid plastic chair by your bedside.

"Now," You say," Did Spurs equalise?"

Leah groans.

[samah-h]

A Confession from the Heart of Suffering: An Unbearable Reality

I hope you read my confession, and thank you. This is the reality of all the people of Gaza.

Whenever I think of the life we used to have before the genocide, I have to struggle to hold my tears so I don't cause my children more pain than what they already feel. Our life, then, was neither easy nor perfect but it was full of warmth and the simple joy of being together under one roof .

We have never felt completely free because we have always been under a siege that has only gotten worse during this war but at least we felt somewhat safe and we had quite a decent life with the means that we were allowed.What kept us going was our belief that the future might be brighter one day.

Unfortunately, there seems to be no better tomorrow for us anymore. Nothing remains of our previous lives but rubble and memories, and the future is so bleak and full of uncertainties.It's not just the walls of our house that were turned into ruins, it's our hopes and dreams that were reduced to ashes. Now, we only dream of things that might seem so trivial to other people around the world like being able to sleep in and wake up in a comfortable bed or having a meal without standing for it in line for hours.

We dream of having enough clean drinking water so we don't have to worry about dying of thirst. We dream of the days we had a home with a regular kitchen and stove, the days we could celebrate special occasions with family in peace. Above all, we dream of not losing the people we love in a split second and of living safely and with dignity.

Instead, we have been wrongfully sentenced to a life of fear, displacement, and humiliation beyond belief. It is a living nightmare here now. Everything needed to ensure the bare minimum of decency and normalcy is denied to us. As you well know, there is no safe place in Gaza anymore and We are deprived of simple rights like having having a roof over our heads or enjoying some peace of mind for even one single day. The airstrikes and the buzzing of drones almost never stop. We live with a very real sense of impending doom day and night.

The water and food scarcity are only getting worse with time. Even regular chores like cooking or doing the laundry have become true challenges. I cannot propely bathe my children because the little water we get is polluted and their sensitive baby skin keeps getting irritated.

Before the war, my nine- year-old daughter was so picky about which outfits to wear; it made me laugh that she acted that way at her age but now we don't even have enough warm clothes for the winter. It kills me each time she says she doesn't need fancy clothes anymore and only wants to feel warm and go back to school. What makes it worse is our tent has recently been flooded by rain.

The whole camp turned into a swamp overnight. The children woke up soaked, shivering and terrified. It was almost impossible to calm them down as the rain kept pouring. We are doing our best but even if we succeed in finding the treatment, it's going to cost almost a fortune. This is why we need your support even more now.

All we do now is fight for survival every day. I never imagined,even in my darkest nightmares, that I would be searching high and low to put food in my children's mouths and keep them warm or that I would be begging the world to literally save their lives but I have no other choice now.

Despite the unbearable suffering we're daily going through, I still believe in humanity. please keep us in your prayers and help us anyway you can. Donate if you're able to,reblog and share our story as widely as you can.We are grateful to each and every one of you

Vetted by @bilal-salah0

7,464$ / 10,000$

[taradactyls]

I think the one I see this most strongly with is Pamela; Or, Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson.

It's hard to read in the modern day. Pamela is a servant girl who spends a lot of time trying not to be raped by her employer, who eventually kidnaps her, and the only other woman in a position to aid her actively helps the attempted rapist to assault her in various ways. At one point she holds Pamela down in bed so it can happen (apparently the woman is this awful because she's an atheist). At another time the employer actively says that he would've continued and actually raped her if she kept fighting him, it was only because Pamela fainted that he stopped the attempt. She woke up from that attempt with her stays (underwear) cut up.

Pamela ends up marrying this man, after realising she has fallen in love with him, who is then 'reformed' by her 'goodness.'

It's meant to be a happy and uplifting tale. Obviously, to us, it's more of a horror story.

We see the victim blame in 'if you'd kept fighting you would've been raped' and also know that being unconscious actually makes you more at risk, and understand that a woman who eventually gave in to her master's advances is not any less 'good' for fearing being violently raped (or worse) if she continued protesting. We are less likely to believe people can be so entirely reformed by the 'virtue' of others, and see a man who would take advantage of power dynamics like that as bad even if he wasn't so aggressive in his advances. There are no real consequences for his crimes and continued harassment of a FIFTEEN YEAR OLD in his employ and who had zero protection or options. It's just all round horrid to our modern eyes.

But in many ways it was actually progressive for the time.

Pamela is a servant who ends the book married (not mistress to) a gentleman with an estate and eventually being accepted and adored by the land owning class. This is a rise of a magnitude far higher than Elizabeth marrying Mr Darcy, Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester, or even Cinderella as she was highborn, and was really making the case that servant women could and do have as much inherent worth as gentlewomen by birth. For how classist 1740 England was, that's a controversial take.

And though it's considered a backwards view now, this was the first novel/work which was really reaching out to lower-class women and saying 'your virtue is worth as much as upper-class women.' I dislike the whole concept of sexual virtue and disagree that Pamela's virtue would be lost through rape, but the point remains that this book was making a case for greater equality between classes in a time where the ruling class relied on being considered naturally better by birth and chosen by god to rule. The novel was criticised for exactly this.

Not only that, but by promoting virginity, he was also championing a woman's right to say no. Pamela's ability and decision to refuse is upheld both positively and as what should have been the final word. The male main character only becomes a 'good' person once he truly understands and respects that. An idea only becomes outdated once the societal framework supporting the status quo has changed, and Samuel Richardson was writing in a time where a servant girl (or any woman really, for instance marital rape wouldn't become a crime for another 250 years) who refused her master's advances would have little recourse or sympathy if he didn't respect that no. This novel was telling all those girls your sexual autonomy is worth fighting for... you're worth fighting for.

And, though we see that Pamela's abuser essentially gets what he wanted and gets off scot-free (an illness and a change of heart isn't going to fly with a judge, you douche), it was revolutionary for the time in that it's told from the victim's perspective as a horrible series of events. These acts, many of which were common place and not illegal (some even actively considered romantic) at the time, was a criticism of many masculine behaviours and championed the woman's/victim's perspective. It drew attention to what we now consider domestic violence and abuse of power. Though we might argue about his methods (a minority of contemporary readers viewed the novel as salacious because of the inclusion of the assault scenes) the author's intent was to actively give moral instruction into proper domestic behaviour. Which, aside from 'sexually assaulting your employees is bad' does also include less radical and actively harmful views such as 'be loyal and loving to your employers no matter what.' Historical novels are a mixed bag like that, but he was still advocating for mutual social contracts towards each other, and rejecting the idea that the rich men who ruled the world could do whatever they wanted. He was speaking for the powerless against those in power.

I'll probably never read the book again, it was too uncomfortable for me, but without an understanding of the time it was written it would feel like gratuitous assault and a glorification of abusive relationships, when really, it was the exact opposite. We're just lucky enough to live in a society where many of his arguments have been accepted both socially and legally for so long that it's hard to imagine a case ever needed to be made in their favour.

tbh nothing frustrates me more then when people brush off classics like pride and prejudice or jane eyre because they don’t fit into today’s modern standards of feminism and social justice etc.

remember that these novels were published in the 19th century. and that some of the things that were written in these books may seem trivial to us today but would have absolutely fucking shook readers in the victorian era

like,,,,,elizabeth rejecting mr collins because she doesn’t love him even though it would have been considered her duty in her family to marry him? or jane eyre not agreeing to marry mr rochester unless it was on her own terms? hell even anne brontë wrote a lesser known novel about a wife leaving her abusive husband with her five year old son to live a better life?? do y’all realize how unheard of that would be in the 1800′s?? where women were considered more of a commodity than actual human beings??

even though they might not be up to todays standards of modern feminism and romance, they were still HUGE building blocks for equality for that time period. so if you’re a reader who says to themselves ‘I read classics with modern standards applied and I can’t get past that’ then you are most likely going to be disappointed when reading classics and not fully understand their significance to that time period 

[yandere-daydreams]

Title: Daytrip.

Pairing: Yandere!Illumi x Reader (Hunter x Hunter).

Word Count: 5.6k.

TW: Fem!Reader, Non/Con, Prolonged Captivity, Mentions of Kidnapping, Mentions of Animal Death, Semi-Public Sex, Controlling Behavior, Deliberate Isolation, and Stalking.

The first thing you saw when you opened your eyes was, per usual, Illumi’s face.

His dark eyes wide and unblinking, his skin bloodlessly pale, his lips pulled into a thin, neutral line – and all of it no more than three inches away. You were too numb to his off-putting proximity to scream, but you flinched back into your pillow on instinct, and Illumi took the hint, lingering for another half second longer before drawing back. A few months ago, you might’ve scrambled away, barricaded yourself in the smallest corner of your lavish bedroom, but now, you only rolled onto your side, regarding him with the same exhausted resignation that you used to pay to your cat, when she woke you up three hours early for no other reason than her own selfish desire not to spend the small hours of the morning alone.

“What’s up?”

It might’ve been a little too casual of a greeting for your kidnapper, but he didn’t seem to mind. “There are clothes waiting for you on your vanity. The butlers will help you dress as soon as possible.”

 So this was going to be an out-of-bed thing, after all. Reluctantly, you started pushing yourself up. “Are we in a hurry for a reason, or…?”

There was a brief moment of consideration, then a resolute nod from Illumi. You let out an inward sigh. “Okay, whatever, that’s my fault. Why are we in a rush, ‘lumi?”

“I have something planned for the two of us.” If you hadn’t known better, you might’ve thought you saw his expression light up. “A daytrip, I believe.” And then, as if as an afterthought, “I’m very excited.”

Illumi’s excitement was normally something you tried to avoid, but your mind seemed to glaze over that and settle on the word ‘daytrip’ instead. Daytrips meant traveling. Daytrips meant activities.

Most pressingly, daytrips meant getting to leave the empty, lifeless, murderer-infested wasteland that was his family’s estate for the first time since he carried you through its gates. You knew better than to say that in as many words, though.

“And for this daytrip, we’ll be going…” You trailed off, gesturing in the direction you felt most strongly would lead back to civilization. “…out there?”

“We’ll be leaving the mountain, yes.”

“And we’ll be going place where other people are?”

“I suppose so, if it can’t be avoided.”

“And your family wasn’t involved with this at all?”

“They don’t think it’s right for you to be given so much freedom so quickly,” he explained. “I disagree. Even well-trained dogs have to be walked.”

For the first time ever, you had to resist the urge to kiss him.

Instead, you only let yourself smile, casting your sheets aside and settling for a brief but bone-crushing hug. “Thank you thank you thank you!” You pulled away abruptly, sliding off of the mattress. “I—I’ll get dressed!”

Illumi didn’t move, didn’t react, but his eyes followed you as you stumbled across the room – happier than you’d been in months.

~

A little less than an hour later, you were spread across Illumi’s lap in the back of a surprisingly conspicuous black car, the divider raised to block a faceless driver from view. It took a concerted amount of effort to keep your attention on anything but the window, but you managed, only sparing the occasional glance towards the passing scenery.

You watched the mountainside spiral downward as Illumi’s hands settled around your waist, measuring the widening gaps between dense patches of forestry as his mouth ghosted over the side of your neck. It’d always surprised you – how tactile he was, how someone so cold could be so fond of peppering feather-light kisses into your collarbones and groping at your thighs. It’d been weeks since the last time you tried to brush off his affection. As far as you were concerned, there were worse things he could do to you than mimic the behavior of a more conventional boyfriend.

(At some point, you’d come to think of Illumi as the unclimbable, unmovable, twenty-foot-tall wall that separated you from freedom. You didn’t like him, sure, but you had to recognize that on your own, you had no chance of getting past, over, or around him. If something happened to render him a little weaker, a little less tall, a little more susceptible to opening his gates, then things might change, but you couldn’t rely on elusive possibilities. The way you saw it, you could either waste your time trying to overcome an insurmountable obstacle, or you could save your energy and try to make things as pleasant on this side of the wall as was humanly possible, given your below-standard working conditions. Until you met someone willing to offer you a ladder, at least.)

He buried his face in the crook of your neck, and your eyes flitted back to the window. You were passing buildings, now – houses and apartments, people dotted in front of them blurred mannequins. “Can you tell me where we’re going, or am I not supposed to know?”

He seemed to think for a second, but answered quickly enough. “Brunch, first,” he said, not bothering to pull away from you. “The rest is a surprise.”

You pursed your lips. You used to like surprises, but Illumi had managed to change a lot of things about you. “Is ‘the rest’ something I’ll like?”

 “It’s something you’ve been known to enjoy.”

It took everything you had not to roll your eyes. You’d been ‘known to enjoy’ a lot of things, most of which Illumi had taken away from you.

There was one more open-mouthed kiss pressed into your collarbone, one more stolen glance of the outside world, and then, the vehicle was easing to a steady halt in front of a rustic, almost quaint building. A café, you realized, as Illumi stepped out in front of you, holding the door open while you stared wide-eyed at the perfectly idyllic, perfectly normal restaurant. The cute type, with a triangular roof and a greenery-laden front porch and chipped paint on either side of the front door.

Subconsciously, some part of you must’ve decided that you’d never see anything more charming or more homey than the lifeless grounds of Illumi’s estate again. You opted not to linger on that, as you stepped out of the car.

The interior was similarly fairytale-esque. There weren’t any other customers or wait-staff, which you’d expected, but string lights hung from the rafters, fresh wildflowers sitting in pitchers on each table. Illumi let you choose where to sit, and you shot for a spot closest to the front windows – bay-style and freshly cleaned, the kind of thing you might’ve stared longingly out of while nursing an overpriced latte for the better part of an hour. Suit-clad butlers stood guard on either side of the door, but if you were lucky, you’d still be able to catch the occasional pedestrian walking by. You would’ve given anything to sit in a room filled to bursting with other people, but since you couldn’t have that, you’d settle for being able to watch a handful from a distance.

“You’re staring.”

“So?” You responded to Illumi without looking away. “You stare at me all the time.”

“That’s different. I have a reason to look at you.”

“Which is?”

“I love you.”

It might’ve been easier to believe if he hadn’t said it with all the warmth and all the affection of a corpse, already given time to cool.

You changed the topic swiftly.

“It’s a little nostalgic, honestly. I used to come to places like this all the time, especially before I made any friends in the city. It was nice to feel lonely in a aloof-and-mysterious kind of way, instead of an anti-social-and-depressed sort of way.”

“Oh, you were never really alone.” You didn’t say anything, but you made the mistake of shifting your gaze onto him, of spurring him forward with the reward of your attention. “It was a guilty pleasure of mine – spending time with you before we met. I preferred it when you sat outside. It was easier to smell your perfume, in the open air.”

You grit your teeth. It wasn’t the most disturbing thing he’d ever admitted, but it definitely made the list. “…I think I would’ve remembered sitting next to someone like you.”

If he’d been more expressive, you could’ve imagined him smirking. “You would think so, wouldn’t you?”

There was a brief lapse, a moment of uncertainty on your part. Finally, you asked, “Did I smell… nice?”

“Very.” Illumi didn’t share your sense of trepidation. “Like cinnamon.”

You hummed, and as if by magic, a waitress appeared from the door to an unseen kitchen – white knuckling her pen with one hand and driving her nails into her notepad with the other. She took your orders with a terrified sort of professionalism, and before you left, you convinced Illumi to give you all the cash he was carrying at the moment (a sum that easily added up to half a year’s worth of rent, handed over without so much as a passing question) and left it on the table for her to find.

~

Your second stop was as surprising as Illumi had promised. If anything, he’d undersold it.

If the quaintness of the café had been enough to throw you into a stupor, then the sheer scale of the building in front of you could’ve sent you to an early grave. A mall – a nice mall, either recently built or nestled so far into the upper-class shopping district that you never would’ve come across it organically, the type with glass where there should’ve been walls and a fountain without any coins at the bottom. You were tempted to try and pester loose change off of one of the butlers flanking you, but decided against it. The café, you could’ve stumbled into on your own, without Illumi’s intervention. It just didn’t feel right to leave a mark where you so obviously didn’t belong.

More similarly to the café, though, the inside of the shopping complex was startlingly empty. Butlers and hired security were posed in front of exits, but other than that, it wasn’t hard to believe that you and Illumi were the only people on the property. As soon as you were past the initial entryway, you ducked into the closest store – a high-end cosmetics retailer. The door was unlocked, but there was no cashier at the register. Like someone had already come through and cleared it out.

“This is some backrooms shit,” you mumbled to yourself, and then, to Illumi, ever-hovering just over your shoulder. “You didn’t… you know, do what you normally do to people you don’t like, right?”

“Are you asking me if I killed everyone in this shopping complex prior to our arrival?”

“Well, not everyone,” you clarified. “Maybe just the employees?”

He didn’t laugh, but the corner of his mouth turned ever-so-slightly upward, as if you’d said something funny. “No, that would’ve taken far too much time.” The unnecessary loss of life went unacknowledged. “The building’s rented out, and the stock’s been purchased in advance. You’re only deciding what you’d like to keep.”

Huh.

One day, you were going to sit him down and have a long, long talk about class privilege and resource waste. If you were feeling generous, you might even throw generational wealth onto the lecture, just to make sure he got the full picture.

One day, but not today.

“The third floor always has the best stores,” you said, turning on your heel and grabbing Illumi’s hand, too distracted to think anything of the gesture. “Let’s start there.”

You weaved in and out of stores with reckless abandon, hyper-aware that you had no one’s time to waste but your own. Essentials were overlooked entirely, makeup and self-care supplies limited to eyeshadow pallets with no less than several dozen eye bleeding colors and bath-bombs that were more glitter than pigment, and clothes made up the bulk of your adoration. Everything that wasn’t in your size had already been removed – something as worrying as it was convenient. The only thing you refused to try on was loungewear. It would’ve been practical, sure, but you didn’t need to be reminded that this was likely the last time you’d ever leave Illumi’s sprawling home.

“You know,” you called from a dressing room, pulling a gingham dress over your head. You couldn’t see Illumi, but you were sure he wasn’t far. He didn’t seem to have much of an interest in shopping, but his favorite hobby was looming over your shoulder like some blank-eyed, haphazardly domesticated bird of prey, so it balanced out. “If this had been our first date, I probably would’ve married you.

You heard him hum as a weight settled against the dressing room door. “I enjoyed our first date. It was endearing – how long you rested your head in my lap.”

“Well, yeah. The paralytics you used were so strong, I couldn’t move for three days.” You’d still lose feeling in your left arm, if you held it at the wrong angle. It reminded you a little of your cat, after she first came around to the idea of sitting in your lap. You’d been so afraid of scaring her off, you’d let your legs fall asleep before you so much as thought about moving her. “I just meant that the whole ‘kidnapping’ thing probably wouldn’t have been necessary, y’know? I wasn’t exactly in a place to be picky when it came to creepy rich men.”

There was a brief lapse of silence, and you finally managed to drag the bodice of the dress into place. “I never considered that.”

It shouldn’t have surprised you to hear that Illumi wasn’t the dating type, and yet, you let out a breath of a laugh. “You never thought about asking me out? Not even once?”

“…no, I didn’t.” If you hadn’t known better, you would’ve thought he sounded shy. “It was hard to be practical. I was distracted. You were perfect, and contained, and I thought touching you would be—” For the first time, his voice seemed to dip, to grow just a little quieter. “—vulgar. It would’ve changed you, to know I was there.”

The skirt was layered, and you bit back the urge to curse as you smoothed over the layers of cotton and lace. “I think being abducted might’ve changed me, too.”

“It was the better option. Something would’ve fallen out of place eventually, but like this, I could save you. Only your environment had to be altered.”

He made it sound like he’d sealed you behind glass, rather than underneath a mansion occupied by the world’s most dangerous killers. You’d known better than to hope he’d be able to come up with a selfless reason for your prolonged captivity, but still. Hearing that you were miserable because he needed a ballerina to decorate his music box with stung more than you would’ve liked to admit.

“…it’s unlocked. You can come in, if you want.” Immediately, you heard the dressing room door creak open, and turned your attention towards your reflection. Out of the countless you’d tried on, there was a reason you’d saved this dress for last. You used to fantasize about being able to afford something so wonderfully needless, something you wouldn’t have had to justify with things as joyless as ‘function’ and ‘practicality’. Even now, the puffiness of the sleeves and the lace detailing around the collar and the tiny, almost impossible-to-see hearts printed onto the checked pattern felt exorbitant – borderline garish. You still didn’t have any reason to wear it, any place you could’ve gone to show it off, but then again, you didn’t have much of a reason to do much of anything when you were with Illumi. You guessed, in a roundabout kind of way, that meant you got to do whatever you wanted to.

Illumi came to stand behind you, and you leaned back, kissing his cheek gingerly. “I’ll add it to the pile. Thanks for this, ‘lumi.”

His hands found their way to your hips, settling there as he rested his chin on your shoulder. “Keep it on. It suits you.”

You tried to laugh, but fell short – your smile falling into something more strained. You really shouldn’t have said anything, but you were talking before you could stop yourself, before you could think better of it. “The cinnamon,” you started, speaking against the dryness in your throat. “When I first moved to the city, the only apartment I could afford was flat above a bakery. The ventilation was awful, and the landlord was impossible to get a hold of, and everything I owned smelled like sugar and cinnamon and bread. I couldn’t touch anything sweet for months, after I moved out.”

It was all you could do to bite down on your tongue and force yourself to stop, to shut up, to remember who you were talking to. Illumi’s response was less dramatic – as instantaneous as it was muted.

“How fitting,” he said, with a chime of a laugh. “Sweet things belong in sweet places.”

…

You could only be mad at yourself, really. What else were expecting? It wasn’t like he was going to get down on his knees and apologize, for fuck’s sake.

You sighed, melting into Illumi’s chest. Of course, he welcomed you with open arms.

~

You didn’t end up keeping any other dresses. A few other articles of clothing, a couple pairs of shoes, a small fortune’s worth of little luxuries that’d help you pass the time when you were returned, kicking and screaming, to solitary confinement, but no dresses. Well, aside from the one you were wearing, of course.

It wasn’t long before Illumi started gently ushering you to the nearest exit, and already thoroughly defeated, you didn’t try to resist. You only got distracted once on your way out, and not for very long. Illumi made sure of that.

It was kiosk-type stand – the glass cabinets filled with high-end pet toys and animal-themed tchotchkes. You couldn’t stop yourself, gasping as you broke away from Illumi and darted to the first thing that caught your eye: a bright pink collar with silver spikes, adorable and cliché and so, so cute. It was clearly meant for a dog, but it could’ve fit a cat. Or, you probably would’ve tried to make it fit a cat, rather.  

Illumi appeared at your side, as always, and you started talking without looking up. “I’m sorry, I know we’re in a rush, but it just—” You paused, trying and failing to bite back a smile. “I had this cat before you took me – her name was Ghost. She used to be the neighborhood stray, but she was getting pretty old, and I think other cats were picking on her. Eventually, I just started letting her in, and after a while, she stopped leaving. She would’ve hated something like this.” You held up the collar, gesturing dismissively before forcing yourself to set it back down. “She never really liked me. Whoever took her in shouldn’t have had too much trouble winning her over, after I disappeared.”

“Ghost,” he repeated. “Was she a black cat?”

“Yeah, that’s where her name came from. I couldn’t see her at all at night, and she could knock over anything that wasn’t nailed down. It was like living with a poltergeist.”

“She’s dead.”

You felt something small and vital tear open and start to bleed. “…excuse me?”

“You two were quite close. Had she been given the time, she would’ve woken you up the night I came to get you. I didn’t want that.” It took an embarrassing amount of time for you to make the connection, to form the link, to realize why the pain in your chest was quickly becoming so unbearable. “We can get another, if you’re upset. As a couple.”

The shock was numb, if there was any shock to be had at all. “It’s fine,” you managed, eventually, and despite the strain behind your voice, Illumi didn’t argue.

Instead, he glanced towards the nearest glass wall, to where the sun was just beginning to set over the horizon. “We should go.”

“I didn’t realize we were on a schedule.”

“You weren’t supposed to. I told you earlier – the last stop is a surprise.” This time, he was the one to take your hand, squeezing gently as he laced his fingers with yours.

It might’ve been a nice gesture, if his touch hadn’t been cold enough to burn.

~

You weren’t really sure what the third and final stop was supposed to be, at first.

An old sort of a dream knotted and coiled in your chest as his driver ferried you out of the city, metropolis shuttering into mountain backwoods. You’d never really been afraid of Illumi killing you (not when there were so many things that were so, so much worse than death), but as the car eased to a stop on the side of single-lane road, it was hard to imagine why else he would’ve taken you so far from the nearest scrap of civilization, another reason for him to wear such a bright expression as he ushered you outside - the most impatient he’d been all day. It wasn’t until you saw the trailhead – unmarked save for a wooden post and break in the foliage – that you started to relax.

“Oh,” you mumbled, your relief audible. “I’m not really dressed for hiking, ‘lumi.”

“It isn’t far.” And then, taking your hand in his, “I can carry you.”

It sounded more like a matter-of-fact statement than an offer, but you shook your head, edging forward. He was right, in the end. It couldn’t have been more than half a mile of level ground, Illumi holding your hand all the while. It wasn’t like you weren’t allowed outside on Illumi’s estate, but you spent so much time in the woods that surrounded his mansion and his mother’s gardens – it would’ve been impossible not to go numb to the absence of bird song, the treacherous slope of his mountain, how little sunlight managed to break through the dense canopy of tangled branches and leaves that seemed to lie a little closer to black than green. It was nice to be somewhere else, somewhere with humming insects and a gentleness to the landscape and just enough dappled sunlight to make you forget who you were with. You kept your head on a swivel, quietly eager to soak in as much of it as you could. If you were lucky, you’d actually get to see some life – a deer, or a wildcat, or—

Something caught in your throat, and your head lulled forward, eyes dropping to your feet. You stared at the ground for the rest of the walk.

Your destination was, similarly, storybook levels of idyllic. The forest thinned and fell away entirely, breaking into a lake that stretched on as far as the eye could see and glittered pink in the light of the setting sun. Stretched over the lake’s shore was a blanket piled with platters of chocolate-covered fruit, breads and cheese, bottles of wine with a matching pair of glasses for each option – everything you might’ve once drunkenly listed off to a friend while fantasizing about your perfect, fairytale date. You glanced around you, looking for the butlers who must’ve only just finished setting up, but Illumi was quick to call your attention back to him. You felt him let go of your hand, your body shift before you could process why you were moving, and then, you were no longer on the ground; one of Illumi’s arms hooked under your knees and the other behind your back, your side pulled against his chest in an effortless bridal carry. You made a passing attempt to squirm, but Illumi didn’t seem to mind – keeping you tucked against him as he made his way to the only unoccupied corner of the blanket and all-but dropped to the ground, leaving you splayed across his lap and safely caged within his arms.  It was hard to tell if he was trying to be romantic in his own, blank, heartless sort of way, or if he’d simply decided you weren’t moving quickly enough. For your own sake, you leaned towards the former.

“It’s awful,” you muttered, and then, correcting yourself, “Not the picnic, I mean – that’s perfect. It’s just, I can never tell what you’re thinking.”

He seemed to consider that, for a moment. A chocolate-covered strawberry was plucked out of the nearest bowl and held to your lips, and to appease him, you bit into it. Your throat still felt too knotted for you to actually enjoy eating, but it was good to keep Illumi happy. “Most of the time, I think about you,” he admitted, any hint of shame absent from his voice. “It’s an issue. It doesn’t affect my work, but it’ll start to if left unchecked.”

He thought about you while cutting down innocent civilians. Great. “And you’re not going to fix that by drowning me in a lake, right?”

“No, I’m not.” Like your question, his answer was too sincere for comfort. The way his free hand toyed with the hem of your skirt did little to ease your nerves, either. “I’ve tried keeping an amount of distance between you and I, but that hasn’t yielded much progress either.”

If he’d ever tried to keep himself away from you, you hadn’t been able to tell. His hand slipped under your skirt properly, and you twisted, reaching for the neared wine bottle. “There’s so much food here, we should really—”

“It can wait.”

It was awful, just how even his voice was. For the first time, you were tempted to give him a reason to raise it.

You’d never resisted Illumi, but he’d never tried to—tried to do this, either. There’d always been an unspoken barrier when it came to sex – your resounding horror shadowed comfortable within his apparent disinterest. Now, though, he didn’t seem very disinterested, and your lingering terror was brushed neatly to the side as his fingers grazed over your thighs, your hip, before slipping underneath the thin, silken fabric. You wanted to thrash, to bolt, but you were suddenly unable to move; paralyzed save for the reflex to clench your legs shut and sink that much deeper into Illumi’s chest. The former was undone with only as much effort as it took him to ease your thighs apart with his knee, though, and the latter only seemed to bring a soft smile to his lips – just barely prominent enough to feel as he nuzzled into the crook of your neck. If you’d been in your right mind, you might’ve thought to look for his butlers, to worry about passing hikers or concerned locals he wouldn’t think not to hurt, but Illumi had done his job well. It was impossible not to consider yourself wholly and entirely alone in the world, when you were with him.

He was less clinical than you would’ve expected. Illumi did most things with surgical precision, but touching you seemed to call for a more experimental skillset. His chin came to rest on your shoulder as his long fingers spread and explored underneath your panties, the tautness of the fabric ensuring that he always moved against you, rather than over or around. Undressing you never seemed to cross his mind; instead, his attention was trained on dragging the pad of his thumb over your clit, on using his ring and middle fingers to trace the slit of your cunt. You weren’t turned on – who could be, with their stoic kidnapper fondling them like a child learning to handle their first doll? – but your body and your mind were on two different tracks, one eager to make the best of a bad situation and the other too distraught to stop it. It wasn’t long before you could feel yourself dripping around him, your arousal adding a damp heat to your already claustrophobic point of connection. Illumi hummed. “You’re sensitive.”

You opened your mouth, but anything you might’ve said was drowned out by a hitched gasp as he thrust two digits inside of you with a wet click. “Tight, too,” he muttered, almost absentmindedly, immediately falling into a pattern of pumping and scissoring; spreading you open and pulling back only to fuck his fingers that much deeper. When he paused, it was only to curl against something particularly sensitive inside of you, to leave you shrinking that much further into his chest. “Is this uncomfortable?”

The practicality of the question caught you off-guard. You couldn’t call it considerate, but it was more than you’d expected, more than you ever would’ve hoped for. Unable to speak, you nodded furiously, and Illumi clicked his tongue. “You’ll be alright,” And then, slightly softer, “It couldn’t be any worse than what I had to deal with, waiting for you.”

There was no bitterness, no remorse, no pity; just Illumi’s cold rationality and the feeling of his palm grinding into your clit. The only warmth you could feel was the ghost of his breath on the side of your throat, the dip of your shoulder – not quite panting, but a world apart from his usual absence of expression. You tried to steel yourself, to think about anything aside from Illumi’s presence where it draped across you like a funeral shroud, but it’d been months since the last time you so much as thought about touching yourself, and for all his apathy, you could feel heat pooling in your core and recognize that your attempts to stave off the inevitable were only prolonging the insufferable. Still, it would’ve been impossible not to try and choke back your whimpers as that heat brewed and solidified into something more tense, something more breakable; as Illumi’s cheek pressed into the curve of your neck and his fingers curled against something soft and unprotected inside of you. Your climax was drawn out of you slowly, painfully, with a ragged whine in place of a moan. You kept your face buried in Illumi’s chest, your hands balled around the bodice of your dress. It felt like an eternity passed before it was over, before Illumi’s hand drew back, but no relief accompanied the distance.

You couldn’t even bring yourself to hate Illumi for it, not really. You couldn’t bring yourself to feel much of anything. The only thing you could think, as hard as you tried not to think at all, was that you missed your dead cat.

It was pathetic, honestly. A sob tore past your lips as he pulled you away from his chest and lowered you onto your back, tears burning twin tracks down your face. You couldn’t remember the last time he’d made you cry, and this shouldn’t have been your tipping point – not Ghost, not your awful shoebox apartment, not the fact that you could hear fabric tearing as he pulled your dress apart, too impatient to so much as consider a less destructive solution. You were in hysterics by the time he glanced up, the faintest possible frown coaxing the corners of his lips downward. “You’re crying.” And then, when your only response was another jagged cry, “Why?”

You opened your mouth, but only managed to force out another incoherent sob. Illumi softened, leaning over you, his dark hair forming a curtain that seemed to replace the rest of the world with unending void. Eventually, you managed to scrap up the only thing you could, even if it wasn’t what you really meant. “I—I want to go home, Illumi.”

He cocked his head to the side, staring down at you with a sort of blank focus. A moment passed, then another, before his expression brightened. “Oh.”

He leaned down, and you felt his lips brush over your forehead. His smile bit into your skin like a blade.

“We will, love.” He pulled back. You heard fabric shift, felt something hot and terrible slot against your cunt. “Just not yet.”

 You moved to respond, but gave up quickly. His mouth crashed into yours as he thrust into you and your blood ran cold.

~

Later on, in the dark, things became bearable again. Illumi was cruel, psychotic, delusional, but he was dutiful, too, and with the most beautiful dress you’d ever seen reduced to scraps, he wrapped you in his jacket and gathered you in his arms. The picnic was untouched, the breath-taking view painted over by night. None of it mattered, of course. You were too exhausted to keep your eyes open, and a bottomless pit occupied the space your stomach used to. You wouldn’t mind going the rest of your life without taking anything of the filthy, unfeeling outside world inside of you ever again, but you knew better than to swear off eating because of Illumi. Or, at least, you hoped you’d know better in the morning.

You were only half-conscious of him pulling you against his chest and starting back into the forest, following the same path you had an eternity ago. It was a stupid question, but you found yourself asking anyway, your voice low and hoarse. “Are we… Are we going somewhere?”

“Of course.” Illumi bowed his head, kissing the top of yours. “We’re going home.”

He didn’t know he was lying, but he was. He might’ve been, but you weren’t.

Slowly and with no small amount of effort, you managed to nod, slumping against his chest. No sooner had you went slack in his arms than the final tether to consciousness thinned and fell away, leaving you to be consumed by the darkness.

[shdysders]

too late

pairing: jenna ortega and reader

summary: in which, after weeks of hesitation, you finally decide to tell jenna the truth—only to realize she has plans of her own.

word count: 7.1k

warnings: sensitive topic - lung cancer

authors note: in honor of november being lung cancer awareness month.

It began with a cough.

Not the kind that comes and goes with a cold or allergies, but one that lingered—sharp, persistent, and out of place.

At first, you brushed it off, chalking it up to stress or the changing seasons. But days turned into weeks, and instead of fading, it seemed to grow heavier, like it was pulling something deep from your chest.

You'd ignored it longer than you should have, convincing yourself it was nothing.

Jenna had even teased you about it once or twice, her laughter light and dismissive as she handed you a bottle of water and told you to "take better care of yourself." You'd laughed along with her, but deep down, something about it unsettled you.

When the pain started—a dull ache beneath your ribs every time you took a deep breath—you knew you couldn't ignore it anymore.

That's when you made the call.

The appointment came and went in a blur.

The doctor had been kind but direct, asking questions you couldn't answer with certainty. How long had the symptoms persisted? Had you noticed anything else? Fatigue, weight loss? You'd nodded at some points, shook your head at others, feeling like each response was pulling you further into a place you didn't want to be.

"We'll run some tests," they'd said, their tone neutral, almost too neutral. "Just to be safe."

You'd left the office that day with a sinking feeling you couldn't quite explain, like a storm cloud had settled just over your shoulders. But even then, you told yourself it was nothing.

It had to be.

When the call came, days later, their voice was calm but edged with something you couldn't place.

The voice on the other end, professional but cautious, had asked if you could come in—today. It wasn't a suggestion; it was an urgency wrapped in sterile politeness, and that was when it hit you—that it wasn't nothing.

The drive to the clinic had felt like an eternity. The silence in the car had been unbearable, but every time you'd reached for the radio, your hand had fallen back into your lap. Music felt too loud, too intrusive, as if it would force you to acknowledge the knot in your stomach that had been tightening since the moment you hung up the phone.

The streets blurred past you, familiar landmarks losing their meaning. All you could focus on was the road ahead and the gnawing thought that something was wrong—something worse than you wanted to admit. Your hands had gripped the steering wheel so tightly your knuckles turned white, and at one point, you'd realized you were holding your breath without meaning to.

By the time you'd pulled into the clinic's parking lot, your chest ached—not just from the persistent cough but from the weight of your anxiety.

You'd sat there for a moment, staring at the sliding glass doors, wondering if you could just... drive away. Pretend the call never happened. Pretend nothing was wrong.

But then you'd thought of Jenna. Her face had flashed in your mind—her smile, the way she always seemed to know when something was bothering you, even when you tried to hide it. You couldn't hide this forever, and if you didn't walk in now, it would only get worse.

The waiting room had been quiet, save for the soft hum of a fish tank in the corner and the occasional murmur of voices. You'd checked in at the front desk, the receptionist's cheery smile making your stomach twist, and then found a seat near the window.

The minutes stretched on.

There had been an older man across from you, his hands trembling slightly as he flipped through a magazine he clearly wasn't reading. Beside him, a woman with a scarf tied around her head stared at the floor, her expression distant.

You couldn't stop wondering about their stories—what they were going through, what battles they were silently fighting. Compared to them, your cough and aches felt trivial, like you didn't belong in this space.

You'd convinced yourself, even as you sat there, that you were wasting everyone's time. That whatever was happening to you couldn't possibly be as bad as what these people were enduring.

Maybe it had been an overreaction to come at all, you thought, even though you knew deep down that wasn't true.

When your name was finally called, your heart jumped into your throat. You stood, legs feeling unsteady beneath you, and followed the nurse down a hallway that smelled faintly of disinfectant and something metallic.

She'd led you to a small room and asked you to wait for the doctor, her smile kind but fleeting, as if she knew what was coming.

The seconds ticked by in excruciating silence. Your eyes had scanned the walls, landing on a framed picture of a mountain range, a feeble attempt to make the space feel less clinical. It didn't work.

When the door opened, Dr. Patel had stepped in, clipboard in hand, his face calm but serious. He'd greeted you with a nod, his usual warmth muted, and gestured for you to sit.

You'd perched on the edge of the chair, your hands clenching and unclenching in your lap. Dr. Patel had sat across from you, his gaze steady but unreadable as he placed the clipboard on the desk.

"I wanted to go over the results of your tests," he'd begun, his voice measured, like he was trying to soften the blow before it landed.

He'd turned his computer screen toward you, the image of a scan glowing faintly against the dim light of the room. He'd pointed to an area on the scan, circling it with the cursor as he explained the findings.

The words he used were clinical, detached, but you caught enough to piece it together. Something about nodules, abnormalities, and how the mass in question hadn't been there before.

And then he'd said it. The word you'd been avoiding, the one that made everything crash down around you.

Cancer.

You'd felt like the air had been sucked out of the room. For a moment, you couldn't breathe, couldn't think.

The word echoed in your mind, bouncing around like it didn't belong there. You'd stared at the scan, your eyes unfocused, as Dr. Patel continued to explain the next steps—biopsies, treatments, consultations—but his voice had become background noise.

You hadn't cried, not then. You'd just nodded numbly, your hands gripping the arms of the chair so tightly you thought they might snap. Your chest had tightened, the ache you'd been ignoring now unbearable, but you'd forced yourself to stay still.

When the appointment ended, you'd walked out of the clinic in a daze. The world outside had felt too bright, too normal, like nothing had changed when everything had.

You'd sat in your car for what felt like hours, staring at the steering wheel as the weight of it all pressed down on you. And for the first time, you'd thought about what this meant—not just for you, but for Jenna.

How would you even begin to tell her? How could you?

She was the person you turned to when things felt too heavy, the one who always knew how to make everything seem a little less impossible. But this time... this time felt different.

You'd closed your eyes, leaning your head back against the seat, trying to imagine how the conversation would go. You could see her face so clearly in your mind, the way her brows would furrow, her lips parting as she searched for the right words.

You could almost hear her voice, the way it would waver as she asked, "What does this mean? What do we do?"

And that's where your mind stalled—because you didn't have the answers.

You didn't know what it meant, not really, and you definitely didn't know what to do. The idea of seeing that kind of fear in her eyes, of being the reason her world tilted off its axis, made your stomach twist.

Then there was her work. Jenna had always been busy, but lately, it felt like the world was pulling her in a million directions at once.

She'd been running from set to set, juggling interviews, photo shoots, and endless calls with her team. You'd seen how tired she was, how she tried to hide it behind a bright smile whenever she came home, but you could see the strain in her eyes.

How could you add this to her plate?

The thought hit you like a punch to the gut, the realization settling in with a kind of brutal clarity. If you told her, it wouldn't just be your burden anymore—it would become hers, too. And that wasn't fair. Not when she already had so much to carry.

You'd opened your eyes, staring at the dashboard, trying to convince yourself that waiting wasn't the same as hiding. It wasn't like you were lying to her, not really.

You just needed time to figure things out, to understand what this meant and what came next. Maybe once you had more information, once you knew what the treatment would look like or what the prognosis was, it would be easier to tell her.

Or maybe that was just an excuse.

The truth, the part you didn't want to admit even to yourself, was that you were scared. Not just of the diagnosis, but of what it would do to her.

Jenna was strong—stronger than anyone you'd ever met—but this felt like too much, even for her. You couldn't bear the thought of seeing her break under the weight of it, of watching her world shift because of something you couldn't control.

And then there was the selfish part of you, the part that didn't want to see the pity in her eyes. You didn't want her to look at you differently, to start treating you like you were fragile or broken. You didn't want this to define you, not yet, not in her eyes.

So you'd made the decision, sitting there in the stifling silence of your car. You wouldn't tell her—not now, at least. You'd keep this to yourself, at least until you knew more, until you could figure out how to explain it without falling apart.

It wasn't an easy decision. In fact, it felt like the hardest thing you'd ever done. But as you sat there, the weight of it all pressing down on your chest, it felt like the only choice you had.

You thought that, for now, you'd carry this alone.

But after a while, things felt different.

The days had turned into weeks, and with each passing one, the weight of the secret grew heavier. It wasn't just the diagnosis itself; it was the way it bled into every part of your life, a shadow you couldn't shake.

And Jenna—she'd started noticing.

It was small things at first, things that were easy to dismiss or laugh off.

You'd caught her watching you more closely when you coughed, her brow creasing ever so slightly. "Maybe you should get that checked out," she'd said once, the words half-teasing but laced with genuine concern. You'd waved her off with a smile, promising it was nothing, but the look in her eyes had lingered.

Then there were the nights when you'd felt too drained to do much of anything. Jenna had curled up beside you on the couch, her hand brushing against yours as she asked, "Are you feeling okay? You've seemed... tired lately."

You'd blamed it on work, on stress, on anything but the truth, and she'd let it go—though not without a small frown tugging at her lips.

The tipping point had come a few nights ago, when you'd caught her staring at you in the mirror.

You'd been brushing your teeth, the rhythmic sound filling the quiet bathroom, when you noticed her reflection watching yours. "You've lost weight," she'd said softly, her voice more curious than accusatory.

"I haven't noticed," you'd lied, avoiding her gaze.

She'd hesitated, her arms crossing over her chest as she leaned against the doorframe. "Maybe we should book a check-up or something," she'd suggested, her tone light but her eyes serious.

You'd shrugged it off again, changing the subject, but the way her gaze lingered on you made it clear she wasn't convinced.

And that's what finally pushed you to make the decision. You couldn't keep brushing her off, couldn't keep pretending everything was fine when it clearly wasn't.

She was already worried, even if she didn't fully realize it yet. And sooner or later, she was going to piece things together on her own.

So when she told you she finally had a night free—no calls, no meetings, no obligations—you decided it was time.

The two of you had been planning this date for weeks, trying to carve out time amidst the chaos of her schedule. It wasn't anything extravagant, just dinner at your favorite little spot downtown, but it felt significant in a way you couldn't quite explain.

You told yourself it was the right moment, that you couldn't keep putting this off. You didn't know where this illness would take you next or how much time you had before the symptoms became impossible to hide. The coughs were more frequent now, the fatigue harder to mask. It was only a matter of time before Jenna noticed something you couldn't explain away.

This wasn't how you'd wanted to tell her—not like this, over a quiet dinner on what should've been a happy night. But you didn't see another choice. You couldn't keep lying to her, and you couldn't bear the thought of her finding out some other way.

As you got ready for the evening, the weight of the decision settled over you, heavy but resolute. You weren't sure how you were going to say it or what words you'd use, but you knew it had to be now.

Tonight, you'd tell her.

You'd been rehearsing the words in your head all day, trying to prepare yourself for what felt impossible to say.

But now, sitting in the car, you couldn't ignore the way the air seemed heavier, weighed down by something you couldn't name, and Jenna—Jenna wasn't herself.

She'd been trying to act normal, you could tell. Humming along to the radio, her fingers drumming against the steering wheel like she always did, glancing over at you every so often with what you guessed was meant to be a reassuring smile.

But there was a tension in her movements, a stiffness that wasn't usually there.

It was subtle, barely noticeable if you weren't paying attention. But you were paying attention.

Her hands gripped the wheel a little tighter than usual, her knuckles pale against the leather.

Her gaze lingered too long on the road ahead, as if she was focusing on anything but you. The way she adjusted the air conditioning, even though it didn't need it, or fiddled with her bracelet, slipping it up and down her wrist—these weren't things Jenna usually did.

Your chest felt tight, and not from the illness.

Had she figured it out? Had she found something—a paper you'd forgotten to throw away, maybe, or a note scrawled hastily with an appointment reminder? You'd been so careful, but the thought that you'd slipped up sent a sharp pang of anxiety through you.

You replayed everything in your head, scanning for mistakes, for signs. She hadn't said anything outright, but that only made it worse. If she had found something, she wouldn't confront you about it—not Jenna. No, she'd let it fester, trying to give you space, trying not to pry. But that didn't mean she wouldn't act differently.

And she was acting differently.

Even the silence between you felt louder than it should have, thick and charged with something unspoken. You'd always been able to sit comfortably with her in quiet moments, sharing space without the need to fill it. But this wasn't that. This was an entirely different kind of silence, one that pressed down on you like a weight you couldn't shrug off.

Your mind raced, chasing every possible scenario. Maybe she'd pieced it together herself, noticed more than you thought. Jenna wasn't oblivious.

She'd seen you brush off dinner more often than not, heard the cough that hadn't gone away, seen how you'd flinched the other day when she wrapped her arms around your ribs from behind. She'd even asked, once or twice, if everything was okay.

"You're sure you're fine?" she'd said a few nights ago, her brows knitting together in concern as you forced down a glass of water to stop the coughing fit. You'd laughed, waved her off, told her you'd been pushing yourself too hard at work.

And maybe she'd believed you. Or maybe she hadn't.

The thought gnawed at you as you stared out the window, the glow of passing streetlights streaking across your vision.

You turned to look at her, and for a moment, she felt impossibly far away. She was still Jenna, your Jenna, but there was a distance now, something fragile and strange sitting between you. Her profile was calm, unreadable, her lips pressed into a line that wasn't quite a frown but wasn't a smile, either.

You tried to convince yourself that you were imagining things, that your own guilt and nerves were making you see something that wasn't there. But deep down, you couldn't shake the feeling.

When she finally pulled into the restaurant parking lot and shifted the car into park, she sat there for a moment, her hands still on the wheel.

"You okay?" she asked, her voice steady but quieter than usual.

"Yeah," you answered quickly, too quickly. "You?"

"Of course," she said, the words slipping out a fraction too fast.

Her smile came next, bright but brittle, like it might crack if you looked at it too closely. And as she turned away, unbuckling her seatbelt and reaching for her purse, you caught a glimpse of something in her eyes—hesitation, maybe, or something close to it.

You didn't know what it meant, but it lingered, heavy in your chest, as the two of you made your way inside.

The restaurant was warm and softly lit, the kind of place where the low hum of conversation mixed with the faint clink of silverware on plates. You'd picked it because it was one of your usual spots—familiar, comfortable, with memories stitched into every corner. But tonight, none of that comfort seemed to settle in.

You couldn't stop picturing how the night might unfold, how Jenna might react once you finally told her. Would she cry? Would she be mad—at you, at the world, at herself for not noticing sooner? Would she try to fix it, as if sheer determination could somehow erase what was already happening?

The thought of her being mad was the one that stuck, looping endlessly in your mind. Would she think you'd waited too long to tell her?

Or worse, would she be upset that you'd told her at all, that you'd burdened her with something so heavy when her life was already so full?

You could see it so clearly—her soft features hardening, her voice laced with frustration as she asked why you hadn't come to her sooner. Why you hadn't trusted her enough.

You swallowed hard, trying to keep your nerves from spiraling further out of control. But it didn't help that Jenna was acting off. You'd been together for two and a half years—long enough to notice when something wasn't right. And tonight, something definitely wasn't right.

She was trying, you'd give her that. She smiled when the waiter brought the menus, chatted with him about the specials like she always did, and even reached across the table to brush her fingers lightly over yours. But her smile didn't quite reach her eyes, and her touches felt more like a distraction than a comfort.

When the waiter came back to take your drink orders, she didn't hesitate. "A glass of the house red," she said, her voice steady, almost automatic.

You were about to do the same—it was your thing, after all. A little tradition you'd fallen into on dates like this. But the doctor's voice echoed in your mind: Avoid alcohol, caffeine, anything that might add strain. So instead, you said, "I'll just have a Diet Coke, please."

Jenna's head snapped up, her brows knitting together as she looked at you. "No wine?" she asked, her tone light but curious. "Since when do you skip wine?"

You scrambled for an excuse, heat rushing to your face as you waved it off. "Just... not feeling it tonight. Wanted something lighter."

Her eyes lingered on you for a moment, like she didn't quite believe you but wasn't going to press the issue. "Alright," she said, leaning back in her chair. But there was a flicker of something in her expression—confusion, maybe, or concern. You couldn't tell.

As she turned her attention back to the menu, you tried to steady your breathing, but your chest felt tight. You knew she noticed things, little things, even when you thought you'd been careful. And now you couldn't help but wonder if she was piecing them together in real time, one by one, until the truth clicked into place.

You looked down at your hands, twisting the napkin in your lap as the nerves swirled in your stomach.

You weren't sure how much longer you could keep this up—pretending everything was fine, acting like tonight was just another date. Because it wasn't. And you weren't sure how to tell her that without everything breaking apart.

And still, you couldn't shake the feeling that she already knew.

But you tried to keep the conversation going, forcing yourself to focus on Jenna and not on the crushing weight of your own nerves.

She talked about work, the projects she was excited for, the roles she'd recently turned down. You asked questions, nodded at all the right times, even laughed softly when she mentioned something funny one of her co-stars had done. But the way she was looking at you—it made it impossible to relax.

Her gaze was soft, too soft, like she was trying to protect you with just her eyes.

There was a sympathy there, gentle and unspoken, that only made your stomach churn harder. Did she already know? Had she pieced it all together? The thought gnawed at you, turning every word you said into an effort just to keep up the act.

By the time the food arrived, you were too nervous to eat. The plate in front of you looked like it belonged to someone else—steaming, perfectly plated, entirely untouched.

You picked at it, moving the food around your plate, but your appetite had vanished. Every nerve in your body was screaming, the weight of what you were about to say threatening to crush you.

You didn't understand why. You loved Jenna. You loved her more than you could ever put into words.

She was the reason you smiled when you didn't feel like it, the reason your laughter didn't sound hollow. She was the first person you thought about when you woke up and the last one before you fell asleep. She was your person.

And that's why you had to tell her.

You told yourself that over and over again. This wasn't just about you. Jenna deserved to know. If there was anyone you wanted to be the first to hear, it was her.

Not a friend, not a family member—Jenna. Because no matter how terrifying this was, no matter how much it hurt, she was the one who deserved to know the truth.

You tried to convince yourself that it didn't matter how she'd react, that you'd find a way to deal with whatever came next. Whether she stayed, whether she left, whether she cursed you out for not telling her sooner—it didn't matter.

This illness was a part of you now. There was no escaping it, no undoing it, no pretending it wasn't there. And if Jenna didn't want to stay, you'd have to accept that, too. But you couldn't let her find out some other way. You had to be the one to tell her, no matter how hard it was.

A little while into the dinner, you glanced up from your untouched plate, the words balanced precariously on the tip of your tongue. You were going to tell her. Right now.

But then you noticed Jenna again. She was fiddling with the edge of her napkin, her fingers smoothing and crumpling it over and over.

She hadn't touched her wine glass in minutes, though she'd ordered it with enthusiasm. And when she wasn't fidgeting with the napkin, she was twisting her bracelet up and down her wrist or tapping her nails lightly against the table.

Her nervousness was palpable, radiating off her in waves. And it made you pause.

She looked like she already knew. Like she was bracing herself for something—maybe for you to say it out loud. The realization only made your own nerves spike higher, your throat tightening as you tried to steady yourself.

What if she was waiting for this moment? What if she'd guessed and had been dreading it ever since? It was impossible to tell, but the thought made the words stick in your throat, suddenly too heavy to push out.

You took a shaky breath, gripping the edge of the table to ground yourself, but the question remained, lingering in your mind like a storm cloud: Did she already know.

The silence between you was thick and unyielding, like a barrier you couldn't push through. You stared at your untouched plate, willing yourself to speak, to just get it over with. Your heart hammered in your chest, each beat echoing in your ears, and you felt like you were teetering on the edge of something vast and terrifying.

Just say it, you told yourself. You've rehearsed this a hundred times. Just say it.

But the words didn't come.

Your throat felt dry, the air between you charged with everything unsaid. And then, in that fragile quiet, you finally opened your mouth, the beginnings of your confession trembling on your lips.

"I—"

You barely got the first sound out before Jenna interrupted you.

"I need to talk to you about something."

Her voice cut through the moment like a sharp blade, and your eyes snapped up to meet hers. She froze, realizing she'd interrupted, her brow furrowing in apology.

"Sorry," she said quickly, her hands lifting slightly as if to physically backpedal. "You go first."

The tension in her expression, the nervous energy radiating off her, should've made you more anxious. But instead, you felt a wave of relief so profound it nearly knocked the breath out of you.

You didn't want to say it.

You didn't want to tell her, to put it into words, to make it real. Because once you said it out loud, there'd be no going back.

The illness that had already seeped into every corner of your life, consuming your thoughts and your body, would become something undeniable. And it wasn't just your burden anymore—it would become hers, too.

So you nodded quickly, your voice barely above a whisper. "No, it's okay. You go."

Jenna hesitated, her eyes scanning yours as if to make sure you meant it. Then, with a small, almost imperceptible sigh, she shifted in her seat, her fingers tangling together in her lap.

You watched her, noticing for the first time how truly nervous she looked. Her hands moved constantly, fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve, twisting her bracelet, pressing her palms flat against her thighs.

For a fleeting moment, your mind latched onto something completely irrational: Was she going to propose?

The thought felt absurd, but it burrowed into your brain anyway. The way she was avoiding eye contact, the way her fingers clasped and unclasped like she was gripping something small—it all seemed so... deliberate. Like she was holding onto something important.

You could almost picture it: a velvet box, hidden in her jacket pocket, the hinge creaking as she opened it to reveal something glittering and perfect. Her nervousness would make sense then. Proposing was a big deal, a life-changing moment, and Jenna would want to get it exactly right.

It had to be that. Maybe it was wishful thinking, your mind scrambling for anything to distract you from your own nerves, but for a second, you almost let yourself believe it.

Then Jenna spoke, and it all came crashing down.

She didn't look at you right away. Her gaze dropped to her lap, where her hands were still fidgeting, and she swallowed hard before starting. "I've been thinking about this for a while," she said softly, her voice barely audible over the hum of the restaurant.

Your stomach dropped.

Her words were slow, halting, like she was trying to choose them carefully but wasn't quite sure how. She glanced up at you briefly, her eyes heavy with something you couldn't place—sympathy, maybe, or regret—before looking down again.

"It's just..." She paused, exhaling shakily. "With everything going on—with my career, and the projects, and traveling all the time... it's a lot. And I know it's not fair to you."

You didn't respond. You couldn't.

"I'm barely home," she continued, her voice trembling slightly. "And when I am, I'm... distracted. By work, by everything I have to do. I feel like I'm constantly being pulled in a million different directions, and no matter how hard I try, I can't... I can't give you the time or attention you deserve."

Her hands tightened in her lap, her knuckles pale against her skin. She looked up at you again, forcing herself to meet your gaze even though it clearly took effort.

"You've been so patient with me," she said, her voice thick with emotion. "So understanding, even when I didn't deserve it. And I hate that. I hate that I've let things get to this point, where I feel like I'm failing you."

She gulped, her Adam's apple bobbing as she struggled to steady herself. "I've been thinking about this for a long time," she repeated, almost as if she was trying to convince herself now.

The words hung heavy between you, suffocating in their weight.

"I just... I think it's for the best if we—if we break up."

The final words came out like a whisper, but they might as well have been a shout. They echoed in your head, over and over, until they drowned out everything else.

She was still looking at you, her expression raw and vulnerable, waiting for you to say something—anything. But you couldn't.

Because in that moment, it felt like the ground had opened up beneath you, pulling you into a freefall you couldn't escape.

For a moment, you couldn't even process what she'd said. It didn't feel real, couldn't feel real. The restaurant around you blurred into nothing—voices faded into static, the clinking of plates and glasses became a distant hum. All you could hear was the sound of her words echoing in your mind.

Break up.

You blinked, and suddenly your throat was tight, your chest heavy, and your vision stung with tears threatening to spill over. You tried to swallow, but it felt like there was a lump lodged in your throat, growing bigger with every second of silence that passed.

All you could manage was a quiet, broken, "Oh."

It was barely a sound, barely anything at all, but it carried everything. All the confusion, the hurt, the disbelief—it was packed into that one syllable that trembled out of you. And the moment it escaped, you felt like you were collapsing from the inside out.

Your hands trembled slightly as they rested on your lap, and you clenched them into fists to steady yourself.

But it didn't work. Your chest felt like it was caving in, your stomach churning violently as if you were going to be sick. You suddenly felt more ill than you'd ever felt before, like every bit of strength you had left was being drained out of you all at once.

You blinked again, and a tear slid down your cheek before you even realized you were crying.

Jenna didn't look away.

Her gaze stayed locked on you, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears, and that only made it worse. It made your chest tighten further, your throat burn hotter. Because why was she crying? Why was she crying?

If she thought this was the right thing to do, if she believed that breaking up was the solution, then why did she look like she was on the verge of breaking, too?

The thought stirred something sharp and bitter in your chest—something close to anger.

You didn't want to be angry, not at her. You loved her more than anything, more than yourself, more than anything you'd ever known in this world. But in that moment, it bubbled up anyway, unbidden and ugly.

How could she say this was for the best and look like she was about to cry? How could she sit there, tearing you apart with her words, and act like she felt guilty about it? Like she didn’t want to do this but was doing it anyway.

If she didn't want to do it, then why was she?

Your hands unclenched, trembling as you wiped hastily at your face, trying to erase the tears that kept coming. But it was no use. They kept falling, hot and relentless, leaving tracks down your cheeks that you couldn't hide, even if you tried.

"Okay," you whispered, though it wasn't okay. Nothing was okay. But you didn't have anything else to say. Your mind felt blank, empty except for the deafening echo of her words and the ache that spread through your chest like wildfire.

Your lips parted like you were about to say more, but nothing came out. There was so much you wanted to ask, to scream, to cry, but the weight of it all held you frozen. You could only sit there, staring at her through the blur of your tears, wondering how it had come to this.

Why now? Why like this? Why, after everything you'd been through together, was this the moment it all fell apart?

Your heart felt like it was breaking, splintering into a million pieces you didn't know how to put back together.

You stared at her, searching her face for something—anything—that might explain this, that might soften the blow. But all you saw was sadness and guilt and resolve. And that, more than anything, made you feel like you might throw up.

You didn't know how to respond—what could you say? Everything felt so wrong, so heavy, and all you could do was sit there, your throat too tight to speak, your heart too shattered to form words.

And Jenna, maybe out of nervousness or guilt—or both—began to ramble again. Her voice was softer now, tinged with a slight tremor, like she was trying to steady herself but couldn't quite manage it.

"I—I've just been thinking about this a lot," she said, her words spilling out in a way that didn't quite connect. "With... everything. My work, how busy it's been, and I don't know. I've been trying to figure it out, and it's like—like maybe it's just too much."

Her fingers fidgeted in her lap, twisting her rings and pressing into her palm as if she could ground herself that way.

Her gaze flicked up to you, then away, then back again. She looked like she was searching for something—understanding, forgiveness, anything—but couldn't seem to hold your eyes for more than a second at a time.

"It's not that I don't care," she added quickly, almost desperately, her words tripping over themselves. "You know I do. You know I care about you so much, and that's why—" She stopped mid-sentence, pressing her lips together hard, her brows furrowing like she didn't know how to finish the thought.

Her voice was uneven when she started again. "I just—everything's so complicated right now. With filming, with traveling, and—and I feel like..." Her words faltered again, and she let out a shaky breath, her shoulders sagging as if the weight of her own thoughts was too much.

Her sentences were fragmented, scattered, like she didn't fully know how to explain herself. It wasn't an argument, wasn't a definitive declaration—it was just... messy.

And that made it worse.

Because nothing she was saying felt concrete, nothing felt like a real reason. It was all just vague, unfinished thoughts that left you sitting there, trying to piece together what she actually meant. Trying to figure out if she even knew what she was saying.

Jenna swallowed hard, her throat bobbing as she glanced down at her lap again. "I don't know how else to say it," she murmured, almost to herself, her voice barely audible.

But that didn't make it any clearer.

All you could do was sit there, still frozen, still unable to speak, as she rambled on, her words tangling together in a way that felt more like she was trying to convince herself than explain anything to you.

And it felt like every word she said was chipping away at something inside you, leaving you raw and exposed and aching.

You couldn't even process the idea of why she was doing this, because she wasn't giving you a reason—she was just... saying things. Vague, messy things that didn't feel like they added up to anything but heartbreak.

"What were you going to say?" She asked, clearly getting the point of her rambling not helping anybody at the table. You felt your stomach twist violently. Her tone was soft, hesitant, like she was trying to patch the cracks she'd just shattered into existence, but it only made everything worse.

You stared at her, your heart thudding heavily in your chest. Was she serious? Did she really think she could just ask that now—after everything—and act like it hadn't happened? Like you weren't sitting here, choking on the weight of her words, trying to make sense of it all?

You couldn't believe it. And yet, part of you could. This was so her—to try and smooth it all over, to shove the pieces of normalcy back into place even when it was painfully obvious they didn't fit anymore. But you could see it in her face, in the way her lips trembled and her eyes flicked nervously over your expression. She knew it wasn't working. She knew this was ridiculous.

Still, you couldn't answer right away. Because, what could you even say?

What you were going to say—what you needed to say—wasn't something you could tell her now. Not after this. Not after she'd sat across from you and torn everything apart, leaving you to sit here, raw and exposed, trying to make sense of her fragmented reasoning.

You couldn't tell her. You couldn't tell her that you were sick. Because now it would look like a desperate attempt to make her stay, to guilt her into taking it all back. And that was the last thing you wanted.

No—more than that, it would make it real. Actually real. Saying the words out loud, to her of all people, in this moment, would make it something you couldn't take back. And you weren't ready for that. You weren't ready for any of it.

"It was nothing," you muttered, your voice flat and quiet, barely recognizable as your own. You stared at the table, refusing to meet her eyes, because the weight of her gaze was too much to bear. "Just... nothing important."

You hoped she'd leave it at that, though you could tell from the way her expression softened into something unbearably sympathetic that she didn't believe you. She was probably going to ask again, probably going to try to dig deeper, but you couldn't give her more. Not now. Not like this.

She didn't press you for more, but the silence that followed felt louder than anything she could have said. You didn't look at her, didn't dare, because you knew what you'd see—concern, confusion, maybe even guilt—and you couldn't take it. Not after everything.

You tried to focus on the table in front of you, the half-empty glass of soda that had gone warm, the plate of untouched food that suddenly felt miles away. But your mind wouldn't stop racing.

This wasn't how you'd imagined it. None of it.

All the words you'd rehearsed, the courage you'd spent all day building, the carefully planned moment—it was gone now, swept away like it had never existed. And no matter how much you wanted to, no matter how desperately you wished you could take it all back, it was too late.

Too late to say what you'd come here to say. Too late to stop what she'd said instead. Too late to fix whatever had been shattered between you tonight.

And now, you'd have to face it all alone.

The waiting rooms. The cold sterility of hospital walls. The appointments that stretched on longer than the days themselves. You'd prepared yourself for those things, or at least tried to, but you'd never prepared for doing it without her.

You couldn't blame her. You wouldn't. But that didn't make it hurt any less.

You swallowed hard, willing the tears to stay put, and reached for your glass, if only to give your hands something to do. The carbonation fizzed on your tongue, sharp and bitter, but you barely tasted it.

And as Jenna's gaze lingered on you, hesitant and uncertain, you told yourself the same thing you'd been trying to believe all night.

You would be fine. You had to be.

Because now, it was too late to say otherwise.

[idyllic-ghost]

Title: A Helping Hand - Part Two Pairing: office worker!Mingyu x office worker!fem!reader Genre: office romance, enemies to lovers, fluff, angst, smut, coworkers-with-benefits Wordcount: 11.6k Rating: 18+

Synopsis: Your usually bitter coworker becomes your hero during a train ride home, and your strict work-relationship changes... is it for the better or the worst?

Warnings: mentions of nyctophobia (afraid of the dark) and social anxiety, nsfw content (MDNI), public sex,

Disclaimer: The scenarios and depictions in my works are fictional and do not represent real-life situations. They do not aim to reflect the complexities of any culture, city, or individual. All characters are entirely fictional, regardless of names or descriptions.

MDNI: Adults only. Minors are not allowed. Any minors found will be blocked.

A/N: this fic was created before i decided to leave this blog permanently, and put on queue to be posted now. this blog is still not active. read here to find out why

Masterlists

Read part one here

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Mingyu had made it his mission to find every possible way to make your life miserable, seemingly for no reason. One morning, you walked into your morning meeting right on time, only to discover that he had moved the meeting to another room at the last minute, causing you to arrive late. It was always petty, small things that your superiors could easily overlook. His antics were infuriating, and yet, on the rare days when he didn’t pull something, you found yourself believing that he might change. Wishful thinking, perhaps. Despite how annoyed Kim Mingyu could make you, you couldn’t deny that you found him incredibly attractive—especially not when he gave you every opportunity to check him out.

Mingyu's wardrobe consisted exclusively of tight button-ups and form-fitting trousers. Each day, he strutted into the office in yet another stylish and flattering outfit. His walk was confident, bordering on a swagger. If it was chilly, he wore a coat over his suit; if it was warm, he tossed his suit jacket over his shoulder and rolled his sleeves messily up to his elbows. It was the kind of thing you’d expect to see in a French romantic movie—elegant clothes, subtle showing off, and fiery glances.

Things only got more complicated after he stopped tormenting you. That morning, you came into the office a little late. You had missed your first alarm, and of course, the train you took had to shut down. You ran into the office, stopping by your desk to grab a few papers for the meeting. To your surprise, there was a yellow post-it note stuck on your papers. "Meeting moved to room 504," it said. You recognized Mingyu’s handwriting from all the documents you had seen him sign. 

Despite the possibility that he could be playing a joke on you, you decided to trust the note—and, sure enough, the meeting had been moved. When you walked into the meeting, which had only just started, Mingyu sent you a smile. Not the usual evil smirk but a genuine smile. After apologizing for being late and making a small comment about train trouble, you sat down.

Since the incident on the train home a few weeks ago, things had been different. The station had been packed, making it impossible not to stand close to him, or anyone else. Air wouldn’t reach the bottom of your lungs, your muscles tensed up, and a lump formed in your throat. You tried to close your eyes and do breathing exercises, but it had no effect. When the train arrived, Mingyu walked close behind you as you were practically pushed through the doors. As your heartbeat quickened to an alarming pace, Mingyu grabbed your arm and led you to a secluded corner of the train. He shielded you from the crowd with his body, giving you enough space to breathe.

While that was comforting, albeit a little embarrassing, it got worse when the train had a minor accident. The sudden and aggressive brake would have thrown you across the train, seeing as you had nothing to hold onto, but Mingyu’s strong arm wrapped around your waist. He held both of you upright by gripping tightly onto the railing. Instinctively, you hugged him to keep yourself steady but tried to pull away as soon as the train stopped. Just a second later, the lights went out, and Mingyu gripped you tighter. Your head was pressed against his chest, and you could hear his quickened heartbeat. He was scared of the dark. You stayed in place, letting him squeeze you against him—pretending not to notice his shaking hands.

When the train started up again, you both acted like nothing had happened. However, ever since that day, your work relationship with Mingyu has changed. He was kind to you for once; he helped you out when you had a lot of work to do, he had lunch with you, and he left you little notes about last-minute changes in plans. Was he scared you’d tell people he was afraid of the dark? Were all of his kind acts some sort of backward blackmail? Despite these questions, your view of Mingyu began to shift.

You still watched him walk into the office every morning, like a predator stalking its prey. But now, instead of a quick glance, Mingyu would turn to you and greet you with a warm smile. When he tried to strike up a conversation, you pretended to be busy—which wasn’t difficult, since you actually were busy. Although your coworker had suddenly become a big part of your day, your most important task was to get all of your work done by the end of the month.

So you found yourself staying late at work, just happening to pick the same day as Mingyu to do overtime. Neither of you said anything to each other, you didn’t even notice that everyone had left except for him until you stood up to stretch out your stiff limbs. As soon as you spot him on the other side of the desk, his face lit up by his monitor, you jump back with a loud yelp. Mingyu breaks out into a big grin as he tries to hold back his laughter. You try to fix your disheveled-looking self, having taken out your stress on your physical appearance while working. 

“What are you doing here?” you asked.

“Working,” he answered. “What else?”

“You’re so-” You sat back down in your chair with a groan and rubbed the tiredness from your eyes. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.” Mingyu peaked at you from behind his monitor.

No wonder you hadn’t seen him before. Despite the man being over six feet, and bigger than most men in the office, he wasn’t bigger than the giant monitors that your office had gotten you. He had to stretch, just ever so slightly, to get his eye-line over the edge of the monitor. You narrowed your eyes at him, any of your normal social capabilities had flown out the window as soon as you stayed in the office past five o’clock. 

“You’re wrong,” you muttered, “I do. Leave me alone.”

“You’re the one who interrupted me,” Mingyu argued.

You stayed quiet, long enough for Mingyu to return to whatever he was doing on his computer. An irritation bubbled up your throat as comebacks and retorts whirred around your brain. However, your brain was already tired and so, while you wanted to respond with a jaw-dropping comment, all you could do was huff and sigh. Looking at the clock, you realize how late it was. If you started going home now you wouldn’t get there until very late, which meant you’d want to sleep in just a little extra. 

You closed the things you had been working on to pull up your schedule - of course, you had an early morning meeting. A meeting where you had to prepare a few copies of the new agenda you had been working on. If you printed them now, you’d still be able to sleep in. With a new surge of motivation, you clicked print on your document and hurried over to the office printer. It stood in the corner of the room, mostly gathering dust since you were one of the few who still used it. 

You could feel Mingyu’s eyes burning holes in your back, but you refused to look back. Everything went smoothly, the printer started and you scanned your tag so that it could print out your papers. However, as you pressed on the document you wanted to print, it stopped. You cursed under your breath as you kicked the side of the machine - it didn’t help, of course. You sighed and put your forehead against your palm. By now you could’ve had the copies on your desk in a neat pile, walking out of here and leaving Mingyu in the dust. As if he could read your thoughts, you felt the tall man come up from behind you. He looked over your shoulder and let out a low whistle.

“This is why you should just send out digital copies,” he murmured next to your ear, sending an unwelcome shiver down your spine.

“You use the printer, too.” You try not to move, if you did you’d end up backing into his broad chest - and you could not be reminded of how good it felt to have him press you against him during that train ride.

“Ah, but I know how to push its buttons.”

At this point, you thought he must have been teasing you—pushing your buttons. Mingyu reached around you, his arms encapsulating you against the machine, and with one hand he pressed a few buttons to get the machine starting again - the other just rested on the printer. His face was right next to yours now, his entire body was practically engulfing you despite his skin never quite touching yours. 

The hand that had held your head up now came down to lay on your chest as if it could help keep your heartbeat down. You didn’t know if it was his body heat, or if you were actually able to create this much warmth on your own, but you were getting increasingly hot under your work clothes. The printer beeped in approval of Mingyu’s touch, and your breath hitched in your throat at the sudden sound. Your papers started printing, but Mingyu didn’t move. He put his hands down on the hard plastic, keeping you caged in.

“See? Not that hard,” he hummed.

“I guess not.” You tried to swallow the clump that had built up in your throat, but it was an impossible feat. 

For some reason, you turned your head to look at him. At your movements, he also shifted to look at you. His eyes drifted to your lips before he caught himself and looked back at your eyes. His gaze was heavy, and you almost couldn’t hold eye contact - at the same time it was thrilling and, like driving past a car crash on the highway, you couldn’t look away. It was as if his eyes were begging you for something, you just couldn’t figure out what. 

His breath fanned against your lips, reminding you of how close he was. Your lips parted, as you were about to say something, but the beeping sound of the printer being done broke the tension. Mingyu grumbled something under his breath, but you couldn’t hear it over the happy, unaware, printer noises. He moved away from you, gathering all of your papers and handing them to you. As you took the papers from his hands, your hand brushed against his and sparks ran from your fingertips through the rest of your body. This was bad.

“Thanks,” you mumbled. “I’ll be heading out now…”

“Let me walk you,” Mingyu offered a little bit too quickly.

The cold air outside the building was a blessing in disguise. You were shivering, but at least you got the opportunity to cool down. You could barely speak to him, only making short comments here and there - and he did the same. Despite the cooling air, the tension was still there. Had he wanted to kiss you before? Was he sleep-deprived or something?

The train ride wasn’t any better, but at least you had a reason to be silent. He offered you the last seat on the train, opting to stand and hold onto the strap handle right in front of your seat. You kept your eyes on your lap for the entire ride, only looking up when you had to get off the train at your stop. As you exited the station, you quickly said goodbye and walked in different directions. When you came home, you quickly took off your work clothes, and washed your face, before making yourself a quick, and a little sad, dinner. Then, finally, you got to throw yourself into bed and hide away from everything that had to do with Kim Mingyu… 

-

When you walked into the office the next morning, you were the only one there. You walked over to your desk, smiling at the neat pile of papers on your desk. Seeing as you had arrived so early, you went over to the coffee machine and made yourself a cup. As you waited, you turned around to lean against the counter only to see Mingyu sitting by his desk right in front of you. He was turned towards you, his usually neat hair now a mess, and the top three buttons of his shirt were undone - the light blue one, that fit him like a glove, and that he had matched with the navy blue slacks. He was slightly slouching in his chair, his legs spread out wide. 

“Oh! You scared me…” You let out a breath and tried to laugh the situation off.

One of his hands beckoned you over and, for whatever reason, you obeyed. You were right in front of him, standing in between his legs. He looked up at you with big, puppy-like eyes and patted his thigh. Suddenly, you were naked and straddling his lap - riding him. As you kept bouncing up and down on his thick cock, his hands were traveling all over your body. You gripped onto his nice shirt, wrinkling the material.

“You’re doing so well for me, baby,” he moaned. “Fuck yeah, keep going…”

As your legs grew tired, your movements got sloppy. Mingyu noticed and picked you up with ease. With one swipe of his hand, he pushed everything off his desk to lay you down on it. His fingers gripped your hips, so tight that they must have left marks, as he slammed into you. All of his clothes were gone now, his bare chest and rippling abs on display for you.

“Are you going to cum for me, baby? You can do that, can’t you?” His voice was condescending, but you didn’t have it in you to bite back.

You moaned out his name, as your orgasm approached quickly…which is when you woke up.

You sat straight up in bed. The sun was trying its best to get through your blinds, and your clock said 6:14 am - sixteen minutes away from your alarm. You let out a shaky breath, gripping the sheets tightly as if it could help you get rid of your thoughts. It was impossible. Images of Mingyu’s blissed-out expression were ingrained into your skull. With little to no shame left in you, you reached over to your bedside table and took out the vibrator you had hidden in the second drawer.

-

When you got to work that morning, you went straight for the kitchen. Unlike in your dream, the coffee machine was not in the office space - yet another unrealistic thing, you thought, so you shouldn’t pay any attention to it at all. Right? You took out a cup from the cupboard and poured yourself a large cup of black coffee. 

It was when you heard his laugh that you realized that you couldn’t logic yourself out of this. Did he know? Could he suddenly read minds? You turned around to see him talking with a few of your colleagues. Always the social butterfly. He was wearing the same outfit he had in your dream, the sleeves of his blue button-up deliciously rolled up to his elbows—showing off his veiny hands and arms—because of course he had to wear that today. He was too attractive for his own good. When he noticed you staring, he smiled and waved. You sent him a small smile and quickly left the room.

This was just because you had snooped around on his Instagram once or twice, you convinced yourself. He really should stop posting photos of his vacations or of him in the gym—posting half-naked pictures of yourself shouldn’t be allowed… at least not for him. You picked up the neat paper pile from your desk, suddenly remembering last night’s incident again. Kim Mingyu needed to get the fuck out of your head.

You were first in the meeting room, putting out papers on everyone’s desk before sitting down in your usual seat. A few minutes later, the rest of the team walked in - including Mingyu. He sat down right in front of you, and you felt like dying when he tried to get your eye contact again. The meeting started, and your supervisor thanked you for the documents. After telling her that it was no big deal, you didn’t speak for the rest of the meeting. You barely even noticed, you just nodded and laughed whenever everyone else did—none of the words they said processed in your brain, as it was far too busy trying to not think about having sex with Kim Mingyu. Which is why when he said your name, you almost flew out of your chair.

“Sorry, what?” You did your best to compose yourself while your colleagues snickered.

“You can do that, can’t you?” he repeated.

“Are you going to cum for me, baby? You can do that, can’t you?”

You wanted to hide under the table, desperate to hide the way your face started heating up. 

“Book a dinner at the restaurant?” he added when he saw you hesitate to answer.

“Oh, sure.” You cleared your throat. “... which restaurant?”

The rest of your team laughed again, someone commenting on how you should start getting more sleep. You had slept. You had slept wonderfully, in fact, but you couldn’t tell them that. Your supervisor told you that she’d write the name down for you and that you just had to call and check if they had anything open for a party of 25—the number of people working on the company’s latest project. You quickly agreed and accepted the note from her. 

The week couldn’t go any slower, but eventually, you got to Friday. You had called the restaurant and booked it up for the following week, and you had finished all of your tasks. Everything was looking up for you, and the dream of Mingyu was hidden in the back of your brain. Although, you couldn’t help but try to avoid him. It was difficult enough to look him in the eye, let alone have a conversation with him. The most you could do was sit silently at your desk while he worked at his desk right in front of you, and even that was difficult. 

Mingyu picked up on your weird behavior during that first meeting and immediately got worried that he had gone too far by the printer. He tried talking to you, but it was impossible. You always found an excuse to avoid him - whether it was another colleague calling your name, that he couldn’t hear, or if you had extra work you had to get done. Now, at the end of the week, he knew that you had finished all of your work as your boss had just praised you for it in front of him. 

The next time Mingyu tried to talk to you, you were standing in the kitchen, waiting for the coffee machine to finish brewing. The rich aroma of freshly ground coffee beans filled the air, and the gentle hum of the machine was oddly soothing. Mingyu approached his presence immediately setting your nerves on edge.

“Hey,” he said, his tone casual yet expectant.

You felt a pang of panic and quickly blurted out, “Oh, I just remembered—I forgot something in the storage room.”

Without waiting for his response, you abandoned your half-filled coffee cup on the counter and hurried out of the kitchen, your heart racing.

Mingyu watched you go, frustration was evident in his eyes. He had had enough of your evasions. Determined to get to the bottom of things, he followed you to the storage room.

When he walked in, the dim lighting cast long shadows over the stacks of boxes and shelves. He found you standing in a corner, nervously picking at your fingernails. You weren’t searching for anything; instead, you were doing absolutely nothing to find the supposed item you had forgotten. Your eyes were fixed on the floor, and your shoulders were tense, betraying your unease.

“What are you doing here?” you asked quickly.

“I need to talk to you.” Mingyu walked closer to you, and you had nowhere to go except to press yourself against the wall.

“No, you don’t,” you peeped.

“Did I do something?”

“No-”

“Then what’s your problem with me? Why are you ignoring me?”

“Mr. Kim-”

“Did I go too far by the printer? I’m sorry if I did- I really am, Y/N. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I just wish we could talk about it-”

“I wasn’t uncomfortable,” you interrupted.

“... then why have you been ignoring me?”

You scoffed and tried to argue that you actually hadn’t ignored him, it must have just seemed like it since you had been so busy. But Mingyu quickly caught onto your bullshit.

“Y/N, please. Talk to me.” He sighed. “I know I’ve been an ass to you, and I’m sorry, but I’ve been trying to make it up to you ever since the- the train…”

“Mr. Kim-”

“Mingyu,” he said, “please.”

“Mingyu… you didn’t do anything, I promise. I just…” How were you supposed to tell him that you had a dream about him fucking you and that you then masturbated to the thought of said dream? Yeah… maybe leave that last part out. Still, you owed him some sort of explanation.

“Has something happened? Did someone tell you something?” He sounded worried.

“No- no… I just had… a dream about you.” You practically whispered out the last part.

“A dream?” Not only was Kim Mingyu attractive, smart, and funny, but he apparently also had super-sonic hearing.

“Yeah… it’s awkward, I’m sorry. This is why I didn’t want to tell you-”

Instead of backing away, like you thought he would, he walked closer to you. Your back was against the cold wall now, you had nowhere to go unless you wanted to jump over an old table or crash through a shelf. Parkour was not your strong suit, and definitely not in heels, so you stayed in place.

“What was the dream about?” He was towering over you again, a teasing smile playing on his lips.

“Mingyu, please…” you whined. “It was embarrassing enough to dream it, don’t make me say it out loud.”

“I want to know how you dream of me,” he said and put his arm on the wall behind you.

Your breath hitched in your throat as he inched closer to you. His forehead was almost touching yours. In his eyes, you could see that same heaviness that you felt the night you were doing overtime with him. You felt compelled to tell him, you had to see where this would lead.

“We were in the office.” Your eyes darted to his lips as he wet them with the tip of his tongue. “I had just arrived, and you were the only one there…”

“Uh-huh,” he hummed. “And then?”

“Then you beckoned me over to your desk and…” Your face flushed. “Please don’t make me say it, Mingyu.”

“I want to hear what I did to you for you to get so flustered.” He reached up to cup your face with the hand that wasn’t still on the wall behind you. “Come on, baby. Spit it out.”

“I fucked you in your office chair.” Your voice was barely above a whisper. “Then you had your way with me on your desk…”

“And did you cum, baby?” he muttered.

You couldn’t answer, the words stuck in your throat. He grinned and leaned his forehead against yours. The feeling of his, much colder, skin against your flustered face made your eyes flutter shut. Now that you couldn’t see him looking at you, you gathered up the strength to continue.

“I woke up before I could cum,” you admitted.

“What a shame…” He paused and watched as you bit down on your bottom lip. “Unless you took care of it afterward… did you touch yourself to the thought of me, baby?”

“Yes…” you breathed out.

“Good,” he murmured, “I’ve done it too.”

“You have?” You opened your eyes again.

“Believe me,” he said, “You’re not the only one with dirty dreams, sweetheart… Do you want me to make your dreams come true?”

You thought that you hadn’t heard him right, or that you were dreaming of him again. But when you nodded, and he leaned in, your breath hitched in anticipation. When his lips finally pressed against yours, the firm, demanding pressure confirmed that this wasn’t just a figment of your imagination.

His kiss was intense, igniting a primal hunger within you. The warmth of his mouth, the taste of him, was far better than any fantasy. Your hands instinctively gripped his shirt, pulling him closer, desperate to feel more of him. Mingyu’s hands roamed your back, pressing you tightly against his body, the heat between you rising rapidly.

Every touch, every movement, fueled the fire inside you. The real Kim Mingyu was solid, warm, and undeniably present, far surpassing any wild thoughts your mind could conjure. This was raw, physical desire, a craving that demanded to be satisfied.

That’s how you ended up on the old table in the storage room, with Mingyu’s cock buried deep in your cunt. His strong hands gripped your waist hard, and he used that grip to mercilessly pound into you. The two of you had barely had time to take off your clothes properly; your pants were shoved down to your ankles, and your shirt pulled up to expose the swell of your breast, meanwhile, the bottom of Mingyu’s shirt was pulled between his teeth, keeping it out of the way for him to continue absolutely ruining you. Mingyu’s pants were pulled down just far enough for him to pull his dick out, and you hoped that his pants are dark enough to hide the stain that your juices are definitely leaving on him.

“Don’t stop-” you hissed out through gritted teeth.

While the storage unit was secluded, it wasn’t soundproof. You tried your best to contain all of your noises, but Mingyu seemed to have a mission to push all of your buttons until you were screaming his name. One of his hands traveled from your hip to your clit, where he furiously rubbed small circles over the bud. You were practically convulsing on the table at this point, clenching around him sporadically.

“Fuck- I’m gonna cum-”

“Yes- shit- cum inside me,” you moaned.

The man above you lost his mind at your words, his eyes rolling into the back of his head as he pushed his hips against yours. He came, and you soon followed him into paradise from his work on your clit. Mingyu’s form slumped over yours, his head lying by your shoulder. With a groan, he pulled out of you. Before his cum could trickle out of you, he pulled your panties and your pants back up.

“Don’t want you to make a mess and expose us, right?” he hummed. “Can you keep it in for me, baby?”

You couldn’t respond and only nodded yes. While you lay still on the table, Mingyu got dressed. The shuffling of his clothes slowly woke you up from your drowsed state, and you slowly sat up as you heard him buckling his belt. He had managed to tuck his wrinkly shirt into his pants, although it didn’t look as proper as it did this morning. He noticed you staring when he put the belt through the final hoop. Mingyu’s hair was a mess, probably from your relentless tugging on it, and his pupils were blown out.

“Do I look okay?” he asked with a small smile.

“You looked like you just got fucked in a storage room,” you deadpanned as you started fixing your clothes.

“I’m not the one who got fucked,” he argued, grinning wide.

“Don’t talk semantics with me right now.” You groaned.

As you stood up your legs were a little shaky, but, even worse, you could feel Mingyu’s cum dripping out of you and soiling your panties. The fact that you were getting turned on by it was something you didn’t dare say out loud. Mingyu’s cocky grin at your facial expression was embarrassing enough.

“Same time next week?” he joked.

“Fuck off.”

-

And yet, just a few days later, you were back in the storage room with Mingyu. It wasn’t your fault that he had a body sculpted by the gods, and possibly the best dick you’ve ever had. Despite hating him outside of this storage unit, you let yourself love the way his large hands manhandle you in that storage room. There’s always an urgency to Mingyu’s touch and you can’t tell if it’s because he wants to get it over with, or if he’s just that into you.

Every time you're free, from then on, you leave little post-it notes on his desk, and he does the same for you. Usually, it’s a question like “Got time?” or “Meet up later?”, but when one of you is feeling particularly needy—like when Mingyu decided to wear a tight-fitting t-shirt instead of his usual button-ups—you just write “five minutes”. 

That wasn’t the only way the two of you got creative. Sometimes you didn’t make it all the way to the storage room, sometimes Mingyu would sneak you into a bathroom or a meeting room with curtains. After a few weeks of this, you’d been eaten out in your usual meeting chair, fucked against a bathroom mirror, and you had cum more times than you could count in that storage room.

At this point, you got embarrassed whenever your coworkers said they were going to the storage room - if only they knew. One of them almost found out once. You were unsure of who it was, but while Mingyu was eating you out in the storage room someone had tried to get in. The footsteps could be heard outside the door, and you had desperately tried to push Mingyu away. With a mischievous look in his eyes, he continued eating you out on the old, creaky, table. You didn’t try to fight it, instead throwing a hand over your mouth and hoping that the door was locked. Luckily for you, it was. Mingyu had known but said nothing to you at the moment. You punished him with ignoring his pleas for sex for a few days, before eventually giving in to your urges.

It’s late, and you’re still in the office—working overtime, just like the evening that it all started. You were sitting in front of your computer, still working on a current project that you had been procrastinating on. It wasn’t the fault of Mingyu; the frequent sex with him had, surprisingly, led to the two of you getting a better work ethic. Getting your frustrations out on each other worked wonders on your projects, to the point where your supervisor praised you both for the amount of work you had gotten done. 

Mingyu sits by the desk in front of you, unlike you he is not working. He was watching you, and you knew it. You could feel him undressing you with his eyes—if it was one thing that he did like his life depended on it, it was getting horny by the slightest things. You had gotten slightly undressed; you had unbuttoned the top buttons on your shirt—it really only exposed your collarbones. 

“Y/N,” Mingyu rasped.

“Not now, I’m still working,” you muttered.

He groaned, throwing his head back and bumping his head on the back of his chair. You chuckled, not taking your eyes away from your screen—yet, you knew that he was pouting. Still not looking up, you heard him get up and walk behind you. He placed his warm hands on your shoulders, the weight of them forced you to relax your stiff muscles. Gently, he started working his thumbs into your flesh. 

“You could use a break,” he hummed.

“I have to get this done,” you said, trying to bite back the sounds Mingyu’s hands were beginning to pull out of you.

“Just quickly?” His voice was right by your ear now, and he bent further down to press a kiss to your neck. “I need you.”

“You always do.” You sighed, partially out of annoyance but also because Mingyu’s thumb had found a sore spot in your left shoulder.

“Ouch.” He chuckled. “I’ll remind you of that next time you want me.”

His hands traveled from the curve of your neck to your upper arms. As he loomed over you, encasing you completely, it got harder for you to breathe - your lungs would only fill halfway before you had to breathe out again. Your eyes fluttered shut as you felt his breath by your ear. Mingyu’s lips found your neck and he left soft pecks along your delicate skin. 

“I’ll be in the meeting room,” he whispered in your ear.

Mingyu left your side, and a chill ran down your spine as his warmth left you with him. You were staring at your screen again, the light harsh on your eyes. With a frustrated sigh, you turned off the computer and stood up from your chair. You knew which meeting room Mingyu was talking about - because there was only one meeting room that didn’t have cameras or windows on the doors.

When you opened the door, you were met with the mouth-watering sight of Mingyu shrugging off his button-up - his muscles moving delicately under his skin. How he got so ripped, you will never know; you just assumed he had been blessed by some other-worldly creature. He looked over his shoulder with a cocky grin playing on his lips, his canines flashing.

“You came,” he said.

“You knew I would,” you answered.

He turned around to allow you to see an even more heavenly sight and as he walked toward you, you were at a loss for words. Mingyu’s hands easily found your waist as he pulled you in closer, still grinning about winning the game of your attention.

“Yeah, I did,” he murmured before pressing a kiss on your lips.

Your hands were on his chest in a matter of seconds, pushing him towards an empty chair - getting no protests from the man in front of you. When Mingyu sat down, you got on top of him. You straddled his lap and connected your lips again, as you began grinding against his crotch. The always needy Mingyu gripped you tighter, his hands being his only way of expressing his deep desire when your mouth was drowning out his whimpers. Your movements never stopped, but your lips traveled from his lips to his neck - allowing him to make whatever noises he needed to. As your fingertips explored his exposed chest, testing out what would bring the biggest reaction out of him, you felt him hardening against your clothed core. 

The pencil skirt you were wearing had ridden up to sit on your hips, and Mingyu took the opportunity to grab your almost bare ass. You remember the first time you had worn this to the office - you always wore slack out of comfort, but ever since your escapades with your coworker, you had wanted to dress up more - and the image of Mingyu’s, almost pained, expression had been enough for you to keep wearing it, that and how rough he fucked you during the days you decided to tease him with it. Today was that kind of day, as you slid down from his lap and onto your knees on the floor.

“I’ll bring you coffee from the place across the street every morning, if you please suck me off right now,” Mingyu just about begged.

“I was already planning on doing that,” you murmured as you palmed him over his pants. “But I’ll take you up on that offer anyway.”

You went to unbuckle his pants, and Mingyu lifted his hips off immediately. Words of praise slipped out of your lips at his good behavior, and he let out a soft whimper - you would have to remember this for later. After pulling down his pants, you let your nails drag down his thighs. He was visibly hard through his underwear, and it made your mouth water. You palmed him again, peering up at him through your lashes as you did. Mingyu’s pupils were almost entirely covering his iris, his eyebrows knitted together, and his teeth biting down on his bottom lip to hold in his moans. You licked along his clothed cock before playing with the hem of his underwear.

“There’s no one else here,�� you murmured. “Don’t hold back on me, baby.”

At your command, Mingyu let out a breath that he didn’t know he had been holding in - a soft moan coming out with it. He nodded and lifted his hips up again for you to pull off his underwear. His pretty cock slapped against his abdomen, and you took it in your hand to guide it back to your mouth. Pressing a sweet kiss to his tip had Mingyu shivering. 

You noticed his hands gripping the armrests like his life depended on it, so - before you took him in your mouth - you had mercy on him and guided his hands to your head instead. Mingyu’s fingers entangled themselves in your hair as if he had done it a thousand times before. When you took him in your mouth, he gasped and whined - he tried to push his hips up, but you pushed him back down again. The part of his length you can’t take in your mouth, you stroke with your hand.

“Fuck, baby,” Mingyu moaned. “You’re going to be the death of me… please, let me cum on your tits this time? No one’s around to see it—”

You pop your mouth off his cock but keep stroking it with the same roughness and fast pace, enjoying watching him fall apart for you. “You’ll cum in my mouth or you won’t cum at all. I’m not walking home with stains on my shirt.”

Mingyu huffed, but couldn’t bring himself to complain. “... could I cum inside you?”

You looked up at him with a knowing smile. At this point, you were convinced he had a breeding kink of some sort—even if you were on birth control, the thought of cumming inside of you still made him go mad.

“Fine.” You stood back up.

Mingyu adjusted himself in his seat as you took off your panties. You pushed the wet fabric into his mouth, and he moaned around it. “To keep you quiet,” you said.

He always got so loud when you were riding him. You stayed clothed and got on his lap again. Mingyu’s hands settled on your hips while you guided his cock to your entrance. A satisfied sigh left your lips when you sank down on him. Grinding on him, you took your time to adjust to his size—which was driving Mingyu to insanity.

“Please.” His voice was muffled by the fabric of your underwear and he peered up at you with big, almost teary eyes.

You take pity on him—such a big, brawny man and he can’t bring himself to grip your hips and have his way with you—so, you start moving. It wasn’t always that he was like this, but you always enjoyed yourself thoroughly when he was. Mingyu groaned and rolled his eyes into the back of his head. His fingers grip your hips roughly but didn’t use his strength to move you to his will.

“Oh god–” He let out a muffled moan as you clenched around him.

You brought your hand up to his cheek and cooed at him. “Who makes you feel this good?”

“You.”

“That’s right. Good boy.” You smiled proudly and pressed your lips on his. 

Mingyu hungrily responded, pushing forward in his chair and wrapping his strong arms around your frame to press you further against him. The chair creaked and croaked, but you paid no mind to it. All of your focus had to be on Mingyu.

“Cum for me, please?” you murmured against his lips.

Mingyu pulled away slightly to look into your eyes, but you never stopped moving. “Inside?”

“Inside.” You nodded.

For the first time this rendezvous, Mingyu took control of you. His hands picked you up so that he could start rutting up into you. You brought down one of your hands to rub your clit, determined to cum with him. You’re close. The coil in your stomach is about to snap, and when it does you see stars. Mingyu let out a groan as you spasmed around him, and spilled himself inside you. His arms are wrapped around you, holding you close while he comes down from his high.

When Mingyu leaned back, his breathing heavy, you found yourself still catching your breath. He took your panties out of his mouth, throwing them on his pile of clothes—no doubt planning on making you walk home without them. The rawness of your connection lingers in the air, charged with an electric tension. A sudden, unexpected stillness envelops the room. You feel Mingyu's warmth radiating against you. When you meet his gaze, you expect the teasing yet unattached Mingyu. But this time, there's something different in his eyes – a softness, a vulnerability that catches you off guard.

Before you could process the change, he gently cupped your face in his hands, his touch tender and deliberate. His thumb brushed a stray lock of hair from your cheek, and then, with a quiet sigh, he leaned in. The kiss was soft, lingering – a stark contrast to the fervor of just moments before. His lips pressed against yours with a chaste, almost reverent tenderness, conveying emotions words could never express.

In that instant, as his lips melded with yours in a delicate dance, a realization dawned upon you. This wasn’t just a fleeting affair or a simple coworkers-with-benefits arrangement. There was something deeper here, something profound and undeniable. The kiss ended, but the impact of it resonated within you, leaving you breathless and irrevocably changed.

Mingyu pulled back slightly, his eyes searching yours as if silently asking if you felt it too. And as you looked at him, heart pounding, you knew that things between you would never be the same. You pulled back and stood up from his lap, the weight of the kiss heavy on your mind. Mingyu’s eyes, still soft with lingering tenderness, followed your every move.

“Hey,” he said softly, his voice a gentle plea. “What’s wrong?”

You averted your gaze, focusing on the scattered papers on the table. “This… this wasn’t supposed to happen,” you stumbled over your words, your heart racing. “We agreed to keep things simple. No feelings, no complications.”

Mingyu stood up, his expression earnest. “I know, but…” He reached for your hand, his touch warm and reassuring. “That kiss… it meant something, didn’t it?”

You pulled your hand away, wrapping your arms around yourself defensively. “It can’t mean anything, Mingyu. We can’t afford to complicate things.”

His eyes searched yours, a mix of hope and vulnerability. “Why does it have to be complicated?”

You shake your head, taking another step back. “I can’t do this. I need to go.”

You paused at the door, glancing back at him. His eyes held a silent plea, but your own feelings are too tangled to unravel just yet.

-

You’ve been avoiding Mingyu since that day in the meeting room. The memory of his tender kiss haunted you, a constant reminder of the emotions you’ve been trying to suppress. At work, you kept your interactions strictly professional, dodging his attempts to talk. It was easier to bury your feelings beneath a facade of indifference.

Tonight, the team was out for dinner, a rare occasion meant to celebrate the completion of a big project. The restaurant was lively, filled with the sounds of laughter and clinking glasses. You sat at the end of the table, nursing your drink, and tried to appear engaged in the conversation around you. But your thoughts kept drifting back to Mingyu, seated just a few places away, his eyes occasionally flicking in your direction.

As the night progressed, you felt the effects of the alcohol more acutely. The room seemed to spin slightly, and you laughed a bit too loudly at a colleague’s joke. Just as you’re about to take another sip, you felt a presence beside you. It’s Mingyu.

“Can we talk?” he asked, his voice low, trying not to draw attention.

You glanced up, your heart skipping a beat at the sight of him so close. “Now’s not a good time,” you muttered, looking away.

“Please,” he insisted, his tone gentle but firm. “Just a minute.”

With a sigh, you set your glass down and follow him to a quieter corner of the restaurant. He stopped near the entrance to the patio, the cool night air providing a brief respite from the crowded, warm interior.

“What do you want, Mingyu?” you asked, crossing your arms defensively.

He looked at you, his eyes filled with concern. “I want to know why you’ve been avoiding me. Did I do something wrong?”

You scoffed, the alcohol loosening your tongue. “Do something wrong? You kissed me, Mingyu. After everything, you kissed me like it meant something.”

“It did mean something,” he said softly, taking a step closer. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

You shook your head, frustration bubbling up. “We agreed this was just a physical thing. No feelings, no complications. And now you’re trying to change everything.”

“I’m not trying to change anything,” he replied, his voice steady. “I’m just being honest about how I feel.”

“Well, maybe I don’t want to hear it,” you snapped, the words coming out harsher than you intended. “I can’t deal with this right now, Mingyu. It’s too much.”

The hurt in his eyes is unmistakable, but he doesn’t back down. “You’re pushing me away because you’re scared. But I’m not going anywhere. I care about you.”

“Stop it,” you say, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes. “Just… stop.”

Without waiting for his response, you turned and walked back to the table, grabbing your drink and taking a big gulp. You could feel the weight of Mingyu’s gaze on you, but you refused to look up. The rest of the dinner was a blur, the alcohol doing little to numb the ache in your chest. You sat at the table, isolated despite the crowd around you, and tried to drown your sadness in drink after drink.

Mingyu stayed at the other end of the table, a silent presence that you can’t ignore. You knew he was giving you space, but it doesn’t make it any easier. Each sip of your drink felt like a futile attempt to erase the memory of his kiss, the warmth of his touch, the sincerity in his eyes.

By the end of the night, you were too drunk to think straight, the world around you spinning as you stumbled to your feet. You lost count of how many glasses you downed in an effort to numb the confusing mix of emotions swirling inside you. The world around you has taken on a hazy, dreamlike quality, and your steps are unsteady as you attempt to stand.

Mingyu was beside you in an instant, his strong hands gripping your arms to keep you from toppling over. “Hey, easy there,” he says, his voice laced with concern. “You’re not looking too good.”

“I’m fine,” you mumbled, trying to shrug him off, but your legs betrayed you, wobbling beneath you.

“Let me take you home,” he offered, his grip tightening to support you.

“No,” you slurred, shaking your head stubbornly. “I can manage.”

Mingyu sighed, clearly unconvinced. “You can barely stand. You need help.”

“I don’t need help from you,” you snapped, the alcohol making your words sharper than intended. “I don’t even know you.”

His expression softened, a mix of hurt and understanding in his eyes. “I’m not a stranger. It’s Mingyu. Let me help you.”

You scoffed, still struggling against his hold. “Strangers can be named Mingyu too. I’m not telling a stranger where I live.”

He let out a resigned sigh, looking around the nearly empty restaurant. “Alright, if you won’t tell me where you live, I’ll take you to my place. You can sleep it off there.”

Too tired and drunk to argue further, you let him guide you out of the restaurant. The cool night air hits you like a splash of water, momentarily clearing your head. Mingyu kept a firm grip on you, his presence steady and reassuring as he led you to his car.

The drive was quiet, the hum of the engine a soothing background noise as you fought to keep your eyes open. Every so often, you stole glances at Mingyu, his profile illuminated by the passing streetlights. There was a determined set to his jaw, but his eyes flickered with concern whenever he looked your way.

When you arrived at his apartment building, he parked and helped you out of the car. The lobby was quiet, and the elevator ride up felt like it took forever. Mingyu kept an arm around you, ensuring you didn’t stumble.

Finally, you reached his apartment. He unlocked the door and guided you inside, the space warm and inviting. “You can take my bed,” he said, leading you to his bedroom. “I’ll crash on the couch.”

You nodded, too exhausted to protest. The bed was soft and comforting, and as soon as you lay down, sleep began to pull at you. Mingyu pulled a blanket over you, his touch gentle. “Get some rest,” he murmured. “We’ll talk in the morning.”

You barely managed a nod before sleep claimed you, the last thing you remembered was the sound of Mingyu quietly closing the door as he left you to rest.

-

The morning light filtered softly through the curtains, gently rousing you from sleep. You blink, disoriented, as you took in your unfamiliar surroundings. The bed was comfortable, the sheets warm and soft, but panic gripped you as you realized you were not in your own room. Memories of the previous night come rushing back, and your heart raced as you sat up, fearing the worst.

Had you given in to temptation while drunk? You quickly glanced down, relieved to find yourself still fully clothed, albeit a bit disheveled. With a sigh of relief, you slid out of bed, your feet sinking into the plush carpet. The room was tastefully decorated, modern but cozy, and it was clear this was Mingyu’s place.

Curiosity mixed with a bit of apprehension drove you to explore the apartment. You moved quietly, not wanting to wake him if he was nearby. The living room was spacious, with large windows letting in the morning sun, and the kitchen looked sleek and well-kept. As you turned a corner, you spotted him.

Mingyu was sprawled on the couch, his face peaceful in sleep. He was wrapped in a thin blanket, one toned arm draped over his eyes to block out the light. Your eyes fell on his naked shoulders—your imagination ran wild as his blanket was pulled up over his chest. Relief washed over you as you realized he had slept here, not with you. The tension in your chest eased slightly.

As you tiptoed towards the door, the floor creaked beneath your weight. Mingyu stirred the arm over his eyes falling away as he blinked up at you, groggy but alert. “Hey,” he mumbled, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. “You’re awake.”

You froze, caught in the act of sneaking out. “I’m sorry,” you stammered, feeling a flush of embarrassment. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

He offered a small smile, swinging his legs off the couch and standing up. He was only in pajama pants. “It’s alright. I was going to get up soon anyway.” He stretched, looking around the apartment, and pretended like he wasn’t showing off. “How are you feeling?”

“A bit hungover,” you admitted, rubbing your temples as an excuse to look down. “But otherwise okay. Thanks for letting me crash here.”

“Of course,” he said, walking towards the kitchen. “I didn’t want you going home in that state. Are you hungry? I can make us some breakfast.”

You hesitated, still feeling awkward about the whole situation. “You don’t have to. I should probably just get going.”

Mingyu shook his head, already pulling out a frying pan and some ingredients. “You need to eat something. Besides, we should talk.”

His tone was gentle but firm, leaving little room for argument. You nodded reluctantly, making your way to the kitchen island and sitting down. “Okay. Breakfast sounds good.”

He worked quickly, the smell of sizzling bacon and eggs soon filling the air. The domesticity of the scene feels strangely intimate, and you find yourself relaxing despite the lingering awkwardness. Mingyu moves with ease, his focus on the task at hand.

“So,” he began, glancing over at you as he cracked an egg into the pan, “about last night…”

You shifted uncomfortably on the stool. “Yeah. Sorry if I was difficult. I didn’t mean to be a burden.”

“You weren’t a burden,” he assured you, his eyes sincere. “I just wanted to make sure you were safe. And… I’m sorry if I pushed too hard. I didn’t mean to make things more complicated for you.”

You sighed, fiddling with the edge of the counter. “It’s not just you. It’s everything. I’ve been trying to keep things simple, but it’s clear they’re not.”

Mingyu nodded, flipping the bacon. “I get it. This isn’t easy for me either. But maybe we can figure it out together?”

His words hung in the air, a tentative offering of hope. You met his gaze, seeing the genuine care and concern in his eyes. “Maybe,” you said softly, the possibility of something more settling gently in your heart.

He smiled, plating the food and bringing it over to you. “Let’s take it one step at a time. For now, eat up.”

You and Mingyu sat at the kitchen island, plates of breakfast between you. The initial awkwardness had faded, replaced by a comfortable silence. As you ate, the conversation started to flow naturally. You talked about work, mutual colleagues, and light-hearted topics, gradually easing into deeper territory.

After a while, Mingyu looked at you thoughtfully. “Can I ask you something?”

You nodded, curious. “Sure.”

He hesitated for a moment, then took a deep breath. “Do you remember the train incident?”

You swallowed, memories of that night flashing in your mind. “Yeah, it’s hard to forget.”

He nodded, a small, wry smile playing on his lips. “You know, I’ve never told anyone this, but I’m scared of the dark. Always have been. That night on the train, when the power went out… I panicked. I couldn’t breathe. But then you were there.”

You looked at him, surprised by his vulnerability. “I had a feeling, I didn’t know it was that bad.”

“It was,” he admitted, looking down at his plate. “But your presence helped. You distracted me. I felt safe with you.”

His words touched something deep within you. “I’m glad I could help. Crowds have always been difficult for me. That night, it was overwhelming, but then you… you made it bearable.”

Mingyu looked up, his eyes locking with yours. “We helped each other that night. And it made me realize something.”

You tilted your head, heart pounding in anticipation. “What’s that?”

He took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts. “I’ve been trying to push my feelings for you away, to keep things professional. But after that night, I couldn’t deny them anymore. I just wasn’t ready to commit, I thought our arrangement was enough.”

The conversation lingered in the air, and the unspoken emotions between you and Mingyu were finally brought to light. As the breakfast dishes sat forgotten on the counter, he looked at you with an intensity that made your heart race.

“Mingyu,” you began, but he stopped you, his expression serious.

“Wait,” he said softly. “There’s something else I need to tell you.”

You nodded, feeling a knot of anxiety tightening in your stomach. “Okay.”

He took a deep breath, his eyes never leaving yours. “I know I’ve been difficult to work with. Cold, even. And I want to explain why.” He runs a hand through his hair, a nervous gesture that’s surprisingly endearing. “My attitude towards you… it wasn’t because I disliked you. It was the opposite. I’ve had feelings for you for a long time, and it scared me. I didn’t know how to handle it, so I pushed you away.”

The confession hung in the air, and you felt a mixture of relief and confusion. “You were mean to me because you liked me?”

He nodded, a faint smile playing on his lips. “It sounds stupid, I know—believe me, I feel like a damn kid who can’t control himself around a pretty girl. But I thought if I kept my distance, it would be easier to ignore how I felt. Seeing you every day, working so closely with you… it was harder than I thought.”

You looked down, your mind racing. “I didn’t know,” you whisper, feeling a surge of emotions.

He reached out, gently lifting your chin so you met his gaze again. “I’m sorry for how I treated you. I thought it was the only way to protect myself. But I can’t keep pretending anymore.”

Your heart pounded in your chest as you searched for the right words. “Mingyu, I… I’ve been trying to hide my feelings too. I was scared of what it would mean for us, for our work.”

He smiled a look of understanding in his eyes. “You don’t have to hide anymore. Not from me.”

You took a deep breath, feeling the weight of your unspoken feelings pressing down on you. “I’ve been falling for you, Mingyu. I’ve tried to ignore it, to keep things simple. But I can’t deny it any longer.”

His eyes softened and he stepped closer, closing the distance between you. “I’m glad you told me. Because I’ve been falling for you too. More than I ever thought possible.”

He cupped your face in his hands, his touch tender and reassuring. “We’ll figure this out together. One step at a time.”

You nodded, tears of relief and happiness welling up in your eyes. “One step at a time.”

Mingyu leaned in, pressing his lips to yours in a kiss that felt both familiar and new. It’s filled with the promise of everything you’ve both been too afraid to acknowledge, a connection that goes beyond the physical.

As he pulled back, his eyes filled with warmth and affection, he took your hand. “Come with me,” he murmurs, leading you towards his bedroom.

You followed, your heart pounding with anticipation and excitement. In his bedroom, the atmosphere was intimate and comforting, a safe haven for the two of you to explore the depth of your feelings.

Mingyu turned to you, his gaze intense but filled with tenderness. “I want to be with you. Not just for today, but for as long as you’ll have me.”

You smiled, feeling a sense of certainty and peace. “I want that too, Mingyu. More than anything.”

He kissed you again, the passion and emotion between you growing stronger. As you moved together, every touch, every whispered word, solidified the bond you’ve both been too afraid to admit. It wasn’t just about the physical connection anymore; it was about the love that was there all along, waiting to be acknowledged—taking the time to explore it. You were lucky you had the day off.

In Mingyu’s arms, you felt a sense of completeness, knowing that this is just the beginning of something beautiful. And as you fell into each other once more, you knew that whatever challenges come your way, you’ll face them together, one step at a time.

-

A few months had passed since that morning in Mingyu’s apartment. Since then, your relationship has grown deeper, richer, and more fulfilling than you ever imagined. To comply with your job’s regulations around relationships within teams, Mingyu was reassigned to a different unit. The transition was challenging, but you both found ways to maintain your connection, meeting during lunch breaks and after work, and sharing stolen moments that made the separation bearable.

As you sat at your desk, immersed in a report, the familiar rhythm of your office provided a soothing backdrop. Suddenly, a familiar figure appeared in the doorway, and your heart skipped a beat. Mingyu stood there, a stack of papers in hand and a mischievous glint in his eyes. He strode over with a confidence that drew every eye in the room, placing the papers on your desk with exaggerated formality.

“Delivery from the marketing department,” he said, his tone playful and his eyes sparkling with hidden meaning.

You looked up, unable to suppress a smile. “Marketing department? Since when do they hand-deliver reports?”

He leaned in slightly, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Since I needed an excuse to see you.”

Your heart fluttered at his words, and you bit back a grin. “Well, you’ve made your delivery. Anything else I can help you with, Mr. Marketing?”

Mingyu glanced around, ensuring no one was watching, then nodded subtly towards the door. “Actually, there is. Follow me.”

Intrigued, you stood up and followed him out of your office. He led you down a series of hallways, the usual hustle and bustle of the office fading away as you reached a more secluded area of the building. The quiet, unused conference room that used to be your occasional rendezvous spot, a hidden sanctuary where you could be together without prying eyes.

Once inside, Mingyu closed the door behind you, the click of the latch sealing you into your private world. He turns to face you with a smile that makes your knees weak. “I’ve missed you,” he said, stepping closer, the warmth of his presence enveloping you.

You wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him in for a kiss. “I’ve missed you too. It’s been too long.”

He kissed you deeply, the passion between you reigniting instantly. The feeling of his lips against yours, the way he held you tight, all of it sent a thrill through you. When you finally pulled back, both of you breathless, he takes your hand and leads you to a small couch in the corner of the room.

“So, how’s the marketing department treating you?” you asked, settling into his embrace, feeling the steady beat of his heart against your cheek.

“It’s different,” he admitted, brushing a strand of hair from your face with a tender touch. “But it’s worth it. Anything is worth it if it means I get to be with you.”

You smiled, leaning into his touch, savoring the moment. “I’m glad we’re still making this work.”

Mingyu’s eyes locked with yours. “Me too… I know we’ve been careful at work, but do you want to–.”

“Don’t even think about it,” you warned him. “I finally got a promotion, I can’t be caught screwing a subordinate in a conference room.”

“Damn, so I can’t even be your dirty little secret?” He grinned.

“You can’t be a dirty little secret if everyone at work knows,” you argued.

“Ah, but our friends and family don’t know yet.”

“Soon, Mingyu,” you reminded him. “We’ll tell them soon. I just need to find the right moment to tell my friends that I’m dating the guy who I’ve been complaining about since I started working here. I don’t want to give them a heart attack.”

He chuckled and squeezed your hand, his gaze unwavering. “I know. And I’m not saying we announce it to the world, but I think they deserve to know.”

You considered his words and the prospect of being more open about your relationship both exciting and daunting. “I think so too,” you said finally, a smile spreading across your face. “I want to share what we have with the people who matter to us.”

He grinned, pulling you into another kiss, his lips lingering on yours. “Good. Because I can’t wait to show you off.”

You laughed, feeling a surge of happiness. “And I can’t wait to be shown off.”

Mingyu grinned, but his expression turned slightly more somber as he looked at the clock. “We should probably get back before anyone notices we’re missing.”

You took his hand, the world of the office creeping back into your awareness. “Yeah, don’t want to give them any reason to suspect.”

He smirked, leaning in for one last kiss, a promise in his eyes. “I’ll see you tonight?”

“Definitely,” you replied, your heart light as you walked back to your office. 

The workday finally drew to a close, and as you gathered your things, a familiar excitement bubbled up inside you. The office buzz gradually quieted as your colleagues filed out, leaving behind the hum of computers and the soft rustle of papers. You made your way to the lobby, where Mingyu was waiting, leaning casually against the wall. His presence was magnetic, and when he sees you, his face lights up with a smile that seems to brighten the whole room.

“Ready to go?” he asked, pushing off the wall and walking toward you, his movements fluid and confident.

“Ready,” you replied, slipping your hand into his as you stepped out into the evening air. The city was alive with the hustle and bustle of rush hour, cars honking, and people chattering as they hurry by, but all you can focus on is Mingyu beside you.

As you walk together, the warmth of his hand in yours, you fall into easy conversation. “So, what do you want to make for dinner tonight?” you asked, glancing up at him, the streetlights casting a soft glow on his face.

Mingyu tilted his head, thinking. “How about something simple but delicious? Maybe pasta?”

“Pasta sounds good,” you agreed, squeezing his hand. “We could do a creamy Alfredo with chicken and mushrooms.”

He nodded, a smile tugging at his lips. “And maybe some garlic bread on the side?”

You laughed, nodding enthusiastically. “Absolutely. I love garlic bread. What about dessert?”

Mingyu’s eyes lit up mischievously. “How about we bake some cookies? We can make them together.”

“Cookies it is,” you said, feeling a warmth spread through you at the thought of spending a cozy evening together in the kitchen. “What kind?”

“Chocolate chip,” he said decisively. “The classic.”

“Perfect,” you replied, leaning your head on his shoulder as you walked. “I always love our dinner plans.”

Mingyu chuckled, giving your hand a gentle squeeze. “Me too. I love doing these everyday things with you. It makes everything feel more special.”

You smiled, feeling a surge of affection for him. “I feel the same way. Even just walking home together like this… it’s my favorite part of the day.”

He stopped walking, turning to face you. The city noises faded into the background as he cupped your face in his hands, his touch warm and tender. “Mine too,” he said softly, his eyes searching yours. “I love you.”

Your heart swelled at his words, and you smiled up at him, feeling a rush of pure happiness. “I love you too, Mingyu.”

He leaned down, capturing your lips in a tender kiss. It was a moment of pure joy, a promise of all the simple, beautiful moments you’ll share together. When you finally pulled away, you continued your walk home, hand in hand, talking and laughing about your day and your plans for the evening.

As you reached your apartment, you felt a sense of contentment settled over you. Mingyu unlocked the door, and you stepped inside, the familiar, comforting scent of home welcoming you. The soft lighting cast a warm glow over the cozy living space and you kicked off your shoes, already imagining the delicious dinner you’ll create together.

Mingyu wrapped his arms around you from behind, resting his chin on your shoulder. “Ready to cook?”

“Ready,” you said, turning your head to kiss his cheek. “Let’s get started.”

The two of you moved around the kitchen with practiced ease, the clatter of pots and pans mixing with your laughter. You chopped vegetables, and the rhythmic sound of the knife on the cutting board adds to the symphony of your evening. The pasta boiled on the stove, and the rich aroma of garlic bread baking in the oven fills the air. Every so often, you stole a kiss or a playful nudge, the simple act of affection made everything feel perfect.

As the pasta simmered and the aroma of garlic bread grew more intense, you glanced at Mingyu, feeling a rush of gratitude for this wonderful, ordinary evening. “I’m so glad we’re doing this,” you said, your voice soft with emotion.

“Me too,” he replied, smiling at you, his eyes twinkling with happiness.

You nodded, knowing that you’d cherish every single one of these moments. And as you sat down to enjoy your meal, the table set with care, you felt a deep sense of happiness. Whatever the future held, you knew you would face it together.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

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[multipleoccupancy]

Unaware of how his hesitations and tone might have caused her worry, he was pleased to be out of the office too and he felt at least a little fresher since he had tidied up. He was mindful to tuck himself into the chair properly and to stay out of arms reach of Violet. While an orderly would still be angry at the rule break, at least they could not have been touching which would merit a harsher beating. He knew there were none in the flat, but his mind wouldn't quite relent that bit of fear.

He caught her smile and took a moment to smile back, a little delay but it came, this time touching his eyes though it again didn't last very long at all. "Good," he acknowledged.

"We may have to pause at some point," because he was not even sure how he might react to certain things and still didn't quite trust his own control not to send him into an OCD episode or some delusion about the ward again, or worse trigger his paranoia. "But I'd like for us to talk about what I do and what that has done so you have a better understanding of this life." And be totally put off it, he hoped!

𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐎 & 𝐕𝐈𝐎𝐋𝐄𝐓 @multipleoccupancy

Violet wanted to ask her dad how he was feeling, but the words refused to leave her lips. It was a difficult question to ask, because the answer could easily shatter the illusion that he was indeed doing better, that he was healing. What if the crisp shirt and combed hair meant nothing? What if she had really hurt him in a way that couldn't be fixed? It terrified her. It kept her awake at night.

She watched as he hesitated and walked into the room to sit at her desk. She had gotten quite observant, these past four days. Worriedly looking for any little sign or indication that his dad would get back to normal. He almost looked normal today, but she had noticed that short moment, that pause, before entering the room.

Oh, so it was going to be a lecture. Right? If he wanted to talk about 'everything', that meant he was also going to talk about the knife she had stolen, and the monster she had insisted they hunt. But Violet didn't mind a lecture. Quite the contrary. A lecture would mean her dad was really back to normal. And if he was ready to talk about the ward, then maybe he wasn't so haunted by it anymore.

"Of course," she assured him with a timid smile, "we can talk about that."

[lesbianralzarek]

idk what discourse dimension some of you "fandom elders" are stuck in, but in my ~15 years in online (and sometimes irl) fandom spaces, this is the golden age for me

shipping wars have literally always existed and acting like we all used to hold hands and sing kumbaya is insane. "well, there wasnt this moral component thats soooo annoying these days" okay but thats worse. you do see how thats worse, right? people used to tell each other to kill themselves over zutara vs kataang and then not even care when people were racist. twice as mad for reasons half as reasonable. also, where were you all in 2015-2019? that was the era of "steven universe is fascism apologism" and "i headcanon these characters as found family, so its incest to ship them". now shipping "drama" is like "oh i broke mutuals with them after they wrote smut of this child character being assaulted by their parent", which is actually just a normal response

wondering what torment nexus some of you are trapped in where fandom has gotten more toxic? hope you can escape soon, because im having a ball out here in a world where biphobia is seen as a bigger problem than a ship being dumb

[starkeyslibrary]

FALLING OUT OF FRAME | Part 2

pairing: you x drew starkey

The morning sun filtered through the curtains, casting golden light across your shared bedroom. You stirred awake to the sound of Drew shuffling around the room, already half-dressed for his next press obligation. His movements were quick, almost practiced, as he buttoned his shirt and grabbed his watch from the nightstand.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Drew’s voice was soft, a gentle whisper as he leaned over to kiss your forehead. He was already in work mode, his hair still damp from the shower, and you could smell the faint scent of his cologne. His presence should have been comforting, but today, it just felt distant.

“Morning,” you mumbled, rubbing your eyes and adjusting the blanket to wrap yourself tighter. You didn’t feel like facing the day. The night before had been difficult enough, and you didn’t know how to move forward from it. “What’s on the schedule today?”

“More interviews,” Drew said, running his hand through his damp hair. “Odessa and I are doing a segment for some morning show. Same old PR stuff.”

You nodded, your throat tightening, trying not to let your discomfort show. You had gotten used to this routine – being around Drew when the cameras were on, the endless interviews, the flashes, the constant attention. But this time, something about the way he said her name made it feel different. More real.

“You’ll do great,” you said, forcing a smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes.

Drew’s gaze softened, but there was a hint of concern in his eyes. “Are you okay?” he asked, his voice gentle.

“Yeah,” you replied quickly, but it was too fast. You knew it didn’t sound convincing.

Drew nodded but didn’t press further. He bent down and kissed you on the cheek. “I’ll be back soon.”

The day dragged on. You couldn’t focus, your thoughts a whirlwind of insecurity and doubt. You found yourself staring at your phone every few minutes, waiting for Drew to check in. But nothing. He was busy with the press tour, and every update you saw on social media made things worse.

Drew and Odessa. Odessa and Drew. Their names were all over the internet. You could almost feel the heat radiating from your phone screen as you scrolled through the clips from that morning’s interview.

In the clip, they looked so natural together, so comfortable. Drew’s easy laughter filled the air as Odessa leaned into him, her hand brushing his arm in what seemed like a casual, innocent gesture. But you knew better. This wasn’t just a movie press tour. This was a carefully crafted performance.

Still, it didn’t stop the pit in your stomach from growing.

“Working with Drew has been amazing,” Odessa said in the clip, her voice light, playful. “He’s so talented, and we just clicked instantly.”

Drew’s smile was warm, maybe too warm. “Yeah, Odessa makes it easy. She’s incredible,” he added, his eyes never leaving her face.

The host leaned forward with a teasing smile. “I can tell. You two have such great chemistry. Think the fans will start shipping you together?”

Odessa glanced at Drew, her eyes sparkling. “Maybe,” she said with a flirtatious tone. “But we’re just having fun. Giving the people what they want.”

The camera zoomed in on them, capturing the moment when Drew’s fingers brushed Odessa’s hand. You could feel your heart sinking, the jealousy and pain too raw to ignore.

The comments started flooding in within minutes:

@/user9819837: “I ship them SO hard! They’re adorable!”

@/lover987756: “Move over Y/N, #Dressa is the new endgame.”

@/user3012002039: “Their chemistry is off the charts.. bet it’s not just acting 😉”

You didn’t even realize you were crying until you felt the wetness on your cheek.

You tried to push the feelings away, focusing on something – anything – else. But the restlessness in your chest wouldn’t let up. Finally, you texted your best friend, Madelyn, desperate for someone who understood.

You: I don’t know what to do anymore. I saw the interview today. I can’t shake the feeling that something’s off. I feel like I’m invisible to him.

The reply came almost instantly.

Madelyn: I’m sorry you’re going through this. I get it, I really do. Maybe it’s just the PR stuff? They’re working, you know? But I know it’s tough. Have you talked to him about it?

You stared at the screen for a moment. How could you talk to Drew about this? Every time you tried, he dismissed your concerns as if they didn’t matter. As if this was just part of his job, and you needed to accept it.

You: I’ve tried, it’s like he doesn’t get how much it hurts to see him with her, even if it’s all fake. I don’t know if I can take it.

You stared at the text, hoping Madelyn would have something better to say. Instead, she was blunt, but kind.

Madelyn: I know you’re hurting, but you’ve got to be honest with him. He’s not going to change if he doesn’t know what you’re going through. You have to talk to him. For you.

By the time Drew came home, the tension between you was unbearable. You hadn’t spoken since the morning, and when Drew walked in, it was clear that something was off. But before you could say anything, he dropped his bag and ran his fingers through his hair, looking exhausted.

“Hey,” he said softly. “I’m gonna head out with the guys tonight. Some of the crew from Outer Banks are getting together. I’ve gotta keep up appearances.”

You stared at him, not sure what to say. He seemed so distant, like the space between you had grown too  large to bridge. You nodded, trying not to let your frustration show.

“I’ll be fine,” you said, even though it was the farthest thing from the truth. You didn’t want to spend another night alone, so you texted the girls group chat.

You: “Hey want to come over tonight? I need some company.”

Madelyn: “Of course! I’ll be there in 20 minutes.”

Madison: “Count me and Carlacia in! She is riding with me <3”

You were relieved when your friends arrived – Madelyn, Madison and a few others. They could tell something was wrong. As soon as they stepped inside, Madelyn pulled you aside.

“What’s going on? You look like you’ve been through hell.”

You didn’t want to break down in front of them, but the words tumbled out before you could step them.

“I don’t know how much longer I can do this, Maddie. The way Drew is with Odessa… it feels like he’s slipping away, and I’m powerless to stop it.”

Madelyn sat down beside you, rubbing your back comfortingly. “You’re not powerless, Y/N. He’s just – caught up in the PR stuff. But you have to talk to him about it.”

“I’ve tried,” you whispered, your eyes filling with tears. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

The night passed in a blur of laughter and distractions, but the moment your friends left, everything came rushing back. You grabbed your phone to check for messages, hoping for something from Drew, but instead you were met with the flashing headlines on your feed.

“Drew Starkey and Odessa A’Zion Together Again – The ‘Dresda’ Romance Heats Up!”

You clicked on the article, your heart sinking when you saw the photos. Drew and Odessa walking together in the city at night. Their hands were brushing, and there was an intimacy between them you hadn’t seen between you and Drew in weeks. The photos made it look effortless, like they were a couple – nothing about it screamed “PR stunt.”

You felt your world crumble around you as the images loaded, one after another. Drew’s smile was wide and genuine, a stark contrast to the forced, stiff smiles he’d been giving you lately. Odessa was laughing, her head tilted back, looking up at him with that same spark you’d seen in their interviews. They looked perfect together.

Tears welled up in your eyes as the last of the photos appeared on the screen – Drew and Odessa stopped at a café, sitting so close their legs brushed. You swiped through the photos again, then again, hoping at the next swipe would somehow make it stop. But it didn’t.

Your heart ached in a way you couldn’t put into words. Drew was supposed to be your person. But now? It felt like he had chosen someone else – someone who wasn’t you.

The room spun as you tried to steady your breath. You curled up into yourself, feeling the weight of everything press down on you.

TAGLIST: @princesspeach124 @idiotussupremus @eitaababe @13tter @drewsephrry @drewstarkeyzwhore @cooper8224 @maybankslover @elyseesarchive @ietss @esquivelbianca @josephandrewstarkey @willowpains @wtfdudesblog

[castiwls]

my number one .ᐟ

Paring; art x reader

Synopsis; You'd always been your own worst enemy. Your anxiety liked to jump out at the worst times yet your ever-doting boyfriend was determined to be there every. single. time.

Even if that meant missing his match.

Requested; anon

Notes; tysm for the request <3 i kinda based this on my own anxiety and the methods I've been taught over the years

Masterlist

“I don’t wanna be annoying.”

“You're not being annoying.”

No matter how many times he says it, you never believe it. How could you not be annoying, especially when you’ve woken him up at 3 a.m. for what must be the third time this week?

Art sighed, pulling you closer to his chest. His hands rubbed over your back in soothing circles as he pressed a kiss to your forehead. “Just follow my breathing, okay?” It was a saying so common that it seemed to fall from his lips without a thought. It was almost like a lifeline of sorts knowing that no matter what you’d always have the steady beat of his heart only a phone call away whenever your own decided to forget how to beat on time and needed reminding.

It was equally a blessing and a curse. A blessing to have someone like Art who would drop everything to come at your beacon call but a curse that you needed him in that way. 

Even now when he should be preparing for another tournament - against which school you can’t remember but then again your only thought right now is being able to focus enough to breathe - he’s here with you tucked around a corner from your class as you try to calm your breathing.

The moment he’d gotten your text.

Please come

Need you

He’d left the court without a second thought and made it to the building in record time. “You’re okay.” He soothed running a thumb over your cheek as he held your gaze. “You’re okay just breathe. In and out.” 

He hated seeing you like this. No matter how many times it happened he’d never shake that feeling of nausea that would swim in his stomach whenever your breath seemed to catch and your eyes grew distant. It made him want to just wrap you in his arms and protect you from anything and everything that left you feeling even slightly anxious.

You were his entire world and it hurt him to know you were your own worst enemy. 

“C’mon.” His hand intertwined with yours as he grabbed your bag. You both walked quietly back to his dorm your heart rate slowly going back to normal as you both walked. 

“Don’t you have practice?” You frowned as he placed your bag on his bed turning to watch as you shut the door. “It’s fine.” He smiled trying to reassure you as he opened his arms. “I can practice later you’re more important right now okay.” He sighed pulling you against his chest.

The practice could wait right now all he cared about was you. 

⋆·˚ ༘ *⋆·˚ ༘ *⋆·˚ ༘ *

Not now, please god not now.

Art had already been so busy the last few days that you’d purposefully tried to leave him alone. He needed to train and you didn’t want to get in the way and worry him more then he already was. 

He’d only left his dorm an hour ago to get ready for the match and you’d been fine. Better then fine actually you’d had a great morning and for a moment you’d thought that maybe you’d go three full days without your anxiety rearing its ugly head.

And then it proved you wrong.

“Art I’m fine.” You could hear his concern down the phone as you sat on his bed, mentally counting your breaths to try and keep some semblance of calm. “You sure? I can come back for a-”

“No. No stay there and just relax okay? I’ll come find you before it starts.” You could almost picture the concern in his eyes as he sighed before relenting. If you said you were fine you were fine, pushing you would only make it worse.

“Okay but call me if you need okay? I love you.”

“I love you too.” You smiled slightly tracing shapes over his covers as you ended the call. The room was starting to feel too small as you sat, the air almost stuffy. Nothing had even happened and yet you could already feel the anxiety building.

The pit in your stomach swirled as your hands grew clammy no matter how many times you wiped them on your jeans.

You were fine.

You had to be fine. 

Taking a breath you stood pacing the small space as you tried to halt the attack. Breathe in for 10 out for 10.

In for 10 out for 10.

“Fuck.” Your voice shook slightly as tears began to prick at your eyes, your chest heaving as you tried to pull in a breath that wasn’t there. 

Your eyes darted around the room as you looked for anything to help but came up empty. You couldn’t call him. You knew the minute you did he’d drop everything and you didn’t want that.

No matter how bad this was - and it was bad by your standards - his match was more important.

Wiping the tears you sat back down closing your eyes as you tried to talk yourself through it.

You were fine.

⋆·˚ ༘ *⋆·˚ ༘ *⋆·˚ ༘ *

The breath he’d been holding since you’d spoken on the phone a few hours ago seemed to finally release as he spotted you in the crowd. His eyes lit up and a bright smile pulled at his lips as he made his way through the crowd towards where you stood, your own eyes lighting up when you noticed him.

“Hey.” He grinned pulling you in for a chaste kiss. “You came.”

“Of course I did.” You laughed but it was strained. Your smile slightly too tight as you fixed the cap over his curls. “You ready?” You asked pulling back ever so slightly. 

“You're shaking.” 

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are I can see your hands.” Art sighed his smile pulling into a frown as he took your hand in his. “Your freezing as well.” 

Your face was still pulled into a tight smile but he saw right through it. The slight draw in your brow and the redness around your eyes gave you away almost immediately. Before you could say anything else he was pulling you through the crowd and behind the bleachers.

You swallowed back the tears which burned at your eyes. It had taken the whole two hours since the phone call for you to calm down even an inch and even now you still felt sluggish in your own body. 

“Art m’fine.” Your voice shook as you closed your eyes. 

“No your not.” He shook his head pushing a strand of hair from your face. “Why didn’t you call me?” You always called! It was bad enough knowing you’d walked from the dorms to the court like this but knowing you’d very possibly been like this since he’d last called you?

His own heart was racing at the thought.

“I didn’t wanna distract you.” His hand was now rubbing over your shoulder as you wiped at your eyes. “I know how much this means to you-”

“The match doesn’t matter.” He shook his head gently, tilting your chin up. Part of you already felt better just being near him, his presence a comfort in itself.

“Nothing matters more than you.” He smiled his eyes filled with warmth as his thumb flicked away a tear. “I’m not playing until I know you're okay. I can’t play knowing you're feeling like this.”

He pulled you closer rubbing a hand over your back. The match would never be more important than you - hell tennis would always come second to you. The fact the thought even crossed your mind was enough to have him debating putting the racket down and pulling you back to his dorm.

“Promise me you're still gonna play.” You whispered tucking your face into the crook of his neck as you breathed in the gentle scent of his aftershave for a moment. Your lungs seemed to work again as you pressed closer, sinking into his body.

“We’re not talking about tennis.” He murmured balancing his chin on your head. “You're all that matters.”

He meant his words, every single one of them. Sure he would play in the tournament but only once he knew you were okay, until then it was the last thing on his mind.

Tennis could never hold a torch to his love for you.

[hexalianrebel-blackfeathers]

From a writing standpoint, I'm still mad about Chloe Bourgeois (Miraculous Ladybug). Like, she had the start of a redemption arc, was literally the first person to reject Hawkmoth's corruption through sheer will, and genuinely would have been an asset to the "good guys" with her position, resources, etc. But the writers just... gave up on her. Introduced a new character blood related to her and with damn near the same name to replace her.

Like, in a better world, Chloe would be a good person by now. The previously unmentioned half sister that shows up could have been identical or worse than her original self, like holding up a mirror that she can then confront and keep growing from. (Heck, they kind of already have that character in her mother) But no, because that's just too much effort, I guess.

the concept and idea of “you can always start trying to be a better person” is extremely important to me both in media and irl and i continue to be deeply deeply disturbed by the trend on this site pushing that these ideas in media are bad writing or even morally reprehensible

because theyd rather someone stay terrible or just straight up die than become a better person 

from a compassionate point of view it’s deeply distressing and from a pragmatic point of view it’s outright frustrating

it’s fucked up. 

[jk-kiwi]

The glass queen

The glass queen (18+)

Characters - King JK x queen Y/N reader (Woman)

Genre - Royal Au, heavy angst (?), drama, suggestive/smut, fluff, THIS is fiction

Summary - In a once-thriving kingdom, filled with love and care, the queen, who ruled along with her devoted husband, fell deeply ill. Desperate to save her, the king falls into a restless journey to try and restore what once was lost.  Warnings - Illness and description of illness (the reader is sick), pregnancy and kind of baby craze from some characters, alluding to cheating (?), parental manipulation, double marriage (one is forced), misunderstandings, fictional characters, heavy feelings, harsh words, mentions of wishing to disappear and never return (once I think), mentions of blood, throwing up (not detailed).  Jungkook is one loyal man I tell you. Warnings for the not so holy parts (18+) - Description of male and female parts. They bathe together, aphrodisiac usage and itercourse while on it, consensual but one time Jungkook doesn’t remember, hickeys, Y/N on top once, no heavy/crazy stuff, they do it twice. I hate detailing about it so…Read at your own risk!

MINORS PLEASE STAY AWAY!

Author’s note - Not as happy with this one, but oh well. If anyone wants to detail about the 18+ parts in a comment, I will copy and paste it! Tell me if I missed anything in the warnings or if there are any errors. Enjoy!

Word count - 16.5k

--------------------------------

There was once a glorious kingdom, a loving queen and her devoted king ruling it with wisdom and care. Their people were thriving under their protection after the heartbreak of the late king passing away had diminished. 

It’s been three years ever since prince Jungkook has tied the knot with you, making you the queen of his people and heart. Three years that were filled with love and devotion, three years that seemed to vanish in an unfortunate blink. “The queen has fallen ill.” It all began on an autumn morning, both of you were ready to celebrate your third anniversary, a huge banquet was about to be held in honor of the king and queen of this land. But that morning was not the beginning of a celebration, a new year beside your king... 

All that you remember to this day is the dizziness, the nausea. You felt like you couldn’t breathe anymore, your lungs were suffocating in a burning pain. You couldn’t speak or scream or cry, you laid there frozen, statue-like, taking in the misfortune that laid upon you. 

You remember a doctor coming and checking on you, you remember your husband’s worried eyes, your maiden crying, and beside the pain and fear, the only thing that stuck with you were the words “The queen has fallen ill.” That was almost two years ago, the beginning of the nightmare you had been fighting ever since. 

At first nobody knew what was happening to you. The doctors, unsure of the illness you were carrying. But your people wanted answers and nobody had them. They tested and tested, they tried all types of medicine, but your state only further declined. So they gave you a nickname, the glass queen. 

The nickname haunted you. Fragile. Delicate. A figure meant to be admired but could never be touched. You hated it.

It made you feel weaker. Nobody knew how much you had left, if you would be getting better or not at all. The people grew impatient and slowly started their gossip, the whispers within the palace walls. “How much could she still bear this, I would’ve ended it much sooner in her place.”, “I pity her, just imagine the aches she’s going through”, “Just think of the poor king, having to deal with such pain everyday.”. You heard them all, outside the palace being even worse. People expected you to be by their side and provide them with the duty you were given, the one of a queen. But you locked yourself in your room in shame, becoming weary of people’s eyes, showing yourself less and less, not wanting them to see how pitiful you have become. Truth to be told, you would’ve withered away much faster under their insensitive words, only if it wasn’t for Jungkook, your determination to live and fight further, hoping that one day you could return to what you once were. 

He stayed by your side, day and night, devoted to you and only you. You hid away from him at times, ashamed of what has become of his queen, but he always saw the light shining deep inside of you, the light of wanting to survive, to be close to him and hold him without pain and worry once again. So he stayed by your side, blinding you from all the hate, not letting you know he was battling his own demons… “Under no circumstances!” His jaw clenched, hands turned into fists. “Jungkook! I am your mother and I know what’s good for you, it’s time you look outside the box you created! The people are unhappy!” He scoffs looking at his mother in hatred, enraging her further.

“And I said no, I’ve been ruling for the past 5 years, do they not trust me? My judgment? Their king!” His voice raised in anger and disbelief.

“She’s been like this for almost two years already, God knows how much she has left! You need an heir, if she dies, who's going to take over the throne?” the mother fights back, trying to open her child's eyes. He didn’t want to succumb to fear, the fear of losing you, fear of everything you’ve built crumbling at his feet, under his helpless gaze. Being a king was not easy, solving issues, pleasing people, arguing all day with his mom over this and that all while trying to help you overcome it all.

Jungkook had a lot on his plate, and now, a more ridiculous and outrageous request came in.

He needed an heir. 

If the queen passes away he’ll be a widower. He could still rule, yes, but his blood line would not continue, making him the last standing from his family, forcing a new power to take over what decades of his generation had already built.

“It’s not much I ask of you to do. You marry her, give an heir to the throne and then it’s your decision on how to handle things further.” He had refused to entertain the idea, long ago. Not wanting to believe that his own mother would impose such ridicule. Him, the king, having a concubine by his side since his sick wife could not bear children? Outrageous! “I’m not doing such awful thing to my wife. Don’t you think she’s gone through enough? If she finds out I’m marrying a second woman she might…” Tears start to gather into his eyes in pure frustration. The thoughts of you leaving, eating him alive. How could he do something so cruel to you? “She will understand, it’s her duty to bear a child, and since her illness she can’t comply with it. She needs to understand this is for the better good of the kingdom!” Jungkook slouches in his chair in defeat, this is a battle he might never win. His mom has been pushing this idea for almost a year now. “Yujin is a nice girl, she’s the daughter of a duke! Trust me she’s well fit to be your quee…” “She will never be a queen!” He shouts, fist hitting the desk in front of him in rage. “She will never be my queen, I won’t allow it.” His mother scoffs and folds her arms looking away from her stubborn son. “I’m sending her here tomorrow to have dinner with you. I’m tired of your antics, your father would be rolling in his grave knowing this is how you rule.” She spits out, tired of pointless arguing, before storming out of his office. 

Jungkook sighs, fighting back the urge to scream and cry, to just run far away from all his responsibilities. He wants to be a powerful king, someone people will look up to and follow without fear. But his own self is breaking into pieces, crumbling more and more with the heaviness thrown on his shoulders. He raises from his chair defeated, ready to go and find his own support, his only safe place. Exiting his office he takes fast steps towards the chambers, but before he can enter the hallway his body collides with someone else. His arms are quick to catch and without any further thoughts he pulls you into his embrace, his body already recognizing yours, scent way too familiar to mistake your presence for someone else's. “What are you doing here, my love?” He cuddles you close to his chest, hand gently caressing your hair, his muscles relaxing. “You should rest. Did the doctor come and you were scared?”

“No” You answer quietly, inhaling all of his sweet scent, grateful to receive his warmth . “I’ve been bored. I waited all day for you to come, but you didn’t even dare a second to pass by. Do you not love me anymore?” You ask teasingly, making him chuckle, his head shaking in denial. “How can I not? You’ve been in my head all day, couldn’t focus on any work.” He mumbles back making you smile, wrapping your weak arms around him. “Then carry me back to my room please, show me how much you’ve missed your wife.” He laughs and in a rush he picks you up, you gasp. “A little too rough for my queen?” He says looking up at you, your hands resting on his shoulders while he was holding you from above your knees. “You could try to be more gentle, I bruise easily.” You pout and he just maneuvers you in such a way that you end up being carried bridal style towards your room. Arriving, Jungkook places you gently on the bed, letting you sit on the edge. “You seem to have something on your mind” Looking at him fidgeting with his fingers. He is indeed a little restless, making you wonder why is he avoiding your gaze all of a sudden? “Don’t worry about me, just work. Has the doctor come yet?” He asks like in a rush to leave and you nod “I should let you rest then, the medicine will kick in soon.” He bows down to your level kissing your forehead, but before he can leave you gently tug on his blazer. “Why don’t you stay? It’s been long since we spent the night together.” You look up at him with expecting eyes, hoping that he can hold you close just for tonight. “You should be tired, love. I will not hold onto your sleeping time today.” He says apologetically. “But, Jungkook. You never come by anymore…I miss you...”

You knew the reason he wasn’t coming, you were getting weaker and he was afraid. It’s been long since you’ve shared a bed, let alone him daring to touch you in any other way. You craved him, even only his embrace and it would release the aching pains you were feeling. He was touching you like handling a frail piece of glass. You felt sad. But you can’t condemn him, he’s your man and you know deep down he also wants to be close like before with you, but with all the medicine you must take it’s hard to even walk sometimes, let alone engage in other strenuous activities. So he kept his distance. And it pained you, to know you can’t give him anything. To know he has to hide away from you. You felt the guilt, hurting more than the illness itself.

"Just stay tonight, let’s sleep here, together.” You plead for the last time, hoping it’s not in vain like any other nights, slightly ashamed to ask for more, to pursue harder. He tries to fight the urge, to just shove aside everything and love you like you deserve. But he can’t.

You sigh at his silence, fighting the bitter taste in your mouth, his silence being enough of a response.

“I understand…you must be tired too…I think it’s better if you also head out to sleep, I’m getting tired.” And you were. Tired of the burden you were carrying and casting above everyone else. Tired of cursing the people you loved.

You lay down between the mountain of pillows and blankets you’ve collected along the years in hopes to soothe you better and by shoving your face in one you try to mask the tears that fall down on your face.

You close your eyes hearing him sigh before caressing your arm, leaving a kiss on your shoulder and then leaving. The room empty and cold without his presence.

You grab the pillow muffling your sound into it, throwing it across your beautiful room. You look outside the window, the sky dark, the moon shining above making you remember all the past moments you shared with Jungkook, walking into the dark of the night, holding hands, being deeply in love and without a care. When will you get them again? The walks and sleepless nights spent holding each other, the promises and dreams you made together, his hands gently caressing your body, lips making their way down your neck, the feeling of burning passion flowing in the air. You wish to disappear and never return. Life will be much easier for you and for those around, getting rid of the burden you bring, you feel meaningless.

Slowly you fall asleep, the substances finally making their way into your body, calming the pains you had. 

Outside the door, without your notice, Jungkook was resting. His back pressed to the door, biting his lip in regret. He should’ve held you. He should’ve told you about what’s to come, the pressure he was feeling. He should’ve not run away like he always does when responsibility arises. He’s still young and naive, tough. Brought to the throne before even turning the age of 18, still mourning his father’s death and now with a crown on his head, having to take over much harsher tasks. The only thing he had along, being you.

You were there when he needed you most…but now, when you need him most, he isn’t here. 

---------------------------------

The morning came by fast for Jungkook after spending almost all night by your door. The maids began waking him up and his personal adviser didn’t even hesitate to shove down his throat the list of things he had to do for the day.

“My lord, don’t forget about the meeting with lady Yujin. She’s on her way to the palace.” The adviser reminds. “Tell her not to come.” He says without hesitation, voice latched with indifference. “But, my lord, our elder queen has said that it’s a must for you to attend.” 

He didn’t want to enrage his mother, surely, but the thought of your heart breaking by meeting another woman was far worse. In his mind he was neglecting you already, but betrayal? Such thoughts would never dare cross his mind on their own.

“I will not attend then.” He manages to button up his shirt leaving his room with the stressed adviser following behind. “My lord, please, it’s just a dinner meeting, nothing serious, the queen won’t know.” Jungkook stops in his steps, fists clenching in rage seeing how even his servants push this further, not respecting the status he has. “One meal, that’s all. After that I don’t want to hear about her.” He finally complies, thinking you will not hear about this and he will just make it clear that he is not interested and end it all forever. 

And so he found himself sitting in front of the duchess, Lady Yujin. She was beautiful, not to deny. Small body, always dressed in expensive dresses and jewelry. Her hair was curled up in a bun, fingernails perfectly done and a lingering, intoxicating perfume, the last point of her perfect image. Every man would fall for such high beauty, and despite her looks she was also young and vigorous, only 19 of age, 3 years younger than you two.

She was a refined lady, clearly showing that her parents were wealthy and put a lot of work into her education and manners, spoiling her with everything she desired.

“It’s a pleasure to be at the same table with you, my Grace.” Her voice was melodious, alluring even. “Thank you for making time to be here, Lady Yujin.” Jungkook felt bothered by her presence, he wished the meal would end soon. “Oh, please! Just call me Yujin, no need for formalities, my Grace.” she says, eyeing the man up and down. People referred to him as their grace all the time, but this gave him an ick, hearing it roll out of her tongue so easily, so nonchalantly.

“I’m here with a proposal, my dear father has sent me.” She picks up her tea cup, sipping slowly, every now and then locking eyes with the boy. “I’ve heard the queen has fallen ill, I felt sorry to hear such unfortunate news.” She sighs sadly, her voice holding mock concern.

“Since then I’ve heard you two have been avoiding each other. Perhaps it’s the fact that she’s weak and frail, or maybe…she can’t give an heir to the throne?”

Jungkook clenches his jaw, eyes darkening, the air around him heavy and suffocating when hearing her discuss matters like his wife’s feelings didn’t matter. “The elder queen has gotten in contact with my family, proposing a marriage between the two of us in order for the kingdom to receive its precious descendant.” She continued, her lips curving into a coy smile.

Jungkook’s gaze bore into hers, his expression hardening. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but my mother has not been in command since long ago. I’m loyal to my wife and I don’t need a mere concubine by my side. The queen is my wife, and she will remain so, heir or not.” he spits sharply.

The young girl tilts her head, a glimpse of bitterness could be catched for one second before her expression softens just enough to appear sympathetic. “Your loyalty is truly admirable, my Grace.” 

Her tone was almost sweet, while her fingers played slowly with her curls, twirling them around. “But loyalty does not sustain a kingdom. Your people grow fears, they doubt your judgment, they wonder what would happen to their land after you lose the throne.” She sighs once again, trying to appear concerned for others. “Sooner or later, your Majesty…” she said, leaning closer, her voice dropping just above a whisper “You will have to choose. And faced with the options of loving her or the survival of your empire, what will your judgment decide upon?” Her words were harsh, showing parts of her true self. Jungkook's breath hitched at her boldness. His mind recognizing the guilt trap she was setting, but his heart was aching.

He is the king, his main priority is to protect his people before all. He was already faced with splitting between love and responsibility.

“Perhaps we can discuss mathers in further meetings.” she said, her voice smooth, uninterested in toying with him anymore. “I know Your Grace will make the best decision regarding the safety of people.” She offered a graceful smile, while rising from the chair.

“Let’s meet again tomorrow. It’s my first time here, I would love to be shown around.” “Of course.” He stood up as well, the tension beneath him almost breaking his calm exterior. “Unfortunately I have a long list of duties that call my name. I will have one of the servants arrange a proper tour for you, Lady Yujin.” His tone was cold, a quiet reminder that despite her boldness, he was still the one in control. 

Yujin’s lips parted wanting to say something else, to try and stop him and achieve what she wanted like she was always thought to do, but both were stopped when the doors of the dining room were opened, your body peaking through, your maiden following behind. “Your Majesty,” you were surprised, your voice steady and curious at the sight of your husband being with an unknown lady. Your eyes darted between the two of them, taking in the room's tense atmosphere. 

“I apologize for the interruption, I wanted to get my dinner outside my room today. I didn’t know we were having guests over.” You bow down lightly, making Jungkook soften at the sight. His rigid posture calming down, legs taking him closer to you in a habit. “Y/N.” he said, his voice gentler now. “You should be resting, my love.” You smile, fingers caressing the beautiful embroidery on his blazer, admiring how well built he is in comparison to you.

“I’ve rested long enough. I can’t spend the rest of my life locked up in that room. I’ve been feeling better since this new medicine.”

“I see,” he murmured, his lips falling into a faint smile. “Don’t push yourself too hard, you still have a long time to recover.” Your tender moment, a sight for those around, was now being interrupted by the woman sitting across the room, envy in her eyes. 

“Such a heartwarming moment to witness.” She says clasping her hands together. “Though I must admit, I hadn’t expected to see Your Grace today.”  she added, directing her words toward you. “I figured since you’ve been in such a delicate position, you would like to rest, not entangle yourself with administrative problems.” Your gaze met hers, you felt calm despite the stab hidden beneath her words. “I appreciate your concern,” you replied smoothly, detaching yourself from Jungkook. “But I know my limits better than anyone.” you say while eyeing her. Jungkook’s hand grasps yours gently, making you look up at him giving a reassuring smile in response to his concern. Yujin’s smile falters ever so slightly seeing you stand with such confidence, but she quickly recovers, lightly chuckling. 

“I hope I didn’t upset Your Grace, these were not my intentions. I am a devoted woman when it comes to the good of the people.” She starts again, the same story of how good she wants to appear in front of you, wishing just a tiny part of her acts could tone you down.

“Y/N’s dedication has never been in question either.” Jungkook interrupts firmly, his voice steady. “She is not only my queen but the heart of this kingdom, you should admire her for the efforts she’s putting in.”

Yujin froze in place, taken aback by the sudden confession. “Of course,” she murmured, a flicker of frustration obvious in her gaze.

“Your Majesty is fortunate to have such a queen by his side.” She mumbles before bowing deeply to the both of you and making her way towards the exit, but not before leaving her last words to linger around. “I’d love for his Majesty to join my tour tomorrow, if possible. We have important matters to discuss” she said, pausing, her gaze briefly meeting Jungkook’s before she turned and disappeared through the doorway. The room was silent for a moment. You turned to Jungkook eyeing him, his expression unreadable. “Jungkook, who was this lady?” You cut down formalities when met only with him. 

For a moment he didn’t answer, his mind and heart running wild, weighing whether to share more of what’s happening with you or not, scared of your reaction towards what’s happening. “Don’t worry.” he said carefully, avoiding your glance. “She’s just an acquaintance…” You could read him, you knew him for a long time, he was hiding stuff from you.

You exhale abruptly, turning your body away from the man. “Is this your way of protecting me? I could read through your lies every day, Jungkook! I know you better than anyone else.” You huff in annoyance, signaling your maiden. “I have no appetite anymore.” Your frustration was building up, you were tired of pretending everything was fine around you two. You could hear him follow behind you, trying to stop you in your steps. You didn’t look back, you didn’t stop…you couldn’t. Is distance and lies what has become of your relationship? Arriving at your door you send your maiden away, turning to finally seek the man. You could see the hurt in his eyes, the way he was trying to avoid your glance in shame for being caught. “Is this what I am to you?” You say, your heart racing in your chest. “I can’t keep pretending everything is fine when you keep lying to me, hiding away stuff, avoiding me.” Jungkook opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He swallowed hard, his doe eyes finally meeting your sad ones. “I am no longer the person you turn to, Jungkook. I can see this, I can feel this.” you pause for a second, trying so hard to gather the words that were scattering around your head.

“You don’t come anymore, you don’t see me anymore, you don’t want to touch me anymore. Is this the reason she’s here? Are you trying to replace me?” You ask upset, tears burning in your eyes. “You know this is not true! You are everything to me.” he says, his voice cracking, defending his actions. “Everything I’m doing is for the kingdom, for us...” He takes a step closer, his hand reaching out for yours, but you pull away. “Is it?” You whispered, a single tear running down your cheek. For a moment, neither of you move, his silence was cutting you deep. Finally, he finally breaks, voice quieter now, almost pleading. "Please love…I don't want to hurt you.” his hand finds his way up, the back of his fingers barely caressing your face. “But you do, everyday! Do you even see me as your woman anymore?” your voice was trembling, a mix of frustration and pain in it.

"Y/N, you are still everything to me, you are my woman, my queen.” he was frustrated too, wanting to keep you safe and show you love, but being afraid of losing you. He wanted you to understand him too, how hard it is for him to stay away. “You used to want me, you used to look at me like I was your world. Now I don’t know who I am to you anymore!" You break down in rage and upset.

Jungkook’s chest tightened seeing how he only causes more pain then relief to your aching pains. His arms wrap around you so tight, finally giving in, the craves he has for you spilling. "I still want you. I always will" he says, his feelings raw. You look up at him, your teary eyes and pouty lips making him melt. “Then love me, I won’t break.” and that’s all it takes.

He picks you from the ground, one hand opening then closing the door behind you. His lips find yours after so many days of being untouched, honey-like taste lingering around. You cry. The feelings of being close with your husband breaking every wall you build around yourself all these years. He lays you down between the mountain of pillows and blankets, his lips never breaking from yours. “I am afraid.” He says when you pull away for a fresh breath of air. “I don’t want to lose you, but pushing you away kills me everyday.” He whispers letting his own fears alive, tears falling onto your neck. You raise your hand to reassure him, gently combing through his hair, shooting away his own hurt. “Then don’t push me away anymore. I need you by my side and you do too.” You let him sob on your chest, finally grasping how hard everything has been for him. “I want to stay by your side, Jungkook. I wish to be the queen I was before. So please…stop throwing me into the shadows.” His arms tighten around you. “I’m sorry.” he chokes out, his voice muffled against you “I want to be better at this, but I feel like I have no one. Everyone wants something from me and I feel…so alone…” He finally confesses, showing all of his emotions. 

“I’ll do better, Y/N. I promise.” he looks up and you cup his cheek, your thumb wiping away his tears. “I am not much of a support, but don’t hide away from me. I am not as weak as people make me to be.”

His brows furrow, guilt flickering across his face knowing he lets you think you’re weak, you being the strongest person he’s met. “You’re not weak.” he whispers. “You never were.”, “You will never be.” He kisses you gently once again, his salty lips burning against yours before pulling away to rest his forehead on yours. “Let’s take it easy from now. I’ll trust you and you trust me. No more running away” his breath feels warm against your face. “I’ll sleep with you today, it’s been long since we spent time together.” He takes off his clothes, remaining only in his white shirt and pants and rests down next to you, arms wrapping around your figure from behind. 

You could feel it for the first time since forever, the feeling of reassurance, the walls you’ve built along the years beginning to rebuild. You lean deeper into his touch without the care for the future, feeling in the moment like you could conquer the world together.

------------------------------

The next day, the palace was too full of life. The maids and servants were going crazy trying to find the king. A problem has arised, a big one. The doors of your bedroom flew open with a loud bang, startling the both of you, making Jungkook almost fall from the bed. Your maiden, Seol gasping in shock and embarrassment seeing the both of you entangled between the sheets. 

“Y-your Grace! Oh my, I apologize for intruding in such a way. I-I didn’t know you and my Lady.” Her head quickly lowered in shame of witnessing such a scene. You hid under your blanket trying to suppress your laughter. Jungkook ran a hand through his messy hair, letting out a sigh, he was a little irritated by the disturbance. “Seol. What’s the meaning of all this?” 

The girl gulped, bowing deeply “Forgive me, Your Grace! The elder queen is here, she’s demanding to talk to you.” Your heart sank at the mention of the elder queen, she was never fond of you and you knew from way before how harsh she is with Jungkook, trying to keep him under her strong control. You glanced at Jungkook, who was already frowning. “What is it now?” Jungkook muttered under his breath before getting out of bed, making Seol shriek and turn away blushing in embarrassment. “I will go and see what this is about.”  He puts on his blazer and shoes and exits the room leaving you and your flustered maiden behind. You sit up and look at the girl, concern running through your veins. “Seol, what is this about? Why is Jungkook’s mother here again?” You heard from around the palace a thing or two, having a close bond with your maiden has always proven efficient in letting you be in touch with what was happening around.

Seol hesitates, wringing her hands nervously. “My lady, I…I don’t think I should…” You huff in annoyance with her trying to keep the secret. “You should, we don’t keep secrets around here. Why is she here?” You ask for answers in a more demanding tone. She lowers her voice, glancing toward the door as if afraid someone might overhear, before finally breaking the news to you. “The elder queen… she’s growing impatient. She’s been making arrangements, calling for meetings with the king behind closed doors.”

“Arrangements? For what?” you press on, wanting a proper answer. “From what I know it’s exclusive between her, the king and his adviser. I tried to get more info, but I’ll be beheaded if they find me sneaking around!” “Why didn’t Jungkook tell me… Is this all you know?” you ask, eagerly expecting. Seol bites her lip before coming even closer to you. “That lady, she’s also here.” She whispers, making your heart skip a beat.

“The girl from yesterday? The one that had dinner with my husband?” You ask stunned and Seol nods, her expression filled with unease. “Yes, my lady. She’s in the garden with the elder queen now. They are waiting for the king to be there, I feel like something is going to happen.” You sigh and raise from the bed. “This only sounds like trouble. Prepare my dress, I’m going to see what’s happening there.” “My lady, I think you should not!” Seol tries to stop, but you turn and look at her with angry eyes. She can only comply under your authority, you are the queen and she can’t tell you want to do. With shame she bows her head and starts to help you dress.

“Don’t push yourself too hard, my lady...” she says worried before following you to the garden.

…

Slowly you see it. The garden doors come into view making you take a deep breath in nervousness. You could hear their voices and you could definitely see a stressed Jungkook through the glass window.

“I told you to cut it down, this is not happening! Why can’t you understand!” He’s trying to keep his composure, he was angry for some reason unknown to you.

“Bring that damned girl here! It’s not your decision to make, she has to give her word! What king are you, ever since two years ago this place has been running wild!”

Beside him sits the elder queen, her presence commanding and cold, and next to her the girl you saw before, a sly smile tugging at her lips.

You open the doors making them stop, all eyes being on you. “Forgive my intrusion.” you say, your voice calm but firm. “But I believe I should also be present to whatever is happening here.”

Jungkook’s eyes widened in surprise and fear seeing you. The elder queen scoffs, leaning back in her seat when she sees you enter. “Do you realize how long the kingdom has waited for you?” Her eyes were piercing, punching holes through your body.

“It’s been long since we’ve seen each other, Y/N. I think it’s time we discuss a little about the future of this land.” You met her icy gaze, the way she spoke without a care. “You’re right, mother.” you replied, taking a deep breath. “It’s been a long time since we’ve spoken, why don’t we catch up?” 

The elder queen’s eyes narrow. “You know what this is about?” You look a little confused, but before anything could be said Jungkook moves to your side abruptly, not wanting you there any further.

“This discussion is over.” He says, glaring at his mother, trying to assess dominance in front of the woman who brought him to this earth. “You think this discussion is over?” she asks unamused, rising from her seat. “This has to be discussed, Jungkook. We’ve waited long enough.” Jungkook clenches his jaw trying to pull you away from all the madness. 

“Are you with child?” She asks carelessly, stunning you at her sudden boldness. “Excuse me?” You could feel your chest tighten at her words, eyes widening in disbelief. “Are you with child?” The elder queen repeats, her tone impatient. You remain frozen, mind scrambling for a response.

“How could I be?” you respond, voice trembling slightly. "The kingdom needs an heir. You and Jungkook have been married long enough, where is the future descendant of this kingdom?” she adds nonchalantly.

Jungkook steps forward trying to shield you away from his mother’s harsh words. “It is not for you to decide when we should bear children, mother.” he says, making the queen chuckle. “She’s sick. How could she even bear children?” her words venomous, filled with disgust.

You felt the world spinning around you. What was all of this about? The future of the kingdom, an heir?  Your heart starts to quicken as the words sink in. “Y/N, you’ve done enough till now, I respect the work you’ve done for the good of the land. But we need someone to rule further.” His mother says, coming closer to you, her hand trying to grasp yours only to be stopped by Jungkook.

“The people are growing restless. If you cannot fulfill your duty as the queen, then we must take other measures, my dear.” she says, ignoring her son’s desperate actions in trying to stop her from reaching further to you. 

You wanted to argue with her, to defend yourself, but all your words were stuck in your throat. “Jungkook is still young, he can still provide children. All that I ask of you is to accept a small change in your life.”

She pulls you closer holding both of your hands in her. “Lady Yujin here is a nice girl. She is young and able to bear the child everybody wishes upon.” Your eyes widen, finally catching on her sick plan. You pulled your hands back slowly, taking a step back. “No.” you respond, shaking your head, body trembling with unknown emotions, trying to take in what was suddenly coming your way in rapid motion. 

“All that I ask is for you to agree on their marriage. She will bear an heir for the throne and then it’s your and Jungkook’s choice on what’s going to happen further, I won’t bother anymore.” She was calm in her words, a heartless woman hiding behind her facade. Your eyes begin to fill with tears. “No” you say once again shaking your head in denial. You turn your head to look at your husband, wondering about the emotions he holds in his eyes. “Jungkook…is this what you want?” You ask, defeated. Hoping for him to not be on the other side. He comes closer to you holding your arms, looking deeply into your eyes in desperation. “No, of course not!” Raw guilt was taking over him, he couldn’t find the words to reassure you, to explain that this wasn’t the choice he wanted to take.

You glanced at her, the woman who was meant to replace you, seeing her smile in victory made your stomach twist and turn. “I’m only here to help, Your Majesty. I’m sure we can come to an agreement that benefits everyone.” she says swiftly, eyes glinting with satisfaction. You could barely look at Jungkook now, the man you thought was your everything, the man you trusted above all. “You’re all so quick to tear me apart.” You say ripping yourself from his embrace.

“But it's your role as the king…” you say unsure, mixed feelings were creeping inside, his mother’s manipulation getting to you.

You bite your lip thinking about the situation. You know the harsh words of your people, the whispers, the stares. Your situation is uncertain and just for a split second your judgment is clouded. 

The persuasion of Jungkook’s mother, the suffocating stares of Yujin, Jungkook’s guilty eyes. You caved in, giving up your principles for the better of the kingdom, like any other queen would. You try to remain calm and think, but maybe you were not as strong as you thought. In a blink you cough, gasping for air. Jungkook rushes to your side before you manage to collide with the hard concrete, his arms wrapping around your frail frame. “Call the doctor!” he shouted, his voice frantic. 

"My love…" his voice trembling as he gently held you close to his beating heart. You could hear his voice, see the way he started to scream at his mom for making you go through this, his tears falling on your face, staining your cheeks.

Your ears were ringing louder and louder and looking at his worried face, your vision starting to blur until you could not hear or feel anything anymore. 

A deep slumber engulfing you.

-----------------------------------

It’s been 2 months since the incident has occurred. Ever since you’ve been on bed rest. The medicine you were taking was experimental since there was no known cure for what you had, it was to assume that side effects would appear sooner or later and after the shock you suffered, you decided to stay enclosed.

You received the news in your bed, in the end your husband succumbed to his mothers urgings, now married out of will to a second woman, the one who’s seen to bring peace and stability to the kingdom. A new hope.

Yujin quickly became loved by the people, showing up along with your husband to all the events you should’ve attended, stepping up on the duties you should care for.

She made the people feel safe again, making them forget the real queen they have, turning their back to you, wishing Yujin would take your spot forever. However, these were only what the outside could see, inside the palace was a nightmare. She was a vile woman, a two faced snake. After she got the taste of power she started showing her rotten self.

Nobody dared to speak in front of her, let alone oppose to any of her sayings. But with all the power she holds right now, she’s missing something she dearly desires, the key to your husband’s heart. Jungkook refused. 

He refused anything that has to do with her, to eat with her, hear her, see her, and clearly he refused to consummate his “marriage” making her rot in envy every time he came to spend time in your chamber.

He stayed by your side now, day by day, night by night. Lulling you to sleep when the pain was too much to bear, singing to you through the day if you felt upset or too sick. He showed you that no matter how many ups and downs he has, you’re still his number one priority. The person he deeply adored. You felt at peace now, Yujin’s arrival did not bring as much chaos as you thought, it only made your and Jungkook’s relationship grow stronger, blooming after years of being caged. She wanted him so much it made him run far away from her, deeper and deeper into your arms. It was evening right now, you were sitting in your bed like usual, feeling much better these days. Seol was sitting behind you, gently combing your hair, preparing you for your bath. “You look so pretty, my queen.” she murmurs. 

“Thank you, Seol,” you replied, gazing at your reflection in the window. “You’ve been glowing recently, I could see you’re getting better.” she chuckles softly, admiring you. “The medicine has been working so far, the doctor said it’s a promising solution.” Seol hums unconvinced with your excuses. “Are you sure that’s the reason, my lady? Your Grace has been visiting a lot lately, hasn’t he?”  she says, her tone a little teasing.

“He really has, hasn’t he? I was afraid she would steal him away, but it seems he carries no interest.” You felt a small sense of gratitude towards the two of them, the ones who stood beside you no matter what.

“I’ve heard Lady Yujin created a monstrous scandal just the other day. The king still not bedded with her, right?” you scoff at her boldness, since when did she become like this? “A little bold of you to ask your queen such things.” you say crossing your arms, trying to appear upset just to mess with her a little.

She gasps and stops her actions, coming to her senses about what came out of her mouth. “I-I’m so sorry! I should’ve never stepped this far! It’s not my business on what's happening in the king’s life, I’m so sorry!” She bows down, ashamed, making you burst into laughter, achieving with glory your goals. “I was just joking, I consider you my best friend Seol! Don’t be so rough around me, we already speak of all.” You tease back. “And to answer your question. No, he hasn’t. I think he never will.” You smile proudly, showing off your loyal husband before the reality starts to kick in again.

“But this doesn’t mean he’s doing it with me either. It’s been more than a year since we’ve been intimate with each other.” you sigh sadly, resting your head on your palm.

Seol looks up at you, her eyes soft with concern. “My lady, don’t let the distance get to you. You’ve both been through so much already, he must be afraid." she reasures you kindly. “Afraid of what exactly?” You both stop in your tracks, blush creeping up when Jungkook enters the room, confusion obvious on his face.

“Jungkook...” you start trying to collect your words but failing. Seol is quick to excuse herself and leave the room, but you have nowhere to go so you face the man. 

“I’m sorry for interrupting you two. But, Y/N...what is this about me being afraid of?” he comes closer to you, wondering what were you scheming behind his back. “We were having a one on one girl talk, clearly not your business.” You pout crossing your arms. He smiles briefly. “Hmm, I’ll let it slide this time, only because it was a girl talk.” He pats your head coming closer to leave a peck on your lips. “I see Seol prepared you for a bath, should I help you with it since she’s not here anymore?” he questions, making the air around you grow thick. Your heart skips a beat, he hasn’t seen you naked in a while, why now all of a sudden? 

“You don’t have to do that, I can manage myself!” You rush to say, feeling shy in front of him all. “What if I want to?” He teases, eyes shining with love when looking at you. And you shyly comply thinking it might be for the best to have him around, fastly getting your necessities and heading for the bath with your husband behind you.

Once you enter you slowly let the night gown fall to the floor, back facing the man. You take off your undergarments as well, a blush creeping on your cheek knowing he’s watching you undress, wondering what he thinks of you right now, seeing you so exposed in front of him.

“I’m shy.” you whisper. “Why? I’ve seen you before.” He’s quick to add without shame, a shiver coming up your spine at his seductive tone.

He comes from behind holding your hand, helping you hop into the bath, warm water engulfing your body. You look away for a second, hiding your breast with your hands, but quickly turning around when you hear the rustling of clothes echoing through the enclosed space.

He’s getting undressed. Jungkook watches you carefully, seeing your eyes preying on his body. “Like what you see?” He asks, amused. You lock eyes with him for a second before turning back around, hiding your red face from him.

“You’re a pervert.” He could hear you mumble. “You’re the one acting worse than on our first night together.” he responds, making you huff. “What’s gotten into you, it’s been long since we were this close…”

He tilts his head a little hurt by your words. “I know it’s been long, but do you not want me to be here?” you feel the guilt creep in, you should be grateful. He's trying to be close to you again and instead of letting him in your heart again you say rude words making him question his decisions. “I didn’t mean it like that.” you quickly clarify. “It’s just… it’s been so long since we were close like this. I wasn’t expecting you to be so… forward with it.” you finally admit. You look at him, his eyes are softly looking back at you. He doesn’t say much, only signaling you to make some space for his body to fit behind. You sit in silence, your body tense, hugging your knees close to your chest. Jungkook is spread behind you, his arms on each side of the tub, eyes closed. “Relax a little, will you? I won’t eat you.” you don’t trust his words, he’s scheming something. One of his arms comes closer to you, resting at the base of your neck, pulling you to lay your back on his chest. “I should’ve done this sooner. I missed being close to you.” He lets out a satisfied sigh, hands wrapping around your front, resting on your waist. 

Jungkook gently nuzzles his face into the back of your neck, his breath warm against your skin. “I want you.” He says, making goosebumps erupt on the surface of your skin.

“Do you think we can?” He reluctantly asks, a sniff of persuasion hiding behind. You were melting into his touch, his hand trailing down slowly, caressing your closed thighs. “Can you? Hmm, love?” Your breath starts to hitch, the water feeling colder than your body temperature. You slowly open your legs, letting his hand touch your privates, opening a way for him. His fingers gently caress through your folds while his lips start to leave kisses on the back of your neck.

You gulp when his thumb comes in contact with your little bundle of nerves, a faint whimper leaving your lips. His other hand starts to cup one of your breasts, playing gently with it.

It's easy to say you were in a bliss, nothing you’ve felt before was making you feel as good as what the man you love was doing right now.  You didn’t want to stop, falling deeper into the haze. But just when everything starts to feel much sweeter, you hear a knock on your door, freezing you in place, making Jungkook’s finger stop right at your entrance, leaving you unsatisfied.

You whine loudly, hands covering your face in desperation. From the other side of the door you hear Seol’s voice asking for you, making you startle in fear. “Seol, stay outside!” you shout horrified that she might enter the room.

“Are you okay, my Lady? Why did you bathe alone, what if something would’ve happened?” She's always the one to accompany you when you bathe, just to make sure you won’t have any accidents. But now, Jungkook was here, it would be improper for her to walk on you two, especially during such lewd actions.

“Don’t worry, Seol, I’m with her.” Jungkook responds, annoyed himself, at the fact that he had to stop after managing so much persuasion.

Seol only rushes to get her words out once she finds out you two were bathing together, you could imagine her face being so red by the embarrassment.

“I w-will leave her in your care, your Majesty! I didn’t know, I’m so sorry! Oh heavens, I always come in at the wrong time!” her last phrase was probably for herself. 

“Seol, before you leave. I have a favor to ask. Tell the guards around to not come close to her royalty’s chamber tonight. Don’t disturb us until I come out and say so, understood?” You blush at his words, wondering what was going on in his mind. Seol on the other hand is even more flustered, catching what the king is about to do on first hearing. She excuses herself and leaves. Between you two is silence. You looked at him from over your shoulder, he was staring at you, half lidded, licking his lips when your eyes met. “I think we should get out right now.” He rises from the water, stepping outside of the tub, grabbing a towel to wrap around his waist in hurry. You look confused at him, you didn’t even wash properly. “But, we haven’t even washed…” Jungkook lends you his hand and you take it. He wraps another towel around you, showing you the way back to your room. “We will need to bathe later on anyway.” He says before gently laying you down on your bed. He gets rid of the towel, letting it pool at his feet, and then you see it. Standing proud and heavy, in all of its glory in front of you. Now you understand. 

He wants you in that way.

You blush, but hands work fast like a reflex, dragging the towel off of you, letting you naked in front of him as well. He comes closer, kneeling on your bed, above you. You raise your hands to touch his chest, fingers trailing down, but stopping right above his hardened member. “Don’t be a tease now.” he grunts. You smile, letting your hands gently grasp him, stroking him up and down, giving him what he wants. Jungkook looks at you from above and whimpers, you look so beautiful under him, stroking his cock up and down like the goddess you are, working him up like never before. “How should I serve you next, my king? Do you want my mouth?” You ask seductively. He smiles, dirty thoughts of you doing what he wants flooding his mind. He has to be tame though, your state is still not stable, he promised to take it easy. “It’s fine, how about I work you up a little instead? We want this to last without getting you too tired.” You let go of him, happiness feeling your veins knowing you have such a caring man beside you.

He leans down to land a kiss between your breasts, his hands finding their way back to where they were earlier. One of his fingers entering you eagerly, breaking a gasp and a loud moan from such unexpected intruding.

He comes back up, pushing a second one in, followed by a third. You were a moaning mess, trying to keep composure in front of him, but when his lips latch on your sweet spot you lose it, all the strings breaking in your body making you come undone under his touch.

“That was fast my love, was I too eager for you?” He is breathless as well, his cheeks and chest flushed with a red color. “It’s been long, I’m not used to the feeling anymore.” you barely manage to rip out.

He chuckles, taking his fingers out. “That’s funny, you took three of my fingers like they were nothing.” You whine at his teasing, body heating up quickly. He leans back, still on his knees looking at you from above.

“Look at all the mess you made.” you can’t manage to respond anymore since his hands grab your legs, spreading them nice for him to see. “I guess we should make even more now that we’re at it, don’t you think?” “Yeah, I would love that.” You say, biting your lower lip seductively, enticing him even more. “You’re the real definition of a pillow princess.” He looks at your body, beautifully spread beneath him, hair messy and all over the pillows in your bed, cheeks flustered and shiny arousal pooling between your legs. “Tell me to stop if it’s too much.” He says grabbing his member, aligning it to your entrance. “Don’t we need protection?” You suddenly ask, not wanting to break the mood, but also trying to be careful about your actions. He hums a little, slapping the head of his thick cock on your wetness before nudging your entrance with it. “Let’s not tonight.” He says before pushing in slowly, breaking a loud moan from you before bottoming out in one go. “Jungkook!” You scream, not in pain, but in so much pleasure you could already come again. Feeling him inside you, so raw, so real, clouding your mind breaking any rational thought you have left. Between you was a desire you never felt, a passion that took years to build up only to spill all over in this moment. His touch felt nauseating, his lips burned your skin with pure emotions, the stretching of his cock pushing through your walls just the right way.

You were on cloud nine, if not even further, lost somewhere in the universe, never wanting to return from such heights this man continued to rip out of you. You were loud, so loud you thought for a second the whole empire could hear you, could hear the way he claimed his only love, his only wife, his only queen.

Jungkook was lost too, his mind filled with the thought of you, the erotic images of your actions imprinting deep within his conscience, craving more of you. 

He also wanted to let everyone know, to know he was the only one he could make you feel this way and you were the only one who he would go unbelievable lengths to satisfy.

He didn’t want to be afraid anymore, you would have him by his side for the rest of your life long or short, and after that he would not be this close with anyone ever again. You were close once again, this time he was too. You can’t even remember how many times you were at breaking point tonight, coming undone under him and his intoxicating touch.

 “Jungkook, I’m so close, don’t stop.” you pant trying to regain your breath. The boy does not stop, pleasing you, keeping his peace, feeling his climax coming just as close.

In bliss you both moan loudly, coming together. His breath rages, sweat dripping from his forehead onto your chest. He kisses you once again, making sure you’re safe and alright in his arms.

And then, when you both regain a bit of composure you go again, over and over, loving each other all night long until both of you can’t take it anymore. Just him making sure you feel all the love you’ve been missing for the past two years.

…

On the other side of the castle, news flow rapidly, arriving in the end at the ears of the other “queen”.

“Does he think I’m a fool?!” she hisses, her voice harsh. Her maiden bows in respect for her. “Where have you heard such news anyways?” she asks, looking at her reflection in the vanity mirror. “My lady, the queen’s maiden has come out rushing and telling everybody not to come close to her chamber.” “She told everyone to stay away from her chamber?” she questions, her voice low and dangerous. Her maiden nodes hesitantly. “Yes, my lady. They say His Majesty is inside with her... and has been for hours now.”

Yujin’s anger was boiling over. It’s been two months since their wedding officiated, and ever since he had refused her presence entirely. She felt insulted, the thought of the king being intimate with the other woman and not with her was driving her crazy.

“Of course, he’s with her.” she spat. “I was promised a place here to bear an heir, yet he’s still clinging to that pathetic excuse of a woman!” Her maiden kept her gaze down, her hands trembling slightly as she fondled with the hem of her dress.

“How long would he keep going on with this? He finally sees her now?” “My lady.” the maiden whispers with a quivering voice. “Perhaps, if you showed patience, His Majesty might…” Yujin cut her off. “Patience? Does he think I’ll simply stand by and watch while he engages with her?” she was enraged by the thought. “Or perhaps the king is only showing pity.” The maiden tries to reassure only to be met with more explosive feelings. 

“Do you think pity is what drives a man to spend hours behind locked doors? Forgetting who he should sleep with in order to get that damned heir? ” She scoffed bitterly, rising from her chair. The girl lowers her head further, wishing she could disappear. “I-I only meant that His Majesty might be torn, my lady. The queen has been with him for so long and he’s been neglecting her.” 

“She’s weak!” Yujin snapped. “Nothing but a disgusting living corpse! How could he engage with her?!” she says while placing through her room. “Perhaps...it is not about what she gives him, but what she means to him.” the maiden suggests.

Yujin freezes mid-step, her eyes narrowing as she turns to face the girl, coming dangerously close to her. She was blinded by the goals she has to achieve, madness driving into her.

“Are you suggesting that she is somehow…irreplaceable?” 

“N-no, my lady!” The girl stammered. “I only think that since they’ve been together for long, their bond might be hard to break.” 

“Silence!” The woman shouts out, sharp and commanding, making the poor girl shiver. “He must come to his senses. This kingdom needs me, only me!” she turns around looking at her reflection through the mirror. “I’ve had enough of this waiting. If His Majesty won’t act, then I will.” Yujin says, lips curled into a sinister smile.

“What will you do, my lady?” the maiden asks cautiously. “I’ll just remind Jungkook that this kingdom’s future depends on me, not on a woman who can’t even stand on her own two feet let alone bear his children.”

“Mark my words,” she said softly, almost to herself. “Before long, I’ll be the only queen this kingdom knows.”

---------------------------------

Morning came by fast, the rays of sun burning on your cheek. You whine trying to move only to find yourself trapped under a muscular body. Your eyes flutter open to find Jungkook sprawled on top of you, sleeping soundly. 

You brush your hand through his hair, taking in the sight of him being so calm. It felt surreal, as if the weight of the world outside this room didn’t exist, the only place being in the warmth of his arms. “Good morning,” you murmured, seeing him stir in his sleep. “Morning, love,” he whispered, his voice deep and husky. You tried to wiggle out from under him, but he only held you tighter. “Where do you think you’re going?” he teased, nuzzling into your neck. “Let’s just stay a little longer like this.” his voice still laced with sleep. The room quiets down, you close your eyes, enjoying Jungkook's presence just a little more.  “Last night...” he began, his tone teasing. “It was the best sleep I’ve had in years.” His smile was cocky. “And not just because of the other things we did.” You have blush creeping up your neck as you avoided his gaze. 

“It’s because for the first time, I felt like I had you back. Like nothing else around mattered.” he said looking at you with such sincerity in his eyes. 

“Well.” you started, “Maybe we’ll have more nights like this.” you say shyly, still avoiding his gaze. He grins as he pulls your naked bodies closer together. “Careful what you promise, my queen,” he teased. “I might hold you to it.” Both of you smile as you melt away into one another. You stayed in his arms all morning, until he was ready to get back to his duties. 

…

Jungkook made his way down the halls of the palace after working hard all day. He had in mind one thing, to get some comfortable clothes and come around to see what his sweet wife was doing.

But as he approached his chambers, he noticed the door was slightly open. Without thinking much, he pushes through the door, expecting his adviser or some maid to be in it. To his surprise, on his bed was seated Yujin. Jungkook froze for a moment wondering who allowed her to enter his room. “What are you doing here?” His tone was sharp while talking to her, devoid of any emotion.

“I came to talk,” she said simply, her eyes burning holes in the man. “You should leave, Yujin. I have nothing to say to you.” His words were cold. The girl rises from his bed, coming closer to him, her eyes locking with his. 

“You’ve refused me for months, my Grace. Is this your way of bringing good to the people?” she continued, her voice tainted with frustration. By this time his patience was running low as well, tired of having to deal with her.

“What do you expect exactly?” Jungkook asks, folding his arms. “One night. Give yourself to me for one night and that’s all.” she whispers seductively, hands caressing his arms.

“I thought I made myself clear already. I want nothing to do with you.” he pushes her aside, resuming his task, his body craving something else, someone else. 

“You’re lying to yourself.” she murmured, grabbing his sleeve. “You can pretend all you want, but I know what you need. And right now, it’s not her. I could give you something she can’t, a bliss you never felt.” She persuades, making the man clench his jaw in annoyance. 

"Leave." he commanded, his voice controlled, cold as ice. “Have you really bedded with her?” she asks all of a sudden, not wanting to believe the rumors that were going around. “You don’t get to question me about what I do.” he hisses back. “I didn’t want to believe it at first, but I’ve heard you spent the whole night in her chamber.” Her words were bitter, she didn’t want to accept it. “Yujin!” 

Jungkook shouts, startling her. “You do not get to question what I do, especially with my wife!” “I am also your wife! Why are you playing only on one side, Jungkook!” He raises his hand, making her flinch. He felt pity bubble in the bottom of his stomach at that moment, he took a deep breath tone lowering even deeper if possible. 

“I will tell you this, once. Only Y/N can call me Jungkook. You never…never, dare to use my name again!.” His hand combs through his hair in frustration. “Second, I do not want to see you around again, I told you I have no interest in being involved with you. The only woman that I want is Y/N, she is your queen.” 

Yujin stood frozen, her fists clenched at her sides as Jungkook’s words pierced through her like daggers, a mixture of disbelief and anger blooming into her, but she couldn’t fight back. She pushed his limits way too far already, even though the two were married she could still be punished for coming against the king. 

She bit down her bottom lip bowing to him then leaving his chamber, tears spilling in anger. Her mind was already thinking of what steps she needs to take next in order for him to fall in her trap and ensure her duty is accomplished.

She entered her room, throwing her stuff on the floor in rage, the commotion making her maiden, Byeol, come to see what’s going on. Her eyes widened in concern seeing the state of her lady. 

Yujin took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. "He’s chosen her." she hissed through clenched teeth, "I will make him regret this. I will show him I’m the better one to stay by his side!” her breath was ragged, trying desperately to keep composure. Yujin faces Byeol, her eyes darkening, an evil plan scheming in her mind. “Bring me the royal doctor.” she says, her voice cold and determined, making the maiden shiver in fear. “I have a plan that’s going to end all this havoc for good.”

-----------------------------------

For the next few days neither of you were bothered by Yujin, which makes you feel uneasy, wondering if she’s really given up or not. Jungkook, however, we could say his mood has been lighter without having her on his back all the time. He was preparing for something else anyway. Your 5th wedding anniversary. The palace hasn’t held the annual banquet for this celebration since you’ve fallen ill, but this year, with your approval, he decided to enlighten the people and show them that you are fastly recovering, coming even stronger than before. The palace buzzed with activity as preparations for the grand banquet began, he’s gotten busy enough through the day, but he managed to always join your side at night.

The servants hurried through the halls, carrying colorful dresses and fragrant flowers. Everyone was looking forward to such a night. In your room the atmosphere was even more chaotic, this being the 10th dress you tried on only to discard it with upset. “This is not it!” you huff making Seol lose her mind, the dresses supplies becoming limited. “My queen, please decide upon one. We have no more left!” she says, making you let out a frustrated sigh. “It’s not about the dress anymore.” you mumble, throwing yourself on your bed. You wanted to look good tonight, to impress all the guests and mostly your husband.

You growl a soft knock interrupting your sulking. But before you could respond, Jungkook steps in “Am I interrupting?” he asks, leaning casually against the doorframe.

“No…I’m just trying to find the right dress.” you replied disappointed, eyes staring at the ceiling above. “No luck until now? I’ve sent you loads of dresses.” you whine rolling on your tummy, looking outside the window. “She’s been trying for three hours already and no luck.” Seol stays exhausted.

“Y/N, my love.” he coos sitting next to you, patting your back gently. “You know you could be dressed in a potato sack and I will still think you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes upon?” he says while you pull slightly at your hair in desperation.

“I just want everything to be perfect.” you sadly whimper, making him chuckle. “How about this one then?” He picks the last dress from the stall. A beautiful and pretty simple white gown.

“I think you will look like an angel in this one. Want to try it on for me?” he asks, raising a brow.

“Won’t this make me look like a bride?” you question and he smiles. “I think this will be a good reference, my beautiful bride.” you laugh and grab the dress. “I’ll try it on then.”

Seol helps you in it, tying the corset and putting a frame under it to puff it up a little. You look in the mirror, the dress was indeed beautiful, soft fabric flowing gently down your body, it made you seem so pure, so alive. 

Jungkook slowly steps behind you, his hands resting gently on your waist. “There she is, my beautiful wife.” he says, his eyes never leaving yours in the mirror’s reflection, looking at you with true adoration. “Thank you.” you say, turning to him, his lips pecking yours slowly. “I should let you get ready, the banquet is close to starting.” satisfied the man leaves your room leaving you to resume your preparation. As the time drew near, you also grew more nervous. Finding yourself in front of the door almost made you turn around. “Don’t be nervous!” Seol urged, pushing some courage towards you. “This is your night.” she puts her hand over yours before arranging the last piece of your outfit, something that has been missing from your head for a long time, a crown.

You took a deep breath and entered the room, the grand hall quieting when they saw you at the top of the stairs. You look down, spotting many familiar figures, the one of your husband’s catching your eyes, taking your breath away. Jungkook was waiting for you at the bottom of the stairs, his hand reaching for you to take it.  The soft sound of your heels against the marble floor take over the room, whispers erupting around. When you reach him, he takes your hand, pressing a kiss on your ring finger before turning to address the crowd. “The queen has arrived!” A wave of applause and cheers fill the room, people enchanting “All hail the queen!” making you tear up in surprise, grateful to see you were not well forgotten. You could see genuine smiles on many faces, their respect and affection for you evident. “Shall we open the banquet with a dance? What do you think?” Jungkook leads you to the center of the room, your beauty shining brighter in the dim lights. The music starts and you let yourself get carried away by your husband’s lead. More and more people joining along. It felt magical, something so memorable you could remember it for years. You chatted away all night, catching up with important nobles, everyone showed so much love towards you…well, almost everyone. In the corner of the room, a black dress decorated with many precious stones and expensive jewelry prepared for a big showoff, a glass of blood like wine in her hand. Yujin.

Her fingers tighten around the glass, eyes burning on you, seeing you so full of life all of a sudden. She was surrounded by a few nobles who attempted to be polite with her but only managed to get on her nerves. 

“She looks radiant, doesn’t she?” one of the women remarked, glancing at you speaking with the crowd. “Yes.” Yujin replied through gritted teeth, her gaze unwavering. “Radiant indeed.”

Byeol was sitting right behind, her fingers playing nervously with the bottle in her pocket. “My lady, your plan…” she leans in to whisper.

“Not yet,” Yujin muttered, her voice low and calculated. “Let her enjoy it a little more, it will be her last moment after all.” she adds, her actions dangerous. The evening carried on beautifully, the grand hall brimming with music, laughter, and conversation. You felt alive again, dearly missing such events in your now dull life. Jungkook remained by your side as you engaged with the guests, from time to time asking about your condition only to hear you’ve never felt as alive as now. He smiled looking down at you, his heart at peace knowing you were shining again, soon the servants started to bring more glasses into the room, people holding toasts in your honor. The servant stopped near you and Jungkook, offering the drinks. He took one, raising it slightly toward you. “To us” he whispered, his eyes sparkling with affection. You smiled, reaching for your own, but before you can grasp it the sound of broken glass startles you. Red liquid spilling at your feet, the bottom of your dress staining in it, shiny shards flickering into the bright fluid. “Oh! My lord!” You hear the commotion, at the bottom of your feet collapsed Yujin, her hand trembling as red wine mixed with the crimson of her blood. "My lord…" she gasps, vividly scared. “The glass…it broke."

You looked down at her, wondering what to do. The room was tense, the whispers of the guests growing louder. “The poor woman.” someone murmured. “Why isn’t the king helping her?”.

“You’re bleeding.” he sys, his voice calm but distant, barely reaching out to her. She starts to cry, sobbing in fear, putting on a show for everyone to see, her maiden pacing worriedly around. 

“You should call the doctor, take her to her room, My Lord, she’s bleeding out!” she says in panic. Jungkook looks at you for a second, searching for your reaction, before he helps her back on her feet, his clothes staining with blood. 

“Jungkook.” you say softly, placing a hand on his arm. “I’ll be back, I’m taking her to her chamber.” he lets out a breath, his expression unreadable.

“Please, forgive me.” Yujin whimpers, her voice frail. “I didn’t mean to disturb your celebration.” she says towards you before leaving along with your husband, a glint of evil lying under her fake facade, her hidden grin making a shiver run down your spine.

You look at them as they leave the grand hall, the murmurs growing louder, leaving you exposed under the glares of the crowd. Seol steps closer, her hand brushing your arm gently trying to reassure that everything was going to be alright, but you were not at peace, heath hammering in your chest with a bad feeling.

You stayed calm on the outside, telling people to enjoy what was left of the night, every now and then looking towards the big doors, waiting for your husband’s return not knowing it will be all in vain.

He didn’t return.

You wanted to leave, to go and search for him, but you had a party to lead now so instead, you sent Seol to look after him, hoping something bad didn’t happen.   After a couple more hours of agonizing wait you said goodbye to the last guests, the banquet finishing earlier under the worry of your sickness. You left in a rush, looking for Seol, she was nowhere to be found either.

You get back to your chamber, rushing panic flowing into your veins. Should you go search for him some more, perhaps visit his chamber? You gulp, hand cupping your throbbing heart, fear creeping through the cracks of your body.

You jump on your feet when you see the door of your room peaking open, someone falling at the step, a hand showing through the open crack. You rush towards them, opening widely just to be met with a horrifying sight. “Jungkook!” you scream, leaning down to grab the man by the arm, the high temperature of his body hitting you in an instant. He looks up at you, sweat dripping down his forehead, breath raging wild. His eyes were half lidded, barely gazing at you through his lashes. “Do not believe it…I didn’t do anything…” these were the only words he could say, it was like he is in a trance only chanting for you not to believe. You look outside, hoping to see someone, something, the hall was empty. You drag his body inside, taking in more of his ravished look. His shirt was fully unbuttoned chest on full display, so were his pants, his underwear peeking through the gap in the front. He was bright red and breaking in a sweat. For a second you wondered if he’s gotten sick from something, but when he laid down on your bed you could see his raging bulge trying to break free. You didn’t know what to do or say, what happened in the time he was missing? Why was he in such state? You look back for a second, biting your lip, you should go and ask for the doctor. But when you try to take your first step, his hand drags you down, making you fall on top of him.

“Help me.” he whispers. “It hurts…” you look apologetical at him, your feelings running wild with worry. “What happened to you?” you manage to ask, but to no avail. His hands grip the sleeves of your dress, pulling them down your arms, undressing you. “Jungkook, answer me!” you don’t fight back his touch, but you are worried, not knowing what you have to deal with. He only mumbles incoherent words, lips latching onto your neck, sucking purple bruises down your throat.

“Just help me, please.” He whines, his hand rubbing his prominent bulge searching for some relief. You gulp, putting your own hand over it. “We shouldn’t do this, I don’t know what are you on. I should call the doctor.” but despite that you still caress his throbbing member in hope of making him feel better.

“I need you. Now. Just…Y/N, please…” he struggles to take off his clothes while you watch, once naked he lies down in your bed, his eyes closed. “Come on top.” he motions with two fingers towards you. You sigh and take off your dress, climbing gently on top of him.

“This is like our first night together.” he smiles brightly, making you chuckle in slight embarrassment with the thought of such memory. With a little of his help you push his aching cock inside, whimpering at the stretch. He moans loudly, feeling his pressures being relieved. “Good job, baby. Now bounce a little.” He seems completely out of it, but somehow he still takes control over what you do, fully aware of what are you engaging in. 

You adjust for a second before you take on, rising from his member until only his hot tip remains inside before bottoming out in one go, ripping loud moans and whimpers out of your chests.

His hands find their way on your waist, helping with your movement, his hips jerking up every now and then, adding to the feeling. 

The moonlight was shining upon your naked forms, beams of light reflecting beautifully onto your glittering bodies. “You look like you’re made of glass.” He says, eyes lingering lazily, seeing you deliciously bounce up and down on his cock, enjoying yourself.

“Such beautiful skin, shining brightly into the moonlight, I could stare at you forever, my love.”

You whine, feeling closer to your release, his words almost bringing you over the edge. His hand starts to caress your sides, working higher and higher, fingers dancing on your skin leaving a lingering feeling.

“Are you really made of glass?” he asks in a daze while rising in a sitting position, sticking his chest close to yours, holding you close.

“You’re beautiful…my glass queen.” he whispers, lips catching yours in a fiery kiss, passionate but gentle, handling you with such care, wondering if you are really going to break under his touch.

“Jungkook…” your mind was clouding, coming closer and closer to the feeling you were eager to know once again, the man showing signs of being even further on this height while being held in your embrace.

Without any care and only with another passionate kiss you come undone, body trembling under his touch. Him following, spilling hot inside of you, letting his head rest on your shoulder while trying to search for air.

“My queen…my only queen.” he kept mumbling until he fell limp on your bed, you following right after, too tired to search for answers in the moment. His touches detach you from reality, making you forget the events that have happened tonight.

---------------------------------

When the morning came again you realized Jungkook didn’t remember a thing. He woke up with a throbbing headache wondering how and when he got into your bed. 

He couldn’t remember anything after he left with Yujin. You realized. “You really don’t remember?” you ask cautiously, slight guilt crawling into you. “Not a thing. She hurt herself and I took her to her room, I can’t remember what happened after that.” His jaw clenches trying to piece together the fragments of his memory. “What did she do to me?” he wonders. Your stomach twists, trying hard to digest the knot that formed in it. “Should we talk to her?” you ask with worry, a heavy silence breaking between you two.

“Or do we speak to the guards, the servants, anyone who might’ve seen or heard something?” this reminded you, where is Seol. “I’ve also sent Seol to look after you, she’s not since returned!” You rise from the bed in hurry, dressing in the first gown you see. The two of you rush through the palace, your steps dragging you towards the chamber that started all of this, eager to find answers. 

Just your luck you thought, her maiden was just leaving the room as you two arrived. Byeol froze, immediately bowing down to you. “You Majesties, what brings you two here?” she hesitantly greeted. “Where is Yujin, I need to talk to her.” says Jungkook in a demanding tone. “Lady Yujin is resting, she’s had a hard night, my Lord. Don’t you remember?” she says with a coy smile. “A little cut won’t need that much bed rest.” his tone laced with skepticism. Byeol hesitates for a split second, thinking, before being interrupted by the door opening.

“What’s with all the noise, I need peace and quiet!” Yujin emerges through the room, her expression one of irritation before laying her eyes on Jungkook, a shy blush appearing on her face.

“My lord, I didn’t expect to see you so soon.” she says putting a strand of hair behind his ears. “So soon?” your husband questions.

“Oh, my poor king! You were so exhausted, I’m not surprised you don’t remember.” she says with smooth words, excitement in her voice.

“Though…I’m a little sad, I thought you'd be happier knowing we consummated our marriage.” she says with an embarrassed look, her eyes meeting yours.

You take a step back gasping, eyes widening in shock at what you heard. Has Jungkook slept with her? 

“What did you just say?” he asked, just as stunned. “You were so tender with me last night. It was beautiful. Just as I always imagined it would be.” Her eyes flicked between you two for the brief moment, a spark of triumph obvious in her eyes. You felt your heart drop, staring at your man you could see his knuckles turn white. “Stop lying, I didn’t do anything with you!” he growls at her.

Yujin’s expression falters for a moment “My king, why would I lie about such a thing? Wasn’t this the reason I am here in the first place, the elder queen would be thrilled to find out I’ll bring an honorable heir to this world.” 

“You really think I’d believe that?” Jungkook snaps, his voice rising. “She’s lying. Whatever she claims...it’s not true. I swear to you, Y/N.” he says, turning around, his eyes searching for yours. “I feel sick.” you say, nausea overwhelming you as your knees threaten to collapse. Jungkook reaches for you instantly “Don’t trust her, you know I would never dare.” his dark eyes bore into yours, pleading for your trust. You wanted to trust him, the memories from last night kept playing in your head “Do not believe it…I didn’t do anything…” that’s what he kept telling you.

“I’m going to throw up, you say in a rush.” shoving Jungkook away from you kneeling to the ground, your stomach twisting in a hurry. 

Jungkook immediately kneels beside you, his hands hovering over your back, unsure if you’d let him touch you any further. You clutch your stomach, trying to calm the turmoil within but failing miserably.

You closed your eyes, the room spinning as you try to steady yourself. “Let’s get you back to your room, I’m calling the doctor. You’re clearly unwell.” He picks you up hurrying to bring you back to the safety of your bed, ordering Byeol to bring the doctor. Yujin is also quick in her steps, following you two trying to look concerned about your situation.

“I don’t need you here!” argues your husband when the mistress enters the room behind. “I only want to help!” she argues back, but deep inside her she just wished to witness if these were your final moments. “Please, just try to relax. The doctor will be here soon.” he calms you down seeing you twist around in your bed, moaning in pain. In a matter of seconds Byeol and the doctor enter the room, both filled with concern. Your Majesty, let me see where it hurts.” he checks up on you briefly before his eyes widen in realization, urging everyone outside the room. Outside the air was tensionate, Jungkook pacing restlessly, his hands clenched into fists at his sides as he shot anxious glances towards the door, hoping he could receive a quicker response regarding your well-being.

Yujin stood in the corner, arms crossed over her chest, huffing every time her eyes landed on the man, upset she couldn’t get his attention.  "Why are you so worried?" She finally breaks the silence making him stop in his tracks. “She’s just having a rough moment, my lord. There’s no need to be so dramatic." she scoffs, making the boy's sharp gaze snapp to her.

“You think this is just a rough moment?” he was on the edge, closer to bursting in anger than he was ever before. “You need to stop with this Yujin. All that’s coming out of your mouth are lies.” he says through gritted teeth, his patience running thin. “You did something to me didn’t you? Yesterday, after I took you out of the grand hall.” he finally asks. “Oh? I did something to you? If I remember correctly I only brought you a few hours of pure bliss my king, too bad it slipped your mind.” she steps closer, her fingers drawing circles on his clothed chest.

“You want me to remind you what we did? How lewd we were?” Yujin’s lips curled into a sneaky smile.

“You’re delusional.” Jungkook says, backing away from her. “Mark my words. I’ll never, in my whole life, engage with someone like you.” “You can’t deny what happened between us. Soon you’ll see the sweet fruit of our labor.” the girl says, making Jungkook’s face twist in disgust.

He wanted to fight back again, to get the answer he desired, but the door of your chamber opened, the doctor showing up with an unreadable expression.

“The queen…” he starts, Jungkook’s stomach dropping with concern. The doctor hesitates for a brief moment, seeming to choose his words carefully before erupting into a heartfelt laughter. “The queen is with child.”

Jungkook’s heart skips a beat at the announcement, his mind struggling to process the doctor’s words. "With child?" he repeats, his voice barely above a whisper, a dumb smile on his face in realization. The doctor smiled kindly at him. “Yes, my king. The queen is expecting. Congratulations!”

A child. His heir. The future of this kingdom. All from the woman he loves most.

He rushes inside the room seeing you waiting patiently on the bed, your hand caressing your belly. “My love!” He says, throwing himself at the edge of the bed. He sobbed in happiness, your hand caressing the top of his head in confort. He could hardly contain his happiness. His child. Your child.

“Thank you.” he says softly, kissing the back of your hand. “Thank you for this blessing.” tears build up into his eyes, this was the beginning of your future, nothing and nobody could change it.

"Rest now, my queen." he soothes you softly, his voice calm, yet holding so much love. "We have so much to look forward to." he kisses your temple, then your eyes, and then your lips. You felt joy, so much joy, but also worry, mind lingering on Yujin and her words and also wondering about Seol’s whereabouts.

There were many things that needed to be solved, but for now you need to rest, to protect the life you are carrying in your womb.

----------------------------------

A ceremony was held in honor of you after the news broke out. The word about your pregnancy spread like wildfire through the royal court and with it came waves of happiness and anticipation for the future of the kingdom. Soon after it was also announced that Yujin was also expecting, leaving the world in shock of how something like this would happen at the same time. Jungkook was critiqued behind closed doors.

He remained resolute though. In private, he only held you close, making sure you felt his unwavering support. You trusted him, you promised to do so.

You knew what Yujin was capable of and even if a part of you felt uneasy, you knew it was for the greater good to not think about her.

As the days passed, Yujin’s presence in the palace became increasingly uncomfortable for you. It was because of her bold attempts to maneuver her way into Jungkook’s life. Every time there was happiness for you it felt like it got stolen away by her.

She seemed to be everywhere you went, when servants made remarks about how beautiful you looked with your growing belly, she’d swoop in with her own subtle reminder that she’s also carrying the king's child.

You tried to ignore her, but the more you tried, the more her presence became impossible to escape. Every time you found a moment of peace with your husband, she included herself demanding his attention.

It wore you down, slowly and methodically. At night, you would lie awake, staring at the ceiling, trying to quiet the unease that bubbled inside you.

When you would hear Yujin’s laughter echoing through the halls, or see her standing too close to Jungkook, a cold sense of dread would settle over your chest. You felt like you were battling a whole army with bare hands, and it didn’t help that you also lost your trusty maiden in the process.

Seol’s absence felt like the final blow to your morale, the one thing you didn’t expect. Her sudden disappearance left you vulnerable wondering who else was there to trust? You felt isolated. 

Staying in the garden, with Jungkook by your side, holding your hand, his thumb gently caressing it, you felt secure, his presence bringing you the comfort you needed.

The atmosphere was peaceful, a gentle breeze blowing through your hair, the smell of fresh growing leaves invading your senses.

But close enough the beautiful scenery was disturbed by a surprising presence. “Mother.” Jungkook says, walking towards to greet her in surprise.

“Jungkook, my son, Y/N.” She says, her gaze lingering on you for a moment, a little warmer than before. “I trust you are well, my daughter?” “Yes mother.” You say, bowing slightly but being interrupted by the growth of your child. The elder queen’s lips curl slightly as she looks at you. “You seem healthy.” The elder queen was not one to express warmth without reason, her words made your heart race. “This child has cured me, I’m no longer ill.” you smile caressing your belly. “It is my blessing.” The Queen’s gaze softens for a second. “A blessing indeed.” she murmurs before turning to her son. “How about Yujin, how come you don’t care for her like you do for Y/N?” she asks. “I’ve made myself clear, mother.” the boy replies. “Yujin is no longer of importance to me.” not like she ever was in the first place, he thought “My priorities lie with Y/N and our child.”.

The elder queen’s lips twitch. “She’s also pregnant with your child, Jungkook.” The mention of Yujin’s pregnancy brings a wave of sadness over you, knowing you have to share this spot for the rest of your life.

“The thing she’s carrying is not my son or daughter.” he fights back coldly. 

“Are you certain of that, Jungkook? She recalls you don’t remember, but she’s for sure with child, the doctor confirmed.” 

“It’s fine, mother.” Yujin’s voice echoes through the garden, making her appearance. “The king clearly cares only for one of his offspring. I’ve learned to accept it.” she says, her tone sad, bitter.

“You should care for both Jungkook, don’t ignore your duties.” the mother scolds him. “I’ve told you, it’s not my child. I won’t care for it.” he firmly declares.

Yujin’s laugh was dry, void of any humor. “Just because you can’t remember doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I’m pregnant too, can’t you see?”. “He’s right, though. It didn’t happen, not how you wanted at least.” Someone interrupts, the new voice was calm but firm, and it belonged to none other than Seol.

"Seol?" you whisper, disbelief washing over you, tears burning into your eyes in happiness. Yujin’s confidence wavered when seeing the maiden."What are you doing here?" she hisses, her tone far less composed now.

“I’m here to reveal the truth you’ve worked so hard to bury. You thought you could silence me by having me removed from the palace? Locked far away from my queen?”

Seol turns her gaze to Jungkook, bowing deeply in front of him. “Your Majesty." she says, taking a step closer.

“She’s drugged you with aphrodisiac.” Everyone freezes at her crude statement. “What?” Your husband questions. “The court physician unknowingly provided her with herbs meant to ‘ease her nerves’ but they were mixed with potent aphrodisiacs. She slipped it into your drink the night of the banquet.”

Your heart pounded in your chest with ease, the pieces of Yujin’s scheme finally falling into place.

“You’re lying!” she screeches, her voice desperate “You’re just a servant! How dare you accuse me of such a thing? I am a queen!”

“I dare!” Seol shoots back. “I have proof, one of the guards has seen all.” Yujin stammers trying to find an excuse, her eyes darting between Seol, Jungkook, and the elder queen, searching for an escape.

“That means nothing! He didn’t want to bed with me! She turns to the elder queen, her voice now a frantic plea. “It’s still his child after all! That can’t be denied!”

The maiden scoffs. “No, it isn’t.” she growls at her. “He left you, he fought back until he arrived at my lady’s room. You wanted to take advantage of him, but even with a clouded mind he still only thought of one woman, the only one he loves.” she says pointing towards you.

“Since the guard has seen he threatened to turn you out, but you paid and promised him a good life if he gave you what you wanted. The child you’re carrying.”

Gasps echo through the garden, and all eyes turned to Yujin, who stood frozen in shock, her face pale. “You’re bluffing!” the woman shrieks, desperate and wild. “You have no proof! This is just another ploy to ruin me!” “The physician and the guard are ready to testify before the court. He’s also here demanding to claim his child.”

Seol confirms, making way for the guard to enter. His first instinct was to throw himself at your feet, pleading at the king to not behead him for his unfathomable actions against him.

“It’s true.” the man declares, his head on the ground. “I am the father of the child she carries. I have betrayed you my king, I beg for your mercy.” The silence that followed was deafening.

Yujin stumbles back, her composure crumbling as her face twists in panic. “N-No! He’s lying! H-He’s trying to destroy me!”

The elder queen’s cold gaze fell on her, unseen fury hiding behind her eyes. “Enough!” she commands “You’ve deceived us all, Yujin! Your lies end here.”she turns to the guard, raising his head from the ground.

“You swear this is the truth?”“I swear on my honor, Your Majesty. She sought me out in her desperation to fulfill your wishes. I could only comply, I was a weak man.” Yujin’s knees buckle, her body hitting the ground, sobbing uncontrollably.

“Guards, take them away!” Jungkook commands, all of you witnessing them being taken away.

Seol turns to you and bows deeply. “My queen, I only wish I could have acted sooner.” she says with sadness in her tone. “You must have endured so much.”

You step forward, your hand resting lightly on her shoulder in reassurance. “Thank you, Seol. You’ve done more than anyone could ask.”

Jungkook approaches, wrapping an arm protectively around you, resting his head on your chest. “It’s finally over, my love.” you smile looking at the family you were building, at the man you never failed to trust. 

Jungkook turns towards Seol, his hand resting on top of her hair, blessing her. “Seol, you’ve proven your loyalty to this family and this kingdom. You’ll be rewarded for your bravery.”

The elder queen approaches you with an apologetic look. “This child you carry is a symbol of hope, a way to your strength.” she begins

“I hope you can spare me some forgiveness for all my wrongdoings.” her hands clasp in front of her showing vulnerability.

“Forgiveness is not something I withhold, mother, but it requires time. You’ve hurt us dearly.” She understands you, stepping back, giving you the space you need. It takes time to heal after everything you’ve gone through, perhaps, you can forgive her one day.

You feel hopeful now, the events being a lesson from where you learnt great knowledge. They’ve taught you about loyalty, love, and resilience, lessons that will guide you as a mother, as a queen, and as a partner to the man who has stood by your side. 

The sun bathed the palace in its golden light. In that moment you smiled at him, taking his hand into yours, looking lovingly into his eyes, seeing not only a new beginning, but also a future greater than you had ever dared to imagine. In the end, you truly were The Glass Queen, not frail and delicate, but someone who shines the brightest, even after the most treacherous storms.

[screamingviridianforest]

Ghost was pushing you. That's the only explanation for his actions. You didn't understand why he went harder on you than any other recruit.

So, you pushed yourself even more when he wasn't watching. You wanted to impress him. You wanted to impress all of your superiors. It didn't matter that your hours of sleep were dwindling dangerously low.

You were getting better, your results more apparent to everyone.

You were faster than the other recruits, had better endurance, you could fight hand to hand better. You could lift more. It didn't matter that you had deep bags hanging beneath your eyes. It didn't matter that you nodded off when you had a moment to stand still. You were doing so good, you couldn't give up now.

Not until it was another day under Ghost's watchful command. Every push-up harder than the last, your vision going spotty.

"Up! Down! Up! Down!" Ghosts shouts, voice in time with a metronome. He was stomping around all the recruits, correcting postures or yelling at someone. "Get up, recruit!"

You start to get up, vision going dangerously blurry. You think you slur out an affirmative, you aren't sure. Time seems to slow for a second before your vision goes completely black.

~

What you don't see is the way Ghost's eyes widen as your body suddenly collapses, the way he jerks to try and catch you before your head hits the ground. He's fast but not fast enough. Guilts paints his mind, worry smudging his clear thoughts.

Picking you up is easy, even for a recruit of your size, you should be weighing more. Especially with the amount of muscle on you.

Ghost rushes to the infirmary, yelling at them for attention. He's directed to laying you on a bed, he's so deceptively gentle with it.

The nurses ask him to leave but the dead-eye stare he gives them in return has them flustering and murmuring its okay. He doesn't want to leave you, he has to make sure you're okay. It was all his fault- he had been pushing you too hard.

Pushing you so hard the rest of the Task Force noticed.

Ghost remembers Price telling him to take it easier on you, Soap trying to take over his training days to keep you away. His sharp eyes didn't miss the way Gaz tried to slide you more energy bars to make up for Guost's harshness.

He had caused this.

~

By time you wake up, some several hours later, Ghost has cleared out. But in his place stands Price, carefully watching over you and your vitals. He didn't want to make it worse and scar you when you woke up so he entrusted you to Price - Price could take care of you if Ghost couldn't.

Even when you're cleared from infirmary, he makes his guilt apparent in other ways. He's softer towards you, softer than he should be. It leaves you reeling. You aren't sure how to handle this new side of him.

Ghost makes the cooks give you a larger portion to make up for the calorie deficit. Gaz and Soap enforce stricter lights out rules for him - making sure you don't have any midnight trainings.

He just wants to protect you but he's not sure how to show you that. Ghost can't show you how important you are to him.

[transformers-spike]

Since you were so graceful to deliver us that magnificent Optimus (and autobots) x Human in their heat cycle, another question arises. What are the autobots' thoughts on eating pussy? What about their styles?? Please and thank u

Good god, I’m going to assume this is general TFP pussy eating and nothing to do with the heatverse. For now I’ll stick to the main cast and add Wheeljack/Ultra Magnus/Smokescreen when I get a better feel for how I want to write them. (also fuck making gifs, thank you for existing, Tenor)

Back when he went by Orion Pax, he was as chaste as a lily. Not from lack of fuckability, oh no. His small frame at the time made him especially cute to onlookers, but it was nigh impossible to hang around him when he was too busy working as a clerk or researching Cybertron’s history in his downtime. There's certainly a possibility he ate at least (1) valve back on Cybertron. Whose? Who fucking knows. My bet would be on Megatronus, but he wouldn’t have horribly fumbled the bag if that was the case. Maybe cunnilingus could have saved their planet… Having, to an extent, merged his consciousness with the thirteen primes, he has gained their wisdom and become something akin to a demi-God by Cybertronian standards. Except with none of the praise, and the weight of the world on his shoulders. Anyway, let’s cease philosophizing about his nature as a Prime, what we’re looking for is how good he is at eating pussy with that extra knowledge. Answer: it depends on the receiver. Considering the size difference, he makes it work without catching your clit between his glossa’s mesh plating. He prefers supporting you in his massive servos, carefully wrapping his digits around your frame in case you start squirming too much and fall off. He applies slow languid licks between pauses, waiting to gauge your reaction in case he’s hurting you. It’s sweet of him, but please Optimus, you need to make your partner cum else they’ll die.

Ratchet has been alive for Primus knows how many slutty millenia. Of course he can eat valves. And if he can eat valves, he can eat human pussy just fine. The hard part is dragging him away from his workstation. Don’t get him wrong, he would love to bury his face between your legs, but he’s got things to do, nevermind a whole ass team to keep alive on top of manning the ground bridge and fixing whatever alien technical bullshittery Raf can’t help with (seeing as the little guy only takes care of the human technical bullshittery). He’s perpetually exhausted, and if Cybertronians had an equivalent to coffee, you’re sure he’d be downing it like a single father after losing everything in the divorce except the kids. So when he gets the chance to eat pussy, he takes his damn time with it, pressing his face against your groin for so long you think he’s fallen into recharge. When he gets to work, he’s savoring every inch of you, making a point to complain there isn’t enough energon to mass displace and taste you completely. The size difference is especially annoying to him, but he makes due nonetheless by slipping the tip of his glossa between your folds, pushing it as far as it can go without hurting you. His engine growls from desperate hunger as he grinds his spike against the ground, grunting and scoffing against your pussy as he has to contend with the smallest sample he’s ever received. Ratchet is going to kill Megatron.

Bulkhead is a complicated case. Yes, he’s tried valves. Any wrecker worth their weight in energon has eaten valves like no tomorrow. But the point is, when you look at his jaw, things get a bit complicated. An overbite in humans is mildly bothersome for a giver, but it gets even worse when you look at Cybertronian anatomy and realize that oh, he’s going to do some major jaw exercises to stick his glossa out properly and eat you out. Thank fuck you’re so small in this case, you have no idea much easier this makes his job. To be fair, his main worry is hurting you. Optimus is careful, yes, but Bulkhead has known destruction for the vast majority of his life, not only as a career, but as a way of life. So when he finds you naked in his servos, smiling up at him, his spike retracts into his panel from anxiety alone. If he so much as bruises you, he will shrivel up and offline. He can handle humans just fine, but during interface? He already has to take a breather before he tries anything in the Cybertronian equivalent of a panic attack. His cooling fans are screeching, and if he could sweat, he’d be causing a major flood in Nevada and all its neighboring states. In conclusion, yes, he can eat out. Not perfectly, but he puts in some valiant effort that’s sure to pay off sooner or later.

At first glance, you may exclaim “Wowzers! Bumblebee doesn’t have a mouth! How can he eat pussy without glossa or lips?” – well guess what! Take a vibrator and stick it between your legs. That’s Bumblebee right there. They should add him as a synonym for it in the dictionary. He may not be able to lick up your juices, but he can buzz incessantly against your groin at a near illegal setting until you come undone. He is so proud of himself. And for his own sake, let’s hope he never got to experience valves before he lost his oral equipment. He tries to be comforting, beeping words of encouragement that you absolutely do not understand but get the gist off anyways. Chances are, he’s either helping you balance on top of his face to get the full hitachi magic wand duct taped to the floor experience, or you’re both lying down while you’re cupped in his servos as he buzzes excitedly between your legs; equal parts cute and overwhelming. You feel bad for using him like this, but he beeps reassuringly and urges you to lie back in his servos and enjoy the ride. He’s such a hitachi toy it’s not even funny anymore. You start giving him setting levels which he eagerly follows like the boyscout he is, keeping the same vibration pace even as you start humping his face plate. You pray to Primus Raf isn’t looking for his guardian, else he’s going to overhear things you would rather die than explain.

Arcee is… way too good at eating out. On Cybertron, she could eat a valve like her life depended on it, sucking on the anterior node and wiggling her glossa inside of it well after her partners would overload, begging her to stop from overstimulation alone. Nowadays, she still has it. With her two-wheeler frame type, she can easily access a human pussy without any trouble, treating it like the cutest minicon valve she’s ever seen. She’s all rapid licks and wandering digits, stuffing you to the brim when she’s busy torturing your clit between her lips, then circling around it as she pushes her tongue between your folds. Arcee’s a fucking menace. She leaves you a crying hyperventilating mess as you plead with her to let you breathe. Yes, she’ll take your words into account and stop at some point. Key word: some. You get a break whenever she fancies. This, or you go into cardiac arrest and she has to deal with your metaphorical blood on her juice-soaked servos, all from eating pussy too good. No one should have that sort of power. But Arcee does, because she’s an unstoppable force. Prepare yourself from some light pillow talk after she takes mercy on you, stroking your cheek and leaning in for a kiss. You can taste yourself on her intake, and she wants you to contemplate the flavor as she wraps her arms around your squishy body in a protective hug, the blue glow of her optics dancing over your skin.

[lovelytayforce]

I agree with this comment here so hard, I remember getting blasted for calling readers who don't comment "leeches" on R/Fanfiction and I'm glad people are seeing that for what it is even if it's four years late

So, I'm gonna share my own little story here because discord has actively ruined communities for fanfic (and art too I'm not gonna leave y'all out cause my bestie @zoetiger-1106 is an artist who deserves way more praise than she gets!!) The reason why authors and myself see the "I'm shy" shit as an excuse is because the same people will type long ass tirades on Discord without a single thought. YOU CAN EDIT AO3 COMMENTS PEOPLE! If you make a mistake, read it back over and edit it. I've watched it happen in real-time with one of my favorite commenters on my one-shot where they left a short gushing comment and then came back and wrote more, you have no excuse much less reason to go "Man fandom keeps telling me to not critique and I might make a mistake so I will say nothing and consume like the average TV and Streaming consumer who thinks there doing something!" YOU have a lot of power with comments and even those bookmark tags hell just copy-paste what you put into those bookmark tags as a comment I DON'T CARE AT THIS POINT USE THAT LIL BOX TO VOICE SOMETHING!!!! God this is all over the place idc but I read back at those bookmarks, and saw people call my works the best and super cool and I APPRECIATE THAT but tell me! Stop taking the easy route, I been blasted for misunderstandings over comments multiple times cause people take my "tone" terribly cause it sucks being black and emotive online yay and for some reason people think !!!! Is bad? yes, I've been hit with that but I keep on trucking cause fuck whatever some weirdo thinks about exclamation points! Anyways back to discord and why I hate it now, I was in a small fandom, KFP got invited to a discord cause ONE person commented on my works and saw they talked about my fic, and at first, I was happy and people TALKED about my chapters at length in the fanfic channel. I basically was the ONLY ONE posting consistently in that channel and it was great but also I wanted that on my fic to show I improved so guess what I did? I went all in trying to one-up myself to be noticed, to have the acclaim my peers did so it would evolve outside of discord channels but it never happened. And Imma tell y'all now; it never will. Readers prefer convenience over your hard work, they are not gonna take time for you no matter how much you improve. People told me over and over while I looked for solutions for this; "We can't make commenting look like an obligation." "Add more prose, space these paragraphs better" all this just for no one to take the initiative and say something SINCERE towards a work they love on it. I've had to tell my own ex-friends now to go leave comments on works they called Masterpieces while ignoring me. Despite the fact they wanted Gen content in which I WROTE. Or met people who have very weird "I don't review" rules for themselves despite getting motivated by reviews themselves!! We're in a shitty time for creatives much less community cause we don't see each other as humans much less want to treat each others as we desire to be treated. Fanfic readers want to treat authors like showrunners and I hate it. But then your peers will tell you 'not to worry about engagement" and no I am because why is my hit count going up every day but ain't no one saying shit? Make it make sense!! I sat in that community commenting as much as I could, especially on long fics; it wasn't all perfect but I TRIED. I didn't expect shit back but hey it would have been nice but it never happened and again I learned; it never would. That's the real issue, no one wants to give no more; just take and take and take til you're sucked dry of passion worse than any corpo out right now. It's why I thankfully switched fandoms. I got ONE consistent commenter and they are better than that ENTIRE SMALL CLOSED COMMUNITY!! So, to any discord reactor for fanfic you better skip on to that message you made and copy and paste it in this box right here and never utter "I'm shy" ever again cause we see you, our friends tell us about you. You are not as anonymous as you think! 🫵🏽

A writer friend told me something that broke my heart a little bit today; they're going to quit publishing their fanfic.

My instant thought was that they had been trolled or attacked or that something terrible had happened in their life because this person is so passionate about their writing. It wasn't any of that. Engagement with their works has been going down, as it has for many of us. Comments are like gold dust a lot of the time, and just looking through the historical comment counts on old fics on ao3 demonstrates this trend very clearly. It was not simply the comments dropping off which caused them to decide to stop posting, however.

My friend came across a discord server for their fandom (I should point out here that their fandom interest and mine diverged a couple of years ago, we stay in touch but don't currently read each other's posts because I'm not into their fandom and they would rather gouge their eyes out with a wooden spoon than read anything Star Wars) and specifically to share fic in that fandom. They joined, because we all love a good fic rec, only to discover that their latest multichapter fic, which has almost no comments and very few kudos, is being hotly discussed in this server as one of the best stories ever. Not one of these people has bothered to say this to them on the fic. When they asked, none of participants could see the point in telling the author of the fic they apparently loved so much that they love it.

This discovery has absolutely destroyed my friend's love of sharing fic. They share because they love seeing other people's enjoyment, and fic writers do that through comments and kudos/reblogs/likes because we don't get paid. There is no literary critic writing a blog post/article about how amazing the story is for us to copy and keep/frame. There is no money from royalties. All we have are the words of the people reading our works.

Those people on that server could have taken five minutes of the time they spent gushing about how amazing my friend's story was to other people and used it to tell the one person guaranteed to want to hear that praise how much they loved it. They could have taken a moment to express their opinion to the person who spent hours upon hours plotting, writing, editing, and posting those chapters. Instead, they deprived my friend of thing that keeps them sharing their writing, and in the process have killed their love of it. My friend now feels used and unmotivated.

I won't be sharing a link to their fic, they said I could share their experience but not their identity. I know they plan to post one final chapter. I know they intend to express their hurt at being excluded from the praise for the thing they created, and I know they intend to announce that as a consequence they will not be posting for a long while, if at all.

So please, I beg you, don't hide your love of a story from the writer. It's just about the only thing we have.